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LIFE AND WORK OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

By
THOMAS H. RUSSELL, LL.D. 

CHAPTER ONE

1858—1919
By Major-General Leonard Wood, U. S. A. 

Theodore Roosevelt's services were never more needed by our country than today. His death coming at this time, perhaps the greatest crisis in our national life, is a calamity.

In the consideration of the great issues of the moment his broad experience, clear judgment, good sense, his comprehension of the issues, and his almost intuitive understanding of the sentiments of our people are all needed, as is his conscientious and fearless leadership. Theodore Roosevelt's voice has at times seemed to be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, but whether listened to for the moment or not, his words have always rung true, voicing sound policies and pointing out safe lines of procedure.

He perhaps more than any man in public life appreciated that true democracy means equality, not only of opportunity and privilege but also of obligation; that there can be no true democracy which does not welcome honest criticism and practice frank and fearless publicity. No one knew better than he that a democracy shunning publicity, resenting criticism and striving to limit free expression of opinion on the part of press or people is a democracy in danger, if not a democracy dying.

His voice has been raised on many issues, sometimes in commendation, sometimes in criticism, but always with a purpose single to the people's welfare. He hated shams, was intolerant of weakness, and feared nothing so much as failure to do his whole duty as he saw it. Many people misjudged him, but no one who knew him intimately ever failed to recognize that, right or wrong, his desire was for the good of our people and the upholding of sound national policy. He felt that both the individual and the nation should not only be prompt to voice its disapproval of injustice and wrong-doing, but should be ready to back its righteous protest with force if need be. In other words, it was not enough to protest against wrong; we must also use everything we have of force and strength to correct it.

It was my good fortune to have known him long and intimately, and to have had an opportunity to see him under stress and strain not only in times of war but in times of peace. He was a splendid example of clean and upright living and of strenuous endeavor. He believed that men should have not only clean, sound bodies, but also clean souls. As a leader he was fearless, direct, and compelling. As a subordinate he was frank, and while distinguishing between civility and subordination was always a loyal and conscientious subordinate. He gave his opinion frankly and honestly, and if his chief differed with him he accepted without discussion and lived up to the orders he received.
I happen to have been his military commander during the Spanish-American War, and in all my experience in the army of something over thirty years I have not come in contact with an officer who more fully represented ideal military subordination of the best type. Frank to express his honest views when called for, as a soldier always should be, fearless in looking out for the interests of his subordinates, he nevertheless was prompt and unfailing in carrying out the policy agreed upon. He dropped without effort all that prestige and influence which had surrounded him as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position which he had filled with ability and in which he had exercised a very great measure of power, to assume the duties and responsibilities of Lieutenant-Colonel of the First U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, or, as it came to be known, the Rough Riders.

The interests of his men were his own. He realized and lived up to the definition given by Socrates to Xenophon of the ideal officer as one who looks after the welfare of his soldiers. He instinctively appreciated that the less the soldier is able to protect himself because of his subordinate position, the more the officer is under obligation to look after his interests and welfare. He was a brave officer, never thinking of his own life, but always of his objective, and attaining it with as little loss as possible among his own men. He defended his country in war as his sons have done in this war, and as he endeavored to do. Keen always to practice what he preached, he sent his sons cheerfully to the front, and having failed in his own efforts to go, turned everything he had of moral and spiritual strength into an effort to build up a vigorous prosecution of the war, realizing that when you have to strike it is humane to strike hard.
He saw with a clear vision that the war was as much America's war as it was the war of France and the European Allies. He saw the far-reaching danger of German success. He realized that the quicker we were in, the fewer men would die, the less there would be of opportunity for that kind of upheaval and unrest which comes when wars are too long drawn out. He realized that we must meet the organized strength of wrongdoing with the disciplined and united force of right. He was a believer in preparedness. He knew that had we been ready to do our part in the great struggle, our protest would have been listened to and there would have been no war; but once the war was on and all these things were as water that had gone under the bridge, with his eyes to the front he did everything possible to aid in a vigorous conduct of the war.

He was, after all, a very human man, impetuous and strong, with the defects and the strong points which come with such a character. His personal characteristics were charming. He was an embodiment of gentleness and consideration with subordinates and those in the humbler walks of life. If an engineer brought him safely through a hard run, he never failed personally to express his appreciation. There was always that instinctive desire to make those with whom he came in contact feel that they had done him a good turn, that they had been of real service, to impress upon them the dignity of labor and that the way really to dignify labor was to do one's task, no matter how humble, cheerfully and thoroughly. A thousand times I have seen him win the lasting affection and regard of those with whom he came in contact by these little simple human acts of appreciation and kindness. With a snob, a cad, a faker, he was brusque, direct, and intolerant, as all honest men should be. No man had a finer family life. No man was more devoted to home and family, or more intolerant of loose living or of vulgar thinking. I never knew him to tell a suggestive story, and I have never known anyone who really knew him and understood him even to attempt to tell one in his presence. He loved Nature and understood her varying moods. He loved the wild places of the world and the animals and the birds which inhabited them, and he understood them to an extent that few men ever have. He enjoyed keenly a hard bout with the broadswords, giving and taking in the spirit of fair play and good sportsmanship. Stiff rides across country, long walks and hard runs through the ups and downs of the banks of the Potomac, and the rough bits of Bock Creek Park, were sources of keen enjoyment and served to keep him in good condition, vigorous in body and clear in thought.

