Chapter XVII: War 323 (8)

Another evening comes back to my mind. My husband and my brother had left me in my country home on the hill at Orange, and they were supposed to return at eleven o’clock that night. The last train arrived and my carriage returned from it empty. I was worried, for they were so thoughtful that I felt they would surely have telephoned to relieve my possible anxiety, and when at twelve o’clock the telephone-bell rang, I ran to the instrument expecting to hear a familiar voice, instead of which “I am a _World_ reporter” was what I heard, “and I would like to know where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson are.” “I cannot give you any information,” I replied discreetly, and more truthfully than usual, I confess. “It is very strange,” said the voice--a distant unknown voice at twelve o’clock at night, when you are the sole occupant of a remote country house, always has a somewhat eerie effect--“for we have traced them up to within the last hour and we cannot find them anywhere.” A slight wave of apprehension passed over me, but at the same time I was sufficiently confident of my two stalwart gentlemen not to have any serious fear concerning their whereabouts, and suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to be “funny”--a perfectly inexcusable inclination in a political campaign--I said to the reporter: “Wait one moment, please. Should you by any chance discover the whereabouts of Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Robinson, would you be kind enough to let _me_ know where they are?” I have always remembered the sound of the distant laugh of the man as I hurriedly put down the telephone-receiver, fully realizing my mistake in becoming jocose, and sure enough the next morning, in large headlines, appeared on the front page of the _World_: “Mrs. Douglas Robinson has no knowledge where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson have spent the night.”

Another incident that comes back into my memory was an evening in Chickering Hall, almost immediately before Election day, at which many well-known speakers were to make their plea for the election of Theodore Roosevelt, and at which, also, that most brilliant of speakers and charming of men, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, was to bring the evening to a climax. As Election day drew near, the great boss of Tammany Hall, Richard Croker, forsook his usual methods of strict silence, and began to be loquacious. Croker, when running a candidate, was always very careful indeed to keep the mystery of the Wigwam (Tammany) wrapped closely about him, but as the fight waxed hot and heavy, he lost his control and said many a foolish thing, and the Republican papers jubilantly announced that when Croker began to talk, it meant that he knew that his cause was lost.

At the meeting at Chickering Hall, when Mr. Choate rose to make the final speech of the evening, he said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is late; you have heard many speakers and I shall be brief. All that I wish to do is to recall to your minds a certain Bible story--you may not have the incident clear in your memory. I refer to the story of Balaam and his ass!” Here the learned speaker paused and his audience concentrated their attention upon him, somewhat puzzled as to what he was about to say. He continued: “You may remember that Balaam was riding upon the ass through a dark forest, and that suddenly the ass stopped, and even more suddenly, _the ass spoke_!” Mr. Choate paused again, and the audience suddenly rippled out their mirth and their realization that the “ass” who spoke had a distinct reference to the utterances of Croker. As the laughter grew louder, Mr. Choate suddenly lifted his hand in the most impressive manner, and continued in a serious tone full of dramatic power: “But, ladies and gentlemen, you have perhaps forgotten _why_ the ass spoke. The reason that he did so was because directly in his path, in shining garments, stood a young man with a flaming sword in his hand!” As one man the audience rose to its feet! Simultaneously, a great cheer rose to the lips of every one present, for the figure of speech had done its work, and each person in the house visualized the figure of Theodore Roosevelt, ardent and young, courageous and honest, truly “a young man with a flaming sword in his hand!”

Election day came and with it an overwhelming victory for the man who so lately had written to Douglas Robinson: “As for the political effect of my actions, I never can get on in politics.”

During his incumbency as governor of New York State he always made his headquarters either at the house of my sister, Mrs. Cowles, or at my house, and many were the famous breakfast-parties at 422 Madison Avenue in those strenuous days. He was criticised for breakfasting with Mr. Platt and Mr. Odell (Mr. Platt’s associate boss), but almost all of those much-discussed meals took place at my own house, and many a time Messrs. Platt and Odell had the unusual experience of finding that they were apparently expected to sit upon one chair, as my brother had invited so many more people to breakfast than could possibly be seated at my comparatively small table. After breakfast was over, Mr. Platt would say in a rather stern manner, “And now, Governor Roosevelt, I should like to have a private word with you,” and my brother would answer, “Why, certainly, Mr. Platt, we will go right up to my sister’s library--good-by, gentlemen,” turning to his other guests, and then to Mr. Platt again, “We shall be quite private except for my sister. I always like to have her present at all my conferences. She takes so much interest in what I am doing!” This with a humorous side-glance at me, knowing how irritating my presence was to the gentleman in question. I can bear witness to the fact that through those many conferences my brother’s courtesy to the brilliant older man never failed, nor did he ever lose his independent outlook or action. My brother’s effort to work with Mr. Platt rather than against him also never failed, and many a time I have heard him say: “Mr. Platt, I would rather accept your suggestion of an appointee than that of any one else _if_ you will suggest as good and honorable a man as any one else. I _want_ to work with you and I know that your great information about Republican affairs is of enormous value to me, but I must reserve my own power of decision in all matters, although I hope always to be in accord with you.”

