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THEODORE ROOSEVELT
1919

CHAPTER 29
ESTIMATES OF WILL H. HAYES AND GIFFORD PINCHOT

BEING struck with, a beautiful extract of an address on Theodore Roosevelt by Mr. Will H. Hays, chairman of the Republican National Commission, before the joint session of the Indiana State Legislature, February 7th, I wired Mr. Hays at his home in Sullivan, Indiana, asking for the text of that address.   Immediately I received a telegram granting the request and use most of the address as follows:

"I have kept the promise that I made to myself when I was 21. That promise was to live my life to the hilt until I was 60, and I have kept that promise."

These words Theodore Roosevelt said to his sister a few days before he died. And this, indeed, he did.

To follow this man's life is a succession of steps from peak to peak; to describe his accomplishments is a review of superlatives. He had more knowledge about more things than any man, amazing all with whom he came in contact by the breadth of his knowledge, prodigious beyond comparison. He was intensely human in the freedom of his unselfishness, and his name is synonomous with courage and activity. He was as imaginative as a poet, as appealing as a child, loving to fight and fight close, at grips in the clinches, but with the deepest personal affections and the broadest love-for all men. He wanted only real things. While always progressive and reaching out, quick to think and quick to act, he sought the practical method which would bring results. His alert and intense nature was always in tune to the needs of the moment, but he went deeper into the fundamentals than any one of his period. In office, while wise men were asking what might best be done, Roosevelt would reply, The best has been done— and he was right. He would approach with the same assurance and equal ease the settlement of the Russian-Japanese war or a bout with a prize fighter, a social reception or the construction of the Panama Canal. As early as 1902 he spoke the language that the Kaiser understood, and never ceased to speak that language while he lived.

There may have been doubt in Roosevelt's mind as to the outcome of his position in the Venezuelan matter, but there was never any wavering in his mental processes as to his duty in the premises nor any vacillation in his movements in execution. He summoned Dr. Holleben, the German Ambassador, to the White House and told him that if Germany would not consent to arbitrate in ten days Dewey would be ordered to Venezuela. When he did not hear from von Holleben for a week he called him and told him that instead of three days more it would be two days more— and within thirty-six hours the Kaiser yielded. What a characteristic Roosevelt action! With equal ease and the same assurance he undertook the Panama Canal, after four centuries of failure, and made -possible its completion to the practical satisfaction of the civilized world, when without him it would still be a subject of diplomatic discussion. And the voice that called his own babies about him and that cried for justice to little children was the same voice that thundered, "Perdicaris alive or Rasuli dead."

His great fight for preparedness and Americanism in this country against professional pacifism and parlor Socialism was not the development of his later years, nor did it grow out of his conviction of the necessities of the recent period. When he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in 1897, he cried for naval preparedness for the Spanish-American war, which he believed inevitable; he overhauled the navy; he got and spent -the great appropriations for, ammunition for target practice, and in his cable to Dewey, on February 25, 1898, two months before war was declared on Spain, in which the first step toward American occupation of the Philippine Islands was -taken, he performed as naturally as when he left the New York Legislature and all behind him to go West and prepare physically for his career, -and as fully as when, like a voice in the wilderness, in 1914, 1915 and 1916, he cried out, "Prepare, prepare, prepare!"

By some he was called impetuous, yet when McKinley died he made the statement, "I promise to take over and continue -to completion, so far as it lies within my abilities to do so, the policies of the great President who now lies dead." He was called war-like by some—yet he championed the cause of international arbitration of world differences of opinion and claims, both in and out of office, practiced what he preached by submitting the Pious Fund case, and kept the great part of the world peaceful during his regime. He was for peace when peace was right, but if to win right for right's sake war was necessary, then he was for war, or for whatever else was needed; and, above all, he was for America eternally, and there he was the severest partisan.

