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IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 By Lawrence F. Abbot

CHAPTER SEVEN
 
AFRICAN AND  EUROPEAN  TOUR

WHEN Roosevelt made his plans in the autumn of 1908 and the early winter of 1909 to explore the African jungle as a hunter-naturalist, to use his own phrase, I arranged, with his approval, to accompany him as far as Mombasa, on the western shore of the Red Sea, whence he was to enter the wilderness. He was to sail on Tuesday, March 23rd, on the North German Lloyd steamship Hamburg, bound for Naples. I had arranged my passage and bought my tickets when he wrote me as follows from the White House on February first:
After considerable thought I told the Associated Press people that I did not wish even you to go with me on my trip. I don't want any people able to say that I am responsible for any newspaper man or magazine writer accompanying me on my trip. I want to be able to say that I have done my best to keep every representative of the press from accompanying me or from advertising the trip in any way and that beyond the formal exchange of courtesies I have had no communication with any newspaper man while on the trip. 
Of course I cheerfully, but regretfully, cancelled my passage and stayed behind.

When Roosevelt left New York he had arranged to make three formal public speeches during his return home through Europe in 1910—the address at the Sorbonne (referred to in the preceding chapter), an address at the University of Berlin, and the Romanes Lecture at Oxford University. The three addresses, which were to be not political but academic in character, had been written before he left America. I was anxious to hear them because I believed that the occasions of their delivery would prove to be university events of the first importance. So during the autumn of 1909 I wrote and asked him whether he had any objection to my joining him in France the following spring, in order to hear these three addresses.

There lies before me, as I write, an autograph letter from Roosevelt—dated "On Safari, December 2, 1909"—which was chiefly devoted to the controversy about the record of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. It may be of interest to quote here what he said of this controversy:
About B	's letter concerning the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill my own idea is that a public controversy on the subject would be unwise.    You can write B	----what I now say:  Mr. B	, by his own letter, shows that I stated the facts exactly in the volume I wrote. ["The Rough Riders."] There is no misapprehension in the matter at all, except in minds like Mr. B	's. The San Juan Block House was simply one of the points of attack; the rest of the San Juan Ridge, and the hills near by, like Kettle Hill, form other points of attack. The cavalry charged at "San Juan Hill" just as much as the infantry; to deny this is merely to quibble—and to quibble untruthfully at that; and they charged "over the hill at San Juan." The titles of the pictures to which Mr. B	objects are absolutely accurate. Let him for a moment think of the Battle of Gettysburg. This took its name from the village of Gettysburg, where there was much hard fighting. But there was also hard righting at Gulp's Hill, at Round Top, and at the stone wall facing Pickett's charge. To say, as Mr. B	does ,that the Rough Riders and the regular cavalry "had no hand in the matter" of the San Juan charge is as foolish and untruthful as to say that Pickett's Virginians and all the men who fought at Round Top and Gulp's Hill "had no hand in the fight at Gettysburg." 
The infantry brigades which went up the Blockhouse Hill at San Juan did admirably; they deserve no less, and no more, credit than the cavalry brigades who at the same time did their share in the charge, that is the battle, of San Juan (it was all a charge and then holding the ground we had taken). Only one of the five or six regiments in the two infantry brigades which charged at the Blockhouse Hill suffered as heavy a percentage of loss in the Santiago fighting as the Rough Riders did. The first position captured on the "San Juan Heights"—that is the hills, loosely so-called, which defended the town—was Kettle Hill, by the cavalry. To try to start a quarrel over the relative credit of the regiments who fought in this fight is foolish and wrong; "the famous charge up San Juan" as Mr. B	calls it, was made by both cavalry and infantry, at different points, and Mr. B	's position is merely a disingenuous quibble. 
202   IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
  The special interest about this letter is that it was written in the jungle, under circumstances that make some of the handwriting very hard to decipher and, like the article on the Pigskin Library, referred to later, without access to any maps or books of reference. It is one of many evidences that Roosevelt's mind was stored with facts of all kinds—historical, geographical, and scientific—and that he could take these facts out, often with literal and accurate quotations, from their various mental pigeon-holes.

In a postscript to this letter he added: "I hope you will meet me at Khartum on March fifteenth." So on February 10, 1910, I took passage for Naples, whence I proceeded via Alexandria, Cairo, and the upper reaches of the Nile, to Khartum. I found that Mrs. Roosevelt and Ethel Roosevelt, now Mrs. Derby, were going on the same steamer; I was therefore, happily for myself, able to act as their escort.

It was typical of Mr. Roosevelt's exactness in planning and carrying out his engagements that he should have arrived at Khartum on March I4th, the day before that which, in the previous December, he had appointed as the date of our meeting. On reaching Khartum I learned that through the considerate thoughtfulness of either Mr. or Mrs. Roosevelt—perhaps of both—I was to be their fellow guest at the Governor-General's palace, a really beautiful and delightful establishment built in the custom of tropical countries round three sides of a patio or courtyard filled with flowers and shrubs.

The Roosevelt party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt, and their daughter and son, Ethel and Kermit. I found that Mr. Roosevelt proposed to buy the tickets, check the trunks, write his own letters, and keep track of his own engagements. In a word, he expected to make the journey from Khartum through Europe like any American tourist.
I was with him only three or four hours when I foresaw that fulfillment of this programme would be absolutely impossible. It was apparent that he was going to be treated like a "royal ambassador, and that it would be necessary for him to have some kind of secretarial assistance. I volunteered to help him and I think he was glad to get my help, for almost every one of his waking hours was fully occupied from the very moment of his arrival within the precincts of civilization. Indeed he said in accepting my offer, and employing a characteristic exclamation associated with him in the mind of every contemporary American newspaper writer and cartoonist, that he was "delighted!"

page from Roosevelt's Ms. of " The Pigskin Library'

One of the first of my self-imposed duties was to copy in my own hand the draft of his article on "The Pigskin Library" which was written in indelible pencil in the jungle, originally published in the Outlook, and afterward incorporated in an appendix of his book "African Game Trails." The accompanying photographic reproduction of a page of this manuscript will indicate to the reader that the job was not altogether a simple one. I remember that I sat up until about two or three o'clock on the night of my arrival in Khartum making this transcript.

Finally I found that I could not perform my voluntary task without assistance and I told Mr. Roosevelt that I proposed to cable to my office in New York for a stenographic secretary. He demurred at first on the ground that he did not wish to put the office to what he was afraid would be a large and unprofitable expense, but I persuaded him to consent, telling him that I was thinking more of my own comfort than I was of his. I cabled; and Mr. Harper jumped on the first steamer and joined us at Rome. Even Harper was unable to keep up with all the work, so at Berlin I was compelled to engage another stenographic assistant and, in London, two others. As a matter of fact in London Mr. Roosevelt's old friend of Spanish War days, Captain (now Sir Arthur) Lee, placed at our disposal the office in his hospitable house where he transacted much of his business as a Member of Parliament. This office, with desks, telephone, two stenographic secretaries (some of the time three), was busy all day long during Mr. Roosevelt's stay in London of ten days or so, transacting his correspondence, planning his engagements, and attending to other matters connected with his visit. There was, for example, the complicated work of exchanging visiting cards. This necessary but very uninteresting side of diplomatic usage reached its climax in Rome. There, I recall, I had to spend a day with Captain Long—formerly of the presidential yacht Mayflower but at that time our Naval Attache at Rome and Vienna—going over a basket full of visiting cards, culling out those that needed Mr. or Mrs. Roosevelt's, or Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt's card left in exchange, and the following day a clerk of Captain Long's office spent most of his time in a taxi-cab, with a carefully mapped out itinerary in his hand, going about Rome leaving the right cards at the right places.

    But to revert to Khartum.    I soon found that, in writing letters or seeing people on Mr. Roosevelt's behalf, it was necessary to have some sort of official authority. At Cairo all sorts of distinguished people were calling at the hotel at which Mr. Roosevelt was staying. If Prince X— called, in Mr. Roosevelt's absence, and I went down to receive him, my name would mean nothing to him; but if I said that I was Mr. Roosevelt's secretary, while he undoubtedly would be disappointed he would at least have transacted his business with me as he would have with the secretary of an embassy or a legation. I suggested this to Mr. Roosevelt and he approved. Thereafter I saw people officially, and signed all letters—except the few that were signed by Mr. Roosevelt himself —as " Secretary to Mr. Roosevelt." The result was that as we went through Europe I received cards to important functions and met important personages, which made my trip a peculiarly interesting one and enabled me to get an impression—that I could not have otherwise received—of the way in which both the great and the plain people of Europe were affected by Roosevelt's personality. It is impossible here to draw a detailed picture of this unique journey. I can only give sketches of what seemed to me to have been interesting and significant incidents here and there. Nor shall I pursue diarial methods. I shall simply put down what my recollection suggests while I write.

The first thing that I recall is my grateful relief at having the vexed question of tipping settled for me at the very beginning. I must explain that within twenty-four hours of meeting Mr. Roosevelt at Khartum I had charge of all his money, checks, letters of credit, etc., and undertook to pay all the bills. I bought a single-entry ledger and kept a careful account. Mr. Roosevelt would occasionally come to me and ask for a little pocket money, say twenty francs. I would reply: "I will see if I can get it through the Committee on Appropriations"! This became a standing joke between us.

