Autobiography of Roosevelt's adversary

Preface

When I started at the request of a large number of friends to write this book I determined to tell the truth no matter who was hit — consequently in order to show the animus and venom back of the attack on me and the attempt at my destruction, I have been compelled to bring in those who I would much have preferred to have passed in silence.

THE AUTHOR.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY.

I presume that people would say that I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. This is one of the worst misfortunes that can befall any human being, to have nothing to do, to be brought up practically without any aim in life. My father was wealthy; we had a comfortable home and when I came into the world under the most auspicious circumstances, I had everything that could possibly be furnished to make a human being's life happy. This condition of affairs lasted until I was about five years old. It was only necessary for me to cry for something and insist upon having it and I got it. At five years old the decision was made that it was time to train me, and having brought up a family of my own, I realize the utter impossibility of bending a tree that has grown five years at its own sweet will. As soon as they commenced this training process they found that I had an iron will which my parents had developed. I wanted my own way in everything and insisted upon having it, and after fighting for about two years, it was decided to send me to one of England's most cruel and hard public schools, a school that had the reputation of beating all there was in a fellow out of him. Well do I remember my first trip to this inferno. I arrived there with my mother and was taken in to the head master of the preparatory school. His appearance at once struck terror into my soul and when my mother kissed me good-bye, I felt as though there was nothing more left in life for me. I was immediately taken in hand by this master who had been warned by my mother that I was an unruly and intractable child. From that day the torture commenced. This man believed in nothing but the rod. He thought that the more he thrashed a child the more he would make out of him, and I firmly believe that many a boy has been ruined for life by simply being abused at school in his earlier days. This can do nothing but make one rebelious and hard and create in him an antagonistic spirit against his fellows that nothing can ever eradicate. From the time I entered this school until I left it two years later, my unfortunate little back was hardly ever healed. Upon the least pretext I was flogged, often until the blood ran down my skin. The tortures of the day were only equaled by the tortures of the night. Such treatment could make nothing but bullies of boys. At night the larger boys took delight in torturing the smaller ones. Our beds would be upset and sometimes filled with wet sponges. We were sat upon under pillows and smothered, and with all the homesickness that we naturally had in our tender years, it made our little lives just a burden. The cruelties that I suffered there were breaking down my health and our family physician advised that I be sent to a private school.

The following term I went to a small school in one of the midland counties of England and while conditions there were considerably better than they were at the public schools,, yet the food was of the very poorest quality, the man's sole ambition being to see how much money he could make and how little he could give in return. At this place I had one of the most unfortunate accidents of my life. Playing a game of, duck stone, I slipped upon a piece of ice, fell forward and one of my center incisors stuck in a post that I struck in my fall, causing concussion of the brain. I remained at this place for the rest of the term and was gradually getting thinner all the time, and when I went home for the Christmas holidays, it dawned upon my mother that I was a pretty sick child and upon the advice of a physician I was sent to the East coast of Yorkshire, where I remained for four and one-half years, much of the time with a dear, devoted old aunt.

I may say in beginning that it is not my intention to give actual names of all people, though most of my friends mentioned in this article are dead.

The orders were that I was to take a daily bath in the sea. At this little seaside town they had bathing machines, which were nothing more than small houses on four large wheels. These were drawn into the sea by a horse and we were left until the bath was over, when we were hauled out by the same method. As no bathing is done in the winter on the beach, we had to have special arrangements made to have the machine hauled down for me. A dear old soul who had been in my aunt's service some thirty years, used to accompany me to the machine. A small fire was made in a little stove in the corner and I was stripped off and told to jump off into the sea water. Often in those days ice would form on the wheels of the machine and vessels coming into the harbor and would present a magnificent sight with all their spars and rigging festooned with ice. Some idea may be conceived of the dread I entertained for that plunge. I remember how dear old Ann used to say, "Now, Master Jimmie, be a good boy and it will soon be over." I would jump off the steps into the sea and as fast as possible climb back again out of the water, there to be met by the embrace of the coarsest turkish towel and rubbed until I thought sometimes the skin would come off. Under this treatment I gradually recovered my health and I look back to those days spent with that dear old Aunt, as the happiest days of my life; absolutely care free, made a pet of by all the old sailors on the water front who used to ask me continually to come out in their boats and beg my Aunt Jo allow me to go trolling with them at night.