I have heard the story that when Roosevelt decided very early to take part in politics his family was not immediately in sympathy with that form of public service; he was told by them that he would find no one at the meeting which he purposed attending but "grooms, liquor dealers and low politicians." "Well," Roosevelt replied, "if that is so then they belong to the governing class, and you don't, and I mean if I can to be of the governing class." And he was of the governing class from that moment until he died. He first governed himself, and at no time did he fail to apply to his own personal life, to bis thought and to his actions, the same code he applied to others. Weak physically, he made himself strong. Whenever wrong, he made himself right. With an entire absence of any false pride, he would consult his friends, urge suggestions, and freely adopt them. He is said to have had from his earliest youth this characteristic of absorbing good from every one and everything with which he came in contact. He had it to the fullest in the wisdom of his maturity. He would discuss himself in as frank manner as he would discuss his opponents. His career as a member of the Legislature, as Civil Service Commissioner, Police Commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Colonel of Rough Riders, Governor of New York, Vice-President and President of the United States, as author, historian, naturalist, hunter, sportsman, husband, father, citizen, carried through it all as the one controlling motif a consistent determination to do what he thought was right. It mattered not one whit how that course affected himself or anyone else or anything if he thought it was right he did it—and he did it to the hilt.

We cannot say that he was a typical American, because he was too unlike to be typical; he had no counterpart, he was distinctive, unique 'and original; the foremost American, yes; the leader of leaders, yes; but above all, was he the supreme typiflcation of that intangible thing we love to think of as the American spirit.

Theodore Roosevelt was my friend. This friendship, of short duration as years are counted, was of a completeness and intensity that does not reckon time and that brought the profoundest appreciation, that shall continue while life lasts. The more intimate our relations the deeper grew my regard, for the better one knew him the greater must have been one's appreciation. And I never left him that I did not consciously marvel yet again at the man.

We measure men by comparison. A man is great or small as he rises above or sinks below the level of the generation to which he belongs. When he is gone, we can estimate his size by the space left vacant. By either of these standards, what a man was this man! He was powerful in influence because men believed in him; he moved among his fellows daily with the most unexampled virility, giving and taking, and men believed him. No higher tribute can be paid him.

I affirm that to love truth for truths' sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world. That, above all other things, this man did. He was honest in act, honest in word, and honest in thought. The crime of shame was not his. He was himself, with no pretense. He recognized the perfldity -of pretense and the wickedness of make-believe, and he abhorred fhem with the wholesome hate they merit. What he thought, he said; and what he said, he believed. Honest himself, he attributed honesty to everyone with whom he came in contact. With him, every man was innocent until twice proven guilty. Then again, he would stand in faith, always giving another chance. But when convinced of the guilt of -man or thing, he would see to the eradication with that unerring judgment, fearless dispatch and satisfying completeness approached by no one else.

"Never hit unless you have to—but when you hit, end it."

We are wont to think of this man, with his outdoor mind and his two fists, as a man's man. He was that. He was that above all other things. Yet his chivalry would have graced any court. In this, too, there was no pretense. He was true to his manhood. His own mother, wife, sister, and daughters had to him made all women sacred. He moved with the knowledge that a good woman is the one perfect workmanship of God—and he acted accordingly. He loved his home. He recognized it as the one and only glimpse of heaven on earth afforded man—and he acted accordingly.

Deeply he appreciated the contribution of American women to this war, and often I have heard him express this with the enthusiasm it merits. And let none of us forget in passing just how great has been this contribution and how great our obligation. It is the women who have stood the severest strain, and second only to the soldiers Is the credit due them.

And how this soldier thought the thoughts, sensed the wants and sympathized with the needs of the soldiers, and how full was his proper appreciation of them! Unable to go himself, always his heart was with his four boys and their comrades, and our entire army was to him as were his four boys. He would say to me: "They say food will win the war, Liberty Bonds will win the war, thrift stamps will win the war. They won't. They will all help win the war. But the war will be won by the fighting men at the fighting front and in no other way." And he was right. And this man's appreciation of our soldiers is the kind of appreciation that this country feels and will not forget.

It would be my wont to say of Colonel Roosevelt that which he would have me say of him. Could we consult him now, I know it would be his wish, above all things, that we draw something from his example of benefit to the people he loved so much.