I may say, running ahead a little, that when we sailed for New York from Southampton in June, I reported to Mr. Roosevelt that I had, as I recollect, the sum of about three thousand dollars to his credit. He answered with some surprise: "That's good! That will help me to pay the duties on my baggage at the custom house." For he had declined to avail himself of the ambassadorial privilege which had been offered to him of entering the port of New York without an examination of his baggage. I really think that if I had told him that he owed me three thousand dollars   he  would  have  said: "That's  good!   I supposed it was much more."

The fact is that he had less interest in money, as mere money, than almost any man that I have ever known. He was very much more interested in work and service. In 1908, on visiting Sagamore Hill to conclude the final arrangements about his joining the staff of the Outlook, when I mentioned the amount which we were prepared to pay him—a fairly large sum, it is true, for us, but a really small amount in comparison with offers that had been eagerly made him for journalistic and literary work—he put his arm around my shoulder and said: "Now, that is very good of you, Lawrence; but do you really think you can afford it ? I should be very sorry if my connection with the Outlook did not prove to be the advantage to you which you say you anticipate." And on September 10, 1909, he wrote me from the African jungle:
The Outlook keeps me in touch with things just as I desire to be kept. I am exceedingly pleased at what you write as to being satisfied with the effect of my editorials; I have been a little uncomfortable lest you should feel that you weren't getting much good out of my connection with the magazine.
So long as his family was well taken care of and he had reasonably good food, reasonably appropriate clothing, and a reasonable opportunity to be hospitable to his friends, money meant nothing to him. His brother-in-law, the late Douglas Robinson, who was himself an eminently successful and systematic man of affairs, once told me that when Roosevelt was about leaving home to go into the Spanish War as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough Riders he, Douglas Robinson, could not by hook or crook persuade the Colonel to come clown town in order to go over his investments and securities which were in Mr. Robinson's charge. Mr. Robinson finally got him to visit his office by saying: "'Theodore, if you don't come down and go over these papers and valuables with me I shall have to get Edith [Mrs. Roosevelt] to do it." Whereupon Mr. Roosevelt instantly consented, for he was not willing to impose a burden on his wife which he should assume himself. But I have strayed too soon from Africa. As we were leaving Khartum after a delightful stay of several days at the palace, Roosevelt asked me to be sure that the servants—both outdoors and in—were given suitable tips with an expression of his thanks for their services to him. Now most of these servants were Nubians, black as to face and white as to garments and turbans. It was as impossible to tell one from another as it is to identify individual sheep feeding in a flock on a Western plain. In my puzzlement I went to Slatin Pasha's personal aide, a most kindly and agreeable young British officer, Captain Clayton. (If he has survived the European war and should ever happen to see these words I hope he will accept them as an expression of very real gratitude for all his courtesies.) I stated the situation frankly to Captain Clayton and asked him whether he could help me. He replied that if I would leave a sum of money with him he would see that it was properly distributed, and suggested that we both go in to Slatin Pasha and consult with him as to the proper amount.

We did so. I found that both these gentlemen were more anxious to protect Roosevelt financially than I was. They named a sum, which I thought was not sufficient, and accepted as generous the amount I left on Roosevelt's behalf. Captain Clayton gave me an official receipt for this sum. This started me on my career, as a courier, rejoicing, and at every hotel I left a lump sum with the manager to be distributed among the domestics. I pursued the same method, which it seems was the method of royal and ambassadorial personages, at two or three of the palaces where Mr. Roosevelt was a guest. In each case I had from an official a receipt like the following, which lies before me, written on paper bearing an embossed coat of arms:
X	Castle
I acknowledge that I have received from Mr. Abbott the sum of one hundred dollars as a gratification to the servants of the Royal Palace from Mr. Roosevelt.
Master of the Royal Household
X	, May 6, 1910,
Such an experience as this was perhaps one of the least important, but certainly not one of the least interesting, of the journey—to an American at any rate.
It was not until we began to approach Rome that the social and political atmosphere began to be impregnated with some of the electricity that I had seen so often play about the figure of Roosevelt at home. I refer, of course, to what is now known as the Vatican controversy. I can best tell the story by transcribing here the following memorandum which I wrote on board the steamship Prinz Heinrich on April i, 1910, during the voyage from Alexandria to Naples:
Mr. Roosevelt wrote from Gondokoro to Ambassador Leishman at Rome saying that he would be glad of the honour of a presentation to His Holiness, the Pope. At Cairo he received the following cable message from Mr. Leishman, dated Rome, March 23rd:

   "The Rector of the American Catholic College  Monsignor Kennedy in reply to the enquiry which I caused to be made, requests that the following communication be transmitted to you: 'The Holy Father will be delighted to grant audience to Mr. Roosevelt on April 5th and hopes that nothing will arise to prevent it such as the much regretted incident which made the reception of Mr. Fairbanks impossible.—thomas kennedy, Rector'. I merely transmit communication without having committed you in any way to accept the conditions imposed as the form appears objectionable, clearly indicating that the audience would be cancelled in case you should take any action while here that might be construed as countenancing the Methodist Mission work—leishman.''

To this despatch Mr. Roosevelt replied by cable on March 25th as follows:

"Please present the following through Monsignor Kennedy: 'It would be a real pleasure to me to be presented to the Holy Father, for whom I entertain a high respect both personally and as the head of a great Church. I fully recognize his entire right to receive or not to receive whomsoever he chooses for any reason that seems good to him, and if he does not receive me I shall not for a moment question the propriety of his action. On the other hand I, in my turn, must decline to make any stipulations or to submit to any conditions which in any way limit my freedom of conduct. I trust that on April 5th he will find it convenient to receive me.'—roosevelt."
It should be here stated that, while this correspondence was pending, Mr. Roosevelt had persistently declined, either directly or indirectly, to make any public engagements of any kind whatsoever in Rome, except his visit to the King. In order to go as far as he could with propriety in meeting the wishes of the Vatican he deferred his own decision as to any possible public engagements until his arrival in Rome. This had been his answer to all invitations; he felt that he would be obliged first to find out from the Ambassador the exact situation.
Answering Mr. Roosevelt's despatch of March 25th, above quoted, Monsignor Kennedy on March 28th transmitted the following reply through Ambassador Leishman:

"His Holiness would be much honoured to grant an audience to Mr. Roosevelt for whom he entertains high esteem both personally and as the former President of the United States. His Holiness quite recognizes Mr. Roosevelt's entire right to freedom of conduct. On the other hand, in view of circumstances, for which neither His Holiness nor Mr. Roosevelt is responsible, the audience could not take place except on the understanding expressed in former message."

In response Mr. Roosevelt sent the following despatch to Ambassador Leishman:

" Proposed presentation is of course now impossible. Please be scrupulously careful that not one word on matter is said until I see you in Rome.—roosevelt."

In some further cable correspondence the Ambassador suggested the desirability of Mr. Roosevelt's issuing a formal statement in order to prevent his attitude being misunderstood or his exchange of notes with the Vatican being garbled by the press or other interested parties. In order, however, to give his personal friend and associate John Callan O'Laughlin—a Roman Catholic but a loyal supporter of Mr. Roosevelt's principles and position in the matter—a last chance to see whether the Vatican could not be persuaded, for the sake of the American Catholic Church, to change its stand, Mr. Roosevelt, very generously I think, deferred any personal statement or comment until Mr. O'Laughlin could go to Monsignor Kennedy himself. At this writing (April ist) Mr. O'Laughlin has, through his wife, cabled a message to Archbishop Falconio, the Papal legate at Washington, urging him to advise the Vatican that its action, if persisted in, would injure the Catholic Church in America. Mr. O'Laughlin goes by first train to Rome to-morrow morning, on our arrival in Naples, to see Monsignor Kennedy personally. I need hardly add that this is done on Mr. O'Laughlin's own initiative and is consented to by Mr. Roosevelt only on the explicit understanding that the consent is given out of a feeling of regard for his Catholic friends at home and oot because he himself has the slightest desire or inclination to urge his presentation to the Pope. It was explicit^ understood by both Mr. O'Laughlin and myself that, under no consideration, would Mr. Roosevelt recede from the position taken by him in his cable message, above quoted, of the date of March 25th.
The result, of coflrse, was that Mr. Roosevelt did not meet the Pope. Nor did he visit the Methodist mission; he declined to receive the head of that mission, at the official reception which was given to him at the American Embassy, after it was definitely settled that he was not to go to the Vatican. From the beginning he had no intention of taking sides in the conflict between the Methodists and the Roman Church, a conflict which had arisen over the previous visit of Vice-President Fairbanks. His contention was solely that he must reserve the right to exercise his own judgment as to what his course should be without accepting conditions imposed by others. He cabled to New York the following statement with regard to the controversy:
Through the Outlook I wish to make a statement to my fellow-Americans regarding what has occurred in connection with the Vatican. I am sure that the great majority of my fellow-citizens, Catholics quite as much as Protestants, will feel that I acted in the only way possible for an American to act, and because of this very fact I most earnestly hope that the incident will be treated in a matter-of-course way, as merely personal, and, above all, as not warranting the slightest exhibition of rancour or bitterness. Among my best and closest friends are many Catholics. The respect and regard of those of my fellow-Americans who are Catholics are as dear to me as the respect and regard of those who are Protestants. On my journey through Africa I visited many Catholic as well as many Protestant missions, and I look forward to telling the people at home all that has been done by Protestants and Catholics alike, as I saw it, in the field of missionary endeavour. It would cause me a real pang to have anything said or done that would hurt or give pain to my friends, whatever their religious belief, but any merely personal considerations are of no consequence in this matter. The important consideration is the avoidance of harsh and bitter comment such as may excite mistrust and anger between and among good men. The more an American sees of other countries the more profound must be his feelings of gratitude that in his own land there is not merely complete toleration but the heartiest good will and sympathy between sincere and honest men of different faiths—good will and sympathy so complete that in the inevitable daily relations of our American life Catholics and Protestants meet together and work together without the thought of difference of creed being even present in their minds. This is a condition so vital to our National well-being that nothing should be permitted to jeopard it. Bitter comment and criticism, acrimonious attack and defense, are not only profitless but harmful, and to seize upon such an incident as this as an occasion for controversy would be wholly indefensible and should be frowned upon by Catholics and Protestants alike. I very earnestly hope that what I say will appeal to all good Americans.
Mr. John Callan O'Laughlin at the same time cabled the following statement to the New York Times:
Familiar as I am with all the facts, and looking at his action from the viewpoint of an American Catholic, I personally feel that any other action Colonel Roosevelt might have taken would have resulted in the humiliation not only of himself but of the American people, Catholic as well as Protestant, and would have established an unwise precedent of serious consequences in the future.
The controversy was clearly understood by ecclesiastics, in Italy and other parts of Europe, to be one not between Mr. Roosevelt and the Pope but between Mr. Roosevelt and Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal Secretary of State. Merry del Val was not only a prelate but an astute and able politician. I have always felt that he drew swords with Mr. Roosevelt in order to make a test of the question whether he was not more skilful than the American who had come to Europe with such a reputation as a political manager. The test was a complete one and showed that the Cardinal was out-generaled.

