The use of this text or audio material is subject to the TR American Patriot user agreement located at: TR American Patriot.com 

IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 By Lawrence F. Abbot

CHAPTER EIGHT

PERSONAL QUALITIES

   One of the greatest figures in the history of English literature is that of a man whose writings are little read to-day, except by academic students who are compelled to dig into abandoned literary dust heaps. Few moderns read "The Vanity of Human Wishes" or "Rasselas" for pleasure, but no English writer gives greater pleasure to a whole army of readers than the author of these nearly obsolete literary productions—Dr. Samuel Johnson. His writings are half forgotten, but he himself lives and moves and talks with us to-day as he did more than a century ago, with the group of cronies and friends in Grub Street—a group which has been made immortal by his association with it. Dr. Johnson was what we call a "character"—a man in whom the ordinary human qualities were developed and manifested in an extraordinary degree. His humour, his epigrammatic wit, his common-sense philosophy, his downright honesty and sincerity, his satire of all that was mean and shabby, his admiration for what was genuine and fine, his self-respect and self-reliance in the face of poverty and physical ills, his marvellous vitality, his sure-footed sympathy,, which enabled him to find the real and detect the sham in human society, regardless of the distinction of poverty or wealth or past or class, have drawn men to him in a kind of affectionate attachment possessed by no other English writer. What Dr. Johnson gave to the world was not literature but personality.

So I believe that Theodore Roosevelt's greatest contribution to his country and his time was personality—was Theodore Roosevelt himself. Unlike Dr. Johnson, he made great and permanent contributions to the policies and the social life of his period. He showed more clearly than any other American statesman that international peace rests on justice and morals expressed through physical power; by his action in Cuba and in the Philippines he established the precedent for the colonial policy of the proposed League of Nations, namely, that colonies shall be administered as a trust for the benefit of the inhabitants; the Panama Canal is his creation as much as if he had digged it with his own hand. But it is as a living, breathing human person that he will be longest remembered. There doubtless have been greater states men, greater writers, greater explorers, greater preachers, greater soldiers; but there never was a greater patriot, nor has any one individual man in modern times touched so many and so varied fields of activity in human life with such zest and vitality, or with such practical and successful achievements in all of them. Among soldiers he was greeted as a soldier; among statesmen, as a statesman; among pioneers and woodsmen, as a hunter and naturalist; among scientists, as a scholar and explorer; among men of letters, as a writer and historian; among preachers, as a teacher of morals; among kings, as a man of royal prerogatives; among plain men and women, as a fellow citizen and democrat; and—last, but far from least—among children, as a protector and sympathetic companion. His personality was a unique and unprecedented combination of many qualities, any one of which, carried to a high development, makes what we call a great man.

Personality is an illusive and mysterious force, easy to perceive and feel but hard to define. I know of no better a definition than that given in one of his books on Japan by Percival Lowell, the astronomer.
About certain people there exists a subtle something which leaves its impress indelibly upon the consciousness of all who come in contact with them. This something is a power, but a power of so indefinable description that we beg definition by calling it simply the personality of the man. It is not a matter of subsequent reasoning, but of direct perception. We feel it. Sometimes it charms us; sometimes it repels. But we can no more be oblivious to it than we can to the temperature of the air. Its possessor has but to enter the room and insensibly we are conscious of a presence. It is as if we had suddenly been placed in the field of a magnetic force.
Roosevelt had this magnetic force of personality in a very marked degree. It surrounded him as a kind of nimbus, imperceptible but irresistibly drawing to him everyone who came into his presence—even those who believed they were antagonistic or inimical to him. It is impossible in a sketch of this character to make a complete analysis of Roosevelt's magnetic personality or to achieve a full and rounded portrait with a careful and accurately studied perspective. I shall content myself with speaking of the four of his qualities which made the greatest impression upon me. The first was his caution.

To speak of caution as a characteristic of Theodore Roosevelt will strike many readers who did not know him intimately as being amusing. He was popularly supposed to be rash, impetuous, impulsive; to act upon the spur of the moment; to follow the emotion that controlled him for the time being. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was not only a believer in preparedness in national life but in individual life as well. Very early in his career he found that he was hampered by certain physical defects and he set to work with care and deliberation to make himself vigorous and strong. He tells the story in his autobiography:
Having been a sickly boy, with no natural bodily prowess, and having lived much at home, I was at first quite unable to hold my own when thrown into contact with other boys of rougher antecedents. I was nervous and timid. Yet from reading of the people I admired—ranging from the soldiers of Valley Forge and Morgan's riflemen to the heroes of my favourite stories—and from hearing of the feats performed by my Southern forefathers and kinsfolk, and from knowing my father, I felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and who could hold their own in the world, and I had a great desire to be like them.

Until I was nearly fourteen I let this desire take no more definite shape than day-dreams. Then an incident happened that did me real good. Having an attack of asthma, I was sent off by myself to Moosehead Lake. On the stagecoach ride thither I encountered a couple of other boys who were about my own age, but very much more competent, and also much more mischievous. I have no doubt they were good-hearted boys, but they were boys. They found that I was a foreordained and predestined victim, and industriously proceeded to make life miserable for me. The worst feature was that when I finally tried to fight them, I discovered that either one singly could not only handle me with easy contempt, but handle me so as not to hurt me much and yet to prevent my doing any damage whatever in return.
The experience taught me what probably no amount of good advice could have taught me. I made up my mind that I must try to learn so that I would not again be put in such a helpless position; and having become quickly and bitterly conscious that I did not have the natural prowess to hold my own, I decided that I would try to supply its place by training. Accordingly, with my father's hearty approval, I started to learn to box. I was a painfully slow and awkward pupil, and certainly worked two or three years before I made any perceptible improvement whatever. . - .

There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to "mean" horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid. Most men can have the same experience if they choose. They will first learn to bear themselves well in trials which they anticipate, and which they school themselves in advance to meet. After a while the habit will grow on them, and they will behave well in sudden and unexpected emergencies which come upon them unawares.

It is, of course, much pleasanter if one is naturally fearless, and I envy and respect the men who are naturally fearless. But it is a good thing to remember that the man who does not enjoy this advantage can nevertheless stand beside the man who does, and can do his duty with the like efficiency, if he chooses to. Of course, he must not let his desire take the form merely of a day-dream. Let him dream about being a fearless man, and the more he dreams, the better he will be, always provided he does his best to realize the dream in practice. He can do his part honourably and well, provided only he sets fearlessness before himself as an ideal, schools himself to think of danger merely as something to be faced and overcome, and regards life itself as he should regard it—not as something to be thrown away, but as a pawn to be promptly hazarded whenever the hazard is warranted by the larger interests of the great game in which we are all engaged.
As a result of this precautionary care he became a man of great athletic powers, not only a skilful boxer, an accomplished horseman, and a first-rate shot, but an explorer who endured physical privations and struggles in mountains, wilderness, and jungle, that would have broken down many men endowed in the beginning with naturally stronger bodies. In my editorial association with him I found the same sense of precautionary preparation. He never wrote an article without verifying his statements of fact, and he invariably submitted the articles, when done, to one or more of his colleagues for criticism and suggestion. How painstaking he was in this respect is illustrated by this incident which occurred when he was preparing his autobiography and of which I am reminded by happening upon the correspondence about it, while going over my papers and letters in preparation for this chapter. In July, 1913, Roosevelt wrote me from Sagamore Hill:
Like the horse-leech's daughter, I come back! In either Chapter 10 or Chapter 15 will you insert in an appropriate place, the following:

"The American public rarely appreciates the high quality of the work done by some of our diplomats, work, usually entirely unnoticed and unrewarded, which redounds to the interest and the honour of all of us. The most useful man in the entire diplomatic service, during my Presidency and for many years before, was Harry White. When I left the Presidency he was Ambassador to France; he was removed shortly afterward by Mr. Taft, for reasons unconnected with the good of the service, and to the serious detriment of the service."
In reply I wrote suggesting that he say "one of the most useful men . . . was Harry White"; and that he omit the last phrase: "and to the serious detriment of the service." Referring to these suggested changes I said: "I make the first, because it will relieve you of the possibility of some stupid persons saying that it proves you did not find Robert Bacon useful, and the second, because I think the line stricken out is a little of an anti-climax."

Roosevelt, in the meantime, had gone on one of his Western trips but two weeks later he wrote, dating his letter "North of the Grand Canyon, July 29,
1913":
Now for the Harry White matter. I wish to adopt most of your suggestion; but to keep the statement that he was the best man in the service because that is the truth. How would it do to have it read as follows?:

"The most useful man in the entire diplomatic service, during my Presidency and for many years before, was Harry White; and I say this having in mind the high quality of work done by such admirable ambassadors and ministers as Bacon, Meyer, Straus, O'Brien, Rockhill, and Egan to name only a few among many. When I left the Presidency, White was Ambassador to France; shortly afterward he was removed by Mr. Taft, for reasons unconnected with the good of the service."
And that is the way the passage stands in the Autobiography except that someone—I do not know who—changed "Harry" White to "Henry" White; perhaps it was some punctilious lady proof" reader who felt that it was impolite to call an ambassador in public by so debonair a name as Harry!

The facts which I have already related regarding his correspondence with Mr. Bryan while he was President, his preparation of his Guildhall speech, and his controversy with the Vatican, are illustrative of the caution and care with which he prepared himself for any important public act or utterance. His occasional appearance of impetuosity has often seemed to me to be analogous to that of the track athlete who is about to run a hundred-yard dash. The spectator sees a half a dozen young men at the starting line waiting for the pistol before they dart for their goal. They are on their toes, quivering with eagerness, sometimes making a false start in their overwhelming desire to accomplish their task. At the flash of the pistol they are off, like lightning. To the ordinary observer there is no more striking portrayal of rash impulsiveness than is found in the attitudes and actions of these swift runners. But the ordinary observer is unaware of the weeks, perhaps the months, possibly even the years, of arduous, exacting, tedious, accurate training that the athlete has subjected himself to before he may even venture to try to make a dash in less than eleven seconds.

So it was with Roosevelt. He studied, he read, he consulted, he thought, he deliberated, he put himself in the hand of trainers so to speak; but when the time for action came he was on his toes, ready to jump at the word "Go." It was at these times that the general public saw him, not during his hours of training. And thus it was that he got the reputation, quite an unjust and unfounded one, of being impetuous. It is not an insignificant thing that while he was accused of proceeding rashly along unconstitutional lines as a political executive, both during his governorship of the State of New York and his Presidency of the United States, no legislative act that he advocated and signed and no executive act that he performed without legislative cooperation has ever, I believe, been declared unconstitutional by any court.

The second quality which I would mention as
typically characteristic of Roosevelt was his courage—not only his moral courage but his pugnacious courage. Although he was not rash he apparently had no sense of fear in physical danger. And his courage was tested, for his life was placed at great risk more than once. In his book describing his explorations in South America he tells very simply of the physical perils that he and his party went through in the canoe voyage down "The River of Doubt"—so simply, in fact, that the very great seriousness of the peril almost fails to impress the reader. In this adventure he became infected with the terrible jungle fever of South America which had much to do, I have always believed, with the illness that resulted in his untimely death. He narrates in a quite matter-of-fact way that the infection resulted in an abscess on his leg in which the surgeon had to place a drainage tube that would have kept the average man on his back in a well-equipped hospital. But he went on, struggling and stumbling over the rocks and through the matted underbrush of the jungle. I quote the story in his own words from his volume "Through the Brazilian Wilderness":
The men were growing steadily weaker under the endless strain of exhausting labour. Kermit was having an attack of fever and Lyra and Cherrie had touches of dysentery, but all three continued to work. While in the water trying to help with an upset canoe I had by my own clumsiness bruised my leg against a boulder; and the resulting infection was somewhat bothersome. I now had a sharp attack of fever, but thanks to the excellent care of the doctor it was over in about forty-eight hours; but Kermit's fever grew worse and he too was unable to work for a day or two. We could walk over the portages, however. . . .

Our men were discouraged, weak, and sick; most of them already had begun to have fever. Their condition was inevitable after more than a month's uninterrupted work of the hardest kind in getting through the long series of rapids we had just passed; and a long further delay, accompanied by wearing labour, would almost certainly have meant that the weakest of our party would have begun to die. . . . The previous evening Cherrie had killed two monkeys and Kermit one, and we all had a few mouthfuls of fresh meat; we already had a good soup made out of a turtle Kermit had caught. When a number of men doing hard work are most of the time on half rations, they grow to take a lively interest in any reasonably full meal that does arrive. . . .

The wearing work under the unhealthy conditions was beginning to tell on everyone. Half of the Camarads had been down with fever and were much weaker; only a few of them retained their original physical and moral strength. Cherrie and Kermit had recovered; but both Kermit and Lyra had bad sores on their legs from the bruises received in the water work. I was in worse shape. The after effects of the fever still hung on and the leg which had been hurt while working in the rapids had taken a turn for the bad and had developed into an abscess. The good doctor, to whose unwearied care and kindness I owe much, had cut it open and inserted a drainage tube; an added charm being given the operation and the subsequent dressings by the enthusiasm with which the piums and boroshudas, two species of stinging flies, took part therein. I could hardly hobble and was pretty well laid up. But "there aren't any 'Stop, conductor!' while a battery's changing ground." No one has any business to go on such a trip as ours unless he will refuse to jeopardize the welfare of his associates by any delay caused by a weakness 01 ailment of his. It is his duty to go forward, if necessary on all fours, until he drops.
It is true that Roosevelt did not jeopardize the welfare of his associates, that he got out safely, and that he had five years more of active and useful life, but he told me once on his return that at the climax of this experience he seriously considered, not from despondency but from a sense of moral duty, whether he ought not to end his life then and there in order to save his companions—-who were being delayed by his disability—from the danger of death by starvation.

When an assassin shot him in Milwaukee during the Progressive campaign, making a wound that would have laid many a man low, he insisted upon going to the hall and completing the speech that he was engaged to make. He said: "It may be the last message that I shall ever be able to utter."

Roosevelt had just entered an automobile at the doorway of the Gilpatrick Hotel in Milwaukee on his way to make a political address at the Auditorium of that city about the middle of October, 1912. He was standing up in the car when the assassin drew a revolver and fired point blank. The assassin was immediately overpowered. Roosevelt's first thought was to save his assailant from bodily injury, for when the man Schrank was brought before him for identification the only reproach he uttered was: " Don't hurt the poor creature." Every effort was made to induce Mr. Roosevelt to receive immediate medical attention, but he refused. After his speech, which because of the circumstances of its delivery is unique in the history of oratory, he was taken to the hospital first in Milwaukee and then in Chicago and X-ray photographs showed that the bullet struck an inch to the right and an inch below the right nipple, fractured the fourth rib, happily did not puncture the lung cavity but ranged upward and inward four inches in the chest wall.

About a week later he was removed to his home at Oyster Bay and I saw him there very soon after his arrival. He was in bed, and there were still signs of blood showing on the bandages which his wound required. How, under the circumstances, a mortal man could have kept on his feet and spoken for an hour, it is almost impossible to conceive. He began his speech in Milwaukee in this way:
Friends, I shall have to ask you to be us quiet as possible. I do not know whether you fully understand that I have been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose [the slang term describing a member of the Progressive party, a term adopted as a badge of honour by the Progressives themselves]. But, fortunately I had my manuscript [holding up the manuscript and showing the audience where the bullet had gone through], so you see I was going to make a long speech! And, friends, the hole in it is where the bullet went through, and it probably saved the bullet from going into my heart. The bullet is in me now so that I cannot make a very long speech. But I will try my best. . . .

First of all, I want to say this about myself. I have altogether too many important things to think of to pay any heed or to feel any concern over my own death. ... I want you to understand that I am ahead of the game anyway. No man has had a happier life than I have had, a happier life in every way. ... I am not speaking for myself at all—I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot, not a rap. I have had a good many experiences in my time, and this is only one of them. What I do care for is my country. I wish I were able to impress upon our people the duty to feel strongly, but to speak truthfully of their opponents. ... I say now that I have never said on the stump one word against any opponent that I could not substantiate . . . nothing that, looking back, I would not say again.
After Mr. Roosevelt had concluded that portion of his speech in which he referred to his injury, he turned to the concrete issues of the campaign, and spoke as if he had been delivering one of those addresses which were a matter of daily routine with him. After he had been speaking for some time he turned to the physician who, as a precautionary  measure was sitting close by him, and said, " How long have I been speaking?" "Three quarters of an hour," replied the doctor, glancing at his watch. "Well," said Mr. Roosevelt with a smile, "I will talk for a quarter of an hour more." Actually he spoke altogether for nearly an hour and a half.

After he recovered, a group of us were discussing the event at one of our editorial luncheons. Someone reported that a newspaper despatch had stated that Roosevelt's motive in insisting upon keeping his engagement to speak was the desire to relieve his friends, especially the Progressives all over the country, from the anxiety of supposing that he was dangerously injured. Roosevelt laughed:

"That would certainly have been very considerate," was his comment, "but I must admit that it never occurred to me. I suppose my real feeling was an instinctive desire not to give up. Pioneers, soldiers, boxers, and men of that type—and I have had some of the experience of all three in my life— are trained not to give way under attack, not to let the other fellow for a minute think you are down and out." In other words, in the phrase of to-day, he wanted to " carry on."

The Milwaukee speech was a great and memorable physical feat. Nothing but the most perfect self-control and the highest kind of physical courage could have carried any man through it. But Roosevelt's moral courage was as striking as his physical courage.

Of this the Progressive campaign is perhaps a sufficient example. He sacrificed friendships and associations that were very dear to him. But the loss of them did not deter him from pursuing a course that seemed to him to be just and right. He also sacrificed the personal prestige which every man who has won it likes to preserve, and subjected himself to an extraordinary amount of contumely and abuse. The' Philadelphia North American, on October 10, 1912, four days before Roosevelt was shot, published the following list of epithets applied to Roosevelt by a certain American newspaper of the opposition in the issues of a single month:
"Shrieks his hostility"; "ridiculous"; "contemptible"; "his antics"; "gnashing his teeth"; "eager to use fraud"; "unparalleled viciousness and dishonesty"; "a dangerous demagogue"; "insensate ambition"; "charlatanism"; "plain aberration"; "bad faith"; "unworthy methods"; "shocking demagogism"; "baseless and dangerous appeals"; "no scruples"; "revolutionary and subversive"; "horrible glibness"; "indecent performance"; "Aaron Burr"; "shameless"; "crazy socialistic scheme"; "blatant insincerity"; "hypocritical and dangerous"; "howling mobocracy"; ''shabby tactics"; "damning proof of hypocrisy"; "hollow and untrustworthy"; "duplicity"; "shrewd political trickery"; "utter untrustworthiness"; "dangerous and self-seeking autocrat"; "unblushing effrontery"; "squalid bandying of words"; "no respect for truth."
One of the results of the Progressive campaign was a libel suit which at the time greatly interested the entire country as a cause celebre. In October, 1912, a weekly newspaper of Michigan, called Iron Ore, published a scurrilous article which, after accusing Roosevelt of political and personal blackguardism, said: " He gets drunk, too, and that not infrequently, and all his intimates know about it."

Mr. Roosevelt instantly brought action for libel against the editor and proprietor of this paper and the case was tried in Marquette, Mich., during the week of May 26-31, 1913.

It has sometimes been asked why Roosevelt should have sued a small weekly publication in Michigan. It was because the statement as to his drunkenness, although a matter of rumour and gossip, was published in this instance for the first time by a responsible man of sufficient means to make the libel suit really effective. A large party of friends and supporters accompanied Mr. Roosevelt to Marquette, glad to go as witnesses in his behalf. This group of friends literally invaded the little town of Marquette, which is beautifully situated on the shore of Lake Superior, and were received with cordiality and hospitality by Roosevelt's many friends in the community. The company included a large number of distinguished persons.

It is, I believe, a principle of trials for libel in this country that the plaintiff may make certain pleadings that will compel the defendant to open the case and prove his statement if he can do so. The plaintiff may then submit the case for judicial decision without introducing any evidence if the defendant fails to make good, thus avoiding what is sometimes an awkward inquiry into his, the plaintiff's, private life. This was not Roosevelt's method. He wished to go on record himself and have his friends on record in telling frankly all the facts about his alleged use of intoxicating beverages. He himself was the first witness and related with delightful frankness what his custom was as to the use of wine and stated that he not only did not use but disliked whisky, brandy, and beer. His testimony which showed his rather unusual abstention from alcoholic beverages was confirmed by his Cabinet associates, by his physician, and by his personal friends. For example, Dr. Alexander Lambert, his family physician, testified that he had known Roosevelt for twenty-two years; had been in and out of his household at all hours of the day and night; had been off with him on hunting trips; attributed his remarkable recovery from the assassin's bullet in Milwaukee "to his splendid, un-poisoned physique"; and declared that he "was an exceedingly temperate man, and an unusually abstemious one." This was the view of a great array of witnesses, whose accounts of Roosevelt really amounted to a delightful kind of biography of him.

When Roosevelt's lawyers rested their case the defendant actually threw up his hands. He could produce no testimony whatever, except hear-say evidence. In exculpation of his act he said that his article was written because of his, the defendant's, opposition to Roosevelt's candidacy; that his statement of Mr. Roosevelt's drinking to excess was based upon common gossip; and that he now in open court withdrew the charge. As a matter of fact, while this capitulation was expressed in legal terms it was evident, not only to the spectators but to the Court, that the defendant who had made the libellous accusation had not a leg to stand on.
Before the presiding Justice charged the jury Mr. Roosevelt addressed the Court as follows:
Your Honor, in view of the statement of the defendant, I ask the Court to instruct the jury that I desire only nominal damages. I did not go into this suit for money; I did not go into it for any vindictive purpose. I went into it, and as the Court has said, I made my reputation an issue because I wish once for all during my lifetime thoroughly and comprehensively to deal with these slanders so that never again will it be possible for any man in good faith to repeat them. I have achieved my purpose, and I am content.
Whereupon the presiding Justice, Judge Flannigan, of the Circuit Court for the County of Marquette, State of Michigan, charged the jury in these words:
The injury to the reputation and feelings of the plaintiff which naturally, proximately, and necessarily followed upon the false publication, would warrant a verdict in the plaintiff's favour in a substantial amount, and would sustain a verdict in any sum up to the amount claimed in the plaintiff's declaration, which is ten thousand dollars.

But, as the Court is advised by the plaintiff, the object of the plaintiff in bringing and prosecuting this action being the vindication of his good name and reputation, and not the recovery of a money judgment; and he having in open court freely waived his right to the assessment of his actual damages, it only remains for the Court to direct a verdict in his favour for nominal damages, which, under the law of Michigan, is the sum of six cents. You are, therefore, gentlemen, directed to render a verdict in favour of the plaintiff for that amount.
It should be added as a matter of record that Mr. Roosevelt's case was entrusted to the firm of Messrs. Bowers and Sands of New York City who after the trial refused to accept any fee whatsoever on the ground that they believed they were performing a public service in defending an ex-President from slander.

It required moral courage on the part of Roosevelt to subject his private life to the kind of interrogatory and analytical searching that takes place in a libel suit, and his request to the Court that the defendant, whose original publication had been unusually vindictive and scurrilous, should be relieved of the final burden of his unjust act when he virtually apologized for _it, displays the warmhearted magnanimity of .Roosevelt toward a vanquished enemy—one of his marked characteristics.

No man that I have known liked personal approval more than Roosevelt. He had a kind of childlike responsiveness to commendation and praise. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but I think he was really hurt when those to whom he was attached were displeased with him. There are people who thought he was thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was highly sensitive; by this I do not mean that he ever showed pique or irritation or resentment or hysterical sorrow which are the things that come to mind when we speak of a "sensitive girl"; T mean sensitive in the exact use of the word—quick to receive impressions. But if this sensitiveness to mental or spiritual sensations pained him he rarely if ever gave any sign, except by depending more and more upon the devotion and affection of those who liked and trusted him. He was, as he says in his Milwaukee speech, a happy man. I never knew him to be "blue" or despondent or to complain of disappointments or an adverse fate. His courage was buoyant and unshaken to the last.

The third of Roosevelt's qualities which I wish to make note of—the quality that, to me, was the most appealing and engaging in his personality and that I most naturally and instinctively think of when I recall him to mind—was his sense of humour.

A sense of humour is not merely an agreeable and pleasing social virtue of an ephemeral and superficial kind; it is a fundamental virtue. A man who possesses a sense of humour can be neither vain, nor conceited, nor a prig, nor a pedant. For if he falls into any of these errors, which are so apt to entrap men of great reputation who receive much public adulation, his sense of humour comes to the rescue and punctures the bubble of self-glorification.
  
 One of the most beautiful and spiritual of all the saints in the calendar of the Church, St. Francis of Assisi, so appreciated the virtue of a sense of humour that he urged its cultivation, in one of the precepts of the Rule of his Brotherhood. Sabatier, in his delightful "Life of St. Francis," quotes this precept and remarks: "In the history of the early Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter which ring out high and clear." The precept, as Sabatier gives it, reads as follows:
Caveant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus nubilosos et hypocritas; sed ostendant se gaudentes in Dom-ine, hilares et convenientes gratiosos.
As this Latin was the colloquial language of the mediaeval Church, I venture to translate it into our own colloquial vernacular:
Let the brothers take care not to appear long-faced, gloomy or over-pious; but let them be joyous about their faith in God, laughing and good mixers.
Roosevelt certainly was joyous in his faith that there is a power that makes for righteousness in the universe and he was convenienter gratiosus, a good mixer in the best sense of the phrase. The characteristic falsetto intonation of his voice when he felt the humour of what he was saying was indescribably infectious in its cheerfulness.
This sense of humour crops out in much of Roosevelt's writing. It is especially to be found in certain chapters of his Autobiography and in the "Rough Riders." Take this example from the chapter entitled "The Vigour of Life" in the Autobiography. It is permissible, now that both men have gone on, to say that the " prize-fighting friend" about whom Mr. Roosevelt relates the incident was John L. Sullivan.
On one occasion one of my prize-fighting friends called on me at the White House, on business. He explained that he wished to see me alone, sat down opposite me, and put a very expensive cigar on the desk, saying: "Have a cigar." I thanked him and said I did not smoke, to which he responded: "Put it in your pocket." This I accordingly did.

Having thus shown, at the outset, the necessary formal courtesy, my visitor, an old and valued friend, proceeded to explain that a nephew of his had enlisted in the Marine Corps, had been absent without leave, and was threatened with dishonourable discharge on the ground of desertion. My visitor, a good citizen and a patriotic American, was stung to the quick at the thought of such an incident occurring in his family, and he explained to me that it must not occur—that there must not be the disgrace to the family—although he would be delighted to have the offender "handled rough" to teach him a needed lesson. He added that he wished I would take him and handle him myself, for he knew that I would see that he "got all that was coming to him."

Then a look of pathos came into his eyes, and he explained: "That boy I just cannot understand. He was my sister's favourite son, and I always took a special interest in him myself. I did my best to bring him up the way he ought to go. But there was just nothing to be done with him.    His tastes were naturally low.    He took to music!"

What form this debasing taste for music assumed I did not inquire; and I was able to grant my friend's wish.
Or this, from Roosevelt's autobiographic account of his experiences as Police Commissioner at a time when he was carrying on a crusade against illegal liquor selling:
All kinds of incidents occurred in connection with this crusade. One of them introduced me to a friend who remains a friend yet. His name was Edward J. Bourke. He was one of the men who entered the police force through our examinations shortly after I took office. I had summoned twenty or thirty of the successful applicants to let me look them over; and as 1 walked into the hall, one of them, a well-set-up man, called out sharply to the others: "Gangway!"-making them move to one side. I found he had served in the United States navy. The incident was sufficient to make me keep him in mind.

A month later I was notified by a police reporter, a very good fellow, that Bourke was in difficulties, and that he thought I had better look into the matter myself, as Bourke was being accused by certain very influential men of grave misconduct in an arrest he had made the night before. Accordingly, I took the matter up personally. I found that on the new patrolman's beat the preceding night—a new beat— there was a big saloon run by a man of great influence in political circles known as "King" Calahan. After midnight the saloon was still running in full blast, and Bourke, stepping inside, told Calahan to close up. It was at the time filled with "friends of personal liberty," as Governor Hill used at that time, in moments of pathos, to term everybody who regarded as tyranny any restriction on the sale of liquor. Calahan's saloon had never before in its history been closed, and to have a green cop tell him to close it seemed to him so incredible that he regarded it merely as a bad jest.

On his next round Bourke stepped in and repeated the order. Calahan felt that the jest had gone too far, and, by way of protest, knocked Bourke down. This was an error of judgment on his part, for when Bourke arose he knocked Calahan down. The two then grappled and fell on the floor, while the "friends of personal liberty" danced around the fight and endeavoured to stamp on everything they thought wasn't Calahan. However, Bourke, though pretty roughly handled, got his man and shut the saloon. When he appeared against the lawbreaker in court next day, he found the court-room crowded with influential Tammany Hall politicians, backed by one or two Republican leaders of the same type; for Calahan was a baron of the underworld, and both his feudal superiors and his feudal inferiors gathered to the rescue. His backers in court included a Congressman and a State Senator, and so deep-rooted was the police belief in "pull" that his own superiors had turned against Bourke and were preparing to sacrifice him.

Just at this time I acted on the infcrmation given me by my newspaper friend by starting in person for the court. The knowledge, that I knew what was going on, that I meant what I said, and that I intended to make the affair personal, was all that was necessary. Before I reached the court all effort to defend Calahan had promptly ceased, and Bourke had come forth triumphant. I immediately promoted him to roundsman. He is a captain now. He has been on the force ever since, save that when the Spanish War came he obtained a holiday without pay for six months and reentered the navy, serving as gun captain in one of the gunboats, and doing his work, as was to be expected, in first-rate fashion, especially when under fire.

Roosevelt greatly rejoiced in his experience with the Rough Riders—not only in the serious and soldierly part of it but in the human and humorous part, as will be seen from this allusion to some of the characters of the regiment:
The men speedily gave one another nicknames, largely conferred in a spirit of derision, their basis lying in contrast. A brave but fastidious member of a well-known Eastern club who was serving in the ranks was christened "Tough Ike"; and his bunkie, the man who shared his shelter-tent, who was a decidedly rough cow-puncher, gradually acquired the name of "The Dude." One unlucky and simple-minded cow-puncher, who had never been east of the great plains in his life, unwarily boasted that he had an aunt in New York, and ever afterward went by the name of "Metropolitan Bill." A huge red-headed Irishman was named "Sheeny Solomon." A young Jew who developed into one of the best fighters in the regiment accepted, with entire equanimity, the name of "Pork-chop." We had quite a number of professional gamblers, who, I am bound to say, usually made good soldiers. One, who was almost abnormally quiet and gentle, was called "Hell Roarer"; while another, who in point of language and deportment was his exact antithesis, was christened "Prayerful James."
One of the delightful qualities of his humour was that he enjoyed a joke at his own expense quite as much as one based on an oddity or quirk in someone else. Here is an example from the "Rough Riders":
There was a great deal of paper work to be done; but as I still had charge of the brigade only a little of it fell on my shoulders. Of this I was sincerely glad, for I knew as little of the paper work as my men had originally known of drill. We had all of us learned how to fight and march; but the exact limits of our rights and duties in other respects were not very clearly defined in our minds; and as for myself, as I had not had the time to learn exactly what they were, I had assumed a large authority in giving rewards and punishments. In particular I had looked on court-martials much as Peter Bell looked on primroses—they were court-martials and nothing more, whether resting on the authority of a lieutenant-colonel or of a major-general. The mustering-out officer, a thorough soldier, found to his horror that I had used the widest discretion both in imposing heavy sentences which I had no power to impose on men who shirked their duties, and, where men atoned for misconduct by marked gallantry, in blandly remitting sentences approved by my chief of division. However, I had done substantial—even though somewhat rude and irregular—justice, and no harm could result, as we were just about to be mustered out.
Another instance of his enjoyment of charring himself that I often like to think of occurred in the early days of my editorial association with him. We used to meet at a weekly round-table conference in which Roosevelt regularly took part. These meetings were generally held on Mondays at eleven o'clock in the forenoon.

One Monday morning he went to Brooklyn with some friends to inspect some model tenement houses in that borough, and did not reach the conference until between twelve and one. When he came in he was full of his experience and began to tell us about it. He had gone quietly and wished to avoid any publicity, "But," said he, "for some reason or other which I do not quite understand, the people recognized me, especially the children, and a crowd of the latter gathered around me."

We all smiled, for it should be explained that his characteristic feature, which was always seized upon by the newspaper cartoonists, was a mouthful of unusually fine and white teeth, which he unconsciously displayed whenever he laughed or talked emphatically.

Noticing the smiles on our faces he at once added^1. "Yes, I suppose there is something distinctive in my physiognomy. I remember that when I was running for the vice-Presidency I had to speak in a Western town where the crowd in the hall was so dense that the officers in charge had great difficulty in making a way for me through the packed audience to get to the stage where I was to speak. Mr. Dooley's comment was [Mr. Dooley as every contemporary American knows is the newspaper pseudonym of one of our most delightful and accomplished humourists]: 'And thin along came Teddy Rosenfeld and bit his way to the platform!' "Roosevelt recalled this genial caricature with evident gusto.
In June, 1910, the Roosevelt party arrived in London very early in the morning, having travelled from Berlin during the night by the Flushing Queensborough route. Mr. Roosevelt went to Dorchester  House where he was the guest of Ambassador Whitelaw Reid, while I took up my quarters in a near-by hotel. Immediately after breakfast and after having removed some of the stain of travel, I went round to Dorchester House and by ten or eleven o'clock was engaged with Colonel Roosevelt over a great pile of accumulated mail, in a sitting room or "study" which Mr. Reid had placed at his disposal. It was a good deal of a task and one that was usually irksome to Mr. Roosevelt, although he performed it faithfully. A knock at the half-open door, accompanied by labored breathing, showed that somebody was there in a state of suppressed excitement. I said "Come in," when one of the liveried, silk-stockinged footmen a typical before-the-war English flunky—entered and announced in an evidently awe-struck voice for kings were not in the habit of calling on private citizens at ten o'clock in the morning: "The King of	is below, sir."
Mr. Roosevelt, of course, had to go down, not only because it was a king, but because it was a monarch (not the Kaiser, let me hasten to add!) for whom he had formed a real respect and friendship during his journey in northern Europe. Nevertheless, as the Colonel rose he threw down his pen, with a mixture of annoyance (at being interrupted) and amusement, and exclaimed: "Confound these kings; will they never leave me alone!"

Another royal or semi-royal anecdote comes to my mind. At Stockholm Mr. Roosevelt was a guest in the palace, a fine and spacious edifice of unusually large and impressive dimensions, where the hospitality extended to the party was of the most genuine and delightful kind. The suite of apartments which had been placed at the disposal of Mr. Roosevelt and his family was elaborate, and I had assigned to me on another floor a bedroom and a sitting room with a man-servant to attend to my wants. My bath was brought in each morning in a portable tub after the old-time European fashion, but while every comfort was provided, the palace, so far as I could find, lacked the modern plumbing upon which Americans are so accustomed to depend. When we left Stockholm by train, which had been equipped with a private saloon carriage and private dining car for Mr. Roosevelt by his royal host, I asked him whether he had discovered any modern plumbing in the palace. He replied, with a quizzical look: "No; I don't like living in these palaces because you can't ring your bell and complain of your room!"

During the journey through Europe the English king, Edward VII, had died, and Mr. Roosevelt was appointed by Mr. Taft as special ambassador to the funeral. One of the things he had to do while in London was to attend the elaborate public ceremonies of this funeral. Captain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) Bentley Mott, then our Military
Attache at Paris, was assigned to Mr. Roosevelt as his personal attache in the performance of his ambassadorial duties. The Earl of Dundonald and Commander Cunninghame Graham were assigned by the King to perform for Mr. Roosevelt the functions of what I suppose would be called in the case of royal personages, "Gentlemen in waiting." The arrangements had to be made by these three gentlemen for Mr. Roosevelt's part in the solemn and splendid procession which proceeded through vast crowds from Buckingham Palace to Windsor. As Secretary to Mr. Roosevelt I was called into the conference. Captain Mott felt that Colonel Roosevelt should ride a horse, dressed in the conventional long riding trousers, frock coat, and high hat. The Earl of Dundonald and Commander Cunninghame-Graham courteously agreed that this was most desirable, but regretted that the Earl of Norfolk, the prerogative of whose family was to have charge of all English coronations and royal funerals, was insistent that Mr. Roosevelt should wear "ambassadorial dress"—this being, according to American precedent, a swallow-tail evening suit.

Finally, Captain Mott insisted that Colonel Roosevelt should be called into the conference. He came, the matter was laid before him, and he said: "Why, Mott, I appreciate your thoughtful-ness, but I am here as an ambassador not to do what I like but what the English people like as the contribution of my country to the respect which the world is paying to the memory of the King. If the English people want me to, I'll wear a pink coat and green-striped trousers!"

The result was that he did wear American evening dress and rode in the procession in a carriage with M. Pichon, the French Ambassador, to the funeral, these two, I believe, being the only foreign representatives who were "commoners." Mr. Roosevelt told me that during the long drive he had all he could do to appease M. Pichon, because according to the exacting rules of precedence, their carriage had been placed after that of the King of Siam. This question of precedence gave Roosevelt no end of amusement. He saw its necessity, for all social conventions are based on some kind of necessity, but its extreme rigour struck him, as it does every American I suppose, as sometimes ludicrous.

He told me that at the funeral banquet given to the foreign representatives in Buckingham Palace the evening before the procession and ceremonies at Windsor-—a dinner which he somewhat disrespectfully referred to as "the wake"-—the Kaiser told him an anecdote of precedence connected with the funeral, which indicates that the Kaiser himself was capable of perceiving the artificiality of certain monarchical customs. It seems that two royal personages of easterrn Europe—I think one was from a Balkan kingdom and the other from an Austrian principality—met with their private cars or saloon carriages at Vienna to take the Orient Express for Paris and London. They quarrelled as to whose rank entitled him to be first on the train, but the aide-de-camp, let us say of the Balkan personage, was clever enough to get his master's car coupled directly on the engine. The Austrian, therefore, had, willy nilly, to take second place. Then came the regular dining car of the train. When dinner was served the Balkan Highness sent his aide into the private car of the Austrian Highness with his compliments and might he pass through to the dining car. No, he might not. So he had to wait until the train came to a station, get out, walk around his rival's car into the dining car, eat his dinner, stay there until another station was reached, and then walk around his rival's car again into his own. As the Orient Express makes very long non-stop runs it may easily be imagined that although the Balkan celebrity got the first place on the train it was not by any means the most comfortable. This incident Roosevelt recounted with the greatest glee.

I have already referred to the fact that in the summer of 1914, just before the European war broke out, I returned from England, with a party of friends on the steamship Imperator, in company with Roosevelt. We had been over to play golf; he had been to England to lecture before the Royal Geographical Society. He was sitting with us one afternoon in the smoking room, although he did not smoke himself, and fell to talking on one of his favourite topics—Americanism. He was denouncing a certain man in Boston who during the Spanish War, although purporting to be an American, endeavoured to raise money to help Spain build a battleship. The enormity of this offence grew upon Roosevelt as he talked and finally he raised his clenched fist in the air and almost at a loss for words, exclaimed, " Such a man as that should be — should be — should be — hanged, drawn, and quartered!"

One of the group, a great admirer and political follower of Roosevelt who had met him personally, I believe, for the first time on this voyage, leaned forward and said with a chuckle: " At least, Colonel!" Quick as a flash the Colonel turned, took his hand, and said: " I am delighted to meet a man, Mr. Erickson, who thinks my language is too moderate!" He did not go on with his denunciation.

Two years afterward Mr. Erickson, who had become actively interested in the formation of the Roosevelt League which was urging the nomination of Roosevelt for the Presidency of 1916, went to the office of the Colonel, who was then associated with the Metropolitan Magazine, to consult him about some campaign matters. He sent in his card, and when he entered the Colonel's room he remarked that, although probably the Colonel did not remember him, he had had the pleasure of crossing with him on the Imperator two years before. "Not remember you!" exclaimed Mr. Roosevelt, "I most certainly do—and most pleasantly. You are the man who thinks my language is too moderate!"

These rambling and detached stories, I am afraid, give a very inadequate impression of what I think was the most lovable of Roosevelt's qualities. I am not sure but that it was the most important of his qualities. He could be stern; he could be severe; he was occasionally biting although never bitter; he had a certain touch of bulldog pugnacity; but underlying it all was a reservoir of humour, not a careless or indifferent humour, not a mere jocosity, but humour which has its source in a spirit of sympathetic and joyous understanding of men and things—a spirit of which Emerson said in a Eulogy of Sir Walter Scott before the Massachusetts Historical Society: "What an ornament and safeguard is humour! Far better than wit for a poet and writer. It is a genius itself, and so defends from the insanities."

The fourth notable quality in Roosevelt's personality that impressed me was his gentleness. Early in his presidential career he uttered one of those epigrammatic phrases for which he has become famous: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick."

The big-stick half of this phrase caught the public fancy and many people, forgetting that he put "speaking softly" first, pictured him as a kind of glorified Irishman carrying a shillalah in a universal Donnybrook Fair and joyously hitting every head he saw. Those who knew him best knew that this was a totally false conception— that one of his pronounced characteristics was a spirit of gentle consideration for others.

A man's general attitude toward his fellow beings can be pretty well determined if you can find out what he thinks of children and how he treats them. What Roosevelt thought of children is expressed in this paragraph from his Autobiography:
There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer, or doctor, or a writer, or a president, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
I am inclined to think that Roosevelt was generally regarded by the public as preeminently a man's man. He was so much in the public mind as a bear killer, a lion hunter, a jungle explorer, a Rough Rider, a "trust buster," and a fighter of malefactors that many people are astonished when they are told that he was also a children's man. Nobody can detect a counterfeit child lover as quickly as a child itself. • Normal children respect and admire their superiors, especially in physical prowess, without regard to age; but they despise and resent patronage. The man who assumes a patronizing air toward children is very soon avoided by them, but with magnetic rapidity they cluster round a man who understands them, who sympathizes with them—a very different thing by the way from sentimentalizing over them—and who can do things with them. This was the way Roosevelt treated children, and the result was that they often followed him as if he had been a modern Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is easy to imagine the atmosphere in which his own children were brought up in the family homestead, Sagamore Hill, at Oyster Bay. They swam, rowed, went barefoot, or camped in the woods or on the beach of Long Island Sound. They learned to shoot—for there was a rifle-range at Sagamore Hill. They made pets of the various animals on the home farm in the summer, and they coasted and skated in the winter. In this bringing up of the children in the vigour of outdoor life Mrs. Roosevelt was an active partner, as will be seen by referring to another passage in the colonel's Autobiography:
When their mother and I returned from a row, we would often see the children waiting for us, running like sand-spiders along the beach. They always liked to swim in company with a grown-up of buoyant temperament and inventive mind, and the float offered limitless opportunities for enjoyment while bathing.

All dutiful parents know the game of stage-coach. Each child is given a name, such as the whip, the nigh-leader, the off-wheeler, the old-lady passenger, and, under penalty of paying a forfeit, must get up and turn round when the grownup, who is improvising a thrilling story, mentions that particular object; and when the word "stage-coach" is mentioned, everybody has to get up and turn round. Well, we used to play stage-coach on the float while in swimming, and instead of tamely getting up and turning round, the child whose turn it was had to plunge overboard. When I mentioned "stage-coach," the water fairly foamed with vigorously kicking little legs; and then there was always a moment of interest while I counted, so as to be sure that the number of heads that came up corresponded with the number of children who had gone down.
I am puzzled to know whether Roosevelt's attitude toward his youngest boy, Quentin, whose body lies in his soldier's grave in France, should be put under the head of courage or gentleness. The father who has the most gentle love for his child really wants that child to make the most of its life, not merely to vegetate, protected from every kind of danger, trial, or obstacle. Quentin's death was a blow to Roosevelt, but I think he never regretted the encouragement and support which he gave his youngest son in making the Great Adventure. Quentin, then nineteen years old, was completing his sophomore year in Harvard. When this country declared war on Germany he telegraphed his mother that he was leaving college to come to New York to enlist. During a visit at Sagamore Hill in the summer of 1917, after Quentin had gone to the French front, I asked Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt whether they did not feel it to be a special hardship that, at so early an age, Quentin should have to give up his education and many of his associations at Harvard which he could never renew even if the war left him unscathed. They both replied that they were particularly glad that, on his own initiative, he had taken the exact course which would put him in one of the most dangerous branches of the service.