The Rough Riders were always turning up on every occasion, or if they did not actually turn up in _propria persona_, strange letters on many and varied subjects came to my house from them. Amongst these letters one arrived when my brother was breakfasting with me one morning at my house. The mail that morning was unique in more ways than one, for another letter arrived with no name and no address on it. Instead of name and address there was a drawing of a large set of teeth, and on the reverse side of the envelope was written: “Please let Jack Smith, 211 W. 139th Street, know whether this letter reaches its destination. It is a bet and a lot of money hangs in the balance”! Those strong white teeth, which had been the terror of the recreant policemen, were quite as much a factor at the Capitol on the hill at Albany.

In the same mail, as I said, came a very characteristic epistle from a Rough Rider, which ran as follows:

“Dear Colonol: Please come right out to Dakota. They ain’t treatin me right out here. The truth is, Colonel, they have put me in jail and I ain’t ought to be here at all, cause what they say ain’t true, Colonel. They say that I shot a lady in the eye and it ain’t true, Colonel, for I was shootin at my wife at the time.--I know you will come and get me out of jail right off, Colonel,--please hurry. J. D.”

How my brother laughed as he turned the manuscript over to me, and said: “They are the most unconscionable children that ever were, but oh what fighting men they made!”

Another amusing incident occurred at the house of my sister, where we were all lunching one day, having one of our merry family reunions to meet the governor. My sister had just returned from Europe with a “perfect treasure” of an English butler, who had not yet become entirely accustomed to the vagaries of the Roosevelt family! We were in the midst of a specially merry argument when the door-bell rang and the butler left the dining-room to answer the bell. In a few moments he returned with a somewhat puzzled expression on his face, and leaning over my brother’s chair, he said in a stage whisper: “There is a ---- there is a ---- _gentleman_ in the hall, sir ---- he says, sir, that his name, sir, is ---- _Mr._ ‘Happy Jack’ of Arizona.” “Why,” said my brother, leaping to his feet, “I didn’t know that ‘Happy Jack’ was in New York,” and he hurriedly left the room to welcome his precious Rough Rider. In a few moments he came back literally doubled up with laughter, and burst out: “You know, there has been a great deal in the newspapers about the trouble that I have had with importunate office seekers, who have forced themselves, in a very disagreeable way, into the executive mansion at Albany. Dear old ‘Happy Jack’ read, way out in Arizona, about the annoyance I was having with these people, and he just packed his kit and came all the way from Arizona to offer to be ‘bouncer-out’ of the executive mansion! Wasn’t that fine of ‘Happy Jack’!”

Several years later, when my brother was President of the United States, I was in England and I spent a week-end with the St. Loe Stracheys in Surrey, where Lord and Lady Cromer were also passing Sunday. Lord Cromer having, as a young man, visited our Western plains and prairies, adored the stories of the Rough Riders, and especially the incident of “Happy Jack’s” desire to become “bouncer-out” of the executive mansion. He loved the story so much that he insisted upon my telling it to another English peer, in whom the sense of humor was less striking than in Lord Cromer. I shall never forget the dreary sensation of struggling to tell Earl S---- that particular story. We were at a rather dreary garden-party, and Lord Cromer had presented his friend for the special purpose of having me tell this Rough Rider story. Much against my will, I acceded to his request, and the story seemed to get longer and longer and duller and duller in the telling. Having mentioned the “perfect treasure” of a butler in the beginning of the tale, that seemed to be the rudder to which Earl S---- clung through the involutions of Rough Riderism, and as I stumbled on to the ever-lengthening end of that unfortunate anecdote, the English peer in question turned to me as I fell into silence and said, coldly and courteously: “Is that all?” “Yes,” I said hastily, “quite all.” “Oh!” said my companion, with a sigh of relief, and then feeling that he had not been quite sufficiently sympathetic, he added courteously: “And did the butler stay?” When I returned with this sequel to the story of “Happy Jack” of Arizona and recounted it to my brother, he laughed immoderately and said: “I know you must have suffered telling the story, but that postscript to the story is worth all the pain you suffered.”