In Vienna, the capital of the most ultramontane country in Europe, only a comparatively few days after the Vatican episode, the Papal Nuncio at that capital appeared at a reception given in honour of Mr. Roosevelt, and made this appearance in his official ecclesiastical robes. This was recognized in Vienna and elsewhere as a semi-official intimation that the high priests of the Church believed that Mr. Roosevelt was right and Merry del Val wrong. Immediately after this reception Roosevelt called officially on the Papal Nuncio who had returned to his palace. This exchange of courtesies created considerable discussion and comment in the newspapers. By many it was expected that the Nuncio would be visited with some sort of discipline from the Vatican. He was not, however; and those who knew the inside of church politics said that it was the method which the Pope took to indicate that he did not wholly approve of Merry del Val's management of the affair.

There were certain echoes of the controversy during the rest of the journey through Europe. At Porto Maurizio the distinguished novelist and poet, Antonio Fogazzaro, who died the following year, called upon Mr. Roosevelt and had a long and quiet personal interview with him. Fogazzaro, a devout Roman Catholic, had two or three years earlier published his novel, "The Saint"—which dealt with the question of Modernism and was read around the world. This book was distinctly religious in spirit but also distinctly liberal in its theology. Because of its support of the Modernist movement it had been placed upon the Index Expurgatorius and the author disciplined by the Church. At the time of Mr. Roosevelt's visit Fogazzaro had made his submission and had been taken back into full communion. After Fogazzaro's call I walked back with him to the town—Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were staying with Mrs. Roosevelt's sister at her villa on an outlying hillside— and he told me that because of his own somewhat delicate position in the Church and because of Mr. Roosevelt's controversy with the Vatican he had felt it necessary to ask his bishop whether he might make this personal call on the ex-President, and his bishop had told him to go by all means. Later on in the journey two or three Philippine friars had private interviews with Mr. Roosevelt with episcopal permission. These incidents confirm the opinion which I have already expressed that the sympathies of many of the influential dignitaries of the Church were with Mr. Roosevelt rather than with the pontifical Secretary of State.

Although Mr. Roosevelt was not received at the Vatican he was received with great cordiality at the Quirinal. The King of Italy, Victor Emanuel III, was the first of a considerable company of European monarchs that Mr. Roosevelt met on this tour. It was quite apparent that the kings liked him. At all events, after the formal and punctilious hospitalities had been fulfilled they all, without exception, went out of their way to show him personal attention. There was something about his personality that attracted them. European kings have not always had an entirely happy time even in days of peace. Their relations with their fellowmen are necessarily circumscribed and often artificial. With Roosevelt it was as though they said to themselves: "Here is a real man that we can meet, talk to, and associate with as men, not kings. He won't kowtow to us and he won't embarrass us." There was really an element of pathos in it.
When Mr. Roosevelt came home he was accused, during the Progressive campaign, by some of his silliest opponents, of an ambition to become king of America. His comment on these foolish critics was: "I know kings and they don't. A king is a kind of cross between a vice-president and a leader of the Four Hundred. I have been vice-president, and know how hollow the honour is, and I have never had any desire to be a leader of the Four Hundred!" There was nothing of personal criticism in Roosevelt's democratic estimate of kingship. Indeed, he was drawn to the King of Italy because of the latter's democratic character, which later, during the European war, was respected and honoured by all the peoples of the Allies. After meeting Victor Emanuel somewhat informally Mr. Roosevelt came back to the hotel one night and said to me: " I like the King. He is a genuine man—the kind of man who could carry his own ward in an election!" That the feeling was reciprocated was disclosed by an amusing incident. The King desired to have Mr. Roosevelt visit the famous Italian cavalry school in the neighbourhood of Rome, the Italian cavalry being among the most expert war horsemen in the world. An appointment was made, and on the day and the hour named I was awaiting in the lobby of our hotel for the automobile to come for Mr. Roosevelt. The hotel was a quiet and pleasant one, much frequented by certain diplomats and functionaries, but was not one of the ultra-fashionable caravansaries of the city. At the appointed hour a handsome limousine drove up with a liveried chauffeur and footman. The King with his aide, the latter in his military uniform, alighted and came into the lobby of the hotel. The effect was electrical. The portier or doorman, the liftman, the manager, and the head waiter almost prostrated themselves in their ecstasy of surprise and delight at the honour thus paid to their establishment. The King waited and drove Mr. Roosevelt off in great glee. I doubt if the King had ever visited a hotel in Rome in such fashion before. At all events, we learned afterward that the visit greatly enhanced the reputation of the hotel and were amused to hear that the proprietor had instituted a suit against the Paris Herald for saying that Mr. Roosevelt was a guest at some other hostelry, thus depriving him, the owner of the only genuine Roosevelt stopping place, of the important advertising benefit which he alleged that Mr. Roosevelt's visit conferred.

After a strenuous week in Rome—which had been preceded by a fortnight of exhausting sight-seeing and speech-making in Egypt—Mr. Roosevelt went to Porto Maurizio, as I have already said, for a visit to Mrs. Roosevelt's sister and to enjoy a well-earned vacation. Porto Maurizio is a small but ancient and picturesque Italian city on the shore of the Mediterranean not far from the French frontier. Behind it lie hills and valleys thick with olive trees and vineyards, and still farther back is a fine range of mountains, capped with snow at the season of the year when Roosevelt made his visit. Everywhere are roads and paths enticing to the walker and affording a constant succession of beautiful views of the characteristic Italian landscape. The pleasant villa of Mrs. Roosevelt's sister, Miss Carow, stands in a flowery garden on a hillside overlooking the sea. It was an ideal place for a rest. But in the lexicon of the cable, the telegraph, and the post-offices there is no such word as "rest"; the eagerly anticipated vacation was broken into by a procession of messengers bringing communications—some, it is true,, important, but most of them of the greatest unimportance—who trooped to the "Villa Magna Quies" (which by a curious irony of fate means "Villa of Great Quiet") at literally all hours of the day and night. Most of these communications were appeals for help in private cases or public affairs, or for political and personal advice, or to make engagements for lectures and speeches on Roosevelt's return to America.

Speaking of these letters Roosevelt said to me: "These good people have expectations as to what I can do that would not be justified if I were George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the Angel Gabriel all rolled into one." Indeed, during his entire European tour the number and character of the appeals that were made to him were almost incredible. It was half amusing and half exasperating to see how much of the time of an already over-driven man was taken understanding that to take off the claws of course ruins the skin, so that each request was practically that Mr. Roosevelt should go out and kill a lion exclusively for the benefit of a Correspondent of whose previous existence he had never heard. He was appealed to for monkeys, parrots, and lion cubs by other well-meaning people; one gentleman wanted a pair of small elephants, another a pair of zebras, another a 25o-pound snake—-these requests evidently being made in bland ignorance of the fact that to meet them would have demanded a totally different type of expedition, especially equipped at a cost of many thousands of dollars, to catch wild animals for the purpose of distributing them gratis to unknown individuals. As for requests for horns and skins on the part of men who apparently thought that the expedition was conducted on a broad eleemosynary basis, they were legion—one man standing out above his fellows because of his modest request for "enough leopard skins to make an overcoat"!