He dearly loved to gather his own children and those of his friends and take them for long tramps along the river banks and through the bits of dark forest in the park, piloting them across the streams and around bits of rocky cliffs, across little valleys, using the trunks of fallen trees as bridges, and bringing them in toward nightfall through the woods. These excursions were to the children like voyages into an unknown land. The streams they crossed were rivers and the bits of forest were the unknown. These tramps were always filled with little lessons and interesting talks by which he taught the children things he knew would interest them and would build up in them a love of Nature and an understanding of many things.

He measured a man's Americanism by the way he lived and measured up to American ideals. With him no man could be an American and something else. He saw in universal training for national service something which would fuse the diverse elements which come into and make up much of our population into one homogeneous mass of Americanism. He saw in this training all together, shoulder to shoulder, rich and poor, newcomer and native-born, an influence toward better understanding and truer appreciation, a democracy of service, a community of purpose, with its brotherhood of man. He saw in it the building up of a truer and better citizenship. He always stood ready to sacrifice everything for his country. He understood that none are fit to live who are afraid to die. He was a many-sided character, but all sides were good, as difficult to give a word picture of as it is to write a description of the Grand Canyon or any great and complex thing.

We have lost a great leader in the crisis of the nation's life. He has left us in his writings, in his work, in his precepts and ideals, clear guides for the future. Though his voice is silent, his spirit Eves and will live to stir us to effort in times of public danger and to stimulate our righteous efforts for good government, fair dealing, and right living at all times. Wise leader, true patriot, devoted husband and father, the best type of American, such was Theodore Roosevelt. We can ill spare him in these days. In his last message to us he has left an inspiration and preached a lesson which we must heed.
Lenard Wood

AN UNADULTERATED AMERICAN
By Chauncey M.  Depew,  former  United  States 
Senator from New York
The whole public career of Theodore Roosevelt is lined with monuments in beneficent legislation. He was born two years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and was President of the United States when it was necessary to have a united country in support of policies for the benefit of the whole United States. For this destiny he was fortunate in his ancestors. His father, of Dutch and Scotch ancestry, was a leading citizen of New York, and one of the most useful and prominent citizens of the North; his mother was from Georgia, and represented the best blood and traditions of the South. So he could appeal, as no President had been able to since the Civil War, to all sections of the country, North, South, East, and West. Harvard gave him an Eastern culture, and ranch life on the Western plains brought him in contact and close association with those pioneers who have discovered, developed, and peopled our territories from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

He inherited a small trust estate, the income of which was not sufficient for more than a quarter of his expenses of living, and yet it had the singular effect of destroying all ambition to accumulate a fortune. He always felt sure that by his own exertions he could so supplement this limited income as to meet all requirements and at the same time have the income as an anchor which in great stress or necessity would prevent his drifting to want.

His activities were during the period of the greatest industrial development which this country has ever known, a period in which masterful men developed in an unprecedented way our natural resources, our manufacturing, and our transportation, with results that were enormously beneficial to communities and multitudes of people, and yielded enormous returns to the architects. Colonel Roosevelt admired these men and their achievements, but always looked upon them and what they did from the standpoint of public safety and public service. He had no fear of big business, and to his mind the bigger the better, if the best results for all could be had that way. At the same time, if in his judgment the process was becoming dangerous to the public welfare because of its tendency to monopoly, he became at once its enemy.

I remember as if it were yesterday the commencement of his career. From the beginning his ambitions were for public life and public service. A Republican district leader, forty years ago, came to my office and said, "We have this difficulty in our district. A small part of it is composed of what the boys call 'highbrows', living along Fifth Avenue and the adjoining streets, while the major part of it runs over into sections which are under the control of Tammany Hall. To keep our organization alive and secure for the boys some recognition in office-holding, I have to deal with a very difficult problem. These dealings have offended 'highbrows', but we need their votes, and especially their contributions. I can think of but one way out, and that is to nominate for the Legislature a representative of these men of wealth and high social position. What do you think of young Theodore Roosevelt!" Of course, I became enthusiastic at once. "Well," said this astute leader, "we will have a dinner at Delmonico's and bring him out. None of our organization will attend, none but that class will be invited, but I will be in the pantry. I want you to preside."

The dinner was a great success. Young Roosevelt was at that time about 22 years old, but he looked much younger. He read for about an hour from Ms manuscript to an audience of as hard-headed, practical, and successful men as could be gathered in New York. They were tolerant of his emphatic views on the evils of city, State, and National Government, and how he would correct them, and it is one of the extraordinary things in politics that this young man of 22 afterwards, as Police Commissioner of New York, as Governor of the State of New York, and as President of the United States, had the opportunity to carry out these policies and to translate them into laws.

Mr. Roosevelt was one of the few more responsible than others for bringing on the Spanish War. It is well known that President McKinley did his best to prevent it. It was the characteristic of Roosevelt that he never asked from others that they volunteer for a dangerous enterprise unless he was willing to share in it himself. So he raised the "Rough Riders" regiment, and, by gallantry in action, became the foremost figure in the Spanish-American War.

Nothing has impressed me so much as the accidents of public life. In business and professional careers, brains, industry, and efficiency always tell, but not so in politics. The National Convention which met in Philadelphia in 1900 was a unit for the renomination of Mr. MeKinley, but all at sea about the Vice-President. Roosevelt's independent and masterly administration of New York as Governor had made him so powerful that not to renominate him was to court defeat, and to renominate him was equally dangerous on account of the hostility of the local organizations all over the State. So there was a general assent to his being put on the ticket with McKinley for Vice-President. Mr. Roosevelt strenuously opposed it. He said, '' The Vice-Presidency is a tomb, and I will not be buried." So after further debate we nominated Roosevelt again; he again declined, and then I declared the meeting adjourned to prevent further action. The next morning he accepted. This was the crisis of his career.