One afternoon in May, I think in the year 1900, my brother telephoned me that he wanted to bring several men to dinner the following day, amongst others, Mr. Winston Churchill, of England, now so well known all over the world, but then still very young, though having had many experiences as a writer in connection with the Boer War. He was making a speaking tour in America. As usual, the little party grew, and when we assembled at dinner the following evening, dear old General Wheeler (Fighting Joe), Mr. St. Clair McKelway, of the Brooklyn _Eagle_, and one or two others, I remember being very much interested in Mr. Churchill’s method of probing Governor Roosevelt’s mind. The young Englishman, of mixed parentage, had on his American side a certain quality unusual in the average Englishman, and the rapid fire of his questioning was very characteristic of the land of his mother’s birth, while a certain “sureness” of point of view might be attributed to both countries. At one period during the dinner he referred to a certain incident that had occurred in Africa, and relegated it to the action which took place at Bloemfontein. My brother very courteously said: “I beg your pardon, but that particular incident took place, if I am not mistaken, at Magersfontein.” The young Englishman flushed and repeated with determination that it had occurred at Bloemfontein, and added the fact, which was already known to us, that he had been there. My brother again, his head a little on one side, and still most courteously, reiterated: “I think, Mr. Churchill, if you will stop and think for a moment, you will remember that I am right in this instance, and that that incident took place at Magersfontein.” Mr. Churchill paused a moment in the ever-ready flow of his talk and then suddenly, with a rather self-conscious frown, said: “You are right, governor, and I am mistaken. It did occur at Magersfontein.” This anecdote I give simply to show, what is known by all who were intimate with my brother, namely, the extraordinary accuracy with which he followed the affairs of the day, and the equally extraordinary memory which retained the detail of individual occurrences in a most unusual manner. In the soft spring air we sat later in the evening by the open window while General Wheeler, son of the South, veteran of the Civil War, and Theodore Roosevelt, son of the North, who had so lately led his famous regiment through the Cuban jungles in close proximity to General Wheeler, told story after story of the way in which, shoulder to shoulder, they had buried the old differences in the new co-operation.

In May, 1899, I received one of the comparatively few letters which came to me while my brother was governor, for we met so frequently that we rarely wrote. The following letter, coming as it did at the end of his first year of service as governor of New York State, is of special interest.

“Darling Corinne,” he says, “your letter touched me deeply. It was so good to catch a glimpse of you the other day. I have accomplished a certain amount for good this year. I want to see you and go over it all at length with you. In a way, there is a good deal that is disappointing about it because I had to act, especially towards the end, _against_ the wishes of the machine people who have really given me my entire support, and _with_ the reformers, labor and otherwise, who are truly against me whenever it comes down to anything really important to me. We have just returned from a really delightful driving trip to a quaint, clean, little inn at Crooked Lake, some eighteen miles off. We drove out there Saturday with every child except Quentin, and back again on Sunday. Everything went off without a hitch and Edith and I enjoyed it as much as the children.... My love to Douglas and to blessed little Corinne. Ever yours, T. R.”

Nothing was more discouraging to my brother during his long and varied career than the fact that the so-called reformers were frequently so visionary that they were rarely, if ever, to be counted upon where an effort to achieve a distinct practical purpose was concerned, but the disappointments which he perpetually endured from this attribute never induced him to yield to the machine politicians unless he felt that by so doing he could achieve the higher end for which he always worked.

A little later in May of that same year, 1899, he writes me in patient answer to various questions: “In reference to my attitude on the bills that have not passed, there are hundreds of people to whom, if I had time, I should explain my attitude, but I have not the time. I have the gravest kind of doubts, for instance, as to the advantages to the State of our High School system, as at present carried out.... I strongly believe that there has been a tendency amongst some of the best educators recently to divert from mechanical trades, people who ought, for their own sake, to keep in at the mechanical trades.” He was always so willing to answer my questions, even when pressed by many harassing affairs.

From Oyster Bay, on July 17, 1899, he writes as one freed temporarily from the cares of state, and speaking of my eldest boy, who was then sixteen, he says: “I am afraid it is dull here for Teddy. You see, we have no one here quite his age and he has passed the time when such a simple pleasure as a scramble down Cooper’s Bluff appears enthralling, although I take him down it nevertheless. He is a very fine fellow.... I have been giving him information about his hunting trip.” Again the painstaking effort to be helpful to me and mine, and, indeed, all those who needed his help or advice.

On December 18, having returned to Albany, he plans a hurried trip to New York, and writes characteristically: “On Thursday, December 21st, may I have dinner at seven o’clock? If you are going out, do remember, that seriously, I am quite as happy with bread and milk as with anything else. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt.” What could be more unusual than the governor of New York State being “quite as happy with bread and milk as with anything else”! And I really think he was rather happier with bread and milk than with anything else, much to the occasional discomfort of the fastidious companions who sometimes ran across his rather primitive path.

My last letter of that year, and, indeed, of the period during which he was governor, was late in December, 1899, and it ran as follows: “On Saturday I find Senator Platt wants me to breakfast with him at the Fifth Avenue.” That was one of the rare occasions when the unfortunate senator induced the governor to part from his sister, and the inevitable presence of that sister at the conferences which Senator Platt quite naturally preferred to have alone with the governor. The letter continues: “On Friday, at half past eight, General Greene, Mr. F. S. Witherbee, Mr. Fox and Mr. MacFarlane will give you the unexpected pleasure of breakfasting with you. Is this all right?” Needless to say, it was all right; only, if I remember correctly, a large number were added equally unexpectedly to the four above-mentioned gentlemen. Those breakfasts were the most delightful of meals. My brother’s friend Professor William M. Sloane in later days was frequently a member of the breakfast-parties at my house, and he used, laughingly, to remark that he wondered why we were all bidden so promptly at half past eight when the gentleman who so sternly called others from their comfortable beds on cold winter mornings at that matutinal hour seemed always able to sit over the breakfast-table until about eleven! That, however, was not the case in those early gubernatorial days, for the young governor was pressed with too many affairs to yield to his Southern inclination to “brood” over the breakfast-table.