All sorts of things are sent for Roosevelt's inspection or approval, or to reinforce a request for his special aid. Birth certificates, university diplomas, and papers of this kind which are of real value to the people who send them are forwarded to him by writers who apparently suppose that he has nothing to do but to make parcels and packages and buy postage stamps. In Austria one lady inclosed some well-worn newspaper clippings evidently taken from her most precious archives, one of them being an obituary notice of her late husband and the other a description of the costume she wore when she was presented some years ago at one of the royal courts of Europe. Another lady, a Russian, mailed to Mr. Roosevelt some papers connected with her son's university career, and because she did not get a personal reply by return of mail called at the hotel at seven o'clock in the morning in a state of great agitation which was really pathetic to behold. A Hungarian artist sent a registered package containing a pen-and-ink portrait of the Emperor Francis Joseph which he had made with indescribable toil by shading the microscopic letters forming a biographical account in three thousand, words of the Emperor's career. In the package was a large hand magnifying glass loaned for the purpose of examining the portrait, which the artist hoped would induce Mr. Roosevelt to give him a commission for a similar portrait of "the illustrious ex-President." Of course all these things have to be carefully sifted out, preserved, and returned, to do which involves an annoying expenditure of time and labour.

I suppose that the daily correspondence of any well-known public man would furnish similar displays of the curious workings of certain human minds.

While I was in the act of writing the words of the previous sentence a hall-boy of the hotel presented me with twelve visiting-cards, twelve letters, and four telegrams for Mr. Roosevelt, who at the moment is out inspecting the famous Agricultural Museum of Budapest. These communications constitute a sort of light afternoon supplement to the daily batch of letters, the majority of which arrive in the morning hours. Of the telegrams one is in French and one in Hungarian or in German. Of course the Hungarian correspondence has to be specially translated before it can be attended to, as none of Mr. Roosevelt's immediate party has had time between letters to learn what is perhaps the most difficult of all modern European languages. One letter, however, is from an entirely unknown correspondent in England. "I write to ask," she says, "if you would feel inclined to help me. I am the widow of a clergyman, and since his death I have had heavy expenses which I cannot meet on my small income, but if I could get clear of debt I think my daughter and I could manage. I am trying to get three hundred pounds to relieve me of my burden."
It is such correspondence as this that makes it impossible for a man of Mr. Roosevelt's public position to enjoy a real vacation unless he is absolutely cut off from the post-office, the telegraph, and the telephone.
When the University of Christiania conferred upon Mr. Roosevelt the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy—a degree which had never been conferred before upon any person by the University—Professor Broch, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, likened Mr. Roosevelt to a railway engine whose course is concealed from the near-by spectator by a cloud of dust and smoke, but which, nevertheless, pursues its course with rapidity and power toward a definite goal, leaving behind it a straight and shining track. This semi-humorous analogy was not inappropriate to Mr. Roosevelt's journey through Europe. In my journal at the time I wrote:
It is almost impossible for one who has been close to Mr. Roosevelt in this remarkable and unprecedented journey to appreciate its significance himself or to give any adequate idea to American readers of what it has meant to the people of Europe. If the reader will take a map and, with a pencil, trace the course of this journey, some faint notion may be obtained of what Mr. Roosevelt has done physically in his six weeks' tour between the dates of April 2d, when he landed in Naples, and May isth, when he left Berlin for London. In miles alone the lineal distance which he has covered is prodigious—Naples to Rome, Rome to Genoa, Genoa to Porto Maurizio, Porto Maurizio back to Genoa, Genoa to Venice, Venice to Vienna, Vienna to Budapest, Budapest to Paris, Paris to Brussels, Brussels to The Hague, The Hague to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Copenhagen, Copenhagen to Christiania, Christiania to Stockholm, and Stockholm to Berlin ! When it is considered that in each of these chief stopping places there were dinners, receptions, official festivities, private and personal calls, academic celebrations—and in four cities great public addresses—besides an uncounted number of greetings from and extemporaneous speeches to people gathered at railway stations, in schoolhouses, and in the village streets, it is not surprising that it is difficult in the midst of it all to form an intelligent impression of the significance and importance of such a journey in their correct proportion.
The cumulative effect of the extraordinary pilgrimage was a very distinct impression that the people, the political leaders, and the rulers of Europe recognized in Roosevelt a personification of the moral power of human nature—the power not merely to appreciate high ideals but to put them into practical effect in every-day life. It is a painful thing to have to admit that so many good people are uninteresting and so many interesting people are not always good. Roosevelt was both thoroughly good and thoroughly interesting. In some respects his European tour may be said to have been a missionary journey in behalf of political and social morality; yet it was full of gayety and vivacity of life and he enjoyed its colour, its movement, its social festivities, and its good living with as much appreciation as a ban vivant. To quote again from my journal:
The common people as well as many of the most distinguished personages of Europe have not merely shown admiration for Roosevelt's character but have found real fascination in his personality. People not merely want to see him out of curiosity, but when they have once seen him they want to be with him and talk to him. Everywhere the most striking proofs have been given that he possesses in a very marked degree what is some what tritely called" personal magnetism."
In Porto Maurizio, for instance, both the popular and the official receptions of Mr. Roosevelt were very remarkable in their recognition of his moral leadership. The town was placarded with posters, issued by the municipal authorities in the Italian language, in which a welcome was expressed to Mr. Roosevelt as "the promoter of international peace and the champion of human fraternity and solidarity." When he appeared on the streets the citizens —especially the working people and the peasants-bombarded his carriage with flowers, so that it was filled almost to overflowing. People leaned from the third-story windows of what in New York we should call tenement houses to throw down their home-made floral tokens. One day when he drove out into the country I saw an old peasant woman standing by her cottage door eagerly waiting the approach of the carriage, and when, with a trembling hand, she tossed to him a bunch of flowers, there was pinned to a large green leaf a scrap of paper, and on it, written with painful effort, the words: "Viva, viva, viva Roosevelt!" This old woman had never seen him before, would never see him again; she received, in acknowledgment, only a smile and a lift of the hat; and yet it was pathetically evident that she, had been eager to pay her slight tribute to the man who stood, in her mind, as "the champion of human fraternity."

An incident in Paris showed in a delightful way Roosevelt's hold upon the ordinary man—upon those whom Lincoln called "the plain people." A feature of the Paris programme was a review of some French troops at Vincennes. Mr. Roosevelt went out to the field with the American Ambassador, Mr. Bacon, and the French Ambassador to Washington, M. Jusserand. Each of the three was, of course, dressed in the conventional frock coat and high hat, but the general officer in command asked Mr. Roosevelt if he would not like to ride. He quickly responded by mounting a horse with no opportunity of changing his costume beyond the addition of a pair of leggings which an orderly took off and placed at Mr. Roosevelt's disposal. The review was a successful and picturesque one. Some days later, while in Holland, Mr. Roosevelt received from the enlisted men the following letter, which bore in the upper left-hand corner a picture of a horse of the French cavalry:
Vincennes, le 27 Avril, 1910. Monsieur le President Roosevelt:

Nous sommes les cavaliers du zc Escadron du 23° Dragons, et c'est le cheval Peppino de chez nous que vous avez monte pour la manoeuvre d'aujourd'hui. Nous en avons etc tres fiers et 1'escadron ne Poublira jamais. Nous respecterons ce cheval avec fidelite. Nous nous permettons de vous ecrire pour que vous le sachiez. Nous n'oublierons jamais non plus que nous vous avons vu.
Nous sommes vos cavaliers respectueux et devoues, (Signe): les cavaliers du 2e escadron,
Qui aiment l'amerique.
Or in English:
Mr. President:
We are the troopers of the 2nd Squadron of the 23rd Dragoons, and this is our horse Peppino which you rode to-day at the manoeuvres. We were very proud of it, and the squadron will never forget it. We venture to write to you to assure you that we shall take care of this horse hereafter with the utmost respect. Nor shall we ever forget that we have seen you.
We are, respectfully and devotedly,
The Cavalrymen of the 2nd Squadron
Who Admire America.
These soldiers from the ranks, representing, as the phraseology of their letter shows, the modest homes of France, were not the less loyal to their own country because in so spontaneous and simple a fashion, with no personal axe to grind, they expressed their appreciation of the human qualities which Mr. Roosevelt represented.

   There is no room in this impressionistic sketch to give a detailed narrative of the visits to Belgium, to Holland, to Denmark, to Norway, and to Sweden. In each of these countries Mr. Roosevelt was received with the most friendly courtesy and attention by the rulers and by the people themselves. In Brussels he and his family dined with the King and Queen; in Holland they lunched with the Queen and her Consort; in Denmark they were the guests of the Crown Prince; in Christiania they were the guests of the King and the Queen at the Royal Palace; and in Stockholm, the guests of the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess at the Castle. The three great Scandinavian cities were beautifully decorated, and the hospitality both of the citizens and of the royal families was of the most generous character. Special "saloon carriages" (private cars, as we call them) and dining-cars, and in some cases special trains, were placed at the disposal of Mr. Roosevelt, his family, and his party by the government railways of France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Germany; in the three Scandinavian kingdoms, in addition to ambassadorial and royal dinners, splendid banquets were given in his honour by large bodies of citizens; and everywhere crowds of people lined the streets-eager to catch a glimpse of him and to cheer him as he passed. This rather bald account of what was really a beautiful, generous, spontaneous, and in many respects unprecedented hospitality is excusable only on the ground that American readers ought to know what friendliness was shown by the European peoples and governments to one whom they regarded as the representative of the best type of Americanism. Those Americans who had the pleasure of being near-at-hand spectators of these greetings learned that warm-hearted enthusiasm is not confined to races of southern blood; neither Italy nor France could have outdone the Viking cities of Scandinavia in either the public or private manifestations of approval of their distinguished guest.