"I would not have stopped him if I could," added Mr. Roosevelt; "and I could not have stopped him if I would. The more American boys from nineteen to twenty-one join the army the better it is for the country. To take them out of our civil life entails the smallest economic loss upon the Nation, and because of their elasticity and powers of recuperation they are its greatest military asset."
    Nevertheless, if Roosevelt could have given himself and saved Quentin he would gladly have done so. Just before Roosevelt's death Mr. Stephane L'auzanne—the editor of the Paris Matin, then in this' country'—was returning to Paris; he asked Roosevelt for a message to take back to his countrymen. This was Roosevelt's response:

"I have no message for France; I have already given her the best I had! But if, over there, they speak of me, tell them that my only regret is that I could not give myself."

One of my pleasantest recollections of Roosevelt is connected with this gentle side of his character. Preceding and during the Progressive campaign of 1912 he used to lunch weekly with his editorial colleagues at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. There were usually several guests. On a certain one of these luncheon days there were to be two distinguished foreign diplomats as the guests of honour, the ambassadors from Brazil and Argentina, and I had gone around from our office, a few blocks away, to the club just ahead of Mr. Roosevelt, to make sure that all the arrangements were complete. We did not often have foreign ambassadors at our table and I felt a desire, which housewives who read these lines will understand, to see that the flowers and napery and spoons and forks were properly arranged.

As I approached the club I saw a lady standing on the sidewalk stooping over to talk to a small boy about ten years old, who was crying bitterly. The boy was sobbing so convulsively that it was impossible to understand what he was saying; but on stopping to see if I could be of any assistance the lady, seeing that the boy was being attended to, went on her way. I managed to extract from the little, quivering figure the information that he was lost. His father was a Hungarian miner from Pennsylvania; that family had arrived that morning in New York on their way back to Hungary; the ship was to sail the next day; he had just stepped out of the house where they were stopping to see the street sights of the great, strange city. Further details were blotted out by another burst of weeping.

Just then Mr. Roosevelt came sailing around the corner of the iron palings of Gramercy Park, busily talking with his companion, General F. V. Greene, who, like Roosevelt, had been a police commissioner. He stopped and asked what was the matter. I told him what I had learned, and he said, half to the boy and half to General Greene:

"We'll soon fix this. Let me see, General, isn't there a precinct station-house in Twenty-Second Street near Second Avenue? We'll take him there and they will send out a general alarm for his father and mother."

The little derelict stopped his weeping—he seemed to feel an instinctive confidence in the power of this strange man to do things—and we all started off to the police station half a mile away. Mr. Roosevelt hardly spoke to the boy, who plodded along contentedly beside him, while he continued his discussion with General Greene on, I think, some military subject.

When we got to the precinct station the lieuten^ ant or sergeant in charge recognized the two former police commissioners. Mr. Roosevelt told him. the facts, gave the boy a piece of silver to get some luncheon and, telling the little fellow that the police would find his mother and father before long, left him perfectly comfortable and contented. We returned to the club half an hour late, but the diplomatic guests were repaid for their delay by their interest in the story of the incident which I related as our excuse.

Late in the afternoon I called up the police station and found that through the medium of a general alarm, or some such police procedure, the frightened boy and the terrified parents had been happily brought together.
 
  This little incident is a simple one but I think it worth telling because it shows that Roosevelt was more interested in helping a small boy in trouble—not sending someone else as he might easily have done but doing it himself—than he was in greeting the ambassadors of two great foreign countries to which he was about to make an important visit. For he was then arranging his expedition to South America and his exploration of the Brazilian jungle. He had a warm-hearted human sympathy and a gentle, almost woman-like kind of tenderness of which thousands who admired his strenuous life knew nothing.

Roosevelt was not interested in dogmatic or metaphysical theology. Indeed, I doubt if he cared for metaphysics of any kind; I am inclined to think he would have sympathized with the wit who once said that the only use for metaphysics is to furnish arguments for the abolition of metaphysics; I am sure he would have agreed with Emerson that "metaphysics is dangerous as a single pursuit; . . . the inward analysis must be corrected by rough experience. Metaphysics must be perpetually reinforced by life; must be the observations of a working man on working men." But although not of the metaphysical temperament he was deeply interested in a philosophy of life and in the morals and ethics that underlie the finest, most beautiful, and most worth-while human relationships. I do not know whether he was a Platonist or an Aristotelian, a Trinitarian or a Unitarian, a Pantheist or a Deist, but I do know that he believed that there are axiomatic laws of virtue and goodness which we do not need to argue about any more than we do about the law of gravitation.

One of the most complete and satisfying creeds that was ever written is that of the Prophet Micah: "O man, what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?" Not long after Roosevelt's death, his sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson, told me that this verse from the Book of Micah was his favourite. And a letter was published last February by the General Secretary of the New York Bible Society saying that when he asked Roosevelt in the summer of 1917 to send through that society a message to the American troops abroad, the Colonel chose Micah's text as his message, which he wrote out in his own hand with this comment:
Do justice: and therefore fight valiantly against the armies of Germany and Turkey; for these nations, in this crisis, stand for the reign of Moloch and Beelzebub on this earth.
  
 Love Mercy: treat prisoners well; succour the wounded; treat every woman as if she were your sister; care for the little children, and be tender with the old and helpless.
Theodore Roosevelt's personality was an unsurpassed combination of the unterrified fighter of what he believed to be the worst, and the tenderhearted lover of what he believed to be the best in mankind. Whether he loved or hated, talked or read, worked or played he did it with zest and eagerness. The words of William James may well be applied to such a life:
Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant. Sometimes the eagerness is more knit up with the motor activities, sometimes with the imagination, sometimes with reflective thought. But wherever it is found, there is the zest, the tingle, the excitement of reality; and there is "importance" in the only real and positive sense in which importance ever anywhere can be.