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CHAPTER SIX 

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2

LETTERS ON MANY SUBJECTS: 

GENERAL LEE: 

VISITING ROYALTIES: 

JEFFERSON: 

"IN GOD WE TRUST":

As in other years, RooseVelt's letters in 1907 exhibit the wide range of his interests. One that he wrote on January 16,1907, to the committee of arrangements for the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of General Robert E. Lee, commanded warm approval in the South because of its generous estimate of General Lee's character. In it he said:

"General Lee has left us the memory, not merely of his extraordinary skill as a general, his dauntless courage and high leadership in campaign and battle, but also of that serene greatness of soul characteristic of those who most readily recognize the obligations of civic duty. Once the war was over, he instantly undertook the task of healing and binding up the wounds of his countrymen, in the true spirit of those who feel malice toward none and charity toward all; in that spirit which from the throes of the Civil War brought forth the real and indissoluble Union of to-day. It was eminently fitting that this great man, this war-worn veteran of a mighty struggle, who, at its close, simply and quietly undertook his duty as a plain, every-day citizen, bent only upon helping his people in the paths of peace and tranquillity, should turn his attention toward educational work; toward bringing up in fit fashion the younger generation, the sons of those who had proved their faith by their endeavor in the heroic days."
To Melville E. Stone, Manager of the Associated Press, who had written to him about the approaching visit of a prince from one of the smaller European countries, he wrote on July 16, 1907: 
"I hope he will come incog. To be perfectly frank, I think it unfortunate that he should come at all. As you know, we make a strong effort to prevent royalties coming here. Mr. Bacon will send you a circular issued by John Hay some years ago to our diplomatic and consular representatives, explaining this point. I am continually importuned to get over here, now Emperor William, now President Diaz, now King Edward, and now all sorts and kinds of princes. If one comes it makes a precedent which others are apt to follow, and you know as well as I do that with all these princes we are apt to have difficulties—sometimes because some demagogue thinks it will help him to say disagreeable things about them; sometimes because of the officious and rather snobbish action of the people who regard themselves as of high social position in desiring to entertain the princes; and sometimes from the simple fact that in a democratic government like ours it is very hard to arrange properly for the reception of members of royal houses. Of course you understand that I can not make him a guest of the nation. Congress only can do that."
His absorbing interest in the welfare of the working people of the land, which began when he was a member of the New York Legislature and deepened steadily throughout his life, finds expression in a letter to his official associate, Justice W. H. Moody, of the Supreme Court, on September 21,1907, together with his estimate of Jefferson:
"I am continually brought in contact with very wealthy people. They are socially the friends of my family, and if not friends, at least acquaintances of mine, and they were friends of my father's. I think they mean well on the whole, but the more I see of them the more profoundly convinced I am of their entire unfitness to govern the country, and of the lasting damage they do by much of what they are inclined to think are the legitimate big business operations of the day. They are blind to some of the tendencies of the time, as the French noblesse was before the French Revolution; and they possess the same curious mixture of hnpotency to deal with movements that should be put down and of rancorous stupidity in declining to abandon the kind of reaction and policy which can do nothing but harm. Moreover, usually entirely without meaning it, they are singularly callous to the needs, sufferings, and feelings of the great mass of the people who work with their hands. They show this in their attitude toward such a matter as the employers' liability bill. They are simply unable to understand what it means to a working man's family to have the breadwinner killed or crippled. They are not able to grasp the unmerited and dreadful suffering thus brought on many different people. Heaven knows how cordially I despise Jefferson, but he did have one great virtue which his Federalist opponents lacked—he stood for the plain people, whom Abraham Lincoln afterwards represented.
"By the way, speaking of Jefferson, isn't it humiliating to realize that Jefferson—who I think was, not even excepting Buchanan, the most incompetent chief executive we ever had, and whose well-nigh solitary service as President to his country, the acquisition of Louisiana, was rendered by adopting the Federalist principles which he had most fiercely denounced—isn't it humiliating to think that he should have been, as President, rather more popular than Washington himself at the very close of his administration, and that almost all the State legislatures, excluding Massachusetts but including Rhode Island and Vermont, should have petitioned him to serve for another term and should have sent him formal messages of grateful thanks for his services after his term was over? "We lived through Jefferson's administration, though he did us much damage; and we could live through Bryan or a reactionary; but I do not want to see the experience tried."
To a clergyman who had differed with him about placing "In God We Trust" on the new coinage, he wrote on November 11, 1907:
"When the question of the new coinage came up we looked into the law and found there was no warrant therein for putting 'IN GOD WE TRUST' on the coins. As the custom, although without legal warrant, had grown up, however, I might have felt at liberty to keep the inscription had I approved of its being on the coinage. But as I did not approve of it, I did not direct that it should again be put on. Of course the matter of the law is absolutely in the hands of Congress, and any direction of Congress in the matter will be immediately obeyed. At present, as I have said, there is no warrant in law for the inscription.
"My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit. Any use which tends to cheapen it, and above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated in a spirit of levity, is from every standpoint profoundly to be regretted. It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in buildings such as those at West Point and Annapolis —in short wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.
"As regards its use on the coinage we have actual experience by which to go. In all my life I have never heard any human being speak reverently of this motto on the coins or show any sign of its having appealed to any high emotion in him. But I have literally hundreds of times heard it used as an occasion of, and incitement to, the sneering ridicule which it is above all things undesirable that so beautiful and exalted a phrase should excite. For example, throughout the long contest, extending over several decades, on the free coinage question, the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant source of jest and ridicule; and this was unavoidable. Every one must remember the innumerable cartoons and articles based on phrases like 'In God we trust for the other eight cents'; 'In God we trust for the short weight'; 'In God we trust for the thirty-seven cents we do not pay'; and so forth, and so forth. Surely I am well within bounds when I say that a use of the phrase which invites constant levity of this type is most undesirable. If Congress alters the law and directs me to replace on the coins the sentence in question the direction will be immediately put into effect; but I very earnestly trust that the religious sentiment of the country, the spirit of reverence in the country, will prevent any such action being taken.''
Three letters on literary subjects display his varied reading:
January 11, 1907.
To Mrs. H. C. Lodge: I return Gissing's book on Dickens and also 'The Greek View of Life.' Isn't it curious how much resemblance there is between the Japanese spirit and the Greek spirit of the Periclean age! The Japanese, unlike the Greeks, were able to transform their spirit of intense but particularistic patriotism into a broad national patriotism, and so they have been formidable as a nationality in a way in which it was wholly impossible for the Greeks ever to be. It is curious that one of the worst of the Greek attitudes, that toward women, should be reproduced in the Japan of to-day.
January 29, 1907.
To W. C. Brownell: Every now and then one suddenly comes across a sentence which exactly phrases a thought which there has long seemed to be need of formulating, but as to which the words to express it have been lacking. In your article on Lowell, which of course I liked all through (except that I would put parts of 'The Big-low Papers' higher with reference to the 'Commemoration Ode'" than you do), I particularly like your phrase 'the American democratic ideal is Brahminism in manners and taste, not in sympathies and ideas.'
Abraham Lincoln's democracy was so essential and virile that it would not have lost in any way if he had had the manners and tastes of Lowell. One can like to se'e the White House restored by McKim, and our gold coinage modeled by Saint-Gaudens, without the least abatement of the feeling of being one of Abraham Lincoln's plain people and of keenest sympathy with, admiration for and desire to represent, them.
oyster bay, July 20, 1907.
To Brander Matthews: What delightful reading Lang always is! Your letter, with his essay on the American President of the future, was sandwiched in this morning between internal politics and our relations with Japan; and I appreciated the diversion. Who but Lang could write with such genuine humor, and be so amusing, and yet leave no sting behind?
By the way, I wish Lang would tell me if there really is an 'Aryan' race; Aryan speech, yes; Aryan race—well, I am very doubtful.
Three letters to John Burroughs, whom he always addressed as "Oom John," display his keen delight in studying bird and animal life:
oyster bay, June 22, 1907.
I hope you know what a pleasure it was to have you and Childs out here the other day, and I am so glad that the purple finch, the black-throated warbler and the red-winged blackbird all behaved like gentlemen and turned up as I had said they would.
oyster bay, July 11, 1907.
Yesterday we cut that fine clover, which I horrified you by walking about in while looking for that redwing black bird's nest. After we cut it I was interested to see two orchard orioles (the ones you saw in the garden) come and industriously hunt over the cut clover for insects.
Three days ago I shot a yellow-throated or Dominican warbler here—the first I had ever seen. I was able to identify it with absolute certainty, but as the record might be deemed of importance I reluctantly shot the bird, a male, and gave the mutilated skin to the American Museum of Natural History people so that they might be sure of the identification. The breeding season was past, and no damage came to the species from shooting the specimen; but I must say that I care less and less for the mere "collecting" as I grow older.
oyster bay, July 19, 1907.