Among my papers I find the following carefully-worked-out itinerary and time-table of the journey from Brussels to Copenhagen. It required, of course, much correspondence and many conferences with officials, and may give the reader an impression that such a tour as Roosevelt's was not altogether a pleasure jaunt.
THE HAGUE AND AMSTERDAM TRIP
FROM BRUSSELS TAKE ONLY IN TRAIN THE LUGGAGE WHICH WILL BE REQUIRED FOR THE FIRST DAY, SEND THE OTHER LUGGAGE THROUGH, BUYING VALET's TICKET RIGHT THROUGH TO THE HAGUE, AND CHECKING ALL THE BAGGAGE ON THIS TICKET.

Leave Brussels 7.53 a. m. Friday, April 29th, on private car attached to ordinary train. Meet special train coming from Holland at Roosendaal, at 9.53 A. M. and have carriage attached to it. Reach Arnheim at 12.30. Mr. Roosevelt and family then motor to Het Loo (the Palace) arriving at one o'clock, where they will lunch with the Queen at 1.30. Mr. Roosevelt will afterward leave Het Loo (Apeldoorn Station) at 3.40, on private car already arranged for, arriving Amsterdam at 5.05. (Mrs. and Miss Ethel Roosevelt will go to Hotel des Indes, The Hague: Mr. Beaupre will arrange their passage there.) Mr. Roosevelt will dine with the Burgomaster, and afterward a reception will be held at the house of Mr. A. J. Cremer. Leave Amsterdam the same evening on a special coach attached to the ordinary train, or on a special train, arriving at The Hague (Hotel des Indes) the same (Friday) evening. Mr. Beaupre is arranging the train from Amsterdam to The Hague.

Saturday, April 30th. Received by Queen Mother at 12 o'clock. Mr. Roosevelt and family lunch with Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dine at Legation at 8 o'clock. Reception at 10 o'clock. Return to Hotel des Indes.

Monday, May 2nd. Arrive Hamburg 6.33 a. M., leaving again at 7.05 A. M. and arriving Copenhagen 4.48 p. M. Met at Station by Crown Prince. He will take Mr. Roosevelt and family in carriages to Palace. Messrs. Abbott and Harper will stay at Hotel d'Angleterre. Mr. Egan will come to Palace at which presentation has been held, and he will take Mr. Roosevelt to meet Prince Vlademir and Prince Hans. Afterward return to Palace and dine with King. At 9.30 to 10.30, at the Legation, will be an American Reception. Mrs. Roosevelt will be provided with a bouquet, so that she will not be expected to shake hands. Return to Palace to sleep.

May 3rd. Tuesday: Leave by automobile at 8 A. M. Visit a Model Dairy, a Model Farm, and a Model "Small-Holder." Then to Roskilde to see the Cathedral, with the Royal burial places. From thence to Hollerd, to see the Castle of Frederiksburg, which contains the National Gallery, and from there, via Fredensborg, to Elsinore. Arrive at Elsinore about 12 o'clock, and go aboard the Scandinavian-American fast passenger boat, Queen Maud, to Copenhagen, which will enable Mr. Roosevelt to see the beautiful coast of Sjaelland. Arrive in Copenhagen at about 2 o'clock. At 5.45 Municipality dinner, at which no ladies will be present, in view of the early departure that evening. Depart from Copenhagen for Christiania at 9.05 P.M.
To this time-table I append the account which my friend Maurice Egan, American Minister to Denmark during Roosevelt's visit, has given me of some of the details and effects of the ex-President's visit to Scandinavia:
When it was finally settled that Colonel Roosevelt should come to Europe, the three Scandinavian consuls—at this time I happened to be American Minister in Denmark— showed the most ardent interest. Denmark was especially interested because to the Danes Mr. Roosevelt represented a tendency toward that revolt against plutocracy which many of the Danes believed to be a menace to the best institutions of our country. He was also, without doubt, the most picturesque figure in the world at that time. As the Minister I was besieged with all kinds of questions as to whether Mr. Roosevelt would come or not. He made it so plain in many public utterances that I was a friend of his, and everybody in Denmark knew that I had been appointed by him, so that the Danes felt it was my duty to induce him to visit their country.

One day, speaking to my friend and colleague, the Norwegian Minister, I was astonished to discover that he felt that Mr. Roosevelt had not been exactly polite to the Nobel Prize Committee when he had refused to give—or postponed giving—the customary address of the Nobel Prize men at Christiania. Following this hint, which was very delicately given, I made some further investigations and discovered there there was a feeling among the Norwegians and the Swedes that no American ought to be offered the prize since the most distinguished of Americans had rather cavalierly refused to comply with the traditional condition. I said to a very influential member of the Committee: "If I had anything to do with the Nobel Prize I should certainly give it to either Mr. Elihu Root or Mr. Richard Watson Gilder." This was a feeler. "Oh," my friend said, "I do not think it would be worth while to name any American for that prize now."

Mr. Roosevelt I knew very well would suffer any inconvenience rather than stand in the way of any fellow American receiving this honour, so I wrote at once three letters to be forwarded to him in Africa by various people. One was, I think, to our Consul at Naples. In a reasonable time his reply came. He was willing to give me a day or so at Copenhagen. Of course, this was not enough. When I considered the presentation to the royalties, the ceremonies of the municipalities, the various courtesies which many of my Danish friends would feel it their duty to show them, I was in despair. Besides, I must secure him for Christiania first, where the great question of the Nobel Prize remained to be settled. I concealed the fact from my friends and the newspapers that he had promised to come to Copenhagen and in the meantime extorted a promise from him that he would go to Christiania as well. I communicated his determination to my colleague, Mr. Pierce, at Christiania who was delighted and who insisted in giving me credit for Mr. Roosevelt's consent at the Norwegian Court.

A short time after this came a note from Frederick VIII asking me to come to see him. I presented myself. "My dear Mr. Minister, "he said, "my son Haakon tells me that you have induced your distinguished patriot to go to Christiania. Why cannot you induce him to come here?" And then I answered: "If your Majesty wants him to come here I shall communicate your wish to Colonel Roosevelt, and he will consider at once your request as a command." The King was evidently very much pleased and then it occurred to me that I might just as well make Mr. Roosevelt's stay in Copenhagen as splendid as possible. "I regret that my legation is
not large enough for many guests	"    "Ah," the King
interposed, "I shall be so pleased to have Colonel Roosevelt here, that although I am obliged to go for my health to the Riviera at the end of the week I shall command my son, the Crown Prince, to act for me and to give him all the attention that I would give if I could be present here." Then he broke off. "When do you think he is going to Germany and where do you think his Imperial Majesty will lodge him?" "Ah, in the palace at Potsdam I am sure," I answered. "I can do no less, and I should like to do more," his Majesty remarked; "I shall offer him and his family the palace of Christian VII." This I knew was considered a great honour, as nobody but a crowned head was received as guest in this palace; King Edward and Queen Alexandra had been its last occupants. I at once telegraphed this to Colonel Roosevelt and asked him for more time. He replied, giving me a day or two more. After that it was my business to excite expectation, which the press was only too willing to do. The Crown Prince was most enthusiastic and, through the amiability of the Minister of Commerce I managed to secure all the properties, rugs, palms, etc., which were always used to adorn the station whenever royalty appeared.

The question of ranking Colonel Roosevelt was a serious one. The Court Marshal was very much perturbed; what rank had an ex-President of the United States in his own country? As a colonel he would hardly be visible in the galaxy of court officials who would certainly be present at any function given in his honour. Throwing aside all the prejudices of democracy I suggested that he should be ranked as the late Consort of Queen Victoria or the present Prince Consort of the Queen of Holland, as a Royal Highness. Mrs. Roosevelt, Ethel, and Kermit were equally ranked, and Mr. Lawrence Abbott, of whom Mr. Roosevelt had enthusiastically written was put down as a visiting Minister Plenipotentiary. This made things easy. The station was quite as magnificent as it had been when the Czar of Russia or the Kaiser or King Edward came; our Consul-General, Mr. Bond, saw to that!

The great day came; Copenhagen was in a furore of expectation; the Crown Prince, accompanied by a brilliant suite, drove to the station; I followed at a reasonable distance with our best footmen on the box adorned with the largest red, white, and blue cockades we had ever used; my wife and daughter were too fine for words! The Crown Prince occupied the centre of the circle and the dramatic effect, I said to myself, was going to be worthy of the occasion. Suddenly, Colonel Roosevelt escaped from Mr. Lawrence Abbott's guiding hand, rushed through the train, and descended two cars below all this waiting magnificence. The Crown Prince, the tallest man in Europe, with the longest legs, ran down the platform to meet him; and after that we all went helter skelter. Colonel Roosevelt wore an army coat and an ancient sombrero. He seemed pleased beyond words to see us all. I presented him very formally, "Permit me, your Royal Highness, to present to you His Excellency the late President of the United States." The Crown Prince bowed, shook Mr. Roosevelt warmly by the hand, and then Colonel Roosevelt said, "Now I have lost my baggage. Let's go and look for it." The Prince was very much amused and felt that here at last was a human being. Mr. Lawrence Abbott was the only person at all perturbed by this incident of the missing trunks, for which he was in no wise responsible; so we left him, ranking as he did as a Minister Plenipotentiary, to look after the luggage!