Great and successful leadership requires many qualities. I have known, beginning with Lincoln, with considerable intimacy, every President of the United States. None of them had all these qualities except Mr. Roosevelt. He was a born leader of men. His industry was phenomenal, but it was that intelligent work which knew where to find what he wanted, and his marvelous intelligence grasped, absorbed, and utilized this material with the precision of a machine.

He loved companionship and found time to enjoy his friends. When that friend left he had contributed all he possessed to the materials useful to this great Executive. He might be a college professor, a United States Senator, a foreign Ambassador, a State Governor, a Justice of the Supreme Court, a cowboy from the ranches, a hunter from the mountains, a traveler from overseas,—all were equally welcome and all equally contributors.

I was in the Senate during the whole of his Presidency, and saw him nearly every day. It was a delight to visit the Executive Office or to meet him in the closer associations of the White House. He was the most outspoken of public men. As I was entering his room one morning, a Senator was coming out. This Senator had made some request of the President which had angered him. He shouted to me so the Senator and everybody else could hear him: "Do you know that man?" I answered,'' Yes, he is a colleague of mine in the Senate.'' "But," the President shouted, "he is a crook." Subsequent events proved the President correct; the man came within the clutches of the criminal law.

I never knew such an omnivorous reader. He mastered all literature, past and present. Several times I called his attention to a book which had been sent me and was just on sale. He had already read it.

He was intensely human. He had no airs, nor fads, nor frills. His cordiality was infectious, his friendship never failed. No man of his generation has so long held public esteem and confidence. His work in the world was great and greatly done. It is a commonplace when a great man dies to say, "It is not for his contemporaries to pass judgment upon him. That must be left to posterity and to the historian after the passions of his time have been allayed." There are only two exceptions to this maxim: one is Washington, the other is Roosevelt. With this magnificent fighter, this reckless crusader, this hard-hitter, the world is stilled and awed when the news of his death is flashed over wires and cables, but the instant voice of friend and enemy is the same. All recognize the purity of his motives, the unselfishness of his work, and his unadulterated Americanism.
 New York,
January, 1919.
By Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, former Speaker, U. S. House of Representatives
. President Roosevelt, in 1904, wrote that a man who goes into the actual battle of politics "must stand firmly for what he believes, and yet he must realize that political action, to be effective, must be the joint action of many men, and that he must sacrifice somewhat of his own opinions to those of his associates if he ever hopes to see his desires take practical shape."

Throughout Roosevelt's administration, I had many conversations with him on many subjects, and I found him ready to follow that platform of political action, presenting his own ideas forcibly and earnestly and giving fair consideration to the ideas and arguments of others. The great volume of important and progressive legislation enacted during the Roosevelt administration was accomplished in that way, by cooperation and coordination of the legislative and executive departments of the government, and by the sacrifice of some opinions on both sides. That cooperation made the Roosevelt administration a great Republican administration and a great American administration—two synonymous terms. That administration defeated Bolshevism sugar-coated with Bryan's rhetoric; and such cooperation will again defeat Bolshevism in the name of pure democracy.
 Washington, D. C., January, 1919.

By Col. Henry Watterson
No one knew Theodore Roosevelt better than I; certainly no one goes back farther in a knowledge of him, for that knowledge takes me to a time preceding his birth, when his mother and my mother, old and very dear friends, were much together, the Roosevelts living at the family homestead down about Broadway and Thirteenth Street, New York, what was then the Union Place Hotel near by, though Theodore was born in the Twentieth Street house to which just before his birth his parents had removed. He was all sorts of a boy. Indeed, like the boy in the play who never grew up, he remained a boy all his life. He was wayward, willful, affectionate; never vicious, though mischievous; wholly loveable and
trying.
*    *
From the first he essayed the impossible and oddly enough often got away with it. Frail of body and poor of sight, he wanted to be a hunter. Without military training, or natural bent, he wanted to be a soldier. He possessed rare aptitude for politics, on which he did not pride himself. His passion was for getting at the heart of things—for hitting the bull's eye—for playing life as if it were a game of "shinny," rushing in among the kickers and bringing away the ball in triumph. He preferred his muscle to his wit. He was a perfect cross of the Roosevelt upon the Bulloch. In him met, commingled, and flowed the blood of the Dutchman and the Cavalierj the one restraining if it did not temper the other. Theodore was by no means an uncalculating visionary. In many ways he was exceedingly practical.

Personally, no man could be worthier. His domestic relations were ideal; he was the best of husbands and fathers; patient only, but very patient, as a paterfamilias. A cleaner man never lived. No dirty or doubtful dollar ever touched his palm. In this he resembled his uncle, his mother's brother, the Confederate Admiral, who fitted out and sent the South's privateer cruisers to sea, handled millions of Confederate money in England, and with a half million of this still in his possession at the close of the War of Sections, turned it over to the United States
and died a pauper.
***
Although Teddy and I agreed about nothing—fell surely apart when an issue arose—the differences cut no figure in our personal relations. When he came to his kingdom he often sought to be good to me. The surviving guests at Robert Collier's famous dinner will recall an illustrative incident. I had said in response to a toast, "You gentlemen fancy that there have been ructions between Theodore Roosevelt and myself, but let me say to you that in the very plenitude of his power he offered me one of the greatest honors within his gift." Then he called out, "Tell me about that, Marse Henry," and I continued:

"I was at dinner with my family at Willard's Hotel when General Corbin came over and said in his abrupt way, 'Will you accept the chairmanship of the Board of Visitors for West Point next June?'

'' ' What do you want me for I' said I. ' It is the Academy's centenary,' he answered, 'and we are looking for an orator.' 'Corbin,' I replied, 'you are coming at me in a very tempting way; that a ragged old rebel like me should be chosen for such a service appeals to my pride of country as well as my personal vanity. Give me a little time to think it over.' When I thought it over honorable and gratifying as it was—I put it from me. A presidential election was at hand. The issues were bound to be implacable. I had my duty to perform, and if I accepted with all that acceptance implied, I could not do
my duty.   So very reluctantly I declined."
*    *
I rang all the changes of the third-term issue upon him. Among the rest there was a long circumstantial story of an old Georgia lady—a life-long friend of his mother—whose dream was to see Theodore crowned Emperor of America. She had lived in France and was a thorough Imperialist and devotee of Louis Napoleon. We sat in a garden and she told her story and unfolded her hope. I contrived to get into this setting every manner of persiflage, closing with, "She passed from the moonlight into the house and I said to myself, 'If out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, why not out of the fancy of this crazed old woman of the South?' "

He answered this by a public statement that he would not be the candidate in 1908. When I was next in Washington he sent for me. Taking me into a rear room and locking the door, he said: "First, I want to know whether that old woman was a real person, or a figment of your imagination?"

I answered that she was a figment of my imagination. "But," said I, "you killed her dead as a door nail; why didn't you hold back and let us get lots of fun out of it?"

With a show of impatience he bade me sit down.

"I don't deny," he continued, "that I have thought of it." Then in the frankest manner he went over the situation, telling me of some personal and party matters I did not know of, and ending, "Now what do you think, of it?" I said, "Mr. President, you know that I am your friend, and I tell you as your friend, that if you go out of here the fourth of next March, putting your friend Taft in your place, you will make a good third to Washington and Lincoln. But if you allow the wild-hog politicians to put you up for a third term, they will bring about your defeat and make you a second to Burr."

He arose from his seat and said, "Henry Watterson, I will permit no such thing. If they do it, I will refuse. If they do it and adjourn the convention they will have
to reassemble it, for I will refuse and still refuse."
#    *
I saw him last but just a while ago when he and Mr. Moore, of Pittsburgh, and Edward Riggs, of the New York Central, and I had a merry lunch at an uptown hotel in New York. For the first time he was beginning to show something that looked like years. But he was all life and the love of life—his sunny side out—intense interest and tremendous grasp vibrating with his gaiety.

I am deeply and personally distressed by his death, though it does not take me by surprise. He gave himself no rest. His resources were multifarious, his interests many and wide apart. Often his impetuosity did injustice to his serious parts. As a matter of fact he was an insurrecto whom destiny had elevated into a commander. He could not help speaking out in meeting, as they say in New England. Yet comparing his candor with the garrulity of some public men having a reputation for prudence, the record will show to his credit. Certainly he had a way of getting after a rogue and running down a rascal, that was often fruitful of good to the country.

His disappearance in a way clarifies politics on the practical and tangible side. It clears the way for a united Republican party. He was ever a thorn in the side of the machine politicians, though a clever machine politician himself. His like will scarcely appear again. No leader ever appealed as he did to the young. Had he lived he would have cut a wide swath in 1920. His death takes much of the complexity and all of the light out of the political situation and levels the immediate future into the commonplace.
henry watterson. Miami, Florida, January 7,1919.
By Senator Johnson of California
(Running Mate of Colonel Roosevelt in 1912}
Washington, D. C., January 6, 1919.
55
The greatest American of our generation Has passed away. He had a truer vision, a higher courage, a wiser statesmanship than any man of our time. I cannot speak of him in ordinary terms. To me he had no parallel-none approached him in virility or force or profound knowledge of varied subjects. He stood alone in greatness of perception, in courage for the right as he saw it. I am mourning not only the greatest American, a world figure such as time seldom presents, but a thoughtful, kindly, affectionate friend,
THE MAN WHO LOVED HIS JOB By Sir John Willison
President of the Canadian ^Reconstruction Association.
There is a cant of democracy as well as a faith of democracy. Roosevelt had all the faith and none of the cant. He had faith in himself and faith in the people. In what he did there was nothing very original. He profited greatly by the evangelical sowing of Bryant. He achieved by force, by courage, and even by violence. It was said of Cavour that he had all the prudence and all the imprudence of the true statesman. To a degree this was true of Roosevelt, but it is doubtful if he ever found pleasure in the exercise of prudence. He had many of the qualities of those great old builders of the British Empire in the outposts of the earth. He would have seized territory, overturned effete institutions, established despotic authority over subject populations, and by the character of his rule have justified despotism to himself and probably to those whom he had reduced to subjection. But for himself he would not have been thrifty nor ever have been astonished at his own moderation.

In the man there was no pretense. When he was told that he must rejoice to be relieved of the duties, responsibilities, and perplexities of the Presidency he declared with blunt candor that he had loved his job and would be glad to take it on again if the people would agree. He would have said with Scott that

One crowded hour of glorious strife
Is worth an age without a name.
There was eternal youth in the soul of Roosevelt. One cannot think that he ever would have grown old in spirit or ever have "ceased from mental strife" while there were "malefactors" to be disciplined and a world to be fashioned to his way of thinking. Most of us as we grow older become too wise and too cautious. We lose the vision. We lose the courage. We lose the virtue of rashness and the glory of insolence. With Roosevelt to the end there was rashness and the audacity which borders upon insolence. There was always in him, as Mr. Asquith said of Ireland, "a good deal of rhetorical and contingent belligerency.''

It is hard to think that he was chivalrous in his treatment of Taft, but in method and character they were so far removed from each other that conflict was almost inevitable. He saw Taft trying to do with blundering amiability and complacent indecision the things he had done with energy and arrogance, and he revolted. He lacked the last quality of loyalty which was Taft's great characteristic and for the possession of which Taft was perhaps the weaker and he the stronger. For Roosevelt loved the authority which strong men covet. The taste of power was the sweetest morsel on his tongue. He could command confidence and inspire devotion. In all history there is no more wonderful illustration of the power of a single man than his bold challenge to a historic party and the creation of the Progressive movement. For that movement represented the power of one man and the attraction of one virile personality. Moreover, if he had lived he probably would have recreated and re-established in office the party which he had destroyed and under the leader which it had rejected. Bolingbroke said of Maryborough, "He was a great man and I have forgotten all his faults." There could be no truer expression of the feeling of the Republican party towards Roosevelt, and when we think of the long vindictiveness of a political party towards those who desert its standards, the thing that he did has the wonder and the mystery of a miracle.

It is remarkable that Mr. Root and Mr. Taft, who held the remnant of the Republican party against Roosevelt, should have been his firm allies in urging American intervention in the war in Europe. Divided in a domestic conflict, they reunited in the great conflict for human freedom and led the American people in the path of duty, honor, and sacrifice. It will be remembered, too, that in the Congressional elections a few months ago Roosevelt and Taft signed a common appeal to the party in which for so long they had fought as comrades and which had suffered disaster through their differences. Thus at the last the bitterness was assuaged and a reconciliation declared in the face of the nation.

History will not deny that Roosevelt had the faults of impetuosity, that he was sometimes ungenerous and ruthless, and that he sometimes destroyed where it would have been better to conserve and improve. But he was a man of full blood and robust spirit, with the love of adventure in his soul and the love of his kind in his heart. He loved the deep bush and the open sky, all green and growing things, the kindly earth and the fruits thereof, the ships which traveled the wide and strange waters, the touch of danger, the open war between man and the jungle. He gave to his country far more than he received. He struck hard and the blows sometimes fell wildly, but he shattered some idols of clay and destroyed some images of the marketplace which had been worshipped far too long.
One feels that Kipling could have taken Roosevelt to his soul, for what the one is in vision the other was in action. The United States has had greater men, but no one braver or more picturesque. He died in his sleep, for perhaps even death would have hesitated to take him with his head up and his face to the world. So another has joined Bryant's innumerable caravan, but not with immediate expectation of the summons. One wishes that death had not been so eager, for Roosevelt could not have believed that his work was finished. But

Three fragile, sacramental things 
Endure, though all your pomps shall pass, 
A butterfly's immortal wings, 
A daisy and a blade of grass.

Toronto, Ontario, January, 1919.
By John Wanamaker, Former Postmaster General
Not Since Abraham Lincoln Fell Asleep has there been in this country such a sorrow as when the messages came from
THEODOEE ROOSEVELT 'S
silent home.    Like a flash of lightning, it touched the whole world.
The immeasurableness of the loss to America and the world at this time is beyond human thought.
These are days of revelation.   A man may be bigger than his words.It were well worth while to seek for the real secret of Theodore Roosevelt's masterful greatness.
Was it in the fact that no insincerity lurked behind his ever-welcoming smile?

*	*   *
The piety of Roosevelt's patriotism and citizenship still lives, and

mt. vernon, va., springfield, ill., 
sagamore hill, N. Y.,

henceforth are inseparably linked together to bear witness of something in the lives of three great Presidents that could not be buried in a tomb.

It is unmistakably clear that it was left for the events of the passing week to bring to the surface the hidden power Roosevelt exerted upon the public mind.

His robust manliness, extraordinary brain and far-sighted vision, all filled with Americanism of the purest type, turned the eyes of the entire world upon him as one to help to build something better than an Empire.
*	*    *
No other man in the United States seemed to me so much alive as Theodore Roosevelt, and what he thought, he liked to say.

For a long period of years his name, until quite recently, appeared oftener in the newspapers than any other since Abraham Lincoln's time, as his views on public questions were sought and freely given.

In the first years of service under the national government I knew him very well. I was present at the cabinet meeting when President Benjamin Harrison presented Mr. Roosevelt's name as one of the three Civil Service Commissioners. He became its most active member, and the Post Office Department was the subject of his frequent assaults.

I heard President Harrison, who admired Mr. Roosevelt, say to him that "he was the most pugnacious man he ever knew."

He was a remarkable man, as honest as the sun, ever brim full of healthful, youthful energy, capable of prolonged effort, splendidly educated, bold as a lion, brave as Kitchener or Lord "Bobs," intensely American, with opinions on every phase of life, civilization and the world's governments.

His soldierliness in the Spanish-American War placed him on horseback for all time, notwithstanding the embargo of Washington, which while conscripting men needed for the army and navy, refused to accept the services of Colonel Roosevelt, frequently tendered.

There were few sweeter, lovelier homes in the world than that of the Christian family of plain Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and he will be missed greatly at this stage of our country's affairs.

The Roosevelt home life was one of the best Christian Endeavor Societies in the land.

By Senator France of Maryland It was with profound sorrow that I learned of the death of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt.    Within the last few months I have had several long conferences with him, and on each of these occasions he seemed to be in perfect physical condition. His death involves a loss not only to this Republic, but to the cause of progressive republican government throughout the world. Roosevelt was a constructive progressive. He did not believe in disordered democracy, with its inevitable tyranny, but in the constitutional republic so organized as to insure liberty.

His great and memorable address at the Oriole Park, in Baltimore, at the opening of the last Liberty Loan campaign, in which speech he outlined his broad policies for the reconstruction period and for the nation's far future, revealed again his capacity for courageous and constructive statesmanship.

In the last analysis, this war has been a mighty conflict between reaction and liberalism in government. Men have been battling and dying for political and social liberation. During the present reconstruction period, it shall be decided whether these martyrs shall have sacrificed in vain for the cause of freedom. We must not go back to the old static and passive condition. We must organize the world not for friendship only, but for justice. The aim of a world league should not be to establish a mere universal pacifism. We need, not an international league of peace, but one of purpose and of progress. It would be deplorable to create a new balance of power to re-establish and preserve old intolerable conditions. The world requires an enlightened and aggressive leadership by organized republics, dedicated to the spread, even at the risk of ease and comfort, of republican principles and of a higher civilization throughout all the dark portions of the world where millions of men dwell in bondage.

The American people believe this, and that is why they were surely turning toward Roosevelt, who knew world conditions in India, in Africa, and in the remote countries and islands of the seas, and who also knew the realities of the difficulties in international relationships. The people believed in the sincerity of his motives and had confidence in him as a man both of vision and of action, rather than a man of dreams. They admired him because he had the courage to fight for the right. America is a nation where men have ideals and are also practical, and our people know that only a vital, red-blooded, militant, progressive leadership can lead the world out of this present wilderness. That is why men were turning to him, and why a world, woefully lacking in such leadership, must mourn him.

By Senator Miles Poindexter
The great keynote of Theodore Roosevelt's life and success was service. He served mankind. He was a 'teacher and exemplar of work and action. He found rest and recreation by passing from one form of exertion to another. No man ever made a fuller use of the mental and physical powers with which he was endowed than Roosevelt. He put his talents to work and the result was a great harvest of benefits for his time and generation and for those to come. His industry and determination were applied not only to the use of such powers as were at his command in extraneous undertakings, but exemplified themselves in the intense form of the improvement of his own faculties. He was complete master of himself and fixed his regimen by such a rule as would conserve and improve Ms bodily and mental faculties. Physically weak, even as a boy he adopted such a course as to make him physically strong. This was done not by mere chance, but by set purpose and plan pursued with energy, self-denial, and determination.

Being master of himself, developing himself, and bringing his faculties to the height of their capacity, he became also a master of others; not by the imposition of power, but by the gift of his service. Pascal has said that "the proper study of mankind is man." Socrates, amid the tyranny and prejudices of his times, taught his pupil "Know thyself." Jesus, at the Sea of Galilee, said to the poor fishermen, in their sordid occupation, "I will make you fishers of men." Roosevelt was a student of man, and of himself, and knew himself; and he rendered service as a "fisher of men." Men listened to him because of his sincerity. They knew that he was their friend. Having their confidence, he used the powers which he had developed and the influence which he had gained for the good of mankind. He directed them in safe ways. He fought injustice; was a champion of the weak; feared not the strong; overcame his prejudices; and was a happy warrior in the eternal struggle for justice and truth.

Having gained power he abused it not, but guarded it as a trust, and cherished in his heart of hearts loyalty to his obligations. It was said of Roosevelt that, in the height of his power as President of the United States, he had upon the wall of his office a striking picture of a typical farmer, and that on one occasion he pointed to it and said: "There is the man that I am working for." By it he meant that he was working primarily for those lost in the multitude that makes our nation, who often cannot speak for themselves when great interests are being decided. He recognized no class in the claims of the people upon their government; but he felt undoubtedly that, while the great were entitled to justice, ordinarily they were able to present their demands; but that the silent multitude must depend upon the loyalty and faith of those who sat in the seats of the mighty and exercised the powers of sovereignty. He was greater than his office. Great as is the office of the Presidency, and there is no greater, Roosevelt commanded it. It did not command him. In directing its powers he was able to assume the initiative among all the officials and complicated functions of state, and brought into use the accumulated, ripened fruits of all his strenuous years of effort.

He is gone; but is still here. His mortal remains are mingling with the soil he loved so well, but his spirit lives in the hearts of the millions for whom he had toiled. When he fell, in the very midst of his activities, like a plumed knight in battle, a gloom fell over the nation. A
real spiritual depression was manifest among the people. They felt and knew that not only a great public servant had passed into the "undiscovered country," but that a close and dear personal friend was gone. Never, perhaps, in the history of the nation has there been, between a public leader and all classes of the people, a more personal, sincere, and deep affection than that between Roosevelt and his people. His greatest legacy and memorial is the example of his stainless character, of Ms courageous and useful life, by which the mothers of the future may guide the steps of youth.
Washington, D. C.,	miles poindexter.
January, 1919.
Tribute by Bishop Fallows
Theodore Roosevelt stands as one of the most forceful illustrations of the truth that man can create circumstances and conditions and not be controlled by them. From a puny infant, by rigid obedience to the laws of life, he became the incarnation of vigorous health and activity.

He mounted by successive steps in official positions, all of which he honored by faithful doing, to the highest place to which man can aspire, the Presidency of the United States of America.

He went there as the living embodiment of a vital Americanism. The various racial strains in his blood made him the one great type of the mighty nation which embraces the whole civilized globe in its fold. He did not wait to be forced by the imperious voice of his people to do their righteous bidding; he led them splendidly forward over the top, in the cause of justice and the square deal.

When God wills a great reform, he sometimes makes a man wrong-headed in the right direction to bring it about. If Roosevelt was ever wrong-headed, it was always in the right direction, and all the wrongs he confronted gave way before him.

He felt the universe in Ms leaping pulses:

"Born for that Universe, he shrank not his mind, Nor gave up to party what was meant for mankind."

His courage was proverbial. Over his grave, as over the grave of John Knox, could be truthfully said, "There lies he who never feared the face of man.''

"Give me where I may stand and I will move the world," said Archimedes. Roosevelt made good his standing-place and moved the world. He was deeply religious, thoroughly rooted and grounded in the love of God and of his fellow-man. The call of humanity was thrilling music to his soul. And as the knight errant of the race he ever went full panoplied to break the lance to meet its needs.

Side by side with Lincoln he stands in his rugged personality and in his all-pervasive sympathy with human kind. Like Lincoln he was the people's man. Nay, like him he was the world's man. And as at the death of Lincoln that world poured out its tribute of love and regard as it had never done before for anyone of woman born, so at the death of Roosevelt it sent the undying words of affection and esteem. The trinity in unity of the nation's greatest Americans we shall ever honor: Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt.

By Dr. Frank Crane
Theodore Roosevelt is dead.
He has stepped from the midst of controversy and taken his place among the immortals, against whom no man can speak.
For the moment the conflict ceases, friend and foe stand with bared heads to do homage to a great and valiant soul.
There is a sudden and loyal silence throughout all the hosts. For no man has ever been more a part of every man in the United States than has Theodore Roosevelt.
His friends will rush no more quickly to speak his praise than his enemies.
For he was a man's man, and it was a joy to fight him as well as to agree with him.
His spirit was a fierce and beautiful flame. His opinions were simple and always avowed with the wholeness and self-abandon of a true believer.
He would have made a wonderful knight in the days of Charlemagne, a fair and worthy companion to Roland.
He conceived of life, of duty and even of love in terms of conflict. His makeup was militant, but his conceptions were always sincere.

His chief characteristic was courage. Whatever may have been charged against him in the extravagance of dispute, his bitterest foe must confess that he was to the last a warrior unafraid. And that quality of fearlessness, that indomitable bravery, when lodged in this weak humanity, is always a thing of beauty, a little spark of God. We love it. We respect it. It is the great worthwhile thing in an immortal soul.

So he was a friend, conceived of as a friend, in a passionate and personal way, as no other statesman of American history, except Lincoln.

He was very near to the American heart. And, even in the stormy days of these vast issues that have swept beyond him, the tribute of respect that this people pays to him will be honest and profound.

He had a public mind and gave himself to the service of the people with a singleness of purpose that will be an inspiration to American youth. He was thoroughly human. He was frank, over-frank sometimes, but we love the man whose heart outruns him.

Bangs may pass and be followed to their graves with "the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power." Presidents and premiers may die and their statues be set up in halls of fame, but none will go from the midst of the living and leave a sense of deeper personal loss than this splendid man, this impetuous companion, who has been snatched by death from the intimate affection of a great people.

The Bull Moose has made his last charge.
The rough rider has led his last assault.
Bwana Tumbo, the mighty hunter, is back from this perilous expedition we call life, and has gone home.
Friends and opponents, with equal earnestness, cry out: "God rest his soul!"
Upon his tomb there can be inscribed an epitaph, than which there can be no nobler, no prouder, no truer tribute:
"Here lies a real American."
fRank crane.
By the Governor of Illinois
The Nation has suffered a loss it cannot well afford at this time. Theodore Roosevelt has been a dominant factor in American public life for thirty years. During all his life, he has sought and striven for a better, juster society. Men have differed with him as to the route, but not as to the goal humanity should strive to attain. His robust and fearless Americanism was like a bugle call to his countrymen, whenever danger threatened, from within or without. Whether in office or in private life, he was a leader of thought and an inspirer of action. And now, with the new problems which the end of the war has brought, his voice will be sorely missed. It is fortunate indeed for the coming years that he lived long enough to give utterance upon many of the most important questions which confront us. Whenever despotism, whether the despotism of some future Hohenzollern or a Bolshevist, shall threaten, Theodore Roosevelt, though in his grave, will speak to the American people with a compelling voice. He is still the valiant foe of greed, oppression and injustice. He is not dead, but has gone to join his brave, beloved boy. He will live forever in the hearts of the American people.

By a Charter Member of the Progressive Party
A great leader of men has fallen with a crash untimely and all the world bows its head in sorrow at his loss.

In his native land the hum of industry and of commerce is hushed and stilled as the mortal remains of Theodore Roosevelt are laid to rest, and millions mourn his passing.

The sorrow of his fellow-countrymen knows no class, no creed, no color. Rich and poor alike knew him, respected him, esteemed him, admired him, trusted him, followed him, and loved him. He was the American par excellence, the plus-American, the prototype and exemplar of all the ideals that true Americans stand for and strive after, in public and in private life. He typified America, with an upright, unselfish, virtuous, red-blooded and God-fearing personality.

In distant lands, where Kings and emperors, whom he was wont to meet on terms of perfect equality, delighted to do Mm honor, the name of Roosevelt was a household word, and the voice of sorrow at his death finds sincere and eloquent expression.

From the democratic kings who are the only monarch s left in Europe by the tremendous wave of progress whipped up by war, there come the tributes of more than mere diplomacy, more than old-world courtesy. They, too, knew him and were moved to admiration of his stalwart manhood and sterling statesmanship. Responsible ministers of mighty foreign powers, ambassadors of state, and great national leaders of world renown, testify in a score of languages their high appreciation of his life and their reverence for his memory.

Humanity hailed him as a citizen of the world, and mourns his departure as that of a friend and brother.

In the camps of American soldiers, at home and overseas, there is one universal sense of loss. To the American in arms, there was an inspiration and an ideal in the patriotic figure of "The Colonel"; and that ideal will never cease to be cherished, nor that inspiration cease to be felt, wherever martial feet may tread beneath the Stars and Stripes. For it is a modern Bayard that has fallen—in very truth, a knight without fear and without reproach.
The life of Theodore Roosevelt was spent for the most part in public service. "He was straight, he was honest," said the world's greatest inventor on hearing of his death; and therein summed up the secret of Roosevelt's strength. His life was an open book, and in his straightforward honesty and sincerity of purpose he stood like a mighty rock when the fierce storms of political criticism beat upon him with a fury that would have overwhelmed a lesser man.

For nearly forty years he was in the focus of the public eye; yet throughout that long period of ceaseless activity no breath of defamation ever succeeded in assailing the virtues of his private life or his integrity as a public servant. True, he was defamed, and more than once; but the foul breath of the defamer recoiled in every case, leaving the fair name of Theodore Roosevelt unscathed and its would-be despoiler an object of public opprobrium. Probably no public man in American history ever passed so freely through the fires of criticism, or left his enemies worse confounded in the end. A man of his strong convictions and courage in expressing them was bound to make enemies, and, as a rule, the great American public loved him the better for the enemies
he made.
,       *    *    *
In the White House Mr. Roosevelt took rank as one of the country's greatest Presidents. For the first time the United States had an executive who knew the West as he knew the East, and he was the President of the whole people, knowing no sectional prejudice or distinctions of class or party, when it was a question of holding the scales with equal justice to all. He took a sane view of the relations of Labor and Capital, and lost no opportunity of defining, with mirror-like clearness, the rights and the duties of each in close correlation with the body politic. His state papers were models of conciseness and force. He wielded a trenchant pen and spoke with a tongue of fire. He aroused the sleeping conscience of the American people, awakened their moral sense to the existence of undoubted evils, and laid down principles of public and commercial conduct that were universally recognized as essential to the progress of the republic. He fought for equal rights to all, for social and industrial justice, and for the rightful place of America among the nations. He was a lover of peace, but an apostle of preparedness for his beloved country, believing that therein lay the surest guarantee of peace.
***
The private life of Theodore Roosevelt was singularly blameless, and his domestic hearth was ever a haven of happiness. Famous for his love of children, he lived to find great joy in the society of his children's children. He was the idol of American youth, and his own sons did but follow in their father's footsteps when all four of them eagerly volunteered for active service when the great war involved their country in its inescapable meshes. The death of his son, Quentin, who fell in aerial combat in France, low to lie in Glory's lap, and the honorable wounds sustained by two other sons, testified to the patriotic devotion of this great American family and its will to sacrifice even life itself upon the altar of country and freedom. The great heart of the American people went out in sympathy to Colonel Roosevelt in his bereavement, but-he bore it like the Spartan father and soldier that he was. A pity 'tis that he did not live to visit the last resting place of his son in France, though that will ever be kept green by the grateful tears of the
French people.
                                        ****
The travels of Theodore Roosevelt had carried him over a very large part of the civilized world, and into the darkest corners of Africa and South America. He was a mighty hunter and untrodden paths possessed for him a peculiar fascination. In exploration he evinced the same traits of courage and initiative that marked his career in politics and in statesmanship. He was indeed a many-sided man. Loving study as few men do, he also loved the outdoor life. He found his recreation in all kinds of healthy sport, and was equally at home on horseback and afoot. He took pleasure in pedestrianism as well as in the blood-tingling gallop of a mettled steed. He rowed, he sailed, he fished, he hunted, he boxed, he wrestled; and at all the sports and exercises that he essayed, he excelled. It was his nature to excel.
Wherever he went, in whatsoever society he found himself, Theodore Roosevelt was at home. Honored in the most exclusive circles of the metropolis, he was equally welcome in the ranch-house of the plains and the abode of the lowly. No public man in America—probably none in the world, save Gladstone—was ever so universally known and identified by his mere initials. Certainly no American was ever so constantly greeted and acclaimed in public by the diminutive pet-name of his boyhood. These were no tokens of ordinary popularity; they were tokens of popular love.

Unfailingly courteous to women, he became their especial champion, recognizing their power in human affairs and the rights to which they are entitled. He fought for all the downtrodden and oppressed. Though born in the only real American aristocracy, that of brains and culture, he was pre-eminently a man of the people. And, behold, how easy it is to shorten that statement in his case, and thereby paradoxically make it more complete : He was a man!
Soldier of Liberty and friend of man, farewell! Best thee in peace! Though dead, thou still livest. Thy years of patriotic service have not been spent in vain. The lessons of thy life and the glory of thine achievements shall never fade from the minds of thy grateful countrymen, and in their hearts thou art lovingly enshrined till time shall be no more.
We cherish thy memory here on earth; we commend thy spirit to God who gave it.

January 8, 1919.
ROOSEVELT
Who goes there?   An American!
Brain and spirit and brawn and heart, 'Twas for him that the nations spared
Each to the years its noblest part; Till from the Dutch, the Gaul and Celt
Blossomed the soul of Roosevelt.
Student, trooper, and gentleman Level-lidded with times and kings,
His the voice for a comrade's cheer, His the ear when the saber rings.
Hero shades of the old days melt In the quick pulse of Roosevelt
Hand that's molded to hilt of sword;
Heart that ever has laughed at fear; Type and pattern of civic pride;
Wit and grace of the cavalier; All that his fathers prayed and felt
Gleams in the glance of Roosevelt.
Who goes there?   An American!
Man to the core—as men should be. Let him pass through the lines alone,
Type of the sons of Liberty. Here, where his fathers' fathers dwelt,
Honor and faith for Roosevelt!
                                                   grace dotfie boylan  (1901)