I acquired such a love for the water that it has remained with me to the present day. It was here I went to a private school and was prepared for my college course. They were an uneventful four years. The monotony of school life was varied only by excursions to Flamborough Head, where we used to gather sea gulls' eggs by hundreds. Many a time have I hung suspended in the air from the end of a cable with a basket lowered by my side with a smaller rope and walked along the ledges gathering gulls and other sea birds' eggs. These we used to sell at sixpence per dozen. It was during this time that I had one experience that showed how easy a small boy could be fooled. A companion and myself, while walking on the beach, saw a large black thing which we supposed was an upturned boat in the receding tide. We watched it for a few minutes and suddenly discovered that there was a tail to it which, as the tide went out, we found to be the flukes of an enormous whale. We waited until the tide had left it, and as I remember it now, it would have taken at least two men, one standing on the other's shoulders to reach to the top of its back. Its jaws afterwards made a gate where a team could drive through. We were so excited that we started back to the nearest fisherman's cottage and reported our find. The old man said, "Aye, but you are fine lads. I will go with you and see it." Going along he took out his purse, one of the old netted kind with two rings on it, and "generously" gave us sixpence apiece, immediately laying claim to the whale himself, which I heard afterwards netted him hundreds of dollars. On that same beach I have seen the tide go out fully two miles, and have driven in a carriage where a few hours later large vessels were riding at anchor. The cliffs at that point are some 300 feet high, I should judge, and I have seen the sea return in a violent storm and spray from waves rolling up against the cliff wet the windows two blocks away. I have seen many a poor sailor making for that harbor entrance with every shred of sail carried away, driving under bare poles and vainly signalling for the help .that it was impossible to get to him, miss the harbor entrance and pass along that north pier, in a few minutes to be dashed to pieces on the rocks. It is an awful sight to stand on the shore and see a fellow being sinking and be utterly helpless and unable to render him any assistance.

The bravery of those men that manned the life boats in those days was beyond all imagination. They should be forever classed among the heroes of the world. Many a time have I seen them start out in that boat to render succor to some disabled ship and barely would they get outside the harbor till a wave would up end the boat and throw every man of them into the water. The boat would immediately right herself, and being self bailing, was soon free of water. Nothing daunted, those men would reach for the life lines hanging over her side and climb into her again, take their seats and resume their oars, and make another heroic struggle to reach their perishing fellows.

During the holidays, I was often asked by the old fishermen to go trolling i and my delight knew no bounds when I got my Aunt's permission. Not only would I enjoy seeing the net pulled up with its multitude and variety of fishes, but I was like a monkey on board, up on the cross trees or out on the gaff, and with every trip gaining health and vigor. At last this had to come to an end. The time appointed for me to go to college had come, and having passed my examination to enter, I found myself one day in a large train load of boys, all headed for the one destination, to wit, Marlborough College.

Here was a new experience. After being at a little school with twenty to thirty boys, I suddenly found myself among a crowd of over five hundred. I fortunately knew one boy in the school and from him I got my ideas as to how to get along with my companions. My inclination was never to study. I had no earthly use for books and could not see why any one else should have. I liked modern languages, French and German, but the dead languages were something that I could not fathom the reason for learning. I was not long at Marlborough until I discovered all the athletic sports that were carried on at a big college, and my time was spent far more around the racquet courts, foot ball and cricket field. The gymnasium could charm me at any time and at the end of the term reports invariably carried backto my father and mother the same account oi neglected opportunities. It usually read, "wonderful ability, but no application." I remained in one form some three terms and my father thought he would encourage me to greater effort, so he promised mc that if I would come back promoted to a new form the following term, he would give me a gun, the highest ambition of my life being to own one. In order to get this gun, I had to learn a holiday task which was always set us. The holiday task at this time was the whole of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, and to show the ease with which I could acquire knowledge when I desired to, I committed that long poem to memory so thoroughly that when I went to school I could start at any line the master gave me the first word of and carry on the poem, and he was so amazed to see this indifferent pupil having learned this so thoroughly, that he offered me another hundred marks if I would recite it backwards line by line, a feat that I easily accomplished.