It had been arranged that the Crown Prince should give a gala dinner at the Court to be followed at ten o'clock by a reception at the American Legation. Neither Colonel Roosevelt nor Mrs. Roosevelt seemed especially perturbed about the loss of their evening clothes and I think that Kermit and Ethel would have been glad of any accident that kept them away from ceremonies; they had their own plans which had nothing to do with court functions. Colonel Roosevelt had his Norfolk jacket brushed, Mrs. Roosevelt came in to dinner with the Crown Prince looking perfectly gracious and at ease in a travelling suit, and the dinner proceeded with unusual spirit and gayety. Royal people can safely be trusted, owing to their special education, to smoothe embarrassing situations and nobody seemed to remember whether Mr. Roosevelt wore a lounge coat or a uniform. Mademoiselle Wedel-Hainan who was one of the Ladies in Waiting to the old Queen, said: "It was" worth while to see how simply Mrs. Roosevelt acted on this occasion; nobody but royalty could have made a situation of that kind go off so well; Queen Alexandra did it once and just in the same way." The Crown Princess said to my wife: "As Mrs. Roosevelt is a representative American woman nobody after this can ever say that they give too much attention to dress. How embarrassing it would have been for us all if she had not accepted the situation in such a perfectly charming manner." Of course all Denmark knew the circumstances the next day and the incident—trivial as it may seem—added a new ray to the star of glory of the visiting Americans. Before ten o'clock the missing trunks arrived and Mr. Lawrence Abbott, who was determined that everything should be technically correct, was happily relieved.

At the reception at our legation later in the evening Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt were able to appear in the usual ceremonial garb. We managed to crowd over three hundred persons into the drawing room and the dining room and, with a little prompting as to what language you should speak to each person—Colonel Roosevelt's German was excellent and his French very fair—he had a most enjoyable time which Was reflected in the faces of everybody he met. He said the appropriate thing, being very receptive to any hint from the Minister who stood near him and pleased even the tenors of the opera by repeating something that was both cordial and appropriate.

Altogether, no guest in Denmark ever left such an impression of strength, of sincerity, of power as Mr. Roosevelt left. On my leaving Denmark last year, King Christian, formerly the Crown Prince said, most pleasantly: "Assure Colonel Roosevelt of my affectionate esteem. He is a man."
Until Minister Egan gave me the foregoing description, while I was preparing this chapter, I was unaware that I had any standing higher than that of Secretary of Legation while on this journey. If I had only known that he had conferred upon me the brevet and temporary honour of a plenipotentiary rank it would have saved me perhaps one very embarrassing experience!

On the day when we arrived in Christiania a luncheon, followed by a reception, was given at the house of the American Minister, Mr. Peirce. They were attended both by the King and by Mr. Roosevelt. King Haakon of Norway is a fine specimen of a man, six feet or a little over in height, of a well-shaped and athletic-looking figure; and his frank, open face bears the marks of strength, refinement, and good health. His Queen is the daughter of King Edward of Great Britain. Having served in the British Navy, King Haakon spoke English perfectly. I left the reception early and went up to the sitting room or salon in the suite assigned to Mr. Roosevelt in the palace and began to work with Harper on the mail and other matters connected with the journey. Before long the door opened and the King entered. I recognized him because I had just seen him at the reception; but he had taken off his frock coat, abandoned his high hat, and appeared in an ordinary suit of tweed —what we should call in this country a business suit. I rose, of course, and he began to talk to me about some details of Mr. Roosevelt's further journey to Stockholm for which the King wished his private saloon railway carriage to be employed. In his hand he had a letter about it which he gave me with some instructions.

Just then the door opened again and in blew Mr. Roosevelt—I do not know what other verb to use to describe the refreshing breeziness which was characteristic of his unexpected appearance on any occasion. He still had on his frock coat and carried his high hat in his hand, for he had to stay at the reception until it was all over.

The King was almost visibly embarrassed. It was as though he were saying to himself: "Now what shall I do to entertain this apostle of the strenuous life!" He remarked after a slight pause: "Colonel Roosevelt, wouldn't you like a cup of tea?" With real enthusiasm the Colonel answered: "By George, your Majesty, the very thing I should like!" While Roosevelt punctiliously observed all the proprieties in his royal visits, he was perfectly natural, and as I have already remarked, the kings apparently enjoyed for once having a free, natural, man-to-man relationship with a fellow-being. The King disappeared and in a few moments the folding doors were opened and there in an adjoining room was a pleasant tea-table, set in the English fashion, round which we all gathered.

Mr. Roosevelt—and he was one of the best table-talkers and raconteurs that I have ever listened to—told stories of his frontier life in the West. I remember that he gave an account of meeting his friend Seth Bullock over the dead body of a desperado whom they—as sheriff and deputy sheriff-were both pursuing during his ranching days. "Your Majesty," he said, "is sufficiently familiar with grouse shooting in England to realize that we met in the attitude of 'My bird, I believe'." He told other tales of Seth Bullock, whom he greatly liked and respected, and said that he wished the King could meet Bullock as a fine type of western American. I rather think the King did meet him, for—and perhaps this afternoon tea suggested the idea to Roosevelt—he cabled to Seth Bullock to join him in London. This Bullock did; and there, with Roosevelt as friend and cicerone, he met many of the distinguished people of the day.

Now that night a splendid state dinner was given in the palace in honour of Mr. Roosevelt. The guests, one or two hundred in number, under the direction of the Court Marshal, gathered at their places in the great state dining room. It was a fine company, for the Scandinavians are splendid physical specimens. There were, of course, many army and navy men in uniform and government officials resplendent with orders.

At the high table, arranged like the speakers' table at an American banquet, sat the royal party consisting of the King with Mrs. Roosevelt and the Queen with Mr. Roosevelt. This table was on my right. We had reached the fish course, I think, when a liveried footman came to my left side, as was proper, and began to speak to me in Norwegian. Of course I did not understand a single word, but I saw that the man was labouring under some excitement. I wondered whether he could be warning me not to put any gold spoons into my pocket! I swung around— the better to hear him—with my back almost toward the royal table, when a gentleman down the table a little—my immediate companions not being able to speak English—leaned forward and said: " He is trying to tell you that the King wishes to drink a glass of wine with you." I thereupon hastily turned around toward the royal table and saw the King smiling, with his wine glass charged, prepared to go through the Scandinavian ceremony of drinking a health. Fortunately I had been in Scandinavia before and I knew what this ceremony was, but I did not know whether I ought to follow my instinct and rise from my seat. Such a procedure, I felt, would make me a marked man, and whatever I may be at home I certainly was shy on this occasion. I wondered whether one with so low a rank as that of Secretary was entitled to rise. Of course, all this flashed through my mind far more quickly than I can describe it, and I determined to rise only half way, so that I should be only half wrong, in any event. This with bended and quaking knees I did, and proceeded to bow and smile and say "Skol". When the ceremony was finished I fell back in my chair with embarrassment and did not eat much for a course or two.

Presently I saw another footman approach a gentleman in civilian dress, but with a brilliant order on his shirt front, at the opposite long table. This gentleman rose, and it was apparent that he wished he had been eight feet high. He clicked his heels together and with perfect precision went through the health-drinking ritual. I realized my mistake. I should have stood erect like the Minister Plenipotentiary—which it now seems I really was, by the grace of Dr. Egan!

After dinner the company adjourned to one of the fine and spacious reception rooms where we were, or some of us were, presented to the King. As I had been standing almost shoulder to shoulder to him that afternoon, and am about six feet in height myself, I determined to apologize for my awkwardness at dinner, so I said: "Your Majesty, I appreciate the honour which you did me by drinking a glass of wine with me at dinner, and if you saw a rather short man rise when you expected to see a rather tall man I must explain that I have not been long enough in your hospitable country to know whether any one under the rank of an admiral or a general is entitled to rise on such an occasion; so, in my embarrassment of modesty, 1 rose only half way, and must have looked about as much out of place as a bent pin." Possibly the American frankness of it all amused the King. At all events, he laughed cordially and once or twice in later correspondence with Mr. Roosevelt sent some kind of a friendly message to "the bent pin"!

Perhaps the most notable incident of this Euroean tour, at any rate in the light of subsequent history, was Roosevelt's meeting with the Kaiser in Berlin. His visit to the Prussian capital had been arranged before he left America, and was made for the purpose of delivering a lecture at the University of Berlin. This lecture did not particularly interest me. It was entitled: "The World Movement." I can't help feeling that Roosevelt subconsciously strove to impress the university pedants of Germany that an American democrat could be as scholarly and academic as they were and could deal in abstract ideas as ponderously as they could. The address—in my judgment—does not compare in style, in content, or in effectiveness with his speeches at the Sorbonne and the Guildhall or with the extemporaneous address to the undergraduates of Cambridge. Nor was the ceremony itself as human and interesting as that at the Sorbonne, although it was much more elaborate and formal. It is true that a chorus of students—dressed in the rather theatrical and bizarre costumes of their various "corps"—sang, as only Germans can sing, finely harmonized arrangements of "Hail Columbia" and "The Star Spangled Banner." But the professors in their academic gowns struck me as rather stodgy. The Kaiser, dressed in what I supposed to be a Hussar's uniform, was in the audience; and, much as I despise his course in the European war, I must admit that he had a very marked attractiveness of personality and manner.

