z "I" 1-11 ' ` " h C:X i s 1 7.. i I,,~;:zi JIF(TCS ~:~ ~~~ ~ ~~ ~~ ''' VEql7IS aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! ~cir;i-glE t~ K i~r 5i4 2:~ ~:,b~"w;Hf`'lL'~,\.\ 1//I1I 1-:-ly;E'~.;Bll;sY11\:f s.:Z r i -. i ~ 7 ~ir Tr'M~s'ir\c-C 4 i' ~~~~ ~~~~~: ~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~.~: ':~ ~~~ B s.~~ ~r i:r;irZ;PF ::.T~j 3<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ r7 i77/ /111 I VWbrood MWMWdr. K 'r: el THE LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT.,' tBY Wi. DRAPER LEWIS, PH.D. FORMER DEAN OF THE LAW SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT EX-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ILLUSTRA TED PUBLISHED FOR THE UNITED PUBLISHERS — OF THEUNITED STATES AND CANADA 1919 L__ Copyright 1919 BY WM. ELLIS SCULL 4b7 4cl;":'Af L7 ' I z? P7 24 i/. CONTENTS C HAPTER PAGZ INTRODUCTION........... ii By William Howard Taft I. THE TYPICAL AMERICAN...... 17 >II. CHILDHOOD............ 25 III. SCHOOL AND COLLEGE....... 40 IV. FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS.... 52 V. ELKHORN RANCH.......... 68 VI. ROOSEVELT AND THE CIVIL SERVICE. 84 VII. POLICE COMMISSIONER....... 98 VIII. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 119 IX. COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS..134 X. GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.148 r XI. )ROAi GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT... 163 XII. ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE.. 175 XIII. rTHE FIRST TERM......... 194 XIV. THE PANAMA CANAL........ 216 XV. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904...... 229 XVI. PRESIDENT IN HIS OwN RIGHT... 38 XVII. WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY... 259 XVIII. BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR..,... 74 XIX. CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 288 XX. IN THE HEART OF AFRICA..... 301 (v) vi CHAPTER XXI. XXII. XXIV. xxiv. XXVI. XXVII. ~XXVIII xxx. CONTENTS PaGE THE BEGINNING OF THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT..... THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION IN 1912..... THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY.. ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST.... THE RIVER OF DOUBT....... POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912.... BOOKS AND SPEECHES....... LIFE AT SAGAMORE HILL..... THE WORLD WAR-HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE...... CHRONOLOGY...... INDEX....... 319 336 346 368 384 401 415 432 447 459 473 475.,- -': I i. MmI ), P a b I p T PYs.tA N, SMDEUT T A' ND EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT T ROBES OF A DOCTOR OF LWS AT Taen ustftH e ta r aft' in ht U tion. Mr. Taftgi sald f a B G UN RSi TY ColEnel Rnoev He wa e os th tl if to serye Diin Mr R sv its tayite unde He hott in he bgg ti do e ho ting trip, e wa honoed With te de re o D o i aTie 'was most amenah e to rea a ii con too y any o of Ru etrge Uv wt th ~~~~ ~ ~rei~~t~~lcr; 1~ ~7CI ~ ~ 6f a fLLD.iwd itti t e n he Ctul INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT R. LEWIS has asked me to write this introduction to his narrative history of Theodore Roosevelt. Dr. Lewis is a teacher and publicist, of wide experience and intimate knowledge of his subject, a man of high character and discrimination, with whom this history is a labor of love. He will write an impartial, non-partisan history of this great man, whom he knew personally, and with whose views he deeply sympathized. That he shall entirely escape the influence of his great personal affection for Theodore Roosevelt in the history he writes is not to be expected. Indeed no history written so soon after the passing of a great historical figure like Roosevelt, while the magnetic influence of his personality is strong, could fail to show the effect of that influence. But Dr. Lewis is able with judicial poise to tell the events of Roosevelt's life and give to the world the benefit of his personal observation. He will thus explain much, and greatly aid the future historian, who, after fifty years, shall write a life like that of Lord Charnwood's "Life of Lincoln." Theodore Roosevelt was a scholar and a man of wide and exact knowledge in many fields. He was a scholar in the true sense, but no one ever quite classed him as such, because he made his scholarship a constant instrument in his practical activities. He was a thinker and used his acquisition of knowledge and learning to regulate that thinking. His marvelous power of quick acqui(vii) Viii INTRODUCTION sition was only a tool in solving practical problems, political and social. More than any one I know, he believed in results. More than any one I know, he demanded success in effort by those who were associated with him in a common cause. He was the advocate and exemplar of continuous struggle toward a definite object and a strenuous life. To say, therefore, that he was a scholar in politics is misleading, because that phrase suggests one in whose life the scholarly ambition is the controlling motive. To such a one, politics and statesmanship are a diversion or at least subordinate. Theodore Roosevelt was a statesman and he subordinated all his tastes and all his abilities and all his knowledge and his facility in using that knowledge to the achievement of political and social progress. He was not a lawyer, though he had been admitted to the Bar. He believed in law and order. Indeed that was one of the primary principles of his faith. But he was impatient at the delays in the administration of justice. He was impatient at judicial judgments when he considered them wrong and destructive to progress. He was, therefore, without the most sensitive consideration of the methods by which that progress might be safely attained. Precedents and their influence which are essential in a judicial system, to secure uniformity in the application of the law, did not greatly appeal to him. The suddenness with which, four years after graduation, he sprang into national prominence in the convention which nominated Blaine in 1884, and the vigor and effectiveness that he then displayed was Minervalike, as of one who sprang full armed from the brain of Jove. It was a prominence like that of the younger INTRODUCTION ix Pitt who had prepared himself for immediate responsibility as a member of the Cabinet upon his graduation. Like all men, Roosevelt grew and profited by actual experience; but one finds in his early political career all the characteristics which so conspicuously marked him to the day of his death. His humor, his courage, his love of a controversy, his love of, and insistence upon definite practical results, his impatience at what Senator Lodge has felicitously called the sacrifice of the good for the better, were all with him in the New York Assembly and in his preliminary convention support of Edmonds against Blaine and his subsequent earnest advocacy of Blaine as the nominee of the party. His adherence to party as the best means of accomplishing reform, without a slavish submission to the authority of those in temporary control, was as clear when he was Civil Service Commissioner and Police Commissioner as in the later years of his life. When one seeks to detail the important accomplishment of Roosevelt's life in the definite objects attained, the roll is a very long and most important one; yet one hesitates to attempt it lest it minimize his career. His greatest achievement was in his influence upon the ideals of his country, and his stimulation of the plain people to appreciate them. We may note the detail of what he accomplished by way of illustration therefore rather than the summation of the total. One of the great evils of American political life in the days of Lincoln and of Grant was the use of public patronage down to the lowest tidewater for political purposes. Dorman B. Eaton and Governor Jenckes, x INTRODUCTION of Rhode Island, inaugurated a movement in which Senator George Pendleton afterwards took part, to introduce the competitive merit principle into the civil service. President Grant lent his aid to the beginning of the reform, though the actual practice in his administration did not represent great advance. George William Curtis was the protagonist of civil service reform, and the controversies between him and Senator Conkling, who was reactionary in this regard, are part of its history. Civil service reform is not only dependent on enabling legislation, but it is still more dependent for real results upon actual executive practice. The act of 1883 gave sufficient power to the President to take tens of thousands of employees of the government out of politics and to prevent their being used as pawns in the political game. It left it to the President to make very comprehensive regulations and to include within the classified service whose limits he defined, the great bulk of civil servants. Congress always was, and even now is, a hypocrite in respect to the civil servants. The members who are of the right political faith hate to part with the prestige which, if unrestricted under our system, they are certain to enjoy. When, therefore, the bureau of the Civil Service was established, it was one of the constant congressional comedies that the appropriations needed for its maintenance and the bureaus under its jurisdiction should be voted down in the committee of the whole in which no record was made of who voted against the appropriation and then be restored to the appropriation bill by a vote in the House in which the ayes and nays were recorded. It was at a time when this comedy was going on that Theodore Roosevelt was appointed by Grover Cleveland to the INTRODUCTION xi Civil Service Commission, and he entered upon his duties with eagerness and enthusiasm and a very practical knowledge of the evils sought to be remedied by the law. He had had an experience in ward and district politics and an understanding of politicians that fitted him for the fight he was to make. He was aggressive. He bothered the successive occupants of the White House with his request for stiffer regulations. He was outspoken in his contempt for the opposition which was generated only by a desire for political pap. He allowed no attack upon the system or its administration to go without a prompt, accurate and defiant, answer. The sneers of Congressmen were supported by unfounded stories of the absurdity of examination questions put to applicants obviously not germane to the duties of the office sought. Roosevelt traced every one of these stories and refuted them all. It brought him into newspaper disputes with General Grosvenor and other members of Congress, whose accuracy he questioned and whose blunders or misstatements he demonstrated. He came near having a personal encounter with Frank Hatton, the editor and proprietor of the Washington Post, a former Assistant Postmaster General, who abused him with a virulence that Roosevelt seemed really to enjoy, because of the prominence it gave to the cause he was fighting. It is not too much to say that in stimulating executive responsibility for the progress of civil service reform and in securing progressive executive practice, the country is indebted to Theodore Roosevelt more than to any other man. No one pointed with more humor and telling denunciation to the injustice and outrage of using government office for personal and party political advancement than did xii INTRODUCTION he, and no one gave more practical proof of the possibilities of reform in this matter. His work as Police Commissioner gave him an opportunity to approach the social side of New York City from the position of authority and responsibility and to gratify his interest in the lowly and the poor and the suffering which he had inherited from his father, and which stimulated him to constant thought as to methods for their practical relief. Roosevelt was a supporter of Thomas B. Reed for the Presidency, when Mr. Reed and Mr. McKinley were rivals for the nomination. Roosevelt and Reed were great friends. They were different. Reed was a brilliant epigrammist, a man of great personality, a master of trenchant speech, a conservative and not a reformer of the enthusiastic type, a believer in good government, a strong protectionist, a partisan Republican. I have said Mr. Reed was not a reformer. This does him injustice. He was a fine parliamentarian and he saw the absurdity of a procedure that enabled the minority in a great legislative body like that of the House of Representatives, to block the action of the majority long after there had been given a full opportunity for debate. By his personal rulings and against riotous opposition and bitter abuse, he ended forever the ridiculous anomaly that a man might be present in the House and yet prevent his being counted as part of a quorum by refusing to answer to his name. Roosevelt interested Reed and Reed interested Roosevelt, and they were great friends. Each poked fun at the other, and the other enjoyed it. So Roosevelt supported Reed. Reed was beaten. There were those who were friends of McKinley, Reed and Roosevelt. They thought that INTRODUCTION'...xiii XM1 it might bring two great Republican leaders closer together if McKinley should appoint Roosevelt to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy. When the matter was pressed upon McKinley, he hesitated and replied, "But Roosevelt is always in such a state of mind," but he nevertheless appointed him. This remark, if properly understood, reveals the temperamental difference between McKinley and his successor. Roosevelt's interest in the Navy had begun with his college days when he began the preparation of the Naval History of the War of 1812, a book which Senator Lodge, no mean authority, declares to be the best and most reliable history extant of that war upon the sea. Roosevelt's chief was Secretary Long. Secretary Long was a Unitarian of Quaker proclivities and not urgent in respect to preparation for a war. The differences between them because of this difference in attitude toward naval preparation, were numerous. Roosevelt did, however, succeed in putting on the Pacific station a squadron of war ships under the command of a real Commander like Dewey, with ammunition enough to fight a battle. The Spanish War Roosevelt saw coming before either his Secretary or his President. As soon as it came, he determined to be in it. There were many reasons of a personal and family character that would have held other men, but not Roosevelt. It was characterestic of him that he got to Cuba, that he was in a fight the day he landed, and that he was in all the land fights there were in that war. He had a real soldier's ambition, but he was never able to gratify it. No death would have satisfied him as well as death in battle. He longed for such an epic ending of his career. xiv INTRODUCTION As Governor of New York he practiced the principles of his life with reference to progress and politics. He found Platt entrenched in power. He needed Platt to accomplish his progressive purposes as Governor of New York, and he dealt with Platt as the only way by which he could achieve progress. He was attacked and bitterly criticised by the professional reformers and the Mugwump and Democratic press, but he had the courage of his convictions and he followed them. Much happened in the seven and one-half years of his Presidency, but in such an introduction as this, there is no space for reference except to two or three great achievements. If the name of the Panama Canal could be changed, it should be called the "Theodore Roosevelt Canal." It is more due to him than to any other man, and without him it may well be doubted whether it would now be begun. The hoggish and unjust attitude of Colombia toward the enterprise as well as toward Panama, whose people favored giving the United States an opportunity to build and own it, aroused the deep indignation of Roosevelt. He knew there was no equity in the position of Colombia. He welcomed the possibility of a revolution which should separate Panama from Colombia. He thought such a revolution entirely justified, and so must everyone from the standpoint of equity and world progress. He did not promise aid to the revolutionists in advance of their declaration and rebellion. He did not scheme with any one to bring it about, but it was not difficult to infer in advance that a separation of that kind without his assistance was something of which he was likely to take advantage. When the revolution came on, he sent one order that INTRODUCTION XV should not have been sent. He directed the U. S. Naval Officer in charge at Colon not to allow Colombia to send forces to attack within fifty miles of the Panama Railroad, lest it should injure American interests. The order was never executed. The Colombian troops did reach the railroad and the order had no real effect upon events. But it served to make a basis for the charge upon the administration that the United States actually intervened to make the revolution a success. The truth is the bond between Panama and Colombia was very loose. Colombia had not the power to prevent the separation, and what happened was a good thing to happen. Roosevelt's recognition of the Republic of Panama within a week after the establishment of the government there was very prompt. The signing of the treaty guaranteeing the integrity of Panama was equally expeditious. While these acts pressed upon the line of international right, in the light of all the circumstances history will sustain Roosevelt in what he did. It enabled us to make a treaty with a nation which owned the territory where the canal had to be built, and which was anxious to have it built and was anxious to have the United States build it. Therefore, it was glad to give the United States the complete control over the Canal Zone. It was necessary for the United States to have this control, in order to succeed in the great work of construction. Without saying that the French plan under De Lesseps could ever have been carried through either in its original form or as amended, one of the great reasons for its failure was the fact that Colombia retained complete police control over the territory in which the canal was built. The governmental obstructions and corruption xvi INTRODUCTION were some of the most formidable obstacles to French success. These the Hay-Varilla treaty completely removed, and the police control and dominion that the United States acquired not only over the Canal Zone itself but for health purposes over the cities of Colon and Panama, made it possible to take the first indispensable step in building the canal, to wit, to make the Isthmus safe for the health of 40,000 people who had to be imported to do the building. Under the Colombian Hay-Herran treaty, no such control of the Zone was given to the United States. As was to be expected, after Congress gave the President the authority to build the canal, Roosevelt pressed its construction with one civil engineer and another, and finally with an army engineer, to a point where completion within a few years was a certainty. It was finished before the great war. Discussion as to who actually built the canal occasionally crops out. Suffice it to say that the man who really gave substance to the world dream of four hundred years and, made the canal, was Theodore Roosevelt. The man whose executive genius did the detailed work was George W. Goethals. President Roosevelt was in full sympathy with his predecessors in the Philippine policy, and he held the anti-imperialists in the utmost scorn. The argument that the United States was not a full sovereign nation, able to hold and administer territory in any part of the world to which it had acquired legal title and possession, was entirely repugnant to him, and he spoke in condemnation of such views with his accustomed vigor. Elihu Root, who had continued as Secretary of War from the McKinley Cabinet, was a man in whose counsel and ability he had the utmost reliance, and the change INTRODUCTION * XV11 from McKinley to Roosevelt made not the slightest interruption in the important work of bringing the Philippine Islands into order and preparing their people for autonomy. The great domestic policy of his second term was typified in the railroad rate bill. This gave to the Interstate Commerce Commission the right to fix rates. Theretofore under the decision of the Supreme Court, it had only the right to declare rates fixed by the railway to be unreasonable. Around this rather slight step forward in government control raged the great contest of his administration. It brought him into open and acute issue with the great railroad interests of the country, and it developed him into a knight with shining armor against evils of corporate control in politics. He had shown a disposition to throw down the gauntlet to the great corporate organizations of the country in his first term, but upon the rate bill the issue was clearly drawn. All the corporate abuses, including the overissue of stock and high finance, received his condemnation. He sought to stir the nation to the necessity for establishing a higher business standard than that which these corporate abuses indicated. This standard applied in the various directions which his universal interest suggested, created a body of doctrines that were called the Roosevelt Policies, and were tersely described in the homely phrase he used, as "Giving every man a square deal." Agitation over the power of wealth organized into corporations which in open and subterranean methods sought to control political conventions and legislative bodies did not begin with him. But certainly Theodore Roosevelt is entitled to the credit of assuming the leadership of this movement J Xviii INTRODUCTION and giving it effectiveness. The public under his propaganda became sensitive in the highest degree to corporate evils and entered upon radical measures which often went much too far and worked injustice. But such a result is to be expected where the indignation of the public is justly aroused. The unwise excesses of popular action are to be laid at the door of those who were guilty of creating the evil which aroused the people. Theodore Roosevelt was not a radical man. He believed in law and order. He believed in the right of property. He had sound economic views, but injustice aroused him and led him into denunciation that often was mistaken for a radicalism that he really did not entertain. His radicalism, such as he had, took the form of undervaluing the necessity for orderly procedure and of seeking a short cut to the reform of evil. He did not fully realize the ultimate results of such short cuts. Roosevelt was a friend of labor and believed in its organization and recognition. The wage earners knew that he sympathized with them. There was no doubt that he did. His earnest desire to better their condition was manifest in his speech and proposed measures. But he resented deeply abuses to which the power of organization sometimes tempted trades unions, and he did not hesitate to denounce such abuses. The criminal conspiracies of the Western Federation of Miners and the undesirable character of such citizenship as that of Moyer and Haywood he emphasized in speeches and in letters. He had no hesitation in sending a member of his Cabinet to fight the Western Federation of Labor in their attempt to defeat Governor Gooding of Idaho INTRODUCTION xix for re-election because he had issued the requisition papers which brought Moyer and Haywood from Colorado to Idaho to be tried for the crime of killing Governor Steunenberg of that state. He used the Presidency as a pulpit from which to preach on many different subjects not within federal jurisdiction, but his interests were so universal and his knowledge of conditions so correct that he was able to be helpful in teaching lessons that the people gratefully read and approved. A cartoon hung in his room in the White House during his term, in which an old farmer with a pipe was seated in front of a fire reading a long executive message of the President, and underneath was the legend, "His favorite author." This cartoon contained the kernel of truth as to the attitude of the plain people in the country toward Theodore Roosevelt's ideals. At the instance of Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt became very much interested in respect to the conservation of timber lands and of mineral resources of the United States from despoilers and fraudulent conspiracies, and he initiated the vigorous prosecution of violation of federal laws on this subject. He was the first President to call a congress of governors to arouse the states to concurrent action. He was constantly getting up commissions to make investigations in fields where he thought good could be worked by changes. He appointed a Country Life Commission to see whether it was not possible in some way to make country life more attractive and to prevent the movement toward town. His commissions, after a while, rendered Congress impatient, and by statute it set specific limits to the President's power to appoint any commissions and to incur clerical and other expense XX INTRODUCTION in their transactions; but this legislation was not enacted in time to restrain him. It only affected his successors. His foreign policy was very vigorous. He asserted the Monroe Doctrine in the Venezuela matter. His action clarified the situation and prevented what might have become a violation of the Doctrine from reaching any such a point. He did not hesitate to become exceedingly active in seeking to bring peace between Japan and Russia. He wrote letters to the Emperor of Russia and the high authorities in Japan, and he exercised an influence to secure the truce and the treaty that is most exceptional in the history of the United States and rare even in the history of European countries. I shall say nothing of his explorations except that he passionately loved a study of nature, a study of fauna and the excitement of hunting. He revelled in the novels of Sienkiewicz and talked them over by the hour with their translator, Jeremiah Curtis. He studied and knew much about the Irish Sagas. His range of interests from the poetry of Celtic Ireland to "Nature Faking" reveals his boundless activity of mind. Theodore Roosevelt would have made a great war President. He would have selected, without regard to party or political embarrassment, the men whom he regarded as best adapted to do the work in the various departments. He would have imparted to his lieutenants a spirit and confidence of successful achievement that would have overcome any obstacles. He had not only the dynamic force himself, but he had the power of communicating it to his subordinates and he could diffuse his spirit through the entire government down to the last messenger boy. There would have been an utter absence of fear that some subordinate of his INTRODUCTION xxi would rob him of credit as a leader, and his joy at success in any department would have led him to do more than justice in his public appreciation. He would have made the government move as one man. He would have been merciless in cutting off heads of men whether good or bad who could not do their job. Into every department and field of preparation, no matter how technical or complicated, he would have entered and with his lightning facility for acquisition, he would have learned enough to understand success or failure and would have acted on his judgment. I venture to conclude with something I have said of Mr. Roosevelt in another place: "Mr. Roosevelt, earlier than any other public man, saw the real issues in this war, and with characteristic courage demanded what the majority thought unwise, intervention by our government. He urged, with prophetic vision, adequate preparation for the struggle he saw about to be forced upon us. He suffered much in mind and soul as he saw things left undone by our government which he deemed essential to national safety and the performance of national duty. For over and above everything, Theodore Roosevelt was a deeply patriotic American. He had intensified his passionate love of his country that was natural in him by acquiring an intimate knowledge and a profound appreciation of the great sacrificial struggle needed to make her great. He left no doubt of his willingness himself to render the ultimate sacrifice in her behalf. His spirit of patriotic devotion was web and woof of his character. "He sent his four boys forth to war with the pride of a Roman tribune. Through his father's tears for xxii INTRODUCTION Quentin's death, there shone the stern joy that a son of his had been given to die the death he would himself have sought on the field of battle in his country's cause. "Theodore Roosevelt's example of real sacrifice was of inestimable value to our country in this war. The nation has lost the most commanding, the most original, the most interesting and the most brilliant personality in American public life since Lincoln." [SIGNED WM. H. TAFr. AUTHOR'S PREFACE HOSE who knew Theodore Roosevelt best honored him the most sincerely, not simply because they loved him, but because the intimacy of friendship showed no pettiness or meanness in him. My object has been to write the story of his life in such a way that the reader may not only know the main incidents of his full, joyous and varied career, and gain a correct idea of his great public services, but also come to know the man himself, his ideals, the motives of his public acts, and the road which he believed America must travel to be worthy of her place among the nations. During that period of his life when he was the object of bitter partisan attacks, I met hundreds of men and women who mistook his motives and had a grotesquely false idea of his personality. It is a satisfaction to know that the War gave him an opportunity to render a great service to his country and the world, and that that service was one which the majority of his former opponents could and did appreciate. As a result, before his death, former misunderstandings were in great part swept away. My hope is that this book will help to end forever any misconceptions of the man and his purposes that may yet remain. It is needless to say that I have turned more often to his own books and articles than to any other source of information. It may be doubted whether any public man has ever left so large a collection of first-hand material for the assistance of his biographers. Throughout his life he was a constant writer of letters, addresses, (xxiii) xxiv AUTHOR'S PREFACE editorials, articles and books. His Autobiography, while not a complete history, includes many of the incidents of his life down to the end of his Presidency, and many of his personal impressions. Unless the quotation indicates a different source, where I have quoted his own words the quotation is drawn from this work. Much of the information and many of the incidents I have given could not have been recorded had it not been for the generous kindness of many friends of Colonel Roosevelt's and of mine who have placed at my disposal letters, diaries and other original material relating to his personal characteristics and to important events. I also here desire to acknowledge my great obligation to Mr. Shippen Lewis, of the Philadelphia Bar, who has given much of his time and thought to help me in the preparation of the book. WM. DRAPER LEWIS. Law School University of Pennsylvania March 6, 1919. CHAPTER I THE TYPICAL AMERICAN T HE news that Theodore Roosevelt was dead stunned America on the morning of January 6, 1919. The approaching Peace Conference in Paris, the dark cloud of Bolshevism advancing from Russia over Poland and East Germany, events big with civilization's future, were for the time being forgotten. In spirit, millions of the American people stood in the room of the unpretentious house on the outskirts of the little village of Oyster Bay where the man each felt he knew lay dead. The death of no other man could have brought such a universal sense of personal loss, a sense of loss which actual acquaintance served but to deepen and intensify. This was not because he had for seven and a half years been President of the United States and throughout the major part of his working life had held public office. It was not because he had been a leader in momentous political contests nor because the record of his public service is full of things done of enduring value. Neither was it because of his wonderfully diversified ability. Since. Caesar, perhaps no one has attained among crowding duties and great responsibilities such high proficiency in so many separate fields of human activity. His knowledge of history was equaled by few. As a naturalist he won for himself a recognized position in the front rank. He was a great explorer and hunter of wild game. Several of his books are more than well written and more than one of his speeches will live among the enduring utterances of our great statesmen. 9 (17) 18 THEODORE ROOSEVELT It was, however, something more than any one or all of these things which gave him his hold on the affections of the American people. We may admire a public man for the things he has accomplished, for his brilliant and versatile ability; we may trust him because we believe in the wisdom of his judgment; but our affection only finds root in his character. Theodore Roosevelt was no exception to this rule. The attainments of his mind, the exalted office which he held, the momentous character of the work he accomplished all served but to bring him to the attention of mankind. Knowing him, people loved him, not for these things, but for certain great qualities of character expressed in his high sense of honor, his burning hatred of injustice, his deep sense of the obligation for personal service and, above all, his intense love for his country. Again, perhaps, not a little of our affection for him arose from the fact that he was very human, which is only another way of saying that he had faults. Once he told me that he had made many mistakes; but just to himself as to others, he quickly added: "If I had not been willing to risk making mistakes I would have accomplished nothing worth while." Somehow, we feel the same way about his faults-his occasional impatience of temper, his unconscious unfairness to those whose point of view towards public questions led them to oppose measures which he believed essential to the moral well-being of the country. After all, these and other faults and foibles were not serious. No one of them had its origin in coldness of heart, or in anything mean, or petty or low. They were not indexes to serious defects of character, but rather to his intense feeling THE TYPICAL AMERICAN 19 for the enduring things of life-honor, truth, duty, service. He had the defects of his great qualities. Roosevelt is our typical American. Not that we are like him, but in that the worker in field, forest, mill and office, irrespective of financial position and social standing, sees in this great scholar and statesman, this vigorous, hearty, courageous out-of-door man, with his high ideals and intense love for the everyday simple things of life, the embodiment of a type which, above all others, he admires. The sense of personal loss referred to is too present and the public events in which he took part or discussed are too recent to make it possible to examine fully or weigh impartially the public measures he advocated or the wisdom of his criticisms. We are, however, better qualified than those who shall come after us to judge the effect of his words, his actions and his personality on the people of the United States. Many eulogies will hereafter be written upon his life's work, but we, his contemporaries, know that for us his greatest work is expressed in the simple statement: He raised the Ideals of the People. Compare the sordid commercialism, the low financial morale, the disregard of social welfare, prevalent in this country in the middle of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, with the awakened social conscience of modern America. No one pretends that our ideals as a people are perfect, or that we even live up to our ideals; but, on the other hand, we have traveled a long distance in the last three decades towards an America of which he dreamed -an America which should be a better place to live in, not for some of the people, but for all of the people. The man in the street as well as the student of public opinion 20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT knows that to Theodore Roosevelt, because of the truths he dared to tell and the influences he dared to fight, are due, more than to any other one man, the improvement in our financial practices and the higher, better ideals of the rising generation. Neither do we need the perspective of time to learn the simple, but all-important, lessons of the main events of his life. These events speak for themselves. They need no comment or criticism to teach again the need for hard work and often of great courage to attain any end which is worth while; or to impress on us the age-old truth that opportunity, though she may come in an unexpected form, comes only to him who is prepared to meet her. Men marvel at the great amount of work he accomplished. There are two reasons: One is found in the fact that his youthful struggle against delicate health had given him a sound body to be the servant of his restless energy; the other is that he cultivated his tastes and ordered his time so that, though he played more than most busy men and usually obtained sufficient rest and relaxation, he never wasted or frittered away his time. The value of the conservation of time, of the relaxation which comes from complete change of mental occupation especially after moments of intense excitement, is the lesson he taught everyone who came into working contact with him. Twenty minutes after killing an elephant in an African jungle and being near death in the subsequent stampede of the others, found him reading Balzac. In the midst of the excitement of the Chicago Convention of 1912, the writer can bear witness that he spent every moment of the time that he was not needed reading Herodotus. Of his physical courage the stories are innumerable. In this, or indeed any other history of his life, it is only THE TYPICAL AMERICAN 21 possible to make a selection. He could fire as coolly and accurately at the charging lion or rhinoceros, where to miss meant serious injury or death, as at a mark. He could venture on a hazardous journey down an unknown river and risk death from disease and exhaustion in the tropical jungle of Central South America. He could face a great audience and make the speech he had promised to make, within a few minutes after being shot by a would-be assassin, and when he had no certainty that the shot would not prove fatal. He did not believe that he was especially brave. He thought that by conscious effort he had gained control over his nerves. Be it so. Few men gain such complete control. There are innumerable instances also of his moral courage that make inspiring reading. I believe the highest test of courage in a public man is his willingness, if necessary, to accomplish an object he regards as right, to face the certainty of being misunderstood by those whose good opinion he earnestly desires. Colonel Roosevelt, on more than one occasion, proved that he had this kind of moral courage. In the fall of 1911, and the early part of 1912, he was confronted with a political situation which required him to decide whether he would become a candidate for the Republican nomination. Politicians of the Progressive wing of the Republican party flocked to Oyster Bay. They assured him that he could win the nomination, and, nominated, would be triumphantly elected. Always underestimating his own political strength, he had no idea at the time that he could be nominated. He knew that if he made the contest for the nomination, his motives would be misunderstood, not only by his political opponents, but by many whose continued confidence he desired 22 THEODORE ROOSEVELT more, perhaps, than he desired anything else in the world, except to do the right as it was given to him to see the right. Knowing that he would be thus misunderstood, he made the contest because he believed that by so doing he would advance, not his own political fortunes, but the cause of orderly progress to better social and industrial conditions; that he could, in this way, most effectively combat those forces of reaction which, if not overcome, in the end would drive the country to violent revolution. Students of his life and times will always differ as to whether his judgment was correct and his action wise; but, unlike many of his contemporaries, they will not misunderstand his motives; they will appreciate the moral courage with which he faced the disapproval and misunderstanding of life-long friends. As he saw the truth, so he spoke it. It was not that he did not care for his own future, or was not accustomed to consider the effect of word or action. On the contrary, as a politician, he wanted support from all kinds of people, and he was always willing to use every honorable means to secure support for himself, his party or his political ideals. He was a past master in the art of handling men, and making them do what he wanted them to do. But by conscious effort, as a young man, he had so schooled himself that he never balanced what he regarded as right to say or do against its possible effect on his own fortune. No man was so highly placed in the political or business world that he feared to publicly condemn him. No interest or class was so powerful that it could control his action against his judgment. He could send a message to Congress which he knew would alienate the political support of some special interest. He could insist on the retention of a non-union man in the Govern THE TYPICAL AMERICAN 23 ment printing office, against the vigorous protest of union labor, or tell a delegation of strikers that he would call out United States troops if there was the slightest disorder, though the very object of their visit was to secure his assurance that the troops would not be used. Like all other of our great statesmen who have won a permanent place in the affections of the people, he had an intense love for his country. It is said that his whole life was an expression of "Jubilant Americanism." And this is so, if by it we mean that his life was an exuberant expression of dynamic force, a triumphant assertion of his country's greatness. With him, this love for country was based on complete knowledge. He knew his country's history as few men knew it. No other public man of his own or any other time was so intimately and personally acquainted with the conditions environing the life, with the outlook, and with the best aspirations of so many different classes. He could count among his personal friends officers of the army and navy, diplomats, publicists, professors, naturalists, hunters of big game, editors, explorers, ranchmen, social workers, captains of industry, labor leaders, Catholic priests, Protestant clergymen and Jewish rabbis. He was personally acquainted with every part of the country. His campaign trips had taken him to every state and to every town of consequence. He had spent summers in the Maine woods and on the Western plains; he had hunted grizzlies in the Rockies, visited remote Indian tribes in the great American desert, drilled troops in Texas, and herded cattle on the Little Missouri. At will he could visualize and describe the physical aspect of any mountain, stream, plain or desert he had ever seen, as only those can who are at once, as he was, a good naturalist, a keen huntsman and a lover of nature. 24 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Knowing his country, he was infinitely removed from the politician whose stock-in-trade is a loud-mouthed boasting of our superiority to others. With clear vision he saw, not only the good, but the defects in our national character and the dangers of the future. These defects and dangers he did not hesitate to point out. Unblinded by her faults, he knew and loved America as she is; spending himself joyously to help her become the country of his dreams. I say joyously, because throughout his life, to the very end, there abided in him perfect faith in her glorious destiny. CHAPTER nI CHILDHOOD JUST six years after the English Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock a company of Dutch emigrants, led by Peter Minuit, sailed up "the finest harbor in the world" and disembarked on a long, narrow island which the Indians had named Manhattan. Minuit bought this island, on which the best part of New York City is now located, for sixty guilders, or twenty-four dollars. Other pilgrims soon followed Peter Minuit's party. When the white settlement numbered about two hundred souls, they named the region New Netherland and its flourishing metropolis New Amsterdam. Eighteen years later, in 1644, the first of the Roosevelt family came from Holland to settle in this country. His name was Klaes Martensen Van Roosevelt. This ancestor of the Roosevelt family was, like the forefathers of most Americans, an immigrant who came to the New World presumably to make his fortune, naturally choosing the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam as his new home. When Klaes Van Roosevelt reached Manhattan Island, he found on it a cosmopolitan town of four hundred or five hundred inhabitants who spoke eighteen different languages. The satisfaction of the worthy Dutchman and of his descendants with the city of his choice is indicated by the fact that every Roosevelt in the line from Klaes to Theodore has been born on Manhattan Island. New Netherland and New Amsterdam both became New York, and the Dutch province became a British (25) 26 THEODORE ROOSEVELT colony and then an American State. But for nearly two centuries the old Dutch families retained their ancestral language and many of the habits of their forbears. The Roosevelts prospered, as did others of the original settlers' descendants. One of the Roosevelts bought a large tract of land on the lower end of Manhattan Island which is now called the Battery, and there built his home. As the city increased in size, its lower part became more and more given over to business, and the old families were compelled to move farther and farther up town. Theodore Roosevelt's grandfather, Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, lived in a big house at Fourteenth Street and Broadway. "Inside," said the Colonel years afterwards, "there was a large hall running up to the roof; there was a tessellated black and white marble floor, and a circular staircase round the sides of the hall, from the top floor down. We children much admired both the tessellated floor and the circular staircase. I think we were right about the latter, but I am not so sure as to the tessellated floor." Cornelius Roosevelt was a substantial citizen who had not only his business but a considerable fortune inherited from his father. He studied at Columbia College and then entered business as a glass merchant, an occupation to which he devoted himself for most of his life. He was deeply interested in charitable enterprises and gave largely to their support. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the father of the President, was the son of Cornelius, and succeeded him in the glass business. Like his father, he had an ample fortune and every social advantage of the city of New York. There was nowhere in the United States a more exclusive circle than the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of New York City. Washington Irving has so CHILDHOOD 27 well portrayed them in his "History of New York," written under the pen name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, that the word Knickerbocker has come to represent the city's best in lineage. The Roosevelt family was and is a Knickerbocker family, and it is important to remember that fact in reading Theodore Roosevelt's life. He had the advantages and the disadvantages which come with social position, wealth, culture and refinement. From the beginning of his public life to its end he had the gift of easy personal approach to all sorts and conditions of men. He was at home in the mountains with hunters and, on the plains, with cow-punchers; but he was equally at home in the White House receiving distinguished foreigners, or in a New York ball-room. This was one of the advantages of a heritage of culture, when combined, as in Roosevelt's case, with an intense interest in people. The disadvantage, of course, lay in the fact that wealth and culture open interests not shared by those who do not possess them, and these very interests unshared by the average citizen, prove a barrier to political success in a democracy. He had to show that the comparative luxury of his upbringing had not deprived him of the ability to fend for himself, and what was more important, of the ability to understand and sympathize with men and women of social environments other than his own Into such a family, then, Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27th, 1858. The long dispute between the North and the South was rapidly taking on a more and more sinister aspect. In a final vain effort to bridge the chasm by compromise, the voters had united to elect a Democratic President,-destined to be the last Democrat in the White House till over twenty years should pass. Men were widely interested in political 28 THEODORE ROOSEVELT questions as they have probably never been interested since. It was a suitable time for the birth of a man who was to give the greater part of his life to public service. The house in which the Roosevelts lived and in which Theodore was born stood at 28 East Twentieth Street, in New York City. It was then a good-sized city house furnished in the solid, rather gloomy style which was generally accepted in New York sixty years ago. Roosevelt's father, Theodore, Sr., had a strong influence on the future President's life and character, although he died when his son was only nineteen years old. Of him President Roosevelt said, "My father was the best man I ever knew." He was a busy man and a happy one, in which respects the Colonel resembled him. He was a devoted husband and father, a successful merchant and a tireless helper of the helpless. It was said of him after his untimely death at the age of forty-six that he was "a man of untiring energy, and of prodigious industry, the most valiant fighter of his day for the right, and the winner of his fights." He was in the prime of his youth when the Civil War brought its many problems to be solved. Those were four hard years for the Roosevelts. The Bulloch family of Georgia, of which the boy's mother was a member, were active and influential on the side of the South. Little Theodore's uncle, Captain James D. Bulloch, had been in the United States Navy, Resigning at the opening of the war, he offered his services to the new Confederate government, and was sent to England to buy arms for the Confederacy. Then he was commissioned to purchase and equip vessels there to fight battles for the South. In spite of the protests of the government of the United States, Captain Bulloch man CHILDHOOD 29 aged to equip and float a half dozen ships flying the flag of the Confederacy. One of these was the Alabama, which did so much damage that Great Britain, after the war, was compelled by arbitration to pay to the United States $15,000,000 for having allowed Captain Bulloch to build her in an English port. Irvine Stephens Bulloch, a younger brother of Mrs. Roosevelt, also enlisted in the Confederate Navy, and was a middy on the Alabama during her battle with the Kearsarge off the coast of France. When the Southern warship was sunk by the Kearsarge, young Bulloch commanded the gun which fired the last shot aboard the Alabama before she went down. He was rescued by men from an English yacht, and afterward married the daughter of one of his British rescuers. Young Theodore Roose-) Ja CLSS velt had reason to be proud of the character and ability of his Southern uncles, though he believed that they fought on the wrong side. The sufferings and sorrows of the war appealed strongly to Roosevelt the father. He did all he could to befriend and improve the condition of the soldier. He was a founder of the Union League, organized for the purpose of rallying men, money and munitions to carry on the cause of the North. He was also one of the first in getting in order the Sanitary Commission, which did much for the health and benefit of the soldiers at the front. During the war, in addition to all these labors, he devoted much time to caring for the sick and wounded, as well as for the families and widows and orphans of soldiers. He drafted the Act of Congress which enabled soldiers to allot part of their pay to their dependants and was appointed by President Lincoln as one of the commissioners to carry the act into effect in New York. In pursuance 30 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of his duties as a commissioner he traveled about among New York regiments at the front and induced many soldiers then wasting their wages to assign certain monthly amounts to their families. When thousands of soldiers returned to New York City at the end of the war, with no means of livelihood, he organized at his own house, the Soldiers' Employment Bureau. A great number of the soldiers had not received their pay from the government, and so-called claim agents pretended to get their money for them, but robbed them instead. To combat this end, Roosevelt helped to form the Protective War Claims Association. 'Besides all this, he was president of the State Board of Charities and an active participant in the work of other similar organizations.* He was particularly interested in societies to prevent cruelty to children and cruelty to animals. The Newsboys' Lodging-Houses were an effective means of keeping boys off the street, and Mr. Roosevelt took an active interest in them. Years afterwards one of these newsboys was Governor Brady of Alaska and served under his former benefactor's son. Under President Hayes, Mr. Roosevelt served as Collector of the Port of New York. But with all these manifold activities, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., had plenty of time for his family. His son relates that he and his brother and sisters used to wait in the library in the evening until they heard their father's front door key rattling in the latch and then they would rush out to greet him and troop after him into his room while he was dressing for dinner. There they were regaled with novelties which their father extracted from his pocket for their amusement and with the trinkets which he kept in a little box on his dressing-table, which the children CHILDHOOD 31 always spoke of as "treasures." On special occasions each child would receive a special trinket for his "very own." Often, in the summer, Mr. Roosevelt would complete his business and take an early train to the country, where he and Mrs. Roosevelt had taken the children for their yearly outing. Mrs. Roosevelt and one or two of the children would meet him at the station in a four-in-hand, which he delighted to drive, and away they would all go at what appeared to the boy a tremendous pace. All this kind of family intimacy formed the basis of the strong love which Theodore had for his father. Long after his father's death, Roosevelt said of him that his father was the'only man of whom he was ever really afraid, adding, "I do not mean that it was a wrong fear, for he was entirely just, and we children adored him."' On one occasion only did the father administer corporal punishment to his son Theodore. It appears that Theodore had bitten his elder sister's arm and had instantly taken refuge, first in the yard and then under the kitchen table, from the punishment which he knew he deserved. His father followed him and, discovering his presence under the table, dropped on all fours and darted for him. The boy feebly hurled a handful of dough at his pursuer, and then ran for the stairs. Half way up the stairs his father caught him and administered the punishment which he afterwards acknowledged that he richly deserved. Of his mother, Martha Bulloch, Roosevelt said, "She was a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and beloved by everybody. She was entirely 'unreconstructed' to the day of her death." Mrs. Roosevelt had been born and brought up in a typical Southern atmosphere. Her grandfather, Gen. Daniel 32 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Stewart, had joined the Revolutionary Army when a boy, was captured by the British and escaped from one of the enemy's prison ships. After his escape he served in the Continental Army as a captain under Sumter and Marion. Mrs. Roosevelt lived during her childhood at Roswell, Georgia, and was familiar with all of the delightful darky characteristics and stories which Joel Chandler Harris has immortalized in "Uncle Remus." Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., never saw his mother's birthplace until October 20, 1905, when he was forty-seven years old. He told the citizens of that little town, then, how deeply he was moved by coming to the place of which he had heard so much from her,*and called attention to his great good fortune in having the right to claim that his blood was half Southern and half Northern! Indeed, although his convictions, as a boy and as a man, were entirely with the Northern cause, he always had a sympathetic understanding of the Southern point of view, due, in part at least, to his love for his "unreconstructed" mother. All through the Civil War the father was a strong Lincoln Republican and the mother a strong secessionist, but this did not interfere with the affection and unity of the family. The Colonel relates that towards the close of the war he grew to have a partial but alert understanding of the family difference, "and once," he says, "when I felt that I had been wronged by maternal discipline during the day, I attempted a partial vengeance by praying with loud fervor for the success of the Union arms, when we all came to say our prayers before my mother in the evening. She was not only a most devoted mother, but was also blessed with a strong sense of humor, and she was too much amused to punish me; but I was warned not to repeat the offense, under penalty of my father's CHILDHOOD 33 being informed-he being the dispenser of serious punish-, ment." There were three other children in the Roosevelt family, Anna, who was three year older than Theodore, and his younger brother and sister, Elliot and Corinne, who were his juniors by one and three years respectively. Mrs. Roosevelt's mother, Mrs. Bulloch, also lived with the family, and a young unmarried aunt, Anna Bulloch.There were also as associates of his early childhood his cousins, two of whom lived next door, and Edith Carow, a friend of his sister Corinne's, who lived not far away on Union Square and who was, years later, to become his wife. Altogether this group of youngsters seem to have led a very happy, wholesome, normal life. During the winter they lived at the house on Twentieth Street, while during the summer they were always taken somewhere in the country. Of course they enjoyed the country very much more than the city. There they had all kinds of petscats, ducks, rabbits, a racoon and a Shetland pony named General Grant, for whom the Colonel's children named their own pony thirty years later. Christmas and Thanksgiving were times of special pleasure, as they are for most children. On Christmas Eve each child hung up the largest stocking which could be borrowed from the grown members of the family, and before dawn on Christmas morning they were all seated on their parents' bed exploring the treasures which had so miraculously arrived during the night. After breakfast the bigger Christmas presents were found in the drawing-room, each child's presents arranged on a separate table. "I never knew anyone else," said the Colonel, "have what seemed to me such attractive Christmases, and in the next generation I tried to reproduce them exactly for my own children." $ 34 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Next door to Theodore Roosevelt, Senior's house was that of his brother Robert. Both of these houses had wide porches looking upon the yards in the rear, and these porches formed the children's playground during the winters in the city. No doubt the future naturalist took special delight in the proximity of his uncle's house, because its owners possessed, from time to time, tropical birds of beautiful plumage and, on one occasion, a monkey.' During his early boyhood Theodore Roosevelt was sickly and delicate. From a very early age he suffered from asthma, which for years prevented him from sleeping except in a sitting posture. His later robust health was due partly to the loving care of his father and mother, and partly to his own determination to become strong. "One of my early memories," he says, "is of my father walking up and down the room with me in his arms at night when I was a very small person, and of sitting up in bed gasping, with my father and mother trying to help me." Often his father, in summer, would take him driving through the countryside in the darkness of night. Theodore recorded at one time in his diary, "'I was sick of the asthma last night. I sat up for four successive % hours and Papa made me smoke a cigar." The statement that he was "sick of the asthma last night" occurs frequently in this childish diary. In 1869 Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt took all the children on a long trip to Europe. To this trip Theodore did not look back afterwards with any particular pleasure. In fact he says that he cordially hated it, and that all the enjoyment that he and the other children got was in exploring ruins or mountains when they could get away from their parents, and in playing in the different hotels. The diary which he kept at the time bears witness to the CHILDHOOD 35 truth of his later impressions. Of Oxford, for instance, he writes, "We drove around it and saw some colages." His record of the Lake country is confined to a brief statement about a climb at Windermere: "The view was splendid on the top and it was very windy and I bought a sweet cracker." At York they seem to have had a more interesting time, for he records that he and his sister Corinne went to the museum, "where we saw birds and skeletons and Bamie and I went in for a spree and got two shillings' worth of rock candy." But, taken as a whole, the diary certainly indicates a little boy who was asthmatic and bored and homesick a good deal of the time. When the family visited Europe again, four years later, he had matured sufficiently to enjoy his trip and to profit by it. His sister Corinne, now Mrs. Douglas Robinson of New York, has given me an intimate sketch of his early childhood: ' "My earliest impressions," she writes "of my brother Theodore are those of a rather small, patient, suffering little child, who, in spite of his suffering, was always the acknowledged head of the nursery at No. 28 East Twen'tieth Street in New York City, where my brother Elliot and I were his loving followers in any game which he initiated, or where we listened with intense interest and admiration to the stories which he wove for us day by day, and often even month by month. These stories almost always related to strange and marvelous animal adventures, in which the animals were personalities quite as vivid as Kipling gave to the world a generation later in his Jungle Books. "Owing to acute and often agonizing asthma, he showed as a little boy, none of the vigorous quality which became 36 THEODORE ROOSEVELT part of his very atmosphere later in life. I remember well, in the same house in Twentieth Street, that my father had the third room of the second floor turned into an outdoor piazza gymnasium, with see-saws, horizontal and vertical bars, swings, etc., and my brother always told me of the deep impression it produced upon him when my father took him for the first time to this outdoor gymnasium, and said: "Theodore, you have the brains, but brains are of comparatively little use without the body; you have got to make your body, and it lies with you to make it, and it's dull hard work, but you can do it,' and from that day this little boy of about nine ye6rs old started to make his body, and he never ceased in making that body until the day of his death.' But in those early years it was a difficult task. I can see him now faithfully going through various exercises, at different times of the day, to broaden the chest narrowed by this terrible shortness of breath, to make the limbs and back strong and able to bear the weight of what was coming to him later in life. ' "Perhaps one of his most striking characteristics as a very young boy was his power of concentration.* From the very fact that he was not able originally to enter into the most vigorous activities, he was always reading or writing, and was always able to detach himself from whatever environment he was in: and become so absorbed in the book or paper which was the matter on his mind that he was entirely forgetful of what was going on around him. This intense power of concentration, learned so young, served him well in later life. I have frequently seen him, on some of his many presidential trips, detach himself in just the same way that he did when he was a little delicate boy at the old home in Twentieth Street, and on those very presidential trips I have seen him devouf CHILDHOOD 37 'Ferrero,' 'Josephus' and similar works, while delegations would come and go in the train, with whom he would have short conversations and then immediately absorb himself in his reading again. "I can remember perfectly the feeling of life and spirit with which the whole house was infused when he came into it. Interesting as he had been mentally as a little child, one had perhaps been over-conscious of the sense of detachment with which his suffering had surrounded him. ' Later, when he was a young man in the New York Assembly, while he could still summon that sense of detachment at will, and could give, one, if he so desired, the impression of being in another world when studying or reading —at other times he was the life and spirit of the whole family environment, and his work in the Assembly, with its far-reaching interest, was even then the pivot upon which the whole family life turned. He was then, as later, capable of the most unflagging power of achievement, and his reading was so universal, and yet so specialized that one could turn to him as an authority upon almost any subject. " Owing to delicacy in childhood he was not able to go to a boarding school, and was educated, more or less, by tutors, and when my father first settled at Oyster Bay, Theodore, who was then a boy of about fourteen, was under the tutelage of Mr. Arthur H. Cutler, who later formed the big boys' school in New York City and was always extremely proud that Theodore Roosevelt had been his first pupil. '.' "In those early days at Oyster Bay, when he was beginning to get the benefit of his own making of his own body, I remember him as a great lover of the water, but only in a very active way. He never cared, as my 38 THEODORE ROOSEVELT brother Elliot did, to sail a boat; it might be scientific and difficult to sail a boat, but it wasn't half hard enough to suit his tastes. He liked the smallest rowboat that could live in the bay and Sound, and he liked to row it for miles himself, carrying it across points or strips of sand, shooting ducks, taking long trips when the waters were rough on the Sound, when the danger was sufficiently exciting to make it worth while to keep the tiny boat straight in the waves or fog. And as he shot and ran and rowed he gradually became a much stronger and hardier boy. He always retained his love of natural history, and literature of all sorts and kinds. "Those early days at Oyster Bay are perhaps the most vivid of our childhood, for my father and mother had a wise attitude toward their children-making comparatively few rules, 'The rules that were made had to be strictly kept, but otherwise we were given great leeway, and were allowed to roam the then exquisite lanes of Long Island at will on horseback, or to spend long, happy holidays on the bay and Sound? " "Theodore, at this time, was collecting birds and animals of various kinds, studying their habits, skinning and stuffing them himself, and at that period my father always felt that his taste for science would probably be the dominant factor in his life, although he encouraged the 'strenuous life' in every possible way, feeling that the boy's body required the boxing lessons, the running contests and the various types of exercises in which he indulged.* "At eighteen,'Theodore Roosevelt, although oceasionally suffering from his old enemy, was a strong and normal young man and perfectly able to go into Harvard College and hold his own against any of the light-weight CHILDHOOD 39 boxers of that day, in spite of being handicapped, as he was, by near-sightedness from the beginning. "Just about the same time that he entered college he had begun to take long trips in the backwoods of Maine, under the guidance of the two fine Maine lumbermen-Bill Sewall and Bill Dow-who for so many years were a large influence in his physical and even his mental life. "His love of nature, accentuated by his knowledge of birds and beasts, was one of the very vital factors in his whole life, for he had that mixture of scientific interest and pure delight in the beauty of nature which rarely goes together. "When you ask my impressions of my brother as a boy and a young man, the qualities that stand out specially before me are those qualities which meant in his extreme youth'patience, concentration and determination, and, in his maturer youth, equal determination, equal concentration, but with a greater physical power and courage added to those early qualities. There was an ardor for healthfulness, for righteousness and for patriotic endeavor which made one visibly aware in coming in contact with TheodoreRoosevelt that here was a great potentiality for the good of the world." CHAPTER III SCHOOL AND COLLEGE D URING his days as a student, Roosevelt showed no unusual aptitude for any study except natural history. Speaking of his studies, he said himself, "In science and history and geography and in unexpected parts of German and French I was strong, but lamentably weak in tIatTinz' and Greek and mathematics." The interest in science and history and geography which this shows is borne out by the evidence of his later life, but there does not appear to have been such a strong inclination towards any of these subjects as to have justified an observer, then, in prophesying any special kind of future for the boy. 'During his boyhood, his continual ill health kept him from regular attendance at school.' For a few months he attended Professor McMullen's School on Twentieth Street, near his father's house, but most of the time he had tutors. One of these tutors, under whom he prepared to enter Harvard, was Mr. Arthur Cutler, who later founded the Cutler School in New York. The result of this absence of regular schooling was that the boy was left comparatively free to develop his mind according to his own inclinations.,With a strong interest in animals, it is not surprising that natural history captivated his attention at an early age., His career as a zoologist began when, one day, as. a small boy, he was walking up Broadway past one of the city markets. Outside the market lay a dead seal on, a (40) I The hotse i n Thedor R Ret vas born at 28 East ST:EN DAYS AT H V Tetnteth Street. New s Entering into the full fervor of colgelife at i -rarc Universityhere he gr induated ja1880, he found opgpiini SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 41 slab of wood. He had been reading about seals in Mayne Reid's books, and the sight of this one. so close to him instantly filled him with a sense of romance and adventure which was increased when he learned that the animal had just been killed in New York Harbor. He became possessed with a longing to own the seal. Being unable to form or execute any plan for satisfying that longing, he contented himself with visiting the market day by day to gaze upon the object which proved so interesting to him. He took the seal's measurements carefully with a folding pocket rule and had considerable difficulty when he came to measuring its girth.' Somehow or other he got the animal's skull and with it he and two of his cousins immediately founded the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History.* At the same time his observations of the seal and the measurements which he had made of it were carefully set down in a blank book purchased for the purpose. In another blank book were recorded further observations in natural history. This work was entitled, "Natural History on Insects, by Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.," and began in this fashion: "All thes& insects are native of North America. Most of the insects are not in other books. I will write about ants first." The beginning of the treatise on ants is entertaining, if not deeply scientific. "'Ants," he writes, "are difided into three sorts for every species. These kinds are officer, soilder [soldier?] and work. There are about one officer to ten soilders and one soilder to two workers." The book then went on to describe other insects which he had observed, all of which he assured the -reader "inhabit North America." At the end of the volume on insects were a few notes on fishes. Among these was a description of the crayfish. "I need not describe the form of the 42 THEODORE ROOSEVELT crayfish to you," wrote the author. "Look at the lobster and you have. its form." These observations were recorded at the age of nine years, and are worth mentioning because they show a real interest in the creatures of which he was writing. Roosevelt's father encouraged his study of natural history and, finding him absorbed in a book of Mayne Reid's on mammals, which was thrilling but not very accurate, presented the boy with a little book by J. G. Wood, the English naturalist, called "Homes without Hands." This was a real step towards the attainment of scientific knowledge. His father also, when he was about thirteen, sent him to take lessons in taxidermy from an old friend of Audubon's, named Bell, who kept a musty little shop which the pupil later likened to Mr. Venus' shop in "Our Mutual Friend." The study of taxidermy, of course, inspired the boy with a desire to procure his own specimens and his father consequently presented him with a gun for that purpose. When he first tried to use this gun, he was puzzled to find that he could not see the objects at which his companions were shooting. tOne day, some boys with him read aloud an advertisement written in huge letters on a bill-board some distance away, and Theodore then realized, for the first time, that there must be something the matter with his eyes, because he could not see the letters.' 'His father soon got him a pair of spectacles which he says literally opened up a new world to him.* When he was fourteen, he had become sufficiently interested in the study of natural history to get several new books on the subject, and to make a more careful study of it. In the winter of 1872 and 1873 the family visited the Old World for the second time, and, among SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 43 other expeditions, took a trip up the Nile. Before they started on this trip he picked up in Cairo a book which contained some account of the birds of that region. Armed with this book, and with the gun which his father had given him, he secured a number of specimens of birds in Egypt, which, together with others procured later in Palestine, he subsequently presented to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The fun of collecting was no doubt enhanced by the fact that before leaving home he and his two cousins, his fellow-directors of the Roosevelt Museum, had printed a set of museum labels in pink ink, expressly for use upon this expedition. Unfortunately for the rest of the family, Theodore insisted on carrying his natural history specimens about with him from place to place. One day when the family was in Vienna, his brother Elliot inquired plaintively of their father whether it would be possible that he should now and then have a room to himself in the hotels, instead of being obliged always to share one with Theodore. Mr. Roosevelt was perfectly willing to comply, but inquired the reason for Elliot's request. Elliot said, "Come and see our room, and you will understand." When they reached the boys' room, they found bottles of taxidermist's supplies everywhere and in the basin the remains of specimens which Theodore had lately captured. Theodore himself records the fact that he was "grubby." *"I suppose," he says, "that-all growing boys tend to be grubby; but the ornithological small boy, or indeed the boy with the taste for natural history of any kind, is generally the very grubbiest of all."" Some years before this expedition, his grandfather Roosevelt had made his summer home in Oyster Bay, on 44 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Long Island Sound, and his father's two brothers had also regularly rented country places there during the summer. Upon their return from Europe, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., also made Oyster Bay the summer home of his family. This gave the young naturalist increased opportunity for exploring trips and for observations. He did nothing which had any profound scientific significance, but he spent a great deal of time in what was to him an interesting, and profitable pursuit, and laid the foundation for a large part of the pleasure of his subsequent life. One more story of his boyhood should be related before leaving the subject of natural history. One of his sisters has told how, when he was a very small boy in petticoats with his hair in a curl on the top of his head, he dragged down from the book-shelf a huge volume describing David Livimgstone's life in the heart of the Dark Continent, and held it on his lap. But this time it was not big game that little Theodore found. His sister said he struck something he did not understand. Clasping the big book in his short arms, he went from one to another to get light on a dark passage. After some effort he found a friend not too busy at the moment to listen to him. "What are 'foraging' ants?" he asked. Of course no one in the family could give the required information off-hand. On investigation it was discovered that the baby naturalist had made a mistake in his reading. Livingstone had referred to "the foregoing ants." It was not much easier to make a child in petticoats understand what "foregoing" ants might, be. But that is the problem confronting older sisters in many a family where there is a small boy with an inquiring mind. Of reading young Theodore was very fond, although he did not show any marked sign of genius in the matter SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 45 and manner of his reading. All of the children were devoted to the magazine called, "Our Young Folks," which the Colonel, years afterward, said he really believed he enjoyed going over then as much as when he was a small boy. This magazine taught him much more than any of his text-books, and everything in it instilled the individual virtues and the necessity of character as the chief factor in any man's success. 'He also has recorded his fondness for girls' stories, such as "Little Men," "Little Women," and "An Old-Fashioned Girl."' After the trip up the Nile, in the winter of 1873, the younger children were left to spend4 the, summer in Dresden in the house of Herr Minckwitz, an old gentleman who had taken part in the German revolution of 1848. To this experience Roosevelt looked back with delight in later years. The kindness of the family and the fascination of the two sons, who were dueling students from the University of Leipzig, made a deep impression on him. 'One of the sons was known in dueling circles as the "Red Duke," and the other as "Sir Rhinoceros" because the tip of his nose had been cut off in a duel and sewn on again.* During his visit in Germany Roosevelt acquired a fairly good speaking knowledge of German, and a real fondness for German poetry.. The impression which he gained of German character and German family life was still strong upon him when he wrote of it forty years later.' During all this time, until he was about fifteen years old, the boy was not strong. His asthma troubled him incessantly, deprived him of sleep, and made violent exercise difficult and sometimes impossible. During one of his attacks of asthma he was sent off by himself to Moosehead Lake, in Maine. On the stage-coach he met a couple of other boys of his own age, who were not 46 THEODORE ROOSEVELT troubled with ill health, and who were determined to annoy Theodore. 'He finally became so exasperated that he tried to fight his tormenters, only to discover that either one of them could easily handle him without even the necessity of hurting him. 'This was a considerable blow to his pride, and was the immediate cause which led to his taking boxing lessons from John Long, an ex-prize fighter, in New York.' Long used to hold "championship matches" for the different weights in order to stimulate interest among his patrons, and young Roosevelt was fortunate enough to win in one of these contests, a pewter mug, which he cherished and boasted about for some years afterwards. About this time, also, he began to visit the Maine woods regularly every summer and sometimes in the winter. There he walked, paddled and hunted small game, partly from a love of the sport and of outdoors, and partly from an earnest determination to acquire health at the cost of no matter what effort. His com — panions in these excursions were two woodsmen named,Bill Sewall and Bill Dow, between whom and Roosevelt there grew up astrong affection. Thirty years later Sewall, as collector of customs on the Aroostook border, served under his old companion, who had become President of the United States. Roosevelt went to Harvard in the fall of 1876 and became a member of the class of 1880. Among his classmates were a goodly number of men who later rose to prominence, and some who became national figures. Among the latter were Albert Bushnell Hart, the historian; Josiah Quincy, who became Assistant Secretary of State, and Robert Bacon, who later was Secretary of State and Ambassador to France. One of his closest friends in after SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 47 life was Henry Cabot Lodge, then an instructor in history and now United States Senator from Massachusetts. ~ The young collegian soon became a familiar figure in Cambridge and Boston-especially in Brookline-driving about in a sort of sporting phaeiton, then the height of the New York style in equipages. He had not yet taken up horseback riding as a regular exercise. *Though he was especially fond of boxing and other vigorous sports, he astonished his student friends by skipping the rope, When he had explained that he engaged in this strange exercise because it strengthens the muscles of the legs and ankles, startled Cambridge saw college students skipping rope like school girls. His defective sight and his glasses were a handicap in boxing, baseball and kindred sports. But he boxed often-for the exercise and the physical discipline. 'He was still pale and thin, weighing only one hundred and thirty pounds.' So he was rather dubious looking, even for a lightweight. His friends used to tell of an encounter he had, which especially illustrates his temper. He came into the ring with a huge pair of eyeglasses tied tight to his head. IAt the end of a lively round, time was called and Roosevelt quickly dropped his hands to his side. But his opponent dealt him a smashing blow between the eyes, covering the motionless lightweight's face with blood. "Foul!-foul!" cried the onlookers, and their angry protests showed that it might have gone hard with the other boxer. But Roosevelt rushed to the referee, shouting: "Stop stop!-He didn't hear!-He didn't hear!", On another occasion he entered the college lightweight boxing contest. After winning the preliminary round he was pitted against a master of the art named Hanks, who 48 THEODORE ROOSEVELT defeated him. "It was no fight at all," said one of the spectators afterward. "Hanks had the longer reach and was stronger, and Roosevelt was handicapped by his eyesight. I can see that little fellow yet, staggering about and banging into air. His opponent could not put him out and he would not give up. He showed his fighting qualities, but he never entered another bout." His closest associates at college were the members of 'the wealthy and cultured New York and Boston families. One of his classmates who has himself risen to a high place in his profession has told me that young Roosevelt was distinctly one of the "exclusive set;" that, though he was liked by most of those who came to know him, he had not at that time broken through the limitations of his birth. C This means that his intense interest in the points of view of different classes and his ability to know and appreciate the best in a man, irrespective of his education or wordly condition, which became the marked and charming side of his character, was only fully developed after he left college and began to lay hold on life for himself. tWhile he was at college Roosevelt taught a Sundayschool class at an Episcopal church, although he was not an Episcopalian He wrote of this later and added, "I do not think I made much of a success of it." One of the boys came to class one day with a black eye. The teacher was concerned at once. The lad explained that another boy had pinched his little sister and that he had acquired his black eye in an effort to resent the insult. This course of conduct met with the teacher's entire approval, which he signified by bestowing a dollar on the battle-scarred pupil. Later he was removed from his position of Sunday SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 49 school teacher by the rector of the church because he was not a confirmed member of the Episcopal Church. But he did not appear to cherish any grudge against the denomination whose minister had thus summarily ousted him, for he turned up next week in an Episcopal Sunday-school in East Cambridge, and later taught in one at Chestnut Hill. What people sometimes describe as his thoughtless impulsiveness and disregard for appearances was illustrated by another story of his college da. Late one rainy night four students who lived in the ouse with him heard a horse neighing frantically in a barn nearby. They dressed and went out in the dark to explore. When they reached the barn they found oPcvt already there, half-clothed and minus his almost indispensable spectacles, struggling to release the horse's leg from a hole in the side of the stall. Perhaps closer observation will show that though Roosevelt certainly had little regard for conventional appearances, his supposed impulsiveness was due to his ability to think and act with unusual quickness in emergencies. It is of course interesting to see how early a distinguished man has developed the tastes or characteristics which give him his distinction. If we should pursue this line of inquiry in Roosevelt's case we should get little information from his college career. A good deal of latitude was allowed the students in the matter of selecting their studies, although certain courses were prescribed for all. When it came to these electives, Roosevelt devoted one-half of them to natural history, but not a single one to history. In history and English literature he took only what was required of him and nothing more, and yet, in his later years, he was a writer of history and an eager 4 youA A~AM^^^Kuyc Ir^ 50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT reader of the best literature. He took no interest in elocution or in debating, although he became afterward a forceful and convincing public speaker. He joined, of course, with others in the conduct of such organizations as the Finance Club and the "0. K.," before whom papers were prepared and lectures delivered on economic and political questions. In the fall of 1880 he was put in charge of the polls for the taking of a straw vote among the students during the campaign which culminated in the election of Garfield, and is said to have cast his own vote for Senator Bayard, a Democrat. According to the Harvard Advocate, the undergraduate literary paper of the period, "The gentleman in charge of the polls is a proof that the movement is not one of idle curiosity, but of earnest purpose." The most ambitious work of his college life was the writing of "The Naval War of 1812." He began this in his senior year and published the work two years later. It was recognized as an authority on the subject, and brought from the British authors of the "History of the Royal Navy" a request that he should write for them the chapter of their work dealing with the War of 1812. During all this time he had become more and more deeply interested in Miss Alice Hathaway Lee, a young lady who lived in Chestnut Hill, which is a pleasant suburb of Boston. During his sophomore year he was a student in rhetoric under Professor Adams Sherman Hill. One day Hill was reading to his class a theme to which he objected because it was over-romantic. In the middle of his reading he paused and suddenly asked Roosevelt to criticise the essay. The young man hesitated, and the professor then asked him specifically, "Mr. Roosevelt, what do you think of an undergraduate falling in love?" SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 51 Roosevelt, blushing furiously, made no answer, and so his secret was out. The culmination of this affair was his engagement to Miss Lee and their marriage on his twentysecond birthday, a few months after he had graduated from college. He was graduated from the college department in the spring of 1880, having acquired a Phi Beta Kappa Key for proficiency in scholarship, a number of interesting friends and a determination to succeed. He said himself: "I left college and entered the big world owing more than I can express to the training I had received, especially in my home, but with much else also to learn if I were to become fitted to do my part in the work that lay ahead for the generation of Americans to which I belonged." His sister, Mrs. Robinson, writes of him at this time: "His college life broadened every interest and did for him what had hitherto not been done, which was to give him confidence in his relationship with young men of his own age. Up to that time, owing to his delicacy of health, he had been somewhat of a recluse, from the standpoint of relationship of boy to boy." CHAPTER IV THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS T HEODORE ROOSEVELT'S father died the 9th of February, 1878, while his son was a sophomore at Harvard. The loss of such a father, especially at a period of his life when he needed him most, was in a sense irreparable. It was his first great sorrow. It also modified the immediate course of his life, throwing on him the responsibilities of a man. The father and son had often talked over the boy's future course in life. The younger Theodore had been brought up with the distinct idea that he was expected to work. His father, though he had inherited a considerable fortune, had worked hard all his life, and he expected his son to do likewise. On entering college, the son's ambition had been to devote his life to natural history. His father had told him that he could do so, provided he took up scientific work in a serious manner, but that if he was not going to earn money, he must "even things up by not spending it." If he was to be a scientist, his fortune would not be sufficient to do more than live quietly and comfortably. He would probably have persisted in a scientific career, at least for some time after leaving college, had it not been that the course of instruction at Harvard, as in all American colleges at that time, discouraged any work that was not done in a laboratory. Instead of encouraging his taste for field work, they treated biology as purely a "closet" science, and required him to spend his time in the study of minute forms of marine life or else in section(52) THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 53 cutting and the study of the tissues of the higher organisms under the microscope. He tells us that he had no more desire or ability to to be a microscopist and section-cutter than he had to be a mathematician. If he had to work with these things to be a scientist, then he would have to choose some other path in life. After his marriage, on October 27, 1880, he went to Europe. While in Switzerland he climbed the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn, sufficiently rare feats for those days to enable him to qualify as a member of the Alpine Club. On his return he and his wife took up their residence in New York and the young college graduate began to study law. His legal studies, however, did not last long. He believed himself that had he come in contact with some great professor of law, like the late Professor Thayer of the Harvard Law School, who had an understanding of social conditions as well as technical legal knowledge, he might have continued and become a member of the Bar. I doubt, however, whether he would ever have been a good lawyer, in spite of his ability to follow and grasp a legal argument, and I am quite sure that he was temperamentally unfitted to be happy performing the ordinary services of the lawyer. As it was, it did not seem to him that the law was framed to discourage, as it should, sharp practice, and all other kinds of bargains except those which were fair and of benefit to both sides. "I was young," he tells us. "There was much in the judgment which I then formed on this matter which I should now revise; but, then as now, many of the big corporation lawyers, to whom the ordinary members of the Bar then, as now, looked up, held certain standards which were difficult to recognize as compatible with the idealism I suppose every high-minded young man is apt to feel." 54 THEODORE ROOSEVELT If he had been obliged to earn his living, though, he would probably not have continued in the study of law; he would have devoted all his energies to making both ends meet, for he always held the belief, "that a man's first duty is to pull his own string and to take care of those dependent upon him." But his father had left him enough money to make it unnecessary for him to earn the necessaries of life, and so, in abandoning the study of law he became absorbed in politics, and in the work necessary to complete his "History of the American Navy in the War of 1812." As stated, he graduated from college in 1880, and spent most of the first year thereafter abroad; and yet, in the fall of 1881, he was elected as a member of the Assembly, or lower House of the New York Legislature, the youngest member of that body. Re-elected at the end of the first year, and still the youngest man in the Legislature, he became the nominee of the minority, or Republican, party for speaker. Re-elected again for a third term, in the fall of 1883, though defeated for the speakership, he became floor leader. This is a remarkable record. I do not know that the records of any of our states show an equally rapid rise to prominence of a young man between twenty-three and twenty-six years of age. His election to the Assembly and his success as a member were due not so much to his ability, though of course without ability he could have accomplished little, as to traits of character and points of view. On graduation from college he made up his mind that he would take an interest in politics, and when he settled in New York he at once proceeded to put the resolution in effect by making inquiries as to the whereabouts of the local Republican Association, and the means of joining it. The THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 55 fact that the persons of his own social set who lived near him laughed at him and told him that politics were low, and that the organization was controlled not by gentlemen but by saloon-keepers, horse-car conductors and the like did not deter him in the least. He expressed his attitude of mind to a protesting relative, "If the people who run these organizations, whoever they are, are the governing class, then I propose to be one of the governing class." Neither the resolution to become a member of the District Association of his party, nor membership, itself would have gotten him into politics, had it not been for the fact that, unlike many persons of his birth and education, it never occurred to him that he was going into politics to obtain reform for the community, as if reform was a concrete substance like a cake; neither did it occur to him that he was joining the organization for the purpose of doing good to a collection of ignorant and benighted persons. Not that he had not ideals-he had ideals; but he joined the District Association of his party because he wanted to get into the game, and exercise what he regarded as the right of every American, the right to take part, though it may be but a small and humble part, in governing the country. The District Association met in Morton Hall, a large, barnlike room over a saloon. Roosevelt came to the meeting just as the other members came, because he wanted to come, and not with any patronizing ideas of doing good. Being a hearty, likable fellow, they soon began to like and respect him. The relationship I have described being once established, his birth, his education, his refinement, told politically in his favor not against him. Every rich and "carefully" brought up young man in America who now may be wondering how he can get into politics can have 56 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the same experience, if he has. young Roosevelt's point of view toward the politicians, saloon-keepers and hangerson at Morton Hall, in the Twenty-first Assembly District of New York. For the reasons just expressed, his opportunity for election to public office would have come eventually; but it probably would not have come as quickly as it did had it not been for the circumstance that one Joseph Murray, the local political leader, determined to defeat the candidate selected by the then political boss of the district, Jake Hess. Murray picked Roosevelt as a fellow candidate. He picked him because he believed that with Roosevelt he was most likely to win. He did win, and Roosevelt was nominated. Jake Hess had no hard feeling, and Joe and Jake started in to elect the nominee. Their first idea was to take the candidate through the saloons in the district. The first saloon-keeper visited assumed the attitude of dictating to the candidate, with the object of pledging his vote for a reduction of the amount of the liquor license. Roosevelt flatly told the man that he believed the charge for the license should be increased, and a hot altercation was about to take place when his two mentors on some excuse, grabbed the young candidate and took him out into the street' After that, they recommended him to seek votes on Fifth Avenue; and they would attend to the election on Sixth Avenue, the saloon quarter. This arrangement worked out satisfactorily and the candidate was triumphantly elected. In the Legislature he found those conditions which were typical of conditions in most of our state legislatures at the time, and which with some modifications may be found today. The majority of the members were personally honest, though many of them allowed their per ~ Underwood & Und modN. Y, IN LIC LIFE The poblic of Colonel Theodore Roosivet is in this ination photographAs assemblyman, police commTissioer assitan t secretar o t nat9he solte erno, vi e-president it ad gendeman, he hlis s ho in characteristic poe tell the at ofter tha wor he I i THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 57 sonal judgment to be controlled by the local boss, to whom they owed their election. There were a few men of high purpose, courage and capacity for self-sacrifice, and, on the other hand, there were what was known as the Black Horse Cavalry, the men who were thoroughly corrupt, and who largely looked upon their position in the Legislature as an opportunity to secure, money from corporations interested in passing or defeating bills. Roosevelt's associates in the Legislature were Isaac Hunt, Jonas van Duzer, Walter Howe and Henry Sprague, whom he regarded as his closest friends and allies, as well, as "a gigantic one-eyed veteran of the Civil-War, a gallant general, Curtis, from St. Lawrence County," and also, among the Democrats, Hampden Robb, Thomas Newbold and Tom Welch of Niagara, as well as a couple of members from New York and Brooklyn, Mike Costello and Pete Kelly. With the aid of some or all of these men, he succeeded in securing the enactment of a Civil Service Law. He secured an investigation of the county offices of the state, by which it was discovered that the principal officials in New York County "were drawing nearly a million dollars a year in fees, while discharging no duties whatever;" he instituted an inquiry into the abuse of police powers and secured an amendment to the constitution of the state taking from the aldermen of New York City the executive power and placing it in the hands of the mayor. The last was a most important reform recommended by a committee of which he was chairman, appointed to look into various phases of New York City official life. As chairman, Roosevelt's energy and fearlessness enabled him to expose many of the corrupt practices then existing, thus arousing public sentiment in favor of concentrating power and responsibility in the mayor. At the time the mayor's 58 THEODORE ROOSEVELT appointments had to be confirmed by the alderman. The bill recommended by the committee took away this power. Roosevelt, throughout his life, always believed in the policy of this measure. He believed that the people should elect a few officials and hold them responsible; that it is impossible to get citizens interested in the character and ability of subordinate officials and that, therefore,.subordinate officials should be appointed, not elected. Of the particular measure recommended by his committee, he said, "Taking away the confirming power of the board of aldermen would not give the citizens of New York good government.. We knew that if they chose to elect the wrong kind of mayor they would have bad government, no matter what the form of law was. But we did secure to them the chance to get good government if they desired, and this was impossible as long as the old system remained.' The importantresult of his three years' experience in the Legislature, however, was not so much the legislation he succeeded in having adopted, but the results of his experiences on himself. He learned the invaluable lesson that in important activities of life no man can render the highest service unless he can act in combination with his fellows, which means a certain amount of "give and take." In other words, he passed through the phase of complete independence, that is, the acting on each case as he personally viewed it, without paying any heed to the principles and prejudices of others. The resulting loss of any power of accomplishing anything at all soon taught him his mistake. Again, he learned the equally valuable lesson, that the man in public life loses the power to accomplish any good at all if he falls into the habit of -looking ahead to ascertain the effect of his present action on his THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 59 future political career. He tells us that at one period he began to believe that he had a future, and that it behooved him to be very farsighted and "scan each action carefully with a view to its possible effect on that future." "This," he adds, "speedily made me useless to the public and an object of aversion to myself." It is probable that, like most young men, he had gone to the Assembly believing that all the reputable men he knew, friends of his father and his family, really believed in good government, and were opposed to corruption in politics. His awakening to the knowledge that this assumption was false was as much of a shock to him as it usually is to other young men when they first realize the connection of some of their respected seniors with the ramifications of crooked business and crooked politics. He made an attempt to impeach a certain judge. The judge had been used by some men connected with some great corporations of the time. Though there was considerable evidence against the judge, who had gone so far as to write a letter to a prominent financier in which he expressed himself as "willing to go to the very verge of judicial discretion to serve your vast interests," it was impossible to secure his impeachment. During the investigation, Roosevelt was taken out to lunch by an old family friend who he asserts had a genuine personal liking for him. We will let Colonel Roosevelt himself tell the rest of the story: "He explained that I had done well in the Legislature, that it was a good thing to have made the 'reform play,' that I had shown that I possessed ability such as would make me useful in the right kind of law office or business concern; but that I must not overplay my hand; that I had gone far enough, and that now was the time to leave politics and identify myself with the right kind of people, 60 - THEODORE ROOSEVELT the people who would always in the long run control others and obtain the real rewards which were worth having. I asked him if that meant I was to yield to the ring in politics. He answered somewhat impatiently that I was entirely mistaken (as in fact I was) about there being merely a political ring of the kind of which the papers were fond of talking; that the 'ring,' if it could be called such, that is, the inner circle, included certain big business men, and the politicians, lawyers and judges who were in alliance with, and, to a certain extent, dependent upon them, and that the successful man had to win his success by the backing of the same forces, whether in law, business or politics.' It is needless to remark that the old family friend did not attain the object which he sought in inviting young Roosevelt to take lunch with him. There were other experiences which made lasting impressions that were useful to him. Once certain large corporate influences came to him to ask him to take charge of a bill granting them certain terminal facilities in New York City. They told him quite frankly that the bill was one which exposed them to the demands of venal politicians because it would grant a valuable privilege. He looked into the subject and came to the conclusion that the legislation was proper and beneficial to the citizens of New York, and consented to take charge of the bill, provided they would not use any corrupt means to secure its passage. He was chairman of the committee to which the bill was referred. He was convinced that the majority of the committee were corrupt. Before a meeting of the committee in which he intended to bring up the,, bill, he noticed that a chair in the committee room was broken. In case of trouble, he secured one of the legs and THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS- 61 placed it where he could easily reach it. He then called the meeting to order. He made a motion to report the bill favorably. This was voted down. He then made a motion to have the bill reported unfavorably. Again the members of the Black Horse Cavalry present voted against the measure and the motion was defeated. This meant that the majority of the committee would try to smother the bill by refusing to vote it out of the committee until the corporation paid them their price. Taking the bill, he put it in his pocket, arose and told the members that he would report it. The members of the Black Horse Cavalry saw the prospect of illicit gain disappearing. Threatening murmurs arose on all sides, but he walked out of the room with the bill unmolested; the convenient chair-leg firmly clasped in his hand probably had a quieting effect. However, though he could report the bill, he could not get it through. The representatives of the corporation told him that perhaps a person of more experience might succeed. The bill was placed in charge of a "more experienced politician" and not long afterwards it was adopted, his enemies of the Black Horse Cavalry all voting for it. The chair-leg just referred to probably had the desired effect on the members of his committee because they knew that the slight young man was probably the best boxer in the House. Of this they had had tangible proof. Once a group of the members decided that this young man from the most fashionable district of New York would be improved and give less trouble in the future if he received a good beating. They therefore hired a person named "Stubby" Collins, of some repute as a slugger, to take the first opportunity "to do him up. " The collision occurred in the old Delavan House, a hotel where the members of the Assembly used to congregate in the eve 62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT ning. As Roosevelt was leaving, he passed the door leading to the buffet. A noisy crowd came out. "Stubby," who was one of their number ran into him and then struck at him, angrily demanding why Roosevelt had run into him. The blow never reached its mark, but it is recorded that "Stubby" was, in a few moments, a fit subject for the anxious care of his friends. Thereafter no one attempted to reform young Roosevelt's conduct by administering to him physical chastisement. One measure which came before the Assembly while he was a member, and when Cleveland was Governor, gave him an opportunity to display the kind of moral courage of which I spoke in the introductory chapter. A bill was passed reducing the fare on the elevated roads in New York City from ten cents to five cents. The bill was immensely popular. The corporation running the elevated railway was deservedly unpopular. Roosevelt had voted for the bill. Cleveland vetoed the measure on the ground of its unconstitutionality, because it violated the implied contract on the strength of which the stockholders had subscribed their money to build the roads. Everyone expected that Roosevelt would lead the fight to pass the bill over the Governor's veto. Instead of doing this, he voted to sustain the Governor, and frankly apologized for his previous vote in favor of the measure. "I have to say with shame that when I voted for this bill I did not act as I think I ought to have acted on the floor of this House. For the only time, I did at that time vote contrary to what I think to be honestly right. I have to confess that I weakly yielded, partly to a vindictive feeling toward the infernal thieves who have those railroads in charge and partly to the popular voice in New York. For the managers of the elevated railroads I have THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 63 as little feeling as any man here, and if it were possible I should be willing to pass a bill of attainder against Gould and all of his associates. I realize that they have done the most incalculable harm in this community, with their hired stock-jobbing newspaper, with their corruption of the judiciary, and with their corruption of this House. It is not a question of doing right to them, for they are merely common thieves. As to the resolution"-a petition handed in by the directors of the company- "signed by Gould and his son, I would pay more attention to a petition signed by Barney Aaron, Owney Geoghegan, and Billy McGlory then I would pay to that paper, because I regard these men as part of an infinitely dangerous orderthe wealthy criminal class." Many expected that he had written his political death warrant. His action would have had this effect if his whole course at Albany had not shown that he was above the suspicion of being subject directly or indirectly to corporate influences. As it was, whether they agreed with him or not, the courage which it took to make the speech strengthened him, not only with his constituents but with hundreds of others. Then, as now, a representative who wished really to protect the interests of his constituents was on the lookout for snake bills, that is bills which, as originally introduced, have a most innocent appearance, but which are amended at the last moment to further some special interest willing to take advantage of any means, however low, to promote legislation from which they expect financial benefit. It was in connection with one of these bills that an exciting scene took place in the House, and in which Roosevelt was a center of interest. Roosevelt and Mike Costello used to spend a good deal of time examining the 1 64 THEODORE ROOSEVELT different bills introduced. One bill puzzled them. It proposed a constitutional amendment, harmless enough in character. The puzzling thing about it was not the bill, but the author, a saloon-keeper. Why should that particular saloon-keeper take an interest in an amendment to the constitution? He belonged distinctly to that class of representatives who could refer to constitutional amendments as "local legislation," though history does not tell us if he was the same man who indignantly replied to Roosevelt's objection that his pet bill was unconstitutional"What is the constitution between friends?" The bill was introduced and passed the House. It then went over to the Senate, where, just before its final passage, it was amended, by the simple process of striking out everything except the enacting clause, and by inserting an entirely new bill to remit the unpaid taxes due by the elevated roads of New York City. By mere chance, Mike Costello heard the amendment read in the Senate. The bill had to be returned to the House for concurrence in the amendment. Those in charge of the measure waited until both Roosevelt and Costello were away, and then started to rush the bill through. Costello, in an anteroom, heard what was going on, rushed in and at once started a filibuster, at the same time sending for his young associate. Roosevelt thus described the scene that followed: "The speaker pro tem. called him to order. Mike continued to speak and protest; the speaker hammered him down; Mike continued his protests; the sergeant-at-arms was sent to arrest and remove him; and then I bounced in, and continued the protest, and refused to sit down or be silent. Amid wild confusion the amendment was declared adopted, and the bill was ordered engrossed and THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 65 sent to the Governor. But we had carried our point. The next morning the whole press rang with what had happened; every detail of the bill, and every detail of the way it had been slipped through the Legislature, were made public. All the slow and cautious men in the House, who had been afraid of taking sides, now came forward in support of us. Another debate was held on the proposal to rescind the vote; the city authorities waked up to protest; the Governor refused to sign the bill. Two or three years later, after much litigation, the taxes were paid; in the newspapers it was stated that the amount was over $1,500,000. It was Mike Costello, to whom primarily was due the fact that this sum was saved the public, and that the forces of corruption received a stinging rebuff. He did not expect recognition or reward for his services; and he got none. The public, if it knew of what he had done, promptly forgot it. The machine did not forget it, and turned him down at the next election." Throughout his course in the Legislature his primary interest was in reform as then understood; that is, in improving the methods of appointment to executive office, in defeating corrupt legislation and in antagonizing low political methods, as well as in improving, in details, the machinery of government. The larger questions of social and industrial justice and the need for a fundamental change in the citizen's individualistic outlook on lifequestions which were to absorb so large a part of his energy during his career as President and afterwards, were not really considered by him, though he did have one useful experience in connection with an attempt to improve tenement-house conditions, an experience which made a lasting impression on him, and to which we will have occasion to refer later. 