After I had recited some half page, he stopped me and said that was enough, I could have the hundred marks. That gave me a good start towards the gun, and I took precious good care that I did not fall down. From usually having sat at the bottom of the form I invariably sat first or second for the rest of the term, and that term I was promoted into the next form, and with it I received my first gun. I honestly believe that that gun was the means of keeping me all my life a poor man. Whether it was the gun or the innate love of sport, for my father was a sportsman to the bone, I am not prepared to say, but from that day to this my greatest pleasure has been to get out in the forest, on the stream, the lake, or the prairie with a gun. So fond was I of sport and always a dare devil trying to see how near I could possibly come to getting a licking and not quite do it, that with two others of the same ilk, we used to go up to Savernake Forest and poach the Marquis of Ailesbury's preserves for hares and other game. We also kept a white rat, an innocent looking animal, but once it was put into a rabbit's burrow, it made the most perfect ferret that a person could possibly wish for. The rabbits would bolt from their holes as fast as they could get out. We had the usual loop net to put over the hole, and had never been caught but once and that time we were caught red handed. We had four dead rabbits and the excitement had been fast and furious, but in the midst of it all, the one who had been left to keep guard got so excited that he forgot to do sentry duty and a master's head appeared over the brow of the hill.

If you had dropped a bomb among us it would hardly have caused more genuine consternation, but this master happened to be all man, and remembered that he had been a boy himself and just as big a devil as any of us. After scaring us with a threat of taking us to the head master, which we knew would cause us to be expelled from the school, because we not only were breaking the school rules, but also the laws of the land, he said, "Let's see how that thing works boys," and stayed and helped us catch two more rabbits. It is needless to say that that piece of work was never given away until this appears in print, and as he has passed to his "long" home, he has gone beyond censure. The reader may wonder how we could dispose of the game that we killed. That was an easy matter. We invariably dressed it and cleaned it thoroughly, and as we were all allowed to keep pet rabbits, we used to go in with baskets of green feed for our rabbits that we had picked along the hedge rows. The old gate keeper at the college also kept rabbits and we have stood sometimes with a brace of pheasants plucked and cleaned at the bottom of the basket and offered him rabbit feed from the top of it. The nerve of the thing was what carried us through and saved us. We certainly were an innocent looking trio. Suspicion fell upon us later and then we never left the college together. We always had our trysting place and we always prepared ourselves for an alibi.

Every boy in the college wore a little skull cap made of black cloth trimmed with pink ribbon. When the cap became faded and shabby we got an order for a new one and immediately threw the old one away. As we were all known by number and not by name, each boy had his number in his cap and we always made use of these other caps that we could pick up as the boys threw them away. Whenever we went on our marauding expeditions we wore one of these caps. It as an easy matter for the owner of the cap in every case to prove an alibi should his cap be found by the keeper of the preserves. Consequently whenever we were chased by keepers or saw danger near as we ran we saw to it that our caps blew off. The keeper rinding the cap, seeing the number in it, knew that he would have no trouble in calling the boy on the carpet. The head master, being chief inquisitor, would call the boy into his office or possibly before the whole school and immediately accuse him of having been caught poaching. Naturally the boy would deny it and prove by his companions that he had been up on the cricket field or in some other place. The keeper who had accused him would certainly be nonplused, but would assert that he could pick out the boy he had seen there. To pick out one boy or three boys out of five hundred or over was a contract that none but a fool would ever have taken and whenever they did undertake it they made a signal failure of it.

Among the other sports that we used to have in the shape of poaching was fishing. There was a very fine trout stream along the road to Salisbury and we used to go down in the meadows along this stream, one on each side of the brook, and basking in the sun we would see these speckled beauties. We had three fish hooks tied back to back fastened on to a willow. The boy on one side would reach over and slide his hook underneath the fish, while the boy on the. other side told him which way to move it, and when the one on the opposite side of the creek to the one who was holding the hook said "now jerk" there was generally a trout hanging at the end of the willow when it came up. All this game we used to cook in our studies and we had many a good feed, which was often shared by one of the masters who had caught us ferreting with a white rat.