On the day of his arrival in Berlin Roosevelt lunched with the Emperor at the palace in Potsdam and I had the good fortune to be one of the party. We went out from Berlin by special train and with a brilliant company of army and navy officers and government officials. Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg was of the party. Everything had been done by the Kaiser to make it evident that he wished to treat Roosevelt with special honour. For example, the day following the luncheon, the Kaiser invited Mr. Roosevelt to review with him some remarkable field manoeuvres of the German troops and they spent in this operation five hours together on horseback.

Ex-Ambassador Henry White, who was the only civilian present except Kermit Roosevelt, described the scene to me that evening. The Emperor was dressed in the uniform of a general of his army, Mr. Roosevelt in a simple riding suit of khaki and a black slouch hat. As they sat side by side in the saddle, responding together to the salutes of the officers and troops who passed by in review, the scene must have been of dramatic interest—the only difference in their station being indicated by the fact that the Emperor was dressed in uniform while Mr. Roosevelt wore the dress in which he would ride across country at home, and by the manner of their salutes, the Emperor as commander-in-chief touching his visor, Mr. Roosevelt as private citizen raising his hat. During the review the Emperor, with his body-guard of officers in brilliant uniform gathered about him, raised his helmet and, turning to Roosevelt, said in German: " Roosevelt, mein Freund, I wish to welcome you in the presence of my guards; I ask you to remember that you are the only private citizen who ever reviewed the troops of Germany." Those who are familiar with the strict military procedure of the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II and who understand the intimacy of the German expression "mein Freund," can understand the real intention of the Kaiser to impress his officers and the country with his desire to confer what he believed was a mark of distinction upon Roosevelt.

Roosevelt appreciated these courtesies but I think he rather felt the element of mediaevalism and artificiality in them. At all events, they did not turn his head as similar flatteries turned the heads of some American exchange professors to Germany during the European war, for at the very outset he denounced the invasion of Belgium. In its issue of September 23, 1914, the Outlook published an article by him, which had been written at least ten days previously, in which he said:
When once Belgium was invaded, every circumstance of national honour and interest forced England to act precisely as she did act. She could not have held up her head among nations had she acted otherwise. In particular, she is entitled to the praise of all true lovers of peace, for it is only by action such as she took that neutrality treaties and treaties guaranteeing the rights of small Powers will ever be given any value. . . . What action our Government can or will take, I know not. It has been announced that no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality. . . . Neutrality may be of prime necessity in order to preserve our own interests and maintain peace in so much of the world as is not affected by the war. . . But it is a grim comment on the professional pacifist theories as hitherto developed that our duty to preserve peace for ourselves may necessarily mean the abandonment of all effective effort to secure peace for other unoffending nations which through no fault of their own are dragged into the war.
When this article was being written I was endeavouring, although not a Wilson man, to give support to the President as the representative of the whole country in a time of crisis. At my request Roosevelt put into the article some caveat as to Mr. Wilson's policy of neutrality in the hope that Wilson might slowly come to see the need of defending Belgium. These caveats, taken from their context, some of his unscrupulous political antagonists tried to employ later to show that at the outbreak of the war he did not feel about the rape of Belgium as he did later in the struggle. For this error of judgment, which was due to my desire to be loyal to the Government as well as non-partisan, I am afraid Roosevelt never forgave me, although he never alluded to it in criticism or blame. From the very beginning his own sentiments expressed in private conversation were those uttered in the following telegram, sent on December 28, 1916, to Mr. W. J. Hand, a lawyer and citizen of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who was chairman of a Belgian Protest Meeting held in the town hall of that city:
I wish all success to your meeting. Every American worthy of the name should join in indignant and emphatic protest against the hideous wrong-doing committed by Germany in Belgium. Righteousness comes before peace, and neutrality between right and wrong is as immoral now as in the days of Pontius Pilate.
This whole episode I have described fully in an article which was published in the Outlook of March 29, 1916. My interpretation was confirmed by an editorial in the Kansas City Star of March 3ist:
The Star can add confirmatory evidence. Colonel Roosevelt spoke in Kansas City, Kansas, on September 21, 1914. To at least one member of the Star staff at that time he expressed forcibly his views regarding the duty of the United States toward Belgium, and added that he did not know how much longer he was going to be able to keep from speaking out on this subject. A few weeks later he made his first public declaration in criticism of the Administration's attitude.
But to go back for a moment to the luncheon at Potsdam. It was perfectly appointed and managed and the etiquette of precedence was scrupulously observed. It was served at small round tables in one of the state dining rooms to a company of, I should say, fifty or sixty ladies and gentlemen, including Mrs. Roosevelt, the Empress, and ladies of the Court. On leaving the table we adjourned to a great reception room known as the Muschelsaal, so called because the artist who built it in Frederick the Great's time stuck the yet-soft plaster full of iridescent mussel shells with the typically Prussian notion of aesthetics that this would form a decoration of beauty. It is hardly necessary to add that it does not. Colonel Roosevelt and the Kaiser withdrew to one corner of the great Mussel Salon and entered into a lively conversation. The rest of the party remained at the other end of the room chatting as a group of guests would do anywhere at a special luncheon.

After some time had elapsed I noticed the military commander in charge of the affair—I think it was General von Plessin—go up and whisper to Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg. The two pulled out their watches and then consulted Baron Schon, the Minister of the Interior. The three next went to the Empress and talked with her in low voices. Their agitation was so marked and so out of keeping with what had been the precision thus far observed that I turned to a young captain of infantry whose acquaintance I had made coming out on the train and who spoke English perfectly and knew my official relation to Roosevelt, and said: "May I ask if anything has gone wrong?" He replied: "Yes, the special train returns to Berlin at four o'clock. It is now twenty minutes to four and we are afraid that we shall not reach the station in time." Of course in those days if a German railway train, especially a royal railway train, was delayed the entire operation of the empire was apt, temporarily at least, to go to pieces. But the exacting and all-powerful domination of the Kaiser was such, and the officers of his Court had been so trained from their earliest youth, that there was not one person in that room—not even the Prime Minister of the Empire, not even the Empress herself—who dared step across the floor and remind the Kaiser of an important engagement. No one could leave the room until he gave the signal.
By and by he came out of the hypnotic influence which seemed to be exercised by the "Colonel of the Rough Riders" (as the Kaiser liked to call him) and gave the necessary intimation that we were to go. We were rushed to the station, piling into the vehicles with very little attention to the precedence which had been scrupulously observed when we came from Berlin in the morning, and barely got our train. This incident seemed amusing to me at the time, but I now think that it was much more than amusing, that it had an important significance. It was a symptom of that kind of idolatory which led the German people to follow the Kaiser and his Potsdam circle into "the greatest national disaster of history.

But the Kaiser and his Court ought not to form the final recollection of the continent of Europe which this journey affords. And it shall not.

I return to Brussels for a moment to pay a tribute of respect and admiration to King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. They entertained Mr. Roosevelt and his party at a delightful dinner at the Palace of Laeken, which lies in a beautiful park in the suburbs of the capital. Their genuineness, simplicity, and cordiality were of a kind which has been proved to be characteristic of the three personages who, in the history of the European war, will stand out supremely, I think, for nobility of character and heroism of action. The third is the Belgian Cardinal, Mercier.

Queen Elizabeth is of a German royal family but she threw in her lot with her husband and adopted his people in a way that entitles her to an honour far higher than can be conferred by any coronet or hereditary rank. She is not only a woman of noble character but of high intelligence. She had studied medicine and I was told practised philanthropically not a little among the poor of Brussels by whom she was fairly idolized.

During the evening, after dinner, learning that I was Secretary to Mr. Roosevelt, she sought me out and engaged me for some time in a conversation about his personality and career. She was much interested in the political situation in the United States at the time, and I explained to her as well as I could some of the policies and movements which Roosevelt had espoused and led, and which on the one hand drew about him as great a company of devoted admirers, and on the other hand ranged against him as strong and vigorous an opposition, as the political history of the United States had ever displayed. Her grasp and understanding of such questions seemed to me to be quite extraordinary in a foreigner. But King Albert had visited the United States some years before in quite an informal way and made a study of our institutions. Both the King and the Queen, democratic and human by nature, looked with especial interest upon the development of democratic institutions in America.

