Roosevelt, the happy warrior

Front matter

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ROOSEVELT

THE

Preface

My old-time Professor of English, at Harvard, Francis J. Child, once said to me, "Sonnets are things which everybody writes and nobody reads." Be that as it may, I fear that Prefaces are things which every author writes and few people read. In truth, most authors, I suspect, write two prefaces. The first one when they square themselves to their task and desire to "sketch in" their plan and purpose. When they have finished their work, they tear up this written preface and write a new one, telling what they believe they have accomplished.

This has been my own course of procedure. My preliminary preface is in the wastebasket. And now, surveying my completed work, what do I find ? Yes, and what do I wish my readers to find ?

I have tried to analyze the character of my college classmate, Theodore Roosevelt, and to interpret him by his words and deeds. I have not hesitated to go quite beyond the reportorial field of the chronicler. I have not cared to express a coldly judicial attitude. Rather have I sought to set

X PREFACE

forth that high estimate of him which I have cherished through more than three decades.

I have sought, by my interpretations of his words and deeds, to strengthen in his friends the love which they already feel. And, by laying bare to the noonday light, so far as I have had the power, his innermost springs of action, I have hoped to transform into sincere friends some who once were honest foes. Following the lead of Wordsworth's immortal conception, I picture Theodore Roosevelt to myself and to my readers as "The Happy Warrior." Joy and combat. Elevation of soul through championship of Right and Truth. Those are the two foci of the ellipse which expresses his strenuous life.

Several biographies of Roosevelt have already been written, with varying values and from various viewpoints. My method, in this book, has been so personal and intimate that I have needed to seek material from many persons who were his friends and mine. They have responded freely, generously. To them all — and especially to my classmates of Harvard, '80 — I express my warmest thanks.

I wish, also, to acknowledge, gratefully, the assistance I have received from these books: "Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography", "Theodore Roosevelt and His Time", 2 vols., by Joseph Buck-

PREFACE xi

lin Bishop, "Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children", edited by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, published by Charles Scribner's Sons; "Theodore Roosevelt", by William Roscoe Thayer, "Theodore Roosevelt, the Logic of His Career", by Charles G. Washburn, "Talks with T. R.", by John J. Leary, Jr., published by Houghton Mifflin Co.; "Life of Theodore Roosevelt", by William Draper Lewis, published by John C. Winston Co.; "Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt", by Lawrence F. Abbott, pubhshed by Doubleday, Page Co. ; "Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen", by Jacob Riis, pubhshed by Macmillan Co.; "The Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt", by Hermann Hagedorn, Jr., "Bill Sewall's Story of T. R.", by William W. Sewall, published by Harper & Brothers; "Theodore Roosevelt the Man", by Ferdinand C. Iglehart, D.D., published by The Christian Herald.

Contents

CHAPTER

PAGE

Preface i^

Chapter I

My earliest recollection of Theodore Roosevelt is still fresh in my memorj^ I saw him, really to distinguish him for the first time, in the transept of ]\Iemorial Hall, Cambridge, in October, Eighteen Hundred Seventy- Six — our Freshman year.

I had come out of the dining-hall, and, as I walked toward the outer door, I noticed three fellow students engaged in animated discussion. What the topic was I knew not. But I was struck by the earnestness with which one of them was setting forth some point to the other two, in turn.

The speaker emphasized his points by vigorous movements of his head and by striking his right fist into his left palm. He was a lad of medium height. His slightly curling hair was a light brown color, and he wore side whiskers. Behind his spectacles I could see his keen blue eyes flash, and he seemed entirely absorbed in his speaking. His words poured out rapidly, and he fairly stammered in his eagerness to express his ideas. He frowned as he talked, yet at times he paused and smiled. And I noted, for the first time, his singular yet winning expression as his short upper lip bared his teeth.

"Who is he ?" I asked of the friend with me. And the reply came, with an amused smile, "Oh, that's Teddy Roosevelt, one of our '80 men."