The dormitories had iron bars over the windows and we removed the bars from the windows, tied sheets together, and making these fast to our iron bedsteads, had lowered ourselves from the third story window to the ground. This let us down outside the walls of the campus and we would go up town to get ice cream and other dainties, not that we wanted the ice cream, but just to see how near we could come to getting out of the college grounds without getting caught. In those days we were classed as bad boys, whereas as a matter of fact, a boy who is as mischievous as we three were, to my knowledge, rarely grows up into a bad man. We may not make a howling success m the world, but yet some of the best generals in the British army, some of the greatest heroes of the navy and doubtless of any army or navy, have been boys of just that character, and if I were placed in the position of a school master there would be numbers of just such escapades that I should never see. In fact, in later years when I have had men under my charge, I have constantly seen things that I never thought of reporting to a commanding officer. We were such an untamable bunch that while they never could catch us red handed, yet they knew that we were the evil genii that were causing most of the disturbance with the keepers and the neighborhood generally, and it was suggested to our parents that if they wished to keep us out of trouble they had better put us somewhere where we could be watched closer. To this end my father took me back to the place where, as a nine year old boy, I had had the accident that caused concussion of my brain.

This time my father went with me, and while I was but fifteen, I was a pretty good sized man, husky, strong, athletic and afraid of nothing, and my father told this man to be very strict and severe with me, and on no account to spare the rod. I was then supposed to be studying preparatory to taking my course as a mining engineer. There were four other students, varying in age from my own up to twenty-two, and these older men had considerable license, whereas I was held down with an iron hand, against which my very soul rebelled. For a few weeks we got along and at last this tyrant of a man informed me that if I did not get a certain lesson within a limited time, which he told me he knew I was perfectly capable of doing, that he would come in with a cane and give me the best licking I ever had in my life. I was always shut up in a small room like a cell to study by myself and in this room was an open fire place with the usual fire irons consisting of a poker, tongs and shovel. I told him that I could not get the lesson in the time he specified and he turned upon me like a tiger, told me not to dare answer him back. I slammed the book on the table and told him then and there that I never would learn another lesson in his house, and he might as well commence a fight at once if he wanted to fight. He immediately rushed off for his cane and I picked up the poker and stood like a lion at bay. I told him when he returned with his cane that if he struck me one blow I would kill him on the spot, and he knew that I would not only do it but that I was perfectly capable of doing it. He immediately locked the door and locked me in, but foolishly failed to lock the window, which I immediately negotiated, and when he returned to the room he found his bird had flown. I had a few shillings in my pocket and I made for the nearest station some five miles away. I caught a freight train and told the conductor my story. He sympathized with the boy who was fleeing from a tyrant and just as the train pulled out we saw the master drive up in a hurry to the station. He evidently was not able to stop the train because there was no effort to stop me anywhere, and as this train went close to my home, I was able to get off within nine miles of it. When I got off the train I was afraid to go home, but I knew an old keeper that we had on our preserves, and I made for his house, where I received a warm welcome. He made some excuse and left me in the house with his wife and went straight to my home and informed my father where he could find me and the first thing I knew the latter appeared in our carriage at the door. This ended my school career. I positively refused to return to school under any circumstances whatever, and my father, being a man of good, sound judgment and sense, realized that it would be useless to fight me. The tree they had never tried to bend till it was five years old was absolutely impossible to bend at fifteen.