I have your letter of the 12th instant. As you well know, my friendship with you has been one of the things that I have most valued, and I should be particularly glad to have a little book made up of the sketch in question, with the Yellowstone article, with the article that you have given it.
In cutting that clover field we were working very hurriedly to avoid a rain. There were four of us at work, and I simply never thought of the nests till afterwards, when we were loading the hay from the cocks into the hay wagon. I am as positive as I can be, however, from the behavior of the female redwings, that there was certainly one, and I think two, of the nests within fifty yards of that corner of the old barn.
Have you Chapman's book on the warblers? If so, you will find the description and picture of the Dominican or yellow-throated warbler. Although the picture does not portray the bird as it ought to, with the long bill of the black-and-white warbler instead of the ordinary Dendroica. If you will tell me what book of birds you have by you, which contains an account of the warblers, I will write you back the page on which you will find the description.
  
    It is funny how incidents sometimes crowd together. Really I have begun to feel a little like a nature fakir myself during the last fortnight; for I have seen two or three things which I very much wish you could have seen with me. The other night I took out the boys in row boats for a camping-out expedition. We camped on the beach under a low bluff near the grove where a few years ago on a similar expedition we saw a red fox. This time two young foxes, evidently three years' cubs, came around the camp fire half a dozen times during the night, coming up within ten yards of the fire to pick up scraps and seeming to be very little bothered by our presence. Yesterday on the tennis ground I found a mole shrew. He was near the side lines first. I picked him up in my handkerchief, as he bit my hand, and after we had all looked at him I let him go, but in a few minutes he came back and deliberately crossed the tennis grounds by the net. As he ran over the level floor of the court his motion reminded all of us of the motion of those mechanical mice that run around on wheels when wound up.

A chipmunk that lives near the tennis court continually crosses it while the game is in progress. He has done it two or three times this year, and either he or his predecessor has had the same habit for several years. I am really puzzled to know why he should go across this perfectly bare surface, with the players jumping about on it, when he is not frightened and has no reason that I can see for going. Apparently he grows accustomed to the players and moves about among them as he would move about, for instance, among a herd of cattle. I suppose that Mr. Blank would describe him as joining in the game!
I was immensely amused at Blank's outburst concerning your visit here. It was his evident belief that I had picketed out the black throated green warbler on the top of that locust tree in anticipation of your presence.