From that point of time on through forty years Roosevelt became to me more and more a marked personality. And my acquaintance with him, beginning slenderly, enlarged and strengthened until I counted myself, through the great rich years of his mature power and world-wide fame, one of his most appreciative and devoted friends.

Upon the period of his life which lay back of my first sight of him — the period of his childhood and boyhood — I am compelled, of course, to look through eyes other than my own. Indeed, chiefly — like fellow chroniclers of his life — through his own eyes. For to him, in his "Autobiography", are we mainly indebted for such knowledge as we have of his earliest years.

Lucius Eugene Chittenden, at one time private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, kept a diary and afterward wrote "Memories" of the great man whom he served. And in them he drops the casual.

naive remark, "Had I known, at the time, how great a man Lincoln was, I could have written far more details about him than I did."

Would that he had better known the great Emancipator. And would that some friend and associate of the boy Roosevelt could have discerned the unfolding greatness in him and set down ten times the number of incidents and anecdotes, sayings and conversations, which we treasure, in the all too meager Autobiography.

I have long been interested in comparing him, the mature statesman and reformer, with himself as the child and the schoolboy. I take the woven fabric of his mature character, as it now lies exposed to the gaze of the whole world, and try to trace the threads of that firm fabric as they run back into his boyhood and childhood. They were tremendously strong, many of them, at his age of forty and fifty, but were essentially identical with the slenderer, more fragile threads of his earlier years.

Take this "thread" as an illustration. I read, not long ago, an account of his excursion with Earl Grey over English fields and meadows, on Roosevelt's journey back from Africa, and about the pleasure of the two men in their observation of the birds. Earl Grey expressed surprise at Roosevelt's interest in them and his knowledge of them.

Trace that "thread" farther back along the fabric of Roosevelt's life. John Burroughs, an authority on such matters, declared that Roosevelt had remarkable familiarity with the birds of this country.

Still farther back, some of us recall a somewhat heated controversy on nature study which ran the rounds of the newspapers. Roosevelt had questioned some of the interpretations of smaller animal life set forth by a well-known naturalist. I forget which of the two disputants was correct — Roosevelt, I think — but the controversy showed that my former classmate had observed very keenly.

Thus the thread of nature study runs throughout his entire life. In his college course it was very apparent from his choice of studies. It leaps into humorous prominence in that story of his ride from Boston to Cambridge, in the horse car, having beside him several live lobsters for study in a loosely tied package. One of the lobsters crawled out of the package and up into an adjacent woman passenger's lap, to her great alarm. Recapture and apologies followed. But there was the thread of the naturalist running through the incident.

Back runs the naturalist thread into Roosevelt's childhood. He was, mentally, a good observer, but normal physical sight was denied him. He found out his deficiency when he was about twelve years old. But before that time, handicapped as he was, he observed insects, fish, animals, flowers, flora and fauna ; and there was present in him that genuine scientific spirit which later came into so full a fruition. How amusing, and yet how significant to the analyst, the psychologist, are the stories told about his "Museum of Natural History!" Other youthful members of the family lent their aid, but he was the leader, and hardly out of pinafores.

At that stage of his career, he became interested in white mice. And with a resourcefulness and energy which never left him but rather increased as years passed and physical strength increased, he informed the neighborhood that he would pay five cents for each white mouse sent to him, and thirty-five cents for a family of them. Result? The house was swamped by contributions.

One of his acquisitions was a snapping turtle, which he fastened to the leg of the sink in the laundry. And one of the housemaids gave notice that she would leave unless the turtle was removed.

A hint of the thoroughness which was always a marked characteristic of him comes out in the recorded incident that he had secured a dead woodchuck and wished to set up its skeleton. And he told the cook to boil the body "twenty-four hours, so that the bones would all separate out, and not one be lost to science."

The story of the dead seal, measured by him in front of the store, and the incident of the white mice, put for safe keeping into the ice chest, — a preservative device, surely — those stories hint at the same eager activity, wide range of interest, and vigorous originality which characterized him in mature life.