My father made arrangements then with a mining engineer to take me for a term of three years and I started out on my life work, as I supposed. It was intensely interesting and I was an apt scholar, so apt a scholar that after I had been six months working at it, I was often intrusted with important work with the instrument down the mines and sent to make special investigations of cavings, etc. Shortly after I commenced going down the mines, I began to suffer intensely with headaches, whether it was the stooping in the mine or the foul gases, and sometimes the long hours, having to work all night on surveys in order not to delay the men, I do not know. I found that no matter how much knowledge

I acquired I should forever be somebody else's servant, and this, coupled with my constantly recurring headaches, determined me to throw up the engineering, much as I liked the work. I left home one morning to go down the mine, never thinking that it was the last trip I should make to it. Some small disagreement with my superior caused me then and there to declare that I never would go down a mine again, that I had suffered long enough. He sent a messenger up for my father, as that day we happened to be working in one of the mines on our family estate. When my father drove down to the office, I can well remember the disappointment depicted in his face. He thought that at last he had found something that his wayward son would stick to. However, he made no complaint nor yet one word chiding me in all my drive to my home. For two days he went around as one in a daze, and I remember his words as if it were yesterday. He came to me and said, "My boy, you have got to decide upon some course in life for yourself. Your mother and I have done all we can for you." I told him that I wanted a week to consider the matter. At this time my cousin, who had been out in Canada with Prince Arthur as his equerry, came to stay at our house and he told such wonderful tales of the free life of the forest, of the moose, the deer, the game in abundance, the fishing, the canoeing, and painted in such glowing colors all the delights of the frontier freedom, that I decided I would go to Canada, and I firmly told my father of my decision.

He said, "Now remember, my boy, you have made your own bed and you must lie in it. I do not want you to leave England, but if you insist, you will go on the day appointed. " That day was the 21st day of April, 1870, my mother's birthday. Two nights before sailing, he relented and came to me in my bedroom and offered me one thousand pounds if I would stay home. I told him "No" that I could not bear to be governed, that I had my own way as a baby and had fought for it up to that time, and I proposed to go to Canada to be my own master. He replied, "My boy, I am afraid you will never be your own master, and I fear you will come to some harm/' I told him that I would be my own master before I was twenty-one, and so it proved. I was twenty-one in October, 1874, and in August I owned my own homestead. I had always hoped that I would go back home and see my father again, but it was not to be. The following January, 1875, he went to join the great majority. On the 21st day of April my brother came with me to Liverpool and saw me on board the Moravian. I was loaded down with letters of introduction from my friends, one of them being to the captain of the vessel and others to men of prominence in Canada. To all young men starting life, I want to say, throw away your letters of introduction and don't hang on to some one else to help you or push you along — one's relatives and friends can't make a man. It's himself. I may say that only one of the whole of those letters ever did me the slightest good.

It was addressed to the captain of the ship and when I got on board I discovered that there was only one first class berth left and there were two of us had tickets for that berth. It was consequently up to the captain to decide who should have it, and I, having a letter from the owner of the vessel, naturally was awarded the berth. I had scarcely entered the cabin until I heard a man telling what a bad predicament he had been placed in. He had lost one arm and while he had bought a ticket for a first class berth he was compelled to go down a second companionway to a lower deck in order to get one. I immediately stepped out and asked him how it came that he had bought a first class ticket and had to take a second class berth, and he explained to me that somebody else had gotten the berth by having influence with the captain. I told him that I undoubtedly had the berth that he expected to get and as I was on my way to Canada to rough it, I might just as well begin now, and he was perfectly welcome to take my place in the first class berth. I little knew what a friend I was making by this act. It didn't make the slightest difference to me whether I slept above or below, but to him who had crossed the ocean many times and knew the rough seas of the Atlantic and the difficulties of climbing those narrow companionways of that old type of ship, it meant a great deal, and when I arrived in Quebec he invited me to his home in Montreal, and I was treated like a prince as long as I cared to stay there, which was but a short time. I wanted to get out into the back woods, out into the wild, and after staying a week I pushed on for my destination, a little rocky village which appeared to be the jumping off place of the earth, about sixty miles north of Lake Ontario. On my trip from Quebec to Montreal I had my first experience in a sleeping- car. They were very primitive affairs compared to the Pullman of today; you sat in the day coach until bed time and then gathered up your belongings to go into another car to sleep, except when some conductor wanted to see your ticket, then you were unceremoniously aroused, wondering where on earth you were and finally wake up enough to dig up a ticket.