In later days at the rare periods of comparative leisure, between 1910 and 1912, the “half-hours at the breakfast-table” were prolonged into several whole hours, and many a time my friend Mrs. Parsons and I have listened to the most enchanting discussions on the part of Colonel Roosevelt and Professor Sloane, dealing occasionally with Serb or Rumanian literature or the intricacies of Napoleonic history.

One luncheon during the time that my brother was governor stands out clearly in my mind, owing to an amusing incident connected with it. My dining-room at 422 Madison Avenue was small, and fourteen people were the actual limit that it could hold. One day, he having told me that he was bringing ten people to lunch, and realizing his hospitable inclinations, I had had the table set for the limit of fourteen. We were already thirteen in the sitting-room when the door-bell rang and, looking out of the window, he turned to me with a troubled expression and said: “I think I see two people coming up the front steps, and that will make fifteen.” I suddenly decided to be unusually firm and said: “Theodore, I have not places for fifteen; you said there would only be ten. I am delighted to have fourteen, but you will have to tell one of those two people that they will have to go somewhere else for lunch.” He went out into the hall, and in a moment returned with one of his beloved Rough Riders and an air of triumph on his face. I whispered, “Were there really two, and who was the other, and what has happened to him?” and he whispered back, like a child who has had a successful result in some game, “Yes, there were two--the other was the president of the University of ----. I told them they had to toss up, and the Rough Rider won”--this with a chuckle of delight!

X

HOW THE PATH LED TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Frédéric Mistral, the Provençal poet, said of Theodore Roosevelt:

C’est lui qui donne une nouvelle espérance à l’humanité.

Toward the spring of 1900, while my brother was in his second arduous year of activity as governor of New York State, he came one afternoon to my house, as he frequently did, for he made headquarters there whenever he was in New York. I remember I was confined to my room with an attack of grippe. The door-bell rang in the rapid, incisive way which always marked his advent, and in a moment or two I heard him come bounding up the stairs to my bedroom. He seemed to bring the whole world of spring sunshine into the room with him, and before I could say anything to greet him he called out: “Pussie, haven’t _we_ had fun being governor of New York State?” I remember the grippe seemed to leave me entirely. My heart was full of that elation which he alone could give by his power of sharing everything with me. He sat down in a rocking-chair by me and began to rock violently to and fro, every now and then receding almost the whole length of the room as he talked, and then rocking toward me with equal rapidity when he wished to emphasize some special point in his conversation. When he stopped for breath, I said laughingly, but with a certain serious undertone in the midst of my laughter: “Theodore, are you not going to take a complete rest _some time_ this summer? You certainly need it. It has been year after year, one thing after another, more and more pressing all the time--civil service commissioner, police commissioner, assistant secretary of the navy, lieutenant-colonel, then colonel of the Rough Riders, and all that that campaign meant, and now nearly two years of hard work as governor of New York State. Surely, you must take some rest this summer.”

He looked back at me rather as one of my little boys would look if I spoke to them somewhat harshly, and answered in a very childlike way: “Yes, of course you are right. I do mean to take a rest of _one whole_ month this summer.” I said: “That isn’t very much--one month, but still it is better than nothing. Now, do you really mean that you are going to rest for one whole month?” “Yes,” he answered, as if he were doing me the greatest possible favor, “I really mean to rest one whole month. I don’t mean to do one _single_ thing during that month--except write a life of Oliver Cromwell.” How I laughed! What an idea of complete rest--to write a life of Oliver Cromwell! And write a life of Oliver Cromwell he did during that period of complete rest, but before he was able to do it there came many another stirring event and change in the outlook of his existence.

Messrs. Platt and Odell, supposedly the arbiters of the fate of every New York State governor, agreed that two years of Theodore Roosevelt in the Executive Mansion at Albany was quite enough, and that come what might, he should not have another term, and so they bent all their subtle political acumen toward the achievement of their wish to remove him. They would, however, have been thwarted in their purpose had not the Western part of our country decided also that Theodore Roosevelt’s name was necessary on the presidential ticket, to be headed, for a second time, by William McKinley.

The young governor, deeply absorbed in the many reforms which he had inaugurated in the Empire State, was anything but willing to be, as he felt he would be, buried in Washington as vice-president, but as the time drew near for the Republican Convention of June, 1900, more and more weight was thrown in the balance to persuade him to accept the nomination.

I have frequently said in these pages that one of the most endearing characteristics of my brother was his desire to have my sister and myself share in all of his interests, in his glory, or in his disappointments, and so, when the convention at Philadelphia met, and as the contending forces struggled around him, he telegraphed to my husband and myself, who were then at our country home in New Jersey, and begged us to come on to Philadelphia, and be near him during the fray. Needless to say, we hurried to his side.