Every "live boy" of any age can sympathize with him, as he trudged about, dragging a copy of one of Mayne Reid's adventure books, or Livingstone's "Travels in Africa." That vividly written book of the great African missionary must have sown the seed, in little Theodore's mind, of an eager curiosity to see the land of lions and elephants, giraffes, and "rhinos."

Jacob Riis is responsible for one little fragment of Rooseveltian biography which illustrates the child Theodore's daring activity. "A woman who lived next door to the Roosevelts in East Twentieth Street told me that once, in passing the house, she saw Theodore, a mere child, hanging out of a second-story window. She hurried and told ]Mrs. Roosevelt, who, as she started anxiously to catch the venturesome youngster, remarked, 'If the Lord hadn't taken care of Theodore he would have been killed long ago.' "

The most significant of the early incidents of Roosevelt's life, of which we have record, was the amusing one which tells of his protest against an undeserved — as it seemed to him — reprimand by his mother. There was an abundance of affection in his childish heart for her, as in her heart for him. But one day he felt himself aggrieved at some action of hers toward him. And when came the time for him to say his evening prayers, he bethought him of her sympathy for the Confederate Cause — she being of Southern birth — and he added a clause to his formal prayer. He prayed for the success of the Union arms. He even particularized. He prayed that God "would grind them to powder." As always, no halfway measure.

Luckily his beloved mother had a strong sense of humor, which he inherited in full measure, and she concealed her smiles and forbade all similar impro\asations in the future, under penalty of being reported to his father, — "The only man whom I ever feared," Roosevelt declared in later life.

That incident held the germ of one of Roosevelt's strongest characteristics. It was his instinctive effort to strike back at any one who attacked him. Submission to real or fancied injustice was not in his nature. In his sparring contests at college and in all the contests of his later life, his invariable action was not quiescence or endurance simply; but he "came back." Like a steel spring he recoiled upon all who struck at him. Often circumstances did not permit him to express this desire. Wisdom or tact dictated some other course. But the instinct, the strong desire, was always there. In a conversation, during the latter half of his hfe, with his friend, John Leary, Junior, he said, with his characteristic vigor, "Jack, a man has no more right to forget an enemy than he has to forget a friend. I've always tried to do something for everybody who ever did anything for me." Then a smile, and, "But the regret of my life is that I have been unable to take proper care of all my enemies. I've had a million of them — too many for any man to attend to in an ordinary lifetime."

This code of morality was more after the Spartan or Mosaic order than the Christian. But, in reviewing any man's words or in analyzing his character, we need to remember that his theories and his actions often do not coincide. Sometimes the man's conduct rises far above his theory. This was true of Roosevelt. And in his case we need also to remember that his sense of humor, his brilliant, daring spontaneity of speech often led him to say things which he by no means meant in their full, unmodified form. We know, without being told, that this delightful outburst of his concerning his enemies was followed by a laugh, equally delightful.

Apropos, in passing, of Roosevelt's keen sense of humor, observable through his mature life, I cite two incidents given by the Reverend F. C. Iglehart, which disclose to us an early section of that thread of humor which was woven so largely into the entire fabric of his life.

The growing boy, Roosevelt, not only betook himself early to books, but he made easy contacts with "all sorts and conditions" of boys, as far as opportunity offered. There, for instance, was the sturdy, straightforward nephew of the village blacksmith at Dobbs Ferry, where Theodore spent a summer. They were playmates, those two, and friends. The nephew, a year older than Theodore, is still living and recounts some of their operations and cooperations. I suspect that the relationship was, necessarily, a bit more feudal than democratic. But it gave satisfaction to both.

One of the incidents was this. The two boys were playing together one day, on a pond upon which Theodore had a skiff. He was alone in the skiff at that moment; his companion sat on the bank. Presently two of Theodore's grown-up friends drove by in a carriage. At the opportune instant he sprang up in the frail craft, tumbled about, and contrived to tip the craft over, splashing into the water, quite out of sight. He remained under water a considerable time, to the delight of his watchful playmate but to the alarm of the deceived grown-ups.