5 66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT It was natural that in the campaign for the Republican nomination, in the spring of 1884, he should be found with those in favor of the nomination of Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont. Edmunds was a man whose whole course in the Senate had justly won for him the admiration of men whose political interests and ideals were those of the young assemblyman. Together with a group of men from New York, Roosevelt went to the convention in the interests of the Vermont Senator. His position among his fellow-delegates from the state is evidenced by the fact that he was made their representative on the Resolutions, or Platform, Committee. Practically from the opening of the convention, he realized, what some of his older associates did not realize, that the nomination of "the man from Maine," James G. Blaine, was inevitable, not only because he was by far the strongest candidate with the rank and file of the delegates, but because John A. Logan, himself a candidate, would probably allow his strength to go to the "plumed knight," as Col. Robert G. Ingersoll called Blaine in his nomination speech. His belief in the ultimate result, however, did not interfere with his working hard to effect a combination with the forces of President Arthur to prevent Blaine's nomination. Blaine, however, was the real choice of the majority of the party. He was selected on the fourth ballot by a vote of 541 out of a total of 813. To Roosevelt, as to thousands of other Republicans, the nomination of Blaine presented a serious question. At the time, while Blaine was decidedly popular with those who had come in contact with his magnetic personality, his nomination was generally regarded as the triumph of policies to which the reform element of the party were generally opposed. Roosevelt had voted THE FIRST PLUNGE INTO POLITICS 67 against the resolution introduced prior to'the balloting which bound the delegates to support the nominee of the convention. Thousands of Republicans on the nomination of Mr. Cleveland decided to desert the Republican party and vote for the man whose course as Governor of New York had shown him a friend of Civil Service Reform, and a strong opponent of corruption in politics. Roosevelt remained Republican. He supported Blaine. Looking back now at this distance of time, it is not difficult to perceive that his decision was right. Not that those who at that period deserted the Republican party were necessarily wrong. Parties are but instruments through which men work to obtain ends. It was true of Roosevelt as it was probably not true of the majority of those who deserted the Republican party in the fall of 1884, that for him a greater opportunity for effective good lay within the Republican party than without it. Had he made the mistake of becoming what was known in the political parlance of the day as a "mugwump," his opportunity for the kind of service which he was capable of rendering would have been narrowed. CHAPTER V THE ELKHORN RANCH IN September, 1883, Roosevelt went to what was then the Territory of Dakota and bought a ranch known as the "Chimney Butte," on the Little Missouri. In June of the following year he purchased the Elkhorn Ranch lower down the river. Thereafter, and until his acceptance of the appointment as Civil Service Commissioner in 1889, he was engaged actively] in the business of a rancher. Though he still spent the greater part of each winter in New York, he lived during the major portion of these years at one or other of his ranches. "It was still the Wild West in those days," he tells us, "the Far West, the West of Owen Wister's stories and Frederic Remington's drawings, the West of the Indian and the buffalo-hunter, the soldier and the cow-puncher. That land of the West has gone now, 'gone, gone with lost Atlantis,' gone to the isle of ghosts and of strange dead memories. It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of. herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death." His determination not to seek re-election to the Assembly in the fall of 1884, and to take up seriously the business of a ranchman on the Western plains was probably due to a combination of causes. As we have seen, the nomination of Blaine, while it did not drive him out of the Republican party, as it did many of his associates, (68) THE ELKHORN RANCH 69 nevertheless left him out of sympathy with the then dominant elements of the party in national affairs. Again while he had intensely enjoyed his life at Albany and the game of politics, politics were not his only interest. He was always ambitious to become distinguished as a writer, and ranch life, while rough, with periods of arduous physical work, nevertheless left for a man of his temperament much leisure for writing. There were also intimate personal reasons. On February 14, 1884, he lost both his wife and his mother, his wife dying two days after the birth of a daughter. This double loss severed the ties which would otherwise probably have prevented his taking up the life of a ranchman. His mind naturally sought relief in solitude rather than in the contests and excitements of politics at Albany. Besides these immediate and perhaps determining causes, he loved the Western life. "I do not believe," he says, "there was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood and the value of instant decision-in short, the virtues that ought to come from life in the open country. I enjoyed the life to the full." The rugged experiences of the outlying places of the world appealed to him. To borrow from Kipling, he heard the "Red Gods" calling, and looked beyond the skyline where the strange roads go down. At first the Chimney Butte ranch house was a oneroom log structure with a dirt roof, a corral for the horses nearby, and a chicken-house jabbed against the rear of the ranch house. Later he brought out to the Elkhorn Ranch his old friends from Maine, Sewall and Dow. They 70 THEODORE ROOSEVELT were mighty with the axe and built for him a long low ranch house of hewn logs, with bed-rooms, and a sittingroom with a big fireplace. Here it was that he gathered about him the books he loved, Van Dyke's " Still Hunter," Dodge's "Plains of the Great West," Caton's "Deer and Antelope of America" and Coues' "Birds of the Northwest." "As for Irving, Hawthorne, Cooper, Lowell and the other standbys," he writes, "I suppose no man, either East or West, would willingly be long without them." For lighter reading he had "dreamy Ik Marvel, Burroughs' breezy pages, and the quaint, pathetic character sketches of the Southern writers, Cable, Craddock, Macon, Joel Chandler Harris and sweet Sherwood Bonner." He probably had Poe's tales and poems, for when he was in the Bad Lands he felt "as if they somehow looked just exactly as Poe's tales and poems sound." He wrote books as well as read them-bookson history, politics, and phases of his Western life. His "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman" appeared in 1886, and his "Life of Thomas Hart Benton" in 1887. The "Life of Gouverneur Morris," "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," and "Essays in Practical Politics," which had first appeared as magazine articles, were published in 1888. It was here he received the inspiration for his four-volume work, "The Winning of the West," for his own experiences were attended with pioneer perils which put him in keenest sympathy with the experiences of Lewis and Clark less than a century before. He often expressed his regard for honest, courageous manhood, whether he found it in a cowpuncher, an Indian, or even in one of those Western desperadoes popularly known as a "bad man," if he betrayed generous impulses and was willing to improve and live squarely. In "The Strenuous Life" he wrote: THE ELKHORN RANCH 71 "Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore the sword in the army of Grant!" There was work on the ranch in plenty, and hard work, too, often full of danger, and sometimes privation. He knew what it was to ride under the scorching midsummer sun or in the freezing cold of the late fall round-up. He knew the biting wind of the winter blizzard, the monotony of guarding hour after hour the trail cattle or the beef herds at the slowest of walks, and the "minutes or hours teeming with excitement" when the herd stampeded, or when they had to be guided across ice-filled rivers or rivers full of dangerous quicksands. He had several experiences trying to ride bucking bronchos. One threw him off on a rock during a round-up and broke his arm, and another horse, known as "the Devil," fell backwards upon hit and split the point of his shoulder. On both occasions there was nothing to do but remount and go on with the work of rounding up, for often the nearest doctor was more than one hundred miles away. He tells us that he never became a good rider according to Western standards. Yet he was, and remained all his life, according to Eastern standards, an excellent horseman. Though he could handle a rope, he could not always handle it with dexterity. Once he and George Meyer, who long afterwards, like many of his companions in those days, was a delegate to the First Progressive National Convention, were trying to get some cattle across a river. Two of the calves refused to budge. Meyer's calf was small, and he could carry it in his arms while he rode his horse, but Roosevelt's calf was too big for this process. 72 THEODORE ROOSEVELT So Roosevelt roped it, and attempted to pull it along. Owing to some lack of dexterity with the rope, the calf, bouncing and bleating, swung around the rear of the horse, bringing the rope under his tail. There was a bank four feet high on either side of the river. The horse bolted and went over the bank and into the water with a splash. The calf followed, described a parabola in the air, and landed "plunk" beside the horse. The calf could not buck in the stream, so across, horse, rider and calf went, the calf "making a wake like Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea." There were spring and early summer round-ups to brand the calves, and fall round-ups to collect the cattle for the winter. They were attended by all the cowboys for miles around, and there was lots of hard, exciting work and plenty of fun. He has left us a description of one of those comparatively rare occasions when the cattle stampeded: "One night there was a heavy storm, and all of us who were at the wagons were obliged to turn out hastily to help the night herders. After a while there was a terrific peal of thunder, the lightning struck right by the herd, and away all the beasts went, heads and horns and tails in the air. For a minute or two I could make out nothing except the dark forms of the beasts running on every side of me, and I should have been very sorry if my horse had stumbled, for those behind would have trodden me down. Then the herd split, part going to one side, while the other part seemingly kept straight ahead, and I galloped as hard as ever beside them. I was trying to reach the pointthe leading animals-in order to turn them, when suddenly there was a tremendous splashing in front. I could dimly make out that the cattle immediately ahead and to one side of me were disappearing, and the next moment the ~~~~~oo~~~~~~~ oO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O THE ELKHORN RANCH 73 horse and I went off a cut bank into the Little Missouri. I bent away back in the saddle, and though the horse almost went down he just recovered himself, and, plunging and struggling through water and quicksand, we made the other side. Here I discovered that there was another cowboy with the same part of the herd that I was with; but almost immediately we separated. I galloped hard through a bottom covered with big cottonwood trees, and stopped the part of the herd that I was with, but very soon they broke on me again, and repeated this twice. Finally toward morning the few I had left came to a halt. "It had been raining hard for some time. I got off my horse and leaned against a tree, but before long the infernal cattle started on again, and I had to ride after them. Dawn came soon after this, and I was able to make out where I was and head the cattle back, collecting other little bunches as I went. After a while I came on a cowboy on foot carrying his saddle on his head. He was my companion of the previous night. His horse had gone full speed into a tree and killed itself, the man, however, not being hurt. I could not help him, as I had all I could do to handle the cattle. When I got them to the wagon, most of the other men had already come in and the riders were just starting on the long circle. One of the men changed my horse for me while I ate a hasty breakfast, and then we were off for the day's work. "As only about half of the night herd had been brought back, the circle riding was particularly heavy, and it was ten hours before we were back at the wagon. We then changed horses again and worked the whole herd until after sunset, finishing just as it grew too dark to do anything more. By this time I had been nearly forty hours in the saddle, changing horses five times, and my clothes had 74 THEODORE ROOSEVELT thoroughly dried on me, and I fell asleep as soon as I touched the bedding. Fortunately some men who had gotten in late in the morning had had their sleep during the daytime, so that the rest of us escaped night guard and were not called until four next morning. Nobody ever gets enough sleep on a round-up." At first he had to overcome not only the prejudice against all tenderfeet but the special prejudice which was attached to him on account of his eye-glasses. The cowboys called him "Four Eyes." He said it always took him at least twenty-four hours in a new place to live down this prejudice. Speaking of meeting a strange set of men at a round-up, he adds, "By this time I would have been accepted as one of the outfit, and all strangeness would have passed off, the attitude of my fellow cowpunchers being one of friendly forgiveness, even towards my spectacles." Once a rowdy in a tavern where Roosevelt was to stay all night noticed this queer tenderfoot and, desiring to have some real fun yelled, "Look what's drifted in! Step up, boys, and take a look at Four Eyes!" The wearer of the offending glasses paying no attention, the loafer, emboldened, pointed a pair of cocked pistols at him and informed the crowd that " Mr. Four-Eyes" would treat everyone to a drink. Roosevelt started towards the bar as if to comply, but, catching the bad man off his guard, landed a few blows under the man's chin and elsewhere. As he went over backwards his pistols went off, making holes in the ceiling, and he struck his head with such force against the edge of the bar that he failed to come to until some time after he had been carried out to a neighboring shed and Roosevelt had gone to bed. When he did come to, not liking to face the jeers of THE ELKHORN RANCH 75 the bystanders after such a beating, he drifted down to the station and disappeared from the place on the first passing freight train. "Mr. Four-Eyes" had proved to be the liveliest tenderfoot that that bad man had ever met. The story of another personal encounter of quite a different kind with a certain Frenchman of rank, known as the Marquis de Mores, is told by the late Jacob Riis. This marquis was one of the first settlers thereabout. He built Medora, the county seat, and named it for his wife. He was determined to rule in the region, and he had tried to do this by intimidating all comers. "Whether it was over a cattle matter," says Riis, or "some other local concern that his misunderstanding with the Marquis de Mores arose, of which there have been so many versions, I have forgotten. It does not matter. In the nature of things it had to come sooner or later, on one pretext or another. The two were neighbors, their ranches being some ten or fifteen miles apart. The marquis was a gallant but exaggerated Frenchman, with odd feudal notions still clinging in his brain. He took it into his head to be offended by something Roosevelt was reported to have said, before he had met him, and wrote him a curt note telling him what he had heard, and that 'there was a way for gentlemen to settle their differences,' to which he invited Roosevelt's attention. Mr. Roosevelt promptly replied that he had heard a lie; that he, the marquis, had no business to believe it true upon such evidence, and that he would follow his note in person within the hour. He despatched the letter to Medora, where the marquis was, by one of his men, and, true to his word, started himself immediately after. Before he came in sight of the little 'cow town' he was met by a courier traveling in haste from the marquis with a gentleman's apology and a cordial invitation 76 THEODORE ROOSEVELT to dine with him in town. And that was all there was of the sensational 'duel' with the French nobleman." Besides his experiences with cowboys and with a French gentleman of rank, there were experiences with Indians, though at the time Roosevelt lived on the Little Missouri, the Indians gave comparatively little trouble. Occasionally, however, parties of savage young bucks would treat lonely settlers badly, sometimes murdering them. These bands were usually composed of young fellows burning to distinguish themselves. He thus tells of what he calls a "trifling encounter with such a band:" "I was making my way along the edge of the bad lands, northward from my lower ranch, and was just crossing a plateau when five Indians rode up over- the further rim. The instant they saw me they whipped out their guns and raced full speed at me, yelling and flogging their horses. I was on a favorite horse, Manitou, who was a wiseold fellow, with nerves not to be shaken by anything. I at once leaped off him and stood with my rifle ready. "It was possible that the Indians were merely making a bluff and intended no mischief. But I did not like their actions, and I thought it likely if I allowed them to get hold of me they would at least take my horse and rifle, and possibly kill me. So I waited until they were a hundred yards off and then drew a bead on the first. Indians-and for the matter of that, white men-do not like to ride in on a man who is cool and means shooting, and in a twinkling every man was lying over the side of his horse, and all five had turned and were galloping backwards, having altered their course as quickly as so many teal ducks. "After this one of them made the peace sign, with his blanket first, and then, as he rode toward me, with his open hand. I halted him at a fair distance and asked him THE ELKHORN RANCH 77 what he wanted. He exclaimed, 'How? Me good Injun, me good Injun,' and tried to show me the dirty piece of paper on which his agency pass was written. I told him with sincerity that I was glad that he was a good Indian, but that he must not come any closer. He then asked for sugar and tobacco. I told him I had none. Another Indian began slowly drifting toward me in spite of my calling out to keep back, so I once more aimed with my rifle, whereupon both Indians slipped to the other side of their horses and galloped off, with oaths that did credit to at least one side of their acquaintance with English. I now mounted and pushed over the plateau on to the open prairie. In those- days an Indian, although not as good a shot as a white man, was infinitely better at crawling under and taking advantage of cover; and the worst thing a white man could do was to get into cover, whereas out in the open if he kept his head he had a good chance of standing off even half a dozen assailants. The Indians accompanied me for a couple of miles. Then I reached the open prairie, and resumed my northward ride, not being further molested." Roosevelt owed much to his Western experience. His terms in the New York Legislature had brought him into intimate contact with political conditions in the East. His ranch life brought him into equally intimate contact with totally different conditions. Each condition was in; its way typical of varied phases of our national life. Thereafter he knew the men of the "new" country, though that "new" country might be hundreds of miles further southwest or northeast than the Little Missouri. Just as many of the politicians in his Assembly district and in the New York Legislature became his life-long friends, so most of those who came into contact with him 78 THEODORE ROOSEVELT on the cattle ranch or in his various hunting trips ever afterwards respected and trusted him. As for politics I do not think that any of them ever had any politics, after he became a national political figure, They would have voted for him on any ticket, and that without reading the platform. Many years afterwards four of these men, the four with whom he had played old sledge and chased a bobcat the first night he spent at Chimney Butte, in September, 1883, and who had been his closest associates, J. A. Ferris, S. N. Ferris, W. J. Merrifield and G. W. Meyer, came to the First National Progressive Convention as delegates. He had his picture taken with all four, and five more pleased men never stood before a camera. As we read his own account of the different characters he met, our first impression is that they must have been an extraordinarily fine lot. Undoubtedly some of them, men like Seth Bullock, for instance, justify his assertion that Owen Wister's "Virginian" is not exaggerated. But with most of them we soon perceive that our impression is due largely to the fact that he liked them and saw the best in them. They were just ordinary men, put into conditions with which the average liver in towns or on farms does not come in contact. Roosevelt got the best out of them because he gave them his best, He was not there to play at ranching, and to do a little hunting; but to do a man's part with men, in a world of men. It caught and held their imagination that this man, who could write books, who had wealth, education, and position in the great world of the East, was a good fellow and their friend. Is it any wonder that when the opportunity came, he could raise a regiment of Rough Riders? Is it any wonder that when he became President the chief event in the life of a far Western friend was to go to Washington and see the THE ELKHORN RANCH 79 President, or that, in trouble, often serious and sometimes deserved, they turned to him with the confidence of children? "Dear Colonel: I write you because I am in trouble." His heart would sink, for he knew that the trouble of a cow-puncher friend would not infrequently be serious. Sometimes, however, his sense of humor overcame his sense of regret that the trouble was too well deserved to make it proper for him to interfere. One correspondent, to whom he gave the fictitious name of Gritto, wrote, "Dear Colonel: I write you because I am in trouble. I have shot a lady in the eye. But, Colonel, I was not shooting at the lady. I was shooting at my wife." One Major Llewellyn, who was Federal District Attorney under him in New Mexico, often wrote him letters filled with bits of interesting gossip about the comrades. One ran in part as follows: "Since I last wrote you Comrade Ritchie has killed a man in Colorado. I understand that the comrade was playing a poker game, and the man sat into the game and used such language that Comrade Ritchie had to shoot. Comrade Webb has killed two men in Beaver, Arizona. Comrade Webb is in the Forest Service, and the killing was in the line of professional duty. I was out at the penitentiary the other day and saw Comrade Gritto, who, you may remember, was put there for shooting his sisterin-law (this was the first information the Colonel received as to the identity of the lady who was shot in the eye). Since he was in there, Comrade Boyne has run off to old Mexico with his (Gritto's) wife, and the people of Grant County think he ought to be let out." In commenting on this letter, Roosevelt calls attention to the fact that the sporting instinct of the inhabitants of 80 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Grant County had been aroused. They felt that as Comrade Boyne had had a fair start, the other comrade should be let out-to see what would happen. These unfortunate ones, however, were the exceptions. Most of his friends of ranch days have changed with the country, and are now to be found as solid and substantial citizens, living in orderly communities where there are schools and paved streets and trolley-cars and other adjuncts of a settled civilization. Occasionally he went on long hunting trips to the Rocky Mountains, usually with his foreman, Merrifield,or later with Tazewell Woody, John Willis or John Goff. In his "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," he gives us the following brief account of a bear hunt with Merrifield: "We could follow the tracks by the slight scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by bent and broken twigs; and we advanced with noiseless caution, slowly climbing over dead trunks and upturned stumps, and not letting a branch rustle or catch our clothes. When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was almost a breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, paused by the upright stem of a large pine. "And there, not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew where or what we were, for he reared up on his haunches sidewise to us. Then he saw us, and dropped down again on all fours, the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned to us. As he sank down on his forefeet I raised the rifle. His head was bent slightly down, and when I saw the top of his white head fairly between the small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled the trigger. Half rising up, the huge beast fell over on the side in the death THE ELKHORN RANCH 81 throes, the ball having gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the distance had been measured by a carpenter's rule. The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I sighted the game." He describes another hunt, in Idaho, where he was less fortunate, and had a narrow escape from taking the bear's place as victim. This account also shows his vivid style of writing. After relating how he found the grizzly, he continues: "I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the great bear turned with a hoarse roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs; and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. "I waited till he came to a fallen tree, raking him, as he topped it, with a ball which entered his chest and went through the cavity of his body; but he neither swerved nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I had struck him. He came steadily on, and in another moment was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my bullet went low, smashing his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger, and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw, as he made a vicious side blow at me. "The rush of the charge carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground, but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps onward, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding but four; all of which I had fired. Then he tried to pull up; but as he did so, his muscles seemed 6 82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT to give way, his head dropped, and he rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of my first two bullets had inflicted a mortal wound." Roosevelt the hunter was also Roosevelt the lover of nature, and it was his hunting experiences that enabled him to give some of his most beautiful descriptions of nature. Take, for instance, this description of the Bad Lands, which not only shows his skill in word painting, but his love for nature as she exhibits herself in the great bare places of the world: "The tracks led into one of the wildest and most desolate parts of the Bad Lands. It was now the heat of the day, the brazen sun shining out of a cloudless sky, and not the least breeze stirring. At the bottom of the valley, in the deep, narrow bed of the winding watercourse, lay a few tepid little pools almost dried up. Thick groves of stunted cedars stood here and there in the glen-like pockets of the high buttes, the peaks and sides of which were bare, and only their lower, terrace-like ledges thinly clad with coarse, withered grass and sprawling sage-brush; the parched hillsides were riven by deep, twisted gorges, with brushwood on the bottoms; and the cliffs of coarse clay were cleft and seamed by sheer-sided, canon-like gullies. "In the narrow ravines, closed in by barren, sun-baked walls, the hot air stood still and sultry; the only living things were the rattlesnakes, and of these I have never elsewhere seen so many. Some basked in the sun, stretched out at their ugly length of mottled brown and yellow. Others lay half under stones or twisted in the roots of the sage-brush, and looked straight at me with that strange, sullen, evil gaze, never shifting or moving, that is the property only of serpents-and certain men-while one or two coiled and rattled menacingly as I stepped near." THE ELKHORN RANCH 83 But the lover of nature was also lover of the chase for the joy of it. " No one," he writes, " but he who has partaken thereof can understand the keen delight of hunting in lonely lands. For him it is the joy of the horse well ridden and the rifle well held; for him the long days of toil and hardship resolutely endured, and crowned at the end with triumph. In after years there shall come forever to his mind the memory of endless prairies shimmering in the bright sun; of vast snow-clad wastes lying desolate under gray skies; of the melancholy marshes; of the rush of mighty rivers; of the breath of the evergreen forest in summer; of the crooning of ice-armored pines at the touch of the winds of winter; of cataracts roaring between hoary mountain masses; of all the innumerable sights and sounds of the wilderness; of its immensity and misery; and of the silences that brood in its still depths." CHAPTER VI ROOSEVELT AND THE CIVIL SERVICE W IHILE Roosevelt was more than half immersed in his ranch life and in his book writing, he still found time for political activity. In 1886 he received the Republican nomination for Mayor of New York City. The contest, for several reasons, was hopeless from the start. Cleveland was at that time in the middle of his first presidential term and his personal popularity, of course, contributed to the strength of his party throughout the country. New York was naturally a Democratic city, and the Tammany braves were strong and well organized. And lastly, Henry George, the father of the single tax movement, whose writings had brought him into considerable prominence, was the nominee of an independent third party which recruited its strength largely from the Republican ranks. In the face of these difficulties, Roosevelt accepted the nomination and made a spirited campaign. Abram S. Hewitt, the Democratic nominee, won an easy victory, receiving ninety thousand votes, while George received sixty-eight thousand and Roosevelt sixty thousand. After the election of Harrison in 1888, Roosevelt hoped to be made Assistant Secretary of State. He was politically ambitious and was at that time particularly interested in our foreign relations. But Blaine, the Secretary of State, did not fancy such an appointment, and Roosevelt consequently failed to secure it; instead, President Harrison offered him an appointment as one of the (84) THE CIVIL SERVICE 85 three Commissioners of the United States Civil Service. Many of his friends were rather surprised when he accepted, because it was generally supposed that the Civil Service Commission was a political graveyard. The work done by the Commission offered little opportunity for winning political advancement, because it lacked spectacular possibilities and because an honest enforcement of the law necessarily involved conflicts with the powers upon whom preferment almost necessarily depended. Roosevelt, however, accepted the appointment and at once threw himself with ardor into the work of the Commission. As a member of the New York Legislature he had, in 1883, drafted a Civil Service bill in New York. This bill and the act of Congress creating a real federal merit system were approved by Governor Cleveland and by President Arthur respectively, at about the same time. Ever since the beginning of his public career Roosevelt has been a staunch supporter of civil service reform. The evils of the spoils system were not then so obvious to the average citizen as they are now. Beginning with the administration of President Jackson it had been the universal practice when an administration of one party was succeeded by another to make a clean sweep of all offices within the appointive power of the President. When Cleveland and Hendricks were elected in 1884, Hendricks rejoiced his followers by the statement that "he wished to take the boys in out of the cold to warm their toes." Their toes had been cold for twenty-four years and they were,of course,more than eager to get close to the fire. Hendricks' wish was gratified. During Cleveland's first administration, for instance, all of the railway mail service employees who were Republicans were turned out and Democrats were put in their places. The natural 86 THEODORE ROOSEVELT result of this action was an utter demoralization of the railway mail service. Four years later the Republicans came back into power and promptly reversed the process by sweeping out the Democrats. Fortunately, the provisions of the Civil Service law were made applicable to the railway mail service before this last process had been completed; but the party in power took advantage of the short time at their disposal to get rid of as many of their political enemies as possible. This system of removal' and appointment had no relation whatever to the efficiency of the government employees nor to the good of the service, and certainly justified Roosevelt's statement that the spoils system "has been for seventy years the most potent of all forces tending to bring about the degradation of our politics." His fellow Commissioners were Charles Lyman of Connecticut and Hugh S. Thompson, ex-Governor of South Carolina. Thompson was later succeeded by George D. Johnston of Louisiana, who was in turn succeeded by John R. Proctor of Kentucky. During the six years of Roosevelt's service, the Commission pursued its course with a single-minded devotion to the public welfare. In 1889 only a fraction of the government employees fell within the scope of the Civil Service act; this fraction formed what was known as the classified service. It was the constant aim of the Commission to extend the classified service as rapidly as possible, and in addition, of course, to see that the law was administered thoroughly and fairly. The system of competitive examinations which was then comparatively new was not in Roosevelt's opinion perfect, but it was better than any other system which had yet been devised and the results obtained from its use were almost uniformly excellent. THE CIVIL SERVICE 87 In enforcing the Civil Service law the Commissioners adhered to three principles: publicity, absolute political impartiality, and continual investigation by the Commission. Under the preceding Commission there had been.an honest attempt to enforce the law but its unpopularity with members of Congress had led the president of the Commission to avoid publicity as much as possible. He felt that to advertise its work was simply to invite unjust criticism, and so he and his associates performed their labors as inconspicuously as they could. Under the regime of the new Commissioners this was entirely reversed. Their theory was that since the Civil Service Act was a source of great good to the country, to advertise it was to insure its popularity. They accordingly took every occasion not only to advertise the holding of examinations but to publish the names of successful candidates and to invite an inspection of the records of their office by anyone who had a proper motive for inspecting them. Under the Civil Service law each state was permitted a certain quota of appointees in the classified service. During the first six years of the operation of the act all of the Southern states had continually been far behind in their quotas, due apparently to the prevalent idea that in making appointments the old system of political influence must still be the controlling one. In the summer of 1890, Congress passed an act which created six hundred new clerkships at Washington. The Commission immediately seized upon this opportunity to push the cause of civil service in the South. They advertised the coming examinations extensively in the Southern papers and took pains to point out that the appointees would be selected from those who passed the highest examinations and that no candidate need fear adverse political influence. Roose 88 THEODORE ROOSEVELT velt called a meeting of the Southern Congressmen and of reporters from the Southern newspapers in his office and impressed upon them the fact that the examinations and recommendations for appointment would be conducted without any regard whatever for the political affiliations of those who came forward to be examined. The result was encouraging. Southern aspirants for clerkships plucked up heart and took the examinations in very considerable numbers, with the result that nearly three hundred of the six hundred clerks were appointed from the South. Most of' these three hundred were, of course, Democrats, and the fact that they were appointed under a Republican administration went far to upset the popular Southern prejudice against the Civil Service Commission. If the law were to be properly enforced, it was of course necessary for the Commissioners to keep a constant watch upon the governmental offices which fell within the classified service. A large part of their work, therefore, consisted in making investigations, either personally or by agent, which resulted more than once in recommendations for the removal of government appointees who had abused the opportunities of their positions. Roosevelt himself preferred personal investigations where possible. He said that he could get more information by a few minutes' talk with the clerk who had charge of the business under discussion than by a fortnight's formal correspondence with the head of the department. One of these investigations led to an incident which was the source of considerable comment at the time. Serious frauds had been practiced at the postoffice in Milwaukee, especially in the appointment of clerks without reference to the merit system. Roosevelt investigated the matter and soon found that the blame largely I :Lwll~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ QI Uhdrute dE Aond od If. Te HUNl:;l m 1 ROC1MS MriR. Roosebt on one of his later huntitng trips in the Rlocky Mountains I ere mh bg efell to his aceure eye a steady hand He was long ifa/^ us in the t as one of tLhe bravt pe kihnrsfor big game in all; X v that counltry., i.;~~ THE CIVIL SERVICE 89 centered upon a member of the local civil service board in Milwaukee, named Shidy, who had had access to the papers of the Commission. Roosevelt therefore interviewed Shidy personally and soon convinced himself that he had gone to the right man to get the information he needed. Shidy refused to talk unless he was promised immunity and the retention of his place in the postoffice. The Commissioner decided that it was important to get the man's testimony and accordingly gave him the required assurance. Shidy then told his story, which resulted in the dismissal of the Milwaukee postmaster. Shortly thereafter Shidy was himself dismissed. Roosevelt, in order to fulfil his promise, tried hard to have him reinstated, and, failing in this, procured him a clerkship in the census office which did not fall within the classified service. One of the Washington newspapers learned how Shidy had been taken care of and published a series of sensational charges against the Commission alleging, among other things, that Roosevelt himself was one of the worst of spoilsmen. The Commissioner's answer to this was to demand an immediate investigation, in the course of which he frankly told the whole story. As a result of this investigation the congressional committee fully supported him and in their findings endorsed the action he had taken. Most of the examinations held under the Civil Service act were, of course, written. Separate examinations were held then as now for different positions. For letter carriers, for instance, one test was in reading addresses, and in this test they were marked partly for speed and partly for accuracy in their reading. Candidates for government inspectorships, on the other hand, were subjected to examinations bearing directly upon the work which they 90 THEODORE ROOSEVELT would be called upon to do. In one examination, for example, they were presented with this problem: "Some person will be pointed out to you for description; notice him carefully and then write as brief a telegram as possible to the United States Marshal at Baltimore notifying him that this man will arrive on a designated train and that a warrant is out for his arrest on the charge of embezzling postal funds." Roosevelt suggested that customs inspectors on the Texas border should pass a practical examination in horsemanship and in the handling of a revolver, but the suggestion was not adopted at the time. It is interesting to find that, a good many years later, applicants for this position were required to produce special vouchers of their proficiency in the branches whose importance Roosevelt had' thus emphasized. His attitude on the subject of promotion was a shock to many of his friends among the civil service reformers. During his service on the Commission there was no occasion for making his position in this matter public, because the Commission had no control over appointments or removals. But when he became one of the Police Commissioners of the City of New York, the question became a vital one for him. He said himself that in his position in the matter he split from the bulk of his "professional civil service reform friends." "The reason," he says, "for a written competitive entrance examination is that it is impossible for the head of the office, or the candidate's prospective immediate superior himself, to know the average candidate or to test his ability. But when once in office, the best way to test any man's ability is by long experience in seeing him actually at work. His promotion should depend upon the judgment formed of him by THE CIVIL SERVICE 91 his superiors." He felt that the matter of civil service reform was purely practical. He advocated competitive examinations because he believed that they advanced the interests of the public service, but he had no particular interest in competitive examinations for their own sake, and did not feel that any moral principle was irrevocably associated with them. He could think of no better system for selecting non-political subordinates, and, therefore, he went with the civil service reformers in advocating a method of initial selection by examination; but when it came to promotion, experience had shown him that examinations were of little use and he therefore did not hesitate to abandon them. The Civil Service Commissioners under Harrison and Cleveland did not get very much assistance from the White House. Both of these Presidents were in favor of the system, but they hesitated in extending it because to do so'necessarily involved conflict with their party leaders. But in the House and Senate there were several ardent champions of the cause of civil service reform. During Roosevelt's term of office there were many lively tilts in Congress with respect to the operation of the Civil Service act and the very existence of the Commission was more than once threatened. The favorite method adopted by the opponents of the system was to attempt to cut off the annual appropriation for the work of the Commission. On one occasion they failed to cut the appropriation entirely but succeeded in considerably reducing the amount needed for the expense' of conducting the examinations. Roosevelt's answer to this was characteristic. He found out which Congressmen had refused to vote the necessary money and then sent for the schedule of examinations. He carefully struck 92 THEODORE ROOSEVELT out from the list of districts where examinations would be held the districts which these men represented. Having done this, he called in the newspaper reporters and gave the matter due publicity, explaining just what he had done and why he had done it. There was loud complaint of his action by the offended Congressmen but in the future the Commission got the money that it needed. Senator Gorman of Maryland was; during Cleveland's administration, the leader of the majority party in the Senate. He was a strong opponent of the merit system. One day in a speech in the Senate he attacked the Commission and told the pathetic story of a "bright young man in the city of Baltimore" who had taken the examination for the position of letter carrier. The bright young man, according to the Senator, had been asked to tell the most direct route from Baltimore to Japan, together with several other questions equally irrelevant. Roosevelt happened to read the speech as soon as it was published and immediately wrote the Senator asking him to give the date and place of the examination, and inviting him to inspect all of the Commission's examination papers for letter carriers to see whether he could find the particular questions to which he had alluded in his speech. The Senator was unable to give the particulars and did not accept the invitation to inspect the examination papers. The incident was closed by a characteristic public letter from Roosevelt which ended thus: "High-minded, sensitive Mr. Gorman! Clinging, trustful Mr. Gorman! Nothing could shake his belief in that 'bright young man.' Apparently, he did not even try to find out his name-if he had a name; in fact, his name, like everything else about him, remains to this day THE CIVIL SERVICE 93 wrapped in the Stygian mantle of an abysmal mystery, Still less has Mr. Gorman tried to verify the statements made to him. It is enough for him that they were made. No harsh suspicion, no stern demand for evidence or proof, appeals to his artless and unspoiled soul. He believes whatever he is told, even when he has forgotten the name of the teller, or never knew it. It would indeed be difficult to find an instance of a more abiding confidence in human nature —even in anonymous human nature. And this is the end of the tale of Arcadian Mr. Gorman and his elusive friend, the bright young man without a name!" During the sessions of the Fifty-third Congress, Representative Bynum of Indiana introduced a bill which provided that all the Democrats who had been turned out of the railway mail service by the Republicans more than four years ago should be reinstated. The bill received the solid support of the Democrats and passed the House. In the Senate it was pushed by Senator Vilas of Wisconsin and only failed through the vigilance of Senator Lodge, who was a warm friend both of Commissioner Roosevelt and of the merit system. The bill had been referred to the committee of which Vilas was chairman. When he reported it to the Senate he asked for its consideration by unanimous consent and for its passage on the ground that it related to a matter of small importance. When the bill was read the words "classified civil service" caught Senator Lodge's ear and he insisted upon an explanation. On finding out the true subject-matter of the bill Lodge refused to join in the unanimous consent for its consideration, with the result that the pressure of other business prevented it from coming up that session. Had the bill passed it would have formed a very dangerous precedent. 94 THEODORE ROOSEVELT On another occasion an attempt was made by the enemies of the Commission to hinder its work by reducing the salary of the secretary. Congressman Breckenridge of Kentucky, in the course of the discussion upon the annual appropriation bill, objected, upon a technical parliamentary ground, to the item which appropriated $2,000 to the secretary of the Commission, and caused the bill to be passed carrying an appropriation for only $1,600 for this particular position. The same parliamentary objection applied equally to the salaries of twenty or thirty other officers, including the President's private secretary and the First Assistant Postmaster General. Their salaries, however, were not touched by the House. When the matter reached the Senate, Senator Lodge and his friends were ready and they made such a determined fight that the salary was put back at $2,000, and the bill eventually became a law in that form. One of Roosevelt's last acts as-Civil Service Commissioner was to write a letter to Judson Grenell, of Detroit, on April 25, 1895, by which he put an end to an amusing and illuminating controversy between Mr. Grenell and the Commission. It appeared that Grenell, who was a newspaper man, had taken the examination for the position of assistant statistican for the Department of Agriculture. Of the twelve men who took the examination Grenell, with a grade of forty-four, stood eleventh. He objected to the marking of the papers and to the recommendation of the Commissioners, and wrote them, asking for the averages of the other men who had taken the examination, and pointing out what he considered serious defects in the administration of the Civil Service act. To Roosevelt was assigned the duty of answering, and he did so with evident delight. First, he gave his correspondent all the I THE CIVIL SERVICE 95 grades, beginning with ninety and ending with forty-two, and carefully pointed out that there was only one man who stood lower than Mr. Grenell in the final rating. He corrected the statement that there was "a rising tide of public opinion against the system of competitive examinations" by pointing to the results of recent elections in Chicago and New York State which had endorsed the merit system. He showed that the proficiency of the railway mail service, as measured by the percentage of correct routings, had almost tripled within the past five years and he ended with this statement which was undoubtedly correct: "The past year has witnessed greater progress toward the full accomplishment of the reform idea in national, city and municipal governments, taken as a whole, than in any other year since the original law was passed." Roosevelt served four years under President Harrison and discharged the duties of his office so impartially and with such an entire disregard of political affiliations that he was reappointed by President Cleveland, and served under him until, in 1895, he resigned to become one of the Police Commissioners of the city of New York. During his six years as Commissioner fourteen thousand positions had been added to the classified service, and the total number of offices falling within the scope of the Commissioners' activities had increased from twenty-one thousand to nearly fifty thousand. What was more important, the methods of the Civil Service Commission and the possibilities of the classified service had been widely advertised and had won popular approval. In a public statement made after he had left the Commission, he said: "People sometimes grow a little downhearted about the reform. When they feel in this mood it would be well 96 THEODORE ROOSEVELT for them to reflect on what has actually been gained in the past six years. By the inclusion of the railway mail service, the smaller free delivery offices, the Indian school service, the internal revenue service, and other less important branches, the extent of the public service which is under the protection of the law has been more than doubled, and there are now nearly fifty thousand employees of the Federal government who have been withdrawn from the degrading influences that rule under the spoils system." When, six years later, Roosevelt became President, he still had, in full measure, the interest in the merit system which had been his 'since he entered politics. In his first message to Congress he urged the extension of the system to the insular possessions, and in his second annual message urged that it should be extended to the District of Columbia. By executive orders, made at various times during his administration, he was able to accomplish much that Congress had failed to do. For instance, he wished Congress to bring United States consuls within the classified service, and upon their failure to do so, he issued an executive order requiring applications for the position of consul in certain grades to take competitive examinations. Similar orders covered many laborers in government employ. In addition to adding to the classified service the President promulgated other rules which increased the efficiency of the Commission. He forbade employees within the classified service to engage actively in politics and directed that recommendations for promotion must come in every case from a man's superior instead of from his political friends. During his presidency the Civil Service Commission reported that the number of classified positions subject to competitive examinations had THE CIVIL SERVICE 97 nearly doubled, having grown from 110,000 in 1901 to 206,000 in 1908. During his six years on the Civil Service Commission, Roosevelt had abundant practical experience in the operation of the merit system, experience which was to stand him in good stead in later life as Police Commissioner, Governor and President. He always remained a firm friend of civil service reform, but he had, in 1895, begun to see that civil service reform was not enough. He saw the signs of a great national awakening which was to concern itself not simply with political conditions but with social and industrial justice. In this awakening, he himself was destined to take the leading part. CHAPTER VI POLICE COMMISSIONER T HE head of a great police force in a modern city may be perfectly honest, and yet his conception of his full duty may be to do no more than to sit at his desk day after day receiving reports from his subordinates. Theodore Roosevelt was not that kind of a police head. He made a great success of his position as president of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, because, while he did not neglect his desk, he went out and got at essential facts for himself. He knew his force, not only his captains and lieutenants, but a large number of his sergeants and roundsmen and patrolmen. The reforms which he instituted and carried out were based not merely on reports but on personal knowledge of conditions. No man knew better than he the value of arousing public attention by striking and vigorous action on the part of an executive. In the two years that he was Police Commissioner there were not many days when the pugnacious and forceful head of the police did not furnish the reporters with interesting copy and the city editors with headlines. During the early '90's, political corruption in New York City had reached its high-water mark. Under the dominance of Richard Croker, Tammany Hall owned the city, body and soul. Every official, from the policeman on his beat to the judge on the bench, was compelled not only to contribute to the Tammany war chest, but to discharge his official duties in the manner dictated by Mr. Croker and his lieutenants. The greatest (98) POLICE COMMISSIONER 99 evils were centered in the administration of the police force. Here the possibilities for blackmail were almost unlimited. The proprietors of disorderly houses and those interested in the liquor trade had formed with the police a conspiracy by virtue of which they were permitted to violate the law in return for their political support and for a share in the profits of their unlawful business. While the Democratic party controlled the city of New York, the Republicans usually had a working majority in the state. This fact gave rise to the conditions under which Roosevelt's appointment as Police Commissioner became possible. During the legislative session of 1894, the Republican majority procured the appointment of a committee to investigate political conditions in New York City. Senator Lexow was made the chairman of this committee. Numerous hearings were held, in the course of which there occurred revelations of the most startling nature. From the testimony it appeared that it was the practice to sell appointments to office at fixed figures. For instance, the regular charge for an appointment as patrolman was $300.00. The subordinates thus appointed recouped themselves by collecting blackmail from liquor dealers and from the keepers of disorderly houses. The system became so businesslike that saloon-keepers who wished to remain open on Sunday were privileged to do so, in spite of the law, upon payment of a fixed sum. The game of policy flourished within prescribed geographical limits, each one of which was assigned to a "policy king" who handled the business and paid the necessary blackmail to the police. Shoeblacks, and push-cart and fruit venders were permitted to obstruct the streets and sidewalks upon payment of money for the privilege. A regu 100 THEODORE ROOSEVELT lar'initiation fee was charged by the police, and thereafter annual dues were levied and in most cases readily paid. As a result of these exposures, the independents and the Republicans of the city combined in the fall of 1894 and succeeded in ousting Tammany and in electing Colonel William L. Strong as mayor of the city. Strong was the first reform mayor who had ever taken office in New York and he made such use of his opportunities as circumstances permitted. He offered the position of Chief of the Street Cleaning Bureau to Roosevelt and when he declined it, appointed Colonel George E. Waring, whose administration of that office is famous in the annals of New York. William Brookfield, an independent Republican business man, became Commissioner of Public Works. On the municipal civil service board the new mayor placed Everett P. Wheeler and Godkin of the Evening Post, who were described by a contemporary writer as "experienced and obdurate reformers." The Legislature of 1895 had a considerable Republican majority and had been elected largely by the votes of residents of New York City who were anxious for action in Albany which would help to cure the situation in the metropolis. But when the Legislature adjourned on May 16th, the reformers were sorely disappointed. The new statute for the government of the police force did not meet public expectations. It provided for four Commissioners, two of whom were to be appointed from one party and two from the other. There was also a Chief of Police, whom the Commissioners were to appoint, but whom they could not remove without a regular trial subject to review by the courts of law. The Chief of Police and any one Commissioner had power, in most cases, to prevent action by the other three Commissioners. The granting of execu POLICE COMMISSIONER 101 tive power to so numerous a body and the provision which made a dead-lock so easy became fruitful sources of trouble. Mayor Strong selected Roosevelt as president of the Board and as the other three members, Colonel Frederick D. Grant, son of General Grant, Avery D. Andrews, a young lawyer of West Point training, and Andrew D. Parker. The other Commissioners were, at first in entire harmony with their president, and the board started on its career with every chance for success. Two problems confronted the Commissioners at the outset. One of these was to take the police force entirely out of politics, and the other was to ensure the enforcement of the law. Of course all was not plain sailing by any means. Years of corruption had produced a growth which a single operation could not remove, and, in addition, the Board of Commissioners did not maintain, throughout the term of Roosevelt's service, the unanimity which characterized them at the beginning. The system of checks and balances to which I have already alluded offered considerable opportunity to the obstructionist. One of the members of the Board was to some extent affiliated with the type of politician against whom the people had risen to elect Mayor Strong. This Commissioner gradually grew more and more out of sympathy with his associates and became the source of considerable difficulty. Colonel Grant, too, although perfectly honest, was perhaps inclined to resent a little the leadership of a man who was considerably his junior. During the month of August, 1895, the hostile press was able to announce with considerable satisfaction that a real split in the board had taken place over the discharge of a police captain. Differences of temperament were exaggerated by the 102 THEODORE ROOSEVELT newspapers until they became moral differences, and Roosevelt's enemies lost no chance of imperiling the success of his work by endeavoring to alienate his associates. Heretofore it had been impossible to secure a position on the police force unless money and political influence were brought to bear. As a first step toward eliminating this system, the Commissioners announced that appointments to the force would be given only to those who should satisfactorily pass a civil service examination. Any man within the proper age limits and a citizen of the United States who appeared was given the examination. He was obliged to furnish five vouchers for his good character and was subjected by the Commission to a searching test as to his physical and moral qualifications. This investigation eliminated four-fifths of the applicants. From those who remained, members of the police force were selected without any regard whatever for political connections, and usually with no knowledge of what their political connections in fact were. When it came to promotions, Roosevelt differed from most of the civil service reformers. He held that promotions should be based principally upon a man's conduct as observed by his superiors. Consequently a list was kept of those policemen who had particularly distinguished themselves by heroism and by physical prowess in the discharge of their duties. Those whose names were on this list were subjected to competitive examinations, upon the results of which their promotions in part depended. In selecting men for the positions of greatest responsibility special attention was given to the candidate's ability to handle men and to his success in repressing vice and disorder in the district within his control. Bravery in the discharge of duty was a sure road to the POLICE COMMISSIONER 103 favor of the president of the Board. Roosevelt has recorded more than one instance to illustrate this. One of the first promotions made by the new Board after they had begun their work was by way of reward for such conduct. A roundsman who was old enough to be a veteran of the Civil War, and who had been on the force for twenty-two years, saved a woman from drowning in the spring of 1895. Roosevelt read of the feat in the report submitted to him and sent for the rescuer. The roundsman appeared in a state of considerable nervousness and agitation. He had, during his service on the force, saved some twenty-five persons from death by drowning, and on more than one occasion had saved persons from burning buildings. Twice he had received, upon the authorization of Congress, medals for distinguished gallantry. He was efficient and trustworthy and there was no blemish on his record. But he had no political backing and consequently had all these years failed of promotion. Now he thought that perhaps his chance had come. As a result of his interview with Roosevelt he became a sergeant, and it was not long before he justified the Commission's action by effecting his twenty-sixth rescue from drowning. In another case which occurred at about the same time, a patrolman pursued a gang of toughs who had just robbed and beaten a man in the street. The toughs scattered and the policeman pursued the ringleader. Suddenly the criminal, finding that he was losing ground, turned and fired. The ball passed through the policeman's helmet and just grazed his scalp, but he had in the same instant fired his own revolver with truer aim. As the officer reeled back from the shock of the bullet which had so nearly caused him his life,his adversary fell dead, shot through the heart. This man was promoted to roundsman. 104 THEODORE ROOSEVELT In connection with this incident it is interesting to note what Roosevelt says in regard to the use of weapons by the police: "I may explain that I have not the slightest sympathy with any policy which tends to put the policeman at the mercy of a tough or which deprives him of efficient weapons. While Police Commissioner, we punished any brutality by the police with such immediate severity that all cases of brutality practically came to an end. No decent citizen had anything to fear from the police during the two years of my service. But we consistently encouraged the police to prove that the violent criminal who endeavored to molest them or to resist arrest or to interfere with them in the discharge of their duty, was himself in grave jeopardy; and we had every 'gang' broken up and the members punished with whatever severity was necessary. Of course where possible the officer merely crippled the criminal who was violent." Roosevelt himself took a keen personal interest in the individual success of his subordinates and in his personal relations with them. Shortly after he became Commissioner, a Jewish boy named Otto Raphael was introduced to him at a Bowery meeting. Raphael was a powerful, intelligent young fellow who had recently saved some women and children from a burning building by a display of pluck and strength which won the admiration of the Commissioner. At Roosevelt's suggestion Raphael took the civil service examination and secured an appointment to the force. This enabled him to educate his little brothers and sisters and to bring over from Russia two or three members of the family who had been left behind because of lack of funds. In speaking of this incident, Roosevelt characteristically remembers that he and Raphael were if azot is - ~ I~l~l.. Co wic U, 'IQ, I I POLICE COMMISSIONER 105 the only men in the police department who picked Fitzsimmons as a winner against Corbett. This elimination of politics from the police force naturally incurred the enmity of those politicians who had been accustomed for years to control the actions of the department. They succeeded in obtaining the repeal of the civil service law and joined with others of Roosevelt's enemies in the vicious attacks made upon him during his service as a Commissioner. Bicycle policemen were added to the force soon after the new Commissioners took hold. The automobile speed fiend had not yet come into being, but his prototype, the bicycle scorcher, was bad enough. It was the duty of the mounted police to stop runaways and arrest scorchers. In controlling runaway horses some of them acquired marvelous skill. They learned to ride at full speed beside the horse's bridle and by a steady pressure upon the bit gradually to bring the frightened animal to a standstill, or to jump from a bicycle into a runaway vehicle and arrest the occupant whose reckless driving had been the cause of the trouble. Under Roosevelt's leadership, also, a pistol school was instituted which was put in charge of a sergeant named Petty, who was one of the champion revolver shots of the country. Roosevelt himself was always in the thick of action. He threw his whole soul into the performance of his job and carried its problems with him night and day. Not long after he came into office a serious strike occurred in New York City accompanied by violence and bloodshed. Finding that the situation did not improve with the passage of time, he arranged to meet certain of the strikers in Clarendon Hall to see whether the difficulty could not be settled at a conference between them. The strikers mis 106 THEODORE ROOSEVELT took their man, and after explaining their grievances resorted to threats. Roosevelt's attitude of sympathetic interest gave way immediately to an expression of stern determination. "Wait a moment, gentlemen." he said, "I begin to think that some of you have mistaken the purpose of my invitation. Remember this, please, before we go one step further. The man among you who advises or encourages violence is the enemy of all. We shall have order in this place and peace in this city before we have anything else; and the police will preserve it. Now, if the air is clear we can go on." His boldness and candor appealed strongly to the strikers and instead of anger or defiance, moved them to cheers. His conviction that the enforcement of law and order was paramount to all other considerations was shared, before he left office, by many of the labor leaders with whom he had come in contact, so that before his departure several of them called upon him to express their regret at this going. One of these, the secretary of the Journeyman Bakers' and Confectioners' International Union, wrote him: "I am -particularly grateful for your liberal attitude toward organized labor, your cordial championship of those speaking in behalf of the toilers, and your evident desire to do the right thing as you saw it at whatever cost." Jacob A. Riis was at this time a constant companion of Roosevelt. Riis, as a newspaper reporter, had become intensely interested in the life of New York City's East Side and had recorded some of his observations in his book "How the Other Half Live." Going back to his office one day after an absence of some hours, Riis found on his desk Theodore Roosevelt's card with the simple inscription "I have read your book and I have come to help." It is hard to overestimate the value of these two men to one POLICE COMMISSIONER 107 another during the next two years. Riis found a ready champion of the cause of his East Side friends and Roosevelt found a reliable man with an intimate knowledge of many matters which bore directly upon his work as a Police Commissioner. Many a night these two tramped the streets together, talking to policemen on their beats, finding others asleep or gossiping, observing conditions in the tenement districts and planning for the betterment of the city. Riis had concluded that the police lodging houses were nothing but free hotels for beggars, and at his instance they were discontinued. He had gathered considerable data in regard to health conditions in the tenements and these formed the basis of Roosevelt's action as an ex-officio member of the Health Board. During August of 1896, New York was visited with a wave of terrible heat which lasted for days. The death rate for some of these days increased from the normal average of twenty per thbusand annually to fifty per thousand annually. To combat the pitiful effects of the heat, the city appropriated thousands of dollars to purchase ice which was distributed free under the direction of the Police Commissioners. The Health Department adopted stringent rules in regard to the milk supply. As a result of this and other precautions the death rate among babies was comparatively small. During the meeting at which Bryan was officially notified that he was the Democratic nominee for the Presidency, when 25,000 people were gathered in Madison Square Garden the Commissioners placed police surgeons in the basement of the building ready with icepacks and other appliances to take care of cases of heat prostration. Before leaving the subject of the general conduct of the police force there is one instance which will bear telling. 108 THEODORE ROOSEVELT A German preacher named Ahlwardt came over to New York to preach a crusade against the Jews. Many of the New York Jews took the matter very much to heart and asked Roosevelt to prevent the crusader from speaking. This the Commissioner refused to do. In the first place he doubted his right to stop the speech and in the second place he thought that to make the man ridiculous would be better than to make him a martyr. Accordingly, he detailed for Ahlwardt's protection a Jewish sergeant and a score or two of Jewish policemen, so that the worthy preacher delivered his invective against the Jews under the active protection of the objects of his attack. During the years of Roosevelt's service the Board of Police Commissioners accomplished much for the police force and for the city. But long after all other achievements are forgotten, one will be remembered-the enforcement of the Sunday Closing Law. The statutes of the State of New York forbade the sale of liquor on Sunday. No one disputed this; in fact no one could dispute it. Under Tammany this law had been enforced, but only against those who were unable or unwilling to purchase immunity from its provisions. From Commissioner to patrolman the police force had exacted blackmail from the saloon-keepers. The liquor dealer who could not produce the necessary cash and votes found that his place of business was closed on Sunday, while his rival across the street was not only earning the biggest money of the week, but was swiftly stealing away his steady customers. "The police," says Roosevelt, "used the partial and spasmodic enforcement of the law as a means of collecting blackmail. The result was that the officers of the law, the politicians, and the saloon-keepers became inextricably tangled in a network of crime and connivance at crime. POLICE COMMISSIONER o09 The most powerful saloon-keepers controlled the politicians and the police, while the latter in turn terrorized and blackmailed all the other saloon-keepers. It was not a case of non-enforcement of the law. The law was very actively enforced, but it was enforced with corrupt discrimination." Roosevelt and his associates had no particular fondness for the Sunday Closing Law, but they were confronted with a situation which to their minds presented but two alternatives. One of these was to abandon any attempt whatever to enforce the law; the other was to enforce it impartially against every one. To Roosevelt it was unthinkable that the Police Commissioners should permit the continuance of the outrageous system which had hitherto prevailed; and it was equally unthinkable that they should deliberately fail to enforce the law as it stood upon the statute books. There was then but one course left for them to pursue, and that was to close all saloons on Sunday without fear or favor. Under a recent act of Assembly the mayor had the power to remove the Tammany police magistrates and to appoint others in their places. Until this power was exercised it was idle for the Police Commissioners to attempt to carry out their project. As soon as Mayor Strong exercised the authority given him, Roosevelt prepared to act. The new magistrates were to take office on Monday, July 1, 1895, and it was consequently announced that on Sunday, June 30th, the police would see that all liquor saloons were closed. The threat was carried into effect and produced a roar of surprise and rage throughout the length and breadth of Manhattan Island. The newspapers on Monday morning were full of the subject, some condemning the action of the Commissioners, others remaining neutral, 110 THEODORE ROOSEVELT and only one or two favoring it. Roosevelt himself went about the city to see that the order was enforced. At the corner of Thirtieth Street and Seventh Avenue, he was seen early on Sunday personally superintending the closing of a saloon which had violated the order. The police were everywhere, but the arrests were not as numerous as one might suppose. On January 13th, four months before the new Board had taken office, the arrests under the old blackmailing system had risen to two hundred and fifty-four. On the first Sunday of the new plan there were only one hundred and twenty-four arrests. Numerous attempts were made to evade the provisions of the law by furnishing a meal to thirsty patrons to accompany the liquor which they ordered. The meal in most cases consisted of nothing more substantial than cheese and crackers, and the evasions by this means were not numerous. Many went out in the harbor thinking to escape the attentions of the police,but this scheme had been foreseen by the Commissioners. The County Cork Men's Association, for instance, hired an excursion boat and when she pulled out from the dock began freely to patronize the bar, but policemen in plain clothes had joined the festive party and immediately arrested the offenders. In some instances the arrest of saloon-keepers who had been accustomed to violate the law under the old regime was accompanied with considerable excitement. For instance, John Kelly sold liquor after midnight at his saloon on Avenue A. An officer named Kidney knew what was going on and made four attempts to enter the place but without success. He was assisted by another officer named Dunne, both of them being in citizens' clothes. Finally five men arrived in a group and were admitted by the watcher at the door. Dunne tried to go POLICE COMMISSIONER 111 in with them and was stopped by the watcher. During the wrangle a group of several hundred people collected. About this time Dunne noticed that Kidney had attached himself to another group of seven men whom the doorkeeper seemed to know. Dunne accordingly retired and Kidney was admitted to the saloon. When he got inside Kidney found twenty-two patrons there drinking. He told Kelly who was behind the bar that he was under arrest. The watcher, who had been looking at Kidney, left his post, ran inside and grabbed him by the throat. Kidney was getting the better of it when two men interfered to help the watcher. The policeman shook himself free and backed up against the refrigerator, when Kelly and some of his friends made a rush at him. Kidney drew his revolver and the crowd fell back a moment. Edging toward the door, he pulled back the bolt and admitted Dunne who was all the time waiting outside. Dunne jumped on the nearest man and flung him into the hall. The next man was the watcher and Dunne threw him out so quickly that he did not hear Kidney shouting to him to hold him a prisoner. Then the two policemen having fairly cowed the men inside took Kelly prisoner and marched him to the station house. It seems extraordinary that the closing of the saloons on Sunday should have aroused such a storm of protest. Men who were accustomed to gratify their stomachs with liquor resented the slightest interference with the satisfaction of their appetites; and the liquor dealers, whose profits from Sunday sales were enormous, were of course not slow to raise the hue and cry against the Board of Police Commissioners and especially against its president. The question of Sunday closing immediately became a vital issue. On Tuesday the Young Men's Democratic 112 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Union met and prepared to carry the agitation for a liberal Sunday to the Legislature in Albany. A meeting of German-Americans, among whom were Carl Schurz and Jacob H. Schiff, signed a statement advocating a liberal Sunday but agreeing that the Police Commissioners were bound by their oath of office to enforce the law as it stood. Roosevelt's enemies were astute and powerful and lost no opportunity to attack him. The liquor dealers and the "respectable citizens," together with the larger part of the daily press, began a course of persecution which only had the effect of confirming him in the course which he had chosen to follow. They were also furious with Mayor Strong who was alleged to have said to certain representatives of the liquor dealers a short time before; "Boys, if you can arrange among yourselves, you might keep open a little on Sunday afternoon and see how it works," and who was now charged with violation of his promise. But the chief burden of the attack of course fell upon the president of the Police Board. On July 4th a great Tammany celebration was addressed by ex-Governor Campbell of Ohio. In the course of his speech Campbell said: "The Democracy united can sweep this city next fall by a plurality of 70,000 votes, and then the time will come when persons can get their Sunday beer, when a poor man who cannot afford to stable his horse and cart can let them stand in the street before his door at night." This last was an allusion to the fact that Roosevelt had put an end to the free stabling of horses and carts in the narrow streets of the city, a privilege which had been well paid for under the old regime. Roosevelt's answer to this kind of criticism was the plain statement: "I would rather see this administration turned out because it enforced the laws than see it POLICE COMMISSIONER 113 succeed by violating them." In his mind there was absolutely no room for argument. The law was there and it had to be enforced. Of the second Sunday of the crusade, July the 8th, one of the city newspapers reported next day, "It was dry but not very dry." Only one hundred and five arrests were made on this day for failure to comply with the law. Thirty citizens went to Brooklyn where the police did not take so strict a view of their obligations. The steamer Bay Queen with four barges in tow started out with a crowd of excursionists. Eight hundred and fifty dollars had been paid for the bar privilege. The newspapers reported that when she got well underway "the men of Limerick came to the barkeeper and cried aloud for drink and he could not minister to them." The difficulty of course, was that members of the police force had joined the excursionists to see that no violation of the law occurred. The war against Roosevelt was waged unceasingly. The newspapers made fun of his spectacles, his teeth, his volubility and above all of his recklessness' in speaking directly of himself in the first person singular. The common cry was that he was the rich man's friend and the poor man's enemy. The president of the Young Men's Democratic Union wrote him an open letter calling him "A bitter Republican with aristocratic tendencies," and asked him to raid the Union League Club on the following Sunday. "Do not be deterred," he wrote, "from the strict discharge of your duty by reason of the enormous sums of money annually contributed to the Republican committees 'for protection.'" Roosevelt answered that he would stop unlawful sales of liquor as quickly in the Union League Club as in any other place, and said, "I 8 114 THEODORE ROOSEVELT have seen plenty of base demagoguery in my career, but a baser demagoguery than that of those who protest against the enforcement of the law because it is against the poor man I have never seen." His enemies knew as well as he did that he was hurting not the poor man, but the rich liquor dealers who profited by the Sunday sales. The, law was described as an antiquated blue law which no man of intelligence or liberality would attempt to enforce. Senator Hill, the Democratic leader of the state, wrote: "The chief difficulty in New York City today arises from the unreasonable construction which the new Police Commissioners and magistrates are giving the excise law, in their arbitrary and unintelligent enforcement of these provisions." One cartoon represented New York as a fair lady bound in the fetters of the blue laws while an unpleasant looking individual labeled "Puritan Reformer" looked unctuously on; another depicted Roosevelt sitting on Father Knickerbocker's lap holding a hobby-horse named Sunday Closing Law, while Father Knickerbocker says despairingly, "What a pity he doesn't cut his wisdom teeth." To this criticism Roosevelt made vigorous answer. It-was idle to call a law antiquated which was only three years old. The Sunday closing provision had been inserted in the statute in 1857, but in 1892 the liquor law had been revised by a Democratic Legislature and the proposition to eliminate the Sunday provision had been deliberately.rejected. To Hill's letter he replied that he was delighted as a party man to have the enforcement of the law made a party question, but that as an American citizen he was ashamed that it was possible to raise such an issue. Another charge was that the police took so much time POLICE COMMISSIONER 115 in the enforcement of the Sunday Closing Law that they had no leisure left for the prevention of other forms of crime. A cartoon showed Roosevelt in a policeman's uniform leaning idly against a closed bar, while two burglars looted a safe in tlie rear of the premises. Below the picture was the statement by Roosevelt, "It is a waste of time for the criminal classes and their allies to try to distract us from enforcing the vital laws by raising a clamor that we are not enforcing those of less importance." The paper in which this cartoon appeared also reported the complaint of a citizen whose house was robbed while, as he said, "The cops told me they were too busy to help me out." In another daily there appeared a list of crimes which were said to have been successfully perpetrated without interference or punishment by the police. Roosevelt's answer was to produce the facts and to prove by the police records that the average number of felonies was one less per day than during the preceding year and that the average of arrests was one more per day. He took up the cases of crime of which the newspaper had complained and showed by means of the deadly parallel what the exact truth was. In one column he put the statements made by his enemies and in the other the reports of the cases as they appeared in the records of his department. In every case the accusations were proven to be unfounded. His enemies became considerably disturbed because the law was not enforced as strictly against the sellers of soda water as against the retailers of liquor. "It wasn't very dry," reported one of the newspapers after the third Sunday of the campaign. Soda was purchased quite readily and there was apparently little effort to prevent its sale, although the law covers soft drinks as 116 THEODORE ROOSEVELT well as alcoholic ones. Roosevelt retorted that it was impossible with the force at his command to compel obedience to every provision of the law; that he would do so as far as lay in his power, and that the enforcement of the more important provisions of the law necessarily would have the priority. He was determined to stamp out the Sunday sales of liquor because they had been in the past a source of blackmail and corruption. "If," he said, "a policeman finds a penny gambling game on one side of the street and a burglar on the other, I should not expect him to risk the escape of the burglar through his anxiety to arrest the gamblers." As the crusade went on, the press became more and more openly hostile. It was computed that the saloon keepers were losing every Sunday the profit on the sale of 30,000 kegs of beer, and this fact no doubt influenced the policy of the newspapers in which they advertised. New York was described in the Monday morning editions as "Roosevelt's Deserted Village," and was frequently likened to the Desert of Sahara. At intervals, violent conflicts occurred over the enforcement of the law, such as the fight of the first night between Kidney and Kelly. One saloon-keeper who stood high in political circles was known as "King" or "Bootsy" Callahan. When the campaign began, a patrolman named Edward J. Bourke was walking for the first time the beat on which Callahan's saloon was situated. After midnight the saloon was still running at full blast and Bourke stepping inside told Callahan to close up. Then he walked around the block and put his head in again to see if his order had been obeyed. Callahan resented this kind of persistence and went so far as to knock Bourke down. Bourke instantly got to POLICE COMMISSIONER 117 his feet and knocked Callahan down. They grappled, and as they rolled on the floor, Callahan's friends did their best to stamp on Bourke. Bourke, however, stuck to his job and finally shut the saloon and ran his man into the police station. The next morning Callahan's friends had the cards stacked against the policeman and were prepared not only to procure Callahan's release, but to charge Bourke with improper conduct in attempting to make an arrest. Fortunately, Roosevelt heard of the matter and started for the court-room. His appearance put a very different face on the situation and the result was a triumphant victory for Bourke and for the new system. By this time the matter of Sunday closing had become so much of a political issue that Republicans and Democrats alike were trying to make capital out of it at one another's expense. The idea that each community should decide the question for itself was advocated by many and attained considerable popularity. Roosevelt, however, was not interested in this phase of the matter. He was only concerned in enforcing the law as it stood and in discharging the sworn duties of his office. His attitude brought him many enemies, but friends were not wanting. In a great meeting in Carnegie Hall in August he spoke before the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America and received a tremendous ovation. Resolutions were adopted approving the course which he had pursued. At last the liquor men concluded that neither threats nor ridicule would swerve the Commissioners from their task. On September 5th at a meeting of the Liquor Dealers' Association, a resolution was adopted 118 THEODORE ROOSEVELT calling for the voluntary closing of the saloons on Sunday. This did not mean that all the trouble ceased; but a new step had been taken and things never slipped back to anything like they had been before. Roosevelt's record as Police Commissioner, and especially his uncompromising and determined enforcement of the Sunday Closing Law stood him in good stead when, less than two years later, he made his successful campaign for the Governorship. CHAPTER VIII ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY R OOSEVELT became Assistant Secretary of the Navy in April, 1897. Following the Civil War, the Nation had put away armaments and taken up happily the pursuits of peace. Weary of the financial burden of fleets and armies, and self-complacent in the security of the Monroe Doctrine and the belief that war with any foreign power was beyond the range of possibility, the government acquiesced in the general demand for disarmament. Consequently, the development in the science of naval warfare which had flourished during the days of the Rebellion ceased altogether, and for a long time there was no thought of naval reconstruction in consonance with the maritime evolution of the period. For two decades in the last half of the nineteenth century we had not a single armored ship. In the administration of President Hayes our navy ranked lower than that of any nation in Europe. Chili, with her two ironclads, was stronger on the sea than we were. During the administration of President Garfield twenty-five out of one hundred and forty vessels in our navy were ordinary sea tugs. Not a single ship was in condition for warfare. All were wooden ships; they included the side-wheel steamer Powhatan, and the very ancient frigate, Constitution. The mounts of these wooden tubs were smoothbores-"left-overs" from the Civil War. Then, under President Arthur, came the awakening. The first program of the new era called for thirty-eight (119) 120 THEODORE ROOSEVELT unarmored cruisers, five rams, five torpedo gunboats and ten harbor torpedo-boats, mostly of steel. Following it came the celebrated "White Squadron." Next the government encouraged the creation of industries for the manufacture of guns, forgings and castings that formerly had been bought abroad. Finally, in 1890, the first American battleships were laid down. Thus when Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary, the condition of our navy was far better than it had been fifteen years before, when he wrote his "Naval History of the War of 1812." On the other hand, our navy was not prepared for war. Of this he was fully aware, and he devoted all his energy and force to making the navy ready, for he made no secret of his firm conviction that affairs in Cuba were in such a precarious state that intervention in the island by the United States would be necessary. Furthermore, he believed that it was the moral duty of the United States to end Spanish misrule in Cuba and to stop at once and forever the despotic tyranny of the Spanish GovernorGeneral, Weyler, the shooting of unarmed men and women, and the herding of thousands of reconcentrados (country people forced to leave their homes) into camps and garrisoned towns. He made no pretense of concealing his own views, though it was currently believed in Washington at the time that his desire to speed up a war1 program was not shared by his chief. The Secretary of the Navy, who had been president of the Massachusetts Peace Society, was perhaps inclined to-view the activities of his assistant as those of a youthful zealot. But Roosevelt, eager to have the department placed upon a basis of preparedness, sought frequent audience with President McKinley. Washington told of a certain carriage ride along the Poto I g Underwood & URAdewood, N. Y, Photo by Cinedinst, Washington. D. C, COL. WOOD 1)AND L), E-COL. ROOSE T ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY ROOSEVELT A picture taken at the outbreak of the Spaish-Americ War. Called back into the Fderal se iee on the eve of the Spanish-Amerian war, Mr. Roosevelt did a great national service by bringing the avy to a state of prepared s which ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 121 mac when "the rattle of the wheels and the jangle of the harness was completely drowned out by the flow of conversation that came from the interior of the brougham." The ride may be the creation of a reporter's brain but the story, like a good caricature, contains an essential truth. The President was striving to avert war; the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was striving to prepare the navy for the war that he deemed imminent. In a Cabinet meeting to which he was summoned one day in March, 1898, he is reported to have replied to some statement of a Cabinet officer: "The coming war-don't speak to me about the coming war, it's here. It's been war for six weeks and we have lost one of our battleships." He believed the blowing up of the Maine had forced the issue: he believed the people were ardently for war with Spain, and that they were right. Some of the members of the President's Cabinet held out for peace, others had formed no definite conclusion, and the President himself was still deliberating on what course to pursue. But not the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He had a working plan for the conduct of the war, and, furthermore, he submitted it. "When the President learned that Mr. Roosevelt had formed a definite opinion about what the situation demanded," says Francis E. Leupp in "The Man Roosevelt," "he sent for him one morning and listened to his plans. When the question was discussed in the Cabinet the same day, the President remarked with a smile, 'Gentlemen, not one of you has put half as much enthusiasm into his expression as Mr. Roosevelt, our Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He has laid out the whole programme of the war.' " 'Could you not induce him to work out a written 122 THEODORE ROOSEVELT report as a model for us?' queried one of the members of the Cabinet in the same tone as that of the President. "'I can do better than that,' replied President McKinley, 'I can call him in and let you hear for yourselves."' It is related that Roosevelt accepted the invitation and in vigorous style, after the President had given him a few leading questions, ran through his programme, while every Cabinet officer listened intently. He put more enthusiasm in it, with facile expression and gesture, than the President had been able to give in his first report. When he left, the President smiled. A few of his Cabinet members smiled too, and there were still others who could find nothing impressive in what they were pleased to regard as "radicalism" and "exaggeration" and "enthusiasm." But Washington rang with the story that night and for some days afterward. At the time of the sinking of the Maine our navy consisted of ninety vessels. Twenty-one of these were unserviceable, twenty-seven were out of commission and forty-two were in commission. Of those in commission, six were in the East Indies, eight on the coast of Africa, seven on the Pacific coast, twelve in home ports, three on the European station and six in South Atlantic waters. Had she struck at that moment Spain might have accomplished mischief. But, just as Great Britain marshaled her fleet in the North Sea in the summer of 1914, so the Navy Department, in the winter of 1898, began calling our navy home. Roosevelt had a prominent and allimportant part in that mobilization. The buying of new ships and the conversion of merchant marine into men-of-war devolved largely upon the Assistant Secretary. With consummate zeal he set about the task. Congress first voted $50,000,000 for war pur ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 123 poses, of which more than half went to the navy. Later the navy received more than $57,000,000 in all. Roosevelt sent Captain W. H. Brownson abroad to buy ships. But foreign nations were averse to any entanglements with a belligerent growing out of the disposition of ships of war and were loath to sell. However, he did succeed in getting the cruisers Amazones and Abreu from Brazil, the gunboat Diogenes from England and two torpedo-boats. In quick succession ninety-seven merchantmen were purchased at home and transformed into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. Fifteen revenue cutters, four lighthouse tenders and two U. S. Fish Commission vessels were pressed into service. Not the least of Roosevelt's troubles was the profiteer. One of the great needs of the hour was coaling vessels. And of these, "many were called but few were chosen." They were rejected in part because of their unseaworthy condition. In spite of the exercise of his best care and judgment he frequently found vessels wished upon the navy by designing agents which looked all right in port but not in the open sea laden with a full cargo. He protested against the exorbitant prices asked, and the inferior bottoms offered. But the government had to have the ships and he found himself frequently in a dilemma. Mr. Leupp records a striking instance of the way he vented his wrath upon the "profiteers." "I burst in upon him one day at the department, without warning, and found him in the middle of the floor indulging in some very spirited talk to a visitor. As I was hastily withdrawing he called me back. "'Stay here,' said he, 'I want to see you.' Then he turned very abruptly from me and again faced the third party, in whom I recognized, as the light fell on his face, 124 THEODORE ROOSEVELT a lawyer of some prominence and an officeholder under a previous administration. Mr. Roosevelt's teeth were set, and very much in evidence, in the peculiar way they always are when he is angry. His spectacle lenses seemed to throw off electric sparks as his head moved quickly this way and that in speaking; and his right fist came down from time to time upon the opposite palm as if it were an adversary's face. And this was about the way he delivered himself: "'Don't you feel ashamed to come to me today with another offer after what you did yesterday? Don't you think that to sell one rotten ship to the government is enough for a single week? Are you in such a hurry that you couldn't wait even over Sunday to force your damaged goods upon the United States? Is it an excess of patriotism that brings you here day after day, in this way, or only your realization of our necessities?' "'Why, our clients'- began the lawyer. "'Yes, I know all about your clients,' burst in the Assistant Secretary. 