I shall always remember arriving at that hotel in Philadelphia. How hot those June days were, and how noisy and crowded the corridors of the hotel were when we arrived! Blaring bands and marching delegations seemed to render the hot air even more stifling, and I asked at once to be shown to the room where Governor Roosevelt was. A messenger was sent with me, and up in the elevator and through circuitous passages we went, to a corner room overlooking a square. We knocked, but there was no answer, and I softly opened the door, and there sat my brother Theodore at a distant window with a huge volume upon his knees. The soft air was blowing in the window, his back was turned to the door, and he was as absolutely detached as if vice-presidential nominations, political warfare, illicit and corrupt methods of all kinds in public life were things not known to his philosophy. I tiptoed up behind him and leaned over his shoulder, and saw that the great volume spread out before him was the “History of Josephus”! I could not but laugh aloud, for it seemed too quaint to think that he, the centre of all the political animosity, should be quietly apart, perfectly absorbed in the history of the Jews of a long-past day. As I laughed, he turned and jumped to his feet, and in a moment Josephus was as much a thing of the past as he actually was, and Theodore Roosevelt, the loving brother, the humorous philosopher, the acute politician, was once more in the saddle. In a moment, in a masterly manner, he had sketched the situation for me: ‘Yes, Platt and Odell did want to eject him, that was true, but it wasn’t only that. The West felt strongly, and the Middle West as strongly, that his name was needed on the presidential ticket. No, he didn’t want to give up a second term as governor of New York State; he hated the thought of a vice-presidential burial-party, but what was he to do? He didn’t really know himself.’

At that moment, without any ceremony, the door was thrown open, and in marched the delegation from Kansas. Fife and drum and bugle headed the delegation with more than discordant noises. Round and round the room they went, monotonously singing to the accompaniment of the above raucous instruments: “We want Teddy, we want Teddy, we want Teddy.” My brother held up his hand, but nothing seemed to stop them. Over and over again they filed solemnly around that sitting-room, and finally, forming in a straight line, they metaphorically presented arms, and stood for a moment silently before him. He stepped nearer to them and, with a somewhat anxious tone in his voice, said: “Gentlemen of Kansas, I know that you only want what is best for the country, and incidentally what you think is best for me; but, my friends, I wish you would withdraw your desire that I should be the candidate for the vice-presidency. I _want_ another term as governor of New York State. I have initiated a good many reforms that I think would help my native state. I have made many appointments, and the people I have appointed would feel that I have gone back on them if I can’t be there to help them with their work. I am sure I could be of more use to my country as governor of New York State than as vice-president. I wish you would change your minds and help me to do the thing which I think is the best thing to do.” The delegation from Kansas looked the pleader gently but firmly in the eye. The fife and drum and bugle struck up its monotonous sound again. The leader of the Kansas delegation turned, and, with all his followers, once more they marched slowly and steadfastly around that room, making no answer to Governor Roosevelt except the indomitable refrain of “We want Teddy, we want Teddy, we want Teddy,” which sounded for a long while down the corridor. As we listened to their retreating footsteps, he turned to me with a look of mingled amusement and despair in his eyes, and said: “What can I do with such people? But aren’t they good fellows!”

And so, as is now well known to history, the Kansas delegation and other like delegations had their way. Mr. Platt and Mr. Odell thought _they_ had _their_ way too, and at one of the most exciting conventions at which I have ever been present--dominated in masterful fashion by the unique personality of Mark Hanna--Theodore Roosevelt was made the nominee for the second place on the ticket of the Republican party of 1900. One little incident occurred the next morning which I have always felt had a certain prophetic quality about it. An article appeared in one of the Philadelphia papers, signed by that inimitable humorist, the brilliant philosopher, Peter Dunne, alias “Mr. Dooley.” I wish I could find the article--I kept it for a long while--but this is about the way it ran:

“Tiddy Rosenfeldt came to the Convintion in his Rough Rider suit and his sombrero hat and his khaki clothes, trying to look as inconspichuous as possible, and as soon as he got there Platt fill on his chist and Odell sat on his stummick and they tried to crush him and squeeze the life out of him. And they _think_ they have done it, and perhaps they have, but, Hinnessey, they needn’t be quite so sure, for Tiddy Rosenfeldt will get somewhere no matter what happens, _even though the path lies through the cimitery!_”

Whether “Mr. Dooley” simply meant that as vice-presidents had always been supposed to be dead men as far as future preferment was concerned, or whether, with prophetic touch, he visualized the horror that was to come, and the way in which Theodore Roosevelt’s path to a higher position actually did lie “through the cemetery,” I know not, but those were approximately the very words which appeared in that Philadelphia newspaper the morning after Roosevelt was nominated as candidate for vice-president on the McKinley ticket.