The other incident, revealing the boy's inherent drollery, is this. It was the custom in the Roosevelt family that summer for the senior Theodore Roosevelt to be driven to the train each morning by a "coachman" in the "depot wagon." Theodore, Junior, frequently accompanied his father. One morning, as the boy returned with the "coachman" to the house, he induced the man to allow him to don the coat and hat which made up his "livery." Well covered up in these, he directed his playmate, the blacksmith's nephew, to sit beside him on the box. The playmate demurred, because he was wearing "only this hickory shirt and this small straw hat, and your mother'll know me." But Theodore insisted, wanting the boy for his "footman", he said; and he drove to the front door. Then he called out, in the loudest and most "grown-up" tones he could summon, "Is ]Mrs. Roosevelt in?" The puzzled housemaid, sweeping the porch, replied confusedly that she was in. "Then tell her," enjoined the rollicking youngster, "to come out for a drive. If she doesn't come now she can't have a drive at all to-day." Whereupon, without waiting, perceiving that the climax had been reached, the amateur coachman drove away to the stable.

Only homely little incidents, these two, but prophetic of the exceptionally developed sense of humor which the man Theodore Roosevelt manifested. Every man flatters himself that he has a "sense of humor." And most men have. The others we pass over in silent pity. The mature Roosevelt had the humor sense in abundant measure. Indeed, it protected him, on countless occasions, from the deeper pains of disappointment, anxiety, and futile wrath. As he stood, a champion of truth and righteousness, before the world through many years, he did not wear the full armor described by the Apostle to the Gentiles — helmet, breastplate, and all the other pieces — but he bore a keen sword in his strong right hand and a polished shield upon his left arm. The sword was his own intrepid, combat-loving spirit, and the shield was his unfailing sense of humor, which "quenched the darts of many an adversary."

Chapter II

A few months ago I went down into my cellar and groped about there, in a dim light, gathering several kinds of bulbs. These I planted in a sunny spot of my garden. And I saw them, in due time, push up into stems and stalks, and later flower out in flaming colors.

That dim cellar, with its undeveloped yet vital bulbs, may serve as an illustration of Roosevelt's life, during the period of his childhood and early boyhood, as it appears to me, from my present viewpoint. It is dim, and our knowledge of its contents is derived largely from Roosevelt's own memories. There are few persons living to-day who can add much to what he recollected. When he came to Harvard, he came out into the light. He began, in 1876, that group-life which was to continue, enlarging continuously, through his entire career. Many of his college classmates are living to-day and can build up a considerable body of information about him from their recollections.

The interesting objective which I set before myself at this point is — to bring up out of that dim early period, like bulbs from their shadowy seclusion, the germs of those qualities in him which later flowered forth in luxuriance, before the eyes of the world. And I feel inclined, at this stage, to recur to those two striking qualities to which my first chapter adverted, — the quality of humor, or mirthfulness, and the quality of combativeness, typified by a shield and a sword.

Roosevelt's sense of humor has more psychological value to the analyst than might casually be supposed. It shows plainly, even in his own autobiographical narration of certain incidents in his boyhood. For example, there is delightful humor in his reference to his zealous efforts in the field of taxidermy. "Doubtless the family had their moments of anxiety and suffering — especially when a well-meaning maid extracted from my taxidermist's outfit the old toothbrush with which I had put on the skins the arsenical soap necessary for their preservation, partially washed it, and then put it back with the rest of my wash-kit, for my personal use."

Again, during his first journey abroad, he speni. a summer in a German family in Dresden. As in his American home, he was active in his "nature studies." And he records that, "Whenever I could get out into the country, I collected specimens industriously, and enlivened the household with hedgehogs and other small beasts and reptiles which persisted in escaping from partially closed bureau drawers."