'I congratulate them on having an attorney who will do work for them which they wouldn't have the face to do for themselves. I should think, after having enjoyed the honors that you have had at the hands of the government, you'd feel a keen pride in your present occupation! No, I don't want any more of your old tubs. The one I bought yesterday is good for nothing except to sink somewhere in the path of the enemy's fleet. It will be God's mercy if she doesn't go down with brave men on her-men who go to war and risk their lives, instead of staying home to sell rotten hulks to the government!' "The air of the attorney as he bowed himself out was almost pitiable. The special glint did not fade from Mr. Roosevelt's glasses, nor did his jaw relax or his fist unclinch ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 125 till the door closed on the retreating figure. Then his face lighted with a smile as he advanced to greet me. "'You came just in time,' he cried. 'I wanted you to hear what I had to say to that fellow; not'-and here his voice rose on the high falsetto wave which is always a sign that he is enjoying an idea while framing it in words'not that it would add materially to the sum of your pleasure, but that it would humiliate him to have any one present while I gave him his punishment. It is the only means I have of getting even. " Everywhere the lack of ships and materials and facilities crossed the path of the Assistant Secretary. He, however, cut through red tape, disregarded the conventions of the department and, upon his own initiative, proceeded with the task of making ready. Not content with speeding up manufacturing processes at home he went into foreign markets to procure munitions and supplies. Upon one occasion he ordered from Great Britain a shipload of smokeless powder. Ten days after the order had been given a big steamship appeared off the Maine coast. She was reported as a derelict. United States sailors were sent to board her, and they found the English crew had left her drifting with her cargo. She was taken to the Boston yard where the ammunition was unloaded. A short time later, after the war began, Senator Gorman, of Maryland, a member of the Naval Committee, called upon President McKinley and urged that restrictions be placed upon authority to. order munitions, incidentally using Mr. Roosevelt's action as an argument. With a smile, President McKinley, who had just received the resignation of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, with the announcement that he was going into 126 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the army, answered the irate Senator: "Mr. Roosevelt retires today to go to the front." In connection with his efforts to buy ships Roosevelt himself related the following story: "One day in the spring of 1898, when it fell to my lot to get the navy ready for war, I and my naval aid, Lieutenant Sharpe, went out to buy auxiliary cruisers. On this particular day we had spent about $7,000,000. It began to rain. 'Sharpe,' I said, 'I have only four cents in my pocket. Lend me a cent or five cents; will you, so that I can ride home?' Sharp answered: 'I haven't a single cent,' and I answered him, 'Never mind, Sharp, that's why we will beat the Spaniards! It isn't every country where two public servants could spend $7,000,000 and not have a cent in their pockets after they are through." Facilities for taking care of the ships in the navy were so poor that at one time in 1897 the battleship Indiana had to be sent to Halifax to have the bottom scraped and cleaned. On the score of ammunition the Assistant Secretary made the remarkable discovery, when he came into the department in 1897, that nine shots for each ship were to serve for a year's target practice! Appropriations for naval target practice had been utterly ridiculous. "Regulations for target practice, issued on June 22, 1897," says John R. Spears in "The History of our Navy," provided that each gun of a caliber of ten inches or greater should be fired once with a full service charge, and eight times with a reduced charge every-well, now, in what period of time does the uninformed reader suppose? Every month, in order to make our man behind the gun the most skilful in the world? That would be a reasonable guess, but those nine shots were to serve for a year's target-practice!.... Even the guns of ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 127 the rapid-fire batteries of four-inch and five-inch caliber which we were to use in repelling a torpedo-boat destroyer later on, were to be fired but twenty-five times a year. But Roosevelt changed all that. The pop and roar of target-practice made the welkin ring the whole day long where the ships of our squadron lay." Although the relations between Secretary Long and his assistant were of the most pleasant nature, the two executives proceeded along different lines of action: While Long remained conservative and cautious Roosevelt forged ahead on an ambitious scale that kept employees of the department, heads of bureaus and naval officers asking, "What next?" The difference in the heads of the Navy Department can be aptly illustrated by two stories that have come to my attention. When the Maine was blown up, hot indignation raged in the hearts of many naval officers. Among this number was "Fighting Bob" (Robley D.) Evans, who, in a few months, was to gain undying fame at Santiago. Evans, a few days after the Maine disaster, said to Secretary Long: "If I had been in Admiral Sicard's (then leader of the North Atlantic squadron) place I would have taken my entire squadron into Havana harbor next morning, and then I would have said to them, 'Now, we'll investigate this matter, and let you know what we think of it at once.' "If you had done that," the Secretary is recorded as having replied, "you would have been recalled and severely reprimanded." "I don't doubt that, sir:" "Fighting Bob" replied, "but the people would have made me President at the next election." Contrast the modus operandi of the Roosevelt 128 THEODORE ROOSEVELT brain! One day during the early part of his tenure of office in the Navy Department a high officer of the navy, noted for his knowledge of nautical technique, walked into Mr. Roosevelt's office and, in the course of a conversation, remarked, in an absent-minded sort of way: "I certainly think the gunboat Annapolis should be barkantine rigged." Mr. Roosevelt, with his customary vigor, and perhaps recognizing the other's superior knowledge of naval matters, impulsively jumped up from the chair, banged his fist on his desk and cried: "Why, of course she should, Admiral. Of course she should. I'll see that it is done." Taking his cue from the Admiral, the Assistant Secretary sat down at once and dictated a score of letters to naval constructors and naval officers asking their views on the matter. When the replies to the questionnaire were all in, Mr. Roosevelt sent for the chief constructor. "I have here," he said, "about twenty letters from some of the best men in the navy, and every one of them says he thinks the gunboat Annapolis should be barkantine rigged." "I think so, too," said the constructor. "Then why isn't she barkantine rigged?" demanded Mr. Roosevelt with some heat. And forthwith the Annapolis was barkantine rigged! The alarmists were busy when the news came from the Cape Verde Islands that the Spanish fleet was headed across the Atlantic. The agitation resulted in changing some of the navy's plans. Mobilization of our fleets had begun in January, when the battleship Maine was ordered to Havana. The North Atlantic squadron was sent to the Florida drill grounds loaded with ammunition and ordered ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 129 to engage in daily target practice. Vessels in European station were ordered home. The South Atlantic squadron was ordered from Brazil to Key West. The Nation's naval resources were mobilized within ninety miles of Cuba and held ready for a surprise attack. But in the meantime the cry for protection of the Atlantic coast was raised in many quarters just as it developed after our entry into the world war and the alarmists felt apprehensive over possible German submarine attacks. Roosevelt helped dispel these fears by assisting Secretary Long in the organization of a "Flying Squadron" to be maneuvered in defense of the Atlantic coast cities, and still another northern patrol fleet for service off the Middle Atlantic and New England coasts. Roosevelt regarded the sending of the Spanish fleet to Cuba as a cause of war, and approved of sending a squadron to it without waiting for a more formal declaration of war. Mr. Leupp gives the following account of a characteristic conversation: "One Sunday morning in March, 1898, we were sitting in his library discussing the significance of the news that Cervera's squadron was about to sail for Cuba, when he suddenly arose and brought his hands together with a resounding clap. "'If I could do what I pleased,' he exclaimed, 'I would send Spain notice today that we should consider her despatch of that squadron a hostile act. Then, if she didn't heed the warning, she would have to take the consequences.' "'You are sure,' I asked, 'that it is with unfriendly intent that she is sending her squadron?' "'What else can it be? The Cubans have no navy; therefore the squadron can not be coming to fight the insurgents. The only naval power interested in Cuban 9 130 THEODORE ROOSEVELT affairs is the United States. Spain is simply forestalling the "brush" which she knows, as we do, is coming sooner or later.' "'And if she refused to withdraw the orders to Cervera?' "'I should send out a squadron to meet his on the high seas and smash it! Then I would force the fighting from that day to the end of the war.'" Even cfter Cervera's squadron was cornered in the harbor of Santiago there were many who held that the impending clash with the Spanish ships would be a minor matter, in so far as the strategic'conduct of the war was concerned; that the decisive conflict would be fought on land in the vicinity of Havana. Roosevelt knew that the fleet had put into Santiago without coal instead of proceeding to Cienfuegos where it would be in rail contact with Havana. He figured that the squadron of Cervera must eventually make a break for liberty and take its chances with the American fleet on guard, and he reasoned that the small Spanish army in the vicinity of Santiago, shut off from reinforcements by the lack of rail connection with Havana, would first be defeated by General Shafter's troops. With the army defeated he had no doubt as to the fleet's inability to stand up before the American navy. How well he reasoned in the matter was proved by subsequent events. His deductions were borne out in realistic detail! This subtle knack of anticipating the enemy was characteristic. During all the time that he was aiding in the preparation of the navy for the task in hand, and months before the sinking of the Maine he pointed out that the twin theaters of the war would be the West Indies and the far Philippines. Examination of the ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 131 records shows that the far-sighted steps taken by the Navy Department in planting coaling stations, supply depots and maintaining warships at strategic points, contributed valuably to the splendid victory of Dewey at Manila. Roosevelt had coal at Hong Kong. He sent colliers into the Pacific and bought other vessels to carry supplies. It was his order that turned back the Olympia, Dewey's flagship at Manila, when it was headed for the Mare Island Navy Yard, to the far Pacific station in the Yellow Sea. It was due in great measure to his sagacity that the cruiser Baltimore arrived at Hong Kong just in time to join Dewey and depart with the flotilla for Manila after the Chinese authorities had proclaimed the neutrality of the port. Roosevelt was a staunch supporter of Dewey. He stood solidly for his retention when high naval officials and politicians were urging the selection of another leader for the Pacific fleet. San Francisco and a few other western cities objected to the selection of Dewey. They had in mind a "favorite son." But Roosevelt stood to his guns. One day a delegation called upon him to protest against the Dewey appointment. Roosevelt heard them through and then answered them rather vehemently: "Gentlemen, I can't agree with you. We have looked up his record. We have looked him straight in the eyes. He is a fighter. We'll not change now. Pleased to have met you. Good-day, gentlemen." For a time there was the suggestion of a controversy as to who had sent the message to Admiral Dewey directing him to proceed to Manila and destroy the Spanish fleet. It was Secretary Long who, on April 24, 1898, sent the following message to Dewey at Hong Kong: "War has commenced between the United States and 132 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Spain. Proceed at once to the Philippine Islands. Begin operations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavors." It was Roosevelt, however, who did more than any one else in the department to enable Dewey to have his fleet on edge for a conflict that was to signalize to the whole world the prowess of the new American navy. On February 25th, just after the destruction of the Maine at Havana, and more than two months before Dewey's fleet defied Cavit6 and bearded the "Dons" in their Philippine den, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy sent the following message: "Secret and confidential. Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war with Spain your duty will be to see-that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in the Philippine Islands. (Signed) ROOSEVELT." When the Navy Department ordered the Olympia home, it was Roosevelt who interceded and had the order revoked. He then sent this cablegram to Dewey: "Keep the Olympia. Provide yourself with coal." The coal! It was Roosevelt who thus kept ready the essential supplies so that the ships might move when the time came. As against this policy of preparedness we may compare the policy of the Spanish Admiralty in ordering Cervera to sea without advance preparations for coaling his fleet.- Had Cervera had coal he might have made Cienfuegos, to which point the bulk of the Spanish army of twenty thousand in the vicinity of Havana might have been transported. For lack of it, Cervera put into Santiago, at which point occurred the final disaster to Spanish arms. Secretary Long, in spite of rumors to the contrary, had ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NAVY 133 a distinct admiration for Roosevelt, though he by no means always agreed with him. Their points of view and temperaments were as wide apart as the poles. The Secretary was not a man to "start something" every fifteen minutes; Roosevelt was. Writing some time after the war, Mr. Long, in recounting Roosevelt's connection with and work in the department, says: "His activity was characteristic. He was zealous in the work of putting the navy in condition for the apprehended struggle. His ardor sometimes went faster than the President or the department approved. He worked indefatigably, frequently incorporating his views in memoranda which he would place every morning on my desk. Most of his suggestions had, however, so far as applicable, been already adopted by the various bureaus the chiefs of which were straining every nerve and leaving nothing undone. When I suggested to him that some future historian reading his memoranda, if they were put on record, would get the impression that the bureaus were inefficient, he accepted the suggestion with the generous good nature which is so marked in him. Indeed, nothing could be pleasanter than our relations. He was heart and soul in his work. His typewriters had no rest. He, like most of us, lacks the rare knack of brevity. He was especially stimulating to the younger officers who gathered about him, and made his office as busy as a hive. He was especially helpful in the purchasing of ships and in every line where he could push on the work of preparation for war." Somewhat hesitating praise, perhaps, but enough to show that the country was right in its belief that it owed much that had been done in the year preceding the Spanish War to the far-sightedness, energy and ability of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. CHAPTER IX COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS A FEW weeks after the outbreak of the war with Spain, Mr. William Potter, of Philadelphia, formerly the United States Ambassador to Italy, called on the Assistant Secretary of the Navy at his office in Washington. Roosevelt said: "I leave for the front tomorrow. Everybody in Washington whose opinion I respect, the President, the Secretary, and even Mrs. Roosevelt, think I can be of more service by remaining at my post in the Navy Department, but I have always said if my country ever engaged in war, I should take part, so I am going off tomorrow." He believed that as he had preached with all the fervor and zeal he possessed our duty to intervene in Cuba, now that war had come to drive the Spaniard from the western world it was incumbent on him to take an active part in it, not in Washington, but at the front. Even before war was declared, he and his friend, Doctor, now General, Leonard Wood, had been planning how to get to the front when war came. Roosevelt's first effort, which was to secure a position in a New York regiment, failed. Then the provision in the act of Congress providing for three cavalry regiments to be recruited in all parts of the United States gave him his opportunity. Leonard Wood was the physician of the Secretary of War, Russell Alexander Alger. As the one member of the Cabinet who always believed that war (134) COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 135 with Spain was inevitable, the Secretary had always sympathized with Roosevelt's point of view. It was therefore not a difficult matter for him to persuade the Secretary that Wood should be appointed colonel, and himself lieutenant-colonel of the "First United States Volunteer Cavalry." Indeed, Roosevelt might have secured the colonelcy for himself, making Wood lieutenant-colonel, but he wisely determined that he had not as yet sufficient experience to command a regiment. Colonel Wood at once devoted all his time to recruiting the regiment and securing the necessary supplies, the latter, in view of the entire unreadiness of the War Department for war, a most difficult undertaking. Wood preceded Roosevelt to San Antonio, the place selected for the mobilization of the regiment, Roosevelt remaining in Washington to finish his work at the Navy Department. Indeed, he did not resign as Assistant Secretary until May 6th. His chief, Secretary Long, has left us an interesting picture of this period of transition from one branch of the service to another: "His (Roosevelt's) room in the Navy Department, after his decision to enter the army, which preceded by some time his resignation as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was an interesting scene. It bubbled over with enthusiasm and was filled with bright young fellows from all over the country, college graduates and old associates from the western ranches, all eager to serve Roosevelt. The Rough Rider uniform was in evidence; it filled the corridors-guns, uniforms, all sorts of military traps, and piles of paper littered the Assistant Secretary's room, but it was all the very inspiration of young manhood." When it was announced that Wood and Roosevelt were organizing a cavalry regiment, telegrams poured in 136 THEODORE ROOSEVELT from men all over the country who were eager to join it. They could have raised a brigade, as far as men were concerned, without the slightest trouble. From the fact that many cowboys and other "rough-and-ready Westerners" were accepted, the regiment became known in the army and by the people as the "Rough Riders"-a term taken from the slang of the circus. Its colonels did not relish the title at first, but it "stuck," and, like many another term applied in humor or derision, it became a title of honor. It was made up of the greatest variety of men, with the strongest contrasts possible to bring together. Roosevelt, in his book, "The Rough Riders," has described its paradoxical make-up: "We drew recruits from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and many another college; from clubs like the Somerset of Boston, and Knickerbocker of New York; and from among the men who belonged. neither to club nor to college. Four of the policemen who had served under me while I was president of the New York Police Board insisted on coming. It seemed to me that almost every friend I had in every state had some one acquaintance who was bound to go with the Rough Riders, and for whom I had to make a place. "Harvard being my own college, I had such a swarm of applications from it that I could not take one in ten. They did not ask for commissions. With hardly an exception they entered upon their duties as troopers in the spirit which they held to the end. Not a man of them backed out; not one of them failed to do his duty. "Then I went down to San Antonio, where Wood preceded me, and found the men from New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma already gathered, while those from Indian Territory came in soon after my arrival. ar o A v; ~ 0 ASb e COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 137 "All-Easterners and Westerners, Northerners and Southerners, officers and men, cow boys and college graduates, wherever they came from, whatever their social position-possessed in common the traits of hardihood and a thirst for adventure. They were to a man born adventurers, in the old sense of the word. Some of them went by their own names; some had changed their names; and yet others possessed but half a name, colored by some adjective, like Cherokee Bill, Happy Jack of Arizona, Smoky Moore, the broncho-buster, and Rattlesnake Pete. Some were professional gamblers, and on the other hand, no less than four had been or were Baptist or Methodist clergymen-and proved first-class fighters, by the way. "From the Indian Territory there came a number of Indians-Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks. One of the gamest and best fighters of the regiment was Pollock, a full-blooded Pawnee. Another Indian came from Texas. His name was Colbert; he was an excellent man, and a descendant of the old Chickasaw chiefs. "There were men who had won fame as Rocky Mountain stage-drivers, or who had spent endless days guiding the slow wagon-trains across the grassy plains. There were miners who knew every camp from the Yukon to Leadville, and cow-punchers in whose memories were stored the brands carried by the herds from Chihuahua to Assinaboid." Also there was a North Carolina mountaineer who had hunted "moonshiners," a bear-hunter from Wyoming, and a big buffalo-hunter. One "high private" had been chief of scouts in the Kiel Rebellion, in the wild northwestern region of Canada, and there was a famous broncho-buster named McGinty, who could not march in 138 THEODORE ROOSEVELT step because he had spent most of his life on horseback. He said if he had a horse he could make it march all right. There was an Italian trumpeter who had seen service in Egypt and southern China. Of their names among themselves, their, Colonel added: "The men speedily gave one another nicknames, largely conferred in a spirit of derision, their basis lying in contrast. A brave but fastidious member of a wellknown eastern club, who was serving in the ranks, was christened 'Tough Ike;' and his bunkie, the man who shared his shelter-tent, who was a decidedly rough cowpuncher, gradually acquired the name of 'The Dude.' One unlucky and simple-minded cow-puncher, who had never been east of the great plains in his life, unwarily boasted that he had an aunt in New York, and ever afterward went by the name of 'Metropolitan Bill.' A huge, red-headed Irishman was named 'Sheeny Solomon.' A young Jew who developed into one of the best fighters in the regiment, accepted, with entire equanimity, the name of 'Pork-chop.' We had quite a number of professional gamblers, who, I am bound to say, usually made good soldiers. One, who was almost abnormally quiet and gentle, was called 'Hell Roarer;' while another, who, in point of language and deportment, was his exact opposite, was christened 'Prayerful James.'" "Embarrassment of riches" was the greatest problem confronting the two colonels of the First Volunteer Cavalry. The question was not whom to accept, but whom to reject. The Rough Riders came together through the evolutionary process of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest"-to fight, for they were a nondescript company of born fighters and fighters by preference and training. COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 139 When the regiment was complete-up to the increased quota of one thousand men-its leading officers found that their troubles were only beginning-not on account of the men, however, but because of the delays in transportation and the improvident, if not absolutely corrupt, commissary conditions. On the 29th of May, 1898, they were enabled to leave San Antonio, Texas, for Tampa, Florida, where they were to embark for Cuba. They spent four hot days and humid nights on-the way. Colonel Roosevelt, in order to see that his men were made as comfortable as possible, waited for the seventh and last train. Then he rode in a dirty old ramshackle day-coach, which was overcrowded and uncomfortable, because he had given his sleeping-car berth to a sick soldier. The rations issued, bad as they were, proved insufficint before they reached their port of embarkation. The Rough Riders had already appealed to the heart of the country-especially in hospitable, chivalrous Dixie-so that their trains were greeted by cheering crowds, and pretty girls met the boys at, the stations, swapping bouquets for brass buttons, until the soldiers hardly had the necessary complement left. Their uniforms were a novelty, in America, at least, with the broad-brimmed hats and "dust-colored" suits. Uniforms of that hue were first worn by British soldiers in India-the word for dusty in the Hindoo speech being khaki. The British Indian "khaki" was afterward modified to olive green. When they finally reached Tampa, they found everything in confusion. After wasting nearly a week it was suddenly announced that they were to sail from Port Tampa, nine miles away, early the next day. Trains were supposed to be provided, but as they did not 140 THEODORE ROOSEVELT materialize, the two colonels and their men took possession of some empty coal cars and "by various means" not stated, induced the engineer to back down to Tampa, where they arrived covered with coal dust, but with all their belongings and before the hour named for departure. The wharf was jammed with over 10,000 troops. No one seemed to know which troops were to go upon any particular transport. When they finally were assigned a transport, the Yucatan, Roosevelt discovered that the same ship had been assigned to two other regiments, one of which was sufficient to fill the vessel to overflowing. Accordingly he ran at full speed back to the coal train, double-quicked the men on to the wharf, and had them take possession of the vessel the moment it touched the wharf. In this case, possession was eleven points of the law. The men were packed like sardines-hot, steaming and uncomfortable, but they would have reconciled themselves to anything for the sake of getting into the fight. Next day they received word that the vessels were not to sail, but await further orders. There followed a delay of nearly a week in their cramped quarters, Colonel Roosevelt tells us that "The travel rations which had been issued to the men for the voyage were insufficient, because the meat was very bad indeed; and when a ration consists of only four or five items, which, taken together, just meet the requirements of a strong and healthy man, the loss of one item is a serious thing. If we had been given canned corn-beef, we would have been all right, but instead of this, the soldiers were issued horrible stuff called 'canned fresh beef.' There was no salt in it. At the best, it was stringy and tasteless; at the worst it was nauseating. Not one-fourth of it was ever eaten at all, even when the COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 141 men became very hungry. There were no facilities for the men to cook anything. There was no ice for them; the water was not good; and they had no fresh meat or fresh vegetables." Finally the transport started. Sailing southward and east along the northern shore of Cuba, they rounded its eastern end and disembarked at Daiquiri, near the entrance to the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. The officers were permitted to bring their horses. Colonel Roosevelt brought two —"Texas" and "Rain-in-the-Face." In swimming ashore, "Rain-in-the-Face" was drowned. The landing was effected under the protection of a heavy bombardment from American warships. According to a red-tape regulation by which uniforms for winter were issued in summer, the men received winter clothing for a midsummer campaign in the tropics. Their woolen clothing added to the horrors of the almost-equatorial sun and the daily downpour of warm rains. Throwing away their garments like a routed army, they trudged wearily back from the coast toward the town of Santiago. The regular foot-soldiers seemed to enjoy the predicament of the much-heralded Rough Riders and dubbed them "Wood's Weary Walkers." At night they dried their remaining clothing before their campfires. Colonels Wood and Roosevelt, unable to wait at the landing-place for their personal baggage, took with them only their raincoats and toothbrushes. Marching, Indian file, through jungles and morasses, they soon encountered the Spaniards. They were made aware of the presence of the enemy by hearing, overhead, a peculiar singing like that of telegraph wires. Then the singing changed to "zip-zip-zip" through the tall grass, but they did not realize the cause of the uncanny 142 THEODORE ROOSEVELT sounds till they heard sickening thuds and saw their comrades fall. The sounds were produced by Mauser bullets which, by revolving and exploding, made jagged and painful wounds. Both Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt persisted in sharing the hardships and privations of the men in the ranks, and in going before the men into battle, though the privates protested against their leaders exposing themselves in this reckless way. The plainsmen, accustomed to remounting and going on with a round-up, even with a broken arm or leg, could not understand why they should stop fighting when wounded. Colonel Roosevelt, noticing a bronchobuster bleeding profusely, ordered the man to the rear. He hobbled away, but had returned in fifteen minutes with his wound bandaged. Another case of humoring his superior officer was that of Rowland, of New Mexico. The Colonel noticed that he was wounded. "Where are you hurt, Rowland?" he inquired. "Aw, they caved in a couple of ribs on me, I reckon," answered the man. Colonel Roosevelt ordered him to go to the hospital and let them take care of him there. This being the New Mexican's first engagement, he argued against going; but the Colonel's order was peremptory, so he started back, grumbling. In about half an hour Colonel Roosevelt saw Rowland fighting again in the front ranks. "I thought you were told to go to the hospital," he said to the man. "Aw-I couldn't find the hospital," said Rowland, exasperated. Major-General "Fighting Joe" Wheeler was in com COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 143 mand of the whole force at this time, but the Rough Riders were brigaded with the First and Tenth Regular Cavalry, under General S. M. B. Young, who had said to Roosevelt and Wood, months before: "If war comes, I will try to have you attached to my command, if I have one, and I'll give you a chance to see some fighting." General Young kept his word. The action at Las Guasimas, on June 24th, two days after the landing at Daiquiri, was the Rough Riders' baptism of fire. They lost eight men killed and thirty-four wounded. It was in this battle that Captain Capron, who, Roosevelt said, was perhaps the best soldier in the regiment, and Sergeant Hamilton Fish, Jr., lost their lives. At first, Wood and Roosevelt had some difficulty with their men, who had a tendency to fight, each man on his own account, as Indians, or, in their eagerness, would crowd together and impede each other. The Rough Riders who fell are buried in a common grave. Of them, Colonel Roosevelt has said: "Indian and cowboy, miner, packer and college athlete-the man of unknown ancestry from the lonely western plains and the man who carried on his watch the crests of the Stuyvesants and the Fishes-were one in the way they had met death, just as during life they had been one in their daring and their loyalty." That evening, a Spanish officer said to the British Consul at Santiago: "The Americans do not fight like other men. When we fire, they run right toward us. We are not used to fighting men who act so." General Young was taken ill with fever and as Colonel Wood had to take his place, Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt 144 THEODORE ROOSEVELT took command, as Colonel of the First Volunteer Cavalry. After nearly a week of inaction, an order came, on June 30th, to hold themselves in readiness. That night they slept on El Paso Hill, where the soldiers found some good food left by Spaniards in their flight. Colonel Roosevelt, instead of appropriating a building for his headquarters, slept on the ground, with his raincoat for covering, and his saddle for a pillow. Next morning, July 1st, the battle began, near Santiago-at El Caney and San Juan Hill. Colonel Roosevelt rode Texas. They could see the enemy, intrenched on an eminence which was afterwards called "Kettle Hill." The regular troops did not advance. Colonel Roosevelt rode up to the regular army officer and said, "I am ordered to support you in your attack." The regular officer merely nodded assent. "And you are waiting for orders to advance?" Colonel Roosevelt continued. The officer nodded again. "Then I am the ranking officer here, and I give you the order to attack.' The surprised officer hesitated, looking doubtfully at the insistent Colonel. "Then let my men through, Sir," said the Colonel, and his men went through, grinning. The regulars, with a whoop, followed them, and as the Colonel waved his hat, they all went up the hill in a rush. Colonel Roosevelt dismounted and turned Texas loose, leading his men on foot. There was hot and incessant firing on both sides. The Americans were at a disadvantage, as they had common black powder, while the enemy's powder was smokeless. It was here that Colonel Roosevelt received his only wound, when a bullet nicked his elbow. COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 145 When they had taken Kettle Hill, the next objective was San Juan Hill. Of the famous capture of this stronghold, Colonel Roosevelt has given the following account, in "The Rough Riders:'.' "The infantry got nearer and nearer the crest of the hill. At last we could see the Spaniards running from the rifle-pits as the Americans came on in their final rush. Then I stopped my men, for fear they should injure their comrades, and called to them to charge the next line of trenches on the hills in our front, from which we had been undergoing a good deal of punishment. "Thinking that the men would all come I jumped over the wire fence in front of us, and started at the double; but as a matter of fact, the troopers were so excited, what with shooting and being shot, and shouting and cheering, that they did not hear or did not heed me; and after running about a hundred yards, I found I had only five men along with me." (One of these was mortally wounded and another shot in the leg.) "There was no use going on with the remaining three men, and I bade them stay where they were while I went back and brought up the rest of the brigade... They cheerfully nodded and sat down in the grass, firing back at the line of trenches from which the Spaniards were shooting at them. "Meanwhile, I ran back, jumped over the wire fence, and went over the crest of the hill, filled with anger against the troopers, and especially those of my own regiment, for not having accompanied me. They, of course, were quite innocent of wrong-doing; and even while I taunted them bitterly for not having followed me, it was all I could do not to smile at the look of inquiry and surprise that came over their faces, while they cried out: 10 146 THEODORE ROOSEVELT "We didn't hear you-we didn't see you go, Colonel; lead on, now, we'll sure follow you." Back they went, up San Juan Hill, the regulars, white and black, mixed with the Rough Riders. The Rough Riders accepted the colored regulars with hearty good will, and were willing, in their own phrase, "to drink out of the same canteen." The day's losses were heavy. Out of less than five hundred Rough Riders engaged, eighty-nine were killed or wounded, the greatest loss of any regiment in the cavalry division engaged. This was the final engagement of the war. A fortnight later Santiago surrendered, and the army settled down to await further orders from Washington. The health of the troops was poor, and they were ravished by dysentery and malaria. The War Department apparently took no interest in the situation, and could not be persuaded to issue the necessary orders for the return of the army to the United States. At last, General Shafter called a council of his division and brigade commanders and his chief medical officers. Roosevelt, who had been made commander of his brigade, attended the conference. All agreed that an authoritative publication should be made which would compel action by the War Department before it was too late. The officers of the regular army were afraid to incur the hostility of their superiors at Washington, and therefore persuaded Roosevelt to make the necessary statement. This he did, putting it in the form of a letter to Shafter. When he handed the letter to Shafter, the General refused to take it, but passed it on to the correspondent of the Associated Press, who was present. At the same time, General Ames made a statement to the correspondent, COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 147 and General Wood wrote a round-robin letter addressed to General Shafter, in which Roosevelt and others joined, setting forth the precarious situation of the army. As a result of these representations, the necessary orders were finally issued, and the army began its homeward journey. The Rough Riders debarked at Montauk Point, at the extreme eastern end of Long Island. The newspapers reported at the time that when the vessel neared the wharf, the Colonel was observed leaning over the stern. Some one on the wharf called to him, inquiring whether he had had a good time. "Yes," he shouted back, "we had a bully fight." True or not, the story is characteristic. CHAPTER X GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK N O sooner had Roosevelt landed at Montauk Point, than he became the center of political interest. The situation of the Republican party in New York was at this time critical in the extreme. In the 1897 mayoralty contest in New York City, United States Senator Thomas C. Platt's stalwarts had broken with the independents, and as a result the Democrats had not only elected their candidate for mayor but had also carried the state by a majority of 61,000. In the coming campaign for Governor, Governor Black was considered a weak candidate for re-election. During his administration the control of the state canals had given rise to serious scandals, which afforded excellent campaign material for the Democrats. The Republicans faced defeat unless they could find a nominee who would be acceptable not only to the party leaders but also to the independents. Platt was at this time the undisputed leader of the Republican party in New York State. He had been active in the organization for twenty-five years and he owned it, lock, stock and barrel. He was reluctant to endorse Roosevelt for the nomination, because Roosevelt was not the type of Republican to whom he was accustomed to give orders. But a desperate situation demanded a desperate remedy, and repeated suggestions from local leaders indicated that Roosevelt was the only man who might conceivably pull the party through. In this state of affairs Lemuel E. Quigg, an old friend (148) GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 149 of Roosevelt's and an active man in the party, called upon the Colonel in the camp at Montauk Point. He was anxious to know not only whether Roosevelt would accept the nomination, if it were offered to him, but also whether if he were elected he would immediately make war upon Senator Platt and the Senator's lieutenants, disregarding their advice and wishes entirely. Roosevelt answered that he wanted to be Governor, that if he were to become Governor he would not make war upon Senator Platt or upon anyone else unless compelled to do so; that he would consult organization men and independents alike; but that in every question the final decision would necessarily be his own, arrived at according to the dictates of his own conscience and in the exercise of his best judgment. With this statement Quigg was satisfied, and with it Senator Platt was perforce content. Meanwhile, the independents of the Citizens' Union Party had tendered to Roosevelt the nomination for the governorship. He gave careful consideration to their proposal but was inclined to feel that his place was within his own party. On a morning toward the end of September came the time for a final decision. As he was breakfasting at his sister's house in New York, he turned to one of his friends, who has repeated the conversation to me, and said: "This morning in this house two delegations are to be here-one, the Citizens Union Party, who say that if I take the regular Republican nomination for Governor of New York, I will be a 'dead cock in the pit' politically, and the other is a committee of the New York Republicans, to offer me the regular nomination for Governor. I shall accept it, as I believe I have a better chance to do good by cleaning up the Republican party within the organization." 150 THEODORE ROOSEVELT In carrying his determination into effect, he wrote a letter to the independents in which, after declining the honor which they had offered him, he said: "I write this with great reluctance, for I wish the support of every independent. If elected Governor, I would try to serve the state as a whole, and to serve my party by helping to serve the state. I should greatly like the aid of the independents and I appreciate the importance of the independent vote, but I cannot accept a nomination on terms that would make me feel disloyal to the principles for which I stand, or at the cost of acting with what seems to me bad faith towards my associates." On September 27th, the Republican State Convention met at Saratoga. The names of Governor Black and of Theodore Roosevelt were both placed before the convention. Black had a considerable following, who vehemently urged his renomination, but the large majority of the delegates were convinced of Black's ineligibility on account of the canal scandals, and were further convinced that only a highly popular man, who could take hold upon the popular imagination, would have any chance of success. Roosevelt was accordingly nominated by a vote of 753 to 218. The Citizens' Union Party had hoped that Roosevelt would accept their nomination and that they would be able to force him as their nominee upon Platt and the regular Republicans. Failing in this project they put their own candidates in the field headed by Theodore Bacon, a prominent lawyer of Rochester. The Democrats met in convention on September 29th, and chose Augustus Van Wyck, of Brooklyn, to head their ticket. Van Wyck was a judge of respectable character and attain GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 151 ments, and a brother of Mayor Van Wyck, of New York City. Roosevelt opened his campaign on October 17th, and for three weeks pursued it with great vigor. The issue most discussed was the canal scandal. The Colonel refused to express an opinion as to whether or not there had actually been any wrong-doing, but he promised a full and impartial investigation to be followed by complete publicity, and by punishment if punishment were deserved. The Democrats made all the capital they could out of the canal matter, and tried to brand Roosevelt as a mere tool of Senator Platt. The Citizens' Union Party, although they had themselves selected Roosevelt in the first instance, with the hope that they could compel the Republican organization to support him, turned upon him when he secured Republican support on his own account and accused him of being controlled by the machine. Later the Colonel quoted with satisfaction a letter which he received from John Hay after the election, in which Hay said: "You have already shown that a man may be absolutely honest and yet practical; a reformer by instinct and a wise politician; brave, bold and uncompromising, and yet not a wild ass of the desert. The exhibition made by the professional independents in voting against you, for no reason on earth except that somebody else was voting for you, is a lesson that is worth its cost." Richard Croker was at this time the leader of Tammany Hall, and had Van Wyck been elected would have held the whole state in the hollow of his hand. Roosevelt determined to make this fact clear to the voters by making the campaign so far as possible a personal issue between himself and Croker. Shortly before election time his 152 THEODORE ROOSEVELT opportunity came. For his own reasons Croker insisted that the Democrats should reject an excellent judge of their own party who was a candidate for re-election. Roosevelt promptly attacked this action and Croker came to the front as a campaign speaker. Thus the public came to feel that the contest was personal, that the two principals represented not only two different political parties but different political standards of right and wrong. "Roosevelt," said Senator Platt, "made a dramatic campaign. He fairly pranced about the state. He called a spade 'a spade;' a crook 'a crook.' During the final week of the canvass he made the issue Richard Croker, the Tammany boss, who had been so excoriated by the Lexow and Mazet committees. The Rough Rider romped home on election day with over 17,000 plurality." Out of a total of 1,350,000 votes cast this was not a wide margin, but the Republicans were well satisfied with their success. In permitting his name to be brought before the State Convention, and in accepting the nomination and support which ensued, Roosevelt followed a political principle which guided him all his life. He realized that little could be accomplished toward political or social improvement without organized effort, and that in an organization it was necessary to sink minor differences and to agree upon a common program which all might unite to further. He was a Republican by inheritance and by association, and having cast in his lot with that party he felt it his duty to stay within the party fold and to maintain the party organization, except when distinct questions of right and wrong made this impossible. Before his election as Governor he had promised that he would consult Senator Platt and the other recognized party :I' iOm Un od & U wd44 n, N.YM. b N. COLONEL ROOSEELT AND FAMILY WHIE WAS G VERNOR OF NW YOR ATE In kground are hod Roo evelt and Ahel Ro eI lt, now Mr. Nichola ILon worth. At lt Gh V Rooev In hiian'i8Ar't oerr GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 153 leaders on all matters of appointments and legislation, but he had served notice that his final conclusions would be his own and not theirs. "He religiously fulfilled this pledge," said Platt, "although he frequently did just what he pleased." Shortly after the election, and before the Colonel took office, Platt sent for him to talk over what was to be done at Albany. Platt was old and rather feeble, and it was Roosevelt's custom, in spite of severe criticism, to go to Platt when he wanted a conference instead of standing upon his dignity and insisting that Platt should come to him. Upon this occasion he found the Senator with two or three of his lieutenants, discussing the constitution of the committees in the coming Legislature. The Senator asked the Colonel whether he had any member of the Assembly whom he wished to have put oh any committee. The Colonel said no and expressed some surprise at the question because the Legislature had not yet met to choose the Speaker by whom all committees would be appointed. "Oh," answered the Senator, "he has not been chosen yet, but, of course, whoever we choose as Speaker will agree beforehand to make the appointments we wish." Roosevelt said nothing but made up his mind that if an attempt were made to put the Governor in the same category with the Speaker, there would be trouble. A few days later Platt sent for him again to discuss the choice of a Superintendent of Public Works. The Superintendent of Public Works controlled the construction of the Erie Canal and the position was doubly important because of the popular suspicion of the canal management during Black's administration. When Roosevelt arrived the Senator informed him that he, the Senator, had offered the Superintendent's position to a first-class 154 THEODORE ROOSEVELT man from whom he had just received a telegraph of acceptance. The Colonel had no personal objection to the gentleman suggested, but the fact that he lived in a city along the line of the canal was against him, and what was more important, the Governor-elect realized that the time had come to show his independence. Accordingly he politely told the Senator that his man would not fit the job. The result was an outburst on the part of the old chief who had controlled every appointment in the party fold for years and was not minded to see his power taken from him. But Roosevelt was firm, and in the end Platt was obliged to give in. It was thus made plain at the outset that since the people had entrusted their welfare to Roosevelt, he would make their welfare his personal business, and that he and no other would exercise the functions of the state's Governor. One of his first acts as Governor was to nominate for the position of Superintendent of Public Works John N. Partridge, an engineer who had acted as chief of police when Seth Low was mayor of Brooklyn. Partridge discharged his duties in admirable fashion and with entire satisfaction. Avery D. Andrews, who had been one of the Colonel's fellow Police Commisioners in New York City, was appointed Adjutant General. Whenever the Governor wanted-to discuss an appointment or a question of legislation with Senator Platt he was accustomed to breakfast with the Senator at his hotel in New York. This gave rise to much criticism by supersensitive citizens who felt that the Colonel was obediently coming down from Albany to take orders from his superior officer. Such, however, was not the fact, for a series of breakfasts was usually a prelude to more or less open warfare between the two men.. Roosevelt GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 155 avoided hostilities whenever possible and compromised when he could do so without surrendering his principles, but there were occasions when no compromise was possible and when it seemed as if an irreparable breach must certainly occur. Toward the end of 1899 the Governor became convinced that Louis F. Payn, the State Superintendent of Insurance, would have to go. Payn had been engaged in large business operations in New York City, which were not suitable for a man in his position. His term of office was about to expire and he confidently expected a re-appointment. Platt stood back of him and served notice that he would have to be re-appointed and that the State Senate would not be permitted to approve any other nomination. Roosevelt went to Platt and told him flatly that Payn could not retain his job. Platt pointed out that the man would stay in anyhow, because he would necessarily hold over until his successor was appointed and it would be impossible either to discharge him or to name a successor without the approval of the Senate. "All right," said the Governor, "I will wait until the Senate adjourns, then I will discharge him and appoint another man in his place, and if the Senate puts Payn back when they convene again, I will remove him again just as soon as the Senate adjourns." There was apparently no possibility that the Senator and the Governor could agree. Meanwhile, the big life insurance companies began to bring pressure to bear. on the Governor to re-appoint Payn. Platt showed not the least sign of yielding and there seemed no way out of -the impasse. Roosevelt suggested to the Senator that Francis Hendricks should take Payn's place. Hendricks had been Collector of 156 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the Port of New York under President Harrison and was a good party man with a clean record. Platt himself had suggested Hendricks for the position of Superintendent of Public Works and Roosevelt did not see how he could refuse to agree to his appointment as Superintendent of Insurance. Platt, however, remained obdurate. At last a final meeting was arranged at the Union League Club between the Governor and one of Platt's lieutenants. The Senator's ambassador went over the old ground and explained that Platt would fight to the finish, that he was certain to win and that the Governor's political future would inevitably be destroyed. The Governor merely repeated that he had made up his mind and would not change. Again he was warned that this was his last chance and that ruin awaited him if he refused it. The rest of the story is best told in Roosevelt's own words. "I shook my head and answered, 'There is nothing to add to what I have already said.' He responded, 'You have made up your mind?' and I said, 'I have.' He then said, 'You know it means your ruin?' and I answered, 'Well, we will see about that,' and walked toward the door. He said, 'You understand, the fight will begin tomorrow and will be carried on to the bitter end.' I said, 'Yes,' and added, as I reached the door, 'Good night.' Then, as the door opened, my opponent, or visitor, whichever one chooses to call him, whose face was as impassive and as inscrutable as that of Mr. John Hamlin in a poker game, said: 'Hold on! We accept. Send in So-and-so (the man I had named). The Senator is very sorry, but he will make no further opposition.' I never saw a bluff carried more resolutely through to the final limit. My success in the affair, coupled with the appointment of Messrs. Partridge and Hooker, secured GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 157 me against further effort to interfere with my handling of the executive departments." During his campaign the Governor had promised that a full and fair investigation would be made of the canal situation. This promise he fulfilled by selecting two well-known Democratic lawyers to whom the investigation was unreservedly entrusted. These men spent several months in the task assigned to them and finally reported that although there had been gross delinquency in the prosecution of the work, there was no ground for criminal prosecution. In transmitting this report to the Legislature the Governor said, "There is probably no lawyer of high standing in the state who, after studying the report of counsel in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission, would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough change in the methods and management. This change has been made." He also appointed a non-partisan commission of business men and expert engineers, who were charged with the duty of investigating the whole canal question and of reporting what steps the state should take in order to establish a proper canal system. This commission was headed by General Francis V. Greene, to whom Roosevelt had in the first instance offered the position of Superintendent of Public Works. In January of 1900 the Governor sent to the Legislature the report of the special commission, in which it was recommended that sixty million dollars should be expended on a barge canal, to run from Buffalo tb Albany. The expenditure of this vast sum of money naturally caused the Legislature to hesitate. Accordingly toward 158 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the end of the session of 1900 the Governor sent an emergency message urging the passage of a bill to provide for a complete and final survey of the canal situation. This bill was passed on the last day of the session. The original report of General Greene's commission now forms the basis of the canal system of the State of New York. During the first year of his term the Governor had the satisfaction of procuring the passage of certain legislation which he earnestly advocated. In his first message he had asked for a civil service law to take the place of the one which had recently been unwisely repealed, and he had asked for an enlargement of the sphere of activity of factory inspectors, and for provisions looking toward a stricter enforcement of the labor laws. All of these recommendations were embodied in the statute law during the year. The White Civil Service Act was passed by the Legislature on April 18th, and another bill was enacted limiting the hours of labor for women and minors. But by far the most important action of Roosevelt as Governor was his insistence upon the passage of the Ford Franchise Bill. John Ford, a member of the State Senate from New York City, had become convinced that the large public service corporations should pay taxes upon the perpetual franchises which they enjoyed. Taxation, especially in New York City, was rapidly becoming more and more burdensome and there appeared to be no sufficient reason for exempting valuable corporate franchises from paying their share of the public expenses. The matter was carried to the Governor, who convinced himself that Ford's suggestion was proper. But Senator Platt was strongly opposed to the proposi GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 159 tion. He wrote the Governor a letter of protest, in which he accused him of entertaining "various altruistic ideas -all very well in their way-but which, before they could safely be put into law, needed very profound consideration." What was more to the point, the Senator's control of the Legislature was such that the bill died in committee. The Governor talked the matter over with a good many of the legislators and reached the conclusion that it would be impossible to succeed against the combined efforts of the corporation lobby and the party machine, without an aroused popular sentiment. Accordingly, just before the end of the session, he sent the Legislature a special message declaring the business urgent, and asking them to pass the bill immediately. This message was judiciously "lost" before it reached the Assembly, but by seven o'clock the next morning the Governor learned what had happened, and by eight o'clock he was in the Capitol. From the executive chamber he sent in another special message by his own secretary, with the intimation that if it were not promptly read he would come up in person and read it. Matters had been brought to such a pass that the Assemblymen realized that any further effort to defeat the bill might result in their own defeat at the next election, and they accordingly put it through with a rush. But this did not end the trouble. The bill had two obnoxious features which the Governor was determined to remedy immediately. He believed that the value of franchises should be assessed by a State Board instead of by local authorities, and that provision should be made for crediting the corporations with any tax which they already paid under existing laws. The corporations 160 THEODORE ROOSEVELT affected and the party leaders of both organizations urged the Governor not to sign the Ford Bill but to let the matter go over for another session and then to have it put in proper shape. But Roosevelt was determined not to let his opportunity pass by. 'Ie answered that he would call a special session of the Legislature for the purpose of passing an amended statute, but that if the Legislature failed to follow his recommendation, he would sign the bill in its present form. The Legislature was accordingly summoned to meet on May 22d. They passed an amended bill on May 25th and the Governor signed it on May 26th. A very considerable political victory had been won, and approximately two hundred million dollars' worth of franchises had been added to the taxable property of the state. In November, 1899, a Republican Legislature was again elected, and the Governor was able during the session of 1900 to procure the passage of several important pieces of legislation. He was authorized by the Legislature to appoint a commission to investigate tenement house conditions in New York City, and to suggest appropriate remedial legislation. He was also authorized to appoint a commission to study the question of revising the charter of the City of New York. His own experience as Police Commissioner gave him particular interest in this matter. Under his urgent pressure, a state hospital was created for incipient tuberculosis. The policy of protecting the state forests received his especial attention, and he attributed his success in this matter largely to a conference held in the executive chamber with forty of the best guides and woodsmen of the Adirondacks. The Board of Commissioners of the Palisades Interstate Park was formed to co-operate with New GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 161 Jersey in the preservation of the beautiful cliffs which border the Hudson. When Roosevelt lived in Washington as Civil Service Commissioner, one of his intimate friends was the German Attache, Baron Speck von Sternberg, who afterwards became German Ambassador at Washington when Roosevelt was President. The Baron always prophesied that his friend would become President. When Roosevelt was appointed Police Commissioner he wrote him, congratulating him on his appointment, adding: "When I again congratulate you, you will be one step nearer the White House." When Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Sternberg wrote from Pekin, where he was stationed: "Permit me to congratulate you on this second step nearer the Presidency." When Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York, the Baron telegraphed: "The next time I offer congratulations it will be to President Roosevelt." Roosevelt could have had no better preparation, both politically and practically, for the Presidency than his experience in Albany as Governor of the greatest state of the Union. As we have seen, he accomplished good for the state. His administration was more than creditable; but its chief value both to him personally and to the people of the United States was the education which the experience gave him for the vastly greater executive duties which he was so soon to assume. William Roscoe Thayer, in his "Life of John Hay," prints a letter from Roosevelt to Hay, who was then Secretary of State, in which Roosevelt gives a characteristically just estimate of his own work as Governor. The letter was written on February 7, 1899. "Compared with the great game of which Washington 162 THEODORE ROOSEVELT is the center, my own work here is parochial, but it is interesting too; and so far I seem to have been fairly successful in overcoming the centrifugal forces always so strong in the Republican party. I am getting on well with Senator Platt, and I am apparently satisfying the wishes of the best element in our own party; of course I have only begun, but so far I think the state is better and the party stronger from my administration." CHAPTER XI FROM GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT G ARRETT A. HOBART, Vice-President of the United States, died on December 21, 1899. Speculation was rife as to who the Republicans would nominate 'as Vice-President in the Presidential campaign of 1900. Had Mr. Hobart lived, he would undoubtedly have been renominated, but his death made necessary the choice of another running mate for McKinley. Many names were suggested, especially those of John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, and Representative Dolliver, of Iowa, but it soon appeared that the man who could win the greatest possible support, especially in the West, was Theodore Roosevelt. He did not wish the nomination. He had not completed the work he wanted to do as Governor of New York, and was anxious to be re-elected. In February, 1900, he stated publicly that he would not accept the nomination of Vice-President if it were offered to him, and there is no doubt that he was honest in expressing this determination. Mark Hanna was the leader of the Republican organization. He did not want Roosevelt; he wanted the Republicans to nominate a business ticket. At the same time, a successor to Roosevelt as Governor of New York had also to be elected. Senator Platt had probably promised the nomination to Benjamin B. Odell. Whether this is true or not, he wanted to get Roosevelt out of New York and to "bury him" in the Vice-Presidency. A meeting was held of the New York (163) 164 -THEODORE ROOSEVELT delegation to the Republican National Convention. The great majority were under the control of the Senator. Roosevelt tells us that the Senator notified him that he would be beaten for the nomination for Governor, if he refused to accept the nomination for Vice-President. Roosevelt told him that he accepted the challenge; that he would have a straight-out fight and that he would begin at once by telling the delegates of the threat and giving them fair warning that he intended to fight for the governorship. This threat apparently brought Platt to terms, and the New York delegation ostensibly went to the convention pledged to support LieutenantGovernor Woodruff for the vice-presidential nomination. As the convention approached, the movement for Roosevelt's nomination among delegates from the Western states became stronger and stronger. Apparently the whole country wanted him except official Washington. The attitude of the older men in Washington is set forth in a letter which John Hay wrote to Mr. Henry White at the Embassy at London. The letter, which is printed in Thayer's "Life of Hay," was written on June 15th, only four days before the meeting: "Teddy has been here; have you heard of it? It was more fun than a goat. He came down with a somber resolution thrown on his strenuous brow to let McKinley and Hanna know once for all that he would not be VicePresident, and found to his stupefaction that nobody in Washington except Platt. had ever dreamed of such a thing. He did not even have the chance to launch his nolo episcopari at the Major. That statesman said he did not want him on the ticket-that he would be far more valuable in New York-and Root said, with his frank and murderous smile, 'Of course not-you're not Q 0i.,,,,~ ~ ~ ~~~ 8 cl oii~~~~ I ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ LE3~~~~~ i ~ ~ ~ ~ I ~~~~ F" C1~~~~~~ Qf:B.~~~i~~~~ ~:~~o E~~~~~~i Ci da3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K: 000 02 -i ~~ E~~~~a~0 o~~~~~~~~~~~~~ o ~~~~~~~~~~~~: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 0 a8 ~~~~g ~ nsl 4 FROM GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT 165 fit for it.' And so he went back quite eased in his mind, but considerably bruised in his amour propre." The letter probably reflected accurately the official attitude in higher government circles, however Hay may have misjudged, as other older men sometimes misjudge, what affects a younger man's self-esteem. Washington, however, is not the country. When the Republican National Convention met, Roosevelt attended as a delegate at large from the State of New York. There are many and conflicting stories of what actually took place. Senator Platt, in his Autobiography, tells us that he sent for Roosevelt and told him that Odell was going to be the next Governor of New York and that Roosevelt was at first determined to fight, and go before the State Convention if necessary, without Platt's support, but that, before leaving the room, he had practically indicated that he would accept the nomination for Vice-President. In spite of different tales, it is not hard to see what actually took place. The overwhelming majority of the delegates wanted Roosevelt and did not want any one else. Had Hanna, with all his popularity and power over the convention, stated publicly that McKinley did not wish Roosevelt nominated, while the delegates might have acquiesced, all enthusiasm and snap would have been taken out of the subsequent campaign. It is certain that Hanna, and probable that McKinley, would have preferred another nominee, but they both wisely bowed to popular demand. On the other hand, it is equally certain that Roosevelt did not wish the nomination, and that he was finally induced to accept by the combined force of two wholly different considerations. He knew Platt's strength and the desperate fight he would probably make to prevent his, Roosevelt's, re-nomi 166 THEODORE ROOSEVELT nation as Governor. If he went through the fight anc won, well; but if he went through the fight and lost, nothing for himself or for the cause of good government in his native state would have been gained. Again, Roosevelt was not the man to be unmoved by the evident desire of the mass of the delegates for his nomination. He was a party man, and a good politician, and he probably appreciated that the man who refuses a nomination which the overwhelming majority of his party enthusiastically wish him to take, is thereafter dead politically. Besides all this, as a party man, he probably felt the obligation arising from the unanimity of the call. On the day for nominations, the Governor of New York made a speech seconding McKinley's renomination for the Presidency. His speech was in effect his own nomination. The members of the convention hailed him as Vice-President, and the entire hall rang with cries for "Teddy." By the time nominations for VicePresident were in order, the convention was in an uproar, and when Young, of Ohio, who was to have presented Representative Dolliver's name for that office, formally presented the name of Roosevelt, the entire convention stampeded to him, demanding an immediate vote, so eager were they to ratify the will of the party and make the ticket McKinley and Roosevelt. Roosevelt threw himself into the Presidential campaign that followed as if he had desired the nomination, rather than fought against it. He visited twenty-four states and traveled twenty-one thousand miles, making nearly seven hundred speeches, a record which probably at that time had never been equaled. When he went through the pro-silver Rocky Mountain states, the monotony of approval usually attendant upon FROM GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT 167 a campaign of political speaking was diversified by the necessity of facing hostile audiences. On September 25th, he made an address in a small hall at Victor, Colorado, a little mining town not far from Cripple Creek. Nearly all the members of the crowd were miners, and mostly Free Silver men and Bryanites. He began his address with an attack upon the New York Tammany politicians who, as stockholders of the Ice Trust, had profited during the previous summer from the distress of the poor people of the city. "In my state," he said, "the men who were put on the Committee on Platform to draw up an AntiTrust plank at the Democratic National Convention at Kansas City had their pockets stuffed with Ice Trust stock." At this point a voice in the audience shouted, "What about the rotten beef?" "I ate it," responded Roosevelt instantly, "and you will never get near enough to be hit with a bullet, or within five miles of it." After this, he concluded his speech with some difficulty and left the hall under the escort of some. of his own Rough Riders. On the way to the train he and his party, who were on foot, were attacked by a crowd of roughs, one of whom struck him in the chest with a stick. Finally, however, thanks to the protection of the Rough Riders, the party reached the station in safety and Roosevelt was none the worse for his experience; indeed, the occurrence, which was made much of at the time, increased his popularity. Another town where trouble was expected fortunately contained an "old and valued friend, a 'two gun' man of repute," whose Christian name was Seth. Seth was not in the least quarrelsome, but he always kept his word. While Roosevelt spoke, his friend sat immediately behind him on the platform. The audience listened to 168 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the speech with rapt attention. At the end, Roosevelt expressed to the chairman some satisfaction at the fact that the audience had been attentive and that he had not been subjected to a single interruption. "Interruption," replied the chairman, "well I guess not! Seth had sent around word that if any son of a gun peeped he would kill him." In this campaign, as in all others made by their Colonel, men of the Rough Riders were his enthusiastic supporters. Buck Taylor, of Texas, for a time accompanied him, and made a speech which took both with the Colonel and the audience. The peroration concluded as follows: "My fellow citizens, vote for my Colonel! Vote for my Colonel!-and he will lead you, as he led us, like sheep to the slaughter." The Colonel adds that while this did not seem to be very complimentary to his powers as a military leader, it delighted the crowd. In the election the Republicans swept the country, McKinley and Roosevelt receiving 292 electoral votes while Bryan and Stevenson received 155. The Republicans had a plurality of about 785,000, and, apart from the South, they carried every state except Colorado, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana and Nevada. Roosevelt's term as Governor of New York came to an end on New Year's Day, 1901. He went on a short hunting trip to Colorado, and on March 4th was sworn in as Vice-President, presiding over the Executive Session of the Senate which was held immediately after his inauguration. As John Hay wrote to him, shortly after his inauguration, the office was not precisely what his friends desired for him. At the same time had he remained Vice-Presi IV Tis fM. 'PRES4ENT MhINLEY AND VICEPRESDENT ROOSELT This phiotograph of Mr. Roosevelt with iei INi a-wA1. - psresiet i FROM GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT 169 dent, nothing could have kept him from doing good work or "from getting lots of fun out of it." He was not, however, to have the opportunity to make something out of the most useless and the dullest office which it has ever been given to the wit of man to devise. His time between March and September was partly taken up in making speeches and it was on one of these speaking tours that the news of the great tragedy at Buffalo came to him. On September 6th, McKinley was shot by the assassin Leon Czolgosz. The Vice-President was at Isle La Motte, near Burlington, Vermont. He had just finished an address when he was informed of the tragedy. He went at once to Buffalo. The President had not been instantly killed. At dawn on the 7th he was still alive. All day he seemed to improve. The waiting nation began to breathe again. After two days, the attendant physicians informed Roosevelt that the President was practically out of danger. Roosevelt then left Buffalo and joined Mrs. Roosevelt and the children, who were at the Tehawus Club House, in the wilds of the Adirondacks. Until the seventh day after the shooting, the President continued to improve-at least that was the tenure of the official bulletins issued by his physicians. It was therefore a shock to the nation when, on the seventh day, Friday, it was announced that the President was mudh worse and could not be expected to recover. Every effort was made to reach the VicePresident, but the Tehawus Club House, which is at the foot of Mt. Marcy, or Tehawus, was thirty-five miles from the nearest railroad and telegraph station at North Creek. When the telegram from the President's secretary, Cortelyou, reached the club, Roosevelt was 170 THEODORE ROOSEVELT off on a long tramp and there was no absolute certainty where he had gone or exactly when he would return. Several guides were dispatched in different directions to find him. Roosevelt has himself described his meeting with the guide: "We took a long tramp through the forest, and in the afternoon I climbed Mt. Tehawus. After reaching the top, I descended a few hundred feet to a shelf of land where there was a little lake, when I saw a guide coming out of the woods on our trail, from below. I felt at once that he had bad news, and sure enough, he handed me a telegram saying that the President's condition was much worse and that I must come to Buffalo immediately." The lake was some ten miles from the club house, which was not reached until after dark. There was considerable delay in obtaining a wagon, but finally it was obtained and throughout the night Roosevelt, alone with the driver, covered the thirty-five miles to North Creek. The road was a wilderness road, at first a mere trail, running on the edge of bluffs overhanging a chain of small lakes surrounded by mountains. The night was very dark and foggy. It was almost impossible for the driver to see the way, but it is recorded that his solitary passenger urged him continually to "Go on; go right ahead." During the night they changed horses several times. Dawn was breaking as he stepped on to the station platform at North Creek, to find his secretary, Mr. Loeb, waiting with a special train, and to learn that the President who was beloved of all the nation had died during the night. Roosevelt at once boarded the special train and by seven o'clock was in Albany. The trip across the state FROM GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT 171 to Buffalo was made in record time, and it was yet early in the afternoon of the 14th of September when he left the train at a station on the outskirts of Buffalo and drove directly to the house of his friend Ansley Wilcox, on Delaware Avenue. It was an old brick house painted white, with a row of stately pillars in front of a deep veranda. It had been used in the early part of the last century by United States officers in command of the military post at Buffalo. The body of the ex-President was at the house of his friend, John G. Milburn, the president of the Exposition. Here Roosevelt immediately repaired and met the members of McKinley's Cabinet then in Buffalo. Elihu Root, the Secretary of War, told him it was the desire of the Cabinet that there should be no further delay in his taking the oath of office. The ceremony took place in the early evening in the library of the Wilcox mansion. District Judge John R. Hazel administered the oath, which all Presidents, from Washington, have taken: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Roosevelt at once made the following statement which brought a deep sense of relief to the nation: "In this hour of deep national grief, I wish to state that it is my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of William McKinley for the peace, prosperity and honor of our beloved country." Those present at the ceremony were Elihu Root, Secretary of War; Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior; John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy; Charles Emory Smith, Postmaster General; besides 172 THEODORE ROOSEVELT members of the Wilcox and Milburn families, the doctors who had been attending the late President, and the private secretaries, Cortelyou and Loeb. By a curious coincidence, one of those present, Elihu Root, had, as a friend, been present twenty years before at a similar ceremony when Vice-President Arthur succeeded President Garfield. The new President accompanied the remains of President McKinley to Washington, and subsequently to Canton, Ohio. He stood by the side of the grave during those five minutes when all the wheels of industry throughout the length and breadth of the country were stopped and eighty million people paused in their multitudinous occupations in loving respect for the kindly, upright gentleman, the patriot and statesman who had met his cruel fate so bravely. No better statement concerning his predecessor has ever been made than that contained in President Roosevelt's first official proclamation, in which he said: "President McKinley crowned a life of largest love for his fellowmen, of most earnest endeavor for their welfare, by a death of Christian fortitude; and both the way in which he lived his life and the way in which, in the supreme hour of trial, he met his death, will remain forever a precious heritage of our people." The position of the new President was a most difficult one. McKinley had had, as he deserved to have, the confidence of the nation. True, the man whom death, sudden and tragic, had put in McKinley's place, was, himself, deservedly popular, especially with the younger part of the nation. But popularity is one thing; popular confidence quite another. Roosevelt was only fortytwo-younger than any other man who had ever held FROM GOVERNOR TO PRESIDENT 173 the great office of President. Furthermore, the very characteristics which made him popular, his infinite dash and originality, are not qualities which lead men easily to give their confidence to those who possess them. Again, there were the grim facts of our national history. Four times before had death placed a Vice-President in the Presidential chair. Tyler succeeding Harrison, had disrupted his party by repudiating the policies on which both he and Harrison had been elected; Fillmore, taking Taylor's place, had ended his party's/power for all time; Johnson, succeeding Lincoln, made by the folly of his actions far worse the catastrophe of Lincoln's death; while Arthur, succeeding Garfield, though he gave the country a respectable administration, had not created any general desire for his retention in office. Roosevelt succeeded where four others failed. He did so, not merely because he was an infinitely abler man than Tyler or Fillmore or Johnson or Arthur, but also because of that characteristic in him to which, as much as to any other single thing, he owed all the great successes of his life. Although his enemies, up to the day of his death, accused him of filling the cosmos with his own ego, he was, as a matter of fact, always infinitely more interested in the work he had to do than in either his own future or in the attitude of the nation towards himself. When he said, as he took the oath of office, that he would carry out the policy of McKinley, he meant, as he always did, exactly what he said. There was no better way to carry out the policy of his predecessor than to ask the members of McKinley's Cabinet to remain in office. So he asked them to remain. Told by his friends that people would regard him as but a "pale copy of McKinley," he replied, that he was not worrying 174 THEODORE ROOSEVELT about that. Neither was he concerned as to whether the members of his Cabinet would be faithful to him. All he asked of them was that they should be faithful to their work. Thus he followed the policy of McKinley, keeping McKinley's Cabinet, and thereby at once gained the confidence of the people. As new problems arose, he did not ask himself whether he was or was not meeting them as McKinley would have met them; his desire was to meet them in the right way. Thus, by not worrying about how people would judge him and by losing himself in his work, as well as by his force and ability, he soon impressed his personality on the nation, demonstrating his competence for his high office by his deeds. The story of his Presidency is the story of Theodore Roosevelt, not the story of any "pale copy" of his predecessor. CHAPTER XII ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE T IHE White House had seen many Presidents and their families, but no man at. all like Roosevelt had ever been there before. He was bubbling over with an energy which he communicated to everyone who came in contact with him. This tremendous mental and physical activity had always been characteristic. W. R. Thayer in his life of Hay relates that when Roosevelt was Civil Service Commissioner Rudyard Kipling was in Washington. Kipling used to drop in at the Cosmos Club, and presently Roosevelt would "come and pour out projects, discussions of men and politics, criticisms of books, in a swift and full-volumed stream, tremendously emphatic and enlivened by bursts of humor." "I curled up on the seat opposite," said Kipling, "and listened and wondered, until the universe seemed to be spinning around and Theodore was the spinner." The spinner now held the greatest constitutional office on earth. Another Englishman, John Morley, declared that the two things in America which seemed to him most extraordinary were Niagara Falls and President Roosevelt. Daily physical exercise of a strenuous character was essential to him. He usually succeeded in getting in two hours out of every twenty-four in horseback riding, tennis, walking, broadsword or single stick, according to the weather or the time of year. While he was Governor he had regularly wrestled three or four times a week with the champion middle-weight wrestler of America. The cham(175) 176 THEODORE ROOSEVELT pion, departing from Albany, left a substitute who could neither take care of himself nor of Roosevelt, with the result that Roosevelt caved in two of his antagonist's ribs and had two of his own badly damaged. Thereafter he ceased what we may call serious wrestling, though for a time after he became President, he engaged in minor wrestling bouts with "Joe" Grant, champion of the District of Columbia. He took a great deal of interest in the science of jiu jitsu, which was then new to this country, and for two seasons a famous Japanese wrestler on a visit to America gave him instructions in it. John Hay, Secretary of State, gravely records in his diary, under date of April 26, 1904: "At the Cabinet this morning the President talked of his Japanese wrestler, who is giving him lessons in jiu jitsu. He says the muscles of his throat are so powerfully developed by training that it is impossible for any ordinary man to strangle him. If the President succeeds once in a while in getting the better of him, he says, 'Good! Lovely!' " Roosevelt was a good boxer and exceedingly fond of the sport. More than one famous champion of the squared circle was his devoted and respected friend. He kept up his boxing after he became President until a young captain of artillery cross-countered him on the left eye. The blow broke the little blood-vessels and as a consequence the sight was thereafter so dimmed that the eye became practically useless. Had it been his right eye the African hunting trip could not have been undertaken unless, indeed, he had learned to shoot from his left shoulder. He played tennis vigorously on the White House courts, though he never became very expert, there being no danger at any time of the President's entering the National Tennis Tournament at Newport. ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 177 Another favorite form of exercise was horseback riding. His splendid horsemanship is well attested by the photographs taken of him while jumping hurdles at Chevy Chase, one photograph showing him clearing in good style a high wooden fence, being perhaps the most popular picture taken while he was President. On October 22, 1904, a fall with his horse nearly cost him his life. At first it was thought that he was only badly battered about the face, but he had landed fairly on his head, his neck and shoulders were severely wrenched, and for a few days there was a grave possibility of meningitis. Had he not been so strong and well knit, it is more than probable that his spine would have suffered permanent injury. He was also a devotee of cross-country walking. All children know, or ought to know, the delight of walking from one point to another without turning to the right or left, over fences and across streams, scrambling up hill and sliding down. A few grown-ups have the health, strength and boyish spirit to follow the practice in maturer years. Roosevelt was one of these grown-ups. His favorite place to take a ten or fifteen mile "stroll" was along Rock Creek, where there was plenty of climbing to be had. Sometimes, in the early spring, when the ice had not entirely disappeared, he would arrange for a "point to point" walk, he and his companions swimming the creek, or even the Potomac itself, if that river came in their way. Roosevelt says, "Of course, on such occasions we had to arrange that our return to Washington should be when it was dark, so that our appearance might scandalize no one." It is to be feared, however, that the staid ones in Washington and elsewhere, hearing of these trips, had a tendency to be scandalized. 