Later in the autumn he started on one of the most strenuous campaigns of his life, and swung around the country asking for Republican support for William McKinley’s second term. Just before Election day he was to return to New York to make his final address at Madison Square Garden. As usual, he was to spend the night before and the night of the meeting at my house. Just before he was to arrive I received a telegram saying that his voice was entirely gone from the strain of weeks of speaking, and would I please have a throat doctor at the house on his arrival to treat his throat. Of course I arranged that this should be done, and he arrived, bright and gay, although distinctly hoarse. The doctor treated him, and he was ordered to keep perfectly still during the evening. We went up to the library after dinner, and I said to him: “Now, Theodore, we must only have a few minutes’ talk, and then you must go to bed.” “But,” he said, “I must tell you a few of the very funny incidents that happened on my trip.” And with that he began--my husband and I feeling very conscience-stricken, but so fascinated that we had not the strength of mind to stop him. Suddenly, to our perfect surprise, the early morning light crept in through the windows, the milk-wagons began to rattle in the streets, and we realized that the dawn of another day had come, and that the future vice-president had outraged his doctor’s orders and had talked all night long! And such stories as they were, too; I shall never forget them. One after another, he pictured to us the various audiences, the wonderful receptions, the unique chairmen of the different meetings. There was always a “bellowing” chairman, as he expressed it, or else one whose ineffectual voice did not reach even the first circle of the huge audiences that gathered everywhere to hear him. Out in the Far West eight-horse vehicles would meet the trains on which the nominees travelled, and inadvertent bands would blow in the ears of “shotgun” teams that had never been hitched up before, with such astounding results as the complete loss of the whole team at once, which necessitated the dragging of the carriage by ardent cowboy admirers, or, worse luck, eventuated in terrifying runaways, which, however, never seemed to produce anything but casual discomfort.

Mr. Curtis Guild, of Boston, and Judge John Proctor Clarke accompanied Governor Roosevelt on this trip, and on one occasion the aforesaid “bellowing” chairman introduced my brother as “one whose name was known from shore to shore and whose life story was part of every fireside, and whose deeds were household words from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” Finding that this introduction was greeted with vociferous applause, he then made use of the same extravagant exaggeration in introducing Mr. Guild. The only trouble in the latter case was that, after stertorously repeating the aforesaid introduction, the chairman suddenly forgot the name of the second speaker, “so well known from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” and turned with solemn disapproval to the refined New England statesman, whispering hoarsely: “What in h---- is your name, anyway?”

Such were the tales with which he regaled us that too-short night in November, 1900. Any other man, having so disobeyed the doctor’s stern commands to refrain from using his voice, would have been punished the following evening by not having any voice at all; but, on the contrary, his tones were clear and strong, his personality vital and inspiring, as he leaned from the platform toward the thousands of cheering human beings in the great Madison Square Garden, to put the finishing touch on that stirring campaign for the second nomination of McKinley.

The inauguration in Washington, in March, 1901, had a peculiar charm about it. Perhaps one felt this charm especially because of the youth of the Vice-President and of his wife, and because of the contrast between those two happy young people and the more serious President, weighed down as he was with many cares, the greatest of which was his loving anxiety for his fragile little wife.

Because we were the sisters of the Vice-President, Mrs. McKinley sent for my sister, Mrs. Cowles, and me just after the inauguration, and I remember very well the touching quality of that dainty personality, in whose faded face was the remains of exquisite beauty. She received us up-stairs in her bedroom, and by her side was a table on which was a little Austrian vase in which bloomed one superb red rose. As we sat down she pointed to the rose with her delicate little hand, and said softly: “My dearest love brought me that rose. He always brings me a rose every day, Mrs. Robinson.” And then, a faint smile flitting over her face, she said: “My dearest love is very good to me. Every evening he plays eight or ten games of cribbage with me, and I think he sometimes _lets_ me win.” I remember the feeling in my heart when she spoke those words, as I thought of the man in the White House, oppressed with many cares; even, perhaps, at the time when the shadow of the war with Spain hung over his troubled head, sitting down with gentle affection and quiet self-control to play “eight or ten games of cribbage,” “one for his nob, and two for his heels,” with the pathetic little creature from whom the tender love of his early youth had never swerved.

The scenes outside of the White House connected with the young Vice-President were very different. In the home of my sister, Mrs. Cowles, where we all stayed for the inauguration, quaint happenings occurred. A certain Captain ----, a great admirer of my brother, telegraphed that he was sending from Thorley’s florist shop in New York a “floral tribute” to be erected wherever the Vice-President was staying. My sister’s house was moderate in size, but that made no difference to Captain ----. That “floral tribute” had to be erected. It cost, if I remember rightly, in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars. (My brother laughingly but pathetically said it was about half of his income at the time, and he wished the tribute could have been added to the income.) It had to be erected, and erected it was. It arrived in long boxes, painfully suggestive of coffins, much to the delight of the young members of the family, who were also staying with my always hospitable sister. There, for a whole day, three men worked haggardly building the “tribute,” until the whole front room of my sister’s house (which was much in demand for large numbers of delegations who wished to pay their respects to my brother) was filled in every nook and cranny by this enormous and marvellous structure, which reached from wall to wall and up to the ceiling. The overworked and tired men who created it were so exhausted by the questions of the small members of the Roosevelt and Robinson family that toward the end of the afternoon they sent word to Mrs. Cowles that unless those children were sent out of the house, that “tribute” would never be finished. Finished it was, however, and we were almost suffocated by the sweetness of its scents, and it was all that we could do, in spite of our spontaneous gaiety, to rise above the semifunereal feeling that this mass of conventional flowers produced upon the atmosphere of the whole house.