During his stay at Dobbs Ferry, he became the possessor of a "breech-loading pin-fire doublebarreled gun." "It was an excellent gun for a clumsy and often absent-minded boy," he says. "There was a spring to open it; and, if the mechanism became rusty, it could be opened with a brick without serious damage. When the cartridges stuck they could be removed in the same fashion."

We may be sure that when he wrote that, forty years afterwards, his face wore that same fascinating smile which became famous the world over. And, apropos of that smile, it may be told that he was never seen to laugh more delightedly than when, during a poltical campaign, he read the "story" of a reporter who described him, when he pressed his way to the platform, as "biting his way through the crowd."

Again I recur to the closing words of the previous chapter and to the sword in his hand, symbol of the valor of his spirit. That actual love of righteous combat, mental or physical, was one of his greatest assets as a reformer and a public official. That characteristic has been noted by- thousands, and it was pointed out by ]\Ir. Taft in his noble, tender eulogy of Roosevelt, after the latter's death. And a letter which has come to me, as I write, from a classmate, contains this statement: "I met Roosevelt in New York one day, just after he had been appointed to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I congratulated him, and suggested that he would now live a quiet, pleasanter life than had been his as Police Commissioner. But he replied, shaking his head doubtfully, 'I don't know about that. I like a fight. I do like a fight.' " And he did. But let it be noted that he liked it only when it was rooted in a righteous motive.

That aggressive quality in Roosevelt first comes to light in the fist-fight which he, as a boy, precipitated with two traveling companions of his own age. He was on his way to JNIoosehead Lake, in Maine, sent there with the parental hope that its outdoor life would strengthen him and help him throw off the astlmia by which he was beset and tortured through several of his earlier years. Not only was he asthmatic, but he was frail and physically below the average of boys of his age. But in spirit he was unsm-passed. And when his youthful fellow travelers made fun of him, he attacked them. "But either of them, singly, could handle me with easy contempt," he records.

This discomforting experience was a turning point in his life. He faced the fact of his inferiority

IG ROOSEVELT: THE HAPPY WARRIOR

in physical strength, and — true to the rare elasticity of his nature — he reacted upon it and set about correcting his defects. His parents and all his older friends had realized his bodily disability before he did. And all the world now looks back upon his weak, suffering childhood with pity and wonder, — pity for him as he seemed so poorly equipped for the struggle of life, and wonder that he so transformed his weakness into strength.

He accomplished this by the persistent exercise of his most unique gift, — an indomitable will. Other qualities he had which counted in his mastery of life, but his will was marvelous, almost miraculous. If he had been born two thousand years or more ago, in Greece, in Sparta, his infant fate would have been to be exposed to lingering death on Mount Tagytus, with other Spartan defectives. His capacity for survival and helpful citizenship would have been considered slender and negligible. But the record of his sheltered early life not only suggests the high distance which the human race has come, as indicated by its care for the weak and helpless members of society, but it proclaims also the miracle which an indomitable human spirit can accomplish, in its mastery of its body.

His father, always wise and sympathetic, encouraged the boy to enter into such sports and pastimes as would develop such slender physical powers as he had. And the walking, sparring, riding, rowing, and other sports which he took up he continued throughout his hfe. That nearsightedness which was so evident during his entire career became known to him when he was thirteen years of age. Before that time, hke most children similarly handicapped, he had not realized — nor had his relatives and friends — his defects of sight. But spectacles for his eyes were promptly provided, and a new world stood revealed before him.

Many people have expressed surprise that with his poor eyesight he could yet attain such proficiency in "nature study." But the spectacles largely remedied his visual defects; and, mentally, he was keenly observant. Then, too, his hearing was always acute, and this was a great asset in his study of birds; he caught their calls and songs usually before he identified their plumage and movements.