Tile lesson of the patriotism of Theodore Roosevelt, which will live forever, is his monument. This patriotism was not the kind that is born of extremities; it was not that fire, splendid as it is, which burns in the souls of men only when their country is in danger. His patriotism was not the patriotism stirred only by martial music—it was the patriotism of good citizenship, at the fireside, the plow, the mart, in low places and in high places, in season and out of season; it was the patriotism which caused him to make his country's welfare his own business and to interest himself continually in the practical politics of his community. He believed and acted always the patriotism of peace as well as of war, and it moved the man to measure his every act, from his earliest manhood to the date of his death, by how, in his good judgment, he could do the most for his country's welfare. This is the only patriotism which, in the last analysis, is worth while.

I was- with Theodore Roosevelt on the morning he received word of Quentin's death. I was with him the next day at Saratoga, when, with his heart literally crushed, lie interpolated in a speech he was reading, saying: "The finest, the bravest, the best of our young men have sprung eagerly forward to face death for the sake of a high ideal; and thereby they have brought home to us the great truth that life consists of more than easy-going pleasure, and more than hard, conscienceless, brutal striving after purely material success; that while we must rightly care for the body and the things of the body, yet that such care leads nowhere unless we also have thought for our own souls and for the souls of our brothers. When these gallant boys, on the golden crest of life, gladly face death for the sake of an ideal, shall not we who stay behind, who have not been found worthy of the grand adventure, shall not we in our turn try to shape our lives so as to make in this country the ideal which in our hearts we acknowledge, and in the actual workaday business of our world, come a little nearer together, and make this country a better place to live in for these men, and for the women who sent these men to battle and for the children who are to come after them."

He has gone ahead on -the journey of a thousand years. It is not fitting and he would not have this occasion tinged at all with grief that the common lot should come to him, but rather pride and joy that his task was done so worthily. Yet so great was the personality and so deep the impress of this man upon all, it is impossible for men to contemplate his passing without grief as poignant as the immediate prostration that was consequent upon -his. departure. While we bow in submission, as we do, we would have had things otherwise if we could. "Where," said the despairing Villon, "where are the snows of yesteryear 5'* "The snows of yesteryear are in the stream, in cloud and rain, in sap of tree and bloom of flower, in heart and brain of talent and of beauty." Nothing is lost. So, the energies of this man having touched into activity forces influencing still others and others, will move on forever.

I am sure the religion and philosophy -that guided him through his life did not fail him at his death. And let us not forget that strength in the man which in the last analysis was greatest of all. Theodore Roosevelt was a man of great faith; he was a Christian gentleman.

As he saw the world receding, I am convinced that the only sadness he had was the thought of separation from those he loved and from the service to the people he served so well.

Death is not sleep—death is a great awakening. For him the night is done, and it is written that, "Joy cometh in the morning."

Theodore Roosevelt—student, scholar, legislator, executive, citizen of the world, patriot, friend, gentleman Christian, master mind, great heart, pure soul.

Theodore Roosevelt's last written message, pencilled by his own hand a few hours before his death, addressed in the form of a memorandum for Will H. Hays, chairman of the Republican National Committee, was published for the first time in the March North American Review in a facsimile reproduction. The memorandum is as follows:

hats:
"See him; he must go to Washington for 10 days; see Senate and House; prevent split on domestic policies."

Colonel Roosevelt was in the habit, it was said, of making brief memoranda for his stenographer or for himself. The foregoing was found on his desk the morning following his death with his pencil alongside. As Chairman Hays was in the West at the time, it probably was the intention of the Colonel to have his stenographer get Mr. Hays on the 'phone, or in some way promptly communicate with him.

This memorandum indicates that Mr. Roosevelt was recognized as the head of the Republican party of the nation and that he had laid down a well-defined policy of action and was conferring with Mr. Hays, whom he so trusted and loved, with reference to it.
ADDRESS OF GIFFORD PINCHOT
At the memorial service held in Philadelphia a brilliant address was made by Gifford Pinchot, who worked so enthusiastically and successfully with President Roosevelt in the conservation of national resources in forest, field and stream, etc. With his permission we quote from it as follows:
We who loved Roosevelt have not lost him. The qualities we treasured in him, his loyalty, fcis genial kindness, his unwearied thoughtfulness for others, the generosity which made him prefer his friends in honor to himself, his tenderness with children, his quick delight in living, and the firm soundness of his life's foundations, are potent with us yet. The broad human sympathy which bound -to him the millions who "Sever saw his face, his clean courage and self-forgetful devotion to his country, the tremendous sanity of his grasp on the problems oi the nation and the world, and the superb simplicity and directness of his life and thought still live as the inspiration and the basis for -the. new and better world which is to come.