12 178 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Rain,. snow and sleet never interfered with his going out; neither was he easily turned back by mishap. Colonel W. H. Crook, in his "Memories of the White House," relates that the President on one occasion took a stroll for about two hours through the marshes southwest of the Executive Mansion, with Pinchot, of the Forest Service; and Sloan, of the Secret Service. "Pushing vigorously onward, as usual, the President came to an especially soft spot in the soggy surroundings, but, looking ahead, thought he saw firm ground." Calling to the others to follow, he plunged along and was soon up to his waist in the icy water. It was some minutes before the party extricated themselves. The thermometer was below freezing; the atmosphere was raw; the hour was already late, but the President, instead of turning back, merely laughed at the little adventure, and started off at a swinging gait across country. Once he took a distinguished citizen out for a stroll and directed the course of their steps toward a steep and rocky hill. As they began the climb, he turned to his companion and said, "We must get up to the top here." When they had reached the top, the other turned to him and said, "Mr. President, may I ask why we are up here?" "Why, I came up here," answered Roosevelt, "to see if you could make it." The faster the pace and the more obstacles there were to be surmounted, the better the President was pleased. On one of these occasions, shortly after he came to the White House, he invited a newly appointed bureau chief to be one of the party. They walked along the shore of the Potomac River to a point where a stone quarry jutted out into the water. Here it was possible either to take a boat or to crawl around the face of the quarry, holding on ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 179 with eyelids and finger tips. The President and his son Theodore and the young official chose the more difficult method, while the stouter and less agile members of the party took the boat. All got home in safety and the President felt increased confidence in the spirit of the new bureau chief, to whom he had entrusted the performance of a difficult piece of official work. On these strenuous afternoon walks the President was accompanied by cabinet officers, senators, representatives, diplomats and other distinguished foreigners, in fact, by any one whom it occurred to him to ask; but more often by his intimate personal friends, the French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, James R. Garfield, Robert Bacon, Lawrence Murray, Gifford Pinchot, or Herbert Knox Smith. Some of the young officers who accompanied him on his walks called his attention to the fact that many of the older officers were physically unfit for any serious exertion. After consulting with Major-Generals Wood and Bell, he issued an order directing that each officer should prove himself fit to walk fifty or ride one hundred miles in three consecutive days-not a very drastic requirement, but he had learned by experience that a non-military nation reacts in curious fashion to any attempt to make its army or navy efficient. Extraordinary as it may now appear, no sooner had he issued the order than the press of the country rang with this new evidence of his "capricious tyranny." Many elderly officers of sedentary habits intrigued with their friends in Congress to have the order annulled, and one naval bureau chief went so far as to rebuke some young officers who walked fifty miles in one day, requiring them to take the walk over again in three days, in accordance with the letter of the President's order. It is needless to say that Roosevelt did not know 180 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of this action, or he would have made short work of that bureaucrat. The clamor did not subside until the President himself and two officers, in one day, rode more than a hundred miles over frozen Virginia roads, part of the time in a snow and sleet storm, in this way demonstrating the silliness of the opposition to an order requiring each officer to perform the same feat in three days. During the early part of Roosevelt's first administration the White House was entirely remodeled. For a good many years this change had been considered, and various plans had been suggested for carrying it into effect. By the alterations there was produced a real Colonial mansion with spacious rooms, wide halls and ample stairways. The entire eastern interior of the old building was torn out and rebuilt, a new floor and wainscoting were put in the historic East Room, and other new floors were added in various parts of the house. The most important change was the building of a long, low office extension in which the executive business is now transacted. The White House is, of course, not only an American gentleman's home, but it is the official residence of the head of the nation. To manage the necessary corps of servants and assistants, to prepare for formal and informal dinners and receptions, and to superintend the upkeep of the entire establishment is a very considerable enterprise. Some idea of the size of this as a housekeeping proposition may be gained from the fact that during Roosevelt's administration $145,000.00 was annually appropriated by Congress for the maintenance of the White House and for the payment of wages and similar current expenses. The Roosevelts entertained in two ways; they held state dinners and receptions in fulfilment of their official duties, and they also invited their own personal friends and ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 181 the Colonel's political acquaintances on occasions of a less formal character. When they entertained formally, they did so as the President and his wife; when they entertained privately, it was as Mr. and Mrs Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was at once the most democratic and the most formal of Presidents. On state occasions there was more formality in the White House than there had been under any President since Washington. State dinners were not given in the manner of a rich private citizen entertaining his friends, for on such occasions the Colonel never forgot that he was acting as President of the United States, and every smallest detail of the function impressed the guests with that fact. On the occasion of a formal dinner, the guests were assembled in the East Room before the appointed hour. Promptly at eight the doors would open to admit the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. The President would give his arm to the lady who was to sit on his right, and would at once lead the way to the great dining-room. Some complained that this was aping the style and manner of royalty on similar occasions; as a matter of fact, it was nothing of the sort. It merely emphasized the fact that the entertainment of the diplomatic corps or of the judiciary, as the case might be, was one of the official acts of the President of the United States. These state dinners were undoubtedly dreary, as all such functions must be. There is usually no common interest to unite the guests, except the political activities of the men of the party. The guests are invited, not for the purpose of conversation, but simply for the purpose of fulfilling that public duty, born of immemorial custom, which requires that distinguished citizens be handsomely 182 THEODORE ROOSEVELT fed at stated intervals. In this manner, dinners were given every year to the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the army, the navy and the diplomatic corps. State receptions were matters of considerable importance. Shortly after the Roosevelts came to the White House, nearly five hundred guests arrived at a reception for which only two hundred and fifty invitations had been issued. After this, Mrs. Roosevelt sent out invitations which required a reply, and limited her entertainments to those whom she had actually asked. The annual New Year's reception was open to anyone who cared to attend, but certain people were asked to assist Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt in receiving the guests, and these were furnished with identification cards which admitted them to the Blue Room before the reception actually began. Ambassadors and ministers of legation were also given cards which admitted them by the south entrance to a special suite, from which they could make their way, at their convenience, to the principal gathering. Roosevelt was very fond of informal entertainments, and used them constantly to get in touch with other men on matters in which they were mutually interested. He often invited a morning caller to return at lunch time to complete an interrupted conversation. Frequently a telephone message would ask a guest on short notice to lunch at the White House, and the President was thus often able to see in a friendly way men with whom it would have been more difficult to confer in the stiffer atmosphere of the Executive study. After the Cabinet meetings one or more of the members usually stayed to have lunch with the President, in order to continue the discussion of some matter which had arisen during the meeting. Andre Tardieu remembers meeting at one ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 183 luncheon two Catholic prelates, a Protestant bishop, a college president and the French Ambassador and his wife. All of these had, no doubt, been asked because the President had some special matter which he wanted to take up with each one of them. Jacob A. Riis had been a close friend of Roosevelt's ever since the days of his service as Police Commissioner. Riis and his wife were frequent visitors at the White House and he has left an interesting picture of his impressions there. "I shall never forget," he writes, "the Christmas before last, when I told the President and Mrs. Roosevelt at breakfast of my old mother who was sick in Denmark and longing for her boy, and my hostess's gentle voice as she said, 'Theodore, let us cable over our love to her.' And they did. Before that winter day was at an end (and the twilight shadows were stealing over the old town by the bleak North Sea, even while we breakfasted in Washington) the telegraph messenger, in a state of bewilderment-I dare say he has not got over it yetbrought mother this despatch: "'THE WHITE HOUSE, Dec. 20, 1902. "' MR. RIIS, Ribe, Denmark: "'Your son is breakfasting with us. We send you our loving sympathy. '(THEODORE AND EDITH ROOSEVELT." Like every President, Colonel Roosevelt received countless gifts from admirers all over the country. During the time when there was a great deal of talk about the "big stick," he received quantities of big sticks cut from every kind of tree. Crates came constantly with live animals of every description, including such undomesticated species as foxes and coons. One day one of the newspapers reported, very probably with no basis of truth, that 184 THEODORE ROOSEVELT a dog of which the President was particularly fond had been whipped in a fight. A few days later there arrived from one of Roosevelt's friends in Ohio a crate' containing an enormous bulldog. With the crate came a note explaining that the President might safely put his trust in the bulldog, because "the brute had never yet been licked in a fight," and the sender didn't think he ever would be. Of course the President was not able to keep gifts of this kind, and had to find a home for the dog outside of the White House. But the animal flourished in Washington for some time, and is reputed to have justified his former owner's high opinion of him as a warrior. The Roosevelts brought a large family of children to the White House with them. Alice was already a young lady nearly eighteen, and her marriage to Nicholas Longworth, one of the Republican Representatives from Ohio, was a great social event in Washington in the winter of 1906. Theodore, Jr., Kermit and Ethel were fourteen, twelve and ten respectively. The two youngest were Archibald and Quentin, who were seven and four. The household was a lively one and would have afforded many interesting stories for the reporters if they had been allowed to publish them. But Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt drew a sharp line between their official life and their private life. Since 1889 they had spent most of their winters in Washington and they had their own circle of personal friends and their own strictly family life. No President has ever known personally so many reporters and representatives of the press. Roosevelt permitted the publication of all kinds of stories in regard to his own manifold activities, his strenuous walks and rides, his boxing, wrestling and tennis. But he would not permit the magazines and newspapers iiili"3ii~ Oiiiii Liiiiii fi~ii-iii i C1i ii a,iii i iiliiii,ii siiiii~ iii tiiiiiiB ii (sJIiiiii!iiii ~iiiiif~i~i~L ~ ~iiii~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ii~~~~~~~~~~~i~~~~~~~iiij ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i~IEii~ ciiiiiii iiiiZ fiiiiiiii~ i ~iiiiiii yiiiiii I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~l ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 185 to be filled with accounts of the intimate life of his family. The reporters knew that he disliked this and generally respected his wishes. One representative of a large daily, however, having nothing of startling interest to relate, sent his paper a report that the Roosevelt children had amused themselves by chasing a turkey over the White House grounds and by finally despatching it with a gun or hatchet. There was, of course, not one word of truth in the tale. The President was furious. As a father, and as a sportsman, he keenly resented the imputation that his children had been engaged in an act of wanton cruelty, and he was probably aware that it was the kind of story that would readily be believed by some of those who had read accounts of his western adventures. He ordered that neither the reporter who had invented the tale, nor any other representative of his paper, should ever be permitted to enter the White House again during his administration. The two younger children, Archie and Quentin, were lively boys full of a good deal of natural mischief. There is a story that on the first night of their arrival they set out for an inspection of the grounds. As darkness approached, the lamp lighter came down Pennsylvania Avenue lighting the gas jets on the lamp posts as he came. As soon as he had completed his work on one side of the park he hurried over to the other, whereupon the two boys scrambled up the lamp posts, one by one, and turned out all the lights which he had already lit. In the middle of this enterprise they were suddenly arrested by a watchman who had been somewhat mystified by the curious phenomenon of the disappearing lights. When the watchman found that his two prisoners were sons of the President, he wisely decided to allow them to escape from custody. 186 THEODORE ROOSEVELT The children were given the free run of the White House grounds and were allowed to climb the trees and generally to make themselves at home so long as they did not interfere with the business or pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt's many visitors. As soon as they were old enough to learn they were all taught to ride horseback, so that they were able to join their father and mother in the afternoon's exercise. Their pets were numerous and ubiquitous. Theodore at one time had a blue macaw named Eli Yale; Kermit had a black and tan terrier called "Jack;" while Quentin when he was only five rode a tiny pony, "Algonquin." Jacob Riis recalls his amusement when Kermit produced a pet kangaroo rat from his pocket at breakfast one morning, and let it hop across the table to eat a piece of sugar from the President's hand. Archie was a frequent visitor to an animal shop near the White House, from which the owner allowed him to borrow pets from time to time. On one occasion when the President was talking with Representative Hepburn about the important matter of the Railroad Rate Bill, Archie burst in to show his father a king snake which he had brought home from the store. He was holding the snake inside his coat and it had managed to wriggle partly down his sleeve. Hepburn, naturally, did not take in exactly what was going on, aid seeing that the boy was having some difficulty with his coat, started to help him off with it. When the coat came off and disclosed the small boy plus the large snake, the Congressman jumped back with considerable alacrity. Playing with the children was, for the President, an important and necessary part of the day. The favorite amusement was the game of bear. The Colonel himself took the part of a very active and ferocious animal and ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 187 was pursued across the floor by the young hunters, armed with umbrellas or fire irons, or any other object which was at hand. When the chase ended by the killing or capture of the bear, the positions were reversed, and the President became the hunter while the children scrambled under the chairs and tables to escape his deadly aim. The younger children, especially Quentin, usually appeared at the afternoon tennis games and sat perched on the fence, keeping a watchful eye on the pitchers of lemonade and the ginger-bread or cookies which were set out to refresh the players, and joining with enthusiasm in their consumption. No interest of the children was so small that the busy President did not find time to share it. Colonel Crook, the disbursing officer of the White House, tells of a gentleman from Indiana who called upon him one day bringing his son who was eight years old. The little boy had read of Quentin, and being about the same age, had concluded to make a present for him. So in his father's workshop, after considerable effort, he succeeded in making a steel top which he had now come to present. Roosevelt, hearing that the boy was there, insisted on seeing him, and on finding out how the top could be spun. Accordingly the boy was brought to the White House where he and the Chief Executive of the nation solemnly conferred on the subject of tops and how to spin them. Christmas was always a very happy time in the Roosevelt household. The Colonel looked back to the Christmas celebrations of his own childhood with peculiar happiness, and he and Mrs. Roosevelt tried to reproduce those festivities as far as possible for their own children. Every child had his own stocking, of course, and afterwards the larger presents. For simplicity's sake 188 THEODORE ROOSEVELT there was no Christmas tree, but this did not seem to mar the family's pleasure. On their second Christmas in the White House, Archie hid a tiny tree in an unused closet and got the White House electrician to put little colored electric lights on it. When the great day came the door was thrown open and disclosed the tree covered with boyish presents for his father and mother. The family life of the Roosevelts in the White House was thoroughly normal and happy. The father and mother were devoted to their children and were never distracted from their duty toward them by considerations which might have been thought more important. As a matter of fact they felt keenly that nothing could be more important than the training of their own children, and they. were careful to carry out in their private life the principles of home-making which the Colonel so often insisted upon in public. To have in the White House a man who was a public character, and at the same time their father, must have puzzled the children. When the Colonel left to join his regiment in 1898, one of the boys, by way of saying goodbye, clasped him round the legs with a beaming smile and said, "And is my father going to the war, and will he bring me back a bear?" When he returned some months later, in a strange uniform, the same little boy was a good deal puzzled as to his identity, but greeted him pleasantly with, "Good afternoon, Colonel." Shortly afterwards somebody asked him where his father was, and he answered, "I don't know; but the Colonel is taking a bath." It has been said that the work and responsibility of the Presidency wears down the strength of the strongest man, but the work did not wear on Roosevelt. Doubtless I 2i O CU ~p l g-. C U fC UCP "IP~t aC C0 ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 189 he had his moments of discouragement and weariness, but ninety-nine one-hundredths of the time he thoroughly enjoyed the life, turning from one piece of work to another with tireless, enthusiastic energy. Each morning he literally bounded down the White House stairs to his executive offices, and plunged into the multifarious and often momentous duties and activities of the day with a zest that infected all about him. The handling of the business of the White House was a model of efficiency. Every appointment was carefully scheduled as far as possible in advance. The files were very complete and ready of access, and as a business office it was probably one of the best in the government service. Upon arriving at his office, the President would dispose of such important parts of his mail as were brought to his attention, glancing at the newspapers, usually looking over four of the leading papers from different parts of the country. From about ten until noon, unless it were Cabinet day, he would see people by appointment, and also senators, representatives, ambassadors and ministers, a constant stream of men representing political and other interests. Their business was promptly and efficiently disposed of, usually a bit of fun or social talk being mingled with more serious matters. But there were no delays or stoppages of the stream except when some particular character arrived-and he might be almost any sort of character-an explorer, a naturalist with a new bird, John L. Sullivan from Boston, a Rough Rider, a ranchman, or one of the shining lights of literature. When this happened, people might wait for a while, while the President extracted the utmost possible information of interest and amusement from that particular caller. Then the stream would go on again. The callers came first 190 THEODORE ROOSEVELT into the main outer office. From there, when the Cabinet was not in session, some of them would be admitted to the Cabinet room. Very frequently the door between the Cabinet room and the President's office would be open, and the waiting callers would see the vigorous action and hear the remarks of the President, whose business seemed never to be such that there was need of any secrecy. In the meantime there would be gathered in the outer office and in the Cabinet room plain American citizensmen, women and children-from all over the country, who had come merely to see the President. Three or four times during the morning business would stop, these friendly visitors would line up all around the Cabinet room, the President would drop everything else and start down the line. _Usually many of the callers had someone to introduce them to the President. In about half the cases he either knew these people personally or knew of them, and his amazing memory and tremendous interest in people enabled him to say something that was personal to each visitor, and especially to the children. Fifty or sixty people would thus see him, shake hands, and in fifteen minutes go out again with the sense of having met a friend and'of having spoken to the President. He had a genuine love for human beings of whatever station in life and probably enjoyed this part of his morning's work more than anything else. A Congressman from a western state once told me that there arrived in Washington from the city of X one of his constituents, a Mr. B., a saloon-keeper. He brought with him his wife and little girl. They wanted to meet the President. The Congressman's heart sank somewhat as he looked at the trio. Mrs. B.'s ideas of dress for state ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 191 occasions were lurid, while the child wore at one time at least three sweaters of different colors. The Congressman was equal to the occasion, however, and they went to the White House and stood among the waiting guests while the President came down the line. He gave Mr. B. a hearty shake of the hand, found out his native city, and instantly asked him about a mutual friend living in the same ward. Then, shaking Mrs. B. by the hand, he was about to pass on when his attention was attracted by the child. Stooping down, he spoke heartily to the little girl, saying to her mother, "This is your child-a perfect ikeness." "Yes," replied the proud mother, "and I have six more at home." Like a flash the President grasped her )y the hand again, shaking it vigorously, and saying, in is most emphatic manner: "Bully for you, Mrs. B., )ully for you." It is needless to say that that couple, like lundreds of others, left Washington with a feeling that;heir visit had been a great event in their lives. If it happened to be Cabinet day, either Tuesday or?riday, the schedule which I have outlined would be 3omewhat changed. Few morning appointments were nade for these days. The Cabinet met at eleven, in the Aig Cabinet room adjoining the President's office, the nembers sitting around the table in the order of the Respective seniorities of their departments, and laid beore the President the important questions arising in the urisdiction of each. About one or half-past was luncheon in the White louse. Here almost always there were guests-usually Naturalists or literary men or travelers, but frequently government business or politics had some part in the liscussion. The President was amazingly open and frank n his talk, but to the best of the knowledge of his intimate 192 THEODORE ROOSEVELT friends, that confidence was never abused. Either he always knew just whom to trust or else the way in which he put things and the surroundings of themselves impressed a pledge of discretion. At all events the frankness of discussion made one of the great charms of the meal. The food was always very simple-soup, hominy, and frequently Virginia ham, salad, and some light dessert. The rest of the family were usually at the table, except the younger children. About half-past two the President would go back to the business office and for the next hour or so devoted himself mainly to the technical part of his work as Chief Executive, the examining of reports, conferences with his various subordinates, writing of important letters, all of these handled with amazing swiftness and vigor. Indeed he got through the work in about one-third the time that the ordinary good executive would have taken. He had an astounding power of grasping all the essentials of a case and of going at once to the root of the matter. Again and again his subordinates would present elaborate and long reports over which they had worked for days. He would glance through them, and arrive, apparently, at a hasty decision. Later the subordinates would find that the President knew more about the report than they themselves knew, and had seen further into all its bearings. Then about four o'clock or a little after came the sacred hour of exercise and recreation, of which I have spoken. If Congress were not in session, and the President's family were at their summer home on Long Island, the group with whom he had walked or played tennis sometimes spent a long and wonderful evening on the back porch of the White House, where the President and his more intimate friends talked of literature, politics ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 193 and natural history, and the younger men listened and wondered at the sweep and accuracy of the talk. If, however, Congress were in session, or if it were in the social season, the return to the White House would mark the end of the recreation. At about eight o'clock came dinner, usually attended by familiar friends. After dinner the limits of the President's day were absolutely indefinite. He might have conferences with Senators and Cabinet officers to any hour. Frequently his subordinates would find they had an appointment at the White House at eleven or twelve at night or at one in the morning. These evening conferences usually dealt with more difficult and intricate questions where a few experts were consulted on the more important questions of policy, and where there was less of decision, more of discussion. It was a tremendous day's program to carry out, day after day, and year after year, but Roosevelt's mental and physical powers were more than equal to the strain. After seven and a half years crammed with incident and responsibility, he was just as vigorous, and just as brimful of the zest of the life as on the day when he first took up his duties as President. This was made possible not only by his own abundant vitality but by the complete happiness of his home life. On December 2, 1886, he had married his childhood friend, Edith Kermit Carow, and had found in her a wise and helpful companion amid his manifold activities. CHAPTER XIII THE FIRST TERM R OOSEVELT'S administration was crowded with achievements of national and of international significance. In the field of internal affairs the history of his relation to big business and to labor, the story of his conservation policy and the account of his work for the Navy are of such importance that they are treated in separate chapters of this book. But there were other matters of far-reaching consequence. The solid South had always been a stumbling block to Republican Presidents. To maintain the integrity of the party they had felt it necessary to select Federal officeholders from the small body of Southern Republicans. As a result, the choice often fell upon white politicans of the carpet-bagger type. This was inevitable, because the recollection of the Civil War and of the days of reconstruction, still prevented white men of high standing from joining the Republican party. Roosevelt's policy in the matter of Southern appointments differed radically from that of his predecessors. He appreciated the dearth of material within his own party and therefore did not hesitate on more than one occasion to find his man among the Democrats. It was little more than a month after his accession to office that he appointed Thomas G. Jones to be a United States District Judge in Alabama, and George E. Koester as Collector of Internal Revenue in South Carolina, both of whom were Democrats of good standing and reputation in their respective communities. (194) THE FIRST TERM 195 There can be no doubt that he would have been very glad to see political sectionalism put out of business by a break-up of the solid South; and the course upon which he thus embarked was well calculated to achieve this end. A display of fairness to the Southerners of the opposite party, coupled with his own personal popularity, would have gone far to create an entering wedge for Republicanism in the South. But the President's own conception of fair dealing probably prevented the realization of this hope. He was not willing to refuse all recognition to the colored race in the matter of appointments. Before the question of colored appointments became acute, however, another incident occurred which cost him much of the support which might otherwise have been his in the Southern states. In October, 1901,while his new policy of practically non-partisan appointments was rapidly earning for him, the respect of the Southern voters, he invited Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House. Washington was the colored president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and was by common consent the leader of thought and purpose among the colored people. The President admired him and numbered him among his friends. Wishing to consult him upon a subject of mutual interest, le had very naturally asked him to the White House. Mr. Francis E. Leupp, who was close to the President, arranged, upon Washington's suggestion, that he should make his visit without meeting any reporters. Unfortunately, however, for Mr. Washington's plan, his name was inscribed upon the record kept by the White House door-keepers. This record was open to the inspection of the newspaper representatives, and, as a consequence, 196 THEODORE ROOSEVELT there appeared in the next morning's Washington Post, at the bottom of an inside page, the obscure announcement: "Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Alabama, dined with the President last evening." Had the Southern newspapers been content to let the matter rest there, nothing more would have come of it. Unfortunately, however, they hit upon this innocent news item and immediately set up an uproar. They accused the President of intending to set up negro supremacy in the South, and of having made a stage play to secure the colored vote. The first accusation was disproved by the fact that the President had appointed to two responsible Federal offices members of the dominant race, although they were not of his own party. The second charge was equally absurd, for no one really believes that the colored man needs a share in the spoils of office to convert him to Republicanism. The President made no public statement in regard to the occurrence. But he received innumerable letters on the subject; some from friends who urged him to give the South a lesson by foisting as many negroes as possible upon it; others warning him never to set his foot on Southern soil so long as he was President. But all this clamor affected him not at all. Not long afterwards he named as Collector of the Port of Charleston; S. C., Doctor William D. Crum, an educated colored man of standing and character, with an excellent reputation among both races. This produced another outburst of excitement, but the President stood firm. He explained that he considered Crum entirely fit for the appointment, and that he should certainly not discriminate against him on account of his color. In a letter of November 26, 1902, answering a vehement protest from a gentleman of THE FIRST TERM 197 Charleston, he said; "The great majority of my appointments in every state have been of white men. North and South alike it has been my sedulous endeavor to appoint only men of high character and good capacity, whether white or black. But it has been my consistent policy in every state where their numbers warranted it to recognize colored men of good repute and standing in making appointments to office." He persisted in this policy throughout his administration. When circumstances justified it he appointed to Federal office colored men of ability and of high character, but he frequently named a white Democrat when he believed that such a nomination would best serve the interests of the country. Toward the end of 1902 there occurred an incident which illustrated his attitude toward the colored problem and also his characteristic way of meeting a difficult situation. Mrs. Minnie Cox had been for some years the colored postmistress at Indianola, Mississippi. A mob, inspired by a wave of race prejudice, compelled Mrs. Cox to resign her position and to leave the town. The matter was brought to the attention of the President. Of course the obvious thing to do was to assert the majesty of the law by sending Mrs. Cox back under an escort of United States troops. Roosevelt, however, adopted a much simpler expedient. He simply closed the post-office and by this means compelled the citizens of Indianola to go five miles to the next town to get their mail. Early in Roosevelt's administration rumors of fraud in the Post-Office Department had become more and more numerous. Finally Payne, the Postmaster General, carried the charges to the President. Payne suggested a quiet investigation which would spare the party the disgrace and injury of public exposure. The President, 198 THEODORE ROOSEVELT however, took a different view of the situation. If there was dishonesty, he was determined to find it out and to punish the wrong-doers in the light of day. He argued, and rightly, that no amount of publicity could hurt the Republican party if they were honestly discharging the duty of cleaning their own house. The investigation was therefore undertaken and relentlessly carried through under the immediate supervision of Joseph L. Bristow, the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General, who was peculiarly qualified for the work both by experience and temperament. The President took a keen interest in it from the beginning, and constantly issued orders and made suggestions to the investigators. As special assistants to the Attorney-General he procured Charles J. Bonaparte and Holmes Conrad, the latter of whom was a Democrat to whom the uncovering of Republican wrong-doing was naturally a pleasant task. The result was a complete exposure of colossal frauds, and a cleansing of the PostOffice Department of which it stood in sore need. The President's judgment as to the effect of this washing of the party's dirty linen, in public was vindicated by the result of the election of 1904. He had shown himself willing to pursue and chastise the rogues of his own fold, and the people, knowing that rogues were common to both parties, rejoiced to have a President who was able and anxious to hunt them impartially. Roosevelt rendered no greater service to the nation than the settlement of the great Anthracite Coal Strike in the fall of 1902. Without his intervention there is little doubt that there would have befallen the country a calamity very much more serious than any since the Civil War. The trouble between the operators and the miners of K THE FIRST TERM 199 the Pennsylvania anthracite region was an old story. In the fall of 1900, a strike had led to a temporary settlement which involved an increase of ten per cent in the miners' wages. Senator Hanna had been largely instrumental in effecting this agreement and he had wrung concessions from the operators by warning them that a stubborn attitude would, in the coming election, throw the miners into the arms of Bryan. By the spring of 1902 the temporary arrangement had come to an end and the miners approached the operators with the request that the entire subject should be carefully considered and a final agreement reached. On May 8th, John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers of America, wrote the owners setting forth the specific demands of the miners. These were for a twenty per cent increase in wages, for an eight-hour day, and for a certain method of payment by weight. In his letter he offered to submit the controversy to arbitration by Archbishop Ireland, Bishop Potter and a third arbitrator, to be chosen by these two. The operators, however, refused to discuss the question of wages and hours any further. Accordingly, on May 12th, the great strike began, and by June 2d, 147,000 men were out of work. Although the questions of pay and of hours of labor were at issue between the contending parties, the real source of the trouble and the fundamental cause of dispute was the failure of the owners to recognize the authority of the United Mine Workers of America to speak for the miners. They were willing to treat with the miners individually, but refused to deal with them collectively through their accredited agents. Through the summer the strike did not cause very serious inconvenience. The strikers were supported partly by their own savings and partly by funds contributed to 200 THEODORE ROOSEVELT them by the bituminous miners and other wage earners. The ordinary reserve supplies of coal prevented any serious injury to industry for some time. But as fall approached the situation grew very serious indeed. By October, coal which usually sold for three dollars a ton was selling for fifteen or twenty dollars, while the poor had to pay as much as a cent a pound at retail. Soft coal too had risen in price three or four hundred per cent. The cost of the necessaries of life began to increase materially since coal played a controlling part in their manufacture. Unless some action were- taken speedily, hundreds of thousands were threatened with privation and death for lack of fuel. The coal fields were owned to a large extent by the eastern railroads, and these in turn were controlled by a small body of capitalists at the head of whom stood J. Pierpont Morgan. There was some disorder at the mines during the summer, and Governor Stone of Pennsylvania called out the state militia to suppress it. The operators took the position that if properly protected, they could run the mines and produce as much coal as the public needed. But the presence of the troops had no effect on the mining of coal and the situation remained as bad as ever. Both sides were obdurate; each was determined not to give in to the other. Roosevelt felt very keenly his responsibility in the matter. He realized that whatever action he took could not be in accordance with any clearly expressed constitutional power; but he was determined to take some action. During the summer it was suggested to him that he should acquaint himself with the facts of the situation so as to be ready to act promptly when the time came. He accepted the suggestion immediately and within a few a a~et.i4..kit. OVER THE JVMPS The splendid horsemanship of Coloel Roosevet is well attested by these phtgahaen at Chv s dring his presidency Riding was one of his f orte m of erisand he had the emarkailefaculty of eing able to rest Iad divt his iod fr the proems of statesmanship by strenuous phsia.' acti'- vity. THE FIRST TERM 201 minutes had telegraphed to Carroll D. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor, directing him to make the necessary investigation and report. When October brought the first signs of cold weather and there still seemed no indication of a settlement of the strike, the President himself took a hand in the situation. He asked representatives of both sides to meet him in Washington to see whether some agreement could be arrived at. He had with him at the meeting AttorneyGeneral Knox, George B. Cortelyou, his private secretary, and Carroll D. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor. The operators were represented by the presidents of the several railroads interested, and the miners by John Mitchell, the president of their organization. Roosevelt began the meeting by stating that he disclaimed "any right or duty to intervene in this way upon legal grounds or upon any official relation that he bore to the situation," but that it was his earnest desire that the conference might result in some kind of a settlement. Mitchell immediately answered that he and his friends would be only too glad to submit the whole matter to arbitration by a tribunal to be named by the President. The meeting then adjourned until three o'clock to give the operators an opportunity to consider and prepare their replies. When they returned at the appointed hour they each had typewritten statements from which they read their answers. George F. Baer, president of the Reading Company-the largest single operator in the field-made the first statement which presented substantially the same views as the others. He described and greatly exaggerated the lawlessness of the strikers and reminded the President that it was lis constitutional duty tq send United States troops on request of the 202 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Governor or Legislature of a state, to suppress domestic violence. "You see," he said, "there is a lawful way to secure coal for the public. The duty of the hour is not to waste time negotiating with the fomenters of this anarchy and insolent defiance of law, but to do as was done in the War of the Rebellion, restore the majesty of the law." He concluded by offering to submit any controversy in a given locality to arbitration by the judges of the local court of common pleas. The operators turned a deaf ear to the proposition that the whole matter should be submitted to a commission to be appointed by the President, and the meeting broke up with apparently no progress made toward an agreement. The President was justly indignant at the attitude of the operators.. "They came down in a most insolent frame of mind," he said, "refused to talk of arbitration or other accommodation of any kind, and used language that was insulting to the miners and offensive to me." But this statement was made more than ten years later. At the time he concealed his resentment and continued his efforts to effect a settlement. The attitude of the operators at this meeting gave rise to an outburst of wrath from all parts of the country. The people fully appreciated what a winter without coal would be and their anger against the small body of men who stood in the way of a reconciliation showed itself in countless ways. Grover Cleveland wrote to the President, approving the course which he had pursued and expressing his indignation at the conduct of the operators. The President at once wrote to Mr. Cleveland, asking if he would consent to serve as chairman of the Arbitration or Investigating Commission which would probably be appointed. This Cleveland consented to do. THE FIRST TERM 203 But the President did not rely upon finally securing the operators' assent to arbitration. He was prepared to go to very great lengths in order to save the country from a coal famine. He accordingly sent for Major-General Schofield, in whom he had great confidence, and told him that if the arbitration scheme failed, he would send the United States Army to the coal fields under the command of the General with instructions to dispossess the operators and to run the mines as a receiver until the President's Commission should make its report. He had no right under the Constitution to send troops into Pennsylvania unless the Governor or the State Legislature asked for them. Accordingly he sent for Senator Quay, and, without telling him the details of his plan, arranged that whenever he gave word from Washington Governor Stone would request Federal intervention. He was now ready to avert disaster, whether or not the operators consented to arbitrate. Shortly after the abortive conference of October 3d, Elihu Root, the Secretary of War, discussed the matter further with Mr. Morgan in New York, and finally Morgan, on October 13th, after an interview with the President, agreed to submit the case to arbitration. The operators, however, demanded that they should be allowed to dictate the way in which the Commission should be made up. It must have five members: an army engineer, a mining expert, an eminent sociologist, a mining engineer, and a United States judge from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The President was very anxious to appoint Cleveland to the Commission, rightly thinking that this would establish popular confidence in the fairness of their findings, but the operators were obstinate and Cleveland's name had to be dropped. The President also felt that 204 THEODORE ROOSEVELT some representative of labor should serve on the Commission, but to this the owners positively refused to agree. After two hours of argument a solution suddenly occurred to the President. He announced that he agreed to the terms laid down by the operators. Accordingly he appointed as Commissioners, General John M. Wilson, an army engineer; Thomas H. Watkins, a mining expert; Edward W. Parker, a mining engineer, and Judge George Gray. When it came to the eminent sociologist, the President took the opportunity to make the appointment which fairness to the miners demanded. He named Mr. Edward E. Clark, president of the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors, adding to the public statement of the appointment, "The President assuming that for the purposes of such a Commission, the term "sociologist" means a man who has thought and studied deeply on social questions and has practically applied his knowledge." Both sides had agreed to abide by the awards of the Commission and the representatives of the miners had agreed that their men would go back to work immediately. This they did on October 23d. On March 18, 1903, the Commission filed its report containing its findings and awards. The miners received a ten per cent increase in pay, a nine-hour day was established, and substantial recognition was secured for the United Mine Workers of America. Since this award, which was loyally accepted by both sides, there has been industrial peace in the anthracite coal region. When Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency upon McKinley's death, he had, as has been already stated, persuaded all of McKinley's Cabinet to retain their portfolios, but with the passage of time, changes THE FIRST TERM 205 necessarily occurred. The first of these was on December 17, 1901, when Henry C. Payne took the place of Charles Emory Smith as Postmaster-General. The appointment of Mr. Payne caused considerable surprise. He was a party manager of experience but with none of the independent tendencies which the President was supposed to favor. It was, however, this very fact which led Roosevelt to select Payne for the position. He felt that his Cabinet needed a practical politician and that Payne, who had been chairman of the Republican National Executive Committee, would fill this need. On January 8, 1902, occurred the second change in his official family. Lyman J. Gage resigned the Treasury portfolio and Leslie M. Shaw, of Iowa, was selected to take his place. Shaw was a successful banker who had made a fortune by finding Eastern money for Western mortgages. During the free-silver agitation his convictions and his best interest alike had driven him into politics as the supporter of a sound gold currency. He became Governor of Iowa and it seemed that in the year 1904 he might become a candidate for the Presidency. But McKinley's untimely death put an end to his Presidential chances, although it afforded him the opportunity of holding a Cabinet position. He was a great man for getting things done, for cutting red-tape and for surmounting apparently insurmountable obstacles and for this reason Roosevelt liked him and appointed him. John D. Long, McKinley's Secretary of the Navy, under whom Roosevelt had served in 1897 and 1898, resigned early in the year 1902. Personal sorrow and anxiety had made him anxious to return to the quiet life of an ordinary citizen. In his place the President appointed William H. Moody, of Massachusetts, whom he had 206 THEODORE ROOSEVELT known as a member of Congress, and with whom he was already on terms of friendship. Moody had served in Congress as a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, and had taken a special interest in naval affairs, so that he appeared to be well qualified to act as the President's assistant in carrying out a program for increasing America's strength on the high seas. The new Department of Commerce and Labor was created by an act of Congress, approved by the President on February 14, 1903. Two days later he appointed George B. Cortelyou to be its first Secretary. Cortelyou had been private secretary to McKinley and had been retained in his position by the new President. He had a genius for organization which was particularly valuable in starting the new department on its way. During the year 1904, a number of further changes took place in the Cabinet. Elihu Root, the Secretary of War, having completed the military reforms which had been begun under his supervision, resigned to resume his law practice in New York City, and was succeeded by William H. Taft, whose reputation as a Federal judge and as GovernorGeneral of the Philippines certainly justified his selection. In this year, too, Philander C. Knox resigned the AttorneyGeneralship to accept an appointment by the Governor of Pennsylvania to the United States Senate. Moody moved over from the Navy Department to take Knox's place and was himself succeeded by Paul Morton, a railroad man who had commended himself to the President by his fairness and ability in helping to put a stop to the rebate evil. The appointments of Moody and Morton, together with that of Victor H. Metcalf, as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, were announced on June 24, 1904, the day after the President had received the nomination, THE FIRST TERM 207 for a second term. On October 10th of the same year, Robert J. Wynne succeeded Henry C. Payne as Postmaster-General. By the end of 1904, therefore, Roosevelt had a Cabinet whose composition had changed almost entirely during the three years of his Presidency. With the exception of the Coal Strike, it was our foreign policy which furnished the most striking incidents of Roosevelt's first term. Matters gravely affecting our relations with Cuba, Santo Domingo, Venezuela, Turkey, Great Britain and Panama, came up in rapid succession and were necessarily disposed of to a large extent, and often wholly, by the President himself. "In foreign affairs," he says, "the principle from which we never deviated was to have the nation behave toward other nations precisely as a strong, honorable and upright man behaves in dealing with his fellow-men." Ever since the Spanish War our relations with Cuba had formed a difficult and pressing problem. The Spaniards had withdrawn shortly after the termination of the war, leaving the island under the jurisdiction of General Leonard Wood as Military Governor. There had followed a Constitutional Convention composed of delegates selected at a general election. The United States had formally disclaimed any intention of exercising sovereignty over Cuba, and had expressed its determination to leave the island as soon as its pacification was completed. We were anxious to carry out this pledge as quickly as possible; but we appreciated the fact that Cuba stood in a peculiar relation to us. By an amendment to the Army Appropriation Bill of March 2, 1901, known as the Platt Amendment, the President was directed to leave the control of Cuba to its people so soon as the Cubans should adopt a constitution which should, among other things, 208 THEODORE ROOSEVELT grant to the United States the right to intervene for the protection of Cuban independence, and should further give us rights in certain naval stations on the island. The Cubans were assured that it was not our intention to meddle in their affairs except on just and substantial grounds. On June 12, 1901, the Constitutional Convention completed a constitution which embodied the provisions of the Platt Amendment. On the last day of 1901 a general election of national officers was held, and finally, on May 20, 1902, the United States withdrew and the government was formally transferred to the inhabitants of Cuba. Roosevelt believed that there had been two great moral issues in the campaigns of 1896, 1898 and 1900, "the imperative need of a sound and honest currency and the need after 1898 of meeting in manful and straightforward fashion the extra-territorial problems arising from the Spanish War." With respect to Cuba he felt a peculiar sense of obligation, to which he called attention in his first message to Congress. "Cuba," he said, "has in her constitution affirmed what we desired, that she should stand, in international matters, in closer and more friendly relations with us than with any other power; and we are bound by every consideration of honor and expediency to pass commercial measures in the interest of her material well-being." He therefore asked for a substantial reduction in the tariff duties on Cuban imports into the United States. But for two years it was impossible to carry this plan into execution. The principal subject of import from Cuba was sugar, and the American beet and cane-sugar planters objected strongly to a reduction of the tariff which would necessarily affect their business. With them were various farmers' associations and those who THE FIRST TERM 209 favored a high tariff on general principles. The American Sugar Refining Company, on the other hand, favored reciprocity with Cuba because it would enable them to get raw sugar for refining at a lower price. The interests opposed to reciprocity were strong enough to prevent favorable action by Congress, and the President accordingly sent a special message urging the passage of a reciprocity bill. At the next session he again asked for action in his annual message, but still there was no response from Congress. He had set his heart, however, upon reciprocity with Cuba and was determined to carry it through as a measure of justice to the island. Finding Congress obdurate, he negotiated a treaty with the Cuban Government providing for certain mutual reductions in the import duties of the two countries. The Senate failed to act on this treaty at the current session and was therefore convened by the President in special session on March 5, 1903. After two weeks' discussion the treaty was ratified with certain amendments and with the curious provision that it should not go into effect until approved by Congress as a whole. Since the special session included only the Senate and not the House this meant that the matter was left in abeyance until the fall. Without waiting until the beginning of the regular fall session, the President called an extra session of Congress on November 9, 1903, and sent to them a message strongly urging the approval of the treaty. He again called attention to our moral obligations to Cuba, and to the economic advantages which the treaty would secure for us. The House passed the bill to approve the treaty by an overwhelming vote, but the Senate, although they had ratified the treaty itself, were reluctant to take the necessary final step. At last, however, they passed the 210 THEODORE ROOSEVELT bill on December 16, 1903, and reciprocity with Cuba became an accomplished fact. Roosevelt had been in office only a little over a year when there came a clear-cut opportunity for the application of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1896 the Government of Venezuela had borrowed nine and a half million dollars from a German bank for the building of a railroad. When most of the interest on this sum remained unpaid in 1901, the German Government took up the cudgels in behalf of the bank. A demand was made upon Venezuela for the payment of the interest, together with damages for losses sustained by German settlers during the Venezuelan Revolution of 1898. President Castro procrastinated as long as possible. Finally the Germans decided to establish what they called a "pacific blockade." In this they were backed rather halfheartedly by Great Britain, who was pressing for the payment of claims due to British subjects amounting to about'a million and a half dollars. John Hay, Roosevelt's Secretary of State, spent a year in trying to persuade the blockaders that they were unjustifiably interfering with the rights of neutral nations. He also suggested arbitration. But Germany was anxious to push matters to the limit and to make use of her new navy. On December 8, 1902, both Germany and Great Britain severed diplomatic relations with Venezuela and on the next day sunk three Venezuelan warships just off the coast of that country. Four days later they bombarded and reduced to pulp the small fort of Puerto Cabello. Roosevelt felt that the situation was serious.. He knew that the British would be willing to arbitrate and that the real aggressor was Germany. He accordingly sent for the German Ambassador, Dr. Holleben, and told him THE FIRST TERM 211 that unless Germany consented to arbitrate, Admiral Dewey with the American squadron would be sent, ten days later, to the Venezuelan coast to prevent the taking of Venezuelan territory by Germany. Dr. Holleben began to argue the question but the President explained that the time for argument was past. The German Ambassador left, and for a week nothing happened. Then Dr. Holleben called on the President again but said nothing about the Venezuelan matter. As he started to leave Roosevelt stopped him and asked him whether he had heard anything from his government. He said that he had not. "Then," said Roosevelt, "I shall instruct Admiral Dewey to sail one day earlier than I had originally intended." This brought the Ambassador to earth very quickly. The President explained that no one knew of his former message to the Kaiser, that no one need know about it, and that the Kaiser would receive full credit if he consented to arbitrate. Thirty-six hours later Dr. Holleben returned to say that the Kaiser would be glad to submit to arbitration. Both Great Britain and Germany united, on December 20th, in asking the President to act as sole arbitrator. But he induced them to refer their dispute to the Hague Tribunal and fulfilled his promise to Dr. Holleben by complimenting the Kaiser on his support of the cause of international arbitration. The account of the President's interviews with Dr. Holleben was not made public until years afterwards, when friendly relations between the two countries had ceased. When the European squadron of the United States Navy visited Kiel in June, 1903, we may readily imagine the amusement with which Roosevelt must have read Emperor William's speech expressing warm sentiments of friendship for himself and for the American people. 212 THEODORE ROOSEVELT In the affair of Santo Domingo the Monroe Doctrine was again called into operation. Santo Domingo was always in a chronic state of revolution. It was the practice of the revolutionaries to seize the ports with their custom houses and to pledge future import duties as security for loans made to them by European powers. This kind of high finance had utterly demoralized the island. On one occasion there were for some weeks two simultaneous rival governments, against each of which a revolution was being carried on. For part of this time one of the governments was quartered at sea in a small gunboat while still claiming the attributes of sovereignty. By September, 1904, Santo Domingo's total debt was over thirty-two million dollars, and she had in sight an income of only half a million with which to meet, during the coming year, charges of five times that sum. Most of this money had been borrowed from European creditors, whose governments threatened to force repayment of the loans. There were two ways to do this-one was to establish a "pacific blockade," which is on its face an absurd contradiction in terms, while the other was to seize and conduct the custom house and to apply the duties thus collected to the payment of the debt. The United States had assumed a position with regard to the smaller American republics which made it impossible to permit any such seizure as that suggested. Roosevelt accordingly arranged on his own account with the de facto Government of Santo Domingo, that the United States should collect the duties and should pay fortyfive per cent of them to Santo Domingo, and fifty-five per cent to the various creditors. The carrying out of this arrangement was of course to be insured by the necessary protection' of American armed forces. The THE FIRST TERM 213 Senate refused to ratify the treaty which embodied this agreement; but the President succeeded in accomplishing his object nevertheless. The President of Santo Domingo named a Receiver of Customs suggested to him by President Roosevelt, and this Receiver collected duties under the protection of the United States Navy, which of course acted in the matter under the orders of the President as its Commander-in-Chief. The Senate, realizing that the President had got the better of them, finally, on February 25, 1907, ratified a treaty with Santo Domingo which substantially accomplished the purpose which Roosevelt had in mind. As a result, the creditors began to receive their money, and the Santo Domingans received more from their forty-five per cent share than they had received in the old days when all of the duties went to them direct. In speaking of this matter shortly before the ratification of the treaty by the Senate, the President said: "I was immensely amused when at a professional peace meeting the other day they incidentally alluded to me as having 'made war' on Santo Domingo. I feel like paraphrasing Patrick Henry: 'if that is war, make the most of it.' The war I have made literally consists in having loaned them a Collector of Customs at their request." In the summer of 1903, a rumor reached Washington that Magelssen, the United States Vice-Consul at Beirut, Syria, had been assassinated. The President immediately ordered the European squadron to proceed to Beirut. The promptness of this action caused considerable astonishment at the time; but the basis of his judgment was sound. Had the rumor come from a civilized country he could have secured an immediate report of the situation 214 THEODORE ROOSEVELT through diplomatic channels, but he knew that weeks would elapse before any information could be elicited from the Turkish authorities, and he rightly reasoned that nothing would instil a desire for fairness so quickly in the Turkish heart as the appearance of United States men-of-war. Fortunately, the rumor appeared to have been without foundation, but the discovery of this fact was no doubt due in large measure to the promptness with which the President had indicated his determination to press matters to a conclusion if necessary. Under Roosevelt's administration the cause of arbitration flourished. The case of the United States against Mexico in 1902 was the first case ever referred to the Hague Tribunal. This involved a dispute over the Pious Fund of the Californias —a trust fund started by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century for the conversion of the California Indians, which had been administered at one time by the King of Spain, and later by the Government of Mexico. After the purchase of the State of California by the United States in 1848, Mexico had failed to pay the Catholic bishops of California their share of the interest of the trust fund. The Hague Court decided in favor of the American bishops, awarding them a large sum of accrued interest, together with a future annuity of about $40,000. It was during this period too, that the Alaskan Boundary question was submitted to a mixed British and American Commission, and was thus finally settled to the satisfaction of both disputants. There were also concluded with Great Britain and with most of the other great nations, arbitration treaties specifically agreeing to arbitrate all matters except questions affecting territorial integrity, national honor and vital national interest. THE FIRST TERM 215 Roosevelt's position in regard to this matter of arbitration was clear. He was anxious to avoid hostilities wherever possible and to increase the power and prestige of the Hague Tribunal, but he stated emphatically his disbelief in "making universal arbitration treaties which neither the makers, nor any one else, would for a moment dream of keeping." In this, as in all other things, he faced the facts and strove only for what he called "realizable ideals." By far the most important matter affecting our international relations during Roosevelt's administration was the series of events leading up to the digging of the Panama Canal. These events are, in themselves, so interesting and have exercised such a profound influence upon the history of this country, that they are treated of separately in the chapter which follows. CHAPTER XIV THE PANAMA CANAL W E owe to Theodore Roosevelt the Panama Canal. The statement that he built it after four hundred years of conversation is almost literally true. In his speech at the University of California on March 23, 1911, he said: "I am interested in the Panama Canal because I started it. If I had followed traditional, conservative methods, I should have submitted a dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to the Congress, and the debate would have been going on yet. But I took the Canal Zone, and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on the canal does also." The canal is the greatest tangible result of his Presidency. He accomplished his purpose because he was intensely interested in having the canal built; because he beat down the powerful opposition to the construction of any canal; and, above all, because, faced with a difficult and complicated situation, he was willing to take the responsibility of positive action. His instant recognition of the Republic of Panama, and his use of the naval forces of the United States to prevent Colombia from landing troops to quell the rebellion has been the subject of much adverse criticism. There is now pending in the Senate a treaty negotiated between the present administration and Colombia which virtually recognizes that the action taken by the United States under the direction of President Roosevelt was not justifiable. Roosevelt himself never doubted the moral (216) Vh m dA. V% *is ' th the graftsest inrobev cut i 7: hen Panma ted from the Colorabian federation, by t the d cof a thenanet tate4 he Canal Treaty drustfuctir through. He is seen bere on a giant s shoel s to thi6 rd oOiin10. n ll1nttI V~t X te _Ltelr xaF!%t *wi 18*( 9 t~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -a 1~~~~~~~~~ THE PANAMA CANAL 217 justification for his act. Indeed, he would have regarded any other course than the one he took as essentially immoral. The issue can be shortly stated: Had the Republic of Colombia so acted toward the people of Panama and the United States as to justify the United States in instantly recognizing the revolutionary government of Panama as the de facto government of the Isthmus? I recognize that many publicists and authorities on international law answer this question in the negative. Personally I believe that President Roosevelt and his great Secretary of State, John Hay, were right. By the Treaty of 1846 with New Grenada, the country then in control of the Isthmus, the United States was guaranteed free and open right of way across the Isthmus by any mode of communication. In return, the United States guaranteed the neutrality of Panama with a view of preserving free transit. Furthermore, the United States guaranteed the sovereignty of New Grenada over the Isthmus, this last and important clause being to protect this important strip of territory from the encroachments of any foreign power, especially Great Britain. In 1850 the United States and Great Britain entered into the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. This treaty provided for a canal to be constructed by a private corporation under the political control of Great Britain and the United States and of such other powers as they might unite with them. On the organization of the French Company by De Lesseps, President Hayes took the position that any canal across the Isthmus should be under the control of the United States, and Secretaries Blaine and Frelinghuysen made efforts to secure a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. In his first term President 218 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Cleveland reverted to the policy of a neutralized canal under international guarantee. During Cleveland's second administration, however, Olney, as Secretary of State, declared that the stipulations of the Treaty of 1850 should be modified and that a direct appeal should be made to Great Britain for a reconsideration of the whole matter. When McKinley made Hay Secretary of State, that statesman negotiated with Great Britain what is known as the original Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. This treaty, as drafted, gave the United States the right to construct and maintain the canal, but would have obliged the United States, even in case of. war, to allow the canal to be used by the fleets of an enemy. It also practically invited foreign powers to join with this country in guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal. At the time this treaty was negotiated and sent to the Senate, Roosevelt was Governor of New York. He wrote a long letter to Secretary Hay, protesting against these two features of the proposed treaty. The Senate amended the treaty and the British Government refused to accept the amendments. Hay, however,.then succeeded in negotiating the famous HayPauncefote Treaty which was transmitted to the. Senate by President Roosevelt on December 5, 1901, and ratified by that body on December 16th. It provided that the United States alone should build the canal and assume the responsibility of neutralizing and safeguarding it. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty left the United States free to build the canal, provided we could come to an arrangement with the country which owned the territory through which the canal would pass. For some time two possible routes had been under consideration, one through Nicaragua, the other through the Isthmus at Panama. A commission, under Admiral THE PANAMA CANAL 219 Walker, had made an exhaustive examination of the subject and reported in favor of the Nicaraguan route. At the same time, however, the commission had reported that the value of the French Panama Canal Company's property and rights on the Isthmus was only $40,000,000, and not $109,000,000 which was the company's own estimate. In January, 1902, the House of Representatives passed a bill directing the construction of the canal by the Nicaraguan route. The French Panama Canal Company, however, signified that they would accept $40,000,000 for their property and rights. The Senate amended the bill so as to provide for the purchase of the French Panama Canal Company's rights for $40,000,000, the acquisition from Colombia, at a fair price, of a strip six miles wide across the Isthmus, and the construction of the canal by the Panama route. As amended, the bill became a law on June 28, 1902. All that remained, therefore, was to negotiate a treaty with Colombia. At the time, the government of Colombia was centered in the person of Vice-President Maroquin, who was acting as absolute dictator. This worthy, on July 31, 1900, had seized the person of President Sanclamente, had imprisoned him a few miles from the capital, and had then declared himself possessed of supreme executive authority because of the absence of the President from the capital. Furthermore, on the ground that public order was disturbed, as it certainly was, because he had disturbed it, he assumed to himself all legislative power. His representative in Washington was Dr. Herran, the Charge d'Affaires of the Colombia Legation. After several months of bargaining, Secretary Hay and Dr. Herran succeeded in negotiating the Hay-Herran Treaty, 220 THEODORE ROOSEVELT which was reported to the Senate on January 27, 1903, and ratified by that body on March 27th. Under the terms of this treaty Colombia was to receive $10,000,000 for a strip of territory across the Isthmus six miles wide. The United States further obligated itself, after nine years, to pay Colombia $250,000.00 annually. Having been signed by Dr. Herran, Maroquin's representative, it is inconceivable that Maroquin did not know and acquiesce in the terms of the treaty. The dictator, however, determined to go back on his bargain. He first tried to force the French Panama Company to pay him $10,000,000 out of the $40,000,000 which they were to receive from the United States. This the company refused to do. Thereupon Maroquin and his friends concocted another scheme which they believed would net them still larger returns. The original grant to the Panama Company was to have expired in 1904. The rights of the company, however, had been extended to 1910. The new plan of this precious lot of Bogotan brigands was to declare the extension of the Panama Company's rights void. As a result, in 1904 all the rights of the Panama Company would vest in Colombia, and they believed they would thereby obtain not only the $10,000,000 promised by the United States, and anything more that they could induce the United States to pay, but the $40,000,000 which the United States was willing to pay the Panama Company. In order to carry out this plan, the Colombian Senate, consisting entirely of puppets of Maroquin, was called together. This body unanimously rejected the Hay-Herran Treaty on August 12, 1903. If any one has any doubt of the statement that the Colombian Senators were merely puppets of Maroquin, that doubt should be dispelled by what happened sub THE PANAMA CANAL 221 sequently. After the Panama revolution was an accomplished fact, Maroquin, through a prominent Colombian then in Washington, suggested that if the United States would land troops to preserve Colombian sovereignty on the Isthmus, he would declare martial law, and by virtue of the constitutional authority vested in him when public order was disturbed, would approve the ratification of the Hay-Herran Treaty by his own decree or: —"If the Government of the United States prefers, we will call an extra session of Congress-with new and friendly members-next May to approve the treaty." The rejection of the treaty as the first step to secure to Colombia the $40,000,000 promised to the Canal Company, while doubtless highly satisfactory to Maroquin and his coterie at Bogota, was not at all satisfactory to the people of Panama. At one time Panama had been independent. Prior to 1886, she had had self-government under Colombia, but since that time she had been governed directly from Bogota, that capital being situated fifteen days' journey from the city of Panama. The history of Panama during the previous fiftyseven years, ever since the Treaty of 1846 with New Grenada, had been one long series of disturbances and revolutions. In his message of December 7, 1903, Roosevelt detailed fifty-three revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, riots and outbreaks. These disturbances, instead of tending to decrease, were apparently on the increase. Throughout this period, the United States constantly had to interfere to preserve order, protect her own interests in the railroad on the Isthmus and preserve Colombian authority. Had it not been for the armed protection of the United States, it is probable that Colombia would have lost control over the Isthmus years before. Roosevelt 222 THEODORE ROOSEVELT himself writes that-"in 1856, in 1860, in 1873, in 1885, in 1901 and again in 1902, sailors and marines from the United States war ships were forced to land in order to patrol the Isthmus, to protect life and property and to see that the transit across the Isthmus was kept open." No less than four times between 1861 and 1900 the Colombian Government had asked the United States Government to land troops to protect Colombia's interests and maintain order. The rejection of the Hay-Herran Treaty by Maroquin placed the following alternatives before the United States: 1. Accept the situation and continue conversations with Maroquin, or turn again to the Nicaraguan route. 2. Carry out the terms of the Hay-Herran Treaty by seizing the strip across the Isthmus ceded by the treaty, and proceed to construct the canal. 3. Encourage a revolution on the Isthmus. Roosevelt believed that the third course was immoral and therefore unthinkable. If a revolution came, well and good, but the United States could be no party to its encouragement. On October 10th he wrote to Dr. Albert Shaw, of the Review of Reviews: "I cast aside the proposition at this time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other governments can do, the United States can not go into the securing, by such underhand means, the cession. Privately I freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were an independent state, or if it made itself so at this moment; but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore I can not say it.". The first course appealed to him as also immoral, though the immorality was of a different kind-the shirking of a moral obligation. The world needed a canal THE PANAMA CANAL 9223 across the Isthmus. The United States had taken the position that she would not allow other nations to build the canal; therefore she was under obligation to build it herself. Colombia, while unquestionably possessing the sovereignty over the Isthmus, not being financially able to build the canal, was not merely morally, but, under international law, legally obliged to let the United States build the canal, provided the United States offered her fair terms. For it must be remembered that sovereignty has its limitations; no nation, merely because it is sovereign over a specific territory can permanently prevent that territory from being used in a manner essential to the welfare of all nations. Furthermore, the Government of the United States had actually made with the only government existing in Colombia, the Dictator Maroquin, a treaty, and the dictator had repudiated that treaty. Finally, the people of the Isthmus were a unit in wanting the United States to act. To adopt the first course would have been to indefinitely postpone the construction of the canal and therefore to have shirked a positive moral duty resting on this country. To continue to negotiate with Colombia was for the United States to allow herself to be blackmailed into paying an unreasonable price for the privilege of constructing the canal. Even if such a course was thinkable, any further negotiation with Colombia would have placed the United States in the position of countenancing Maroquin's attempt to delay matters until he had an excuse to confiscate the rights of the French Company-a proceeding which would have involved us with France. Roosevelt's great quality as an executive was that he never hesitated to take positive action if he believed such action right. He had no doubt that the second course 224 THEODORE ROOSEVELT above outlined was the correct course to take, and he therefore drafted a message to Congress in which he advocated seizing the Isthmus and constructing the canal. Events, however, rendered such a course of action unnecessary. The Panamanians, to a man, wanted the canal. They also wanted to sever their connections with Colombia. They were tired of being a milch cow for the Bogotan politicians. Through the summer of 1903 the papers were constantly representing this feeling. Revolution was generally and openly spoken of on the Isthmus. Roosevelt was of course aware of this sentiment. On the 16th of October, Captain Humphrey and Lieutenant Murphy returned from Panama and reported to the President that a revolution would certainly occur, at the end of October, after the Colombian Senate had adjourned and the last hope for reconsideration and ratification of the treaty had disappeared. Upon receipt of this report Roosevelt immediately ordered American ships to proceed to the Isthmus. No revolution in South America or elsewhere can be organized without money. There is no evidence that the Panama Canal Company supplied the necessary funds, but they certainly had every incentive. They stood to lose $40,000,000 and the confiscation of all their property on the Isthmus if the Colombian Government continued its control over Panama. M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, aj Frenchman who had been in the employ of the old Panama Canal Company, and who was a resident of the Isthmus,' turned up in Washington on October 10th, having recently arrived from Paris. He saw the President and Secretary Hay and told them, as he told every one else, that a revolution was certain in Panama. He went so far as to predict the definite date, November 3d; and THE PANAMA CANAL 225 on November 3d the revolution came off as predicted. It was almost entirely bloodless, the total casualties being one Chinaman and one dog killed. The President on November 2d had ordered the Nashville, the Boston and the Dixie to keep the transit across the Isthmus free by preventing the landing of any armed forces at any point within fifty miles of Panama. A similar order had been given on other occasions when revolutions were imminent. Everybody in the Isthmus, including all the Colombian troops that were stationed there, joined the revolution. On the 6th, the United States recognized the new republic. A few days later M. Bunau-Varilla arrived in Washington as the accredited representative of the State of Panama, and on the 19th of November Hay had the satisfaction of writing to his daughter that after days and nights of strenuous work he had just signed a treaty with the new state, which gave the United States full power to proceed to construct the canal. The order prohibiting the landing of Colombian troops within fifty miles of Panama, though, as has been pointed out, not a novel order, followed as it was by the unparalleled quickness with which Roosevelt recognized the new republic, naturally created the impression among those who knew nothing of conditions on the Isthmus that the United States had instigated the revolution. The assumption, however, did not rest on any basis of fact. All we did was to use our police power under the Treaty of 1846 to prevent general bloodshed on the Isthmus, and to refrain from using our forces, as we had done in previous revolutions, to uphold Colombian sovereignty. The President, by his immediate negotiation of a treaty with the new state, giving the United States the 226 THEODORE ROOSEVELT right to acquire the necessary territory and construct the canal, not only insured the continued independence of the new State of Panama in accordance with the unanimous wish of its people, but also prevented the reopening of the whole canal question by the Congress which met on the first Monday of December, 1903. Had the President refused to see that a revolution was about to take place, and refrained from sending American warships to the Isthmus to protect American interests, had he allowed the Colombians and Panamanians to fight out their differences on the Isthmus, or had he hesitated until after the meeting of Congress in December to recognize the new government or negotiate a new treaty with their representative, M. Bunau-Varilla, then, at the time of America's entry into the World War, there would have been no interoceanic canal. The end never justifies the means; but, on the other hand, a great and beneficent result is not proof that the action which made it possible was wrong. In the words of Secretary Hay: "It was the time to act, and not to theorize." I can see the point of view of those who say that we would have had no right to take the Isthmus by force, as Roosevelt was prepared to recommend. But we did not take it by force. I can see the reason for those who condemn Roosevelt's action, believing that he fomented a revolution. But this criticism arises from a misapprehension of the real facts. He did not foment a revolution; indeed, he could not have prevented a revolution, unless, possibly, he had publicly announced the intention of the United States to use its armed forces to assist Colombia-an announcement which would not have had the slightest justification on any ground, moral or practical. Taking what he actually did under the facts as they actually were, "from begin THE PANAMA CANAL 227. ning to the end, our course was straightforward and in absolute accord with the highest standards of international morality." On the ratification by the United States Senate of the treaty with the Republic of Panama, the last obstacle in the way of the construction of the canal was removed. The President promptly summoned a board of engineers to report on the type of canal to be built-sea-level or lock. A majority of the board, including all the foreign members, recommended the construction of a sea-level canal. The majority of the American engineers, however, favored a lock canal. Roosevelt was not a man to decide a question by majorities, or to delay construction further by continuing the discussion through the appointment of another commission. He carefully, but promptly, analyzed the reasons for and against each type of canal, and made up his own mind in favor of the existing lock type. He then placed the reasons for his conclusion so fully and fairly before the public that the American people practically unanimously accepted his decision as wise. From then on until the end of his Presidency literally night and day he ceased not to urge on the work. It was first necessary to make the Canal Zone habitable by exterminating the mosquito, the carrier of yellow fever. This work was performed most efficiently by Dr. Gorgas. Congress had provided that the canal should be constructed under the supervision of a commission. At first Roosevelt tried to have the work done by the hydraheaded body which Congress had in mind. At first also he appointed engineers with experience in constructing large works for private corporations. When, however, he finally appointed Colonel Goethals as chief engineer, he knew within a short time that he had made the last 228 THEODORE ROOSEVELT change. A good executive knows when he finds the right man for a given place. Thereafter the President stood behind Colonel Goethals, backing him up in every possible way. Congress still refusing to recede from its position that the canal should be built by a commission, Roosevelt overcame the difficulty by making Colonel Goethals chairman, and by an executive order so enlarged the powers of the chairman as to make the other members dependent upon him. And so the great work was done-not, indeed, completed in Roosevelt's administration, but begun, and well started before his term of office came.to an end. He had, by his energy, courage and correct judgment, made it possible for the United States to carry out the greatest undertaking of its kind that has ever been performed. CHAPTER XV THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 R OOSEVELT had, naturally, a strong desire to be nominated to succeed himself. He did not believe in playing the hypocrite. He said frankly that he wanted to be nominated, and that he would be sorry if he were not. As a matter of fact, there was never a moment when his nomination by his party was in doubt. He had succeeded where Fillmore, Tyler, Johnson and Arthur had failed. He had carried out the policies of McKinley and had met, to the satisfaction of the great majority of the people, new and grave problems as they arose. Whatever many of the older politicians and statesmen of his party really thought of him, they were wise enough to realize that this apostle of the strenuous life, with his many-sided activities, who had "the training of a scholar and the breezy accessibility of the ranchman," was immensely popular with the public, and growing more popular every day. His nomination was more than an act of wisdom on the part of the Republican party; it was a necessity. A group of big politicans and Wall Street men did indeed meet to try and organize a movement to secure delegates to the convention pledged to another candidate, and as a result of this meeting, some effort was made in New Jersey, parts of the South and of the Central West as well as California; but the attempt came to nothing. Senator Mark Hanna was supposed by many to have Presidential aspirations, or at any rate to be much opposed to Roosevelt. But it is probable that the Senator had no (229) 230 THEODORE ROOSEVELT desire for the Presidency himself, really liked Roosevelt, and was entirely willing that he should be renominated. The Senator did wish to be the dominating figure in the Convention of 1904, as he had been in that of 1900, and therefore desired that the delegates should not be pledged in advance to any candidate. The question came to an issue in the Ohio State Convention. Senator Foraker desired to have the convention pass a resolution endorsing Roosevelt's administration and pledging the state to support him in the Republican National Convention. Senator Hanna opposed the resolution, but when Roosevelt, then traveling in the West, telegraphed to the effect that he desired favorable action on the resolution, Senator Hanna withdrew his opposition. Thus, when the Republican Convention met in Chicago in 1904, the fact that they would nominate Roosevelt unanimously was a foregone conclusion. Elihu Root, as temporary chairman, made a notable speech in which he set forth the activities of the Roosevelt administration and challenged "judgment upon this record of effective performance:" This speech was the keynote of the campaign that followed. The Republican party asked the people to endorse what Roosevelt in the three and a half years of his administration had accomplished. The record of things done was not unworthy. As the President himself said in his address to the Notification Committee, the administration had never pleaded impotence; it had never sought refuge in criticism and complaint instead of action. And, later, in his letter of acceptance, he could ask with pardonable pride: "To what phase of our foreign policy and to what use of the Navy do our opponents object? Do they object to the THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 231 way in which the Monroe Doctrine has been strengthened and upheld? Never before has this doctrine been acquiesced in abroad as it is now.... While upholding the rights of weaker American republics against foreign aggression, the administration has lost no opportunity to point out to these nations that those who seek equity should come with clean hands, and that wh6ever claims liberty as a right must accept the responsibilities that go with the exercise of it." Just as Roosevelt's nomination by his own party was a foregone conclusion, so was his election. The Democratic party at the time was torn by opposing radical and conservative factions. The majority of the delegates came to the National Convention at St. Louis determined to repudiate Bryan, and to re-establish "a safe and sane Democracy." The sub-committee on Platform went so far as to recommend a plank declaring that the increase in the production of gold had made the gold standard satisfactory, thus expressly repudiating the main issue on which, eight years before, Bryan had made his first and greatest fight for the Presidency. But Bryan was a delegate to the convention, and his personal power was sufficient to defeat the proposed plank. So Judge Alton B. Parker, a Gold Democrat, was nominated on a platform which made no reference to the currency. The Democratic nominee was a conservative, upright gentleman without a single attribute of aggressive leadership, besides which he had been out of politics for nearly twenty years. The campaign was a humdrum affair until towards the close. Roosevelt had made George B. Cortelyou his campaign manager. Mr Cortelyou resigned as Secretary of Commerce and Labor to accept the position. Judge 232 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Parker, in a public speech in New York City, charged that the President and Mr. Cortelyou had entered into a conspiracy to blackmail corporations into making large contributions to the Republican campaign fund, Mr. Cortelyou using his knowledge of corporate wrong-doing obtained while he was Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor. The President and Mr. Cortelyou for some days remained silent, but, on November 5th, Roosevelt published a statement in which he declared that he had chosen Mr. Cortelyou to manage his campaign because he believed him possessed of the highest integrity; that Mr. Cortelyou had continually told him during the campaign that if elected, he would go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise or understanding of any kind, sort or description, and that the statements made by Judge Parker were "unqualifiedly and atrociously false." If the controversy had any effect on the election at all, the effect was beneficial to the President. Fortunately, it is rarely wise, even from the low standard of getting votes, to charge your opponent with a crime, unless you have full and conclusive proof of your accusation. In the fall of 1906 there was a slight recrudescence of Judge Parker's charges which called for another and much longer statement from the President. In his statement in reply to Judge Parker, he had not denied that corporations had contributed to the Republican Campaign Fund, just as they had contributed to the Democratic Campaign Fund. Through the publication of a letter written by E. H. Harriman, the railroad magnate, in the New York World-though it is only fair to say that the publication was probably without Mr. Harriman's consent-it became generally known that Harriman charged I Pi efra erge rawim 1, N. Y. PREsENT OOSEVELT AND CE-P SIDENT FAIRBANKS The election of Theodore:ooevel ald Charles W. Fairbanks in 1904 was rkaed by the gratest popular mjoriy ever recordedi reac ing a total of about 2n 0001 votes. Phlto fio WmPl M. R", Pia TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE Th inuguratio of President _o seelt on M rel 4, 1905. Chief Justice Fuller _of b _ S pren;e CSit of the United Staie, admni the_ oath. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 233 the President with having sent for him shortly before the election -of 1904. Roosevelt, he said, had asked him to raise a large campaign fund for use in the Presidential campaign in New York, and had formally promised him to appoint Chauncey M. Depew Ambassador to France. Mr. Harriman further stated that he had raised about two hundred thousand dollars and that Roosevelt had refused to fulfil his promise to appoint Depew. Roosevelt replied to the charges in a letter to Mr. Sherman, afterwards Vice-President, Mr. Harriman, having reiterated the charges to Sherman. With characteristic fulness of detail-setting forth all the correspondence between Harriman and himself-Roosevelt showed that the financier had been much interested in the success of the New York Republican State ticket, headed by Mr. Higgins, the candidate for Governor; that he, Roosevelt, was anxious to see Harriman to ascertain whether there was anything he could do to help Mr. Higgins, and that so far from promising to appoint Mr. Depew as Ambassador to France, he had expressly pointed out to Mr. Harriman that Governor Odell, who had been urging Mr. Depew's appointment, was now urging the appointment of Mr. Hyde, but that he, Roosevelt, did not believe that he could appoint either gentleman. The election was held on November 8th. Roosevelt's majority was about two million and a half out of a total of thirteen and a half million votes cast, the largest popular majority ever given for any Presidential candidate. In the Electoral College he received three hundred and thirty-six votes as against one hundred and forty for Judge Parker. Secretary Hay going over to the White House at nine o'clock in the evening on the day of the 234 THEODORE ROOSEVELT election, found that the Democratic candidate had already sent his congratulations. Indeed, the victory was so overwhelming that the result was known shortly after seven o'clock. '"I am glad," Roosevelt said, "to be President in my own right." A fact that gave him even more satisfaction and pride was that he had been able to make the fight for election on his own clearly-avowed principles, and on his own record. Throughout the campaign, the Democrats had charged that if elected, Roosevelt would regard his first elected term as his first term, and again seek re-election in the fall of 1908, thus trying to remain President for eleven and a half consecutive years. Until assured of his election, the President steadily refused to make any statement on the subject. The moment however, his re-election was assured he issued the following statement: "The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate for, or accept another nomination." He fulfilled this promise to the American people. As his second term drew to a close, no amount of pressure would induce him for a moment to consider the possibility of his acceptance of a renomination. A careful reading of the exact form of words used in his announcement shows that on its face it may be interpreted either as a declaration that he would not accept a renomination at the end of the term for which he had just been elected, or as a declaration that never again throughout his life would he seek the Presidential office. When a public man makes a statement which on careful reading is open to one of two interpretations, his own explanation of the meaning which he intended is accepted by all persons except those so THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 235 twisted mentally that their normal instinct is to believe every public man a liar, or who have, as respects the particular public man making the statement, a strong antipathy and prejudice. Roosevelt's own explanation of his meaning and the reasons for the exact phraseology used is simple and direct. He tells us that he did not expressly say that he would not be a candidate in 1908 because if he had, his statement would have been instantly taken as a declaration that he was, or thought it likely that he might be, a candidate at some future time, when, as a matter of fact, he was not thinking, as he said to an inquirer at the time, about 1912, '16 or '20. What he was thinking about was the fact that the Presidency is a very great office; that the holder has power, if he chooses to use it, to do much to effect his own renomination and election, and that the custom which limits the holder to two terms is wise. But of course this reason does not apply to the man who, having held two terms, retires to private life. The very moment he is out of office the power which was his because he held the office is lost. The weather in the early morning of the 4th of March, 1905, was threatening, but by the time Roosevelt went out to the east front of the capitol to deliver his inaugural address, the sun shone brightly. The address was short, but in what he said, the reader may find the touchstone by which to interpret the foreign and domestic policies of his administration, especially the domestic policies of his second term. After pointing out that to us as a Nation much has been given, and that, therefore, much will rightfully be required, he said: "We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great .36 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities.... While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right, and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression." Turning to our relations among ourselves, he pointed out that our growth in wealth, in population and in power is inevitably accompanied by new problems, saying: "Our fathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being... The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, selfreliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers.... There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright." When he took the oath of office he wore a ring given him by John Hay containing a lock of Lincoln's hair. Of THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 237 all the gifts that he ever received, this was the one he prized most. In the letter accompanying the ring, Hay said, referring to the coming inauguration, "Please wear it tomorrow; you are one of the men who most thoroughly understands and appreciates Lincoln." This, coming from the man who had been Lincoln's Secretary, meant much to Roosevelt, for of all our public men, he most admired the martyred President. In the fullest sense of the words he did understand and appreciate Lincoln. The two men, so different in external manner and daily habit, were, after all, singularly alike in moral character and in their method of approaching and solving public questions. He received, on his inauguration, another gift which especially appealed to him. In a letter written on June 7, 1916, to Mr. Herbert Warren, of Magdalen College Oxford, he says: "In my Autobiography I did not like to speak of the various presents given me by European sovereigns. Next to Hay's gift of the ring with the hair of President Lincoln, the gift I appreciated most which I received while in the White House was from King Edward. It was a very beautiful miniature of John Hampden sent me at the time of my inauguration, at the same time that I received the ring from John Hay. It seemed to me to mark King Edward's tact and genuine refinement of feeling that he should have chosen that precise gift for an American President." CHAPTER XVI PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT O N February 10,1904, war broke out between Russia and Japan. Each had for a long time looked with growing jealousy upon the other's position in the Far East. Japan resented Russia's presence in Manchuria and finally presented an ultimatum to Russia requiring her to respect Japanese rights in that province. Upon Russia's failure to agree to the terms of this ultimatum, actual hostilities began. For a year and a half the war was waged with great violence. By the summer of 1905 the Russians had suffered enormous losses of men and the destruction of almost their entire fleet. The Japanese, although they had been more successful in battle had, nevertheless, been heavily punished. The truth was that both sides were near bankruptcy and exhaustion. At this crisis the President decided to interfere. It seemed to him that a.continuation of the war would probably have resulted in Russia's defeat, but there was no certainty of this. The one certain thing was that both nations would soon expend more blood and treasure than any victory could justify. He accordingly suggested informally to both Japan and Russia that he would be glad to bring together representatives to a peace conference. Having satisfied himself that both were willing to respond to a formal proposal, he sent them, on June 8, 1905, an identical note. In this note he urged them "not only for their own sakes but in the interest of the whole (238) PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 239 civilized world to open direct negotiations for peace with each other." Both accepted the invitation and the question of the meeting place immediately arose. Russia suggested Paris, while Japan preferred Chefu; each objected to the other's choice because each feared an unfriendly atmosphere. At last Washington was agreed upon, with the understanding that the President would furnish accommodations in New England if Washington should prove too warm. Throughout the whole of the proceedings which ensued, the President played a leading part. In an endeavor to smooth away as far as possible the difficulties of the coming discussion, he conferred at Sagamore Hill with Baron Kaneko, who represented the Mikado, and with Baron Rosen, one of the Russian envoys. When the Japanese envoys arrived they were entertained at Oyster Bay, where they were followed a few days later by the Russians. The President's common sense and his anxious desire to achieve an understanding, prevented questions of precedence from causing any friction. So far as possible, the representatives of both countries were entertained and treated alike. At last the formal meeting between the plenipotentiaries took place on the Mayflower in Oyster Bay on August 5th. The President entertained his guests in the vessel's cabin, and with singular happiness of speech proposed this toast: "Gentlemen, I propose a toast to which there will be no answer and which I ask you to drink in silence, standing. I drink to the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and the peoples of the two great nations, whose representatives have met one another on this ship. It is my earnest hope and prayer, in the interest not only of these two great powers, but of all 240 THEODORE ROOSEVELT civilized mankind, that a just and lasting peace may speedily be concluded between them." After the formal meeting, the two parties were carried by separate naval vessels to Portsmouth, N. H. There, on August 9th, the first session of the Peace Conference was held in the Government building in the navy yard. The Japanese presented twelve terms for acceptance by Ruspia. To eight of these Count Sergius Witte and Baron Rosen, the Russian envoys, speedily agreed; but to the proposals that Russia should surrender territorial claims and should pay a money indemnity, they refused to assent. Matters thus came to an impasse and the plenipotentiaries having agreed to disagree between themselves, cabled to their respective governments for further instructions. It was at this juncture that President Roosevelt again took a hand in the situation. He asked Baron Kaneko to visit him at Oyster Bay, and through him communicated his views to the Japanese delegates-Baron Komura and Mr. Takahira. He advised them to waive their claim for an indemnity, pointing out that Russia was perfectly firm in her refusal to humble herself to this extent, and that her ability to pay would grow less as the war proceeded. He further pointed out that persistence in the demand for an indemnity would be likely to alienate the sympathy of most of the civilized world. He also called Baron Rosen to Oyster Bay, and sent to George Von L. Meyer, the American Ambassador at St. Petersburg, instructions to secure a personal interview with the Czar. He urged Russia to surrender the southern half of the Island of Saghelien, which the Japanese had taken during the war. When the envoys again met, the Japanese presented for the last time their former demands, which were again PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 241 met with a refusal. Then they offered to waive an indemnity provided Russia would surrender her claim to half of Saghelien. To this the Russians immediately agreed and on September 5th the representatives of both countries signed the treaty of peace. In recognition of the President's great service in this matter, he received the Nobel Peace Prize consisting of a medal and $40,000 in money. He kept the medal, but the money he used as the foundation of a fund to be used for the promotion of industrial peace. He also received from a group of distinguished Frenchmen an original copy of Sully's "Memoires of Henry le Grand," "in sympathetic recognition of the persistent and decisive initiative he had taken towards gradually substituting friendly and judicial for violent methods in cases of conflict between nations." Another international question was involved in an effort to exclude the Japanese from the San Francisco schools. In October, 1906, a resolution of the San Francisco Board of Education made effective a state statute which had been passed about five years before. By virtue of this resolution Chinese, Korean and Japanese children were excluded from the ordinary public schools and were sent to schools specially provided for them. The Chinese and Koreans acquiesced in the order, but the Japanese withdrew their children from school entirely, while their ambassador lodged a protest with the State Department. By the treaty of 1894 between the United States and Japan, each country had guaranteed to the citizens of the other the greatest possible freedom of life and intercourse apart from actual citizenship, including the rights of residence and travel; The Japanese now contended that this treaty was violated by the California school order. 16 242 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Roosevelt took the perfectly proper position that a treaty entered into by the United States was paramount to a state law, and immediately directed the United States District Attorney at San Francisco to institute proceedings to test the validity of the objectionable order. In all this matter the real difficulty arose out of the Californians' fear of the competition of cheap Japanese labor. They resented the settlement in their state of great numbers of Orientals whose standards of life enabled them to work for wages which would not support the average American. The school matter was only an incident arising out of the race feeling which had been engendered. The President sympathized with the Californians in their general position. "The people of California,' he said, "were right in insisting that the Japanese should not come thither in mass; that there should be no influx of laborers, of agricultural workers, or small tradesmen-in short, no mass settlement or immigration. The Japanese themselves would not tolerate the intrusion into their country of a mass of Americans who would displace Japanese in the business of the land." At his request, the Mayor of San Francisco and other leading citizens came on to see him and he explained to them his desire to help them, but his firm intention of asserting the supremacy of the Federal Government in dealing with foreign nations. He told them that he disapproved of any mixture of nations on a large scale, but that he also disapproved strongly of the exclusion of Japanese children from the schools. The question was at last happily settled by agreement. The Japanese Government undertook to prevent the immigration of laborers to this country and the Californians agreed to withdraw the school order. Congress PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 243 passed an act on February 20, 1907, at the President's request, which empowered him to exclude from this country Japanese laborers coming from Mexico, Canada and Hawaii. By executive order of March 14th, he made this act effective. Two years later, in a letter to the Speaker of the Californian Assembly, he was able to point to the success of this policy. The total number of Japanese in the United States had by this time diminished by over two thousand, and the causes of friction were gradually disappearing. The problems arising from the Spanish War were not completely solved during Roosevelt's administration, nor, indeed, have they been completely solved to this day. When Cuba had started upon her independent course her constitution gave to the United States the right to intervene, when absolutely necessary, for the preservation of a lawful government. All went well until President Palma's first term expired. Upon his re-election in 1905 a revolution was begun by his political opponents and he rapidly lost the power to preserve order. In September, 1906, at his request, sailors were landed from the United States cruiser Denver, to protect American property at Havana. But the sailors were promptly withdrawn by orders from Washington. The next day the President conferred with his advisers at Oyster Bay and determined to send Mr. Taft, the Secretary of War, and Robert Bacon, the Assistant Secretary of State, to attempt to reconcile the two factions. But reconciliation appeared to be impossible. President Palma resigned and a quorum of the Congress could not be got to elect a successor. The island was thrown into chaos. Accordingly, Secretary Taft formally proclaimed American intervention, and the President appointed 244 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Charles E. Magoon as provisional governor of the island. United States troops were sent to maintain order and normal conditions were rapidly restored. Some fear was expressed that this action would result in the annexation of Cuba, but, true to our original promise, intervention ceased with the necessity for it, and January, 1909, saw Cuba turned over again to its inhabitants under the Presidency of General Gomez-Palma's former opponent. President Roosevelt felt strongly his responsibility for securing proper legislation, and the record of his achievements in this respect is long. When he succeeded to the Presidency in 1901, the railroads exercised a vast and almost unchecked power over the industry of the country. The Interstate Commerce Commission had been created in 1887, but successive decisions of the Supreme Court had gradually shorn the Commission of any real power. The practice of giving rebates to favored shippers was common. By this means powerful business interests were able to transport their goods at a rate lower than that accorded to their weaker competitors, with the result that many a small enterprise was pushed to the wall. In his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, Roosevelt called attention to this situation. He also pointed out that there was in fact no longer any power in the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix rates, although it had been intended to confer that power upon them by the act of 1887. "The act should be amended," he said. "The railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all shippers alike. The government should see to it that within its jurisdiction this is so and should provide a speedy, inexpensive, and effective remedy to that end." Not long after the writing of this message, Paul PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 245 Morton, the president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company, offered to lend his aid in exposing and ending the rebate evil. Thanks to his help and to the President's tireless insistence, Congress passed the Elkins Act, which became a law on February 19, 1903. This act was a considerable advance over the previous law. It forbade railroads to vary from their published rates, and provided that violation of its provisions either by a railroad corporation itself or by its officers or agents should be a punishable offense. But the most important railway legislation was yet to come. The vital necessity of fixing and maintaining reasonable rates was apparent, and the President repeatedly urged upon Congress the passage of a statute giving the Interstate Commerce Commission this power. He did not believe that this would afford a panacea for the evils under which the country had been suffering, but he regarded it as the best practicable step which could be taken. "A measure of good will come," he said, "some good will be done, some injustice will have been prevented; but we shall be a long way from the millennium." And he further added this caution: "When you give the Nation that power, remember that harm and not good will come unless you give it with the firm determination not only to get justice for yourselves, but to do justice to others. You must be as jealous to do justice to the railroads as to exact justice from them." On May 4, 1906, he sent Congress a special message accompanied by a report which had been submitted to him by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Corporations. By this report it appeared that the Standard Oil Company had been benefiting by secret rates to the extent of three-quarters of a million dollars yearly and had further 246 THEODORE ROOSEVELT profited by other rates which, although not secret, were adjusted to its advantage. As a result of this message and of the popular feeling which the President's attitude had finally aroused, Congress took the matter up in earnest. In the face of tremendous opposition the Hepburn Rate Bill was driven through the House. In the Senate it was referred to a committee whose chairman opposed it. The ranking minority member of this committee was Senator Tillman of South Carolina who favored the bill. The President had cancelled an invitation to Tillman to dine at the White House because the Senator had assaulted, in the Senate Chamber, his colleague from South Carolina. As a result, the personal relations between Roosevelt and Tillman were strained, to say the least. The majority of the committee determined to file an unfavorable report, and turned the bill over to Senator Tillman, thereby making him its sponsor and hoping to make it impossible for the President to urge its passage. But their plan failed of its effect because, as Roosevelt said, he was delighted to go with Tillman or with any one else "just so long as he was traveling my way-and no longer." The act in its final form was to some extent a compromise. The conservatives wished to emasculate it by extending too far the right of appeal to the courts. The radicals, on the other hand, were willing to risk a conflict with the constitution by an effort to abolish the appeal entirely. Senator La Follette, of Wisconsin, insisted that the Interstate Commerce Commission should be charged with the duty of valuing the railroad properties so as to be able to fix a basis for reasonable rates. He argued with great force that otherwise it would be possible only to determine whether a given rate was reasonable in relation PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 247 to other rates, and not whether the whole body of rates was reasonable. The country was not prepared for this suggestion, although it found its way into the statute law seven years later. The Hepburn Bill was finally passed in the form advocated by the President and became a law on June 29, 1906. The effect of this statute was far-reaching. Under the old law the Interstate Commerce Commission simply had power to investigate any rate on complaint and to suggest a substitute. In practice the final determination of the matter was by the slow process of the Federal courts. The new bill gave to the Interstate Commerce Commission in terms the right to fix rates. Another statute which particularly affected the railroads was the Employers' Liability Act originally passed in June, 1906. This act made common carriers who were engaged in interstate commerce liable for injuries to their employees, even though the injury was due to the negligence of another employee or of the injured man himself. On January 6, 1907, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, because it attempted to regulate the rights of all railroad employees whether or not they were engaged in interstate commerce. On January 31, 1908, the President sent a special message to Congress urging the enactment of a law which would not be open to this constitutional objection. Such an act was finally passed and received his approval on April 22, 1908. One further important piece of legislation should be mentioned. In accordance with the President's recommendation, Congress, on June 30, 1906, passed the Food and Drugs Act which forbade the use of injurious drugs in food and drink transported between the states, and forbade the use of false and misleading labels on packages 248 THEODORE ROOSEVELT containing such food and drink. At the same time government inspection of meat was provided for. Both of these acts were important and indeed necessary for the preservation of the public health. The Brownsville affair of 1906 was treated by many of the President's enemies as a race question. But it was simply a matter of military discipline; and the question of race did not enter into the President's action at all. Between the colored soldiers of the 25th Infantry at Fort Brown and the white citizens of the adjacent town of Brownsville, Texas, considerable race feeling had developed. On the night of August 13th a number of soldiers, variously estimated at from nine to twenty, jumped over the walls of the barracks and ran into the town carrying their loaded rifles. When they reached the streets they began shooting at any one they saw and into any house where there were lights. Several people miraculously escaped death from shots fired into the very rooms in which they sat. The Lieutenant of Police was wounded and his horse killed under him. In one of the saloons a bartender was killed and another man wounded. The call to arms was sounded at the barracks and the guilty soldiers took their places-in the ranks under cover of the darkness. An investigation was immediately instituted, but the enlisted men and non-commissioned officers of the three companies all united in refusing to give any information which would lead to the apprehension of the murderers, although it was plain that their identity must be known to most of the battalion. A report of the matter having been submitted to the President he summarily discharged nearly all the members of the three companies involved. Immediately the press rang with the- incident. The President was accused of.~. 0.9 PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 249 having acted toward colored soldiers as he would not have acted had they been white; and an attempt was made to alienate the negroes from their loyalty to him. He indignantly denied this charge, and in response to a Senate resolution transmitted to that body, on December 19th, a report of the affair. In this report he cited, in justification of his action, numerous precedents drawn from the history of the Civil War. He called attention to the fact that in making Federal appointments he had made character and not color the test of fitness, and asserted emphatically that white soldiers would have received from him the same treatment as black. No one who reviews the story of his relation to the colored problem can for a moment suppose that in this Brownsville affair he was actuated by any motive other than a desire to promote the welfare of the United States army, and to wipe out so far as possible a stain upon its uniform. Roosevelt was not merely a good executive; he was one of the ablest executives we have ever had in public life; certainly, in this respect, no other President can compare with him except Washington. Some men have the ability to grasp large questions of public policy, but wholly lack the ability to transact executive business quickly and efficiently; others, while they may have the power to select with wisdom subordinates, are so constituted that they can not attend to routine work. Roosevelt, like Washington, knew the value of attention to details in all matters pertaining to what we may call his personal actions. Though he wrote thousands of letters, his system of filing was such that any letter on any subject could be produced literally at a moment's notice. Under him, the White House was, as we have seen, a model business office, while social 250 THEODORE ROOSEVELT functions, public and private, moved forward with a smoothness which added greatly to the comfort and enjoyment of the guests. It was, however, as the executive head of the vast machinery of the Federal Government that Roosevelt showed his great qualities as an executive. He could grasp quickly all the essential facts of any situation, however complex, and reach a decision, not hastily, but quickly. The decision once reached, he acted instantly. I have seen great lawyers able to take a mass of legal papers pertaining to a given subject or dispute and merely by rapidly turning the typewritten pages, extract from a mass of detail all the information necessary to enable them to form a judgment. What able lawyers or other trained specialists can do in their chosen fields, where years of labor have made them proficient, Roosevelt could do in practically every field of government activity. His interests were so broad, his observations so keen and his memory so retentive that there were few departments of the government in which his subordinates did not find that the President knew almost as much and sometimes more than they did themselves. In spite of this marvelous power of assimilation, he could never have produced the results he did had he not been so deeply interested in practically every branch of government business. Secretary Hay said that whereas he saw McKinley on official business about once a month, he saw Roosevelt every day. This measures the relative intensity of the interest of the two men in international questions. The experience of the Secretary of State was duplicated by almost every member of McKinley's Cabinet, when Roosevelt became President. Neither did Roosevelt confine his dealings with the business of the PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 251 departments to their chiefs. He knew personally all the heads of the many bureaus and many of their assistants. When any work was going forward on which he wanted quick action-and he usually wanted most things done quickly-the man directly responsible knew that the President might send for him at any time, that he would give him generous praise if he did well, but that for slackness no excuse would be accepted. In this connection, the following letter from Gifford Pinchot, on account of his long and intimate association with Roosevelt, is of especial interest and value: "President Roosevelt's remarkable power as an executive, rested, as I knew him, principally upon the following qualities: "First, and most of all, his natural tendency was to act. He understood that while action may sometimes be wrong, the failure to act is almost always so. He was painstakingly careful in reaching conclusions on matters of great moment, but once the conclusion was reached action followed instantly. This was so true that it was never safe to go to him with any plan that was not fully worked out and ready for action. "Roosevelt trusted his men and gave them their head. He knew, as every great executive must, that he could not do it all himself. He wanted us, each within our sphere, to act as vigorously as he did himself. Once he had come to have confidence in the wisdom and honesty of an adviser, he adopted recommendations almost as a matter of course. The result was that the men working under him were not only confident in his support, but had a feeling of pride and proprietorship in their work which doubled their efficiency. "Red tape had no place in his scheme of life. He 252 THEODORE ROOSEVELT wanted things done-done in accordance with rules if possible-but in any event done. I remember his sending for an official, who had reported that a certain thing could not be done, to say if the official in question could not see his way to do it, he, the President, would get somebody in his place who could. Where red tape conflicted with getting things done, it was always the red tape that had to suffer. With him machinery never took the place of the end for which the machinery had been created. Roosevelt had an unequaled capacity for inspiring the men who worked under him. During his administration thousands of clerks in Washington who had never spoken with him or shaken his hand were filled with the spirit of his great personality, saw the vision of the larger things to be accomplished through the medium of their minor tasks, and gave the best that was in them instead of watching the clock. "Promotion was for merit in Roosevelt's time. As former Civil Service Commissioner he understood that it is no more important to keep the faithful civil servant in office than to get rid of the unfit. The sin of the delinquent was sure to find him out, and no amount of political influence could keep the unfit in office, prevent the recognition of the efficient or defer the punishment of the guilty. Under him the chiefs in the departments were free from political control. During my twelve years of office there was never to my knowledge a single case of appointing, promoting, dismissing, or retaining any one in the United States Forest Service.for political reasons. "Roosevelt not only appointed men for merit and gave them a chance to do their work, but when their work clashed with private interests he stood firmly behind them against political and financial pressure of PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 253 every kind. Without his backing they would have been helpless, or would have been forced out. "Roosevelt led his men. He asked nothing of us that he was not ready to do himself. He was his own severest taskmaster, and he expected of himself and actually accomplished more work than any of us. "Finally, he was always more than generous in acknowledging help or good work, not seldom to the point of attributing to others the credit for things done or said for which he was mainly responsible." "I did not usurp power," said Roosevelt, "but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power." This statement accurately describes the net result of his executive actions as President. He believed that it was his duty to act for the welfare of all the people as he saw that welfare, unless he was expressly prohibited by the Constitution or limited to one course of action only by Congress, though in the latter case he insisted that the act of Congress must not encroach on the constitutional prerogatives of the executive. Roosevelt's action in withdrawing public lands from entry as well as his action in appointing a number of voluntary unpaid commissions to report to him on such matters as government scientific work, department methods, and country life, to which I shall refer in- the chapter on his work for the preservation of the natural resources of the Nation, are examples of the practical application of this theory of executive power. In each instance there was no express warrant in any act of Congress for the action taken by the President, and yet, in each instance, great benefit resulted to the people of the United States. He believed, and rightly, that in his attitude towards 254 THEODORE ROOSEVELT his power and duty as the chief executive of the Nation, he was treading in the footsteps of Lincoln, while those who criticised his actions as improper or unconstitutional were taking what he called the legalistic or Buchanan attitude towards executive power. He often said that as he wore a ring containing the hair of Lincoln on the occasion of his inauguration, he bound himself to treat the constitution after the manner of Lincoln. Many people believe that a President in making his appointments should select the best man without consulting the party leaders in the state where the appointee is to reside and to exercise the functions of his office. These people not only forget that the President is responsible to the party to whose votes he owes his office, but they also forget that the Constitution of the United States requires important Presidential appointments to be ratified by the Senate. For many years it has been the unwritten law of the Senate that no appointment shall be ratified unless approved by the Senators of the state involved. Even George Washington, should he unexpectedly re-appear among us, could not expect to receive an appointment to a Federal office unless he had the backing of the Senators from Virginia. It follows that a President often selects not the man whom he considers the. very best for the position, but the very best man whom, under our system, he is permitted to appoint. Appointments to the diplomatic service are not of a local nature and therefore Roosevelt selected an ambassador or minister solely on the basis of his own knowledge of the appointee's fitness. In filling minor offices, however, he usually accepted the suggestion of the Republican Senator or Senators from the state in which the appointment was to be made. If there was no Republican PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 255 Senator from that state then he usually acted on the advice of the local Republican leaders. If a Senator or other political leader ever knowingly suggested an unfit man for a position, he never had an opportunity to deceive the President again. For important offices, such as those of judge or district attorney, while he sometimes took the advice of the local party leaders, he was always careful, so far as possible, to acquaint himself personally with a candidate's qualifications before appointing him. In the great majority of such cases he acted on his own judgment and appointed the man whom he believed best qualified for the position. There were, of course, many cases in which his appointments were the subject of adverse criticism. Take for instance the case of William Plimley. The Assistant Treasurership at New York City became vacant and the President cast about for a high-class man to fill the place. He confidentially invited George R. Sheldon and Robert Bacon to accept the appointment, but both of them declined. Either would have been above criticism. No suggestions were forthcoming from the commercial interests of New York City. The situation was growing serious because the subtreasury had no head. At last Senator Platt came forward with the suggestion of Mr. Plimley, who was backed not only by the Senator but by a former member of McKinley's Cabinet and by other eminent men. Plimley accordingly received the appointment. While it was true that he was Platt's choice, yet it was also true that the President had done his best to pick his own man for the position, and had investigated Plimley's character so far as possible before appointing him. 256 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Another instance illustrates the President's attitude towards the subject of appointments. Penrose A. McClain was Internal Revenue Collector at Philadelphia. He had been a member of Senator Quay's organization but had quarreled with his associates. Shortly afterwards there came a local campaign in which the Quay men were opposed by the independents. In accordance with the President's orders, McClain was advised to keep out of the fight, but he could not resist the temptation to have a fling at Senator Quay. The regulars won the election, and when McClain's term expired Senators Quay and Penrose asked that he should be retired. The President was not willing to have the peace of his administration disturbed by factional disputes between United States Senators and Federal officeholders, and he accordingly agreed that McClain should go. William McCoach was suggested for McClain's place. The President did not know him. Accordingly he allowed the possibility of his appointment to be announced and then waited to watch the effect. There appeared nothing against him and Roosevelt accordingly asked his two sponsors to furnish certificates of character. This they readily did and McCoach's commission was sent to him at once. This was another case in which the impossibility of personal acquaintance with every candidate for office made it necessary to rely upon the recommendation of the responsible party leaders. Once his administration was fairly on its way, Roosevelt's Cabinet appointments were largely by way of promotion. He filled vacancies with men who had successfully performed their responsible duties, instead of with untried men whose abilities he had had no personal opportunity to observe. Thus George B. Cortelyou, PRESIDENT IN HIS OWN RIGHT 257 who began as Private Secretary to the President, became Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, then Postmaster-General and then Secretary of the Treasury. Elihu Root, who had retired from the War Department to private life, was called back to become Secretary of State upon John Hay's death in 1905, and held that position until he resigned on January 25, 1909, to become United States Senator from New York, He was then succeeded by Robert Bacon, the Assistant Secretary. Charles J. Bonaparte, who had been a special assistant to the Attorney-General in the investigation of the postal frauds, became Secretary of the Navy in 1905 and later became Attorney-General. Secretary Metcalf moved up from the Department of Commerce and Labor to the Navy Department and remained there until ill health compelled him to retire, when he was succeeded by the Assistant Secretary, Truman H. Newberry. James R. Garfield, a son of the murdered President, made a splendid record as Commissioner of Corporations, and finally became Secretary of the Interior. Attorney-General Moody, after arduous and faithful service, received an appointment to the Supreme Court. George Von L. Meyer; who had earned the President's high regard by his work as Ambassador to Russia at the time of the Portsmouth Treaty, succeeded Cortelyou as PostmasterGeneral on March 4, 1907. William H. Taft had performed his duties as GovernorGeneral of the Philippines with singular ability, and was well qualified for the position of Secretary of War, which he held from the day of his appointment until he received the Republican nomination for the Presidency in June, 1908. Upon his resignation his place was filled by General 258 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Luke E. Wright, of Tennessee, who had served with him as Vice-Governor of the Philippines. Oscar S. Straus, of New York, was, during Roosevelt's second term, the only member of the Cabinet who had not had previous experience under the President. He was Chairman of the National Civic Federation and was an independent Republican, who had until lately been a Democrat. This was a remarkable group of men, whose ability and character were a tribute to the President's judgment in choosing his fellow workers. It is no wonder that Mr. Bryce, the British Ambassador, told Roosevelt that though he had studied intimately the governments of many different countries, he had "never in any country seen a more eager, high-minded and efficient set of public servants, men more useful and creditable to their country, than the men then doing the work of the American Government in Washington and in the field." CHAPTER XVII WHAT HE DD FOR THE NAVY C OLONEL ROOSEVELT held, and so expressed himself in his autobiography, that the two American achievements that impressed foreign people during the first dozen years of the twentieth century were the digging of the Panama Canal and the cruise of the battle fleet around the world. In speaking of the growth of the Navy during the period that he was its Commander-in-Chief he said: "Our Army and Navy, and above all our people, learned some lessons from the Spanish War and applied them to our uses. During the following decade the improvement in our Navy and Army was very great; not in material only, but also in personnel, and, above all, in the ability to handle our forces in good-sized units. By 1908, when our battle fleet steamed around the world, the Navy had become in every respect as fit a fighting instrument as any other Navy in the world, fleet for fleet. Even in size there was but one nation-England-which was completely out of our class: and in view of our relations with England and all the English-speaking peoples, this was of no consequence." The year 1898, in which he had left the position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy to help organize the Rough Riders, had proved a turning point in the history of the Nation. With the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, America found herself in a new international position. New colonies brought new responsibilities. (259) 260 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Porto Rico was added to our territories and we assumed - protectorate over Cuba. In the'Pacific, the Philippines and Hawaii, as well as Guam and several smaller islands were annexed. The United States thus assumed a new position as a world power, and with this came the development of a new foreign policy. No one appreciated these new responsibilities that had come to the Nation more than Mr. Roosevelt. As he stated, in his second inaugural address, "much has been given to us and much will rightfully be expected of us.... Power means responsibility and danger..... We have become a great Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with other nations of the earth." Always Roosevelt was essentially a "Navy man." The first book that he ever wrote, back in 1882, was "The Naval Operations of the War Between Great Britain and the United States." Always he was a close student of naval affairs. Long before he embarked upon the public life of national leadership he knew the relative strengths of the navies of the world, their building programs, the personnel of their fleets and the minutest detail in regard to their armaments. When he came to the position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy he carried with him the conviction that "the strong arm of the government in enforcing respect for its just rights in international matters is the Navy of the United States." While he served in that capacity he had the opportunity to study the Navy at close quarters and to acquire that expert knowledge that was to profit him greatly in a few years in the upbuilding of the greater Navy that came as a logical sequence to the expansion of our position as a world power. With his elevation to the Presidency, one of the most WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 261 forceful of his initial utterances was his pronouncement in favor of a greater Navy, on the ground "that it is not possible to improvise a navy after war breaks out." In his first message to Congress, December 3, 1901, he declared "that the work of upbuilding our Navy must be steadily continued." He avowed "that no one point of our policy, foreign or domestic, is more important than this, to the honor and material welfare, and above all to the peace, of our Nation in the future. Whether we desire it or not we must henceforth recognize that we have international duties no less than international rights. Even if our flag were hauled down in the Philippines and Porto Rico, even if we decided not to build the Isthmian Canal, we should need a thoroughly trained Navy of adequate size, or else be prepared definitely and for all time to abandon the idea that our Nation is among those whose sons go down to the sea in ships. Unless our commerce is always to be carried in foreign bottoms, we must have war craft to protect it." The American Navy at that time had nine battleships and eight more in course of construction. With the laconic statement that an adequate navy "is the best guarantee against war and the best insurance for peace," Roosevelt urged the construction of additional battleships and armored crumQs, with auxiliary and lighter craft in proportion. lHe advocated the policy of "wear out rather Y than rust out." He believed in the training of the personnel in frequent fleet maneuvers "under a thorough and well-planned system of progressive instruction." For the first time in our history, naval maneuvers under the immediate command of an Admiral of the United States Navy were held on a large scale during the year 1902. Firm in his belief that "the only shots that count 262 THEODORE ROOSEVELT are the shots that hit," President Roosevelt pressed upon Congress the need of providing our fleets not only with ships, but with the facilities for making expert the man behind the gun. Even with the lessons of the Spanish-American War fresh in their minds, our people were, in a measure, as evidenced by the attitude of their representatives in Congress, reluctant to approve extensive naval appropriations, particularly for the extensive fleet maneuvers and target practices that Roosevelt so earnestly advocated. Our naval construction program at this time was confined to the building of one new additional battleship a year, with the replacement of worn-out ships as they passed out of service. Roosevelt was content for the time with this program, though he used the building of the Panama Canal and the widening of the "open door" in the Orient to impress on the people the new and growing importance of the Navy. "There is no more patriotic duty before us as a people than to keep the Navy adequate to the needs of this country's position," he wrote in his message to Congress on December 6, 1904. "We have undertaken to build the Isthmian Canal. We have undertaken to secure for ourselves our just share in the trade of the Orient. We have undertaken to protect our citizens in foreign lands. We continue steadily to insist on the application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Western Hemisphere. Unless our attitude in these and all similar matters is to be a mere boastful sham we can not afford to abandon our naval program." The Russo-Japanese War gave a striking emphasis to the admonitions of the President. Lessons of the conflict were apparent to all critical naval observers. It was brought out that not a single battleship had been sunk WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 263 by torpedo fire or gunnery, while many cruisers had gone down under the heavy guns of the big ships. It was pointed out that while the torpedo-boats were indispensable and the fast, light-armored cruisers very useful, the main reliance was to be placed upon battleships, heavily armored and heavily gunned. Upon this showing, Mr. Roosevelt urged the building of more battleships, or "ships so powerfully armed that they can inflict the maximum of damage upon our opponents, and so well protected that they can suffer a severe hammering in return without fatal impairment of their ability to fight and maneuver." In these contentions the President was backed up by his naval advisers and, as a consequence, by the close of his first term, had the satisfaction of seeing the American Navy not only raised to a position second only to Great Britain in the point of naval armaments, but girded to hold its high place through the years to follow. Elected again to the Presidency, he marked with pleasure the development of the Hague tribunal "as not only a sympton of growing closeness of relationship, but a mear s by which the growth can be furthered." But he held that disarmament can never be of prime importance, saying, "There is more need to get rid of the causes of war than of the implements of war." He laid special emphasis on the Monroe Doctrine in his annual message to Congress in 1905, saying "That our rights and interests are deeply concerned in the maintenance of the doctrine is so clear as hardly to need argument." As a precautionary measure, in the interests of peace, he again urged the continuance of the program for the "wear out and not rust out" of existing ships, and the continued replacement of obsolete types. 264 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Again the following year the President drew upon the pages of history for a striking illustration in support of his naval policy. In his message to Congress he wrote: "The United States Navy is the surest guarantor of peace which this country possesses. It is earnestly to be wished that we would profit by the teachings of history in this matter. A strong and wise people-will study its own failures no less than its triumphs, for there is wisdom to be learned from the study of both. For this purpose nothing could be more instructive than a rational study of the war of 1812, as it is told, for instance, by Captain Mahan. There was only one way by which the war could have been avoided. If during the preceding twelve years a navy relatively as strong as that which this country now has had been built up, and an army provided relatively as good as that which this country now has, there never would have been the slightest necessity of fighting the war; and if the necessity had arisen, the war would, under such circumstances, have ended with our speedy and overwhelming triumph. But our people, during those twelve years, refused to make any preparation whatever, regarding either the Army or Navy." The year 1907 brought a revolution in Mr. Roosevelt's plans for maintaining the Navy on a one-battleship-a-year program. His attitude in the matter is set forth in his message to Congress in which he said: "It was hoped thatthe Hague Conference might deal with the question of the limitation of armaments. But even before it had assembled informal inquiries had developed thatasregardsnaval armaments, the only ones in which this country had any interest, itwas hopeless to try to devise any plan for which there was the slightest possibility of securing the assent of the nations gathered at the Hague. No plan was even proposed toW 0.0 PA.t 0 Ci. t p0. 0.0. 0.0 WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 265 which would have had the assent of more than one firstclass power outside of the United States. The only plan 'that seemed at all feasible, that of limiting the size of battleships, met with no favor at all. It is evident, therefore, that it is folly for this Nation to base any hope of securing peace on an international agreement as to the limitations of armaments. Such being the fact it would be most unwise for us to stop the upbuilding of our Navy. To build one battleship of the best and most advanced type in one'year would barely keep our fleet up to its present force. This is not enough. In my judgment, we should this year provide for four battleships." In addition, the President urged even more thorough preparation of the men of the Navy, and of its auxiliaries, docks, coaling stations, colliers and, supply ships. He advocated plenty of torpedo-boats and destroyers, and fortifications of the best type for all the great harbors on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Four months after this message was delivered to Congress, he sent a special message to that body, on April 14, 1908, urging in more complete detail the four-battleship plan as against the one- or two-battleship program that had prevailed. It was in 1907, during the discussion with Japan of the exclusion of Japanese children from the public schools of California that the President decided to send the American battle fleet around the world. He took no counsel in the matter, but acted solely on his own initiative, not consulting either the members of his Cabinet or Congress. In June the newspapers reported that the President would despatch the fleet to the Pacific coast. The announcement created a sensation., Some newspapers openly declared such a move would end in war. His critics said he wanted a war. There was much speculation 266 THEODORE ROOSEVELT about the matter until finally all doubts as to the President's intentions were swept away when the Secretary of the Navy, in an address at Oakland, California, on July 4th, announced that the American Navy shortly would visit the Pacific coast. Shortly afterward the Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Evans, Rear Admiral Brownson, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and other naval authorities, were summoned to a conference at Oyster Bay. Then a certain section of his critics were up in arms. In Washington the head of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs announced that the fleet should not and could not go because Congress would refuse to appropriate the necessary money. Roosevelt's answer was typical of him. He said he had money enough to send the fleet around to the Pacific coast, "and that if Congress didn't appropriate funds to bring it home it would stay there." After that, there was no further difficulty. European journals commented freely on the proposed voyage and almost without exception took the view that the cruise had some relation to the Japanese situation, as indeed it had, in the sense that that situation was one of several causes which led the President to decide that the voyage should be made, the other causes being his desire to afford the fleet sea practice, to demonstrate to other nations the efficiency of the American Navy, and, above all, to inspire the people of the United States with a practical enthusiasm for the Navy, so that they might thereafter take a greater interest in what he regarded as its proper development. The ships began assembling in Hampton Roads December 1, 1907, and in ten days were ready for their departure-the mightiest fleet the United States ever WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 267 had assembled up to that time. President Roosevelt, accompanied by Mrs. Roosevelt and a distinguished company of guests, went down to Hampton Roads to see the fleet off. On the bridge of the Mayflower, he led the magnificent four-mile line of fighting vessels during the first stage of the voyage, from the anchorage grounds in Hampton Roads to the Horseshoe Bend of Chesapeake Bay. Then, when the wide reaches of the sea were visible, through the wide-swung capes of Virginia, he turned aside and, coming to anchorage, reviewed the passing pageant. There was not a ship in the line old enough to have smelled the powder or taken the shot of Manila or Santiago. Every one of the sixteen battleships had been built since the Spanish-American War. All were of modern design and armament-examples of the aggressive sea-going navy which the President had declared to be so essential to the peace of the country. It was the new American Navy in great part created since Roosevelt had become President; and Roosevelt was proud of this showing. "Did you ever see such a fleet and such a day; by George, isn't it magnificent?" he chuckled as he paced rapidly up and down the deck of the Mayflower. "I tell you," he remarked to his friends, "our enlisted men are everything. They are perfectly bully and they are up to everything required of them. This is indeed a great fleet and a great day." The fleet that steamed out to sea under the leadership of Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, of Spanish-American War fame, was divided into two squadrons of two divisions each. The first division was composed of the flagship Connecticut and the battleships Louisiana, Kansas 268 THEODORE ROOSEVELT and Vermont. The second division, commanded by Rear Admiral William H. Emery, comprised the battleships Georgia, Virginia, New Jersey and Rhode Island. The third division, commanded by Rear Admiral C. M. Thomas, comprised the battleships Minnesota, Maine, Ohio and Missouri. The fourth division, commanded by Rear Admiral C. S. Sperry, comprised the battleships Alabama, Illinois, Kearsarge and Kentucky. The fleet auxiliaries were the supply ships Culgoa and Glacier, the repair ship Panther and the tender Yankton. Six torpedo-boats under Captain Cone rounded out the fleet. It had been generally supposed up to this time that the destination of the fleet was Magdalena Bay and possibly a cruise along the Pacific coast as far as Seattle. But just before it steamed away the report was whispered about that certain charts pertaining to the Manila Islands and the Suez Canal had been shipped with other paraphernalia, and immediately the conclusion was reached that the mission of the fleet actually was a "round-theworld" trip. Hardly had Roosevelt returned to the White House from the farewell, when it was announced that the fleet would continue on to our insular possessions and return home by the Suez Canal. When the news was flashed to the far corners of the earth Australia and New Zealand, Japan and China, sent earnest invitations inviting the ships to pay them a friendly visit. They forthwith began preparing royal welcomes, and royal they subsequently proved. Without accident or untoward incident of any kind the fleet proceeded south along the Atlantic coast of South America. It touched at Port of Spain and then at Rio Janeiro. At the latter city it was received with signal honors and remained for a few days enjoying the hos WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 269 pitality of the enthusiastic Latin-Americans. Coal and supplies were taken on at these stops. When the Straits of Magellan were reached the skeptics were completely confounded, for the giant battleships negotiated the passageway, "where dwell the ghosts of many ships that had been battered to pieces on the rocks," without a single misfortune. Callao was reached in February, 1908. On the way up the west coast the ships engaged in their regular spring target practice and arriving finally in Magdalena Bay-by the permission of the Mexican government-spent thirty days in close competition. Navy Department records show that the marksmanship attained during these cruise practices excelled anything that had been chronicled up to that time. Of this important phase of the voyage, Admiral Sperry, who commanded the fleet after Admiral "Bob" Evans relinquished the post of Commander-in-Chief at San Francisco, reported by letter to President Roosevelt: "As for the effect of the cruise upon the training, discipline and effectiveness of the fleet, the good cannot be exaggerated. It is a war game in every detail." He referred to the excellent opportunities offered for specialization in wireless, gunnery, tactics, battle maneuvers and coal economy, and on the latter point emphasized the rivalry between the ships in the matter of keeping down coal consumption. "All this has been done," he concluded, "but the field is widening and work has only begun." President Roosevelt had touched on these things in his message to Congress, written just prior to the departure of the fleet. "The battle fleet is about departing by the Straits of Magellan to visit the Pacific coast," he wrote. "No fleet 270 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of such size has ever made such a voyage, and it will be of very great educational use to all engaged in it. The only way by which to teach officers and men how to handle the fleet so as to meet every possible strain and emergency in time of war is to have them practice under similar conditions in time of peace. Moreover, the only way to find out our actual needs is to perform in time of peace whatever maneuvers might be necessary in time of war. After war is declared it is too late to find out the needs; that means to invite disaster. This trip to the Pacific will show what some of our needs are and will enable us to provide for them. The proper place for an officer to learn his duty is at sea, and the only way in which a navy can ever be made efficient is by practice at sea, under all the conditions that would have to be met if war existed.. The United States Navy is the best guaranty the nation has that its honor and interest will not be neglected; and in addition it offers by far the best insurance for peace that can by human ingenuity be devised." When the fleet reached San Francisco Admiral Evans retired and Rear Admiral C. S. Sperry assumed control, to remain in charge until the ships were safely anchored home again in Hampton Roads. From the Golden Gate the ships moved out over the Pacific to Honolulu. The battleships Alabama and Maine dropped out and their places were taken by the newer ships Wisconsin and Nebraska. The six destroyers separated from the main fleet at San Francisco and after visiting Samoa returned home. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans the Americans met everywhere with a cordial welcome. The American flag was warmly greeted and nowhere was there any unpleasant feature to mar the program of the visitors. WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 271 Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne made good their invitations in gracious style. Yokohama showed not the slightest resentment over the coming of the huge Pacific touring party. The "open door" that had been extended to Perry in 1853 was even more widely extended. Suez was reached the third day of January, 1909, and when the fleet heard of the appalling disaster caused by the earthquake in Sicily and southern Italy several of the American battleships under the direction of Admiral Sperry proceeded to the stricken country and helped in the work of relief. The good effects of the cruise were apparent to the men of the Navy even before the country at large had come to know its value. Starting out as sixteen individual units the fleet had become welded as one body. Roosevelt had said that Spain's inability to equip her ships properly with coal and ammunition had contributed to her failure in 1898. It had been reasoned also that in the event of a war that would take our battleships into the Pacific they would arrive demoralized as did the Russian ships in 1904 after their long trip culminating in the battle of Japan Sea. The cruise round the world dissipated all doubts as to the American Navy's ability to take care of itself under all conditions and under any assignment that might be made of it, regardless of distance. The fleet had proved self-sustaining in repairs, and the Bureau of Equipment at Washington had been able to solve the problems of coal and general supplies. The need of certain improvements was demonstrated, notably the necessity of providing our own colliers that could not be gotten from other nations in time of war because of neutrality laws. In general, as one historian has put it, "the fleet had found itself, the men had got the 'sea-habit,' and the 272 THEODORE ROOSEVELT vast aggregation had become a unit in a sense such as had scarcely ever been realized before." From Gibraltar the fleet proceeded across the Atlantic flying "homeward bound" pennants. The great ships that had steamed out of Hampton Roads in December 1907 arrived back again within the same Virginian capes on February 22, 1909, the anniversary of the birth of The Father of Our Country. The Nation gave her returned champions of peace a notable welcome. President Roosevelt, who had only a few days of his term remaining until the inauguration of President-elect Taft, again made the journey to Hampton Roads to congratulate Admiral Sperry and his men on the splendid showing they had made during their sixteen months' tour in foreign waters. "This is the first battle fleet that has ever circumnavigated the globe. Those who perform the feat again can but follow in your footsteps," he told them. Summing up his address the President said: "As a war machine the fleet comes back in better shape than it went out. In addition, you, the officers and men of this formidable fighting force, have shown yourselves the best of all possible ambassadors and heralds of peace. Wherever you have landed you have borne yourselves so as to make us at home proud of being your countrymen. You have shown that the best type of fighting man of the sea knows how to appear to the utmost possible advantage when his business is to behave himself on shore, and to make a good impression in a foreign land. We are proud of all the ships and all the men in the whole fleet, and we welcome you home to the country whose good repute among nations has been raised by what you have done." "Not until some American fleet returns victorious WHAT HE DID FOR THE NAVY 273 from a great sea battle will there be another such homecoming, another such sight as this. I drink to the American Navy!" This was the toast of President Roosevelt as he stood, radiantly happy, in the cabin of the Mayflower at the conclusion of the review in Hampton Roads. He was surrounded by the admirals and captains of the sixteen ships that had just been welcomed home. "We stay-at-homes also drink to the men who have made us prouder than ever of our country," added the President, and again the toast was pledged. He was elated over the showing of the fleet and took occasion to remind the naval leaders of the dire prophecies that had been made as to the success of the venture. "Do you remember the prophecies of disaster?" he asked. "Well, here they are," pointing to the ships in the harbor, "returning after fourteen months without a scratch. Isn't it magnificent?" In turn he visited the four division flagships of the big fleet and everywhere was cheered by the sailors. "You have done the trick," he exclaimed to one group of admirers. "Other nations may follow, but they've got to go behind." The cheering broke out afresh when the President declared of the cruise that "nobody after this will forget that the American coast is on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic." At the time the fleet was making ready for its memorable cruise, the President had seen fit to remain silent on any possible political or diplomatic significance that the voyage might have. Subsequently, however, speaking of the broader significance of the voyage, he said that it was the most important service that he had rendered to peace. 18 CHAPTER XVIII BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR W HEN Roosevelt became President in 1901, the foremost political problem of the country was the problem of big business. During the nineteenth century the American business man had grown accustomed to receiving from the national government assistance, but never restraint. Vast combinations of capital had sprung up to control the necessaries of life. The great corporations which produced and sold such articles as steel, oil, sugar and beef were widely and cordially hated. The campaign literature of the time was full of the subject, and the corpulent silk-hatted citizen who represented the Trusts was a familiar figure in the cartoons. In Roosevelt's first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, he called attention to the situation. No legislation was available for the proper restraint of corporations doing business between the states except the Sherman Act of 1890, and by the decision of the Supreme Court in the famous Knight case of 1895, the strength of this act had been largely impaired. The President realized that the first essential was publicity. "In the interest of the public," he said in his message, "the government should have the right.to inspect and examine the workings of the great corporations engaged in interstate business." In accordance with his request, Congress finally passed the act of February 14, 1903, creating the new (274) BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 275 Department of Commerce and Labor. This department included a Bureau of Corporations, presided over by a Commissioner. The duty of the bureau was to investigate the organization, conduct and management of corporations engaged in interstate and foreign commerce, and to compile and publish the results of their investigations. James R. Garfield was the first Commissioner of the new bureau. When he finally became Secretary of the Interior he was succeeded by Herbert Knox Smith. Both of these men enjoyed the confidence of the President to an unusual degree, and the work which they did under his direction was of great and lasting value. The bureau first investigated such enterprises as the Standard Oil Compahy, the American Tobacco Company and the United States Steel Corporation. Upon the completion of each investigation an exhaustive report was made to the President. At the same time a summary of the report, covering not more than two newspaper columns, was prepared and was released by the President for publication in the press throughout the country. Thus he gathered a mass of information on great public economic questions and went direct to the people with it. His actions raised storms of approval and criticism; they became the subjects of editorials, of cartoons and of private and public comment all over the country, and they placed the entire problem of American industry on a new level for intelligent discussion. The Sherman Act was the only statutory weapon with which to attack unlawful combinations. In the Knight case the Supreme Court had decided that a corporation in one state could lawfully acquire all the stock of a corporation in another state and thus effectually secure control of a given business. Shortly before Roosevelt 276 THEODORE ROOSEVELT became President, an arrangement was made by certain financiers, to obtain control of the railway systems in the Northwest. It was planned to form a corporation to be called the Northern Securities Company. This corporation was to be nothing but a holding company; that is, it was to exist simply for the purpose of owning the stock of the principal railroads of the Northwest. The lawfulness of this scheme was apparently settled by the Knight decision. Attorney-General Knox advised the President that an effort should be made to obtain a new and different decision of the question. Upon Roosevelt's direction, therefore, suit was brought to dissolve the Northern Securities Company, and the Supreme Court in 1904, by a vote of five to four, decided in favor of the government. This was a great moral victory and gave to the administration and to the people new confidence in the possibility of restraining monopolies. It led to a series of suits against the General Paper Company, the so-called Beef Trust, the Standard Oil Company, the American Tobacco Company and many others. Although the President was successful in most of these cases, the immediate effect of the litigation was less important than the gradual growth of the conviction that the regulation of vast business enterprises belonged properly to the Federal government. But the power given the President by the Sherman law, and the facts gathered for him by the Bureau of Corporations, did not meet all the requirements of the situation. As time went on and the problem of big business pressed more and more upon his attention, the President became convinced that executive regulation should take the place of judicial regulation. "The mon BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 277 opolies," he said, "can, although in rather cumbrous fashion, be broken up by lawsuits. Great business combinations, however, cannot possibly be made useful instead of noxious industrial agencies merely by lawsuits, and especially by lawsuits supposed to be carried on for their destruction and not for their control and regulation." During the latter half of his administration he repeatedly urged Congress to create a Federal agency for the regulation of all the great interstate corporations, including adequate publicity and supervision of the issue of securities. He was convinced that big combinations had come to stay and that they should be regulated and not destroyed. As he remarked in conversation to some of his friends, "If you have a high-spirited horse that occasionally runs away, there are two remedies. You can put a curb bit on him and hold him down; or you can take an axe and knock him on the head and kill him. Either way he won't run again." He favored the use of the bit rather than the axe. In the numberless conferences between the President and his subordinates; there were thrashed over all sorts of plans for the control of corporate power, through national supervision. There was the national incorporation plan, which had too many legal difficulties; the Federal license plan, which would have required the large corporations engaged in interstate commerce to secure a Federal license for that privilege, and to comply with various conditions attached to the license, and there was the Federal Trade Commission plan. The substance of all these plans was the same. The President was convinced, as he said in a special message of April 27, 1908, that "some body or bodies in the executive service should be given power to pass upon 278 THEODORE ROOSEVELT any combination or agreement in relation to interstate commerce, and every such combination or agreement not thus approved should be treated as in violation of law, and prosecuted accordingly. The issuance of the securities of any combination doing business. should be under the supervision of the national government." But Congress was not willing to go as far as. the President asked, and he was bitterly assailed by the beneficiaries of the large vested interests. His proposal was denounced as the wild dream of a mad enemy of property and of the social order. But he was, in fact, the friend of property, not its enemy. As he said himself, "One great problem that we have before us is to preserve the rights of property; these can only be preserved if we remember that they are in less jeopardy from the socialist and the anarchist than from the predatory man of wealth." He never denounced wealth itself but only the unsocial acquisition or use of it. - Few incidents of his administration were more picturesque and more far-reaching in their consequences than the prosecution of the western land frauds. During the year 1903, there was revealed a colossal scheme to steal government lands in the West. A group of Californians had made a practice of securing title to public land by fraud and forgery. The criminals were men of high position. Two United States Senators, Burton of Kansas and Mitchell of Oregon, were convicted of participation in similar schemes. Mitchell, although a member of the United States Senate, received fees for arguing land cases. When charged with this offense, he produced a contract with his partner which showed that the partner received all of the fees in such cases. The contract was typewritten on a piece of water-marked paper and bore BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 279 a date which was some time prior to the beginning of the government's investigation. The prosecution proved that paper with that particular water-mark had not been procurable at the time when the contract was said to have been made, and that the same was true of the style of typewriter ribbon which had been used. The discovery of these f6cts resulted in a full confession by the man who had written and antedated the bogus contract at the direction of his two employers. When the great transcontinental railways were built, they received for their encouragement sections of land from the national government. Between each pair of sections so given, the government reserved a section to itself, so that many square miles of the West were divided like a checkerboard between public and private ownership. The great cattle companies bought these sections from the railroads and then proceeded to fence in the entire tract including government land as well as railroad land. When settlers came to take up homesteads upon those sections which formed part of the public domain, they found themselves surrounded by unlawfully built fences and were, in some cases, intimidated and even killed when they tried to assert their rights. It was estimated that five million acres were thus illegally fenced. Under Roosevelt's direction this evil was attacked in the criminal courts and numerous convictions of the guilty parties were obtained. In these land cases, the outstanding figure, beside the President himself, was Francis J. Heney, who was appointed a special United States District Attorney at Portland, Oregon, and whose brilliant and tireless work was principally responsible for the government's success. Another story well illustrates Rooseveit's relentless 280 THEODORE ROOSEVELT pursuit of "the predatory man of wealth." This is the story of the great sugar frauds. In 1904 a government employee named Richard Parr came to the President's Secretary, William Loeb, Jr., and told him that he suspected that the American Sugar Refining Company was defrauding the government in the collection of import duties. The matter was reported to the President and upon his direction Parr received a special appointment in the Treasury Department. He was finally assigned to work upon the New York docks in March, 1907. Working with an assistant, he arrived, after some weeks, at the definite conclusion that fraud was somehow being practiced upon the government. Each lot of sugar as it was unloaded from the ships was weighed on a large platform scale. At the edge of the scale a government weigher and a company checker sat side by side. Parr's assistant noticed that whenever a lot of sugar was put on the scales the company checker reached down to one side in a peculiar manner with his left hand. Parr discovered that on the side of each of the seventeen scales there was a small hole containing a spring, and that by pressure on this spring with his left hand the company checker reduced the weight of every load of sugar that went 'on the scales. Of course, since the amount of duty was based on the weight of sugar, this practice resulted in cheating the United States out of part of the duties. The practice had been going on for six years, and it was estimated that the American Sugar Refining Company had escaped duties on seventy-five million pounds of sugar during that time. The result of this investigation was the conviction of those immediately responsible for the fraud, and the payment by the Sugar Company to the government of (A ~t Utr erdood Und woiv7 *., Y AT B OCH AL The iPresidit and Mts Roosevelt t Bo i& Hala1 e od of tl e Peedeit' tmoter1 in Roswell, Ga The group lodes eator and MsClay, the ffly of J. B. Wg ad fiend ad eigbors of the Bulloh famil, also Manmy Grace,,5s A rP 1 Dar add WiliA al6 A Lolds Rev aer f the Butloh I I BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 281 two million dollars in settlement of the claim for past duties. Throughout the whole case Roosevelt kept in close touch with what was going on. On one occasion an attempt was made to get Parr out of the way, but the President took the matter in hand and directed Secretary Cortelyou to see that Parr was retained until he completed his investigation. Henry L. Stimson, United States District Attorney at New York, took charge of the civil and criminal proceedings with complete success. The President allowed nothing to stand in the way of the investigation and no official of the company was so highly placed as to relieve him of prosecution. Roosevelt's enemies among the "malefactors of great wealth" represented him as the tireless and consistent enemy of all great combinations of property. The story of his connection with the Tennessee Coal and Iron matter is, in itself, a refutation of such a charge. The famous panic of 1907 began on October 22d, when the Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York closed its doors. A run on other New York trust companies immediately began and in a short time the panic had extended through the entire country and threatened wide-spread disaster. The President and Secretary Cortelyou of the Treasury kept in hourly communication with New York and from time to time took such action as they thought might serve to allay the panic. The situation, however, rapidly grew critical. On Monday, November 4th, as the President was at breakfast, he was informed that Henry C. Frick and Judge E. H. Gary, representing the United States Steel Corporation, were waiting to see him in the Executive office. He immediately joined them and asked Mr. Root, the Secretary of State, to be present at the inter 282 THEODORE ROOSEVELT view in the absence of Attorney-General Bonaparte. Frick and Gary told him that an important New York firm was on the verge of failure and would undoubtedly go under during the ensuing week unless help came. This firm owned the majority of the stock of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, which at the time had little or no market value. It had been suggested that the United States Steel Corporation should buy this stock, paying for it with its own stock which was of undoubted strength and value. Gary and Frick represented to the President that they wished to do this not primarily for the purpose of enlarging the Steel Corporation's holdings, but for the purpose of averting a further spread of the panic. Before taking such a step, however, they wished the President's assurance that it would not form the basis of an attack upon the Steel Corporation for a violation of the AntiTrust Law. The President had to make up his mind immediately so that the suggested action, if taken, might be announced at the opening of the New York Stock Exchange that morning. The United States Steel Corporation owned less than sixty per cent of the steel properties in the United States and the acquisition of the Tennessee property would not raise this proportion above sixty per cent. The President realized the value of the suggested course of action and did not feel that such a slight increase in the size of the corporation's holdings could effect the determination of the question of monopoly. Accordingly, before the interview closed, he dictated a note to the Attorney-General setting forth the facts as I have related them, and stating that Gary and Frick had told him that they did not want to buy the stock if he thought that it ought not to be done. "I answered," he said, "that while BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 283 of course I could not advise them to take the action proposed, I felt it no public duty of mine to interpose any objections." The same morning Mr. Bonaparte came to see the President, acknowledged receipt of the note and concurred in his judgment in the matter. The Tennessee stock was bought by the Steel Corporation, and by this means an important step was taken in the checking of the panic. Some time after the danger was safely passed, attacks upon the President began for his share in what had happened. He was accused of favoring the Steel Corporation and was bitterly assailed from many quarters. But he had as a memorandum his note to the AttorneyGeneral, which, together with the openness of the entire transaction, effectually refuted any charge of unfairness. Roosevelt was the consistent friend of labor, but not so as to prevent his friendship with capital also. "The White House doors," he said, "will open just as easily to the laboring man as to the capitalist-and no easier." He repeatedly stated his belief in the usefulness of labor organizations. He advocated the employers' liability act, shorter hours of work on the railroads, a workmen's compensation law, child labor laws, and other measures for the benefit of the man who works with his hands. But he was careful never to pose as primarily the friend and champion of labor. His principle was that labor and capital alike should have the square deal. "More than that," he said, "no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have." When William A. Miller was discharged from the Government Printing Office, because he was a non-union man, the President took the matter up personally, and ordered Miller to be reinstated. Samuel Gompers, with 284 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the members of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, called to protest. He told them that his decision was final and said: "I must govern my action by the laws of the land, which I am sworn to administer, and which differentiate any case in which the Government of the United States is a party from all other cases whatsoever. These laws are enacted for the benefit of the whole people, and can not and must not be construed as permitting discrimination against some of the people." Here was a splendid chance to win the sympathy and the votes of labor simply by permitting the discharge of Miller to stand, but Roosevelt never reckoned the effect of any public action on his own career. He did what he thought right and let the consequences take care of themselves. His campaign to bring the great corporations within the power of the Federal government incurred for him the enmity of many of the beneficiaries of big business. On the other hand, his insistence upon the lawful rights of property, and his condemnation of violent and extralegal attacks upon property, earned for him the denunciations of the labor extremists. During the winter of 1907, the attacks of both of these classes were directed upon him. He had incurred the hatred of the reaction. aries by his trust program. The extremists on the other side hated him because of the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone affair. In 1899 Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho, had called in the United States troops to repress disorder in the Coeur de'Alene mining district. The troops employed the most drastic measures and drove hundreds of miners out of the country. Among these was one named Harry Orchard. Six years later, on December 30, 1905, as BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 285 Steunenberg was leaving his house at Caldwell, Idaho, he was blown to pieces by a bomb which had been placed beneath his gate. Orchard was arrested on suspicion and confessed the crime. He had on his person papers showing his connection with the Western Federation of Miners, and apparently implicating Charles H. Moyer, the president of that organization, William D. Haywood, its secretary and treasurer, and George A. Pettibone, a member of its executive committee. These three men were in Colorado, and the authorities of Idaho resorted to an extraordinary and high-handed proceeding to bring them back to the scene of the crime. Although they were in no sense fugitives from justice, the Governor of Colorado was persuaded secretly to honor a requisition; and upon Saturday night, after the courts were closed, and a writ of habeas corpus was probably unobtainable, the three men were kidnapped and hurried on a special train to Idaho without an opportunity to consult counsel, or to notify their families. This enterprise later received the sanction of the United States Supreme Court, and Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone consequently had to await their trial in Idaho. Meanwhile, of course, excitement in the whole mining country ran high. The Western Federation.of Miners, which was an off-shoot of the Industrial Workers of the World, numbered among its members and officers a number of men who were ready to go to any extreme to attain their objects. In the neighboring State of Nevada, the gold-field mining district became divided into two hostile camps. The miners, whose anger had been aroused by the treatment of the officers of their organization, constantly clashed with the watchmen and guards who were armed and paid by the owners of the mines. It was in this state of 286 THEODORE ROOSEVELT affairs that the President, in a letter, alluded to Mr. Harriman, the railroad magnate, and to Moyer, Haywood, and Debs, as being equally "undesirable citizens." He was immediately attacked by the Wall Street newspapers on the one hand, and by what he termed "miscalled socialists who had anarchistic leanings," on the other. He bore these attacks in silence until he received from Honore Jaxson, of Chicago, chairman of the Cook County Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Conference, a letter which he could not forbear to answer. In this letter Jaxson protested vehemently that the President was attempting to influence in advance the trial of Moyer and his associates. The President's answer was characteristic, and the satisfaction which it gave him to write it is apparent in every line. He observed that his correspondent's letter bore the headlines: "Death-cannot —will not-and shall not claim our brothers!" and suggested that this announced in advance an intention to tolerate only one verdict in the case. As to his own language, he said: "It is simple absurdity to suppose that because any man is on trial for a given offense, he is, therefore, to be freed from all criticism upon his general conduct and manner of life." He repeated that he considered Messrs. Moyer and Haywood undesirable citizens, and concluded thus: "So far as in my power lies I shall uphold justice, whether the man accused of guilt has behind him the wealthiest corporations, the greatest aggregations of riches in the country, or whether he has behind him the most influential labor organizations in the country." After a long trial Haywood was acquitted on July 28, 1907, for lack of evidence. The only testimony against him was that of Harry Orchard, the self-confessed BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR 287 murderer. But this did not end the agitation in the mining districts. The situation in Nevada grew more and more acute until Governor Sparks felt unable to handle it any longer. The Legislature of Nevada had failed to provide for a State Police and the Governor finally asked for Federal intervention. On December 7, 1907, the United States troops arrived from California and order was immediately restored. Then the Governor wanted the army to stay indefinitely to do his police work for him, but the President had no such idea. He had, on December 11th, sent a commission consisting of Lawrence O. Murray, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of Labor, and Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations, to investigate, with the hope of finally allaying the difficulty. To Governor Sparks' request he replied, on December 28th, that if the Governor would immediately call a session of the Legislature for the purpose of establishing a State Police he would order the troops to stay for a short while, but that if the Legislature were not convened the troops would return to California immediately. The result was that the Governor called an extra session of the Legislature, the State Police Act was passed and the troops withdrew, leaving the locality reasonably quiet. Roosevelt's attitude toward big business and toward labor was simplicity itself. The average citizen understood it and approved it. Neither wealth nor poverty was to him a recommendation in itself. Neither trusts nor labor unions were exempt from the restraints of the law. Trust magnate and labor agitator, capitalist and wage-earner, they were all alike American citizens, to whom he sought only to apply the rule of even-handed justice. CHAPTER XIX CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 1F all the movements which Roosevelt preached, and launched and put into practice perhaps the * O mr most far-reaching in its permanent importance was "the conservation of natural resources." More than any other it received his constant and sympathetic attention. The word. conservation came into general use during the latter part of his second administration, to denote foresight and restraint in man's use of the primary sources of wealth-the earth's surface, the forests and waters upon it, the minerals beneath it, and their incidents, and to denote the securing of their highest utilization and their equal enjoyment by all the people of present and future generations. But the foresight and restraint of the individual is helpless before the destructive and monopolizing power of modern industrialism equipped by science, organized in vast masses of capital and stimulated by the shortsighted greed of unrestricted competition. Therefore Roosevelt insisted that they must be controlled public authority wherever constitutionally po'ssible-. So long as he was in the White House, no influence however powerful could reach and dislodge the honest, energetic, and competent subordinate whom the struggle for national control had brought into conflict with powerful water-power or timber grabbers, with coal barons, or with fraudulent absorbers of the public lands. His intense interest in the matter brought bureau chiefs, (288) CONSERVATION 289 and officials even lower, into personal touch with him where other Presidents have been limited to Cabinet officers, often of smaller caliber than their subordinates. The beginnings of what afterward grew into conservation, had been laid in two fields of Federal activity before Ho osevelt became President-irrigation and for- eistry; and this. chapter could not be intelligently written, unless the story of his active induction into the pursuit of conservation were coupled with the names of two Pennsylvanians-Gifford Pinchot, the founder of the United States Forest Service, and F. H. Nevell, fou-nider of the United States Reclamation Service. Hardly had Roosevelt come to Washington in September, 1901, when conservation was brought to his attention by Pinchot. and Newell. They wanted him to adopt the reclamation of arid lands as his first policy an to secure the passage of a reclamation act that would make millions of acres of desert bloom, and yield not only food but homes and vigorous citizens. To this end they suggested that the United States itself should build the reservoirs, canals and ditches of irrigation systems, often costing millions of dollars. They pointed out that private enterprise was not equal to such a gigantic task, and that only the government could be trusted to allot the reclaimed land and the necessary water-rights to bona fide settlers on just terms. It was vitally important that the right to the water should be turned over to the irrigation settler as part and parcel of his land, so that no perpetual tribute could be exacted from him and his children for that which is as necessary to irrigated land as the rain clouds are to our Eastern farms. Seeing all this as only a man familiar with Western 19 290 THEODORE ROOSEVELT conditions could see it, Roosevelt asked Pinchot and Newell to prepare a passage relating to the subject for his first message to Congress, in December, 1901. Later, his backing of the bill for a Reclamation Service, prepared and introduced with his approval, was so vigorous that 5j the Reclamation Act became a lawin JuneP 1902, against the opposition of the usual quota of reactionary Congressmen. Newell was promptly put in charge of the service. By the close of Roosevelt's administration 0,000 had been spent to reclaim many acres of arid public lands on which there have been established thousands of farm homes of strong American citizens, and hundreds of smiling villages and towns. All the money spent is required by the law to be returned to the government in reasonably small yearly instalments. The President's right-hand man in all these matters was_ Gifford Pinc ot. ng i etre "r ncy,,..: f ey,, the doors of the White House and of mind and hrt were gladly open to the Forester at all times and to any extent. Of Pinchot, he has said: - " Gifford Pinchot is the man to whom the nation owes most for what has been accomplished as regards the preservation of the natural resources of our country. He led, and indeed, during its most vital period embodied, the fight for the preservation, through use ~ ( of our forests. He played one of the leading parts in the effort to make the national government the chief instrument in developing the irrigation of the arid West. He was, the foremost leader in the great struggle to coordinate all our social and governmental forces in the effort to secure the adoption of a rational and far-seeing policy for securing the conservation of all our national resources." CONSERVATION 291 Roosevelt's great contributions to forest conservation were two laws which could not have been passed except for his advocacy, the Forest Transfer Act of 1905, and the Forest Homestead Act of 1906, beside a multitude of effective executive actions. It took nearly three years and a half to wring the Forest Transfer Act from Congress. In the meantime the President was not idle. The best and most accessible timber lands had already passed into private ownership; but very much remained. Pinchot's youngsters were turned loose in the mountains of the West. From the opening of spring until the winter snows barred them out they explored the ranges from Canada to the Mexican line. Singly and in small parties, with saddle horse, and pack train, they ran a race with the timber grabbers, sometimes neck and neck, the telegraphic orders for withdrawal occasionally beating the filings of the timbermen to the local land office by a narrow margin of minutes only. The work continued for two years after the adoption of the Transfer ActRoosevelt issu hundred and eighty forest reserve proclamations in the years 1905 to 19, an o aif-ndred and ninpty;n the yP.ar 1907 to 1909. Wfen a congressional "rider" stopped most of the work on March 4, 1907, the main prize was won. Thus to his vision, energy and courage the people of the United States owe their magnificent estate covering all the great mountain regions of the West, an estate equal in area to all the states touching the Atlantic from Maine to Virginia, inclusive, with Vermont and West Virginia for good measure. By appointment of inter-departmental commissions to report on the organization of the scientific work of the government, on the business methods of the depart 292 THEODORE ROOSEVELT ments, and on the administration of the public land laws-each commission suggested, organized, and directed by Pinchot-Roosevelt was able to report to Congress well thought-out recommendations concerning changes needed for producing greater executive efficiency, particularly the unifying of the government's forest work. en on February 1, 1905 the Transfer Act became a law, e "Bureau of Forestr " was re-named "The Forest Service," to indicate its object and intent to serve the people in forest matters, and a littila the forest reserves were renamed l"National Forests" in token that their resources of aIITinds, instead of being kept away from the people, wereopened for use and made ever more and more accessible, as Roosevelt so fully and continuously advocated. After the transfer of the national forest to the Forest.Serice their administration became efficient and complete. Reasonable charges were made for the use of any of their natural resources, wrongful cutting of national forest timber was detected, punished, and stopped, and fraudulent mineral entries made illegally to obtain valuable timber or water-power locations were prevented. In short, the national forests were managed for the public good, firmly, but good-naturedly. These activities were gall' and wormwood to the great timber barons, to the sheep and cattle kings, and to the water-power corporations. Attacks lasting many days at a time were made on the Forester and the Forest Service each year when the appropriation bill came up in the Senate. For days at a time the battle would rage with few active on the side of conservation except some poorly prepared Senators held in the firing line by the influence of the President. CONSERVATION 293 RoosP. vlt.'s desire to make the forests in every way available to the people for use is exempifi ed by-his advocacy of the Forest Homestead Act which became a law in 1906. Under this act every spot and tract in the national forests that was suited to agriculture was opened for home-making. This, coupled with the free gift of grazing and timber privileges to the extent of the domestic needs of the settlers in and near national forests, and the giving of preference in grazing rights to nearby residents-together with the courtesy and helpfulness of Forest Rangers to the evergrowing number of vacationists and health and pleasure seekers —won the hearts of the honest residents inand near the national forests, and set this great phase of conservation firmly and permanently on its feet. An amusing incident illustrates Roosevelt's use of his right and power as an executive to conserve the people's interest. In 1907 the foes of forestry in Congress put a rider on the appropriation bill for the Forest Service taking away the President's power to proclaim further national forests in the six States of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. If Roosevelt vetoed the bill because of the rider, the activities not only of the Forest Service, but of the entire Agricultural Department would be at an end. If he signed the bill, millions of acres of mountain forests would be lost to the national forests and the people. However, after the harmful rider was accepted by the Senate, Roosevelt still had power to create national forests until the bill became a law by receiving his signature at any time up to noon of March 4th. Without any hesitation and with a joyfully clear conscience he signed proclamations creating sixteen 294 THEODORE ROOSEVELT million acres more of national forest land in the six states, on data supplied promptly by the Forest Service, before he tied his hands by signing the act. When the active opponents to forestry woke up to what had happened, they descended on Roosevelt in a body to express their anger at his action. But when they filed into his office and saw the good-humored twinkle in his unflinching eye, their spokesman, Senator Carter of Montana, could nurse his wrath no longer. He broke into a hearty laugh, joined in by all but one of the other Senators, and extending his hand cordially said: "It isn't any use. We came to jump all over you, but can't say anything except that you put a good one over on us this time." The general mineral laws of the United States were and are almost hopeless, but Roosevelt did great things for conserving the coal land, the best of which was rapidly being gobbled up at nominal prices by great combinations or trusts, under the guise of the letter of the law, but often contrary to both its letter and spirit. Upon report of Pinchot's "Public Land Commission," Roosevelt caused some notable suits, both civil and criminal, to be instituted against large companies which had obtained coal land illegally. But this merely scratched the surface of the difficulty, and so, after obtaining favorable opinions from Woodruff and other law officers of the government, he withdrew from coal entry many million acres of coal lands on the public domain. This action and other similar withdrawals of oil lands and water-power sites caused more furore among certain big business interests than any other one thing that Roosevelt did. It was decried as illegal, but it is CONSERVATION 295 noteworthy that it was long before any suit was ever brought to let the courts decide its legality. The business interests involved were so great that such suits would have been brought if there had been any hope of success. At last a withdrawal of oil lands was contested, and the President's action was upheld by the Supreme Court. Roosevelt's fairness is shown by the fact that he asked Congress to pass an act for leasing reasonably, but not unreasonably, large areas of the coal land to any one mining company or person. Congress adjourned without passing the leasing bill, and then Roosevelt had the coal land valued by the Geological Survey, and as fast as the price per acre in different sections was determined, he abrogated the withdrawal for the area thus valued and turned the land back to entry, so as not to interfere with legitimate mining enterprise. The ceonser1.nn0 of water power for the public was another of Roosevelt's great achievements. The Forest Service, in its care of the national forests, soon came into conflict with big water-power corporations financed in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, but usually officered in their initial stages by western promoters. The mountain snows and springs gave streams. TE-s-opes gave fall. The promoters and bankers wanted to buy exclusive and perpetual ownership of both at a nominal price. The law authorized the government to grant only revocable permits and seemed to give power to impose conditions in them. The Forest Service drafted legislation to authorize fifty-year leases on cbnditions to be agreed upon with the lessees. In the mean time the Service imposed the conditions, including a small rental charge on the permits as each was issued. Certain corporations raised the usual cry of illegality 296 THEODORE ROOSEVELT and appealed to the Attorney-General. He decided against them. Instead of going to the courts they appealed to Congress. Their Boston lawyers drafted a bill granting the water-power sites outright to the first applicant at a nominal price. It was introduced in the Senate by Senator Crane of Massachusetts, in the House by Mr. Mondell of Wyoming. Many other bills of like effect were introduced. It seemed that the Forest Service policy was to be swept away. Roosevelt intervened. In a message transmitting the report of the Inland Waterways Commission, he exposed the true character of these bills. That killed them. From that day to this the great power corporations have blocked all water-power leasing bills, but leasing has nevertheless gone on under the old revocable permits until water-power development in the mountain and Pacific states has exceeded in intensity that in all other parts of the country. Years after he began it, the legality of Roosevelt's permit system came before the Supreme Court and was upheld. Besides the mountain streams, another great source of water power is the nigabe riers of the country. A dam may often improve the navigation of a river, while developing water power. All matters of navigation and related river improvement fall within Federal control. The conservationists had known the close relation between forests and stream flow. They came to see each river system of the country as a unit, and all of them as capable of improvement under a single comprehensive plan. Pinchot proposed to Roosevelt an investigation to formulate a sound waterways policy, and in the spring of 1907 an executive order created the Inland Waterways Commission.,,, I a INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATION CONFERENCE Fom left to rigil sttding- Yong, Bacon Pinchot, Cullon, Gf Bryce Shi1pp, Knox. FMot rw Liftont d FhRshr, Reve, EEs ao r, Sli'i rQoe&o CONSERVATION 297 The Inland Waterways Commission, seeing the interrelation of waters and other natural resonrces. advised Roosevelt to call a conference of all the state governors and oftnumerous other delegates to discuss the conservation ofnatural resources in all its aspects. Hedid so at e. The conference was held at the White House in May, 1908. At this conference the conservation movement as a complete whole came before the country. The conference recommended that the President create a Conservation Commission to take stock of all natural resources, and of the rate of their exhaustion and waste. This was done by executive order. The Commission was made up of department officials and members of Congress. The experts, resources, and information of all departments were put at its disposal. Its report, transmitted to Congress in December, 1908, was the first inventory of natural resources ever taken by any nation and attracted world-wide attention. The report advised a National Conservation Conference to discuss its recommendations. This was held in Washington in February, 1909. Roosevelt supported it and spoke. One more notable gathering-the North American Conservation CnfPreince, made up of delegates from the United States, Canada and Mexico, was called by, Roosevelt and held during his administration. From'it the vigorous conservation movement of Canada had its birth. The charge of lawlessness so often brought against Roosevelt's acts in the Presidency may be tested by his conservation measures. His opponents declared nearly every one of them "unconstitutional" and "without authority of law." The language of invective was exhausted upon them. He had, they said, trodden under 298 THEODORE ROOSEVELT foot the constitutional rights of the states and the prerogatives of Congress. The Reclamation Act was unconstitutional; the permanent reservation and admiRnistration of national forests within a state reduced the state to vassalag; the forest regulations were an attempt to promulgate laws by dec ree the withdrawal orders revived the claim of t.hP Stllarts to the suspensory power. He was a new Charles I and Cromwell in one. His water-power program robbed the Western states of their property in, and the Eastern states of their jurisdiction over, water, etc.- So ran the criticism of Senators in the annual debates over the Forest Service appropriation. Ten years have passed. These matters at last have come before the Supreme Court in six great cases. It is well to recite them. In Baker vs. Swigart, the court assumed the constitutionality- of the Reclamation Act and upheld the authority of the government to collect from users of water the annual operation and maintenance charges fixed by the Secretary of the Interior. In Light vs. United States, the court upheld the right of the nation permanently to hold and administer national forests or other reservations within a state and declared that this left the state on a footing of equality with all the other states. It further held that state laws limiting the rights of landed proprietors are void as to leased lands owned by the United States. In United States vs. Grimand, the court held that the forest regulations governing grazing were not a usurpation of legislative power but were valid, and that violation of them was punishable in the Federal courts by fine and imprisonment. -CONSERVATION 299 In United States vs. Midwest Oil Company, the court held that the withdrawal of public lands from disposal under existing laws, done for the purpose of giving Congress an opportunity to consider proposals of new and different laws, is not an exercise of suspensory power, and is valid. In United States vs. Chandler Dunbar Company, the court decided that Congress as an incident to improving the navigation of a river may take the raw water power of the stream, develop it, and sell or lease the surplus over that needed to operate the navigation works, all without compensation to the riparian owner; that any right of the owner under the state law to the flow of the stream for power or to the bed is void as against the Federal right of navigation, with all its incidents. In Utah Power and Light Company vs. United States, the court held that the water-power regulations of the Forest Service are valid, including the exaction of a rental for water-power sites. With one exception all these decisions were unanimous. The Supreme Court has upheld every single action of Roosevelt for conservation that has been brought before it. Thanks to his courage and wisdom, constructive reformers need not fear that the constitution and the laws will bind the hands of a brave executive advised by skilled counsel. One thing more should be said: That the Roosevelt conservation policies are today as sound as they were wjen tey were first advanced. The assage of time has merely served to confirm their wisdom, and the foresighted statesmanship o the man who gav them to the nation and the world. Roosevelt's Presidency made the conservaton movement possible. He connected the visiof a tter _~... 300 THEODORE ROOSEVELT day with the commonplace of fact. Never again will we return to the old wasteftuil conditions, under which the nation's resources were recklessly exploited to satisfy private greed. This much we have gained, even though no one in high place has arisen with the courage and the vision necessary to carr on his work.Who canbend the bow of Ulysses? 0 0 p0 I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER XX THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA OOSEVELT'S seven and a half years of service as President ended on March 4, 1909. In the morning of that day Washington awoke to a tremendous snow storm. The President and the President-elect, William H. Taft, met at the breakfast table and Roosevelt, surveying the storm, remarked, "I knew there would be a blizzard clear up to the minute I went out of office." After the inauguration ceremonies he and Mrs. Roosevelt drove to the Union Station. There an enormous crowd was gathered to see him off and as he boarded his train the shout of "Good-bye Teddy" rose from thousands of throats. Three weeks later he was outward bound for Africa. For some time he had planned this trip to collect animal and plant specimens for the Smithsonian Institution-the great National Museum at Washington. The party which sailed from New York on March 23d consisted of Colonel Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and three naturalists, Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar A. Mearns, Mr. Edmund Heller and Mr. J. Alden Loring. At Naples they transshipped to an East African liner. On this vessel they met Frederick Courteney Selous, a famous English big-game hunter, who had helped largely in the preparations for the trip. Selous had been a mighty huntsman for nearly forty years, and his tales of adventures in the heart of Africa were a fit preparation for the experiences which Roosevelt and his friends were soon to enjoy. (301) 302 THEODORE ROOSEVELT From Naples their vessel carried them eastward on the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea, and down the east coast of Africa, until at last, on April 21st, they reached the port of Mombasa, just below the equator, in British East Africa. There they were warmly welcomed by Lieutenant-Governor Jackson, whose considerable attainments as a naturalist gave him a particular interest in the expedition. Next day they boarded the Lieutenant-Governor's special train to make the journey inland on the Uganda Railroad. With them went also R. J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both hunters of long experience. The railroad led through the Southern Game Reserve —a country which abounded in all manner of wild life. It had been built not many years before through a country infested by man-eating lions, who had very seriously interfered with the work of construction, and who were still plentiful enough to cause trouble. The Colonel and his party sat on a comfortable seat built above the cow-catcher, and from this point of vantage enjoyed the hundreds of animals which they met. There were herds of hartebeests, enormous ostriches, zebras, monkeys, giraffes, and birds innumerable. The animals were so tame that the train disturbed them very little. Not long before, a lioness had actually stayed on the track so long that she was run over and killed. The night of the Colonel's trip giraffes put the telegraph service out of commission by knocking down some of the wires and a pole'as they crossed the track. The whole country was a wonderworld for the naturalist. After three or four hundred miles of this travel the party at last reached the station of Kapiti Plains, where THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 303 their caravan was waiting for them. The preparations for the expedition were prodigious. It was necessary to carry enormous quantities of naturalist's supplies including, among other things, four tons of salt for curing skins, hundreds of traps, and many boxes of ammunition. Two hundred porters were engaged to carry these materials, as well as the tents, food and personal equipment. There were gun-bearers, tent boys, horse boys, and fifteen native soldiers to keep order in the outfit. The camp looked as if it were prepared for a small army. The Colonel's tent was in the front with a large American flag over it, flanked by the tents of the other members of his party. Behind were the tents of the native soldiers and servants. The Colonel ha.d a fly over his tent to proteai it from the intense heat, a rear extension for bathing, and a canvas floor to keep out ticks, jiggers and scorpions. All this was necessary in Africa, but must have seemed luxurious to a man accustomed to camping in the North Woods and in the Rockies. For the first two weeks the party were the guests of Sir Alfred Pease, who owned a large farm near the Kapiti Plains. It was Sir Alfred who really introduced them to African hunting. Each day they would start out bent upon securing certain specimens for the National Museum. In all the hunting there was no useless slaughter; nothing was shot except for scientific purposes and for the food of the caravan. In speaking of this afterward, Colonel Roosevelt said, "Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies for ourselves; otherwise we shot nothing that was not used either as a museum specimen or for meat-usually for both purposes. We were in hunting grounds practically as good as any 304 THEODORE ROOSEVELT that have ever existed; but we did not kill a tenth, not a hundredth, part of what we might have killed had we been willing. The mere size of the bag indicates little as to a man's prowess as a hunter, and almost nothing as to the interest or value of his achievement." The dangerous game animals of Africa are the lion, the buffalo, the elephant, the rhinoceros and the leopard. Authorities differ as to the comparative danger of hunting these beasts. All of them are fierce and easily able to kill a man. The Colonel's first exciting experience on the trip was a lion hunt with Sir Alfred Pease. At the end of a long day, in which three lions had already been killed, the Colonel and his party stirred up a fourth lion and galloped across the plain in pursuit of him. They gained on the lion rapidly and he suddenly halted and stood at bay- in a patch of long grass. Roosevelt dismounted about a hundred and fifty yards from the beast and was joined by Simba, his horse boy. The lion, lashing his tail and roaring with rage, stood facing the Colonel and apparently ready to charge. It does not take an angry lion long to cover a hundred and fifty yards, and the Colonel made up his mind that in case of trouble he would trust to his rifle rather than to the speed of his horse. But before the lion had made up his mind to rush, three bullets from Roosevelt's rifle had put an end to his career. The four lions were then skinned, and, under che rising moon, the party set off for the farm. As they trudged along carrying the skins the natives chanted antiphonal songs of triumph, expressing the delight which the death of a lion always caused them. It was a weird and beautiful scene which Roosevelt remembered with delight. THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 305 At last the time came for them to bid farewell to their hospitable host and hostess and to start out across the Athi Plains. The march now began in earnest. Each day camp was broken as early as possible and the porters shouldered their loads. The American flag which flew over the Colonel's tent was always carried near the head of the procession, and behind it followed the long line of burden-bearers. As they marched they often chanted monotonously, or repeated in unison over and over again a word or phrase which frequently was meaningless, but whose rhythm pleased them. On a long march there was always a halt for lunch. At the end of the day's journey the tents were quickly pitched, with broad streets between the rows, and as night fell a camp-fire was kindled, about which the Colonel and his friends sat and discussed their recent adventures. When a good hunting country was reached a permanent camp was set up, from which excursions were made during the day. After they left Sir Alfred's ranch came the first experience with buffalo. The African buffalo is an enormous, powerful creature, something like our American bison, but with very much larger horns. One day the hunting party were creeping up the bed of a dry water-course, on the lookout for game, when Cuninghame detected half a dozen buffalo lying in the grass. The hunters crawled cautiously to within two hundred yards of the animals and from that distance fired. At the noise of the shots there sprang from the grass, to their consternation, a herd of seventy or eighty. Had the herd charged, probably no one would have been left to tell the tale. Fortunately, however, the buffalo turned at right angles and made off at a run. But in a 20 306 THEODORE ROOSEVELT few seconds they stopped and, forming a quarter-circle, faced the hunters with outstretched heads. There was nothing to do but to stand steady and to refrain from shooting. To run or to fire would have been to court death. The herd hesitated a minute and then resumed its flight. The first shots had hit three of the animals, and these were secured as specimens. After five weeks the party reached the busy town of Nairobi, some distance up the Uganda Railroad from the place where their trip had begun. From Nairobi thousands of specimens of beasts, birds, and plants were prepared and shipped to the Smithsonian. The next trip was south from the railroad, into the almost waterless Sotik district. This country abounded with birds of all kinds, and with game as well. The hunters secured specimens of the rhinoceros, topi, giraffe, hyena and of many other animals. In this country there were plenty of lions, and one of these gave the Colonel a thrilling adventure. On a tremendously hot day, as the hunters were crossing the plain, one of the natives, looking over a little rise, descried a big lion with a yellow-and-black mane walking in the open toward the body of a zebra which he had killed the night before. Immediately the party started after him on horseback and pursued him for some distance. The lion lay down behind a bush, and the Colonel, jumping from his horse, made a poor shot which only wounded the beast slightly. On he went and lay down again behind a low grassy ant-hill. At a distance of two hundred yards Roosevelt and Tarlton dismounted and prepared to fire again. Tarlton shot first but his rifle was badly sighted and he missed entirely. Then the Colonel fired, but he had misjudged the THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 307 distance and again he inflicted only a slight flesh wound. The lion was grunting savagely and lashing his tail, and as the bullet struck him he started for the two men with the speed of a greyhound. Tarlton fired and missed again. The Colonel, steadying his rifle on his knee, drew a bead on the center of the great beast's chest, and as the lion galloped at him, grunting with rage, pressed the trigger and the bullet sped to its mark. The lion collapsed in a heap but recovered himself and attempted to charge again, but the shot had been fatal and in a few seconds he was dead. It was in this country, too, that they hunted the hippopotamus. The hippo can make fair speed on land or in deep water, but his real home is shallow water where he can gallop very fast. As the party were steaming along the edge of Lake Naivasha, they saw a big hippo walking on the shore of a little bay. The Colonel, with Cuninghame and Kermit, got into a rowboat and when they were about a hundred yards away from the hippo, the Colonel fired into its shoulder. Immediately the huge beast spun around, plunged into the water and with its enormous jaws wide open, came straight through the shallow water at the boat. As it came on the Colonel fired again and again, and Kermit took successive photographs, without even looking up from the finder of his camera. Before the hippo reached the boat, one of the Colonel's shots had killed him and he fell into the shallow water, from which it was a tremendous job to pull him out. On July 24th they reached Nairobi again and shipped home another lot of specimens. This done, they started northward on a trip into the foothills of Mt. Kenia, a tremendous snow-clad peak surrounded by glaciers, 308 THEODORE ROOSEVELT which towers more than 18,000 feet above sea-level. In this country theyhunted elephants for the first time. The African elephant is a highly intelligent animal but he has never been tamed as has his, Indian cousin. Indeed, an Indian elephant which had been trained to man's use was the astonishment of the natives at Entebbe, on the shores of Lake Victoria Nyanza. The African elephant has very keen hearing and scent, and is for that reason extremely difficult to hunt. Roosevelt and his party, however, were indefatigable and were blessed with the good luck which accompanies perseverance. After some difficulty, they found and followed the tracks of a small herd and finally could hear the elephants moving slowly through the jungle. The foliage was so dense that for half an hour they crept along within a few rods of the herd, hearing them distinctly but unable to see them. At last an opening in the trail revealed a big bull resting his heavy tusks on the branches of a young tree. Roosevelt fired, striking the animal's head, but missing the brain. The mighty beast fell, but in the same instant the bushes parted on one side and through them rushed another bull elephant, charging so close that he could have touched the Colonel with his trunk. Cuninghame hastily fired but the elephant, with a shrill trumpet, disappeared into the jungle. The naturalists then turned to the work of skinning the dead elephant-a formidable task, which took many days to accomplish. On October first the party were back again at Nairobi to ship more specimens, and five days later they started from the railroad station of Londiani, not far from Lake Victoria Nyanza, for another northward Ph~i)by Ifi. Y. AT THEi U1D1ERSIT OF BERLIN An tcident of the trip hroug Europe in 1 H H e iS seen leav7'g the Univetvy -vwlt Dr. Hill, tlhe Atricln A mbassad or, after delierirng an address and 6rece g 3Le duegree of Doctor of Philosophy.V, o Pbyl Pi mpson. N. AT TH OBOF NPLO Durng hetriimlui pogrssthroughuoe hc followed h' fica tip, a of _ _d*ee. It tite te bidffi ddess ha h vsie t h HeldsIiddshrehewa i~eydby te iitf bef of PrsGnrlDltit S i 1111 - l 1_1 i; 111 | I l~~~~~~~~~~~~~'~;~;E;~ I" WWSSEB?:; | Iil XSX. i:.f l ~ Dng the tritumph~L prgress thro>U~ BUrofr: -Fhlefi Solraltred his A~riean kltl'fiug tw~, Ctolonef 80oseveltl eelv-ercl aI Buxfie of ntalJfe add~essesl Ii; twas a teer gie Sor onnrse ress t a~ti eZ n~t t e1; HoL~ea es In~itdest ~ere ]he w re 7~d by et~g y9~~y TICT~lfl t #I eneFjr~ Da1~,Lsteta THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 309 trip in the region of Mt. Elgon. This country was known as the Uasin Gishu Plateau, and contained several kinds of antelope and a five-horned giraffe, of which specimens were wanted for the Museum. Here they saw for the first time the honey-birds, whom John Burroughs had specially charged Roosevelt to observe. A honey-bird often approached the party, chattering loudly, and when followed would lead the way to a tree which was always found to contain honey. Sometimes the honeycomb had grubs in it, which were apparently the reward that the bird wanted for its services. Near Sergoi Lake in this country, the Colonel and his party joined a unique kind of lion hunt. With a number of resident Englishmen and a group of sixty or seventy native warriors, they started out one morning to search for the lion. Beating through a wide, shallow valley about noon, they at last discovered one who galloped off through the high grass, pursued by the huntsmen. After a mile's chase he stood at bay under a low thorn tree and was quickly surrounded by the natives, each armed with a spear and a shield. The lion with bristling mane and lashing tail, faced first one way and then the other, roaring with fury. Suddenly he charged at a point in the circle. The leading warrior sprang to the front and hurled his spear. As it entered the lion's body the great beast flung himself on the man nearest him and disregarding his adversary's spear, which had pierced.him from one side to the other, struck the man's shield down and leaped upon his victim. In an instant a dozen spears were through his body and he fell in the agony of death, gripping a spearhead in his jaws with such force as to bend it double. 310 THEODORE ROOSEVELT The wounded man soon forgot his pain when the Colonel promised him a heifer; while the other warriors, with their shields above their heads, performed a dance of victory around the lion's dead body. When they had completed their trip in the Uasin Gishu Plateau, the party returned to Nairobi, and from there, after a few necessary preparations, started, on December 18th, for Lake Victoria Nyanza. Among these preparations were some additions to the Colonel's famous Pigskin Library-a considerable collection of books carried in a light aluminum and oil-cloth case, and ranging all the way from Euripides to Alice in Wonderland. The railroad trip to Lake Victoria Nyanza was brief, and twenty-four hours in a lake steamer carried them across to Entebbe, the seat of the English Governor of Uganda. On the voyage they passed many beautiful deserted islands which had once been thickly populated before the country had been ravaged by the fatal sleeping sickness. From Entebbe they went on to Campalla, where the Colonel met the little native King of Uganda, and paid interesting visits to the Church of England and Roman Catholic missions. In the latter Mother Paul, an old friend of the Colonel, taught the native children, and they delighted him by an extraordinary rendering of the Star Spangled Banner. From Victoria Nyanza, the road led a hundred and sixty miles to Lake Albert Nyanza. On the way the hunters were frequently greeted by tribal chiefs bringing presents of fruit, sometimes accompanied by sheep or a bullock. There were elephants in this country and the Colonel secured a splendid specimen before they had gone far on the road. THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 311 From Albert Nyanza a boat carried them past the mouth of the Victorian Nile, which was alive with huge crocodiles, and into the White Nile, down which they rapidly steamed. Forty-eight hours later they disembarked in a burning hot country known as the "Lado," in which mosquitoes were unpleasantly plentiful. Here they secured specimens of the square-nosed rhinoceros, whose head is quite different from that of the black rhinoceros which they had already seen. Kermit took many photographs in this region as, indeed, he did throughout the whole trip, spending much time and pains to procure pictures of live animals in their natural state. From the Lado they started on the march for Gondokoro, where the long tramp was to end. There they arrived on February 26, 1910, and were met by enthusiastic natives who carried a large American flag and treated them to a rendering of "America" by a native band. Here they were also greeted by M. Ranquet, the Belgian Commandant of the Lado district. Sir Reginald Wingate, Sirdar of the Soudan, had sent a boat to bring the party down the Nile. As they went along the 1300-mile stretch to Khartoum, they landed at intervals to complete their collections of specimens. Finally, they reached Khartoum on March 14th and were met by the Sirdar and other British officials with a hearty welcome. What pleased the Colonel and Kermit even more, was that Mrs. Roosevelt and Ethel came up from Cairo by train and joined them there. The eleven-months' trip had been a great success from the scientific point of view. Four thousand specimens of birds and nearly five thousand of mammals had been secured for the Smithsonian Institution, and in 312 THEODORE ROOSEVELT addition, about twenty-five hundred fish, reptiles and batrachians. Many invertebrates had' also been collected, several thousand plants and a quantity of anthropological material. These achievements were due not only to the skill and perseverance of the hunters, but also in no small degree to the constant and helpful kindness of the British and Belgian officials and settlers through whose country they had passed. From. Khartoum, the Roosevelts visited Omdurman and other battlefields on which the Mahdi's power was broken years ago, and then went by rail to Cairo. At Cairo University, on March 28th, Roosevelt delivered a lecture to the Egyptian students, in which he deplored the recent assassination of Premier Boutros, and forcibly reminded his hearers that a community cannot exercise the right of self-government until it has shown the power of self-restraint. They sailed from Cairo to Italy and began there a ten-weeks' trip through Europe. Throughout his journey Roosevelt received the most remarkable evidences of his world-wide popularity-real tributes to his personal qualities, for he did not come as the official representative of the United States but simply as a private citizen. In Rome he was entertained by the King and Queen of Italy. He had asked Ambassador Leishman to get for him an audience with the Pope, but the interview had proved impossible to arrange because the Vatican had insisted upon attaching a condition that the Colonel should refrain from visiting the American Methodist Mission in Rome. Roosevelt would have enjoyed a talk with the Holy Father, but he was not willing to restrict his freedom of speech and action as he was asked to do. Photo On hws ThompsaI "I plo ro al y s a en NYYs IiC Y h Ti Y'" ~ ' " - ^ ________ I THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 313 From Rome he went to Vienna, where he was the guest of Emperor Francis Joseph, and to Budapest, where Archduke Joseph entertained him, and where he met Francis Kossuth, son of the famous Hungarian patriot who visited America just before the Civil War. In Paris, on April 23d, he delivered an address on Citizenship in a Republic, at the Sorbonne before a large and representative body of French scholars and other notables. From France he went through Belgium, Holland and Denmark to Norway. At Christiania he spoke on the subject of International Peace before the Nobel Prize Committee, from whom he had received the Peace Prize for his promotion of the Russo-Japanese Treaty. At the conclusion of the address the King and Queen stood and joined with the rest of the audience in a Norwegian "three times three for Theodore Roosevelt." He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Norway, an honor which that institution had hitherto bestowed only upon its own students. A great dinner was given in his honor by King Haakon. But of all his Norwegian experiences I imagine that he enjoyed most his talk with Nansen, the Arctic explorer, with whom he was able to exchange tales of adventure and daring. At Potsdam he was the guest of the Kaiser and on May 11th they reviewed together twelve thousand German troops. At the conclusion of the review, the Kaiser turned to him and said: "My friend Roosevelt, I am glad to welcome you, the most distinguished American citizen. You are the first civilian who has ever reviewed German troops." If either of them remembered the Venezuela incident of eight years before, we may be sure that it was not mentioned between them. 314 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Next day he delivered a lecture on The World Movement before the University of Berlin. The lecture was attended by the royal family as well as by the diplomatic representatives and the faculty and students of the institution, and after it was over he received from the University the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The Colonel reached London on May 16th as the special representative of the United States, to attend the funeral of King Edward. The King was buried on the 20th with great pomp and circumstance, and the ceremony was attended by many of the crowned heads of Europe and by the representatives of other nations. Roosevelt had a keen sense of humor and was never more entertaining than when he could be induced to recount some of his experiences on this occasion. The numerous questions of etiquette which arose between the various persons brought together. afforded many amusing situations. At one of these recitals some members of the Outlook staff and a few others, including Miss Jane Addams of Chicago, were assembled in a very small room. As the chairs were few, most of the company, including Miss Addams, were perched on various boxes which were arranged around the wall, and Miss Addams, at an inimitable recital of a particularly absurd incident, laughed so hard that she actually tumbled off the box on which she was seated. It is manifest that many of these stories cannot now be told. There is, however, no reason why two in connection with the German Emperor cannot be repeated. At a luncheon-I believe at Windsor Castlegiven to the crowned heads and to the delegates from the principal nations, the Czar of Russia was talking to Roosevelt. The Emperor walked over to them and THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 315 without apology brusquely interrupted the conversation by saying: "My friend Roosevelt, I wish you to meet the King of Spain. He!" (turning his back directly upon the Czar, but looking at him over his shoulder with a most contemptuous expression) "is a king worth knowing." Speaking of the Kaiser, another story which I have often heard repeated, but not by Roosevelt, is to the effect that the Kaiser said to him that he was anxious to have some conversation with him, and ascertaining from some one in attendance what his engagements were the next day, he continued, "I can see you at 2:30 and can give you three-quarters of an hour." As quick as a flash Roosevelt replied, "I shall be very glad to call on you tomorrow at 2:30 but I will not be able to stay longer than a half hour." As a matter of fact he had an engagement at 2:30 to call on the authoress, Mrs Humphrey Ward. This is perhaps the place to relate one other story in which the Kaiser figures. On his return home the Kaiser sent Roosevelt pictures taken during his visit to Berlin, showing the two men reviewing the German troops. From time to time there was more or less correspondence between them. On the outbreak of the war in Europe, when the action of Germany in Belgium was being properly subjected to strong condemnation in this country, a prominent German-American called at Oyster Bay. He delicately pointed out to Roosevelt that the Kaiser, during his stay in Germany, had shown him honors which had never before been accorded to a private citizen, and that he had since corresponded with him and had in other ways given evidence of his distinguished consideration. Now was Roosevelt's 316 THEODORE ROOSEVELT opportunity to show that he appreciated these attentions by making some statement to counteract the criticisms which were being directed against the Kaiser and the German nation. Roosevelt often expressed the satisfaction with which he replied-and we can see his eyes flash: "What you say in regard to the courtesies which have been shown me by the German Emperor is entirely true. It is also true that I have corresponded with him since my return to this country. Indeed, Sir, my relations with the Kaiser have been exactly the same as with the King of the Belgians. Good-afternoon." Questions of precedence arose at King Edward's funeral and the heart-burnings were many. There was one representative who seemed to feel very deeply the fact that there were slight but perceptible differences between the treatment accorded to him and that accorded to certain other delegates. He came to Roosevelt one morning in great excitement at the indignity which he had suffered through the fact that the attendants who had been assigned to him were not dressed in new liveries every day. He had ascertained that those appointed to attend Mr. Roosevelt were also lacking in new raiment. As the delegate did not speak English but did understand French, Roosevelt made the mistake of trying to joke in French. While, fluent in that language, his accent, as he himself said, was that of the French picked up at Stratford-atte-Bowe. To smooth the injured feelings of his friend, he assured him that it did not make any difference to him whether his attendants retained their present costumes or were dressed in yellow trousers and green coats. "That is your official livery," exclaimed the excitable foreigner. "I will go at once and demand that all your attendants be THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRICA 317 dressed as you desire." And it was with the greatest difficulty that Roosevelt restrained him from putting his polite intentions into effect. On June 1st the Colonel was given the freedom of the City of London at the Guildhall, and proceeded immediately to exercise that freedom by a characteristically frank speech. He heartily praised British rule in East Africa, Uganda and the Soudan, where his recent trip had given him the opportunity of extensive observation. He pointed, as a contrast, to the prevalence of crime and disorder in Egypt and expressed his regret that the British did not extend to that country the excellent system employed in their other possessions. This speech created a considerable stir both in this country and in Great Britain. Roosevelt was accused of a failure to regard the feelings of his hosts. But the excitement was really confined largely to his enemies in America. In Great Britain his words were generally accepted as the criticism of a sincere friend whom everybody expected to speak frankly. As a matter of fact, the speech had been submitted to Earl Grey before it was delivered. A few days later he delivered a carefully prepared and highly interesting lecture at Oxford University on Biological Analogies in History. Then came the time to turn his face toward the west and home. The family embarked on the Hamburg-American steamer KaiserinAuguste-Victoria amid the farewells of their British friends, and after an uneventful voyage finally reached New York on June 18th. There a tremendous and unprecedented welcome awaited the Colonel, a welcome such as had never before in our history been accorded to a private citizen. As 318 THEODORE ROOSEVELT his vessel passed through the Narrows she was greeted with the presidential salute of twenty-one guns from Fort Wadsworth, and received the same greeting from the battleship South Carolina. As he came to anchor off Quarantine, Roosevelt was met by a reception committee composed of three hundred citizens of New York, and by a special greeting conveyed to him from President Taft by two members of the Cabinet. The party boarded the revenue-cutter Androscoggin, and in a long line, with warships, tugs and excursion boats innumerable, steamed up the bay to the Battery. There a prodigious crowd had assembled, and every available inch of space in the specially-constructed grandstand and on the street, and at the windows, and on the roofs of the houses was occupied. The Colonel landed and walked directly to a platform which had been erected for the purpose. Mayor Gaynor welcomed him in a brief and happy address, to which the Colonel answered: "I have thoroughly enjoyed myself; and now I am more glad than I can say to get home, to be back in my own country, back among people I love. And I am ready and eager to do my part so far as I am able, in helping solve problems which must be solved, if we, of this, the greatest democratic republic upon which the sun has ever shone, are to see its destinies rise to the high level of our hopes and its opportunities." From the Battery he rode uptown, along Broadway and Fifth Avenue, with an escort of his own Rough Riders and of two thousand Spanish War Veterans. An enormous crowd lined the sidewalks and welcomed him home with joy. It was an inspiring home-coming and presaged the success of his leadership in the great struggle which was to come. CHAPTER XXI THE BEGINNING OF THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT OOSEVELT was a Republican because he believed in a liberal interpretation and vigorous exercise of the powers of the Federal Government. Before and during the Civil War the Republican party was at once a federal and a radical party. Lincoln embodied both these elements. He was by intellectual conviction a Federalist, and his moral instinct was to right wrong by positive action. The Republicans, as a national party, included the great majority of the business men of the country, while its opposition to slavery and the toryism which was the natural outgrowth of that institution attracted to it at the outset and held throughout the Civil War the majority of the reformers, practical and sentimental. From the end of the war and the death of Lincoln the business elements of the party secured and thereafter maintained complete control. This was natural. Material prosperity was the prime need of the nation. The idea of the people as a whole uniting through the instrumentality of the government to carry on a constructive policy to insure national prosperity by promoting better industrial conditions and a more equitable distribution of wealth, was foreign to current political and economic thought. Progress through individual initiative was the only method of progress thought of. The terms "successful business man" and "good citizen" were regarded as synonymous. The idea that (319) 320 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the government best advanced the interests of all by enabling the business man to make as much money as possible was universally accepted as a political axiom, and 'therefore the only constructive measure ever considered to promote the public welfare was a protective tariff. Thus, in 1880, when Roosevelt left college, the Republican party, while still a national or federal party, had become the conservative party of the nation. Had not the Democratic party clung to its States' Rights ideals, the young college graduate, like so many of his associates, would have become a Democrat, if not at once, then certainly in 1884 on the nomination of Blaine. But Roosevelt was then, as throughout his life, a Federalist. To him a party which clung to what he regarded as the fetish of States' Rights was not an instrument which could be trusted to promote the progress of the nation. He therefore became a Republican because he believed that that party was alone competent to meet effectively the needs of the country. The attitude of the Democratic party under the leadership of Bryan in 1896 towards the question of free silver served to strengthen him in this conviction. Though by temperament the very antithesis of a standpatter, and though his instinct was to seek 'dut evils in the existing order and meet them by positive action, yet he was as far removed as possible from that type of social reformer who is attracted to any project the immediate effect of which is to benefit the man who has not at the expense of the man who has. To him the maintenance of what he regarded as an honest currency was a moral question and as a reformer he was as much opposed to free silver in 1896, as he was THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 321 opposed as a Federalist in 1900 to the Democratic attitude on the Philippines and other questions arising out of the Spanish War. Thus it was that the tragedy at Buffalo placed in the great office of President a man of unbounded energy, ability and courage who, as a strong Federalist, was in entire agreement with the leaders of his party in and out of Congress on many subjects, but who 'differed radically from them on the many questions arising out of our phenomenal industrial development. They were conservative. He was progressive. They looked at any measure tending to curtail the complete freedom of men who were carrying on large business enterprises as dangerous and radical. His instinct led him to regard the Federal Government as the instrument through which the evils of the new industrial combinations alone could be controlled. They, shrinking from this consequence of that federalism which had made their fathers Republicans, began to express their fear of "unconstitutional extension of Federal power." He, regarding himself as the steward of the whole people, desired to preserve for the benefit of all, the natural resources of the nation. They, regarding the promotion of private business as the sole end of government, were willing that these resources should be absorbed by private interests. Thus, on many subjects, especially the larger questions of foreign and colonial policy, Roosevelt found himself in almost complete accord with the conservative Republican leaders in Congress, men like Aldrich and Hale in the Senate, and Cannon and Hawley in the House. On the other hand, he found himself in direct variance with them on almost all questions of domestic 322 THEODORE ROOSEVELT policy. Each side, probably honestly, tried to get on with the other. Certainly there was an honest trial on Roosevelt's part. But the friction, comparatively slight at first, constantly increased throughout his Presidency, until towards the close of his second term the struggle between the Executive and the leaders of his party in Congress was exceedingly bitter, and was the absorbing subject of political discussion. Roosevelt's enemies accused him of being an extreme radical, of being full of visionary ideas, even of being unbalanced; while his friends charged that his opponents were the venal representatives of special monopolistic interests and conscienceless exploiters of the public lands and other natural resources. His own estimate of his opponents was both sane and just. While he knew that many of those who were opposed to him in and out of Congress were in fact the tools of men who were willing to corrupt public servants for their own selfish gain, he also knew that many, perhaps the majority, were convinced-strange as it may now appear-that the welfare of the nation could be best promoted by leaving things alone, that such evils as impure food and the extortions of monopolies could not be cured by regulation, and that the remaining natural resources of the nation should be handed over as rapidly as possible without reservation to private interests. The details of this struggle between the Executive on the one hand and those in control of his party in Congress on the other have already been set forth in the account I have given of Roosevelt's course towards the control of trusts, the regulation of railroads and the fight for the preservation of natural resources. The effect of the contest was two-fold. At the first part THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 323 of his second term he was probably at the zenith of his power over Congress. From then on his power steadily declined. As he sent in message after message, now on this subject and now on that, the members paid steadily less and less attention to his recommendations. On the other hand, while many persons doubtless tended to become weary at the very multitude of his projects and controversies, his hold on their confidence did not diminish. The great majority of the Republican voters began to see the real and fundamental significance of the contest. They were back of his conservation policies and his attitude towards big business. He had succeeded in making the party as represented by its rank and file a progressive Federalist party, although he had failed to break the hold of the reactionary element on the party organization in Congress and in the states. These were the existing political conditions as the time for the Republican Convention to nominate Roosevelt's successor approached. Roosevelt was tremendously anxious to have follow him in the White House a man who would carry out his policies, especially his conservation policies-one who would move as he was moving from the conservation of the natural to the conservation of the human resources of the nation. He desired a successor who would take a vital interest in the movement just beginning to make itself felt for what has since become known as social legislation, such as child labor laws and laws improving conditions affecting the employment of women in industry. At the same time, he realized that all the party machinery was in the hands of the conservatives; furthermore, that it would remain in their hands in spite of any 324 THEODORE ROOSEVELT thing he could do, because at that time the direct election of delegates to national conventions at party primaries had not come into general use. He had to rely on his own popularity with the voters, and the fear of the average politician to appear to ally himself openly with interests inimical to the public welfare, to force the convention to nominate a progressive Republican as his successor. It is probable that any one of half a dozen persons would have met with his approval, as the Republican Presidential nominee. It was not long, however, before it was evident that his Secretary of War, William H. Taft, would command the greatest political support. When this fact became clear, he devoted himself to securing Taft's nomination. In this he was successful, but he was afraid to go further and insist on the nomination as Vice-President of a man representing his own point of view towards public questions; neither did he attempt to force a reorganization along progressive lines of the National Committee, the body which is created at each National Convention to represent the party between conventions. The conservatives acquiescing in his desire for the nomination of Taft, he allowed them without a contest to remain in complete control of the party machinery. This course was taken by him because he was afraid that if he tried to exert his influence further than the selection of the Presidential candidate, he would produce a reaction which might defeat Taft. Nevertheless, his acquiescence in the control by his political opponents over the Vice-Presidential nomination and the entire machinery of the party for the next four years was the greatest political mistake of his life. THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 325 It was due to what we may regard as perhaps his only serious weakness as a political leader-his tendency to underrate his own strength. Hopeful, buoyant, sanguine of the future for the things he was interested in, with almost sublime confidence in the ultimate triumph of right principles, he never at any given time fully appreciated the extent of the hold he then had on the American people. Whether he would have succeeded in making the organization of his party more responsive to progressive ideals and the will of the majority of its voters, had he extended his fight in 1908 for the nomination of Taft to a general fight on the Old Guard, we may not know; but the probabilities are that he would have met with a considerable measure of success. As it was, political conditions in the Republican party on the 4th of March, 1909, left his successor the nominal leader of a party under the real control of Roosevelt's bitter opponents. Mr. Taft's selection of Mr. Ballinger to be his Secretary of the Interior was a great disappointment to those whose primary interest was the continuation of Roosevelt's attitude towards the use of public lands and the conservation of the natural resources of the nation. They had hoped that the new President would continue in that office James R. Garfield, on whom Roosevelt had placed great dependence and in whom the conservationists had absolute reliance. Roosevelt's last contention with Congress was over his Presidential commissions, principally the National Conservation Commission and the Country Life Commission. As we have already noted, one of his last acts as President was to sign a bill passed by Congress containing a rider which prohibited any officer or employee 326 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of the government from serving on any commission or committee not authorized by Congress. When he signed the bill, he wrote a memorandum to the effect that he regarded the restrictive provision as an unconstitutional interference with his power as President to obtain information to lay before Congress, and that if he was to continue President he would disregard the provision. President Taft followed the congressional mandate. As a consequence, the whole plan of inter-departmental commissions, which had laid the foundation of the conservation policies by supplying the necessary scientific information, fell to the ground. When Roosevelt was on his hunting trip in Africa, things political in this country were rapidly taking on new and strange aspects. The President called an extra session of Congress to fulfil the party's pledge to revise the tariff. The debate over the Payne Tariff Bill developed into a struggle between those forces in Congress which in the main had opposed Roosevelt and the progressive or Roosevelt Republicans. In this contest the new President believed that Payne, Aldrich and his associates were right and that the tariff bill which they succeeded in forcing through Congress, against the opposition of the progressive Republicans, was a good measure, fulfilling his own and his party's pledge in respect to the tariff. Practically all the progressive Republicans believed that the President had allowed the reactionaries to trick him and to deceive the people; that the people had voted the Republican ticket on a pledge that the tariff should be revised downwards, while the Payne Tariff Bill, they believed, in effect increased the duties. Factional party strife ran high and the Democrats were correspondingly rejoiced. THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 327 By withdrawing water-power sites from entry, Roosevelt had prevented many of them from being taken by private interests. He then asked Congress for water-power legislation. Ballinger began to cancel these withdrawal orders. Gifford Pinchot at once protested to the President. In August, while this matter was pending, a young special agent of the General Land Office, named Glavis, called on Pinchot and stated that Ballinger was about to patent improperly what were known as the Cunningham Coal Claims on the Bering River, back of Controller Bay, in Alaska; that Ballinger had been the attorney for the claimants, and that when the claims were patented they were to be transferred to the Guggenheims. Glavis, under the advice of Pinchot, laid the matter before the President. The President dismissed Glavis from the service for making unwarranted charges against a superior officer, but his case was taken up by Collier's Weekly and made the subject of heated public discussion. Early in January, 1901, Senator Dolliver read in the Senate a letter addressed to him by Gifford Pinchot, in which the latter discussed and defended the methods used by the Forest Service in defense of the Roosevelt conservation policies. On the same day the President dismissed Pinchot. Out of these events grew the Pinchot-Glavis-Ballinger controversy. At the President's request Congress appointed a joint committee in both Houses to investigate the action of the Interior Department and also of the Forest Service. This committee sat throughout the winter and spring of 1910. There was no investigation of the Forest Service but there was a very extensive investigation of the Department of the Interior. 328 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Both Pinchot and Glavis were represented by counsel, the former by Mr. George Wharton Pepper, of Philadelphia, and the latter by Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, now a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The hearings of the committee were the principal subject of a political discussion which served to emphasize the widening breach between the administration and those who, during Roosevelt's administration, had been most enthusiastic for his domestic policies, especially conservation. The report of the majority was favorable to Mr. Ballinger; that of the minority adverse. The Cunningham claims were never patented and the waterpower sites, except in a few cases, were never opened for entry. Mr. Ballinger retired as Secretary of the Interior in March, 1911. Roosevelt arrived at Khartoum on his way out from Africa, on March 14, 1910. One of those who met him was Mr. John Callan O'Laughlin, of the Chicago Tribune. Mr. O'Laughlin brought with him a letter from Pinchot, dated August 31, 1909, in which the latter set forth that the President had lost the confidence of the progressive Republicans in and out of Congressnot necessarily in his intentions, but in his ability to prevent the reactionary elements in the party from dominating his administration. His conclusions were based on the President's refusal to continue the national conservation commissions and other commissions in the face of congressional prohibition, the signing and commendation of the tariff bill, as well as his strictures to those opposed to that measure, and, finally, in the activities of his Secretary of the Interior, Ballinger. Mr. Pinchot, at Roosevelt's request, came to Europe and met him at Porto Maurizio, on the Riviera. From I I wa6ivters of Long IsadSound, Theodore Roosevelt setthe major portion of his life. At Oyster Bay, jZ played as a boy, especialy during th VYrnmnonths. At Sag H'ore ill ve the year round, i i from the i9 0 Pawl T,> _f.. _. TAT S M H In Ms laeatrful bath Siatple orr a Oystr Bayt L hou Island, overomg ich Contersl Roosevelt atlee So eodore his rooshunting trip. The rbulk oftioh E dias lit At w) n,rsr Siniosemt played as 3 oy, t Speially urin g tle Su21er months, f9LL sai~vre Xixll he flivi tlhe year roUndtI after rreti~rir from, t~he I~s c~liwn;r3n. TIr 3 S 08 Jwv. _IZ~J~az pI _;RI~383 ~Bl~rr I t r.I~~~if~~~eel alv f he~~=I~x e rtszdsej~n:Satru r~olorn ]ttr~et~ gaineree Ox 12ew of jcatlt lortljac I~)~"trl e thotlsand speien SenlCL~j~ Cott~ecrr~tln ~verlf;~ fl o ~~tnemthsrnan~ Zlasl;tatlton atI hsBigt;On, THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 329 this time on, Roosevelt was convinced that much of the work he had accomplished as President in his fight to make the Republican party progressive would be lost unless on his return to this country he was prepared to take an active part in the advocacy of his conservation and other policies. This of course is not saying that at this time he had any idea that he would become a candidate for the Republican nomination in 1912. He did believe, however, that it would be necessary for him to take a larger share in political discussions and a different attitude towards the Taft administration than he had anticipated at the time of Mr. Taft's nomination. During the entire period of the progressive movement, which then began as an organized political movement, Roosevelt and Taft were inevitably estranged. It is, however, a satisfaction to know that time brought them together again. Those of us who took part in the contest, as well as the principals, came to realize that the fundamental differences between the two men were not in ideals of service and public welfare, but in interests, associations and temperament. They differed, too, in their conceptions of the Presidential office, as exemplified in their respective attitudes towards the act of Congress prohibiting the President's availing himself of the services of officers and employees of the government on committees and commissions created by voluntary executive order. Roosevelt, in his address on his arrival in New York, in June, 1910, as -we have seen, expressed his eagerness to take part in the solution of the problems which pressed upon the nation. "This," he said, "is the duty of every citizen, but is peculiarly my duty; for any man who 330 THEODORE ROOSEVELT has ever been honored by being made President of the United States is thereby forever rendered the debtor of the American people and is bound throughout his life to remember this, his prime obligation." He went West and delivered several notable speeches, the first on August 31st, at Ossawatomie, on the "New Nationalism." In this speech he pointed out that many who praised Lincoln for solving the problems of his day "shrink from, or frantically denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of Lincoln's time." He then quoted Lincoln's statement that, "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed but for labor. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.. Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good in the world. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus, by example, showing that his own shall be safe from violence when built." Roosevelt stated that in these words Lincoln took substantially the attitude that we ought to take, showing the proper sense of proportion in the relative estimates of human rights and property rights, and he added: "I stand for the Square Deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to THE] PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 331 work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service." He then goes on to point out that we must drive special interests out of politics; that the citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being; that we must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs; that we should have and enforce laws to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; that we must have government supervision over capitalization; that franchises should never be granted except for a limited time, and that combinations in industry which he regarded as the result of imperative economic laws which cannot be repealed by political legislation, should be placed under effective governmental supervision. Turning to the right of the people to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, he advocated comprehensive workmen's compensation acts, as well as both state and national laws to regulate child labor, the work of women and the enforcement of better sanitary conditions for wage workers. Though all the things he advocated have since been embodied in law by most of the states and by the Federal Government, it was generally regarded at the time as an advanced radical platform. In the closing part of the address, he coupled this "radical platform" with his inborn federalism, pointing out that: "Too often the Federal Government, and even the Federal judiciary, has permitted itself to be employed for purely negative purposes-that is to thwart the action of the states while not permitting effective Federal action in its place. 332 THEODORE ROOSEVELT "I do not ask for over-centralization," he said, "but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which affect us all alike. The National Government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the National Government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the National Government." The speech created a profound impression. The great body of the American people were in a mood to applaud its spirit and accept its definite recommendations. In his subsequent speeches in Colorado, and at St. Paul before the Conservation Congress, he reiterated the main points of what he had said at Ossawatomie, although at St. Paul he naturally emphasized the conservation policies which were so dear to his heart. On leaving the White House, he had accepted the position of contributing editor of the Outlook. From now on, in his capacity of editor, as well as in his addresses and public speeches, he continued to urge, now from this angle and now from that, the policies of industrial justice, adequate control of large combinations of capital, conservation, and new nationalism. Twice again, in his almost single-handed struggle for "preparedness," and in his speeches during the World War-he was, as a private citizen, to perform the wonderful and unparalleled task of educating a democracy of eighty million THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 333 people to the point of demanding and carrying through concrete action on the reforms he advocated. In this, his first great educational campaign as a private citizen, as he made his ideas clearer and clearer, the number of the members of his party who felt that these ideas could only be successfully carried out under his leadership as President became more and more numerous. To them were added others who were moved by the consideration-peculiarly appealing to the professional politician-that he was the only Republican who could be elected, in view of the feeling then existing in regard to the Taft administration. At any rate, it is certain that the attempt to gather the progressive forces around the candidacy for the Republican nomination of Senator Robert LaFollette, of Wisconsin, a life-long and consistent supporter of what were then known as radical measures, was a failure, although the effort was supported by many men close to Roosevelt. After the campaign for LaFollette had been fairly launched, each day made it clearer that he could not be nominated. This was no reflection on the Wisconsin Senator. Roosevelt, by his acts as President and even more by his Ossawatomie and subsequent speeches and writings, had made himself, in the eyes of those who believed that they were carrying the spirit of Lincoln into the solution of modern industrial problems, the very embodiment of the progressive movement. To enter the fight against the renomination of Taft under the banner of any other was to try to win an Austerlitz without Napoleon. Roosevelt neither encouraged nor discouraged this movement. The very success of his efforts to educate the people to the importance of progressive principles and the intensity of feeling in regard to the Taft admin 334 THEODORE ROOSEVELT istration, placed him in a most difficult position. The nomination was the last thing he desired. He saw clearly that to accept it would be to lay himself open to the charge of treachery to his successor, and that the charge would be believed by all those who, though often admiring much that he did as President, had failed to see the significance of his struggle with Congress and were blind to or out of sympathy with the main purpose of his whole course as President and his efforts to make and keep the Republican party a party capable of meeting by affirmative action modern social and industrial problems. Furthermore, though it is a consideration that I know he brushed aside, he probably did have the desire to be again President, and he had no belief that he would ever again reach the Presidency unless he allowed Taft, unopposed by him, to be nominated in 1912. His turn would then come in 1916. On the other hand, this fight to make the Republican party progressive was primarily his fight. He realized that circumstances might arise-as he believed later they did arise-which would make it a moral necessity for him to become a candidate for renomination. And therefore he was obliged to leave himself free to act and to refuse to answer the question: "Will you be a candidate?"-knowing that his enemies and even many of his friends would construe hig silence into a plot to further his own candidacy. Those progressives, however, who were active in political life were not silent. They clamored for him to become a candidate. He had no idea he could be nominated. But they, in closer touch with the current of political thought in their own communities, believed that he could. On February 10, 1912, the Governors THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 335 of seven states-West Virginia, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Kansas and Missouri, met in Chicago. They sent him a letter in which they stated that a large majority of the Republican voters of the country favored his nomination; that his candidacy would insure success in the next campaign; that he, better than any other man, represented the principles and policies which are necessary for the happiness and prosperity of the country, and finally appealing to him to declare that he would accept the nomination. The concluding paragraph of the letter was expressed as follows: "In submitting this request, we are not considering your personal interests. We do not regard it as proper to consider either the interests or the preference of any man as regards the nomination for the Presidency. We are expressing our sincere belief and best judgment as to what is demanded of you in the interests of the people as a whole. And we feel that you would be unresponsive to a plain public duty if you should decline to accept the nomination, coming as the voluntary expression of the wishes of a majority of the Republican voters of the United States, through the action of their delegates in the next National Convention." Subsequently the signers of the appeal came to New York and had a conference with Roosevelt at the house of his sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson. On February 25th, Roosevelt issued a formal reply to this appeal. He said that he agreed with them that the matter was not one to be decided with any reference to the personal preference or interests of any man, and that he would accept the nomination if it was tendered to him. From that moment, the greatest party struggle of modern times began. CHAPTER XXII THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE T HROUGHOUT his Presidency, Roosevelt was developing the progressive policies affecting industrial combinations, public lands and natural resources. In the campaign of education on which he entered on his return from Europe to defend these policies, his mind, as we have seen, was mainly directed to these things, except that we notice an ever-increasing emphasis on the necessity for the correction of conditions affecting labor. Circumstances now forced another side of the progressive movement to the front-the effort to give the voters a greater direct control over what may be called the machinery of government. Since the first quarter of the nineteenth century, there had existed in practically all our states universal manhood suffrage. Members of the legislature, the chief executive officers and, except in parts of New England, the judiciary were, as they still are, elected by popular vote. But legislation, except as embodied in state constitutions, was never passed on by the people directly, and an executive officer or judge, once elected, could not be removed by popular vote, though he could be removed by the legislature in impeachment proceedings. Furthermore, though the individual voters passed directly on the question of which of several nominees for the same office should be elected, they did not pass directly on who should be nominated. The system of both parties was to nominate by party (336) THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE 337 conventions, the members of the party electing delegates to the various conventions, at the primaries. Throughout the period of Roosevelt's presidency, but more especially during the three years that passed immediately after he left office, the movement to give the voters greater direct control over party and legislative machinery and executive action had been growing in volume and intensity. Already the system of nominating party candidates for local and state offices and delegates to national conventions had been, in many states, changed in whole or in part from the convention system to the system now generally in force of nominating candidates at primary elections, in which each member of the party votes directly for the candidate of his choice. In the West and Northwest, considerable progress had been made also toward giving the voters greater direct control over legislation by the adoption of the initiative and the referendum; the initiative being the power of a fraction of the voters to suggest an act, which, being adopted by the majority of the voters voting on the question, becomes a law; the referendum being the power of a fraction of the voters to require that an act adopted by the legislature shall not become a law until ratified by a majority of the voters voting on the question of its ratification. Furthermore, progress had also been made by the advocates of the recall, or the right of a fraction of the voters to have all the voters vote on the question of whether a person elected for a given term should serve out the term for which he was elected or be recalled to private life. The recall was in some states not only applied to executive offices but to judicial offices. 22 338 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Roosevelt did not originate this side of the progressive movement, although his successful insistence, as President, on the government's being run in the public interest, was a great stimulus to it. One of the effects produced by his contest with Congress was the growth of a popular demand that what were termed "special interests" should not run the country, and the belief became general that every change in the machinery of government which gave the voter greater direct power made it easier for the people and harder for the "special interests" to control. Large numbers of persons were, and still are, convinced that it is easier for a few men, backed by organized wealth, to control a nominating convention than a primary election-easier for them to control the majority of the members of a legislature than the majority of the electorate of a state. On his return from Africa, Roosevelt inevitably, as one deeply interested in public questions, began to turn his attention to this new phase of the progressive movement. His whole attitude from the start, with minor reservations, was sympathetic. He was a true disciple of Lincoln. He had an abiding trust in the ultimate wisdom of the people. He did not believe that any particular class of the people was a better judge of what was wise or right than the whole people. On February 21, 1912, four days before he formally announced that he would accept the Republican nomination if it were tendered to him, he addressed the Ohio Constitutional Convention in a speech entitled, "A Charter of Democracy." The keynote of the speech was the obligation of the members of the convention to draft a constitution THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE 339 which would enable the people of the state to control the government and obtain the legislation which they desired. "I believe in pure democracy," he said. "With Lincoln, I hold that 'this country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it.' We Progressives believe that the people have the right, the power, and the duty to protect themselves and their own welfare; that human rights are supreme over all other rights; that wealth should be the servant, not the master, of the people... We are engaged in one of the great battles of the age-long contest waged against privilege on behalf of the common welfare. We hold it a prime duty of the people to free our government from the control of money in politics. For this purpose we advocate, not as ends in themselves, but as weapons in the hands of the people, all governmental devices which will make the representatives of the people more easily and certainly responsive to the people's will." He gave his unqualified support to the initiative and the referendum, though he emphasized the fact that provision should be made to prevent their being used either wantonly or too frequently, saying that "in the great majority of cases, it is far better that action on legislative matters should be taken by those specially delegated to perform the task; in other words, that the work should be done by the experts chosen to perform it. But where the men thus delegated fail to perform their duty, then it should be in the power of the people themselves to perform the duty." He was always much more doubtful about the prac 340 THEODORE ROOSEVELT tical wisdom of giving the people the power to recall an elected executive officer. "As to the recall," he said, "I do not believe that there is any great necessity for it as regards short-term.elective officers. On abstract grounds, I was originally inclined to be hostile to it. I know of one case where it was actually used with mischievous results. On the other hand, in three cases in municipalities on the Pacific coast which have come to my knowledge it was used with excellent results. I believe it should be generally provided, but with such restrictions as will make it available only when there is a widespread and genuine public feeling among a majority of the voters." In regard to the advisability of permitting the people to recall by popular vote a judge before the expiration of his term of office he was still more doubtful. He knew personally many judges who were wholly unfit to hold judicial positions. He saw clearly the causes which at that time created the popular demand that the people should have a right to get rid of a judge whom they had ceased to trust, and yet at the same time he realized the importance, as he himself expressed it, of "an independent and upright judiciary which fearlessly stands for the right, even against popular clamor," and he pointed out that such a judiciary,' provided it "also understands and sympathizes with popular needs, is a great asset to popular government." His whole attitude at that time, and I believe subsequently, was that under usual state conditions, the power to recall judges is an unnecessary and harmful power, but that there may arise conditions in which the power of the people to recall a judge will become a beneficial power. The clause of the constitution which forbids depriving THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE 341 any person of "liberty or property without due process of law," had been repeatedly applied by the courts to nullify much-needed social legislation. The provision simply means that any act of a state legislature is void which violates current fundamental ideas of what is fair. Roosevelt believed that judges, through ignorance of social and industrial conditions, even among wage workers, often regarded social legislation based on enlightened ideas of justice as fundamentally unfair. When he was in the New York State Legislature, the Court of Appeals had declared unconstitutional a law which forbade making cigars in tenement houses, and had criticised it as an assault upon the "hallowed influence of home." Roosevelt had seen the dwellings to which these words were applied and realized that the judges who could thus describe a single room in which two families lived, ate and slept, were out of touch with fundamental social needs. This case made a deep impression on him. When he proposed "the recall of judicial decisions," he meant that when the Supreme Court of a state declared a piece of social legislation to be an unconstitutional attack upon property rights, the question should be referred to popular vote. If the people by their vote sustained the statute, it should be law in spite of the court's opinion that it violated the constitution. This was in effect a method of amending the constitution. But many people misunderstood Roosevelt's proposal. They thought that he intended that an appeal should lie from the Supreme Court of a state to the voters of the state, so that if in a given case the Supreme Court should give judgment in favor of Jones the people might reverse the judgment and cause 342 THEODORE ROOSEVELT it to be entered in favor of Smith. The reaction of members of the Bar and the conservative elements of the country, as well as of large numbers of those in sympathy with all the rest of his address, was, as a consequence, prompt, vigorous and condemnatory. Roosevelt, of course, never dreamed of proposing that the reversal of the decision of the court as to the constitutionality of the act would reverse the court's judgment in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant, and he perhaps was never convinced that there could be any honest misunderstanding of what he meant. He often pointed out that he had never said that the judgment of the court should be reversed, but merely that the decision that the act was unconstitutional should be recalled, and that under his proposal, therefore, the only effect of a vote in favor of the act by the people would be to make the act a law from the time when the favorable vote was recorded. The issue really presented by his proposal was this: When the court declares that an act deprives persons of liberty or property without due process of law, should the adoption of a constitutional amendment by popular vote be the only remedy or should the people also have the right by popular vote to assert that that particular act does not relate to the constitutional requirement of due process of law? Time usually enables us to view bitter political controversies in a dispassionate spirit. The intense feeling that raged for months over the proposal to "recall judicial decisions" is not an exception to this rule. Those of us who were members of the Progressive party see now that it was not unreasonable for those who read Roosevelt's address to the Ohio Constitutional Con THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE 343 vention to believe that he intended that the judgment for one individual given by the highest state court should be reversible at the polls. We can also admit that, viewing the proposal as they did, they were entirely justified in their unmeasured condemnation. On the other hand, the most conservative member of the Bar, though he may strongly disapprove the method for amending the constitution suggested by Roosevelt, will, if he understands it correctly, at least admit that it was not a revolutionary proposal. The shifting of popular interest makes the real issue raised by the proposal of no present moment. The general discussion and more widespread knowledge of social conditions have recently rendered it possible to maintain before the courts the constitutionality of any social legislation held by the prevailing morality or preponderating public opinion to be greatly or immediately necessary to the public welfare. The cause, therefore, which created a desire to curb the power of judges to declare acts unconstitutional has largely disappeared and the recall of judicial decisions, never generally understood by its advocates or opponents, has passed to the realm of forgotten things. But on the course of Roosevelt's life, it had a profound effect. Looking back now over the events leading up to the Republican National Convention of 1912, it would appear almost certain that had he, in his address before the Ohio Convention, either refrained from making the proposal or had he called it a new method of amending the constitution, and carefully explained it so that it could not have been misunderstood, it is most probable that he would have been nominated at Chicago, and that the whole course of the recent 344 THEODORE ROOSEVELT history of the United States would have been other than it has been. As it was, the proposal, as understood, did not gain him adherents. On the contrary, it aroused -to active opposition many who would otherwise have been neutral, or even friendly to his candidacy. Apart from his mistake in the way he presented his proposal affecting courts' decisions in constitutional questions, this speech before the Ohio Constitutional Convention was one of his greatest public utterances. On March 20th he made a still greater address in Carnegie Hall, New York, on "The Right of the People to Rule," perhaps the greatest public address he ever made. As I have stated in the introductory chapter of this history, those who were close to him at this period of his life realize that his making the fight for the Republican nomination was an act of supreme moral courage. He knew that many of his best friends and of his admirers would always misunderstand and misconstrue his motives. His true motives he never more clearly or eloquently expressed than in the concluding paragraphs of his Carnegie Hall address, in which he said: "Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social and- industrial justice, achieved through the genuine rule of the people. This is our end, our purpose. The methods for achieving the end are merely expedients, to be finally accepted or rejected according as actual experience shows that they work well or ill. But in our hearts we must have this lofty purpose, and we must strive for it in all earnestness and sincerity, or our work will come to nothing. In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their 0 XzI I 11 Fi:1: ' UI~~~~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~I ~U2 1 ci~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0 THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE 345 dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. "The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt, he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is, 'Spend and be spent' It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. If on this new continent we merely build another country of great but unjustly divided material prosperity, we shall have done nothing; and we shall do as little if we merely set the greed of envy against the greed of arrogance, and thereby destroy the material well-being of all of us. To turn this government into government by a plutocracy or government by a mob would be to repeat on a larger scale the lamentable failures of the world that is dead. We stand against all tyranny, by the few, or by the many. We stand for the rule of the many in the interest of all of us, for the rule of the many in the spirit of courage, of common sense, of high purpose, above all, in a spirit of kindly justice towards every man and every woman." CHAPTER XXIII THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION IN 1912 TEHE contest for delegates to the Republican National Convention began in February, 1912, and continued unremittingly until the middle of June. The overwhelming majority of the progressives desired the nomination of Roosevelt, though Senator LaFollette, of Wisconsin, and Senator Cummins, of Iowa, were supported by the progressives in their respective states. LaFollette also had considerable support throughout the central and western states, though North Dakota was the only state other than Wisconsin in which his vote exceeded that cast for Roosevelt. The conservatives supported President Taft. The contest for the delegates cannot be described as a contest between the two factions to test their relative strength with the voters of the party. There was never really any doubt that the great majority of the Republicans desired the nomination of Roosevelt, any more than there was any doubt that a large number would not support the President if he were renominated. Therefore, the outcome of the contest for delegates depended on the party rules and on the laws of the different states regulating the selection of delegates. Whenever the delegates were selected by the convention system, Taft delegates were chosen; while, except in New England, wherever the primary election laws permitted a free expression of preference by the voters, or a free choice of delegates pledged in advance to one or the (346) THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 347 other of the candidates for the nomination, the progressive forces were practically everywhere overwhelmingly victorious. In all the Southern states except North Carolina, the Republican party was not a political party, but a collection of political groups led by Federal office holders. The delegates from these states, as in our previous Republican National Conventions when a President sought renomination, were for the President. On the other hand, New Jersey, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Oregon and California had direct presidential preference primary laws; that is, each voter not only voted for delegates to the convention, but the names of the different candidates for the Presidential nomination were printed on the ballot, each voter having the opportunity to indicate his preference. In all these states, the progressives scored decisive victories. In North Dakota, out of 48,000 ballots cast, President Taft received between 3,000 and 4,000, all the rest being divided between Roosevelt and LaFollette. In Wisconsin, Roosevelt's name was not on the ballot, and LaFollette won over the President by a majority of more than two to one. Roosevelt carried New Jersey by over 16,000, losing only two of the twenty-one counties, and securing a solid delegation in his favor. He carried California by 76,000. There were other states in which the laws provided for the election of delegates at the primaries, and in some of these states, as in Pennsylvania, the candidate for delegate could print on the ballot the name of the Presidential nominee for whom he intended to vote in the convention, if he were chosen a delegate. It was in some of these states that Roosevelt secured his greatest victories. On April 19th he carried Illinois by 348 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 150,000; on April 13th he swept Pennsylvania, electing all but twelve of the seventy-six delegates from that state, including the twelve delegates at large; while on May 21st he carried Ohio by 30,000. He also carried Minnesota, West Virginia and Maryland. In New England there were some real contests in the states which have modern primary laws. Roosevelt secured the delegation from Maine. Massachusetts passed a preferential primary law. Under this law, the Roosevelt forces selected the eight delegates at large by a plurality of about 8,000 and ten of the twentyeight district delegates. Under the law, the voter had the right to express his preference as between Presidential candidates. In this preferential vote, the President had a plurality of about 4,000. Roosevelt at once issued a statement that he would expect the delegates at large to disregard their pledges and to support the President in the convention. The result of the elections in states having primary laws which permitted a free choice on the part of the voters was a great personal triumph for Roosevelt. In practically all these states, except California, the entire political machinery was in the hands of his opponents, and his great victories resulted in the nomination for local offices and as Roosevelt delegates to the convention of many men who were new to and wholly inexperienced in the game of politics. There were of course exceptions. The decisive victory in Pennsylvania was due in no small part to the ability and experience in politics of one man, William Flinn, ably seconded by Mr. E. A. Van Valkenburg, of the Philadelphia North American, and Alexander P. Moore, of the Pittsburgh Leader, THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 349 Mr. Flinn was a resident of Pittsburgh, and the head of one of the largest contracting firms in the United States. In his younger days he was an associate of Chris Magee, the boss of Pittsburgh, and he had had a long experience in the State Senate. Defeated by the late Senator Quay, he had been for many years out of politics, but he knew the game, and like many another with a similar history, the career of Roosevelt as President had made him an enthusiastic progressive and a determined opponent to the old type of machine politics, of which he had once been a supporter. Mr. Flinn, almost single-handed, undertook to organize the State of Pennsylvania. He discovered that the opposition forces expected to defeat most of the Roosevelt delegates by the ancient political device of securing several persons to run as Roosevelt men, thereby dividing the progressive vote. With such assistance as he could secure, though only one business man of prominence was willing to help, two Roosevelt delegates were selected in each district. No man who was in the employ of a large corporation or who owed money at the bank was taken, and rarely men who were in active politics. In the meantime, under the name of the Keystone Advertising Company of Pittsburgh, he secured the names and addresses of the 1,600,000 voters in the state. Purchasing twentytwo tons of postal cards, he sent to each voter, immediately before the election, the names of the bona fide Roosevelt delegates and their alternates in his district. The task of addressing these postal cards and printing the names of between four and five hundred national, alternate and state delegates was enormous, especially as delegates could and, in spite of the care taken in 350 THEODORE ROOSEVELT their selection, did withdraw up to within two weeks of the election. The work was done so quickly and quietly that the opposition did not realize what was going forward until it was too late to counteract the effect. The fact that the sending out of merely one postal card to each voter in the state cost $23,000 shows the enormousexpense of conducting a modern political campaign. After all, however, it was Roosevelt's own personality and labors that made success possible. Always a vigorous campaigner, he made what the newspapers aptly described as a whirlwind campaign through each of the principal states in which a primary election was to take place, immediately prior to the election. Never had the proverbial "oldest inhabitant" seen such crowds-never such enthusiasm. And those who heard him heard something more than good campaign oratory. He had a double message to tell-the right of the people to govern themselves, and the necessity of obtaining, through the rule of the people, greater social and industrial justice. Both messages were dear to his heart, and he had already laid the foundations for his arguments in a series of great speeches. In spite of these victories at the primaries, the ultimate result was in the greatest doubt. The President secured practically all the Southern delegates. He also secured, though the delegates were unpledged, all the delegates from the great State of New York. In that state the primary election, especially in New York County, was conducted so loosely that in many of the districts there was practically no election at all, while in at least 400 out of the 1,694 election districts something was lacking-ballots, tally sheets or election officials. Furthermore, the President secured a number THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 351 of delegates, though far fewer than his opponents, in the states having good primary laws, and as has been stated, practically all the delegates in those states in which the old convention system of selecting delegates prevailed. About the middle of May, the New York Tribune, favorable to Taft, claimed'410 delegates for the President, conceding only 251 to Roosevelt; while the New York Mail, favorable to Roosevelt, claimed that he had 291 delegates and conceded only 232 to the President. The total number of delegates elected and to be elected was 1,078, and a bare majority, or 540, was sufficient to secure the nomination. Only in those states which had Presidential primaries was the result unquestioned. In the other states, contest after contest between rival delegates, each claiming that they were entitled to seats in the convention, was filed with the National Committee-the body charged with the duty of making up the temporary roll of the convention. When, in June, a short time before the convention, the last state had selected delegates, no fewer than 220 contests were before the National Committee. The National Committee was composed of one member from each state, each delegate having been selected four years before by the delegates from his state to the National Convention of 1908. The forces supporting the President had absolute control of the committee. If they used that control to place the Taft delegates on the temporary roll of the convention in practically every contested case, without any real regard to the merits of the controversy, then the conservative forces would be able to control the organization of the convention. If they weakened in their apparent 352 THEODORE ROOSEVELT determination to do this, because of the great popular outcry against it, they would lose control of the convention, and Roosevelt would certainly be nominated. They did not weaken. Until Missouri was reached in the progress through the alphabetical roll of the contested cases, only one case was decided in favor of a Roosevelt delegate, and many of the decisions of the committee were well calculated to arouse the fierce resentment and hot indignation of the progressives. In the Ninth Alabama district a convention of thirty delegates was held, of whom eighteen were Roosevelt men and twelve Taft men. Two Roosevelt delegates to the National Convention were selected; whereupon the twelve Taft men withdrew, held a convention of their own, and selected two Taft delegates. The National Committee seated the Taft delegates. In the Thirteenth Indiana district a convention of ninety-seven delegates was held. On a viva voce vote, the chairman declared the Taft delegates elected, and immediately adjourned the convention amid great disorder. Subsequently, fifty-one of the delegates to that convention made affidavit that they had voted for the Roosevelt delegates, and three took affidavit that they had voted for other delegates, but not for Taft's supporters. The National Committee seated the Taft delegates, on the ground that it could not question the decision of the chairman of the convention. In the Indiana State Convention, which selected the delegates at large from that state, the Taft delegates from one county, whose seats were contested, were placed on the temporary roll by the Credentials Committee, and were thereupon allowed to vote as to whether they should retain those seats or not; and as a result, THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 353 the Taft forces assumed control and sent a Taft delegation to Chicago. With the contested seats left out, the Roosevelt men had a clear majority in the State Convention. The National Committee seated the Taft delegates at large from Indiana. In one large county in Arizona, a majority of the county committee caused a primary to be held, at which the Roosevelt delegates to the State Convention were victorious over the Taft delegates by an enormous majority. Subsequently, the minority of the county committee met and selected Taft delegates. As a result, the State Convention sent a Taft delegation to Chicago. The National Committee seated the Taft delegates. The case which aroused the greatest interest and indignation was that of two delegates from California. The state law provided that all the delegates from the state should be elected from the state at large, and not by districts. At the primary election, Roosevelt carried the state by 77,000, and a solid delegation pledged to him was elected. There had been no question by any one as to the law, prior to the primary, and the Taft candidates for delegates went into the primary without making any conditions or protests. It was claimed before the National Committee that in one congressional district in San Francisco the Taft delegates resident in that district received more votes than the two Roosevelt delegates, and that the rules of the National Committee did not permit the election of all the delegates from a state at large, but required each state to send two delegates from each congressional district, no matter what the law of the state might provide. In spite of the fact that there were no district delegates and no district voting, the National Com2$ 354 THEODORE ROOSEVELT mittee seated the two Taft delegates from San Francisco. An analysis of the contests would seem to show that there were seventy-two Roosevelt delegates excluded who might have been, and some of whom certainly would have been, seated had the National Committee acted in fact-as it was supposed to act in theory-as a judicial body. As, one after the other, these and other similar decisions of the National Committee were announced and it became increasingly evident that the conservative forces were determined to prevent Roosevelt's nomination, the demand from his lieutenants in Chicago that he should go to that city and take charge of the fight became insistent. The convention was to meet on Tuesday, June 18th. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt left Oyster Bay for New York on the morning of Friday, the 14th, but even then he withheld a final decision on the question whether he would or would not go to Chicago, saying, as he slipped into his car: "We may fly back here tonight, and, by gracious, I hope we do." The hope was not to be fulfilled, and in spite of the storm of criticism which his going to Chicago aroused, it was the right thing for him to do. There had been a leak in his private phone to Chicago; there were complications which made it essential that he should be on the spot. The fight was essentially his fight. Thousands of men in all parts of the country had joined in this supreme effort to make the Republican party a radical or progressive party because he had created and was willing to lead the movement. The action of the National Committee on the contests created an unprecedented situation. His adherents needed and were entitled to have something better than his long-distance advice. THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 355 The Roosevelt party left the Grand Union Station at 5:30 on the afternoon of the day they left Oyster Bay. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt skilfully avoided the enormous crowd waiting to see him off by reaching the train by the freight elevator, thus avoiding the regular entrances. But the next day, when the train arrived in Chicago, there was no avoiding the crowd of more than fifty thousand people that broke through the police lines and jammed the platform, pushing, yelling and cheering. As his automobile passed through the streets from the station to the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue, it pushed its way through packed masses of people, ahead, behind and-at the cross streets-on either side, nothing but people wedged in like pins as far as the eye could see. Everybody yelled; everybody howled, and all were borne along by the irresistible force of the delighted mob. Rarely had any public man in this country aroused such intense enthusiasm. Everything combined to this end-his great popularity, the wonderful fight he had made, the deep and widespread conviction that his enemies were plotting to steal the nomination he had won, and that he was there to fight that theft to the end. Chicago went wild. For seven days-all day long and far into the night-the excitement continued. Great crowds filled the streets in front of his hotel, jammed the corridors and surged through the Roosevelt headquarters. Bands there were innumerable. Each state delegation seemed to have one. A large proportion of the crowd, not content with the strength of their own voices, procured mechanical devices to increase the noise. The Roosevelt headquarters were in the Florentine room, at the Congress Hotel, a large room 356 THEODORE ROOSEVELT on the second floor at the north end. In this room somebody was usually speaking. Anybody could speak that wanted to, and the crowd poured in one door and out the other, cheering or repeating over and over again, "We want Teddy! We want Teddy!" Of course no business was transacted in these headquarters, unless there was a meeting of delegates, and then it usually took more than ten minutes to clear the place. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt had their own personal apartments and Roosevelt had a suite of rooms as his personal headquarters in the northeast corner of the same floor. The doors were guarded by wise persons who knew who should and who should not be admitted. There were a goodly number of favored ones who succeeded in being admitted. Inside, in the reception room, there was an ever-changing and usually intensely interesting group of men whose names were well known from one end of the country to the other for what they had accomplished. Roosevelt himself was usually in an inner room, seeing one or two persons at a time. Occasionally, however, he would come out to the reception room, and when he did the vigorous force of his personality was reflected in the increased animation of the entire company. When there was nothing for those in the reception room to do-and a good deal of the time the majority had nothing to do-they would use up their energy in fruitless discussions and in the passing on of what always proved to be false rumors that this or that delegate was about to abandon Taft. On Monday evening Roosevelt addressed a great audience at the Auditorium. He had necessarily been much interrupted in the preparation of this address, THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 357 and its substance and delivery left much to be desired, but the concluding words rang all over the country: "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." To his opponents this was a mere catch phrase, but it thoroughly expressed his own motives for making the fight. Later on, the same evening, at a meeting of the Roosevelt delegates, it was determined that when the convention was called to order by Victor Rosewater, the chairman of the National Committee, Governor Hadley of Missouri, the Roosevelt floor leader, should make a motion that only the delegates whose seats were uncontested should participate in the proceedings of the convention until the contests were decided. If this motion were ruled out of order, he was to appeal from the decision of the chair. If the chair allowed the delegates whose seats were contested to vote on this appeal, he was to appeal again from the decision, demand another roll call on that appeal, and so on, ad infinitum. Had this program been carried out, Rosewater, to prevent an indefinite series of appeals and roll-calls, would have been obliged to deny Governor Hadley's right to raise the point of order, and in the confusion which would have inevitably followed, two conventions would have been organized at the same time and place. The split in the Republican party would have taken place, but the progressives would not have left the party and this difference we may be sure would have had a decided effect on the subsequent history of the country. But the program was changed at the last moment. When Mr. Rosewater called the convention to order, Governor Hadley moved that the delegates whose seats had been contested be excluded from participating 358 THEODORE ROOSEVELT in the proceedings until their right to participate had been determined by the majority of the delegates whose seats were not contested. After debate, this motion was ruled out of order on the ground that there was nothing before the house except the nominations for temporary chairman. But from this decision no appeal was taken by the Roosevelt forces, and on the subsequent election for temporary chairman, which was of course participated in by the seventy-two delegates whose seats were contested, Elihu Root, the candidate of the Taft forces, was elected. From the moment the convention was organized by the anti-progressive forces, everything in the convention proceeded, if not without fierce dispute, crimination and recrimination, nevertheless with clock-like regularity to the inevitable end. A Credentials Committee was appointed, consisting of one member from each state, elected by the delegates from the state. The delegates taking part included those whose seats were contested, and of course the Taft forces thus obtained control of the committee. An occurrence took place at the first meeting of this committee which very nearly precipitated an immediate break. A motion was made to adopt a set of rules which would have excluded the introduction of any evidence on- behalf of the contesting delegates. Hearing that these rules had been adopted, Roosevelt sent word requesting his adherents to withdraw from the committee and all but three did withdraw. The representative from Pennsylvania, Mir. Lex N. Mitchell, however, remained and persuaded the committee to adopt more reasonable rules, after which the other Roosevelt members returned, and the formal break THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 359 was postponed until the conclusion of the convention. For more than an hour, however, everybody believed that the end had come. The Credentials Committee reported against 'the contesting Roosevelt delegates. Governor Hadley made a motion that the contesting delegates should not take part in the decision of the contests. This motion was of course laid upon the table by a majority which was secured only by permitting the delegates whose seats were contested to vote on the motion. Then the individual contests were taken up. In each case the Taft forces held together and laid on the table the motion to seat the Roosevelt delegates, but in every instance the vote of the seventy-two contested delegates was necessary to secure the majority. The closest and the critical vote was that on the California contest, where the two Taft delegates from San Francisco had been seated in defiance of the primary law of the state. The vote stood 542 to 529 in favor of the Taft delegates. Had this vote gone the other way, there would unquestionably have been a general break to Roosevelt. After this decision, the last hope of the Roosevelt forces that a sufficient number of the Taft delegates would refuse to stand by the decision of the National Committee came to an end. An analysis of the vote is interesting. Nearly half the Taft delegates came from states which could not be expected to give Republican votes in the electoral college. Roosevelt had 408 votes from definitely Republican states, as compared with Taft's 270 votes from similar states. Late on Monday night of the convention, and on each night during the convention, there was a meeting 360 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of the Roosevelt delegates. It was at these meetings that the Third Party Movement was born. At the meeting on Monday evening, Governor Johnson of California, in a masterful oration, asked the delegates to stand back of Roosevelt, to refuse to abide by the results of theft and to follow Roosevelt, bolt or no bolt. The appeal was greeted with terrific applause, and from that moment the chief difficulty that the leaders had with the majority of the Roosevelt delegates was to compel them to remain in the convention to carry out the program determined upon. That program was to place on the record of the convention motion after motion in which the necessity for the opposition forces to count the seventy-two delegates whose seats were contested was made manifest and then, when the time came for the nominations, to refuse to take part, to vote or to be bound by the proceedings. This program was carried out. On Saturday, when the nominations for Presidential candidates were reached, all but 107 Roosevelt men, acting under a direct request from Roosevelt, refused to vote. The 107 who did vote represented those who favored Roosevelt but who had not as yet made up their minds to leave the party. The President was renominated by 561 votes, or 21 more than the necessary majority. One always-to-be-remembered incident occurred during the roll-call for the nomination for President. When Massachusetts was reached, the chairman of the delegation announced that the state cast eighteen votes for Taft and that eighteen declined to vote. Immediately there was a challenge and a call for a poll of the delegation, so the names were called. The first name was that of a delegate at large, a Mr. Fosdick. He THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 361 said, "Present, but I refuse to vote." Everyone cheered and Mr. Root banged for order. When he got it, he came to the front of the platform and called out, "You have been sent here by your state to vote. If you refuse to do your duty, your alternate will be called upon." This had not been done in other delegations, but the Massachusetts delegation was peculiar in that the alternates, by a freak of the primary elections, were Taft men. The name of Fosdick was called again. He cried out, "No man on God's earth can make me vote in this convention." Whereupon Root called his alternate. This was done in the other Massachusetts cases and two alternates thus cast their votes for the President. The howl of derision and hate which greeted the announcement has never, I believe, been equalled in any great public gathering of representative Americans. The chairman announced that thereafter the alternates would not be called upon. It was the final exhibition of the steam roller. It has never been clear to me why this step was taken. The two votes were not necessary to insure Taft's nomination, while the action came very nearly costing the President the votes of several delegates committed to his candidacy. The decision given by Victor Rosewater that he had no power to go back of the temporary roll of delegates and exclude from the temporary organization of the convention delegates whose seats were contested, was, I believe, correct. The subsequent decision that the contested delegates, after the temporary organization of the convention, could vote on their own cases and the cases of other contested delegates, was, also, I believe, legally correct. Any other rule might permit a minority 362 THEODORE ROOSEVELT to be turned into a majority by the simple process of filing a sufficient number of contests with the National Committee. The real issue raised by the action of the conservatives at Chicago in 1912 was not whether the decisions of the presiding officer were legally correct. The issue was much more fundamental. In the light of the facts, no one can seriously contend that the National Committee had judicially determined the contests. Whatever the merits of those contests, the majority of the National Committee voted for their political friends. The argument to justify Roosevelt's opponents must always be that he had organized a temporary majority for the purpose of overthrowing the fundamental principles on which the party was founded and always had been maintained; that in effect he stood for revolution, and that to prevent the destruction of the party, the minority were justified in going to the lengths they did to preserve their legal cdntrol over the organization. Those who believe that the conservatives were wrong in their conception of what the Republican party historically stood for and in their estimate of what Roosevelt was trying to do, may at this time admit that, believing as they did, the conservatives had an arguable excuse for standing by the determinations of the National Committee. On the other hand, the most conservative member of the Republican party should in all fairness admit that Roosevelt and his adherents believed, and had much cause for their belief, that the decisions of the National Committee represented a deliberate attempt on the part of the minority to deprive the progressive forces of a victory which they had fairly won, and that this being their belief, THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 363 they were justified in withdrawing and establishing a new party. As for the convention, there will always be one scene that those who witnessed it will never forget. Throughout the early days of the convention feeling ran high. The fear of riot was not an idle fear. There were minutes when' it seemed that only the clear-cut decisive manner and commanding personality of Root prevented an outbreak. When the contests over the disputed seats were taken up, the delegates were tired and mad. In the debates over the first cases, the speakers on either side were interrupted by angry denials of their assertions. The first cases went, of course, against the Roosevelt forces. And yet, among those forces there was a general feeling that a sufficient number of the Taft men would refuse to stand by the decision to seat the two Taft delegates from San Francisco in defiance of the state primary law. Everyone recognized that if Roosevelt could not win in this contest, he could not win in any of the others, and that Taft would be nominated. When the result was announced, for an instant the Roosevelt delegates remained seated and silent while their opponents cheered, though rather mechanically. And then, as one man, the Roosevelt followers arose and cheered. I can see now the look of astonishment on the faces of their opponents, and yet the cheering was perfectly spontaneous. The sense of relief was universal. The long strain was over. We had lost. Roosevelt would not be nominated by the Republican party, but we were through with the Republican party as controlled. We would go out and found a new party and make a great fight. From that moment the whole atmosphere of the 364 THEODORE ROOSEVELT convention changed. All tension disappeared. The Roosevelt supporters thereafter refrained from demanding roll-calls and refused to take any part in the proceedings. They became mere spectators at a show, and frequently got a good deal of amusement out of the exhibition. The speakers' stand was at the end of a raised gangway which ran out from the main platform. One eminent statesman had the misfortune of being built on the lines of a fat puddle-duck. As he waddled out on the gangplank, the illusion that he had web feet and would quack was universal. The audience howled with a delight which was still further increased by his evident wrath at their mirth. The toot-toots and the choo-choos in imitation of a steam roller sounded everywhere. One delegate jumped on a chair, crying "Mr. Chairman, I desire to raise a point of order." When, after several minutes, quiet was restored, he said, "Mr. Chairman, my point of order is that the steam roller is exceeding its speed limit." And the chairman, having a sense of humor; declared the point well taken. When it became evident by the roll-calls on the seating of the contested Taft delegates that the conservatives would retain control of the national organization of the Republican party, Orchestra Hall, a large hall on Michigan Avenue, a few blocks north of the Congress Hotel, was secured for a meeting. After the nomination of President Taft was announced, a great crowd began.to gather in front of the hall. When the doors were opened, all the unreserved seats-were immediately filled, and shortly after the adjournment of the Republican Convention a great majority of the Roosevelt delegates filled the reserved seats. THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 365 The meeting was presided over by Governor Johnson. It was called as a mass meeting to nominate Roosevelt for the Presidency. To all intents and purposes this program was carried out, though the resolution nominating Roosevelt was never formally passed. After a speech by Prendergast of New York City, I was called upon, and had only said a few words when Roosevelt came in. Thereafter speeches, resolutions, and everything else was forgotten in the desire to hear from the leader. He said that the time had come when not only all men who believed in progressive principles, but all men who believed in elementary maxims of public and private morality which must underlie every form of successful free government, should join in our movement. He asked us to go to our several homes, to find out the sentiment of the people, and to come together again, to nominate for the Presidency a progressive candidate on a progressive platform. "If you wish me to make the fight," he said, "I will make it, even if only one state should support me. The only condition I impose is that you shall feel entirely free, when you come together, to substitute any other man in my place, if you deem it better for the movement, and in such case, I will give him my heartiest support." On Sunday morning, after the meeting in Orchestra Hall, a conference of progressives was held. It was notable for the very eloquent reading of the twentythird Psalm by a colored clergyman present, for a clearcut address by James R. Garfield, and for an earnest appeal from Governor Johnson. In the course of this appeal, the Governor said: "There have been times during the strain and stress of the past week when those of us who have been fighting at his side have 366 THEODORE ROOSEVELT expressed our indignation in language not fit for publication. But during all that time, he has never lost his serenity and he has never lost his fighting spirit. He has the courage to go on always fighting for the right. For the love of God, gentlemen, can't we have that type of courage?" Every word of this was true. Roosevelt, through the turmoil of those days and nights, never lost control of his temper but once, and that was only for a few moments when the report reached him concerning the rules adopted by the Credentials Committee. He never lost his fighting spirit; nine-tenths of the time he was irrespressibly cheerful. I do not wish to give the impression that he was not thoroughly arousedmore aroused, perhaps, than at any other time in his life. All that was best in him and his keen sense of justice and fair play rose against what we all regarded as a deliberate theft. To lie quietly down and submit was for him a moral impossibility. But he never for a moment judged harshly those who, when the break came, ceased to follow him. One of the finest things I have ever witnessed was the scene in the inside room of his suite when Governor Hadley came to bid him good-bye. The able and yet dignified manner in which Hadley had led the debates over the contested seats before the convention, combined with his fine, clear-cut, self-contained personality, had made him deservedly popular-so popular, indeed, that at one time, for twenty minutes, the Roosevelt delegates had cheered him, until a young woman in the gallery, with a picture of Roosevelt, turned the tide of the demonstration. From that moment the great majority of the Roosevelt delegates were possessed with the fear that THE FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION 367 the Taft forces would offer the nomination to Hadley and that he would accept it. When the break came it was understood that the Governor would not follow Roosevelt out of the Republican party. Feeling ran high. There was nothing but fierce anger at anyone who having been a leader now hesitated. And so, when the Governor came to say good-bye, the others present, with one or two exceptions, stood like graven images. Not so Roosevelt. He greeted the Governor, took him aside, talked with him privately, and bade him farewell. There was not a trace of resentment in his manner, and I do not think he felt resentment. When Hadley had gone, Roosevelt turned to the others and said, "He will not be with us, but we must not blame him." And so it was with any of his other supporters who felt that they could not follow him out of the Republican party. While the majority could not forgive these men for what they regarded as desertion at a critical time, Roosevelt was always able to place himself in the other man's position, to realize the political difficulties arising out of peculiar conditions in the man's own state, or to make allowances for the influences of association and temperament. CHAPTER XXIV THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY T HE decision to form an independent party was made by Roosevelt, and by no one else. From many points of view, it was the most important decision of his life. There is probably no other action of his which has been the subject of so much discussion, not merely between friends and opponents, but among those who at various periods of his career have been his closest associates. Time has served to remove much of the bitterness engendered by the fierce political campaign that followed and the overwhelming defeat of the Republican party, but has not settled differences of opinion as to the wisdom of his action. He did not form the Progressive party to make himself President. I believe Roosevelt was the only man in Chicago, at least that he was among the very few, who grasped the bearing of his decision. The defeat of the Republican party in the coming November was a certainty, and this defeat, had he retained his connection with the Republican party, would have insured his nomination at the next Presidential election. All he had to do was to accept his defeat in the convention, tell his followers that he, personally, would vote for the Republican candidate, and that they must do what seemed to them best; and then quietly return to Oyster Bay, taking little or no part in the campaign. At the time the decision to form a third party was made, he stated that if his sole object was to be President again, (368) THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 369 the course indicated was the course which reason dictated that he should pursue. But while Roosevelt wanted to be President, his desire for a third term was not, as we have seen, the dominant motive which led him to become a candidate for the Republican nomination. No one can understand and rightly judge his political actions who does not realize that he was always more interested in the message that he was delivering than in his own political fortunes. The main cause of his decision is found in the statement which he made to a small group who had, from the start of the 'contest, been closely associated with him: "If we form a third party and go out and fight for better social conditions in this country, we will accomplish more in three months than could be accomplished, under ordinary conditions in a dozen years." In stating the main cause which led Roosevelt to create the Progressive party, other influences which had their effect on his actions should not be wholly neglected. He was not a man to sit quietly under what he regarded as an injustice. That he had fairly won the nomination, he never doubted for a moment. As I have already stated, his sense of justice made it morally impossible for him to submit to injustice. Besides which he was mad, mad clean through, and did not regret at all the opportunity which the campaign gave him to speak plainly the truth as he saw it. And there was another reason. For years an everincreasing number of earnest men and women had striven to call to the attention of the great mass of Americans certain evils in our political, social and economic system. No one knew more fully or sympathized more keenly with that group, of whom men like Raymond 24 370 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Robbins and Gifford Pinchot, and women like Jane Addams, are types. The fighter against political graft, the social worker, the man who, far from being a socialist, sees the danger of permitting the real injustices of existing conditions to continue without attempted amelioration- these he knew looked to him as the one man able to inspire the country with something of their own spirit and viewpo-int; and the fact that they so looked and that he owed much to them for the inspiration they had given him necessarily had its influence on his decision. The one thing which had no influence was his desire to be President. The Progressive party, so far as 'he was concerned, was founded and carried.on, not to put him in the White House, but to produce those changes in the machinery of government which would give the people more direct control over their state and national governments, to make it impossible for small groups to override the will of the people, and to bring forward a definite constructive program of social and economic reform. If by fraud he was to be prevented from breaking the hold of the ultra-conservatives on the Republican party, then he would found a party that would be at once a federal and a progressive party. The first National Convention of the new party met in Chicago on Monday, August 5, 1912. Roosevelt came again to the city and occupied the same personal headquarters that he had occupied during the exciting days of the Republican Convention. Thus, after a short period of six weeks, the crowds, the excitement, the bands were all back again; and again great crowds filled the Coliseum. But here the similarity between the two conventions ended. The Republican Convention was an arena in which two bitterly antagonistic factions THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 371 struggled for the mastery. The Progressive Convention was not a political convention at all. At least it was not like any other political convention that had ever been held. It was a mass meeting of men-also of women-starting out on a crusade. On the first day after the opening formalities, ex-Senator Albert W. Beveridge, of Indiana, delivered an address in which he performed the difficult task of putting into words the ideals and aspirations of the new party. The address was a great physical, intellectual and oratorical effort, and at the end he was greeted with the great ovation which he deserved. But the proof that he had understood the real spirit of his audience came after the applause had finally died down. Someone started to sing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." With one accord the great audience joined in the immortal words of the opening stanza: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible, swift sword. His truth is marching on. From that moment, throughout the remaining two sessions of the convention, it was to all intents and purposes a religious gathering. On the second day, Tuesday, Roosevelt appeared before the delegates. He was cheered for fifty-five minutes before he was permitted to proceed with his address. His speech, which he entitled, "A Confession of Faith," is perhaps the most complete expression of his political ideals on domestic questions which he ever made. Mr. Edwin H. Abbott, who was present, and kept a record, states that he was interrupted by 372 THEODORE ROOSEVELT general hand-clapping and cheers no less than one hundred and forty-five times. The applause was essentially the applause of assent. We may doubt whether any other public man has ever addressed so large and so intelligent an audience with whom he was so completely in accord. The real work of the convention was done by the Committee on Rules, the Committee on Credentials and the Resolutions or Platform Committee. The members of all these committees were in constant communication with Roosevelt, and the fact that their reports were unanimously and enthusiastically adopted by the convention is proof of the skill with which he adjusted differences. For there were serious differences of opinion as to policy. Perhaps never before had there been gathered together so large a group of men so few of whom were trained to give up the lesser for the greater aim. It was inevitable that this should be so from the very nature of the Progressive movement. In spite of the desire to accomplish a practical aim-the election of a candidate for the Presidency-and the almost complete absence of personal antagonism, I can conceive of no one but Roosevelt who could have produced not merely harmony of formal action but that harmony which creates enthusiasm because of the general belief that the right decisions have been made. The question which presented the greatest single difficulty arose over the admission of the colored delegates from the South. In many of the Southern states it was impossible to expect the formation of a political party which would contain the best of the whites if the delegates from the South were to be colored persons. Roosevelt believed with the late Henry Ward Beecher that all THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 373 measures for the negro, in order to be permanently useful, must have the cordial consent of the best representatives of the white citizens among whom they live. Furthermore, he saw that the real hope for the political recognition of the negro in the South was to build up in opposition to the Democratic party another party controlled by whites. He therefore thought that the admission of negro delegates from a state should depend on the consent of the white Progressives in that state. There was a large element in the convention who believed that the party should disregard what they looked upon as an unchristian prejudice against the negro, even though the effect of such action, so far from producing political equality between the races, would merely end all hope of the formation of a party in the South which could contest elections with the Democratic party with any hope of success. The matter came to an issue in several contests before the Credentials Committee, but Roosevelt succeeded in convincing nearly every member of the convention, white and black alike, that his theory of the way to deal with the vexed question was correct. There were of course differences innumerable over the various planks in the platform, many of which I, as chairman of the Resolutions Committee, had to get Roosevelt to iron out. On Monday, the first day of the convention, the Resolutions Committee was appointed. It met that evening and, as is usual, delegated to a sub-committee the task of hearing proposals by delegates and preparing a preliminary draft. A tentative draft of a platform had been prepared by a committee appointed some week before, consisting of Chester A. Rowell of California, Gifford Pinchot and myself, to 374 THEODORE ROOSEVELT whom were subsequently added Charles H. McCarthy, who had prepared the LaFollette Platform presented at the Republican Convention, and Dean George W. Kirchwey of the Columbia Law School. The subcommittee worked practically all of Monday night and all day Tuesday going over, changing, adding to and improving this tentative draft. Late on Tuesday afternoon the preliminary committee made its report and the general committee then began a detailed examination and discussion of each plank, which lasted throughout the night, and, indejd, until within a few minutes before the platform was reported late Wednesday afternoon, to the convention. Should or should we not have a plank favoring prohibition, or the single tax, or the recall of judges? How should the planks dealing with the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, the control of big business and the plank on foreign commerce be worded? Many of the questions raised were in fact of great practical importance, but often the longest discussions and the most feeling were over matters which would have seemed less important at a less exciting time. Throughout Tuesday night and Wednesday morning rumors would get out of the committee that a particular plank had been included or left out. When this occurred, inevitably some important and over-wrought leader would promptly lose his head and rush to Roosevelt to protest. I remember that when we were going over with Roosevelt the planks of the platform, two delegates, whom we may call Mr. A. and Mr. B., who were temporarily on less than speaking terms, differed strongly on the wording of a particular plank-though the differences did not seem to the rest of us very vital. THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 375 Roosevelt had incarcerated one of the disputants in one anteroom and the other in another anteroom, passing back and forth between them, trying to straighten out the difference. When all else failed, he ordered food for Mr. A. When that statesman had been refreshed, all difficulties disappeared. Again, at the very moment when the delegates to the convention were marching around the Coliseum in the usual demonstration, and were breaking all records in both the volume and duration of their noise, one of the leaders was threatening to desert, and was advising Colonel Roosevelt not to accept the nomination because of irreconcilable platform differences, while at the same time it seemed almost hopeless to avoid a serious situation in respect to the vice-presidential nomination. The very moment of most vociferous triumph outside was the moment of most critical doubt inside. It is the opinion of no less competent an observer than Chester A. Rowell, the California leader, that "only the tactfulness, courage, and steady-headedness of Colonel Roosevelt prevented a smash-up." Of course there was nothing the matter with the others except hysteria, induced by overwork and loss of sleep. But Roosevelt, who had worked harder and slept less than any of them, kept also the coolest head. In spite of all the excitement among the leaders and all the arguments and differences of opinion among the members of the Resolutions Committee, the final result met with universal approval. Roosevelt, by the exercise of his infinite patience and tact, and also by his intuitive knowledge of when to use the power of his personality to insist on a definite decision, had secured exactly the platform he desired. 376 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Perhaps to the statement that everyone was satisfied, one temporary exception should be made. Just before proceeding to the convention to report the platform, Roosevelt sent word that he desired to meet all the members of the committee personally. As we filed into his reception room, one enthusiastic advocate of prohibition said to me, "I intend to carry my fight for the insertion of a plank on prohibition to the floor of the convention." The subject was charged with dynamite, and it was important that my friend be dissuaded from carrying out his intention. As chairman, I was leading the members of the committee. As we came into the room, Roosevelt was on the far side. Crossing quickly, I told him the situation. How he succeeded in separating my friend from the other members and getting us all out of the room, while detaining him, I have never known. Inside of three minutes my friend followed us out. He was literally bursting with pride. "Well?" I said to him. "It is all right," he replied, "I suggested to Colonel Roosevelt that under all the circumstances, I was justified in not bringing the matter of prohibition before the convention." The platform contained planks advocating direct primaries, nation-wide iPresidential preference primaries, the direct election of United States Senators, and the short ballot, together with the initiative, referendum and recall in the states. There were also planks for the encouragement, as well as the control of business, planks dealing with internal improvements and the development of the natural resources of the nation, as well as planks on the tariff, civil service reform, the exclusion of federal office-holders from party conventions and the publicity and limitation of campaign funds. THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 377 In international matters the platform anticipated an issue of the present day by advocating an international agreement limiting the size of naval forces, and, pending such agreement, the maintenance of a policy of building two battleships a year. But the reason why the platform of the first Progressive Convention will always remain one of the notable documents of our history is that it contained a concrete constructive program for the improvement of social and industrial conditions. It specifically declared in favor of workmen's compensation laws and laws providing for insurance against sickness and unemployment, the prohibition of child labor, minimum wage standards for working women, minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations, the general prohibition of night work for women, the establishment of an eight-hour day for women and young persons, one day's rest in seven for all wage workers, and an eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four-hour industries. As Jane Addams, the head of Hull House, said in her address before the convention, seconding Roosevelt's nomination for the Presidency: "I second the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt because he is one of the few men in our public life who has been responsive to modern movement. Because of that, because the program will need a leader of invincible courage, of open mind, of democratic sympathies-one endowed with power to interpret the common man and to identify himself with the common lot, I heartily second the nomination." On Wednesday, the last day of the convention, Roosevelt was nominated by acclamation. When nominations for Vice-President were reached, Mr. Parker 378 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of Louisiana, and Judge Lindsey, of Colorado, who had both been spoken of for the nomination, respectively moved and seconded the nomination of Governor Johnson of California, who unquestionably was the choice of the great majority of the delegates. Other speeches were made by Garfield, Pinchot, Landis, Robbins, Versey, Flinn and a colored delegate, Clede, and the nomination was made unanimous. Roosevelt and Johnson were escorted to the platform over which was hung in large letters, Kipling's verse: For there is neither East nor West, Border nor breed nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, Though they come from the ends of the earth. Behind were hung portraits of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln-on one side that of Jackson, and on the other that of Hamilton. Roosevelt and Johnson each addressed the convention, the main burden of each speech, being the speaker's appreciation of the other man. After which the delegates stood and, with the great audience, sang in chorus, as the trombones sounded "Old Hundred," the words, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." The campaign that followed was, on the part of the Progressives, marked at once by great enthusiasm and deep earnestness. The religious fervor which was a marked characteristic of the convention spread to Progressives in all parts of the country. The singing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," at every campaign meeting was not an irreligious use of a sacred hymn, but a natural expression of the real spirit of the audience. For most of us who took part in the speaking it was a novel, and for all the speakers a wonderfully inspiring, THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 379 experience. Roosevelt, in spite of what he had passed through during the previous five months, threw himself into the campaign with unabated energy. In early September he was in New England, after which he made a tour as far as the Pacific coast and the extreme southwest, returning to New York through the Southern states, a four-weeks' trip of over ten thousand miles, in which he made daily one or more long speeches and many shorter addresses. Always he spoke on Progressive principles and always to great crowds. The nomination of Woodrow Wilson by the Democrats made the task of attracting Democrats with progressive sympathies into the new party not only much more difficult than it might have been had another nominee been chosen, but practically impossible. Though charges of fraud and bitter personal feeling had been absent from the Democratic Convention, there had been the same struggle between the conservative and radical elements of the party as in the Republican Convention. But in the case of the Democratic Convention, the leader of what we may call the intellectual radicals of his party had been nominated. As Governor of New Jersey there was a record of progressive laws to his credit. Roosevelt believed and tried to show that the Democratic party was as much under the control of the "invisible government," of which Beveridge had spoken in his speech before the Progressive Convention, as the Republican. But the great bulk of the Democrats with progressive tendencies were not convinced, or at least had sufficient faith in Wilson to believe that, if elected President, he could break the "invisible control" of the special interests. The contest for the election, 380 THEODORE ROOSEVELT therefore, soon narrowed itself to a contest between Woodrow Wilson, holding the normal Democratic vote, and Roosevelt, who had behind him a large majority of the Republicans. He could not, however, command anything approaching the full Republican strength. Such a contest, in view of the relative numerical strengths of the Republican and Democratic parties prior to the formation of the third party, could only end in one way-the election of the Democratic candidate. It was planned to follow his far Western trip by a second one of over two weeks through the Middle West, after which there was to be a short campaign in Pennsylvania and a more extended-trip through New York State, to begin with an address in Madison Square Garden on October 26th. He was only destined to carry out a part of this program. On October 7th he left New York, and on the 14th was in Milwaukee, where he was scheduled to speak at the Auditorium. He had entered an automobile in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel to go to the Auditorium, and had turned to take his seat, when he was shot by a man named John Schrank, a resident of New York. The ball struck an inch to the right and an inch below the right nipple, fractured the fourth rib and ranged upward and inward four inches in the chest wall, but did not puncture the lung cavity. Had it not been deflected upwards by an eye-glass case and the folded manuscript of the speech in his pocket, the shot would undoubtedly have proved fatal. Schrank was prevented from firing a second shot by the quickness of thought and action displayed by Mr. Elbert Martin, one of Roosevelt's secretaries. Roosevelt's first thought was to save his assailant from bodily THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 381 injury. When Schrank was brought before him, all he said was, "Don't hurt the poor creature." On arriving at the Auditorium, though physicians warned him that he was seriously, perhaps fatally, wounded, he insisted on delivering his prepared address. If he lacked any of his usual vigor, and he certainly felt the strain before the speech was over, the audience did not notice it. The address concluded, he placed himself in the hands of the doctors. After an X-ray examination, it was decided that he should be taken to the Mercy Hospital, in Chicago. He spent the remainder of the night in his car and arrived in Chicago Tuesday morning, where he was soon joined by Mrs. Roosevelt, who had been hastily summoned from New York. It developed that Schrank was a person whose weak mind had been excited by reading the violent partisan attacks of the opposition papers, especially the assertions repeatedly made that if Roosevelt were elected he would try to make himself a dictator, that his election would be the end of the Republic, and that it would necessarily mean a "bloody revolution" within a few years. The tragedy so narrowly averted, and his magnificent courage in going on with the address made a great impression on the country and stilled for the time being all or nearly all extreme partisan attacks. Governor Wilson instantly announced that in view of his political adversary's disablement, he would withdraw from further campaigning. To this, however, Roosevelt strongly objected, saying that "the welfare of any one man in this fight is wholly immaterial, compared to the great and fundamental issues involved." He further pointed out that there were hundreds of other men preaching 382 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the doctrines that he had been preaching, and that so far as his opponents were concerned, "whatever could with truth and propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was shot can, with equal truth and equal propriety, be said against me now, and it should be so said; and the things that can not be said now are merely the things that ought not to have been said before. This is not a contest about any man; it is a contest concerning principles." After six days in the Mercy Hospital, he was so far improved that he was allowed to take the journey to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th, though as a matter of fact very far from being fully recovered, he addressed sixteen thousand persons in Madison Square Garden. It is almost superfluous to add that he received an ovation which in its manifestation of heartfelt personal affection and admiration has never been equalled. As one paper, bitterly opposed to him politically, said, speaking of the meeting: "It had all loyalty to a cause and devotion to an individual rolled into one and offered to the man whom they regarded as the personification of that cause." His speech was marked by calmness, poise and a penetrating note of conviction and of duty. "I am glad beyond measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to fight, while life lasts, the great fight for righteousness and for brotherhood and for the welfare of mankind." The election took place on November 5th. Of the 15,031,169 votes cast, Wilson received 6,286,214, Roosevelt, 4,126,020 and Taft 3,483,922, the remainder going to other candidates. Wilson had a plurality over Roosevelt of more than 2,000,000, but his total THE FOUNDER OF A NEW PARTY 383 vote fell short of the combined vote for all other candidates by 2,458,741 votes, and the combined vote for Roosevelt and Taft exceeded Wilson's vote by 1,323,728. On the other hand, the result in the Electoral College and in Congress was an overwhelming triumph for the Democratic party. Roosevelt carried Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, South Dakota, and Washington, and secured eleven of the thirteen electoral votes from California, a total of eighty-eight votes in all. Taft carried Vermont and Utah, securing eight votes. Wilson secured the remaining 435 votes, the largest majority ever given in any Electoral College to any Presidential candidate. The Democratic party obtained control of both branches of Congress. The story told by these figures was plain. Progressive principles had triumphed. A program of national progressive legislation by the new Congress was assured. As Roosevelt himself had foretold, the campaign, had done more towards bettering social conditions in three months than is often accomplished in a dozen years. But the Progressive party had failed to attract progressive members from among the Democrats. The Republican party had been split in two and the larger share had gone to the Progressives, but the Democratic party remained intact. Therefore, the moment the returns were analyzed, it was clear that unless Woodrow Wilson failed to carry out the progressive policies to which he was committed, thereby 'driving progressive Democrats into the Progressive party, in a short time either the Republican or the Progressive party would cease to exist. CHAPTER XXV ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST* O N March 15, 1913, Roosevelt came to Philadelphia to deliver a Progressive party address. As usual, when in the city, he stayed with his friend Dr. J. William White. Consenting to make the address, he had. remarked casually that it would give him an opportunity to consult with Witmer Stone, of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. I was to preside at the Progressive meeting, and it was my duty to go to Dr. White's for the Colonel, and to bring him to the Academy of Music. Shortly before the hour fixed those in charge of the arrangements at the Academy telephoned that every seat was taken, and that large crowds on the outside were trying to get in. Outside of Dr. White's house a considerable number of people had assembled to see the Colonel come out. I was told that he was upstairs in the library, so upstairs I went. As I entered the room he waved his hand and motioned to a chair, saying: "I know you want me to go with you, but sit down a moment; to hear something about tree-toads will do you good." And then, for some ten or fifteen minutes, I listened to an animated discussion between the Colonel and Dr. Stone on questions of animal coloration. I had never seen him more animated in the most * I have no scientific knowledge of natural history and have therefore asked Dr. Witmer Stone, Curator of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, to write the estimate of Roosevelt as a naturalist which appears in this chapter. W. D. L. (384 ) ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 385 exciting political campaign, and soon the waiting audience at the Academy and the object of my visit passed from my mind, and the only thing that really interested me was how that tree-toad disappeared. Suddenly the discussion abruptly stopped. The Colonel turned to me saying, "Now, Dean, I am ready," and inside of ten minutes he stood before a great audience and plunged into an interesting discussion of Progressive principles. Nevertheless, I could not rid myself of the impression that the real thing that interested him in that visit to Philadelphia was his discussion with Dr. Stone. Natural history had for the time being triumphed over politics. It is difficult in these days to estimate a man's attainments as a "naturalist" because of the loose way in which the term is popularly used. Anyone who is interested in natural history may pass for a naturalist, and if he be an entertaining speaker and possessed of some attractive lantern slides his reputation is established. The public seldom troubles itself to go further and to ascertain what actual scientific work he has done and whether or not it is a valuable addition to the fund of human knowledge. One of the surest indications of the spirit of the true naturalist in Theodore Roosevelt was, it seems to me, his full appreciation of this lack of discrimination on the part of the public and the capital that has been made out of it by those unscrupulous individuals for whom he coined the apt sobriquet of "nature fakirs." The faulty observations and false deductions of such writers aroused his greatest indignation, and again and again we find him demanding care and accuracy in observation as well as in. the interpretation of obser25 386 THEODORE ROOSEVELT vations, even though we lose thereby many of the spectacular features that a too vivid imagination or a looseness in regard to veracity may so easily impart. Colonel Roosevelt's ambition in early life was to become a naturalist of the type of Audubon, Wilson, Baird or Coues-an out-door student of birds and mammals; and upon entering Harvard he had about decided upon a scientific career. Here, however, he found that in university circles this side of natural history was looked upon with disfavor and actually discouraged. Natural science in the colleges had become purely a laboratory study centered about the microscope, and to emphasize the gulf that separated the exponents of science from the old-time "naturalist," such terms as "scientist" and "biologist" were coming into vogue. Nowadays the pendulum seems to be swinging back again and ere long, we trust, the study of the living animal will take a place in educational institutions side by side with the study of its embryonic development and the minute structure of its organs. The attitude of the scientific department at Harvard discouraged in young Roosevelt any further thought of science as a career, but his interest in out-door natural history suffered no check. He did, however, develop a prejudice against the so-called "closet" study of natural history which he maintained throughout his life. The gathering of information on the life-history of an animal is just as important as the study of its dead body, but the pursuit of this sort of knowledge is so intimately associated with the love of the chase and the enjoyment of out-door life, that it is too often overshadowed by them and lost sight of. There are game birds and game mammals which have been hunted ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 387 for a century or more, yet their full life-histories are still to be recorded. Hunters have written volumes upon them but they have treated of the hunting rather than of the game. It was right here that Theodore Roosevelt made his greatest contributions to natural history. He recognized the incompleteness of the recorded lifehistories of our larger animals and set about supplying what was lacking. Success in this quest always gave him as keen satisfaction as the securing of the trophies of the chase, and it will be noticed that in planning his hunting trips his thought was not of getting the largest amount of game but of hunting some different species of animal or one concerning which information was desired. It has been said of Colonel Roosevelt that when he hunted he knew what was not known about the animal that he sought. That is to say, he had read all that had been written about it and knew exactly what were the gaps in its life-history. Thus equipped he passed by such actions and habits as were already well known and was ever alert for opportunities to observe what had hitherto been unrecorded. The extent of his reading in natural history was extraordinary and his ability to retain in memory the major points of each author in such order as to be immediately available was still more remarkable. It is noticeable in his writings that he not infrequently fails to recall some unimportant name or incident or perhaps omits some of the initials of a man's name-details of paramount importance to the bibliographic mind, but of no real moment; and one wonders if his mind were not so trained as to discriminate between important and useless data, so that he did not lumber up the mental storehouse with an accumulation of the latter. 388 THEODORE ROOSEVELT His power of marshalling the facts gleaned in his reading was especially impressed upon me in listening to him outline the chapter on animal coloration which appeared later in "The Life-Histories of African Game Animals." He had apparently read every work on the subject, and without notes and following immediately upon an important discussion on an entirely different topic, he presented the subject in a masterly manner, referring with absolute accuracy now to the views of one author, now to those of another. In order to clearly understand Colonel Roosevelt's reasons for selecting the natural history of the large game animals as his speciality we must quote from his own statement: "Most big game hunters," he says, "never learn anything about the game except how to kill it; and most naturalists never observe it at all. Therefore a large amount of important and rather obvious facts remain unobserved or inaccurately observed until the species become extinct. What is most needed is not the ability to see what very few people can see, but to see what almost anyone can see, but nobody takes the trouble to look at.... The facts I saw and observed during our five weeks' hunt [for cougars] were obvious; they needed only the simplest powers of observation and of deduction from observation. But nobody had hitherto shown or exercised these simple powers." This very fact, however, which Colonel Roosevelt mentions with no little surprise would seem to emphasize the keenness of mind and perception and the determination, preparedness and perseverance of the man who finally did make the observations. It must be clear to anyone who reads his accounts of wild animals that he possessed the most essential ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 389 qualifications of the field naturalist to a marked degreekeenness of observation, clearness of mind, accuracy in deduction and absolute regard for truth; and though he almost never referred to himself as a naturalist he nevertheless early gained the goal of his youthful ambition of becoming an out-door naturalist such as Audubon, Wilson or Coues. In 1907 no less an authority than Dr. C. Hart Merriam said: "Theodore Roosevelt is the world's authority on the big game mammals of North America. His writings are fuller and his observations are more complete and accurate than those of any other man who has given the subject study." And recently Sir Harry Johnson, the famous English explorer and naturalist has written: "Theodore Roosevelt was not only a great naturalist himself, but he set the fashion in young America for preserving and studying fauna and flora until he had gone far to create a new phase of religion..... He was a field zoologist of the new school who studied wild life with unswerving accuracy, seeking only to set forth the truth in real natural history." He not only did admirable constructive work but he took pains to expose and discredit the fabulous tales which had been associated with the histories of many of our large animals, stories which, originating in some unreliable narrative, had been copied from author to author until they gained a firm foothold in the literature of the day. If his observations differed from those of a fellow student for whose knowledge and attainments he had a high regard it made no difference so far as publishing his own experiences was concerned, but he always courteously called attention to the discrepancy and explained it on the grounds of individual peculiarity 390 THEODORE ROOSEVELT in habit, which in beast as well as in man is bound to be met with. When his attention was called to an obvious slip in one of his statements he at once admitted the error, but in matters of theory, so long as he regarded the facts as clearly supporting his views, he clung tenaciously to his opinions and in practically every instance he has been supported by a large majority of other naturalists. In all his studies it was the habits of the animals which most appealed to him. He had little or no interest in the separation of a species into geographical varieties through the careful study of large series of specimens in the museum, though he was willing and anxious to secure the material, when necessary, upon which such studies might be carried on by those interested in that kind of work. He was, however, absolutely opposed to bringing these technical distinctions into semi-popular literature and giving them distinctive English names. He, for instance, objected strenuously to calling the northern race of the whiskey-jack or Canada jay, the "Alaskan jay," as if it were a distinct species, and said: "Give the Alaskan form a third Latin name, by all means, to distinguish him in writing treatises exclusively for specialists-if it gratifies them; but in books for general reading by intelligent men call it the whiskey-jack, mentioning only if necessary that the allusion is to the Alaskan form." This statement, strictly interpreted, is in line with his disregard for unessential matter in his reading, and so considered it has a large element of common sense even though it may shock the sensibilities of the systematic zoologist. Underlying it and many other similar statements, however, there is a decided contempt ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 391 for what he, like many another out-door naturalist, regards as the useless multiplication of species. He seemed, for instance to think that because only two of our North American wolves had received distinctive vernacular names-the timber wolf and the coyotethat all individuals were referable to one or other of these two "species" and that the several geographic forms were easily disposed of between them. As a matter of fact, however, there are several perfectly distinct species, while the relationship of the numerous geographic forms is by no means an easy matter to settle. Such facts are brought out only by painstaking museum research and had he devoted his attention to this side of the study there is little doubt but that he would have been convinced that the problem is not one to be so easily disposed of. This rather hasty judgment of problems that must be considered from several points of view, and an occasional similar judgment of the merits of a writer from only a part of his writings, constituted the basis for one of the few criticisms that could be made of Colonel Roosevelt's natural history work. Everyone has of course his preferences, and while mammals and birds always appealed to Colonel Roosevelt, and even wild flowers shared his attention, he had no interest whatever in the lower forms of animal life. "I can no more explain," he writes, "why I do not care for that enormous brand of natural history which deals with the invertebrates than I can. explain why I do not care for brandied peaches." And again, in criticising a work on African exploration because it treated at length the lesser forms of animal life at the expense of big game, he says: "Full knowledge of a new breed of 392 THEODORE ROOSEVELT rhinoceros or a full description of the life-history and characteristics of almost any kind of big game is worth more than any quantity of matter about new spiders and scorpions.... It is only the pioneer hunter who can tell us all about the great beasts of the chase. It is a mistake to subordinate the greater to the lesser." He goes on to explain that the spiders and scorpions will remain long after the big game is exterminated, and may be studied and described by later explorers. While entomologists may not agree with him, there is here again much common sense in his argument. At the same time his frankly admitted preference for the study of big game animals doubtless had much to do with his statement, and what specialist does not place his own hobby before any other branch of research? Next to game animals, Colonel Roosevelt's chief interest was in birds; indeed his first natural history studies were in ornithology. At the age of fourteen he began collecting birds both at his home at Oyster Bay and in the North Woods, and he took lessons in taxidermy from the veteran John G. Bell, who had accompanied Audubon on his famous journey up the Missouri in 1843. While at Harvard Roosevelt became a member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club of Cambridge, attended the meetings regularly, and took an active part in the proceedings. The records of the club for January 28, 1872, mention a special discussion on the merits of "the so-called English sparrow" which had then but just become established in this country, and in this discussion Theodore Roosevelt was one of those who participated. Even before this, in 1871, he had published a little four-page pamphlet in conjunction with Henry D. Minot, another member of the al o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ flos toj UIdeIood & Usd/escd, N. Y. HOLDING HIS YOUNGEST GRANDCHILD The f imy life of Theodore Roosevelt was a model for the American people. In thi family group, the last taken before his death, he is holding his youngest grandchild. In the foreground is the service flag shoing the war record of three brave sons. This photograpi was taken Before;he youngest son entered the service. Quentins golden star has Been added since. c ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 393 Nuttall Club of about his own age, on the "Summer Birds of the Adirondacks," which is referred to in.a contemporary review as "a very acceptable list-the first known to us of the summer birds of this little explored region." The next year appeared a similar publication: "Notes on Some of the Birds of Oyster Bay, Long Island." Later on such time as he was able to devote to natural history was so taken up with his studies of the big game animals that he made but few contributions to ornithology. His interest in birds still remained keen, however, and in a magazine article entitled, "Small Country Neighbors," he gives us a delightful account of the familiar bird-life of Long Island, about the White House at Washington and at Pine Knot, a small place that he had in Albemarle County, Virginia. In this sketch there are moreover several notes and observations of no little importance. His early publications and the broad general knowledge of birds that is evidenced by incidental mention in various of his later writings show conclusively that he could easily have taken a prominent place among the out-door ornithologists of America, had he chosen to make bird study a matter of major interest; but he felt that he should devote himself to a subject that was not only not so adequately supplied with competent students, but which appealed even more strongly to him, and in which, therefore, he could obtain greater results. That his interest in birds continued to be active and his knowledge of them kept pace.with the literature, is shown by a letter, written the day before he died, to Captain William Beebe, in regard to the classification adopted in the latter's "Monograph of the Pheasants," a book of exactly the character that Colonel Roosevelt 394 THEODORE ROOSEVELT most admired in natural history publications, and the first volume of which he was engaged in reviewing. Incidentally it may be mentioned that he had read and digested the entire volume of some 250,000 words in the ten days preceding his death. Considering Colonel Roosevelt's contributions to natural science more in detail we have first his life histories of the larger game animals of America. His earlier writings on this subject, contained in the volumes entitled: "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman" (1883), "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail" (1888), and "The Wilderness Hunter" (1893), partake more of the nature of hunting narratives, although they contain many original observations. In commenting upon them in later years the author says: "I vaguely supposed that the obvious facts [on the habits of the animals were known and let most of my opportunities pass by." In his later writings he pays increasing attention to the life-histories of the animals, often gleaning the important facts from his earlier experiences and incorporating them with new material so that they form the best accounts of such species as the white-tailed deer, mule deer, wapiti, prong-horned antelope, wolf, etc., that have been written. These sketches are contained in "The Deer Family," a volume of the "American Sportsman's Library" written by Colonel Roosevelt, T. S. VanDyke, D. G. Elliot and A. J. Stone; and in the volumes of the Boone and Crocket Club. Later still he made special trips to Colorado for bear and cougars and to the cane-brakes of the Gulf states for a little-known species of bear found only in that region. The results of these trips and others appeared first as magazine articles, while ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 395 most of them were afterward collected together in the volumes entitled, "Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter" (1908) and "A Booklover's Holidays in the Open" (1916). The account of the cougar is especially noteworthy, for, as the author says: "No American beast has been the subject of so much loose writing or of such wild fables." Colonel Roosevelt took the greatest pains to secure all possible information about the animal at first hand and from reliable observers, and he weighs this against the various accounts that had been previously published, pointing out those which are reliable and exposing the improbable and impossible in others. In addition, measurements and weights were taken of every specimen, and the entire series of skulls was preserved and presented to the U. S. National Museum. D. C. Hart Merriam in commenting upon these specimens says: "Your series is incomparably the largest, most complete and most valuable ever brought together from any single locality, and will be of inestimable value in determining the amount of individual variation." During the last year of his Presidential term Colonel Roosevelt began to plan for his trip to East Africa, a trip which naturally received wide publicity and which to many persons who knew him only in public office, was the first intimation of his interest in natural history. Many indeed refused to recognize any such interest, interpreting the whole expedition as a mere head-hunting trip to this wild game paradise. As a matter of fact every effort was made to yield the greatest benefit to science. A corps of scientific men representing the Smithsonian Institution accompanied the party and 396 THEODORE ROOSEVELT everyone was well read upon the zoology of the region, so that, as in Colohel Roosevelt's early hunting trips, they "knew what was not known" of the animals they were to hunt. Collections of the greatest value to science were secured by the expedition, all of which, with the exception of about a dozen trophies and a few specimens presented to other museums, are now preserved in the National Museum at Washington. Great additions to our knowledge of the African fauna and the problems of the distribution of life have resulted from a study of this material and from the recorded observations of the members of the party, while a host of hitherto undescribed species was discovered. Of course the other members of the party share with Colonel Roosevelt the credit for the success of the expedition, but a large part of it was due to his well conceived plan, his enthusiasm in carrying it out and his personal activity in the field in collecting both data and specimens. Owing to the prominence of the leader of the expedition the attention of many people was directed to the trip who had never before heard of a scientific exploring expedition or had the slightest conception of the need of specimens for the advancement of scientific knowledge. This led to some criticism from wholly unqualified sources, as to the folly of such an undertaking and the wantonness of killing wild animals, which was as unjust as it was deplorable. Many men who were unknown to the public at large had, it is true, gone to Africa solely for the killing of game for trophies without benefitting science in the least, and these had escaped all criticism, while this wholly justifiable expedition for scientific research and the advancement of knowledge was held up to censure. ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 397 As a matter of fact no hunter or naturalist had a greater regard for the preservation of wild life than Colonel Roosevelt-indeed, if I mistake not, the present wide use of the word "conservation" in this connection is due to him. He was likewise fully aware of the need of specimens for scientific research and also of the fact that the collecting of specimens for such a purpose never appreciably affected the abundance of any animal. To use his own words: "There should be no collecting excepting for an adequate and public purpose, and of species on the verge of extinction there should be no collecting at all; and purposeless slaughter committed under the pretense of 'collecting' should be rigorously punished. But, if these conditions be fulfilled, it is as necessary to collect animals for museum specimens as to kill sheep and chickens for food." Again, speaking of the white rhinoceros, he says: "Too little is known of these northern square-mouthed rhino for us to be sure that they are not lingering slowly toward extinction; and lest this should be the case, we were not willing to kill any merely for trophies; while, on the other hand, we deemed it really important to get good groups for the National Museum in Washington and the American Museum in New York." In this connection it may be stated that when President, Colonel Roosevelt established our first National Bird Preserve, on Pelican Island, Florida, where the brown pelicans have ever since been able to breed absolutely unmolested; and before he left the executive office he had established no less than fifty-one of these reservations mainly on small islands which served as breeding grounds for various species of water birds, species which have thus been rescued 398 THEODORE ROOSEVELT from persecution and whose extinction would otherwise have ensued in the course of time. The literary results of the African expedition were two; first, the narrative: "African Game Trails," which is full of observations on the natural history of the country, as well as the details of the hunting and the experiences of the party; second: "Life Histories of African Game Animals," to which Colonel Roosevelt contributed the life-histories, and Edmund Heller, one of the naturalists who accompanied him, the technical descriptions, etc., although the work of each was revised by the other so that the result is a joint product. In this work Colonel Roosevelt is at his best as an out-door naturalist and the accounts are probably the best that have ever been written of the larger mammals of Africa. It is today the standard work on the subject. In 1913 Colonel Roosevelt headed another expedition, in scope exactly like the African one, but this time to Brazil, while the naturalists who accompanied him represented the American Museum of Natural History of New York. This trip, ending in the geographical exploration which involved the voyage down the "River of Doubt," now the Rio T6odoro, was as productive as the other in the acquisition of valuable collections which have served as the basis of important contributions to faunal zoiology. As the fauna of South America is notably poor in the larger mammalia, however, there was less opportunity for Colonel Roosevelt to contribute to the literature of the group which most interested him. His observations are all included in the volume, "Through the Brazilian Wilderness," which, though dealing mainly with the itinerary of the expedition, ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST 399 contains important contributions to the life histories of the jaguar, tapir, peccary, etc., and abundant comment on the bird-life for which Brazil is famous. Among the more general natural history problems, the theory of protective coloration was one that early attracted Colonel Roosevelt's attention; indeed he tells us that as early as 1872, when, as a college student, he accompanied his parents to Egypt, he made some observations along this line, and from that time on he was always alert for any incident that would throw additional light on the subject. The main point at issue was: To what extent does the coloration of an animal, by resembling the background against which it is seen, render it inconspicuous and thereby protect it from its enemies? There are a number of quite obvious cases both among birds and mammals, and especially among insects and reptiles; but there are also a host of cases in which coloration seems to offer no protection whatever. Nevertheless certain writers have claimed that all forms of animals are concealingly colored and that this underlying principle is the explanation of the development of color in the animal kingdom. This view Colonel Roosevelt strenuously opposed, and from his wide and varied experiences, and with his mind ever keen for observations bearing on the subject, he was peculiarly well fitted for discussing it. His two leading contributions to the problem are a lengthy paper in the "Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History" on "Revealing and Concealing Coloration in Birds and Mammals;" and a chapter in "Life Histories of African Game Animals," entitled "Concealing and Revealing Coloration and their Relation to Natural Selection." These are among the most important contributions to 400 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the subject and embody Colonel Roosevelt's final views. Anyone, however, who reads his writings on natural history will find the subject cropping out at frequent intervals in almost every volume, so strongly did it appeal to him. This brief summary covers Colonel Roosevelt's main contributions to natural science but, greater than all of them, perhaps, should be rated his influence in developing the out-door natural history that he loved, in placing it on a higher plane and in preaching the doctrine of absolute accuracy. This will exert an influence for many a year to come. When we read his natural history writings and realize the extent of his knowledge and the possibilities of the man in this field, one who knew nothing of his life might wonder that he did not publish more. But when we know what a many-sided man he was, how varied were his activities and how tremendous his responsibilities we marvel that he accomplished so much. Those who are competent to judge, in reviewing his life-work, will realize that it was only the eminence of Roosevelt the statesman and the constant call to public service that obscured the reputation and checked the further development of Roosevelt the naturalist. CHAPTER XXVI THE RIVER OF DOUBT IN the winter of 1913 to 1914 Roosevelt took his trip through the heart of South America-the last of his adventures into the wilderness. The expedition had been originally suggested to him while he was still in the White House by Father Zahm, a Catholic priest with whom he was well acquainted. The African trip had prevented him from carrying out Father Zahm's suggestion immediately, but in 1913 the opportunity at last presented itself. He was invited to address certain learned bodies in Argentina and Brazil and decided not to come home without first exploring the remote depths of the Brazilian wilderness. The American Museum of Natural History in New York was glad to send two naturalists, George K. Cherrie and Leo E. Miller, to accompany the expedition. Father Zahm was also to go, together with Kermit Roosevelt, Anthony Fiala, a former Arctic explorer, and Jacob Sigg, who was to act as the personal attendant of Father Zahm. The object of the expedition was to secure animal and plant specimens from the central plateau of Brazil, which lies between the headwaters of the Amazon and Paraguay rivers. The explorers proposed originally to go up the Paraguay as far as possible, and from there to cross to one of the tributaries of the Amazon, and so to come down again to civilization. But when the Colonel reached Rio de Janeiro, the (6 (401) 402 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Lauro Miller, suggested a more serious enterprise. Through the great wilderness of western Brazil, known as the Matto Grosso, there flowed a river whose course and destination geographers had never traced, and which they called the Rio da Dfvida, the River of Doubt. Miller suggested that Roosevelt should combine with Colonel Rondon, a famous Brazilian explorer, and that they should follow together the course of this stream, making natural history and geography the joint objects of their expedition. To this proposal Roosevelt eagerly assented. After his speaking engagements had been fulfilled, he started, on December 9, 1913, up the Paraguay River from the little city of Asuncion, traveling on a gunboatyacht which the President of Paraguay had courteously lent. For three days the boat steamed northward, crossing the tropic of Capricorn and passing on the east bank a fairly well settled country with occasional fruit orchards. On the west bank lay the swampy Chaco country which was as yet practically untouched by civilization. Often the boat stopped to take on provisions, and fish were caught. The most frequent kind of these was the piranha-a fish of terrible ferocity. They are comparatively small, not more than a foot or so in length, but are none the less formidable. Where they are numerous men and animals cannot safely enter the water, or even touch a part of their bodies to the suiface without the risk of instant attack. If one fish attacks and draws blood, all of them are immediately excited to madness. A wounded man or animal in the water will attract them in large numbers and will inevitably be eaten alive unless he can escape within the first THE RIVER OF DOUBT 403 few seconds. Fortunately these piranhas are not dangerous in all places, and for that reason are not so much to be dreaded as are the man-eating crocodiles of the Nile. At Concepcion the boat was moored and the party walked through the town, which is inhabited by Paraguayan Christians who are totally different from the wild savages of the Chaco. The colonel of the garrison had prepared a reception for Roosevelt, and at the City Hall he addressed a friendly audience on the political ideas which were suggested to him by this visit to a country plagued by the revolutionary habit. On they went from Concepcion, up the Paraguay, passing a good many other large boats and arriving at last at the Brazilian line. Here Colonel Rondon and his associates met them. Rondon had spent twentyfour years in exploring the western highlands of Brazil, and knew them more thoroughly than any man living. He described the difficulties which they were to facethe danger from piranhas, pumas, snakes and other animals, but especially from venomous insects, and from sickness and accidents due to hard traveling. In company with Colonel Rondon's party they went up the stream, traveling in two boats, and on December 15th reached the town of Corumba. Here Cherrie and Miller, who had already collected some eight hundred specimens, were waiting to meet them. Two days later they started up the Taquary River-a tributary of the Paraguay-to visit the home of a hospitable ranchman. As they went slowly up the shallow river they saw many water-birds and quantities of caymans, which are not unlike crocodiles, and late one afternoon they spied a giant ant-eater on the grass-clad bank. Pushing off in a row-boat they landed a couple of hundred yards 404 THEODORE ROOSEVELT from him and advanced toward him through the forest, taking Kermit's two dogs with them. The dogs leaped upon the ant-eater, who tried to defend himself by ripping blows with his great clawed feet; but he was soon overcome and carried back to the boat to be shipped in due course to the Museum in New York. After some miles of this travel they left the river and mounted their horses for a ride to the ranch. The way led first through a marsh whose vast drying pools were filled with dead and dying fish. Great numbers of jabiru storks, herons and black carrion vultures had gathered for the feast, and small fish-eating alligators were also abundant. They left the marsh and rode for miles through the open palm forest in which parrots, macaws, and parakeets flashed to and fro in their gaudy colors. South America is a bird paradise, but does not compare with Africa in the size and variety of its mammals. Many thousand years ago, in a period which geologists call recent, there were on this continent sabretooth tigers, mastodons, giant ground-sloths and many other huge creatures, but by some strange catastrophe these have all disappeared long since. Senhor de Barros' ranch lay in the middle of a great swamp country. He was a true lord of the soil, with 30,000 head of cattle, besides horses, pigs, sheep and goats. From his ranch they hunted the spotted jaguars, shooting them from the trees in which the dogs drove them to take refuge. Here Roosevelt saw for the first time a nine-banded armadillo in its native state. He had always supposed that the movements of an armadillo were necessarily like those of a turtle, and was correspondingly surprised when he saw one, pursued by the dogs, make off with the speed of a rabbit. The THE RIVER OF DOUBT 405 dogs followed it full tilt, when it suddenly turned, and with its armored body clove a path for itself through the pack and disappeared like an animated cannon-ball into the safety of a thorny covert. After several days' enjoyment of the hospitality of the ranch they went back to Corumba on Christmas Eve and there stocked their little boat for a trip up another tributary of the Paraguay-the Cuyub&. On board they piled their food, ammunition, specimens and equipment and left little room for themselves. Three days after Christmas they reached another great ranch belonging to Senhor Marques, who had come several hundred miles down the Cuyub& to greet his guests. From this ranch they hunted peccaries, fierce little wild pigs which travel in herds and are mischievous if disturbed. There were quantities of birds heretoucans, herons, tiger-bitterns and many other species quite unlike the birds of any other continent. Their visit over, they went down again to the Paraguay, and turning their faces up that river arrived, on January 5th, at Sao Luis de Caceres, the last town which they were to see until they should reach the Amazon. Here Sigg delighted some of the inhabitants by giving them a ride in a dugout driven by the Evinrude motor. At Caceres the party left the Paraguay River and ascended a stream whose Indian name means the River of Tapirs; sixty or seventy miles up this river they pitched their first camp. The piranhas were dangerous here and two of the dogs had the tips of their tails bitten off as they swam. On the morning of January 9th a tapir hunt was organized, the hunters taking the dogs with them in canoes, for the tapir lives in marshy country and frequently takes to the water when hunted. After 406 THEODORE ROOSEVELT a long search a tapir was descried, swimming rapidly down stream with only his head above water. One of the dugouts pursued him, and he suddenly dived, leaving -no trace, and as suddenly reappeared climbing up the bank. Roosevelt fired, but the tapir, although wounded, galloped off through the forest and took to the water again farther up stream. Again the hunters came up with him, and again he dived, passed completely under Roosevelt's canoe and came up on the other side; there the Colonel killed him with a well-directed shot. On they went up the River of Tapirs, the current rapidly growing swifter, and on January 16th reached Tapirapoan, the headquarters of the Telegraphic Commission. Here they waited for several days to gather the pack animals and materials for the overland trip to the headwaters of the River of Doubt. All the specimens and unnecessary baggage were sent back to New York down the river, and at last, on January 21st, they started across country. Their route lay northward across the Plan Alto-a vast treeless plain. The men rode mules and the equipment was carried by a caravan of seventy oxen, some of whom bucked furiously and often scattered their burdens far and wide. Soon they crossed the divide between the basins of the Paraguay and of the Amazon. The real hardships of the trip now. began. Heavy rains were frequent and the slippery soil afforded poor foothold for the mules. Feed was scarce and poor so that the strength of the animals gradually decreased. Pium flies were so numerous and vindictive that the men had to wear gloves and head nets. They visited the magnificent Salto Bello Falls on the Rio Sacre, and the tremendous falls of Utiarity THE RIVER OF DOUBT 407 on the Papagaio. The latter, in the Colonel's opinion, outrank any waterfall in North America except Niagara. At a small native village they were highly diverted by a game of ball, in which the players propelled a small hollow rubber ball entirely with their heads, sometimes throwing themselves flat on the ground for the purpose. Here Father Zahm and Sigg left them and the remaining party began to push across the wild country inhabited by the Nhambiquaras. This was a land of fever and beriberi, of incessant rain and poor feed, and of the maddening pium flies. The mules and oxen were growing weak and the Canadian canoe, together with a motor-engine and gasoline, had to be left behind to lighten their loads. They were now crossing numerous small rivers and brooks which formed part of the headwaters of the Tapajos, which is itself one of the mightiest tributaries of the Amazon. Before long they met a party of Nhambiquaras, who are wild, naked and absolutely primitive savages. The rain fell almost incessantly. After more than five weeks of this kind of travel they arrived at last at the River of Doubt. Before reaching the riyer the party had split. Fiala had some time since started on an expedition down the Papagaio. Miller with another party went off across country to descend the Gy-Parana. Roosevelt and his son Kermit, Colonel Rondon, Cherrie, Lieutenant Lyra, Doctor Cajazeira and sixteen paddlers were left to attempt the descent of the River of Doubt. They took with them partial rations for about fifty days, tents, a few books, and such necessities as food, medicine, blankets and surveying instruments. They were about to embark upon an adventure whose extent it was absolutely 408 THEODORE ROOSEVELT impossible to determine. They might soon find themselves on easily navigable water, or they might be obliged to struggle for weeks through untold hardships. Time alone would show. They were facing certain danger and possible death. On February 27, 1914, shortly after mid-day, they started in their seven dugout canoes, only three of which were really first-class. Roosevelt traveled with Cherrie and the doctor in a large canoe handled by three native paddlers. All the way down the river it was necessary to stop at short intervals to survey. During the first day Kermit carried the sighting-rod and landed nearly a hundred times, and they made in all about six miles. The water was high and traveling at first was easy. On both sides of the stream rose solid walls of matted forest, in which at night a space was cleared with the axes for the camp. On they went through the silent forest where white men had never been before. On the fourth day the current began to quicken, and they heard the roar of rapids ahead. They walked down along the edge of the stream and found that the rapids were absolutely impassable and that the portage would be a difficult one. It took two days and a half to carry their boats and equipment down to the foot of the rapids over the stony and difficult portage, which was nearly a mile in length. The rain poured down and swarms of bees and flies attacked them. Fly ointment was resorted to which was useful until it was washed off by perspiration; but some of the insects were so small that a head net was no protection. Ants, too, were numerous and voracious; one night they ate all of the doctor's undershirt and chewed holes in his mosquito net. Md"6W PROM SOUTH MC OFF 'FOP, SOUTH AMEMCA hi ind Worn by the fevers bf South Afrnea C611 Waig aa Barel a9 his We leaves the iAd is n thl9 & I eresLed by the gr vAYvin Ro~gW h toti1W.. o_ A l s f never ere4 91 ts iEnity at 6fve hi i i i ~ L. I- l.. I A 1 l.- 1144 6 4 IN 4~lml- i \) THE RIVER OF DOUBT 409 The difficulties of portaging were great on account of the weight of the boats. A road had to be cut through the solid forest and on this were laid small logs to act as rollers. The boats were then hauled out of the river with a block and tackle and were pulled over the rollers by sheer force. At the bottom of the first portage where the canoes were launched again, one of them filled with water and went to the bottom, so that more time and labor were consumed in raising it. The next day came more rapids whose passage took three days to accomplish. No sooner was this done than more rapids were reached and the party began to realize that many weary days of such work were ahead of them. The insects had become a torment. Lyra and Kermit Roosevelt and the natives, working in the water to let the canoes through difficult places, often brushed against overhanging branches from which hordes of biting ants swarmed on them. There was no rest by day and little by night from flies, gnats, mosquitoes, ants, bees and multitudes of other small vindictive creatures. By March 10th they had come only sixty miles and had no idea how much farther they were to travel. Next morning they found that two of the canoes had broken their moorings and had been dashed to pieces on the rocks. The men immediately set about in the pouring rain to build two other boats to take their places. Three days later they were again on their way. During all this time a tremendous rain had continued practically without cessation, and every one's clothes were wet day and night. The native paddlers generally went barefoot or wore sandals; in consequence, their feet were so swollen and 410 THEODORE ROOSEVELT inflamed from insect bites that at times they were unable to work. On March 15th, after paddling four miles down the river, they came to another rapids. Venturing too near the beginning of the swift water, the canoe containing Kermit and his paddlers was swept in in an instant. Down they went through the rapids with the canoe right side up but almost full of water. At the bottom it seemed that they would make the shore, but a sudden eddy carried them to mid-stream and turned them over. One of the paddlers swam strongly and reached the shore, but the other was sucked down by the boiling torrent and was never seen again. Kermit climbed on the bottom of the boat and was whirled down the next series of rapids. When he reached the bottom he was almost drowned and close to exhaustion, but he had enough strength left to swim to an overhanging branch and finally to make the shore. They camped by these rapids for the night, and next morning put on the post with which they marked their camping spot, the inscription, "In these rapids died poor Simplicio." Then they pressed on past more rapids and through the interminable rain. On the next day, while Colonel Rondon was exploring the bank of the river, accompanied by one of the dogs, a strange howling 'noise, which sounded like spider-monkeys, attracted his attention and the dog ran ahead to investigate. In a minute he heard the animal coming toward him yelping with pain, and then suddenly there was silence. Accompanied by Lyra, Kermit and one of the natives, Rondon found the dog dead with two arrows through his body. It was evident that he had been killed by Indians. THE RIVER OF DOUBT 411 By this time they had been gone eighteen days and had used over a third of their food, although they had traveled but eighty miles. It was now necessary to lighten the loads and to travel so as to avoid possible Indian attacks. Accordingly they abandoned all the baggage that they could possibly spare, leaving, among other things, two big tents and a box of surveying instruments. Personal belongings were cut to the minimum. Thus equipped they started again down the river, Roosevelt and the doctor traveling in the two canoes with six paddlers, while the rest of the party went on foot down the bank. They passed the mouth of a small stream coming in from the west, which Colonel Rondon named the Rio Kermit, and soon afterwards reached a little Indian fishing village, from which the inhabitants had fled in panic. Here they left an axe and a knife and some red beads, as signs of friendship, and pressed steadily on. Four canoes had been lost by this time and it was decided to build two large ones to take their places; a space was cleared in the forest for a camp and the men set to work. There were piranhas in the river but the party bathed in spite of them. The danger from cannibal fish could not deter them from seeking a respite from the tormenting insects. They were now down to two meals a day, eked out by palm-tops when they could get them, and occasionally by small game or fish. The lack of food and the tremendous physical labor were beginning to tell on the party. Some of. the men had fever, and were only kept from serious sickness by repeated doses of quinine. The rapids grew more and more continuous and the spaces of open water between them shorter and shorter. In one place two laden canoes were swept under by the 412 THEODORE ROOSEVELT current and were only saved after hours of arduous toil. They reached a range of low mountains, through which the river ran in a long canyon with several high waterfalls. Again they cut down their equipment, keeping only one tent and less clothing than was really necessary. The canoes were lowered through the rapids and the equipment was carried along the almost impassable sides of the rocky gorge. One of the canoes had its bottom beaten out on the rocks, and another was lost further down in a piece of furious rapids. The insect bites had become festering wounds, and poisonous ants, flies, ticks, and bees were a perpetual torment. Among the natives was a powerful man named Julio. He was sullen and a shirker and had been caught stealing food, which was a very serious crime. One evening Paishon, a negro corporal, caught him in the act of theft and struck him in the mouth. The next day Julio, having carried his burden down the portage, picked up a rifle and went back along the trail, ostensibly to hunt. A minute later the party heard a shot, and hurrying back, found Paishon lying dead, shot through the heart. Julio had vanished. They did not try to pursue the murderer, for starvation and sickness were staring them in the face. Three days later as they were paddling down the stream, he suddenly appeared and called out that he wanted to surrender. No one answered him, but at the next halt Colonel Rondon decided that it was his duty, as an officer of the Brazilian government, to take the man in custody. Two of the natives were sent back to find him but they returned empty handed. Julio was never seen again. Shortly after this, Roosevelt, while working in the water with an upset canoe, struck his leg against a THE RIVER OF DOUBT 413 boulder. The wound became badly inflamed and for two days he lay desperately ill. He realized that the food was running out and vainly implored Colonel Rondon to leave him behind and to lead the rest of the party to safety. Then the fever broke a little and he was able to struggle to his feet, but he had to be carried over the portages by two of the natives on an improvised chair. Kermit, Lyra and Cherrie were also sick but continued to work most of the time in spite of it. But now the rocky gorge was past and there were fewer rapids. One day they made over twenty miles, which was a great encouragement. They passed the mouth of a big river running in from the right which they named the Rio Cardozo, after a friend of Colonel Rondon's. Soon after this they shot some game and caught an enormous catfish, and were very grateful for the taste of fresh meat. On Easter Sunday they struck rapids again and spent eight hours portaging and only ten minutes in paddling, but by way of compensation they got twenty-eight big fish, and for two meals they all had as much as they wanted to eat. April 15th was a great day. They had run two hours and a half down the stream when they found a post with a board on it bearing the initials J. A. This post marked the farthest limits of a rubber-man's explorations. An hour later they came to a newly built house whose inhabitants, however, were not there, and an hour after that reached the home of an old Brazilian peasant. He was the first human being whom they had seen since they had started down the river nearly seven weeks before. It was time for the journey to end. The strain had begun to tell on them all. Roosevelt's leg was giving 414 THEODORE ROOSEVELT him serious trouble and had developed an abscess which had to be drained and bandaged. No sooner had they passed the worst part of the trip than he developed a serious fever, through which he was nursed for ten days by the ceaseless care of his son and their companions. Farther down the river they spent their last night under canvas, and the next morning gathered at the monument which Colonel Rondon had erected, while he read the orders of the day. He recited the principal events of the expedition and declared that the River of Doubt was hereafter, by order of the Brazilian Government, to be known as the Rio Roosevelt. Subsequently this name was changed to Rio Teodoro-the River Theodore. From here on travel was easy. Soon a steamer was reached which took the party down to the Madeira River, from which the trip to the Amazon and so back to the United States, was a luxury for the weary explorers. The expedition had been a very considerable achievement, both from a zoological and a geographical standpoint. Cherrie and Miller had collected three thousand specimens, many of which were new to science. All of them together had, to use the Colonel's words, "put upon the map a river some fifteen hundred kilometers in length, of which the upper course was not merely utterly unknown to, but unguessed at by, anybody; while the lower course, although known for years to a few rubber-men, was utterly unknown to cartographers." The expedition had been arduous and might easily have proved fatal to any one of them, but consistent willingness and perseverance had triumphed over the most formidable natural obstacles. CHAPTER XXVII POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 O N his arrival from South America on May 19, 1914, Roosevelt had by no means recovered from the effects of his trip and the serious illness through which he had passed. Nevertheless, he at once arranged to take part in the political campaign for members of Congress and for Governors which was then under way, although the only definite early speaking engagement he made was to make an address in Pittsburgh on June 30th. In that state Gifford Pinchot and I were candidates on the Progressive ticket for Senator and Governor respectively. Roosevelt had only been in the country for a few days when he sailed for Spain to attend the wedding of his son Kermit at the American Embassy in Madrid. He was back again in New York before the end of June. Before going to Madrid he had asked me to write out what I thought he ought to say at Pittsburgh and he added, "I may not say it, but it is better for me to have something." The next day after his return I went to Oyster Bay with the manuscript in my pocket. He used but very little of it because with his usual forehandedness, knowing that he had to make the address, he wrote out on the return steamer, in spite of his physical condition, practically all that he wanted to say. This Pittsburgh address was really a wonderful exhibition of will-power. He ought never to have made it. When his train arrived in Pittsburgh he was really (415) 416 THEODORE ROOSEVELT thoroughly exhausted and yet he held a great audience for over an hour, and I am sure that only those immediately near him on the platform realized the conscious physical exertion he was undergoing. Some weeks later, when the New York campaign was well under way, he toured a large part of the state in an automobile with the Progressive candidate for Governor. He also made addresses in Louisiana and other states, and went through Pennsylvania in a special train, speaking in behalf of the Progressive candidates for.United States Senator and Governor. Here he was everywhere greeted by great crowds which, as far as those of us who accompanied him could see, were no less numerous and enthusiastic than they had been two years before. The results of the fall elections, if not a surprise, were a great disappointment to him. The total Progressive vote fell from over 4,000,000 to slightly under 2,000,000. The Progressive party's representation in Congress was reduced from fifteen to seven members. The party failed to carry a single state except California, where Hiram W. Johnson was re-elected by a plurality of 130,000. Though a large vote was also polled in Pennsylvania, the results of the elections, taken as a whole, showed that the Progressive party, as a political organization, was beginning to disintegrate. Indeed, outside of two or three states, there was no effective local party organization. During these closing days of political activity Roosevelt was a party to two famous libel suits in which his personal and political career were so carefully scrutinized by his enemies and so completely exposed to public view that no serious fault could have escaped detection. POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 417 The first of these was the Newett case. George A. Newett had held the position of postmaster in Ishpeming, Michigan, by Roosevelt's appointment, and had been his strong supporter for some years. In 1912, however, he remained in the Republican party and became one of Roosevelt's bitter opponents. On October 12, 1912, shortly before the Presidential election, he published in his weekly paper, the Iron Ore, this statement: "Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way. He gets drunk too, and that not infrequently, and all his intimates know about it." For some time these slanders, especially with respect to intoxication, had been circulated by Roosevelt's enemies, and on one or two occasions had appeared in irresponsible newspapers. He finally determined to wait until such a statement appeared in a reputable paper and then to nail the lie once and forever. Accordingly, less than two weeks after Newett's statement appeared, he brought suit for libel. On May 26, 1913, the case came to trial at Ishpeming before a jury of plain American citizens. Roosevelt's purpose was to show that the accusations of blasphemy and drunkenness were totally unfounded falsehoods. Thirty-five witnesses testified in his behalf, covering the whole of his life from the time he was twenty-one. The case had been prepared with great care by Roosevelt and by his counsel, James H. Pound and his assistants. For the fifteen years immediately preceding the trial they produced testimony which covered almost every hour of Roosevelt's waking life. His friends eagerly came to testify to his unimpeachable personal character. There were personal friends such as Jacob A. Riis and Albert Shaw; business associates such as Lyman Abbott, 27 418 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the editor of the Outlook; cousins from Oyster Bay.; the naturalists who had traveled with him in Africa; Dr. Alexander Lambert, who had been his family physician and camping companion for many years; men who had served under him when he was President, such as Loeb, Pinchot and Garfield; servants in his house; secret service men; newspaper correspondents; and General Leonard Wood, who had been intimately thrown with him not only in Cuba but often thereafter. All of these testified to the same effect: that they had never seen Roosevelt drink any alcoholic beverage other than wine except as a medicine; that he was very sparing in his use even of wine, and that he had never been influenced even to the slightest degree by anything that he had drunk. They also proved conclusively the falsity of the charge of blasphemy. The presentation of this mass of testimony occupied a full week. When it had been fully presented, the defendant made a statement in which he explained that he had published the libellous charges upon information which he had believed to be correct, but that in casting about to prepare his defense, he had been unable to find any one who could state from his own knowledge that he had ever seen Roosevelt under the influence of liquor. He said that he had been profoundly impressed by the tremendous weight of evidence which had been produced, and concluded by saying that he was now forced to the conclusion that he had been mistaken. This was all Roosevelt wanted. As soon as Newett had finished he said to the court: "I did not go into this suit for money. I did not go into it for any vindictive purpose. I went into it, and, as the court has said, POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 419 I made my reputation an issue, because I wished, once for all during my lifetime, thoroughly and comprehensively to deal with these slanders, so that never again will it be possible for any man, in good faith, to repeat them. I have achieved my purpose, and I am content." The jury, by direction of the court, then found a verdict in Roosevelt's favor in the nominal sum of six cents. The case is interesting, not only because it proves conclusively the cleanness of Roosevelt's private life, but because it shows the extraordinary thoroughness with which he prosecuted any undertaking to which he turned his hand. The array of witnesses and the careful manner in which they were chosen to cover every portion of his life, so far as that was possible, indicated his determination to make his vindication complete and lasting; and complete and lasting it certainly was. In the other famous libel suit of which I have spoken, Roosevelt was the defendant instead of the plaintiff. In July, 1914, he made a statement in support of Harvey D. Hinman, who was a candidate for the Republican and Progressive nominations for Governor of New York. In this statement he alleged that William Barnes, Jr., the Republican leader in the state, was in a bi-partisan alliance with the Democratic State Organization in the interests of crooked politics and crooked business. Barnes responded by bringing suit for libel and the case finally came on to trial at Syracuse on April 19, 1915. The trial lasted for more than a month. Roosevelt's political record was gone over with a fine-tooth comb. His relations with Senator Platt while he was Governor of New York were subjected to the closest scrutiny. The story of the campaign contributions in 1904 was again dragged out before the public view. No stone 420 THEODORE ROOSEVELT was left unturned in the attempt to show that he himself had been guilty of practicing the crooked politics for which he had reproved Barnes. But there was nothing of which the Colonel had any cause to be ashamed, and the most exhaustive examination and cross-examination, which was pursued for days, brought no results to the plaintiff. Then came Roosevelt's turn. He showed that Barnes, through his newspaper, the Albany Evening Journal, had made unlawful profits in public printing. He showed the bi-partisan alliance with the Democratic machine and how it had operated to defeat legislation or to elect candidates. His witnesses were familiar with their facts and impressed the jury with their veracity. Justice Andrews, when the evidence was all in, charged the jury that the questions for their consideration were whether there had been an alliance between Barnes and the Democratic leaders, and whether Barnes had worked through a corrupt alliance between crooked politics and crooked business. For two days the jury deliberated and then returned a verdict in favor of the defendant. In other words, they believed Roosevelt's statements to be true. He had done the public a real service not only by exposing the practices of the bipartisan machine but by vindicating the right of an honest man to speak the truth about that machine. For himself, he had brought before the people the-details of his political life and had shown that its fairness was above reproachL As the Presidential campaign for 1916 approached, it was the hope of the Progressives, and of large numbers of those who had never left the Republican party, that the Republicans would nominate Roosevelt and thus POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 421 pave the way for a reunion of the two parties. To this end it was arranged that the second Progressive National Convention should take place at Chicago on June 7th, the same day as the Republican Convention. That the Progressives would nominate Roosevelt was a foregone conclusion. Roosevelt, himself, while he consented to the effort being made to secure his nomination by the Republicans, had not the slightest expectation that it would be successful. Those who still remained members of the Progressive party could not vote in the Republican primaries, and of course this meant a large reduction in his strength in the Republican party as compared with four years before. Those who had opposed him in 1912, while their feelings in reference to him were no longer as violent as they had been, were for the most part still opposed to him. They had not forgiven him for forming a third party, and still attributed the defeat of the Republicans in the election of that year to him rather than to the mistakes of their own leaders. All these adverse factors were appreciated not only by Roosevelt, but also by the other Progressive leaders. But Roosevelt himself had an additional reason for believing that he could not be nominated in the Republican Convention. He saw that his campaign for preparedness and his general position in regard to the duties imposed on the United States by the events of the great war in Europe made his candidacy peculiarly objectionable to a considerable class of persons of German descent whose sympathies were with the Central Powers. He was convinced that, combined with the other causes we have mentioned, the fear of the German vote would make practically impossible his nomination by the 422 THEODORE ROOSEVELT type of men who would naturally go to the Republican Convention in the absence of progressive competition. His opinion was justified by the event. The convention was made up of three classes of persons: men who wanted to nominate Roosevelt, men who disliked and distrusted him, or at least had not forgiven him for what they called his treachery to the party, and men who were afraid that if he were nominated he could not be elected because of the opposition of German sympathizers. The last two classes largely outnumbered the first. Of course the delegates to the Republican Convention wanted to nominate a candidate who could win, and every delegate knew that no Republican candidate could win if Roosevelt ran on a Progressive ticket. A three-party fight would insure the return of the Democrats to power. But Roosevelt had been unsparing in his criticism of the Democratic administration for its course towards Mexico and for what he regarded as its apparent indifference and even antagonism to any preparation for the event of war, as well as for its whole manner of dealing with the questions arising out of the war. And it is a high compliment to the belief of the delegates in Roosevelt's sense of public duty, that the great majority had absolute confidence that if they could nominate a candidate of high character whose record was not wholly reactionary, Roosevelt would support him rather than accept the nomination of the Progressive party and thus insure the return of the Democratic administration to power. In Mr. Justice Hughes the delegates to the Republican Convention had just the candidate they desired. His nomination was practically assured before the convention met. Four years before, had the leaders POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 423 kept their hands off the situation, the delegates, left to themselves, would have gone to Roosevelt with a hurrah. In this convention of 1916, had some of the leaders not hesitated, Hughes would have been nominated as rapidly as possible. The leaders did hesitate, and appointed a committee to confer with a similar committee appointed by the Progressive Convention to ascertain if a candidate satisfactory to both conventions could not be nominated. They did this because the enthusiasm of the delegates to the Progressive Convention showed that a real third party might still be ready to make the fight. The story of this Progressive Convention will some day be adequately told. A party which existed as an effective political organization only in spots, succeeded not only in going through all the forms of a great national convention, but in kindling anew among the delegates the fire and enthusiasm of four years before. But that is not the story of Roosevelt. True, he was the source of the inspiration and of the enthusiasm, but the executive direction that made possible this great national convention was that of Mr. George W. Perkins, who was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Progressive National Committee. From the beginning of the movement to nominate Roosevelt in 1912,. he had given of his timne and means to promote the progressive cause. The plan to force the Republican party to nominate Roosevelt in 1916 was primarily his plan. Every movement was well thought out and skilfully executed and the effort only failed of success because from the start success was impossible. The great majority of the delegates to the Progressive Convention throughout all the first meetings were 424 THEODORE ROOSEVELT buoyed up by the conviction that the Republicans would nominate Roosevelt. Many believed that the correct policy was to nominate him in the Progressive Convention and then adjourn, thus ending any hope of compromise on any other candidate. They failed to realize that such a course would place Roosevelt in the impossible position of declaring that he was the only candidate on whom the two parties could unite. But more than once the natural but wholly unwarranted suspicion went over the assembly that the leaders who counselled any other course were being fooled or were guilty of treachery to Roosevelt. Only the ability and force of Raymond Robbins, the chairman, and the absolute confidence of the delegates in him, kept the assembly from getting out of hand. For my own part, the recollection of those days and nights is like a nightmare. I had little hope of our success, and no one could have been a part of that gathering without realizing how bitter would be the inevitable disappointment of the delegates. There was, however, one moment of real satisfaction. I was again chairman of the Resolutions, or Platform, Committee, and as chairman, my duty was to read the platform prepared by the committee to the convention. For the first time, I believe, in the history of national conventions, the platform was not adopted until each plank had been voted on separately, and over many of the planks there was extended debate. But when I came to the plank dealing with the obligation of every citizen of a democracy to prepare in time of peace to defend the country in time of war, a great shout went up from the assembly. Then I knew that Roosevelt's educational campaign POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 425 for preparedeness had been successful with the great majority of those who followed him originally because of his position on social legislation and on the right of the people to rule; and I knew also that the way in which this plank had been received would give him greater satisfaction than anything that had happened at the convention. Saturday morning, the fourth day of the convention, as soon as word came that the Republicans were about to nominate Justice Hughes, the Progressives nominated Roosevelt. He at once telegraphed from Oyster Bay saying that the nomination would be declined if an immediate answer was desired, but that the declination would be regarded as conditional if it was referred to the Progressive National Committee. A meeting of the National Committee was called for June 26th, and the second and last Progressive National Convention adjourned. Within a few hours of Mr. Justice Hughes' nomination by the Republican Convention in Chicago, James R. Garfield and I, at Roosevelt's request, left Chicago for Oyster Bay. His object in sending for us was to have at first hand an account of the occurrences of the Progressive Convention and a better idea than was possible over the telephone of the sentiments and opinions of the different elements of which that convention had been composed. We arrived in New York Monday morning and a few hours later an automobile delivered us at Sagamore Hill. It was a lovely June morning. I have never seen the rolling, wooded country, the cove on which the little village of Oyster Bay is situated, and Sagamore Hill itself, wear a more charming aspect. Personally, 426 THEODORE ROOSEVELT however, I was out of tune with the beauty of the day, and this, I think, was true also of my companion. The ordeal of the Progressive Convention, the days and nights with little or no sleep, the disappointment at the result, had told on both of us; although the journey on the train had been a rest, we were far from rested. We found the Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt sitting on the side porch. I have never seen him more serene. There was not a trace of disappointment. We had not been with him ten minutes before our own overstrained nerves were relaxed. His moods were always contagious, and that morning he was content. Of course he would have been glad to have become President. As he himself expressed it, he enjoyed the job. But he also enjoyed many other things; above all, his home, his family, and all things pertaining to his life as a country gentleman. And so he was content, and his visitors, catching his spirit, grew content also. Not that he did not desire the nomination. He did desire it, but his whole heart and soul were in the work of arousing the American people to the duty of preparing, by military training, and in other ways, to maintain the rights and carry out the obligations of the United States. No man saw more clearly than he the German menace. The only reason for desiring the nomination which had any real hold on him at the time was the realization of the fact that through the nomination, and the consequent campaign for the Presidency, he would have the supreme opportunity of arousing the American people to the danger of their unpreparedness for war. As he himself said," My only regret is that I would have been able to carry on an educational campaign in a manner far more effective than for me is now possible." POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 427 For nearly three hours we went over with him all the details of the wonderful gathering, not of the delegates of an organized party, but of the patriotic men and women composing the second and last National Convention of the Progressive party. No one was better fitted than Garfield, who had been floor leader, to give him the details, and, what was more important, the wonderful spirit which had animated the convention, a spirit which those who witnessed it, as well as those of us who were a part of it, will never forget. Apart from his appreciation of the personal devotion to him shown by the delegates, he was most affected by the knowledge of the way in which the convention had reacted to the new issues which the European War had forced on the country. As I had anticipated, he was especially gratified and pleased with my account of the reception by the convention of the preparedness plank in the platform. The action of the Progressive Convention in nominating Colonel Roosevelt practically left entirely to him the question whether the Progressive party should or should not be continued. Of the right course for him to take he had not the slightest doubt. He believed that the forthcoming utterances of Mr. Hughes, as well as the attitude which Mr. Hughes would take in the ensuing two weeks towards Progressives, would make it improper for him to accept the Progressive nomination. His criticisms of the Democratic administration had been unsparing. To insure the re-election of the President by refusing to unite and to urge all Progressives to unite to secure the President's defeat would have been not only foolish, but morally unjustifiable. All this he stated to us clearly and somewhat 428 THEODORE ROOSEVELT emphatically, because he was already in receipt of many telegrams urging him to run as a third party candidate, and he never had much sympathy with persons who recommended unpractical action, especially if he believed the action under the circumstances essentially immoral. As anticipated, Mr. Hughes' position on public questions and his attitude towards the Progressive leaders who had called upon him was such that Roosevelt could follow his first impulse. He sent a communication to the Progressive National Committee, in Chicago, definitely declining the nomination, and declaring his intention to support Mr. Hughes. The great majority of the leaders of the party and of its members followed his advice and voted the Republican ticket in November. Mr. John M. Parker, of Louisiana, who was the nominee of the convention for Vice-President, and a few others prominent in the party, campaigned and voted for President Wilson. Roosevelt made his first speech for Hughes at Lewiston, on August 31st, and thereafter took an active part in his campaign, going as far west as Arizona. The contest was close, and the result was in doubt for several days after the election. Hughes carried most of the eastern states, but the southern and western vote finally swung the balance in favor of the President. Whether Roosevelt was surprised at Hughes' defeat, I can not say. Most eastern Republicans certainly expected to succeed, but Roosevelt had traveled in the West during the campaign, and was probably more in touch with the sentiment there than were most of Hughes' Eastern supporters. Roosevelt's whole record as President, and the whole course of his political actions after leaving the. White POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 429 House, as well as his speeches and editorials, show that his economic, social and political point of view towards questions was that of the evolutionist. He did not believe in revolution, violent or peaceful. He was not a political philosopher, dreaming of a new heaven and a new earth. There are three political types. One of these is the very large class who instinctively oppose change. These usually admit many existing evils, but are quite sure that these evils are for the most part due to "human nature," for which, of course, no one is responsible. At the other extreme are those reformers who look out upon the world and find it on the whole very bad; who want to sweep aside, at one stroke, existing institutions and basic economic and social ideas. To this class belong some of our socialists, and perhaps all of the Bolsheviki and other extremists. The third group are those who have no desire to turn the world upside down. They believe that permanent progress can only be secured by successive orderly changes in the modern industrial system and by eliminating its injustices one by one. To this third group Roosevelt belonged. He believed, without question, in all the fundamental principles upon which the material civilization of Europe and America are based —such as private property, private control of fixed capital, and private industrial enterprise. He refused to believe that the extreme conservatives and extreme radicals are right in their common assumption that poverty and destitution and great differences in wealth and opportunity are inherent elements of an industrial society having these conceptions of property, capital and enterprise. He was a great 430 THEODORE ROOSEVELT leader, not of the conservatives, not of the radicals, but of the moderates, the greatest single force in the country making for progress along historic Anglo-Saxon lines-the foremost disciple of orderly progress, equally opposed to reaction and to revolution. As we have seen, the chief underlying motives of Roosevelt's political action are found in his desire to prevent the Republican party from becoming the party opposed to change. Even his absorption in the progress of the World War did not prevent his taking every opportunity to urge the necessity of meeting dangerous radicalism by a frank recognition of existing evils and determined efforts for their correction. An illustration of his desire to awaken conservatives to the danger of indifference to social reform occurred on a visit to Philadelphia which he made a little over a year ago. He was the guest of Mr. Thomas Robins, who asked a number of persons prominent in the financial, social and political world to meet him at luncheon. I met him at the station, and on the way to Mr. Robins' house, he expressed his satisfaction at the opportunity which this would give him-an opportunity which he did not neglect-to impress the other guests with the importance of meeting existing social evils by constructive legislation. As examples of minimum reforms, I remember that he cited measures for the insurance of workmen against old age, sickness and unemployment. Again, before the luncheon, to a small group, he talked for nearly an hour on the danger of the movement which we have since come to know as Bolshevism, foretelling with wonderful accuracy how it would spread over Europe and how it would affect the United States. The question is universally asked whether, had he POLITICAL CAREER AFTER 1912 431 lived, he would have been the Republican candidate for President in 1920. Personally, I believe that there is only one possible answer to the question. When the time for the next Republican Convention came, there would have been an unanimous demand for his nomination, which he ought not, and would not, have declined. On the other hand, I am quite certain that he would have been glad to avoid another contest for the Presidency. The loss of old friendships in 1912 was a great grief to him. In the year preceding his death these old friendships had been renewed and most of the scars of contest had been healed. I think this era of good feeling made him apprehensive of new broils. In April, 1918, a friend referred to the year 1921 as the year when he would again enter the White House. He had been in one of his jocular moods, but he immediately became very serious. "No," he said, "not I. I don't want it, and I don't think I am the man to be nominated. I made too many enemies and the people are tired of my candidacy." This attitude towards his own candidacy, however, did not mean that he was not looking forward to taking part in the next Presidential contest. Though he did not desire, and perhaps did not expect, to be the candidate, he did expect to make, in 1920, what he realized would probably be the last great effort of his life. This effort would have been to unite all elements of the Republican party on a platform and on a man who would represent those fundamental ideals of democratic rule, social justice, and foreign policy which, throughout his life he spent himself to advance. CHAPTER XXVIII BOOKS AND SPEECHES* O NE of the great interests of Roosevelt's life was his literary work. He began this in college and continued it until his death. At first he directed his attention most to historical writing but as time went on and his life became fuller and fuller, the chronicling of his own activities and convictions occupied him more and more. It was with history that he began his literary career, his first volume being "The History of the Naval War of 1812," of which he wrote the early chapters while still in college. Two years later the book was published and, unlike most youthful efforts, it proved to be on the whole a decidedly good performance. In the first place, he went to first-hand sources for his facts, thereby correcting many mistakes of earlier historians, both American and British. Furthermore, despite his ardent patriotism, he strove to be thoroughly impartial. He showed, for instance, that Perry's fight on Lake Erie was by no means a triumph against odds; for though the British fleet had a greater number of guns, the American vessels threw half again as much metal as did their adversaries. On the other hand, he demonstrated that the victory of Lake Champlain had been undervalued. The maneuvering in every fight was, for the * In the writing of this chapter I have had the invaluable help of Mr. C. Wharton Stork, the author and critic, and of Mr. Roger B. Merriman, Assistant Professor of History at Harvard University. W. D. L. (432) BOOKS AND SPEECHES 433 first time, accurately described. But the heroic spirit of adventure was never lost sight of. Skill and courage, whether of friend or foe, were made to stand out strongly before the imagination of the reader. His longest and most painstaking work is "The Winning of the West," which he wrote in four volumes from 1889 to 1896. To this he dedicated his keenest enthusiasm and his most thorough research, and it is regarded by many critics as his most enduring contribution to literature. It shows a wholly admirable, scholarly audacity, the lack of which is responsible for the ridiculously narrow and over-specialized monographs turned out by some of our universities today. It was certainly no small feat, considering the difficulty of finding and collecting material thirty years ago, to produce the first work on the history of our territorial expansion from 1769 to 1807, which recognizes the real significance of the great West in the development of American civilization. His ranch life in the '80's, in spite of its arduous toil, left considerable opportunity for writing. In the more exacting years at Washington as a Civil Service Commissioner, he found less time for literary effort, but he did not abandon it altogether. Indeed, he expected it to take a large place in his life, for he had definitely decided by that time not to embark in business and to confine himself to literature and politics. Other demands upon him were so incessant that he sometimes grew despondent in regard to his literary future. He could not foresee that the great public work upon which he was so soon to enter would add greatly both to his power of writing and to the value of what he should write. He enjoyed his literary work thoroughly and found 28 434 THEODORE ROOSEVELT relaxation in it from the most pressing public cares. As soon as he returned from Cuba in 1898, he talked over the publication of "The Rough Riders" in magazine form with Robert Bridges, the editor of Scribner's. Shortly thereafter he began his campaign for the Governorship, but neither the campaign nor his duties after he took office prevented him from delivering the various instalments on schedule time. One day during his Presidency he sent for Mr. Bridges, and taking him into his library, drew from a drawer in the desk the complete manuscript of "Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter," ready for the printer, title page and all. "It isn't customary," he said "for Presidents to publish a book during office, but I am going to publish this one." The life of Oliver Cromwell was also written amid heavy responsibilities, while he was Governor of New York. It was a theme which must have stirred his inmost soul. The characters of subject and author had so much in common that it was almost inevitable that Roosevelt should have written the book. It shows less research than "The Winning of the West" or "The Naval War of 1812;" it does not always give the Royalists their due, and there are a number of minor slips; but a deep sympathetic understanding of the personalities and the times with which it deals shines forth on every page. Milton's great sonnet to the LordGeneral is the only preface. Roosevelt's historical works form the best possible antidote to the views of the deterministic school, who would eliminate human character, passions, and ambitions as a motive force in the development of the world. History for him was first and foremost a story, in which BOOKS AND SPEECHES 435 the man was always the principal factor, the primary interest. This quality, which gave such vitality to his writings, inevitably tinged them also with partisanship; so clearly and forcibly did the side that appealed to him present itself to his mind that he sometimes failed to appreciate the other. Certainly he was not always judicial, And yet the very fact that bias was so obvious made the defect, comparatively speaking, harmless. The sort of historical partisanship which is really dangerous is that which masquerades under the guise of impartiality; but one could see at a glance where Roosevelt's sympathies lay, and could make one's reservations accordingly. The majority of his casual readers would probably accuse him of "making the great lines of the past converge upon the point of view which the mentality of the moment imposes," as the modern German historian has so often done. Their penciled comments in the margins of the public library copies of his different works show plainly that his own political career was ever uppermost in their minds. It is not possible to hold him guiltless of this charge. When he was dealing with a great historical figure whose life had stood for the ideals he had lived for and loved, unhistorical parallels were bound to occur to him. But the wonder really is that he stopped where he did. Often there is a suggestion, very rarely anything more; and, in view of the variety and intensity of his political activities, his restraint in this particular is worthy of high praise. He usually dictated his magazine articles and books and then thoroughly revised the typewritten copy. He could carry an enormous amount of detail accurately in his head. When he was writing a book he would 436 THEODORE ROOSEVELT furnish himself with all the necessary facts and references and then with a pad of memoranda before him begin to dictate quite rapidly and with remarkable accuracy. Colonel W. H. Crooks speaks of the extraordinary facility with which he dictated. On one occasion, while he was in the White House, he had read a rather heavy historical work of considerable length. Calling in his stenographer he began to write a letter of criticism to the author of the book, and continued without pause for two hours. When the exhausted stenographer emerged from his office he was replaced by another to whom the President immediately began to dictate a manuscript dealing with important political matters. Roosevelt's books of adventure describing his hunting and exploring trips in the West and in South America and Africa, are first-class works of their kind. Always careful of the truth, he had an eye for beauty and for adventure which enabled him to make these books not only readable, but in many places absorbing. He was often accused of being an egotist but in these stories he shows the modesty of the real sportsman, leaving facts to speak for themselves. This they do most effectively. The man who kills a cougar with a hunting knife, who shoots a grizzly at such short range that it comes within striking distance of him, has small need of a medal for bravery. Nor do we fail to get the fine AngloSaxon spirit of fellowship in danger. The author's companions, even the dogs, are characterized with affection. The reader finally comes to share the hunter's fondness for a favorite Springfield rifle. The adventures are thrilling in themselves, and doubly so from the character of the narrator. "African Game Trails," which is probably the greatest BOOKS AND SPEECHES 437 of his hunting books, was written by his own hand word for word, in the depths of the Dark Continent. No matter how severe the day's work had been he sat on a camp stool every evening writing out the story of the day's events. As each chapter of the narrative was completed it was sent by runners from the heart of Africa to be dispatched to his publishers in America. In his later years his style developed possibilities unsuspected in his earlier works. In "The Naval War of 1812," and even in "The Winning of the West," the words did not always seem to come to him when he wanted them. At times the reader is conscious of a great pent-up force of feeling and enthusiasm, striving vainly to burst the bonds that prevented its expression. But in the course of the next twenty years his vocabulary increased apace. His epithets became the despair of his political foes, and passages of unusual and peculiar eloquence appeared with increasing frequency in his speeches and in his writings. It is not uncommon to find in his works such striking and eloquent passages as this, which occurred in his address on "History as Literature," delivered before the American Historical Association at Boston, in December 1912. "The true historian will bring the past before our eyes, as if it were the present. He will make us see as living men the hard-faced archers of Agincourt, and the war-worn spearmen who followed Alexander down beyond the rim of the known world. We shall hear grate on the coast of Britain, the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves whose children's children were to inherit unknown continents. We shall thrill to the triumphs of Hannibal. Gorgeous in our sight will rise the splendor of dead cities, and the might of the elder empires of which the very 438 THEODORE ROOSEVELT ruins crumbled to dust ages ago. Along ancient traderoutes, across the world's waste spaces, the caravans shall move; and the admirals of uncharted seas shall furrow the oceans with their lonely prows. Beyond the dim centuries we shall see the banners float above armed hosts. We shall see conquerors riding forward to victories that have changed the course of time. We shall listen to the prophecies of forgotten seers. Ours shall be the dreams of dreamers who dreamed greatly, who saw in their vision peaks so lofty that never yet have they been reached by the sons and daughters of men." He has enriched the language with striking words and phrases which we of this generation will not forget. Some of these were his own; others he made his own and associated irrevocably with himself. The "square deal," "race suicide," "malefactors of great wealth," the "big stick;" who does not think of Roosevelt when he hears these expressions used? For more than seventeen years the American people were accustomed to read his words and to express with them their own thoughts. The Man with a Muck-rake is as old as Pilgrim's Progress, but it was Roosevelt who put "muck-raking" into our every-day vocabulary. "Pussy-footing" is also his. When a political friend sounded him about his candidacy for the Republican nomination in 1916, he answered: "Don't you do it if you expect me to pussy-foot on any single issue I have raised." We all know what "weasel words" are since he thus characterized the phrase "universal, voluntary, military training," explaining that "voluntary," like a weasel, sucked the strength from the "universal." Immediately after he left the White House in 1909 BOOKS AND SPEECHES 439 he became a contributing editor of the Outlook and continued that connection for more than five years, until July 3, 1914. During that time he wrote extensively, and his articles and editorials form a valuable body of comment on current political problems and social conditions. During the last years of his life he was an associate editor of the Metropolitan Magazine and through its columns carried on a large part of his campaign for preparedness and for a whole-hearted prosecution of the war. He was an omnivorous reader and devoured an enormous, quantity of books. This was partly because he never wasted a minute during the day, and was usually reading unless he was engaged in work, conversation, or exercise, and partly because he had the remarkable faculty of reading by paragraphs. The ordinary man reads along word for word or, at the most, sentence by sentence, but Roosevelt seemed to grasp the substance of an entire paragraph by a rapid survey of it, and not only to grasp its substance, but to have phrases and even sentences fixed in his memory. In all my life I have only seen one other man who had the same gift. Roosevelt was not a newspaper reader. He glanced over the newspaper and quickly absorbed any news which was of real interest to him. He would pass over the account of a murder or of a society scandal without so much as seeing it, and his eye would travel straight to the heart of whatever he considered really vital. His reading was almost entirely of books and to some extent of magazine articles. He had a comprehensive big-game library at Sagamore Hill and gave much time and thought to the reading of books on natural history. He was very fond of history, English, 440 THEODORE ROOSEVELT French, Greek, Latin, indeed of any nationality. At one of the most strenuous periods of his Presidential career, he suddenly became immersed in the history of Tamerlane. An important matter of foreign policy did not go forward with the speed which a certain member of his Cabinet desired. Some one pleaded as an excuse the pressure of internal affairs. "No, no," came the impatient Secretary's reply. "It's not that, it's those damned Mongols." He never had an idle moment. There was always a book by his side to which he could turn even though the interval for reading was only two or three minutes. On the trip through the Brazilian wilderness he carried Gibbon's History with him, and as soon as he reached the camping spot in the evening, would take shelter from the rain beneath a tree and plunge into the book. While he read he was totally immersed in his book and totally oblivious of everything else. This power of concentration was no doubt largely responsible for the fact that he remembered the subject-matter of his reading so accurately. During the Republican Convention of 1912, at Chicago, I suddenly found it necessary to confer with Roosevelt, whose headquarters were at the very end of the Congress Hotel from the room in which my committee was sitting. It is a large hotel and the corridors and stairway were as usual jammed with an excited mass of humanity, shouting, "We want Teddy!" Early football training was instinctively recalled, and after some twenty minutes' struggle I succeeded in reaching his headquarters and passed through the anterooms to his private room. The roar of the great crowd, through which I had pushed my way, and of the far greater BOOKS AND SPEECHES 441 crowd in the streets, together with the discordant tones of half a dozen bands, filled the room. The Colonel was alone. He sat in a rocking-chair, reading. As I came in he looked up quietly and I saw that the book which he held in his hand was Herodotus, the Greek historian. He had an extraordinary ability to relax under the most unfavorable conditions, and the relaxation usually took the form of reading. During the campaign in Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1914, he toured the state for several-days in behalf of the Progressive candidate for United States Senator, Gifford Pinchot, and on behalf of the Democratic-Progressive candidate for Governor, Vance McCormick. It will be remembered that, at the time, he had only recently returned from South America, and was far from being in his usual health. It is the testimony of those who have passed through the experience, that nothing is more taxing to the strength than a campaign tour. On this particular trip, Colonel Roosevelt entered the state at Easton, his first speech being made from the rear platform of the train at that place. His voice was far from strong, and his whole appearance was that of a man thoroughly tired. A few days later, when he left the state, after speaking many times each day from the train at various stations, besides long noon and longer evening addresses in public squares and halls, his voice was strong and his whole physical aspect was changed and improved. As a matter of fact, the campaign had rested him. He had come from a trying political situation in New York, and the hearty personal welcome he received in all parts of Pennsylvania gratified and stimulated him. Besides this, he had actually had a great deal of 442 THEODORE ROOSEVELT rest. He had a stateroom in the,rear car, and, for the greater part of the time, when not meeting delegates or speaking, he rested in this stateroom. As was his custom, he had brought with him a book having nothing to do with politics. On this occasion it was Sir Walter Scott's "Anne of Geierstein," a novel which he confessed he found very disappointing, and for this reason the rest on his bed in the stateroom between speeches often took the form of a short doze. The train would stop at a station. Great mobs of cheering people, sometimes numbering thousands, crowding the station platform, would swarm over the tracks at the rear of the train. A local delegation would be admitted at the forward end of his car, while some member of our party would at once begin talking from the rear platform to the people outside who were impatient to hear "Teddy." It was occasionally my duty to shepherd the delegation past Colonel Roosevelt's stateroom in order that each one might see him personally. There was an element of humor in his quick transition from a sleepy reader of medieval story to a political leader greeting friends and admirers. For every guest he had a vigorous handshake and a hearty word of greeting as each passed the stateroom door. The delegation received, he would push his way vigorously through the crowd jammed in the small rear drawing-room of the car, and out on the 'platform. A three-minute talk in characteristic style, usually cut short by the train's pulling out of the station, a wave of his hand, a great shout from the assembled crowd, and half a minute later a rather sleepy gentleman was lying on the bed in his stateroom, reading "Anne of Geierstein." *0 BOOKS AND SPEECHES 443 He was not only fond of history but of more abstruse subjects. Darwin, Huxley, Carlyle and Emerson were among his favorites. But he believed that the great need to be met by reading was the need of knowing human nature and that this could come only through reading the great imaginative writers, whether of prose or of poetry. For this reason he loved novels, poems, ballads and simple epics. He never did enjoy dramas and humbly acknowledged his failure in that respect, but his taste was otherwise so catholic that he can be forgiven a distaste for one form of literature. The secret of his success as a public speaker lay in the charm and power of his personality, his keen appreciation of the temper of his audience, and, above all, in the fact that he never consented to make an address unless he had something he wanted to say. He was always vitally interested in getting his hearers to see the truth as he saw it, and to take a definite course of action. His preparation for a speech was always thorough, and for any occasion of importance, what he had to say was prepared, usually, several days beforehand, and always in time to have it sent to the newspapers of the country for simultaneous publication at the time of its delivery. In preparing addresses, especially political addresses or statements, he usually invited those who were in sympathy with him and whose criticisms and suggestions he desired to secure, to hear what he dictated as he dictated it, or to talk over with him a typewritten draft. For the many who at different times were thus called, it was always a delightful experience. I well remember the first time he ever sent for me. It was in connection with the address which he made in 444 THEODORE ROOSEVELT New York City, in Carnegie Hall, on the 20th day of March, 1912. I arrived at Sagamore Hill at dusk, during the first windy mutterings of a storm which later blew down trees and deluged with rain the entire countryside. The unlit hall was as dark as a pocket, and I did not realize that Colonel Roosevelt was beside me until I heard his quiet greeting, "I am very glad to see you, Dean." Together with a member of the New York Bar who had also been invited, we adjourned to the library. The afternoon tea came quickly, and for an hour the conversation turned on. anything and everything except politics and the object which had brought us to Oyster Bay. Mrs. Roosevelt and the other members of the family being away, the Colonel was alone, but we all dressed for dinner, that being the invariable custom of the house. After dinner, the Colonel having disposed of a group of reporters then resident in the village, who had come out for their daily statement concerning matters affecting his campaign for the Republican nomination, we adjourned to his low-ceilinged study on the right-hand of the hallway as one entered the house. On opposite sides of this room were the Colonel's desk near the window and an oil painting of his father upon the wall. We found that the speech was already in manuscript form. I think the copy we used was the second or third revision. At any rate, the Colonel himself had already made numerous corrections in pencil. It is the experience of most persons called in by authors to criticise their manuscript that the real object for which they have been summoned is not to criticise, but to give the author the pleasure of hearing himself BOOKS AND SPEECHES 445 read what he has written, the function of the supposed critics being usually akin to that of the claqueur at the theater. But no one ever had this experience with Colonel Roosevelt. When the Colonel asked you to criticise, he meant what he said, and no author ever took criticisms and suggestions more freely. But to this amenability to criticism there was one important limitation. You could not help him unless you thoroughly understood the main things he had determined to say, and why he had determined to say them. He did not want you to debate with him the wisdom of these fundamental things. He would refuse to debate them. What he wanted was not to be told what to say, but to be helped how to say it. With this limitation, my experience was that he accepted criticism too readily. Often after the preliminary draft of an address or statement had been submitted to a group, I felt that his almost too ready acceptance of suggestions and criticisms had, in many instances, failed to improve the production as a whole. This willingness to accept criticism and take suggestions caused me, I remember, much difficulty on this particular evening. I liked the address as he had written it, and had only a few suggestions to make. The lawyer from New York, on the other hand, wanted a considerable number of modifications, and I soon found myself, as on other occasions, contending for the forms of expressions originally used. He read the typewritten sheets aloud, not minding the least if one or the other of us interrupted him before he had completed a single sentence. When, some time after twelve o'clock, we had apparently reached the end, he said: "Ic shall have to sit up and go over this 446 THEODORE ROOSEVELT again tonight, because it must go to the newspapers tomorrow to insure its publication on the morning after I make the address. But before you go to bed I should like to read you a concludirg paragraph which I have written. This is what I feel I want to say." From the drawer of the desk he took several soiled pieces of gray tissue manuscript, on which he had written in pencil. The light from the single lamp shone on the desk and was reflected on his face, the rest of the room was dark save for the fitful light from a dying fire, outside the fierce storm lashed against the windows, as he read to us the final paragraph of this-one of the greatest of his speeches-a paragraph which, when delivered a few nights later, brought a vast audience to its feet, and when published stirred the hearts of millions of his fellow countrymen. They were great words, and praise would have belittled them. When his voice ceased we rose and, with a simple good-bye, left him and passed out into the night. CHAPTER XXIX LIFE AT SAGAMORE HILL R OOSEVELT'S family life was as intense as his public life. His wife and children and home were next to his heart, together with his country. He believed that the strength of the nation lay in the tenderness and in the fine love of American parents and children for one another, and in his own life he practiced his belief. Unlike many public men, his home was not only a place for rest and recreation; it was his workshop too. In it were gathered all those whom he loved best, and in it his greatest labor was performed. Most men have one place for home and another for work, but he was able to bring both beneath a single roof. This was of course true while he was at the White House. It was true, too, of his later years at his home at Sagamore Hill. True, he had an office in the city, at first with the Outlook-afterwards with the Metropolitan, and during the last six months with the New York office of the Kansas City Star, and he went to town one or more days a week, depending on the work that for the time engaged his attention. He attended to considerable correspondence, did some work and saw many people, both for their convenience and his own, at his office, but, nevertheless, his home remained the center of his working life as well as the center of his family life. The daily routine at Sagamore Hill was regulated by the owner's habits of work. Breakfast was not always (447) 448 THEODORE ROOSEVELT an early meal, as Roosevelt often worked late, sometimes until after midnight. On the night I went over his Carnegie Hall speech with him, I left him at one o'clock in the morning, but he remained at his desk until four, going over the manuscript. In the morning he might take a hard canter, a good walk or chop wood for an hour or more, but more often, breakfast over, he would plunge into his correspondence. The fact that at the White House he could keep abreast of his letters so that each one was replied to on the day of its receipt was sufficiently wonderful, but it was still more extraordinary that as a private citizen with necessarily less absolute command of his time than when he was President and without unlimited clerical resources, with all the work that the did, he could keep abreast, day by day, with his enormous correspondence. Unless the day had been reserved for some family expedition or for some particular or serious piece of work, about 10:30 the guests began to arrive. These always came by appointment. No public man has ever been more insistent upon and has more successfully maintained his own and his family's right of privacy. When he was in the White House, as we have seen, there were hours when practically any American citizen could call on him and he would interrupt his morning's work to shake by the hand dozens of persons who merely came to see the President. But Sagamore Hill was not the White House. It was the home of a private citizen, and curiosity seekers were not encouraged. Even his intimate friends, respecting the conditions arising out of the many claims upon his time, rarely came to Oyster Bay without by note or telephone giving him an opportunity to arrange an hour convenient to him. LIFE AT SAGAMORE HILL 449 But those who did come by appointment were not few. In the course of a single year their numbers ran into the hundreds and their occupations were just as varied as the interests of the man they came to see. "You certainly meet all sorts of people at Cousin Theodore's," said one of his younger relatives. This remark, I think, probably represents the attitude of most of his guests towards their fellow guests. Each saw people he was not apt to meet anywhere else. The guests were not always glad to see each other. Often two or more would come, each filled with his own errand, and wanting much of his host's time. As the trains do not run every few minutes from New York to Oyster Bay, and as all who wanted to see him could not come out from the city by automobile, it not infrequently happened that several persons were given an appointment at the same hour and arrived on the same train. I have more than once been amused at the expression of annoyance unconsciously manifested on the face of a guest who, on arriving at the station at Oyster Bay, found three or more others bound for Sagamore Hill. Their efforts to be polite, or, if known to each other, to simulate cordiality, were painful to them and entertaining to the onlooker. The morning batch of guests seen and their business attended to, the hour of luncheon would usually bring still others. A luncheon at Sagamore Hill might contain as varied an assortment of guests as at the White House, when he was President, but by three o'clock or shortly after the guests were usually gone. The next two hours were devoted to Mrs. Roosevelt. They would walk or ride or row together. All his appointments were arranged to keep these hours open. Absolutely congenial in their tastes; dependent on each 29 450 THEODORE ROOSEVELT other, neither was dependent on people. They loved to go off alone together. This lack of dependence on people was one of Roosevelt's marked traits which affected all the arrangements and the conduct of his home. He liked to meet interesting people. He had literally hundreds of warm personal friends. He was full of humor, loved to tell and hear good stories and, most of all, loved to exchange ideas with persons who sympathized with his own view-point towards the subject under discussion. But to spend an entire day talking, even with his friends, was for him impossible. The newspapers never had occasion to inform the American people that Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt had gone to Palm Beach or other popular resort for a few days' or weeks' rest. He once said to me, referring to a mutual friend, "His idea of rest is to go to a seaside resort and sit all day among a crowd of people on the hotel piazza. I can not understand it." Such a rest would have been torture to him. His relaxation was to go with Mrs. Roosevelt, alone, or with the children on an all-day row or ride and picnic. The country around Sagamore Hill and the shores of the bay and sound afforded hundreds of interesting objective points for such expeditions. The walk or the ride over, there was tea in the famous North Room, to which came all the members of the family and their guests; also, not infrequently, those who came from New York to dine or spend the night. After he became President, he and Mrs. Roosevelt never went out to dinner except to his cousin's, Mr. W. Emlen Roosevelt, who owns the adjoining place. Indeed, the only place of assembly that he habitually frequented was his Lodge. The members were the village people LIFE AT SAGAMORE HILL 451 the storekeepers, gardeners, superintendents of the country places. Here he had an opportunity to study the hopes, trials, needs and the aspirations of the people. He therefore grew to know the life and the point of view of all classes in the little village, and many of his ideas on the improvement of country life came from this firsthand and intimate knowledge. If he seldom went to see his neighbors, they came tb see him. He was an adviser of the entire community. The smallest child, the mother, the head of the family, the worker, all came to him with their troubles and their problems, and never found him too busy to take a real interest and give them such help and advice as he could. On Sunday afternoons, when his children were young, he would take them walking, and with them also would go the cousins who lived in the neighboring houses. At one time there were as many as sixteen children, altogether. Roosevelt loved children, and they adored him. When I asked Mrs. Langdon Warner, one of the sixteen now grown up, with children of her own, what most attracted her, as a child, to her cousin, she said: "He was always perfectly just and fair. He had no favorites and as few rules as possible. On these walks we would race and wade and climb. We children, however, were expected, within reason, to protect ourselves. If there was a slip in climbing a tree because both hands were not used, home we went. Hands were made to be used, and a child must learn how to use them. If we waded in a brook and fell, home we went again. In this way we learned how to take care of ourselves, and we never regarded the punishment which was the consequence of our clumsiness as unfair." Occasionally there would be point-to-point walks with 452 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the children, like his walks with the grown-ups along Rock Creek in Washington. A distant point would be selected and he and the other children would make a bee-line for it, swimming ponds, wading brooks, scrambling up rocks and pushing through bushes until the object was reached. On one of these occasions, when one of the cousins returned home with wet, mud-covered and torn dress, her mother meted out punishment. On the child's protesting that "Cousin Theodore took them," the indignant mother replied, "I don't care. You must not be a fool, even if your Cousin Theodore sets you the example." This love for children never flagged. Had he lived, no doubt his grandchildren, when old enough, would have taken point-to-point walks with their grandfather. "The first time he came to breakfast with me," writes Mr. Thomas Robins, "my small boy was brought into the hall to see him. A gathering of prominent men was awaiting him in the drawing-room. I had come in with the Colonel and was taking off my overcoat while he spoke to the child. Suddenly, to my surprise, I saw the boy and the Colonel streaking up the first flight, evidently bound for the nursery. I puffed after them and when I reached the third floor, found the Colonel and the boy, side by side, stretched out on the floor, participating in the operation of a miniature electric railway. "'That's right, Tommy, safety first,' he was saying to the child as I entered. "The two boys were working the toy together and were equally oblivious of the fact that a goodly company was waiting below to meet the greatest man of the age. That child always spoke of the Colonel afterward as my friend. "He loved everything that associated him with youth, LIFE AT SAGAMORE HILL 453 everything that kept him young. Soon after he came back from South America, I made a short journey with him. He had not got over his jungle fever and was having a bout with temperature every afternoon. I ventured a retrospective remonstrance. "'What on earth, Colonel, has a man of your age to do with explorations, anyway?" "'Youth will be served, Tom,' was his answer. 'It was my last chance to be a boy.'" Roosevelt was happy in owning a home which was peculiarly adapted to enable him to lead the kind of life as a private citizen for which he was best suited. It was near enough to New York to enable him to reach that city in less than two hours by train or automobile.. He could therefore' go to town without spending the night, and people could come to see him and return during the morning or afternoon. Yet Oyster Bay was far enough out of New York and away from any line of travel to discourage anyone from calling upon him who was not willing to make a special and considerable effort. Though that part of the shore of Long Island Sound is taken up by places of the well-to-do, his home was not in the suburbs-it was thoroughly in the country, and all Roosevelt's pleasures were of the kind that needed fields and woods and open spaces. In his "Autobiography" he tells us, "At Sagamore Hill we love a great many things-birds and trees and books and all things beautiful, and horses and rifles and children and hard work and the joy of life. We have great fireplaces and in them the logs roar and crackle during the long winter evenings. The big piazza is for the hot, still afternoons of summer." You can feel the affection for his home in every line. 454 THEODORE ROOSEVELT The place contains about eighty acres. The visitor approaches the house from the main road which runs along the shore of Oyster Bay, by a fairly steep drive. The house itself is on the top of the hill, overlooking the Sound and surrounded by lawns and fields, and screened from the neighboring houses by belts of woods. Roosevelt purchased the place and built the main part of the house in the early eighties. The North Room was added while he was President. This North Room, which is the most charming feature of the ground floor, is reached from the end of the hall farthest from the entrance by descending a few steps. It is a large, highceilinged room, much lived in and thoroughly homelike, with a great fireplace inviting intimate talk among friends and the chat which comes with afternoon tea. Certainly there is nothing about the room which ever suggested its use for stiff and formal conversation-though it has been the scene of some of the most momentous political conferences in the history of the United States. Roosevelt received many gifts from all sorts of people. The house is filled with interesting things from every corner of the earth, given him by kings and emperors and dowager empresses, as well as by foreign universities and cities. There are other things which, because of personal association, their owner treasured more, such as a Remington bronze, "The Bronco Buster," given him by the Rough Riders, and Proctor's "Cougar," the gift of the Tennis Cabinet. There are also great elephant tusks and other trophies of his hunting trips. But the house is not a museum; it is a home. The living room is a place to live in, not to gaze at curios. There are some heads of wild animals, but, unlike the homes of other hunters I have known, the guest does not eat his LIFE AT SAGAMORE HTJIL 455 meals under the staring glass eyes of rows of dead beasts. In short, it is exactly the kind of home that those who knew him well would expect to find-the home of a simple, quiet, cultivated gentleman. There may still be left a few persons who obtained their ideas of Roosevelt from newspapers bitterly hostile to him politically, or who only saw him as he stood on the rear platform of a train during an exciting campaign. These may still have the impression that he was always slapping people on the back and declaring that he was "delighted," or at least that he was a boisterous and familiar person whose animal spirits pervaded his intercourse with others at the expense of good taste and sometimes of good manners. Nothing could be further from the real facts. Roosevelt had strong feelings. He often acted vigorously and spoke emphatically. Even in dictating a letter to his secretary, if he had something which he wished to put strongly, he would accompany the dictation with an emphatic bang of his fist on the' table or the arm of his chair. But those who came as his guests to Sagamore Hill never failed to be impressed not only with the warmth but with the dignity of his welcome. While always uniformally courteous and unassuming, there was a dignity in his intercourse which prevented familiarity by any except life-long, close personal friends. He had many intimate friends whom he called by their first names, but unless they had known him practically all their lives, and were of the same age, they rarely spoke of him or to him as "Theodore." On a campaign, when he was addressing large crowds, there were often frequent shouts of "Teddy." This he did not mind; indeed, he liked it, but I have never seen a man bold 456 THEODORE ROOSEVELT enough, when meeting him, to call him "Teddy." There was something about his personality which prevented even the thought of that kind of familiarity. I have never known him to listen to a questionable story, and I have some doubt whether anyone ever had the hardihood to tell him one. Part of this dignity arose from his innate self-respect, as well as from his courteous consideration of others. It was also due to the fact that in many respects he was an old-fashioned gentleman with the punctilious manners of an elder day. This was especially marked in his relations with women. After the death of his friend Dr. J. William White, he always stayed, when in Philadelphia, with Mr. Thomas Robins. In a letter referring to some of his characteristics, Mr. Robins says: "It is true of him that on the social side he was a stand-patter. His dress was always in the fashion of the early eighties, when he was a novice in politics. He never changed the cut of his clothes with the change in fashion. His household was regulated after the manner of the well-to-do forty years ago. He liked to come to Philadelphia because he found life here more like that in which he had grown up. He used to talk and write to me of earlier days, when he frequently visited Mrs. Roosevelt's uncle, George Tyler, and of the marvelous home-cooking in that hospitable mansion-now pulled down-at Fifteenth and Walnut Streets. He was wont to say that he liked the. way in which our food was served, undisguised by the art of the chef. "'When I dine out in New York,' he said to me once, 'potatoes look like flowers and the ice cream looks like foliage. I can't distinguish the food from the landscape." "It was evident that he liked the ways of the last I I I 1 ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ mp~ fOp tOp 0Xt LIFE AT SAGAMORE HILL 457 generation and its absence of 'side.' After the death of a friend in Philadelphia with whom he had spent some days at different times, he wrote to me: "'In an age which even its upholders must admit to be rather blatantly vulgar, it was a comfort to go to his house and see its dear mistress and master and feel, down to the least detail, the sense of refinement and of living with Old School gentlefolk.' "On the other hand, he would not compromise with his dignity to gratify imaginary prejudices of the plain people against the formalities of life that were the habits and traditions of his kind. 'I shall wear evening clothes,' he said about a speech he was to make after dining with me, adding whimsically, 'controlling any desire. I may have to go Jim Corbett one better in the matter of ornamental finery.'" - His courtesy came not merely from his social training, but from his heart. It extended, not only to his personal associates, but to all the members of his friends' house-: holds. He always remembered the names of the servants, and if they were from French-speaking countries his little word at parting was spoken in their own language, with a warm handshake. Nothing gave him greater concern than that he might unconsciously have shown some lack of consideration for others. Once he came to Philadelphia to deliver a lecture on his Brazilian experiences. Through an unfortunate accident, he was twenty minutes late. The fact that he had shown an apparent, though wholly unintentional discourtesy, so disturbed him that it affected his entire lecture, which lacked something of his usual punch. "I have never in my life heard a cruel word from his lips,' one of his relatives once said to me: "He dislikes and despises many people, 458 THEODORE ROOSEVELT but even when he wants to annihilate them, he is never mean or cruel or petty about it." No one could go to Sagamore Hill without realizing in some degree the air of happiness that pervaded his home. "There are many forms of triumph," he said, "but there is no other success that in any shape or way approaches that which is open to most of the many, many men and women who have the right ideals. These are the men and the women who see that it is the intimate and homely things that count most. They are the men and women who have the courage to strive for the happiness which comes only with labor, effort and self-sacrifice, and only to those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of duty." To all who knew and loved him it is an infinite satisfaction to know that the "homely things that count most" were his in fullest measure. CHAPTER XXX THE WORLD WAR-HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE T HE great war began on July 28, 1914. It brought to Roosevelt the opportunity for his last great service to his country. From the beginning of hostilities in Europe until the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918, he never ceased calling upon America to prepare for the inevitable struggle, and when that struggle came, to push it through to a successful conclusion. In the early days of the war, the most important question for this country was the question raised by Germany's invasion of Belgium. In the Outlook of September 23d, Roosevelt first wrote of this, expressly stating that in this article he did not intend to pass judgment upon Germany. He advocated the maintenance of American neutrality but was careful not to express himself with regard to the propriety or duty of protesting officially against the invasion of Belgium. At the time of this public statement he was anxious to do nothing which might embarrass the President, and he therefore put in writing only a part of what he really had in mind. In conferences with his fellow-editors of the Outlook, and in a private talk with one of the staff of the Kansas City Star, he made it plain that in his opinion, good morals and good Americanism demanded a protest against the violation of Belgium in contravention of the Hague Treaty. A year and a half later at the Republican State (459) 460, THEODORE ROOSEVELT Convention in New York City, Elihu Root criticised the President for his failure to send a stern protest to Germany when Belgium was first invaded. At the Democratic Convention a few days later, ex-Governor Glynn answered Root by a counter-attack upon Roosevelt, who was by this time generally regarded as the foremost Republican critic of the Administration. Glynn produced with delight Roosevelt's Outlook article of September, 1914, and quoted from it certain isolated.passages which seemed to indicate that at that time the Colonel did not favor sending a protest in the Belgium matter. But Glynn's address, although it afforded comfort to himself and to his hearers, was not based upon the complete facts. Roosevelt, with his strong conviction that a protest against the Belgium outrage should have been lodged at once, had been careful not to preclude himself from later stating this conviction. In the course of this article he had said: "Neutrality may be of prime necessity to maintain peace,.... but we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, by forfeiting our right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians at present." Although he did not yet say so in public, he believed that our right to protest the rape of Belgium was also our duty. The testimony of Mr. Lawrence F. Abbott, one of the editors of the Outlook, shows conclusively that he was convinced at the time that the protest should be made, although he refrained from making any public declaration on the matter, in order to leave the President as free a hand as possible. His real conviction in the matter appears in a subsequent statement made when he felt that circumstances justified him in breaking silence: I , Ud erwoot P:n~be Nfrrma io THE FOUR SOLDIER SONS OF COLONEL ROOSEVELT Upper Idtf: Lietienant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., U. S. A. Upper right: Captain Archibald Roosevel~t U. S. A. Lower left: Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt EU. S. A. (killed in aerial battle; July 17, 1918); Lower right: Captain Ker mit Roosevelt, Britih Army, Mesopotamian Expedition. ( ^l HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE 461 "I feel in the strongest way that we should have interfered, at least to the extent of the most emphatic diplomatic protest and at the very outset-and then by whatever further action was necessary-in regard to the violation of the neutrality of Belgium; for this act was the earliest and the most important and, in its consequences, the most ruinous of all the violations and offenses against treaties committed by any combatant during the war." The Lusitania was sunk on May 7, 1915. She was torpedoed without warning and carried with her to their graves 1,153 souls, of whom 114 were Americans. In an instant the country was ablaze from end to end. Roosevelt two days later made a public statement through the press, in which he charged that "for many months our government has preserved between right and wrong a neutrality which would have excited the emulous admiration of Pontius Pilate-the arch-typical neutral of all time." He spoke with intense indignation of the crime itself and of the frightful wrongs which had been committed in Belgium and concluded: "Unless we act with immediate decision and vigor we shall have failed in the duty demanded by humanity at large, and demanded even more clearly by the self-respect of the American Republic." On the next day the President delivered an address to a body of newly naturalized citizens in Convention Hall, Philadelphia. The nation was waiting breathlessly for a pronouncement on the issue raised by the Lusitania. The President made no reference to the Lusitania, but he made one statement which amazed and perplexed millions of his fellow-citizens. With the death cries of American men, women and children ringing in their ears 462 THEODORE ROOSEVELT they read the President's words: "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right." It is not hard to imagine what Roosevelt's feelings must have been when he read this speech, and how he must have longed to resume, if only for an hour, the powers of the presidency. But he was powerless, except to utter his thoughts, and in doing this he had ceased to attempt any concealment of his feelings. He had a perfectly definite conviction as to what ought to be done: "Without twenty-four hours' delay this country should and could take effective action. It should take possession of all the interned German ships, including the German warships, and hold them as a guarantee that ample satisfaction shall be given us. Furthermore it should declare that in view of Germany's murderous offenses against the rights of neutrals all commerce with Germany shall be forthwith forbidden and all commerce of every kind permitted and encouraged with France, England, Russia, and the rest of the civilized world. "I do not believe that the firm assertion of our rights' means war, but, in any event, it is well to remember there are things worse than war." Thereafter he condemned again and again the Administration's inaction and the policy of note-writing which had been resorted to. To the end of his life he was firmly persuaded that instant action of the kind which he had advocated at the time was the imperative duty of the nation. Instead of that, he said, "for two years after the Lusitania was sunk, we continued to fawn on the blood-stained murderers of our people, we were false to ourselves and we were false to the cause of right HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE 463 and of liberty and democracy throughout the world. Had we done our duty when the Lusitania was sunk, instead of following the advice of the apostles of greedy and peaceable infamy, the World War with its dreadful slaughter would long ago have been over." As time went on, his controversy with the Administration became more and more acute. On August 25, 1915, he addressed the Reserve Officers' Training Camp at Plattsburg, N. Y., at the invitation of Major-General Leonard Wood. He spoke with indignation of the existing American policy with respect to Mexico, saying, "we have treated elocution as a substitute for action." Again he condemned our failure to protest the invasion of Belgium which he said it was our bounden duty to do, and asserted that for thirteen months America had played an ignoble part among the nations. After the speech he told the reporters that he did not consider that the President was entitled to popular support except in so far as he justified that support by a proper regard for the welfare of the country. This speech made a tremendous stir. Lindley Garrison, the Secretary of War, publicly reproved General Wood for having permitted Roosevelt to make it, and the Colonel thereupon took up the cudgels in his friend's behalf and assumed entire responsibility for what he had said. He reminded the Secretary that his speech was advertised long in advance and that if the Administration had not wished him to speak they could have denied him permission to do so. This turned Garrison's attack upon Roosevelt with a statement that it was not his duty to follow the Colonel up and prevent him from making indiscreet speeches. This answer, which begged the issue, was phrased in a semi-jocose style which the 464 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Colonel characterized as "buffoonery," and thus the controversy ended. But Roosevelt's speech was not forgotten and marked the real beginning of his acknowledged leadership among those who wished to see the United States take her rightful place among the nations. In his message to Congress in December, 1915, the President came out tentatively for preparedness; but his proposal was coolly received by Congress and by the country and for the time he did not press the matter further. Roosevelt, however, never varied in his attitude. He had no patience whatever with talk when it took the place of action. On May 19, 1916, in a speech at Detroit he said: "We first hysterically announced that we would not prepare because we were afraid that preparation might make us lose our vantage-ground as a peace-loving people. Then we became frightened and announced loudly that we ought to prepare; that the world was on fire; that our own national structure was in danger of catching aflame; and that we must immediately make ready. Then we turned another somersault and abandoned all talk of preparedness; and we never did anything more than talk." For more than two years after the outbreak of the war Roosevelt continued, without ceasing, to advocate preparation for the part which he saw that we were bound to play. He was eager to see the army and navy strengthened and made ready, and he was just as eager to induce in his fellow-countrymen that heroic mood which would fit them for the sacrifice of war. The conflict was not one of small trained armies, as in the past, but of peoples. If the United States were to enter it, every citizen would have to take his part. Every man capable of bearing arms would be called upon to give himself HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE 465 to his country. For this reason Roosevelt strenuously urged universal military training, which should be built upon the Swiss system, and should be as democratic as it is possible for military training to be. At the beginning of his campaign for preparedness he was treated as a jingo, scoffed at and ignored. But his conviction was founded upon a rock. If the United States were to endure without a blow the wrongs and humiliations heaped upon her and upon other civilized nations by the German empire, her position in the world family would be gone forever. The foremost duty of this government, as of every government, was to protect the lives and welfare of its own citizens. These could never be secure unless the United States should arm and should join with the Allies in the vindication of human rights. At first Roosevelt was almost singlehanded in his insistence that we should make ready for the struggle and in his advocacy of universal military training, but gradually his voice began to awake an echo from the heart of America, as it had so often done before. Our spiritual preparedness for war when it came to us was due to him more than to any other one man. The widespread acceptance of the principle of universal military training was a tribute to the power of his leadership. On April 6th came the declaration of war. Shortly, thereafter, Roosevelt called upon the President to express his approval and his desire to cooperate to the greatest possible extent in the Administration's war program. He was eager to see our men immediately on the firing line in Europe. "Let us," he said to the citizens of Chicago, "put the flag at the front now, at the earliest moment, and not merely announce that we are going to fight a year or two hence." Nor did he confine so 466 THEODORE ROOSEVELT himself to urging other men to fight for their country. He was desperately anxious to go himself. As far back as the spring of 1915, when the Lusifania was sunk, he had conceived the idea of raising a volunteer division for immediate service at the front as soon as it should be needed. In the summer of 1916 the project assumed more definite shape and he began to receive tremendous floods of applications from those who wished to go. When at last war came in fact, though not in name, on January 31, 1917, Roosevelt was ready. On February 2d he wrote the Secretary of War renewing his offer to raise a division, and asking to be notified if the probability of war would compel his cancellation of a proposed trip to Jamaica. Mr. Baker answered immediately that no situation had arisen which would justify him in suggesting a postponement of the trip; but on the day of his answer diplomatic relations with Germany were severed and Roosevelt immediately abandoned the idea of going to Jamaica. Instead he wrote to Baker again urging the War Department to furnish him with facilities for the raising of his division. Then ensued a correspondence extending over some weeks. Baker took the position that such a volunteer force could not be raised without permission of Congress. Roosevelt continually pressed his request with a statement that he would "of course ask no favors of any kind except that the division be put in the fighting line at the earliest possible moment." When war was actually declared, Baker and Roosevelt conferred together in regard to the matter and Roosevelt repeated his request. Again Baker refused on the ground that the War College Division of the General Staff had advised him that the best professional soldiers HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE 467 should first be retained in this country to train troops, and should subsequently command any expedition which might be sent to Europe. After a final refusal by Baker, Congress passed the Draft Act in which they authorized the President to accept volunteer troops of the kind which Roosevelt was anxious to raise. Thereupon he telegraphed to the President on May 18th asking for permission to raise two divisions for immediate service at the front and announcing himself ready to raise four divisions if the President should so direct. Wilson's answer to this was a public statement in which he explained that the plan was rejected for purely military reasons. He also sent Roosevelt a telegram, in which he stated that his conclusions "were based entirely upon imperative considerations of public policy and not upon personal or private choice." There was nothing to do but to give up the idea entirely and to release the 300,000 and more men who had volunteered for service. All of the volunteers were men who would have been exempt from draft, and included such men as Seth Bullock, Henry L. Stimson, Taft's Secretary of War, James R. Garfield and Raymond Robbins. Roosevelt issued a statement addressed to all his volunteers, in which he deplored their inability to go together and in which he emphatically and indignantly repudiated the suggestion that any motives of personal or political advantage had actuated him. Thus he failed to achieve his heart's desire. Although he was represented in the fighting forces by his four sons, the youngest of whom gave his life for his country, he could not be content with this kind of vicarious sacrifice. There is no doubt that the moral effect would have been tremendous had he been permitted to carry out his plan. 468 'THEODORE ROOSEVELT His personal popularity, not only in this country but in Great Britain and France, coupled with the addition of his. men to the fighting line long before any American soldiers, other than the regulars, could be placed there, would have been a mighty inspiration to the morale of the hard-pressed Allies. But if he were to be denied the service which he most craved, he was still determined to do all that he could behind the lines. His insistent desire to take troops immediately to the front helped to impress upon the American people the vital necessity of getting soldiers to Europe without the loss of a day. He was the Administration's most caustic critic if slackness or incompetency appeared. He was boiling with impatience to see the day when an American army worthy of the name should face the Germans. Rhetoric in place of action stung him to madness. On June 7th, the Secretary of War stated in the Official Bulletin that there was "difficulty, disorder and confusion in getting things started, but it is a happy confusion. I delight in the fact that when we entered this war we were not, like our adversary, ready for it, anxious for it, prepared for it and inviting it. Accustomed to peace, we were not ready." We can well imagine what impression these words made upon Roosevelt's mind. Early in September, in commenting upon this statement, Roosevelt pointed to the deliberate failure to make any preparations until the actual formal declaration of war on April 6th, to the long-drawn squabble between the advocates of steel and wooden ships, and above all to the imperative necessity of throwing every human and material resource immediately into the military preparations before it should be too late. Uo1ga& t te last THIE LAST P LIC PEA NCE Photngeapht taken at lhe last publi appearance of Colonel Theodore Roose'et j hust before te seeros ielless which resulted in his death. The Colonel, cdeafly showing the edects of age and his recent bereavement is wearing a mourning band in memnor of his son, Qoentin, killed in an airplane battle over the Genman lines in July, 1918. I I HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE 469 Early in October of 1917, the Secretary of War was authoritatively quoted in the press as having said, "We are well on the way to the battlefront." At that time we had only reached the battlefront with one division, although a state of war had actually, if not officially, existed since January 31st. "For comparison with this kind of military activity," said Roosevelt, "we must go back to the days of Tiglath Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh. The United States should adopt the standards of speed in war which belong to the twentieth century A. D.; we should not be content and still less boast about standards which were obsolete in the seventeenth century B. C." One newspaper referred to the country's development into "a powerful fighting machine." "To speak of a powerful fighting machine," said Roosevelt, "which after ten months is not ready to do any fighting, is a ludicrous contradiction in terms." Again and again in addresses throughout the country, in magazine articles and in conversation with his friends, he pointed out the difference between words and action. He had no sympathy with that type of mind which, if it must strike, thinks to accomplish its end by striking softly. When war came he believed that all other considerations should give way, and that the last ounce of the nation's strength should be spent, if necessary, on the righteous cause which she had espoused. Not only his friends, but many who had been estranged from him by the political heart-burnings of the past few years, responded to his call. Before the war was for us many months old, he was the recognized leader of those who really desired the use of all our resources without reservation. In February, 1918, he underwent a painful minor 470 THEODORE ROOSEVELT operation at the Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. The operation was successful, but mastoiditis developed in his left ear at the same time, and for a few hours his condition was critical. For a little over a month he stayed at the hospital gradually recuperating and late in the winter was able to go back again to Oyster Bay. In the last week of March he spoke before the Republican State Convention at Portland, Maine, and after that from time to time made addresses urging a tireless prosecution of the war. But his health was not what it had been and the news of his son Quentin's deiath, which occurred July 17, 1918, was a very serious blow. He bravely went to the New York Republican State Convention in Saratoga the day after he received the news of his loss, but his heart was sore within him. 'Toward the end of October he spoke in Carnegie Hall in behalf of Governor Whitman and displayed his old fire and vigor. A few days later he made his last public appearance at a meeting in honor of a negro hospital unit. Then, on the very day of the armistice, inflammatory rheumatism compelled him to go back again to the Roosevelt Hospital. Happily he was released in time to spend his last Christmas at home with all the children and grandchildren who were able to come to Oyster Bay. After a happy holiday together they parted, and Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt were left together. January 5th was spent in reading and writing at his home. He had been reviewing a book on pheasants by Beebe, the naturalist, and wrote the author a letter in regard to the details of the work. In the evening the American Defense Society held a concert in New York, which Roosevelt, as honorary president of the society, had been asked to attend. He was unable to go and so I HIS LAST GREAT SERVICE 471 he sent a message-his last message to the American people. His brief letter ended with these words which epitomize his life's creed: "We have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people." He spent that evening with his family and went to bed at eleven o'clock. When he was ready for sleep he turned to his personal attendant, James Amos, and said, "Put out the light, please." They were the last words he was heard to utter. Shortly after four o'clock the next morning Amos, who was sleeping in the next room, noticed that the Colonel's breathing was unnatural. He hurried to fetch the trained nurse who was sleeping nearby, but when they reached Roosevelt's bedside they found that a clot of blood, settling upon a vital spot, had brought him peaceful death in sleep. His burial without pomp or circumstance was what he wished it to be. He and Mrs. Roosevelt had chosen a beautiful spot on a knoll looking over Long Island Sound for their, last resting place. On January 8th a few members of the family gathered at his house and joined in a brief service of prayer. All of his children were there except Theodore and Kermit, who were fighting in Europe. The coffin was borne from the house draped with the Rough Riders' flags which he had loved so well, and was carried to the village of Oyster Bay. There, in the little Episcopal church where he and his family had worshipped for many years, were gathered the country's representatives and many of those who had been nearest to him in life. There was no music, no eulogy, only the time-honored words of prayer and consolation. As they left the church and came out upon the quiet spot where he was to lie, there stretched before them the 472 THEODORE ROOSEVELT waters of the Sound, the woods and hills which he had roamed since boyhood, the trees which had grown with him-all the things of nature which he had loved so dearly all his life. It was a fitting place to leave him with a last farewell. We who loved and trusted him will mourn his loss not only because our friend is gone, but because a great leader has been taken from us in the time of need. But we will rejoice for him that he was spared the further pain of severed friendships. Had he lived, he would surely have fought new battles and these might have opened again the wounds of six years before. He died when many of those wounds had been healed, and when many were friends again who for a time had been accounted foes. For four years he had labored for America in the time of her greatest danger, and had surrendered his own preferment for the common good. He reaped his reward; for before the end, the voice of faction had been stilled, and beside his grave constant friend and former foe alike united to do him honor. ic J W klB I I ~ "i,~lni;i%E~~iinl 1 ''' ill.iEBi; PTeL, ' "l,~rB:CD "" %~:, 'I;C;;i.:r a r)3 "P CP:t E i, f,i~ a0 PO) pi 1 g~~~liiRill ~c ~a ii. ~: 1 CD ; r Sr;U aRjl;: s8 J o ~~~ i~ n I il, ~S.a.:E, ~~i~ ~~11, erP I 'K-5 II I-,. < t CHRONOLOGY (The numbers in parentheses indicate pages of the book.) 1858, October 27. Born in New York City (27). 1880, June 30. Graduated from Harvard University (51). October 27. Married Alice Hathaway Lee (51). 1881, November 8. Elected to New York Legislature (56). 1884, February 14. Death of his first wife (69). 1886, November 2. Defeated for Mayor of New York (84). December 2. Married Edith Kermit Carow (193). 1889, May 7. Appointed United States Civil Service Commissioner (84). 1895, May 6. Appointed New York Police Commissioner (101). June 30. Sunday closing first enforced in New York (109). 1897, April 6. Nominated Assistant Secretary of the Navy (119). 1898, February 25. Cable to Admiral Dewey (132). May 6. Appointed Lieutenant-Colonel First Volunteer Cavalry (135). June 24. Battle of Las Guasimas (143). July 1. Battle of San Juan Hill (144). November 8. Elected Governor (152). 1899, January 2. Inaugurated as Governor (154). May 26. Signs Ford Franchise Bill (160). 1900, June 21. Receives Republican Nomination for Vice-President (166). November 6. Elected Vice-President (168). 1901, March 4. Takes office as Vice-President (168). September 14. Succeeds McKinley as President (171). 1902, June 17. Reclamation Act (289). June 28. Isthmian Canal Act (219). October 15. Coal Strike Settled (203). December 31. Settlement of Venezuela matter (211). 1903, January 24. Alaskan Boundary Matter referred to Commission (214). February 14. Department of Commerce and Labor Act (274). February 19. Elkins Rebate Act (245). November 6. Recognition of Panama (225). November 18. Convention with Panama (225). December 17. Reciprocity Treaty with Cuba (210). 1904, February 23. Treaty with Panama ratified by Senate (227). June 23. Receives Republican nomination for President (230). November 8. Elected President (233). 1905, February 1. Act Creating U. S. Forest Service (292). March 4. Inaugurated as President (235). (473) 474 CHRONOLOGY 1905, June 8. Notes to Japan and Russia (238). August 5. Meeting of Peace Delegates (239). September 5. Signing of Russo-Japanese Treaty (241). 1906, June 11. Forest-Homestead Act (291). June 29. Hepburn Rate Act (247). June 29. Act authorizing lock canal at Panama (227). June 30. Food and Drugs Act (247). 1907, February 25. Convention with Santo Domingo ratified by Senate (213). March 14. Appoints Inland Waterways Commission (296). November 4. Tennessee Coal and Iron Conference (281). December 16. Fleet starts around the world (267). 1908, April 22. Employers' Liability Act (247). 1909, February 22. Fleet returns (272). March 4. Presidential term expires (301). March 23. Sails for Africa (301). April 22. Starts into the African wilderness (302). 1910, March 14. Arrives at Khartoum (311). June 1. Speech at Guildhall, London (317). June 18. Returns to New York (317). August 31. Ossawatomie speech (329). 1912, February 10. Letter from the seven Governors (334-5). February 21. Columbus, Ohio, speech (338). February 25. Announces candidacy for nomination (335). March 20. Carnegie Hall speech (344). June 15. Goes to Chicago (355). June 22. His supporters at Convention leave Republican Party (360). August 7. Nominated by Progressive Party (377). October 14. Shot at Milwaukee by John Schrank (380). November 5. Defeated by Woodrow Wilson (382). 1913, May 31. Verdict in Newett Libel Case (419). October 14. Leaves for South America (401). 1914, February 27. Starts down the River of Doubt (408). April 15. Arrives at civilization again (413). May 19. Returns to New York (415). June 30. Address at Pittsburgh (415). 1915, May 7. Statement on Lusitania sinking (462). May 22. Verdict in Barnes Libel Case (420). August 25. Address at Plattsburgh (463). 1916, June 10. Second nomination by Progressives (425). June 26. Withdraws to support Hughes (427). 1917, February 2. Offers Volunteer Division (466). May 21. Disbands Volunteer Division (467). 1919, January 6. Death (471). INDEX Abbott, Edwin H., 371. Abbott, Lawrence F., 460. Abbott, Lyman, 417. Addams, Miss Jane, 314, 370, 377. Africa, Hunting Trip in (Chapter XX), 301. Ahlwardt (Anti-Jewish Preacher), 108 Alaskan Boundary question, 214. Aldrich, Senator, 321, 326. Alger, Russell A., 134. American Sugar Refining Co., Fraud of, 280 et seq. American Tobacco Company, 275. Amos, James, 471. Andrews, Avery D., 101, 154. Andrews, Justice, 420. Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, 198 et seq. Appointments, Theory and Practice as to, 254 et seq. Arthur, Chester A., 85, 119, 173, 229. Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Chapter VIII), 119 et seq. Bacon, Robert, 46, 179, 243, 255. Bacon, Theodore, 150. Baer, George F., 201. Baker, Newton D., 466. Ballinger, Richard A., 325, 328. Barnes, William, Jr., 419. Bayard, Senator, 50. Beebe, Capt. William, 393. Beecher, Henry Ward, 372. Beirut, Incident Relative to Vice Consul, 213 et seq. Belgium, Position in Regard to Germany's Invasion, 459 ef seq. Bell, John G., 392. Beveridge, Albert W., 371. Birth, 27. Black, Governor, 148, 150. Black Horse Cavalry, 61. Blaine, James G., 66, 84, 217, 320. Bonaparte, Charles J., 198, 257. Books: Account and Criticisms of (Chapter XXII, 432. Bourke, Edward J., 116. Boutros, Premier, 312. Brandeis, Louis D., 328. Brazil, Trip Through the Brazilian Wilderness, 405 et seq. Bridges, Robert, 434. Bristow, Joseph L., 198. Brookfield, William, 100. Brownson, Capt. W. H., 123. Brownson, Rear Admiral, 266. Brownsville, Affair at, 248. Bryan, William J., 168, 231, 320. Bryce, James, 258. Bulloch, Anna, 33. Bulloch, Capt. James D., 28. Bulloch, Irvine Stephens, 29. Bullock, Seth, 78, 467. Bunau-Varilla, M. Philippe, 224 et seq. Burroughs, John, 309. Cabinet, Changes in, 204 et seq., 256 a seq. Cairo, Speech at, 311. Cajazeira, Dr., 407. Campbell, ex-Governor, 112. Canal, The Panama (Chapter XIV), 216 et seq. Canal, New York Canal Investigation, 157 et seq. Cannon, Representative, 321. Capron, Captain Allyn, 143. Carow, Edith K. (Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt), 33, 193. Cherrie, George K., 401, 407, 413. Childhood (Chapter II), 25 et seq. Citizens' Union Party, 149, 150. Civil Service Commissioner, Work as (Chapter VI), 84. Civil Service Law of New York, Work for, 57. Civil Service, White Civil Service Act of New York, 158. Civil War, 28, 32. Clark, Edward E., 204. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 217. Cleveland. Grover, 62, 67, 85, 91, 95, 202, 218. Coal Strike of 1902, 198 et seq. Colored Persons, Appointment to Federal Office, 194 et seq. Colored Persons, Attitude Towards Delegates in Progressive Convention, 373. Commissions, Work as Police Commissioner (Chapter VII), 98 et seq. Conrad, Holmes, 198. Conservation of Natural Resources (Chapter XIX), 288 et seq. (475) 476 INDEX Conventions. See Political Conventions. Corporations, Attitude Towards, 274 et seq. Cortelyou, George B., 169, 172, 201, 206, 281, 232, 256. Costello, Michael, 57, 63, 64, 65. Cowles, Mrs. Wim. S. See Roosevelt, Anna. Cox, Mrs. Minnie, 1W7. Crook, Colonel W. H., 178, 187, 436. Croker, Richard, 98, 151, 152. Crum, William D., 196. Cuba, Intervention, 1906, 243. Cuba, Relations With, During First Term, 207 et seq. Cummins, Senator, 346. Cuninghame, R. J., 301, 307, 308. Curtis, General, 57. Cutler, Arthur H., 37, 40. Czar of Russia, 314. de Barros, Senhor, 404. De Lesseps, 217. Democratic Conventions. See Political Conventions. de Mores, Marquis, 75. Depew, Chauncey M., 233. Derby, Mrs. Richard. See Roosevelt, Ethel. Dewey, Admiral George, 131, 211. Dewey, Roosevelt's Telegram to, 132. Dolliver, Senator, 163, 166. Dow, William, 39, 46, 69. Edmunds, Senator, 66. Edward, King, 237, 314 et seq. Elkhorn Ranch (Chapter V), 68. Elkins Act, 244 et seq. Emery, Rear Admiral William H., 268. Employers' Liability Act, 247. Europe, Journey Through, 1910, 312 et seq. European Addresses, 313 et seq. European Trips, 34, 42, 53. Evans, Rear Admiral Robley D., 127, 266, 267. Ferris, J. A., 78. Ferris, S. N., 78. Fiala, Anthony, 401. Fish, Sergeant Hamilton, Jr., 143. Flinn, William, 348, 349, 378. Food and Drugs Act, 247 et seq. Foraker, Senator, 230. Ford Franchise Bill, 158. Ford, John, 158. Forest Homestead Act, 293. Forest Transfer Act, 291. Franchise Taxation, Ford Franchise Bill, 158 et seq. Gage, Lyman J., 205. Garfield, James R., 50, 119, 173, 179, 257, 325, 365, 378, 418, 425, 427, 467. Garrison, Lindley, 463. Gaynor, Mayor, 318. George, Henry, 84. Germany, Venezuelan Incident, 210 et seq. Glavis, 327. Glynn, Martin H., 460. Godkin, Lawrence, 100. Goethals, Colonel George W., 227. Goff, John, 80. Gomez, General, 244. Gorgas, Dr., 227. Gorman, Senator, 92, 125. Governor of New York, Term as (Chapter X), 148. Grant, Col. Frederick D., 101. Gray, Judge George, 204. Greene, General Francis V., 157. Grenell, Judson, 94. Grey, Earl, 315. Haakon, King, 313. Hadley, Governor, 357, 359, 366, 367. Hague Tribunal, 214, 263. Hale, Senator, 321. Hampden, John, Miniature, 237. Hanna, Mark, 163, 165, 199, 229. Harriman, E. H., 232, 233. Harrison, President William H., 84, 91, 95, 173. Hart, Albert Bushnell, 46. Harvard University, 46 et seq. Hawley, Representative, 321. Hay, John, 151, 164, 168, 176, 210, 218, 233, 236, 250, 257. Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 218. Hay-Herran Treaty, 219. Hayes, President, 217. Hazel, Judge John R., 171. Heller, Edmund, 301. Hendricks, Francis, 85, 155. Hepburn, Representative, 186. Hepburn Rate Act, 245 et seq. Herran, Dr., 219, 220. Hess, Jacob, 56. Hewitt, Abram S., 84. Hill, Prof. Adams Sherman, 50. Hill, Senator David B., 114. Hinman, Harvey D., 419. Hitchcock, Ethan Allen, 171. Hobart, Garrett A., 163. Holleben, Dr. (German Ambassador), 210. INDEX 477 Howe, Walter, 57. Hughes, Charles E., 422, 425, 427. Humphrey, Captain, 224. Hunt, Isaac, 57. Inaugural Address, 235 et seq. Inauguration, March 4, 1905, 235. Industrial Workers of the World, 285. Ingersoll, Col. Robert G., 66. Initiative, Position on, 339. Inland Waterways Commission, 297. Insurance, Appointment of New York State Superintendent of, 155 et seq. Ireland, Archbishop, 199. Jackson, Lieutenant-Governor, 301. Japan, Treaty of Portsmouth, 238 et seq. Japanese, Exclusion from Schools, 241 et seq. Johnson, Sir Harry, 389. Johnson, Hiram W., 360, 365, 378, 416. Johnston, George D., 86. Jones, Thomas G., 194. Joseph, Archduke, 313. Joseph, Emperor Francis, 313. Jusserand, M., 179. Kaiser, Wilhelm, 314. Kaneko, Baron, 239. Kelly, John, 110. Kelly, Peter, 57. Kettle 11ill, 144. Khartoum, Arrival at, 311, 312, 328. Kipling, Rudyard, 175. Kirchwey, Dean George W., 374. Knox, Attorney-General Philander C., 201, 206. Koester, George E., 194. Komura, Baron, 240. Kossuth, Francis, 313. Labor, Attitude Towards, 283 et seq. La Follette, Senator, 246, 333, 346, 347. Lambert, Dr. Alexander, 418. Land Frauds, 278 et seq. Las Guasimas, Battle of, 143. Lee. Alice Hathaway (Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt), 50, 51, 69. Legal Studies, 53. Leishman, Ambassador, 312. Leupp, Francis E., 121, 129, 195. Lexow Committee, 99. Libel Suits, Barnes vs. Roosevelt, 419 et seq. Libel Suits, Roosevelt vs. Newett, 417 et seq. Lincoln, Abraham, 319, 330, 338, 339. Lindsey, Judge Ben B.,;78. Llewellyn, Major, 79. Lodge, Senator, 47, 93, 94. Loeb, William, Jr., 170, 172, 418. Logan, John A., 66. Long, John, 46. Long, John D., Secretary of Navy, 127, 131, 132 133, 163, 171, 205. Longworth, Nicholas, 184. Longworth, Mrs. Nicholas. See Roosevelt, Alice. Loring, J. Alden, 301. Lusiania, Position in Regard to Sinking of, 461. Lyman, Charles, 86. Lyra. Lieutenant, 407, 409, 413. Magee, Christopher, 349. Magelssen, Consul at Beirut, 213. Magoon, Charles E., 244. Mahan, Admiral, 264. Maine, Sinking of the, 127. Maine, Visits to, 46. Maroquin, Vice-President, 219, 220. Martin, Elbert, 380. Marques, Senhor, 405. Marriage, 51, 193. McCarthy, Charles H., 374. McClain, Penrose A., 256. McCoach, William, 256. McCormick, Vance C., 441. McKinley, President William, 120, 125, 166, 168, 169, 172. McKinley, William, Assassination of, 169 et seq. McMullen, Prof., 40. Mearns, ILieutenant-Colonel Edgar A., 301. Merriam, Dr. C. Hart, 389, 395. Merrifield, W. J., 78. Metcalf, Victor H., 206, 257. Meyer, George, 71, 78. Meyer, George Von L., 240, 257. Milburn, John G., 171. Miller, Leo E.,, 401, 414. Minot, Henry D., 392. Minuit, Peter, 25. Mitchell. John, 199, 201. Mitchell, Lex N., 358. Monroe Doctrine, Treaty with Santo Domingo, 212 et seq. Moody, William H., 205, 206. Moore, Alexander P., 348. Morgan, J. Pierpont, 200, 203. Morley, John, 175. Morton, Paul, 206, 245. Muller, Lauro, 402. Murphy, Lieutenant, 224. 478 INDEX Murray, Joseph, 56. Murray, Lawrence, 179. Natural History, Studies in, 42, 44, 193. Naturalist, Position and Work as (Chapter XXV), 384 et seq. Navy, Services for, as President (Chapter XVII.), 259. Navy, Trip of Fleet Around World, 265 et seq. Navy, Work as Assistant Secretary (Chapter VIII), 119 et seq. Negroes, Appointment to Federal Office, 194 et seq. Negroes, Attitude Towards Delegates in Progressive Convention, 373. Nevada, Federal Troops Sent to, 287. New Nationalism, Address on, 330. New York Legislature, Member of (Chapter IV), 52. Newberry, Truman H., 257. Newbold, Thomas, 57. Newett, George A., 417, 418. New Grenada Treaty, 217. Nobel Prize Committee, Speech to, 313. Nobel Peace Prize, 241. North American Conservation Conference, 297. Northern Securities Company, 276. Odell, Benjamin B., 163, 165, 233. Ohio Constitutional Convention, Address Before, 338 et seq. O'Laughlin, John Callan, 328. Orchestra Hall, Nomination for President at, 364. Ossawatomie, Speech at, 330. Palisades Interstate Park, 160. Palma, President, 243. Panama Canal (Chapter XIV), 216 et seq. Parker, Judge Alton B., 231 et seq. Parker, Andrew D., 101. Parker, Edward W., 204. Parker, John M., 378, 428. Partridge, John N., 154. Payn, Louis F., 155. Payne, Henry C., 197, 205, 207. Payne Tariff Bill, 326. Pease, Sir Alfred, 803. Pepper, George Wharton, 328. Perkins, George W., 423. Pinchot, Gifford, 178, 179, 251, 327, 328, 370, 373, 378, 415, 418, 441. Pinchot-Glavis-Ballinger Controversy, 327 et seq. Pious Fund of the Californias, 214. Platt, Senator, 148, 153, 156, 158, 162, 165, 207, 255, 419. Plimley, William, 255. Police Commissioner, Work as (Chapter VII), 98 et seq. Political Campaigns: 1884, 66, 67. 1898, for Governor of New York, 148 et seq. 1886, for Mayor of New York,. 84. 1916, for Mr. Justice Hughes, 428 et seq. 1904, for President (Chapter XV), 229 et seq. 1912, for President, 378 et seq. 1914, for Progressive Party candidates, 415 et seq. Reason for becoming candidate for Republican nomination, 1912, 333 et seq. For the Republican nomination, 1912 (Chapter XXIII.), 346 et seq. Republican nomination, 1916, 420 et seq. 1900, for Vice President, 166 et seq. Political Conventions: Democratic, 1912, 379. Progressive Convention, 1912, 370 et seq. Progressive, 1916, 423 et seq. Republican, 1884, 66. Republican, N. Y. State Convention, 1898, 150. Republican, 1900, 164 et seq. Republican, 1904, 230. Republican, 1908, 323 et seq. Republican, 1912, 354et seq. Republican, 1916, 422 et seq. Portsmouth, Treaty of, 238 et seq. Portsmouth, N. H., 240. Post Office Department, Frauds in, 197 et seq. Potter, Bishop, 199. Potter, William, 134. Pound, James H., 417. Preparedness, Position on, 464. Presidency, Life in White House (Chapter XII.), 175 et seq. Presidency, First Term (Chapter XIII), 194 et seq. Presidency, Second Term (Chapter XVI.), 238 et seq. Presidential Commissions, Contention over, 325. Proctor, John R., 86. INDEX 479 Progressive Movement, Beginnings of (Chapter XXI), 319 et seq. Formation of Progressive Party (Chapter XXIV), 368 e seq. Ideas on Direct Control of People over Government (Chapter XXII.), 336 et seq. Platforms of Progressive Party, 376, 424, 427. Progressive Party after 1912 (Chapter XXVII.), 415. Public Land Commission, 294. Quay, Senator Matthew S., 203, 256, 259. Quigg, Lemuel E., 148. Quincy, Josiah, 46. Ranch Life (Chapter V), 68. Ranquet, M., 311. Raphael, Otto, 104. Recall of Executive Officers, Position on, 340. Recall of Judges, Position on, 340. Recall of Judicial Decisions, Position on, 341 et seq. Referendum, Position on, 339. Republican Conventions. See Political Conventions. Republican National Committee, 1912, Contests before, 351 et seq. Riis, Jacob A., 75, 106, 183, 186, 417. River of Doubt, 407 et seq. Robb, Hampden, 57. Robbins, Raymond, 370, 378, 424, 467. Robins, Thomas, 430, 452, 456. Robinson, Mrs. Douglas. See Roosevelt, Corinne. Robinson, Mrs. Douglas; Sketch of Roosevelt's Childhood, 35. Rondon, Colonel, 402, 403, 407, 410, 411, 414. Roosevelt, Alice L., 184. Roosevelt, Anna (Mrs. William S. Cowles), 33. Roosevelt, Archibald B., 184 et seq. Roosevelt, Cornelius Van Schaack, 26, 43. Roosevelt, Corrinne (Mrs. Douglas Robinson), 33, 35, 335. Roosevelt, Elliott, 33, 35, 38, 43. Roosevelt, Ethel (Mrs. Richard Derby), 184, 311. Roosevelt, Kermit, 184, 301, 307, 311, 401, 407, 408, 413, 415, 471. Roosevelt, Klaes Martensen Van, 25. Roosevelt, Quentin, 184 et seq. Roosevelt, Robert B., 34. Roosevelt, Mrs. Theo. (Alice Lee Hathaway), 69. Roosevelt, Mrs. Theo. (Edith Kermit Carow), 182, 183, 311, 354, 356, 381, 426, 444, 449, 470, 471. Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., 186, 471. Roosevelt, Theodore, Sr., 26 et seq, 30, 44, 52. Roosevelt, Mrs. Theo., Sr., 31 et seq., 69. Roosevelt, W. Emlen, 450. Root, Elihu, 164, 171, 203, 206, 230, 257, 358, 460. Rosen, Baron, 239. Rosewater, Victor, 357, 361. Rough Riders (Chapter IX), 134 et seq. Rowell, Chester A., 373, 375. Russia, Treaty of Portsmouth, 238 et seq. Russo-Japanese Treaty, 313. Sagamore Hill, Life at (Chapter XXIX), 441. San Juan Hill, Battle of, 144 et seq. Santo Domingo, Treaty with, 212 et seq. Schiff, Jacob H., 112. Schofield, Major-General, 203. Schrank, John, 381. Schurz, Carl, 112. Secretary of the Navy, Work as (Chapter VIII.), 119 e seq. Selous, Frederick Courteney, 301. Sewall, William, 39, 46, 69. Shafter, General, 146. Shaw, Albert, 222, 417. Shaw, Leslie M., 205. Sheldon, George R., 255. Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 274 et seq. Sherman, Vice-President, 233. Shidy Case, 89. Sigg, Jacob, 401, 405, 407. Sloan, James, 178. Smith, Charles Emory, 171, 205. Smith, Herbert Knox, 179. Sorbonne Address. 313. South American Trip (Chapter XXIV), - 401. Southern Appointments, Policy as to, 194 e seq. Spanish War (Chapter IX), 134 et seq. Sperry, C. S., 268, 270. Sprague, Henry, 57. Standard Oil Company, q45. Stewart, General Daniel, 32. Stimson, Henry L., 467. Stone, Governor, 200. Stone, Witmer, 384, 385. 544* INDEX Straus, Oscar S., 258. Strong, William L., 100, 101, 109. Sullivan, John L., 189. Taft, William H., 206, 243, 257, 301, S20, 325, 329, 334, 347, 351. Takahira, Mr., 240. Tardieu, Andre, 182. Tarlton, Leslie, 301, 306. Tenement House Investigation, N. Y. City, 160. Tennessee Coal & Iron Co., 281 et seq. Thayer, William R., 53, 161. Thomas, C. M., 268. Thompson, Hugh S., 86. Tillman, Senator, 246. Treaty, Cuban Reciprocity, 207 et seq. Treaty, Portsmouth, 238. Treaty, with Republic of Panama, 225. Trusts, Attitude Towards, 274 et seq. United Mine Workers of America, 199. United States Steel Corporation, 275. van Duzer, Jonas, 57. von Sternberg, Baron Speck, 161. Van Valkenburg, E. A., 348. Van Wyck, Augustus, 150. Vatican Incident, 312. Venezuela, German Incident, 210 et seq. Vice President (Chapter IX), 163 et seq. Walker, Admiral, 219. Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, 315. Waring, Colonel George E., 100. Warner, Mrs. Langdon, 451. Warren, Herbert, 237. Washington, Booker T., 195. Watkins, Thomas H., 204. Welch, Thomas, 57. Western Federation of Miners, 285. Wheeler, Everett P., 100. Wheeler, General "Fighting Joe", 142. White, Henry, 164. White House, Roosevelt's Life in (Chapter XII), 175. White, Dr. J. William, 384. Whitman, Governor, 470. Wilcox, Ansley, 171. Willis, John, 80. Wilson, General John M., 204. Wilson, Woodrow, 379. Wingate, Sir Reginald, 311. Witte, Sergius, 240. Wood, Leonard, 134, 135, 142, 179, 207, 418, 463. Woodruff, Timothy L., 164. Woody, Tazewell, 80. World War, Services in, 459. Wright, Carroll D., 201. Wright, Luke E., 258. Wynne, Robert J., 207. Young, General S. M. B., 143. Zahm, Father, 401, 407. *NoTE.-There are 64 pages of illustrations in this book, which added to the 430 pages of text make a total of 544 pages. :^^6,g I UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 00268 1909,,~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,BOUND APR 231947 UN... OF MtCH., LIBRARY.. a I I