One point may here be noted, as we recall the several kinds of pastimes which he entered into as a boy. These were the rowing and sailing on the waters of Long Island Sound. Most boys are eager for boats, but most boys pass on from rowboats to sailboats. They soon prefer the latter kind. But Roosevelt was unique in that he always preferred rowing to sailing. And just here, in this preference, we discover one of his striking characteristics. Evidently he preferred the rowing because it gave him something to do. He was incessantly active. And, naturally, he preferred using his strength on the oars to sitting hstlessly at a tiller or a wheel.

This stage of our survey may properly be the one where attention is called to the fact that Roosevelt was essentially a "self-made" man. That term has been applied to many men, especially in this land of comparatively free development and unrestricted opportunity. But, usually, if those men's careers are closely examined, it will be found that their advance, their "rise," has been brought about more by their alteration of their environment and by their seizing opportunities, than by their conscious alteration of their own characters.

Thus, strictly speaking, they have not been self-made, or remade, in any marked degree. But, in Roosevelt's case, there was a conscious, determined remaking of his mental qualities. He was by nature shy and self-distrustful, but in his mature and pubHc hfe — let me say, with a smile — those qualities were never attributed to him. He eliminated them. And by nature he was timid. He records this, with all frankness, of himself. But he also records his method of correcting that defect. He says, "I read a passage, in one of the novelist Marryat's books, wher.e the hero explains how to acquire the quality of fearlessness. 'A man should keep such a grip on himself that he can act as if he were unafraid. And, in time, he will become unafraid.' "

This, analyzed, is of course "Will." And this was possessed by Roosevelt in an exceptional measure. He put it forth upon his emotional nature, and he became fearless, — physically, mentally, and morally. This was done consciously. He tells us, "I trained myself painfully and laboriously, not only as regards my body but as regards my soul and spirit."

Roosevelt's will, recognized by him and developed by him, simply supplemented and directed a natural activity which was his always, even back in those pinafore days when he made a somewhat mordant attack upon his child-sister, and was duly chastised, after pursuit and capture by his inexorable father. He was easily the leader in all games among his young relatives. He started the family "Museum of Natural History." He was not content to observe and wonder and feel delight at the novel objects which he found about him. He was enterprising, resourceful, original. And the "Museum" resulted.

Although the boy Theodore's most pronounced intellectual bent was toward natural science, other studies had not been neglected. His feeble physique, through his earhest years, made of him a "home boy", and he was not put through the usual pubhc-school course of instruction. But his Aunt Anna, as a member of the household, guided him through the intricacies of "the three R's", and at one time a French governess lived with the family. This first-hand instruction in French gave the boy a famiharity with the language which he retained throughout his life.

The earlier of the two trips abroad which he made as a boy appears, on his own statement, to have given him but little. At ten years of age, a boy cannot get much more in Europe than in the United States. The charms of its history and art elude him. But, four years later, in the winter of 1872 and 1873, he sailed again, with his family, across the Atlantic. And on this trip he went as far as Egypt. His general reading had prepared him for the picturesque remains of the Nile's ancient cities, and he greatly enjoyed what he saw. Yet it must be noted that even on this journey, as on the first one, the naturalist spirit dominated. On the Nile he was above all else a collector of birds. Indeed, before the party had set forth from their native land, Theodore had provided himself with a supply of pink-colored "Roosevelt Museum labels" for use on this "adventurous trip", as it seemed to him.

As we range about, through this dim pre-collegiate life of our great American, finding in his recorded words and acts the germs of the great deeds which characterized him later, we ask again and again, "But what was the one dominant quality in him which gave him the greatness which the world now ascribes to him?"

We can pick out several without which he could not have achieved what he did. Yet, back of all the others, the one factor which most arrests our attention is the dynamic factor, the energ}^ which seemed never to tire and drove him to express himself in scores of ways, joining now with one group of faculties and now with another, so that not only was "No human endeavor outside his range of interest", as the ancient phrase put it, but there was hardly one which he did not actually seek and eagerly pursue and in it attain excellence. The driving power in this phenomenal man combined chemically with all his varied faculties and interests and made them function with rare vigor.