From Berlin Roosevelt went to England. Many of his experiences there have been set forth in other chapters. The chief object of his visit when he left America was to give the Romanes lecture at Oxford and to receive from that celebrated university the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law. Regarding this occasion I may quote from an introduction which I contributed to the volume of his "African and European Addresses":
The Romanes lecture at Oxford University was the last of Mr. Roosevelt's transatlantic speeches. I can think of no greater intellectual honour that an English-speaking man can receive than to have conferred upon him by the queen of all universities the highest honorary degree in her power to give, and in addition, to be invited to address the dignitaries and dons and doctors of that university as a scholar speaking to scholars. There is no American university man who may not feel entirely satisfied with the way in which the American university graduate stood the Oxford test on that occasion. He took in good part the jokes and pleasantries pronounced in Latin by the Chancellor, Lord Cur/on; but after the ceremonies of initiation were finished, after the beadles had, in response to the order of the Chancellor, conducted "Doctorem Honorabilem ad Pulpitum," and after the Chancellor had—this time in very direct and beautiful English—welcomed him to membership in the University, Mr. Roosevelt delivered an address the serious scholarship of which held the interest of those who heard it and arrested the attention of many thousands of others who received the lecture through the printed page.
As I have been writing these words I have also been looking over again this Oxford Romanes lecture. I find in it a passage which strikes me with new force. It confirms, I think, the interpretation of his internationalism which will be found at the conclusion of the chapter on Stat esmanship:
The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting country should be conducted on exactly the same plane of honour, of insistence upon one's own rights, and of respect for the rights of others, that marks the conduct of a brave and honourable man when dealing with his fellows. Permit me to support this statement out of my own experience. For nearly eight years I was the head of a great nation, and charged especially with the conduct of its foreign policy; and during those years I took no action with reference to any other people on the face of the earth that I would not have felt justified in taking as an individual in dealing with other individuals.
If I were to try to put in a single phrase the impression which Roosevelt made upon Europe I should say it was that of personal magnetism.

This magnetic quality of Roosevelt's, which acted as a kind of electrical stimulant upon those who came in contact with him, was remarked upon In a striking way by the physician who attended him in London. Unceasing private conversations and innumerable public and semi-public speeches during his journey tore his voice literally to pieces. In Berlin he was under the care of a throat specialist and for a day or two it was a question whether he himself would be able to read his address at the University of Berlin. In London, while he was staying at the house of his friend Sir Arthur Lee, one of the most distinguished throat surgeons in Great Britain gave him daily treatments to remove the hoarseness which had attacked his overstrained vocal chords. When this surgeon was leaving the house after his last professonal visit, just before our departure for America, it was my duty to pay his fee, and, having performed this formality, I walked out with him to his waiting automobile brougham. He kept me standing on the sidewalk for some moments while he talked about Roosevelt, expressing his admiration for him and his astonishment at his extraordinary personality. "In all my experience," he said, "I have never known anything like that man's vigour. Usually when 1 treat a patient as I have been treating Colonel Roosevelt I feel that some of my vital force has gone out of me into the patient and I come away slightly relaxed or exhausted. I suppose all physicians have the same feeling, in similar circumstances. But I have been treating Colonel Roosevelt now for several days; and each time, instead of coming away relaxed, I have come away invigourated, as though some kind of vital energy had passed from him into me instead of from me into him!

Readers of this volume will have surmised already that this vital energy of Roosevelt's—which not only enabled him to do an unprecedented amount of work but also inspired and toned up all his associates to efforts and desires that surprised them when they stopped to think about it—was the characteristic for which he will be longest remembered by his contemporaries. It is, however, a force of character very difficult to describe, in language which does not seem extravagant, to those who did not know him and did not come within range of his electric vitality.

There were all sorts of echoes in America of this Old World tour. One of the most interesting, to me, is that contained in a letter which I received in 1916 from Madame Le Braz, the American wife of Professor Anatole Le Braz of the University of Rennes in France. Madame Le Braz, who died not long after Mr. Roosevelt, was a Kentuckian of great cultivation and charm. She knew of and shared my admiration for Roosevelt, and her letter, while only a part of it deals with his African expedition, will perhaps make a not inappropriate conclusion to this chapter. She wrote:
It was in August of 1912. I was travelling with a dear friend, a schoolmate of my younger sister, from Paris to Montreux. When the train stopped at Lausanne, a man sitting opposite us in the railway carriage descended, taking occasion for exercise to walk up and down the platform during the fifteen minutes' wait at the station. During his absence I took the liberty of looking at an American magazine containing an article on Mr. Roosevelt and the political situation in America, which he had been reading. In European papers the space devoted to news of happenings and politics in America was so brief that I was hungry for fuller accounts of the intensely interesting turn of events over there in the New World—at once the melting pot and practical laboratory for the nations and ideas of Europe.

Mr. Roosevelt—representing in himself, in a singular and striking way, the union of radical and conservative ideas and of conservative and radical action—had already come to represent (for me) the most truly American of all America's distinctive spirit and genius. With a knowledge of the past, and a grasp and vision of the future, and a consequent characteristic fearlessness of speech and action, he so mystifies the slow-thinking heavy brains, that they call him in* consistent—just because they cannot keep pace with the brilliant, versatile mind which bares like a searchlight the truth of things. Never losing sight of the general view and meaning as a whole, he nevertheless has the faculty of attention to the details of events as they pass, which enables him to judge justly and generously of both people and things, while he turns from one to another—passing judgment in a way that at times seems harsh to those whose very fear of inconsistency acts as fear always acts—arresting powers, whether of body or mind, of digestion or clear thinking. Another reason that he is capable of dealing with all, is because he cares to look all squarely in the face. His life both private and public is an open book, he is "gentleman unafraid." There certainly are many who, for personal or political reasons, or both, detest this great man. My friend was one of these; her mother had been a warm friend of "dear Maria"; she heartily disapproved, and could not see or acknowledge any good in Mr. Roosevelt. We agreed so entirely on many, indeed most, subjects and views of life, that when we wanted to enjoy the spice of a real argument, with our views wholly and diametrically opposed, we opened the subject of this great American.

Thus had we just been arguing when the owner of the magazine returned to his place in the carriage, and the train moved out of the station. He politely begged me to keep the article, if I was interested, and we began to speak of America. His speech was very English in intonation and when I asked if he was American he said "Yes"—but explained that he had been educated partly in England.

In course of conversation I mentioned the fact that my friend and I did not agree in any particular on the subject of Mr. Roosevelt. I added: "She denounces him as unfair, untruthful, unjust, and so on; she makes statements sometimes which I cannot refute with facts, though I feel sure they might be refuted. For instance, she declares that Mr. Roosevelt was not at San Juan Hill, but several miles distant."

   To this our fellow passenger replied promptly:  "Well,, he was very much there; I wasn't thirty feet away from him, and I tell you he put courage into the hearts of us all. I can truthfully say that his spirit and fearlessness inspired every mother's son. I don't approve of all he has done lately. I'm sorry he has broken with his party and taken the stand he has, but it is because I admire him so much that I regret his present attitude. He is a wonderful man; his ability to see and act quickly and calmly in the midst of confusion and excitement is amazing and was well proved. For instance, in the charge, when Hamilton Fish fell, Roosevelt took time to say to some of those near at hand: 'If there's a spark of life in Fish for God's sake get him to a hospital!'"

Our fellow passenger's actual name we did not learn. We left the train at Montreux, but he had told us that he was nephew or grandson of General Beauregard, and he had been one of the Rough Riders under Theodore Roosevelt. This incident answered very directly my friend's accusation as to the question of San Juan Hill. Later my arguments in Mr. Roosevelt's favour were to find further confirmation quite as unexpected and even more far-reaching.

We had taken passage for our return to America on the same ship that had carried us to England. On the list of passengers I noticed the name of Sir Percy Girouard. His brother had married a distant cousin of mine, and I was interested to meet this Canadian who had been Governor successively of two colonies of South Africa during an absence of thirteen years from Canada. The first day my friend and I amused ourselves guessing which might be Sir Percy. Our decision finally rested between two of the passengers; one of these wore a monocle—with perfect right and propriety, I may add, for he had only the sight of one eye, as he himself admitted to us later. This was Sir Percy. He was very agreeable and entertaining. We spoke of things foreign and American and naturally of Mr. Roosevelt.

   I explained that my friend Miss X	and I did not at all agree as to Mr. Roosevelt, and then I could not help recounting the experience in the railway carriage on the way to Montreux. Whereat Sir Percy, growing more and more enthusiastic, continued the Rough Rider's eulogy of our great American by telling of his own experience. He said that, when Governor of the Protectorate of East Africa, it was his privilege to have Colonel Roosevelt as his guest (for three weeks I think he said but I am not sure that I recall just the. time he stated). Both he and his wife, he told us, felt something of consternation at the prospect of a visit from this strenuous American, accounts of whose amazing energy in every line had given the impression that they would find it hard indeed to entertain him—endlessly fatiguing to say the least. "Well," said Sir Percy, "we were never more delightfully surprised, for a more charming guest in every way it would be impossible to imagine. Mr. Roosevelt was a constant wonder and delight to us all. I was amazed at the brilliancy, the versatility, the grasp and scope of his mind. Among the other guests were several men of note in their line, and when he spoke with a certain great scientist on that one's preferred subject, one would have thought he had studied that question by preference to all others. When he spoke with an eminent artist, one might judge that art had occupied his attention more especially than other things. He seemed strangely at home—if I may say so—on all subjects. I have never met any one who gave so quickly and decidedly this impression. One is staggered at the thought of all he must have read and studied and retained; and this with the very active life at all times that he has had—the very full life of a great public man. It is nothing short of astounding. I have served under five of the great men of England, of the world—under Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Lord Cromer. . . . [I have forgotten two of the five names that Sir Percy mentioned]; I knew Cecil Rhodes very well—I'll just throw him in for good measure; and I say to you your Mr. Roosevelt is far and away greater than them all.'"