The inaugural ball was really a charming sight, but was shadowed for the presidential party by the fact that Mrs. McKinley was not well a short while before it took place. She was able to be present, however, in her box, but the shade of sadness was heavy on the President’s face; and the people, for that very reason, turned with peculiar pleasure to the care-free younger couple, who were asked to come down from the box, and to walk in stately fashion once around the room, to the infinite admiration of the many interested observers.

After the inauguration my brother retired quietly to Oyster Bay, and it was from there on April 15, 1901, that he wrote me one of his most characteristic notes. At that time, as in the days of his governorship, he would frequently notify his friends to meet him and lunch with him at my house, much to my delight. On this particular occasion, he had invited so incongruous an assortment of people that he decided that one or two more equally incongruous would be advisable, and writes as follows: “Darling Corinne: Inasmuch as we are to have Cocky Locky, Henny Penny and Goosey Poosey at lunch, why omit Foxy Loxy? I am anxious to see Dr. R---- and I do hope you will ask him to lunch on Thursday also. Ever yours, T. R.”

That lunch-party proved to be a great success, as did various others later; and then came a moment, for me, of serious anxiety when my eldest boy was stricken with diphtheria in college. At once many loving letters came from Oyster Bay--and later, when the young freshman had recovered from his illness, and I was at my home on Orange Mountain, the newly inaugurated Vice-President acceded to my wish that he should come to my home, where my husband and I had lived all our young married life, and be the hero and excitement of the neighborhood at a reception on my lawn. It proved a hot day in July, but his pleasure in meeting all my friends was unabated, and he took special interest in my butcher and grocer and fish man and ice man, and the kindly farming people who had been devoted to my husband’s mother as well as to me for many years. At the end of the day he resuscitated with tender care an old veteran of the Civil War, who had stumbled up the hill in the blinding heat to pay his respects to the colonel of the Rough Riders, now Vice-President of the United States.

That same summer he engineered a sailing trip for his little boys and mine, and writes me in answer to a request from me to know how much I owed for the trip: “About $12 would cover completely your boys’ share of the expenses. It is just like you to want to pay it, but I would like to feel that for this trivial matter your two boys were my guests. So if you don’t mind, I am going to ask you to _sacrifice_ your feelings. As I have told you the extent of the obligation, and it is surely _not_ heavy, let me continue to stand as the munificent host!”

Once that summer during his “month’s rest,” of which I have already spoken at the beginning of this chapter, I spent a night at Sagamore Hill, and my sister-in-law, Mrs. Roosevelt, said to me that she was anxious about my brother. The “rest” did not quite agree with him, and the prospect of a more or less sedentary life in his new position weighed on the active initiative of his mind.

A little later they went to a hunting-lodge in the Adirondacks, and all the world knows what happened on September 6, 1901. Then came the great anxiety as to whether Mr. McKinley would recover from the assassin’s onslaught, and on September 14, he succumbed to the weakness engendered by his wound. While the dramatic drive from the Adirondack Mountains, where Theodore Roosevelt was found, was in process, I, the only member of the Roosevelt family near New York, was inundated in my Orange Mountain home by reporters. That evening after receiving a number of reporters and giving them what slight information I could give, I said that I could not stand the strain any longer, that I could not be interviewed any more, and with the dear cousin, John Elliott, who had been our early childhood companion, and who happened to be visiting me, I went into my writing-room, shut the door to the world outside, and a strange coincidence occurred. My sister-in-law, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, had shortly before returned to me a number of childhood letters which we had exchanged, first as little children, and then as growing girls, for we had always been very intimate friends. These letters were in a box on my writing-table, and I said to my cousin John: “Let us forget all these terrible things that are happening, and for a moment, at least, go back into our merry, care-free past. Here are these letters. I am going to pick one out at random and see how it will remind us of our childhood days.”

So speaking, I put my hand into the box and proceeded to draw out a letter. Curiously enough, as I opened the yellow envelope and the sheets fell from it, I saw that it was dated from Washington in 1877, and looking more closely I read aloud the words:

“Dearest Corinne: Today, for the first time, I went to the White House. Oh, how much I wished for you. It seemed so wonderful to me to be in the old mansion which had been the home of President Lincoln, and which is so connected with all our country’s history. It gave me a feeling of awe and excitement. I wish you could have been here to share the feeling with me, for I don’t suppose it is likely that we shall ever be in the White House together, and it would have been so interesting to have exchanged our memories of things that had happened in that wonderful old house. But how unlikely it is that you or I shall ever come in contact with anything connected with the White House.”

As I read these words, I exclaimed with astonishment, for it did seem a curious freak of fate that almost at the very moment that I was reading the lines penned by the girl of fifteen, an unexpected turn of the wheel had made that same young girl the lady of the White House.

XI

HOME LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Uncrowned the brow,
Where truth and courage meet,
The citizen alone confronts the land.

* * * * *

A man whose dreamful, valiant mind conceives
High purpose, consecrated to his race.

--Margaret Ridgely Partridge.

The deed of the cowardly assassin had done its work. William McKinley was dead; the young Vice-President had made the hazardous trip from the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, had taken the solemn oath in Buffalo, had followed the body of his chief to the final resting-place, and had returned to Washington. From Washington he telegraphed to my husband and myself, with the thought which he always showed, and told us that as Mrs. Roosevelt was attending to last important matters at Sagamore, she could not be with him the day he moved into the White House, and that he was very anxious that not only my sister, Mrs. Cowles, and her husband, but that we also should dine with him the first night that he slept in the old mansion. So we went on to Washington, and were with him at that first meal in the house for which he had such romantic attachment because it had sheltered the hero of his boyhood and manhood, Abraham Lincoln. As we sat around the table he turned and said: “Do you realize that this is the birthday of our father, September 22? I have realized it as I signed various papers all day long, and I feel that it is a good omen that I begin my duties in this house on this day. I feel as if my father’s hand were on my shoulder, and as if there were a special blessing over the life I am to lead here.” Almost as he finished this sentence, the coffee was passed to us, and at that time it was the habit at the White House to pass with the coffee a little boutonnière to each gentleman. As the flowers were passed to the President, the one given to him was a yellow saffronia rose. His face flushed, and he turned again and said: “Is it not strange! This is the rose we all connect with my father.” My sister and I responded eagerly that many a time in the past we had seen our father pruning the rose-bush of saffronia roses with special care. He always picked one for his buttonhole from that bush, and whenever we gave him a rose, we gave him one of those. Again my brother said, with a very serious look on his face, “I think there is a blessing connected with this,” and surely it did seem as if there were a blessing connected with those years of Theodore Roosevelt in the White House; those merry happy years of family life, those ardent, loving years of public service, those splendid, peaceful years of international amity--a blessing there surely was over that house.

Nothing could have been harder to the temperament of Theodore Roosevelt than to have come “through the cemetery,” as Peter Dunne said in his prophetic article, to the high position of President of the United States. What he had achieved in the past was absolutely through his own merits. To him to come to any position through “dead men’s shoes” was peculiarly distasteful; but during the early years of his occupancy of the White House, feeling it his duty so to do, he strove in every possible way to fulfil the policies of his predecessor, retaining his appointees and working with conscientious loyalty as much as possible along the lines laid down by President McKinley.

That first winter of his incumbency was one of special interest. Many were the difficulties in his path. England, and, indeed, all foreign countries were watching him with deep interest. I realized that fact in a very special way as that very spring of 1902 I took my young daughter abroad to place her at a French school directed by Mademoiselle Souvestre in England. It was the spring when preparations were being made for the coronation of King Edward VII, and because of the fact that I was the sister of the President of the United States, I was received with great courtesy. Our dear friend Mr. Joseph H. Choate was then ambassador to England. Mrs. Choate presented me at court, and the King paid me the unusual compliment--out of respect to my brother--of leaving the dais on which he and the Queen stood, and came forward to greet me personally in order to ask for news of my brother. Special consideration was shown to me in so many ways that when Mr. Robinson and I were visiting Edinburgh, it seemed in no way unusual that we should be invited to Holyrood Castle to the reception given by the lord high commissioner, Lord Leven and Melville. It so happened that we were in Edinburgh during that week of festivity when the lord high commissioner of Scotland, appointed as special representative of the King of Great Britain, holds court in the old castle as though he were actually the King.

We had dined with friends before the reception, and were therefore late in reaching the castle, and were literally the last people at the end of the long queue approaching the dais on which Lord and Lady Leven and Melville stood. As King Edward had himself stepped forward to meet me in Buckingham Palace, I was not surprised when Lord Leven and Melville stepped down from the dais, and I expected him also to ask news of my brother, the President of the United States, as King Edward had done, but to my great surprise, and be it confessed intense pleasure, I heard the lord high commissioner speak as follows: “Mrs. Douglas Robinson, you have been greeted with special courtesy in our country because of your distinguished brother, the President of the United States, but I am greeting you with even greater interest because of your father, the first Theodore Roosevelt. You probably do not remember, for you were a little girl at the time, that a raw-boned young Scotchman named Ronald Leslie Melville came long ago to New York and was much at your home, having had letters of introduction to your father as one of the men best fitted to teach him the modern philanthropic methods used in America. Only to-day,” he continued, “I told the children of Edinburgh, assembled, as is the custom, to listen to the lord high commissioner, that the father of the present President of the United States was the first man who taught me to _love_ my fellow men.”