The people loved Roosevelt because he was like them. In him the common qualities were lifted to a higher tension and a greater power, but they were still the same. What he did plain men understood and would have liked to do. The people loved him because his thoughts, though loftier, were yet within their reach, and his motives were always clear in their sight. They knew his purposes were always right. To millions he was the image of their better selves.
Roosevelt was the greatest preacher of righteousness in modern times. Deeply religious beneath the surface, he made right living seem the natural thing, and there was no man beyond the reach of his preaching and example. In the sight of all men, he lived the things he taught, and millions followed him because he was the clear examplar of his teaching.

Unless we may except his conservation policies, Roosevelt's greatest service during his Presidency was tlie inspiration he gave young men. To them he was the leader in all they hoped to be and do for the common good. The generation which was entering manhood while he was President will carry with it -to the grave the impress of his leadership and personality.

To the boys of America he was all they hoped to be—a hunter, a rider, a sportsman, eager for the tang of danger, keen and confident, and utterly unafraid. There was no part of his example but was good for boys to follow. Roosevelt, half boy till his life's end, yet the manliest of men, of a fineness his best friends best understood, was their ideal, and will not cease to be because he has passed on.

To him the unforgivable sin, and there was but one, was betrayal of the interests of his country. The man who sinned that sin he neither forgave nor forgot. For opposition to himself he cared but little; enemies he had in plenty, but they cast no shadow on his soul. He was a gallant and a cheerful fighter, willing, as he often said, to be beaten for any cause that was worth fighting for, and whether in defeat or victory, never unbalanced and never dismayed.

Roosevelt lived intensely in his family life. The doer of great things himself, and the occasion of great accomplishment in others, what he did was not done alone. It is but right that we should recognize the part played by the strong and gentle, wise and loving woman, whose hand was so rarely seen, yet still more rarely absent, in all that was best in her great husband's finest living and most memorable achievements.

The greatest of executives, he transformed the machinery of government with the flame of his own spirit. He was his own hardest taskmaster, and always unwilling to ask of his men the thing he was not ready to do himself. He was our leader because he was the better man. He worked more hours, at higher speed, with wider vision. He trusted us, and gave each man his head. Always eager to recognize good work and give due credit for it, always ready with an excuse for the man who honestly tried and failed, he had nothing but scorn and contempt for the man who never tried at all.

Filled with the joy and the spice of living, afraid neither of life nor of death, thankful sunshine or rain, never sorry for himself, never asking odds of any man or any situation, he used the powers he had as only his great soul could use them—powers seldom if ever before assembled in one Individual, but nearly all of them duplicated, one hers, one there, within -the knowledge of us all. It was the use his soul made of his body and his mind that was the essence of his greatness.

The greatest of his victories was his last, his victory over the indifference of a people long misled. He was the first to see the need for it. To gain it he seemed to throw away his future. In the event he won results and earned a name which will live while the knowledge of America's part in the great war still endures.

He was the leader of the people because his courage and his soundness made him so. More than any man of his time, he was loved by those who ought to love him, and hated by those who ought to hate him. His ideals, his purposes, his points of view, his hostilities,* and his enthusiasms were such as every man could entertain and understand. It was only in the application of them that he rose to heights beyond the reach of all the rest of us.

What explains his power? Life is the answer. Life at its warmest and fullest and freest, at its utmost in vigor, at its sanest in purpose and restraint, at its cleanest and clearest, life tremendous in volume, unbounded in scope, yet controlled and guided with a disciplined power which made him, as few men have ever been, the captain of his soul. Alert, glad, without meanness and without fear, free from arrogance and affection with few hesitations and few regrets, slow to promise but ardent to perform, delighting in difficulties, welcoming danger, sensitive to the touch of every phase .of human existence, yet dominated by standards more severely set for himself than for any others, sustained by a breadth of knowledge and of sympathy and by an endurance, both physical and mental, which belonged to him alone, Roosevelt lived with a completeness that lesser men can never know.

In Roosevelt, above all the men of his time, the promise of the Master was fulfilled, "I came that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly."