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LIFE AND WORK OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

 CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE  SQUARE  SPORTSMAN

Theodore Roosevelt's High Standard in Sports—A Lover of Clean Sport—Himself an Athlete—Sports in the White House—A Close Follower of Football—A Great Hunter—His Fondness for Boxing—Friends Among the Experts—Wrestling at Albany—Roosevelt as an Outdoor Man—A Really Great Naturalist,
When Theodore Roosevelt died there passed away the best beloved sportsman in America—and the squarest. He set a standard in sports that may well be regarded as ideal for universal emulation, and he had an honest hatred for the shady methods of the "sport" and the gambler. Himself an athlete of no mean rank, he numbered among his personal friends more experts in all branches of clean sport than any man in public life in the world has ever had, and he thoroughly enjoyed their acquaintance.

The late Martin J. Sheridan, all-round athlete incomparable, often declared Theodore Roosevelt was the greatest man in the world. With a twinkle in his eye Martin would remark:

"I arrived at that conclusion on the September day in 1908 when the President received the American Olympians at Sagamore Hill. Two incidents then took place that led me to realize what a wonderful man Theodore Roosevelt is. One of them was Mel Sheppard's presentation to the President of the medal he had won in the 800-meter event at the London Olympics. The other was the declaration of Pat Conway, president of the Irish-American Athletic Club, that, although he was a Democrat, he was sorry he had but one vote he could cast for Roosevelt.

"Any man," declared Sheridan, "that can make Mel Sheppard give us a medal and make Pat Conway forget all about Tammany Hall is the greatest man in the world.''

A Lover of Clean Sport
Then Martin would go on to state his true reasons for his great admiration of Roosevelt—the man's red-blooded Americanism, his love for clean, honest, manly sport, and his open hatred for the milksop and the crooked and unfair in athletics. Perhaps it can be said without exaggeration that nine-tenths of the sporting world felt the same sentiments toward the famous sportsman who on January 6, 1919, breasted the tape in the race of life.

No President, no man high in public life, ever had as great love for manly sports as Theodore Roosevelt, says George B. Underwood, the well-known sporting writer. Few professionals even had so many acquaintances in^ sport, amateur and professional, as the former President. He knew intimately and openly expressed his friendship for John L. Sullivan, Bob Fitzsimmons, Terry McGovern,1 and Prof. Mike Donovan, among the boxers; Billy Muldoon,   Ernest   Roeber,   and   Bill   Brown,   among   the wrestlers.

The American athletes who, upon President Roosevelt's invitation, visited him at Oyster Bay in 1908 were surprised at his knowledge of athletics and his familiarity with their doings.

The veteran trainer, Mike Murphy, was the first in line when the introductions were being made. "No need of introducing Murphy," broke in Mr. Roosevelt as the late James E. Sullivan was introducing the athlete. "Mike and I are old friends."

"Ah, Mr. Sheppard, glad to meet you," President Roosevelt exclaimed. '"That was a bully race you ran in the 800-meter event.

"Well, if here isn't Martin Sheridan, the greatest athlete of them all. Martin, you and I must have a little talk as soon as I meet the rest of the boys and we get a chance to get together.

"And little Johnny Hayes—the little man with the big, stout heart! Johnny, you showed the British something about Yankee grit and gameness, I reckon. Now tell me, weren't the middle stages of the Marathon harder on you than the last mile? Yes, I thought so. Once we get past the middle part of any difficult undertaking the worst is over. And how much weight did you lose ? Sixteen pounds! My word, I guess I'll have to go out and do a Marathon if it will take weight off that way."

What Athletics Did for Him
Through athletics Theodore Roosevelt developed from a puny, sickly child into a strong, robust man. Realizing the benefits accruing from indulgence in athletics, he continued to exercise regularly as long as he was able to. Just before his last sickness he spent a fortnight at a physical culture farm at Stamford, Conn.

When he became President Colonel Roosevelt gave a mild shock to the advocates of Jeffersonian simplicity and the worshipers of historic association by converting the Cabinet room of the White House into what he playfully declared the "Administration's Department of Physical Culture."

The- well-known Cabinet table, bookcases, maps, globes, clocks, chairs, rugs, bronze, and marble busts gave way to wrestling mats, shields, boxing gloves, foils, single-sticks, wire masks, and punching bags.

There Colonel Roosevelt used to box with the late Professor Mike Donovan, wrestle with Professor J. J. O'Brien of Boston, and joust with single-sticks with General Leonard Wood. It was there, also, that President Roosevelt took jiu-jitsu lessons from Hitachuyami, the famous master of the ancient art of the Samurai. On the tennis court outside the President daily would engage in matches, with Ambassador Jusserand of France generally as his partner. Across the Potomac was an open hilly section in which Colonel Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts occasionally took cross-country runs.
Followed Football Closely
President Roosevelt always was a familiar figure at Harvard-Tale football games and at the boat races in New London. He especially was fond of football and watched the sport closely. Just how closely can be seen by the following incident:

On December 4, 1905, the committee to notify President Roosevelt that the House was organized and ready for business, including Representatives McCleary of Minnesota, Littauer of New York, and "Williams of Mississippi, called Secretary Loeb to ask when the President could see them. It then was approaching 3 o'clock.

"The President cannot see you between 3 and 6 o'clock," Mr. Loeb telephoned after a consultation with Colonel Roosevelt.

"Why not I" asked the committee.
"He is busy," said Loeb, and hung up the telephone.

The President was busy talking football with Walter Camp and Jack Owsley of Yale, Bill Reid and Dr. D. H. Nicholas of Harvard, Arthur T. Hillebrand and John B. Fine of Princeton. The previous football season had resulted in many more accidents than usual, and the President was of the opinion that for the good of the game the rules should be revised. It was for that purpose he had called Mr. Camp and his associates to Washington.
Letter to Harvard Fullback
Ernest Ver Weibe, the Harvard fullback, whose splendid rushes were largely responsible for Harvard getting within kicking distance for Vic Kennard to boot the drop kick that beat Yale in 1908, has a letter he will ever cherish. It is from President Roosevelt, who took time from a busy day, November 24, 1908, shortly after the game, to write Ver Weibe and tell him of the admiration he and every other Harvard man had for him.
Another Washington incident shows that the interest Mr. Roosevelt displayed in boxing while he was Police Commissioner in New York did not abate after he became President.
Near the completion of the Olympic Games in Athens in 1906, after America had piled up an unbeatable lead, James E. Sullivan, the American Olympic Commissioner, was found on the field and handed a cablegram. It read:
"Hearty congratulations to you and the American contestants. Uncle Sam is all right.
'' (Signed)	theodore Roosevelt. ''

Vice-President of P. S. A. L.
President Roosevelt was intensely interested in athletics for the young and was one of the sponsors of the Public Schools Athletic League. Up to his death he served as honorary vice-president of the League. Several times he turned down other engagements to attend P. S. A. L. meetings or to address the boys.

At a meeting of the State Mothers' Association in Albany, when Colonel Roosevelt was Governor, he told the mothers to "let the boys fight their battles, for it means better and stronger men."

Theodore Roosevelt always was on the' firing line for all that is good in sport and all that makes for better and truer Americans. He exercised the same good influence on honest, manly sports that he did in American politics, and his influence will live after him.
His Interest in Boxing
Theodore Roosevelt's interest in boxing developed when he was 14, and rose out of the primitive need of being able to protect himself against boys who sought to impose on him. At that time he ventured forth by himself on a trip to Moosehead Lake and on the stage coach that bore him there he met two mischievous boys of his own age who proceeded to make life miserable for him. Made desperate by their persecutions, he decided to lick them, but found that either one singly was more than a match for him.

Bitterly determined that he would not be again humiliated in this way, he resolved to learn how to defend himself, and, with his father's approval, started to learn boxing.

Mr. Roosevelt himself relates how, under the training of John Lee, an ex-prizefighter, whose rooms were ornamented with vivid pictures of ring champions and battles, he first put on the gloves. For a long period he was knocked around the ring with no other fighting quality in evidence but the ability to take punishment. But then, when his boxing master arranged a series of matches, he was entered in a lightweight contest and left to the care of his guardian angel.

Luckily his opponents chanced to be two youths whose ambitions greatly exceeded their science and muscular development, and, to the surprise of all concerned, he emerged the possessor of the prize cup for his class— a pewter mug that, though it would have been dear at 50 cents, was nevertheless a rich compensation for the knockdowns and bruises he had endured during his training.

A Harvard Contest
It is not until young Roosevelt entered Harvard that we again hear of his putting on the gloves.

In spite of his battle for health, Roosevelt was far from being a robust man when he entered college. A friend described him as appearing to be "physically undeveloped." Some such remark may have reached his ears, for, although he was engrossed in his studies and more than ever interested in natural history, he resumed vigorously the sport of boxing.

His near-sightedness had shut him out from baseball and football and he was too light for an oarsman. Good sight and full weight are major assets to a boxer, yet, lacking them, Roosevelt doggedly went ahead.

In the middle of a college bout time was called. He stopped boxing, but his opponent kept on, and the surprised Roosevelt found himself reeling from a blow on the nose. A cry of "Foul!" arose from the spectators.

Roosevelt, bleeding, protested to his friends to stop their protests. Above the clamor lie could be heard crying to the referee: "Stop! Stop! He didn't hear!" Whether or not his opponent really had heard is a matter of conjecture. However, the hubbub ceased; Roosevelt shook hands with his opponent; the bout was resumed, and Roosevelt fell on his adversary and gave him a beating that went down in the annals of college history.
A Championship Bout
In his account of Roosevelt as an outdoor man, Henry Beech Needham furnishes this interesting picture of Theodore in his college days:

"It was a bout to decide the lightweight championship of Harvard. The heavyweight and middleweight championships had been awarded. The contest for the men under 140 pounds was on. Roosevelt, then a junior, had defeated seven men. A senior had as many victories to his credit. They were pitted against each other in the finals. The senior was quite a bit taller than Roosevelt and his reach was longer. He also weighed more by six pounds, but Roosevelt was the quicker man on his feet and knew more of the science of boxing. The first round was vigorously contested. Roosevelt closed in at the very outset. Because of his bad eyes he realized that in-fighting gave him his only chance to win. Blows were exchanged with lightning rapidity, and they were hard blows. Roosevelt drew first blood, but soon his own nose was bleeding. At the call of time, however, he got the decision for the round.

"The senior had learned his lesson. Thereafter he would not permit Roosevelt to close in on him. With his longer reach, and aided by his antagonist's near-sightedness, he succeeded in landing frequent blows. Roosevelt worked hard, but to no avail. The round was awarded to the senior. In the third round the senior endeavored to pursue the same tactics, but with less success. The result of this round was a draw, and an extra round had to be sparred. Here superior weight and longer reach began to tell, but Roosevelt boxed gamely to the end. Said his antagonist: ' I can see him now as he came in fiercely to the attack. But I kept him off, taking no chances, and landing at long reach. I got the decision, but Roosevelt was far more scientific. Given good eyes, he would have defeated me easily."
The Wrestling Governor
When Mr. Roosevelt entered upon his public career heavy burdens were laid upon him, and to keep in condition to meet the hard physical and mental strain, he again turned to boxing and wrestling for exercise. When Governor of New York the champion middleweight wrestler of America came several evenings a week to wrestle with him. The news of the purchase of a wrestling mat for the Governor's mansion at Albany created consternation on the part of the State Comptroller, but was greeted with great enthusiasm by the red-blooded men to whom the Governor had become an idol. Many of these would have given all they possessed to have been able to stand at the edge of the mat and cheer their champion in his strenuous amusement. To the middleweight champion the job was a hard one. Not because he experienced any difficulty in downing the Governor, but because he was so awed by the Governor's position and responsibilities that he was always in dire anxiety lest the Governor should break an arm or crack a rib. This gingerly attitude of his opponent exasperated the Colonel. He didn't feel that it was fair for him to be straining like a tiger to get a half-
Nelson hold on the champion, while the latter seemed to feel that he must play the nurse to him. After repeated urgings, he managed to get the champion to throw him about in real earnest—then he was satisfied.

Colonel Roosevelt relates in his reminiscences that, while he was in the New York Legislature, he had as a sparring partner a second-rate prizefighter who used to come to his rooms every morning and put on the gloves for a half-hour. One morning he failed to arrive, but a few days later there came a letter from him. It developed that he was then in jail; that boxing had been simply an avocation with him, and that his principal business was that of a burglar.

Roosevelt was fond of boxing with "Mike" Donovan, trainer at the New York Athletic Club, as well as with William Muldoon, the wrestler and trainer. His opponents testify that the Colonel was handicapped by his poor sight. He wanted to see his adversary's eyes— to catch the gleam that comes before a blow. Roosevelt always maneuvered to see his opponent's face, and he liked to "mix in" when boxing.

Hard and heavy was the Colonel's method, and his opponents forced him to adapt his plan of fighting to theirs. It did not matter to Roosevelt. It was the striving, not the result, that interested him.
Boxing in the White House

Lieutenant Fortescue, a distant relative of the Roosevelt family, sometimes put on the gloves with the Colonel in the White House. One day, feeling in fighting trim, Fortescue asked the Colonel to box with him. Finally the latter agreed to go four rounds. According to Joseph Grant, detective sergeant of the Washington police department, detailed to the White House to "guard" the President, it was the fastest bout he ever saw.

"The Colonel began to knock Lieutenant Fortescue right and left in the second round," said the detective. "His right and left got to the army officer's jaw time after time, and the bout was stopped in the third round to prevent the army man from getting knocked out. Then the Colonel turned to me and said: 'I think I can do the same to you. Put on the gloves!'

"I drew them on reluctantly, and I put up the fight of my life. The best I could do was to prevent a decision and get a draw.''

Mr. Roosevelt numbered among his treasures a penholder Bob Fitzsimmons made for him out of a horseshoe, and a gold-mounted rabbit's foot which John L. Sullivan gave to him for a talisman when he went on his African trip.

He championed the cause of prizefighters on many occasions, though never hesitating to denounce the crookedness that has attended the commercializing of the ring. He held that powerful, vigorous men of strong animal development must have some way in which their spirits can find vent. His acts while Police Commissioner of New York show clearly how he distinguished between the art of boxing itself and the men who try to make money out of it. On one hand, he promoted the establishment of boxing clubs in bad neighborhoods in order to draw the attention of street gangs from knifing and gun-fighting. On the other hand, finding that the prize ring had become hopelessly debased and was run for the benefit of hangers-on who permitted brutality, in order to make money out of it, he aided, as Governor, in the passage of a bill putting a stop to professional boxing f jr money.
It was a sporting rule of the Colonel's not only to give as good a blow as he could, but also to take without squirming the hardest blow his opponent could deliver. The wrestler who hesitated to stand him on his head because he was Governor of New York exasperated him, nor would he have permitted a man to spar with him who held back his blows.

In recent years boxing and wrestling have been recognized and practiced by our army officers as valuable adjuncts to military training. Uncle Sam encouraged the science of fisticuffs on shipboard and in the training camps, under a committee headed by the famous ex-champion, James J. Corbett, because the positions and motions used in boxing are almost the same as those used in bayonet practice. The development of gameness in the recruit is another important benefit derived from the sport.

If Theodore Roosevelt had realized his desire to serve with the colors during the world war, he would undoubtedly have been an enthusiastic spectator at such of the army's ring battles as were within reach of him. Indeed, say the authors of "The Fighting Roosevelts," had he been still occupant of the White House it would not have been surprising to have heard of his inviting champions from the various cantonments to test their skill under the White House roof. Mr.  Roosevelt was first drawn to two naval chaplains, Fathers Chidwick and Rainey, through his discovery that each of them had Rought sets of boxing gloves and encouraged their crews in boxing. He was also intensely interested in jiu-jitsu, the "muscleless art." After taking a course of twenty lessons from his Japanese instructor, his enthusiasm over it led him to introduce jiu-jitsu instruction at Annapolis and West Point.
Fondness for Fisticuffs

A characteristic anecdote of Colonel Roosevelt's fondness for fisticuffs was related after his death by Mr. Robert J. Mooney, formerly associate publisher of the Chicago Inter Ocean. The scene was the President's office in the White House during the presidential campaign of 1904. Mr. Mooney said:

"I was in Washington August 18, 1904, being then on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune. A boyhood chum of mine—I do not care to mention his name, as he is still in the Government service—met me and asked if I knew the President and could get him an interview.

"I replied I knew William Loeb, the President's secretary, and would do my best. I called up Mr. Loeb, who told me to bring my friend to the White House. We went. There was a line of more than 100 people waiting. I sent my card in to Mr. Loeb, who came out in a few minutes and beckoned us to come in.

"In his private office the President hurried to greet us and said to my friend—who was amateur boxing and wrestling champion of the District of Columbia:

" 'You are the finest looking man in boxing togs I
ever saw. Now tell me—how did you knock out Blank
that night I saw you at the	club ?'

" 'Why, Mr. President, it was a punch like this,' he replied. He illustrated it in the air.

" 'Show it to me! Show it to me! Hit me on the chin as you hit him.'

"My friend did it, but softly.

" 'No, no; that won't do. Hit me hard. Hit me the way you hit him.'

My friend did it. He gave the President an awful punch in the jaw.
" 'That's it, that's it. I've got it now,' exclaimed the President delightedly. 'Now let me try it on you.'

"He did.   He hit my friend and sent him reeling.

" 'I've sure got it,' the Colonel said. 'I'm going to try it tomorrow on Lodge and Garfield. Won't they squirm?' And the President laughed like a boy.

"I said to him: 'Mr. President, you've got the strongest back I ever saw.'

" 'Yes, it is quite strong,' he replied, immensely pleased.

"Then I told him our errand.

" 'Yes, I know all about you,' he said to my friend. 'No man in the service is more entitled to promotion than you. You shall have it tomorrow.'

"We had been there an hour, talking and scuffling. I was scared for fear some secret service man might see us from the window.

"I learned afterward that among the waiting crowd were W. C. Beer, a member of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co.; General Boynton, one of the managers of the Associated Press, and several politicians of national fame, who wished to see the President about his campaign."
Roosevelt as a Hunter

Colonel Roosevelt's fame as a hunter of big game is well founded. It was characteristic of him that he always obeyed his guides, and did his full part in every expedition. By the unanimous assertion of every man who ever went on a hunting trip that involved camp life for a considerable length of time, there is nothing like participation in such an expedition for bringing out and making clear the fundamental realities of character. It reveals both virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, and emphasizes them all. Not only are many of the restrictions and inhibitions created and enforced in ordinary community intercourse suddenly removed or weakened, but new demands are made for the endurance of inconveniences and the performance of hard and distasteful work.

For these reasons it is important to know what the celebrated hunter of big game in Africa, E. J. Cuninghame, says about Colonel Roosevelt as a companion on a hunting trip that was as long, as hard, and dangerous as a hunting trip could well be.

Mr. Cuninghame is a man not at all likely to give undeserved praise, and when he declares that the Colonel, on his famous African trip, met with extraordinary success all the requirements of an ideal associate in the wilds, he speaks with high authority and his verdict is decisive. It is to be noted, too, that among the virtues ascribed to the man so often accused of rash impulsiveness, of indocility to discipline, and disregard for the judgment of others, was that of scrupulous, cheerful, prompt obedience to the orders given and regulations laid down by the leader of the expedition. He submitted even when he did not understand, and though he sometimes questioned, it was after, not before, he obeyed. Hardships did not discourage him, troubles did not make him lose his temper, and dangers attracted him instead of dismaying him. This was the spirit of the true sportsman.

Mr. Cuninghame makes it quite clear that there survived in the Colonel most strongly, the joy in the chase and its triumphant ending that in the innumerable generations of the past was the hunter's reward for the labor on which, more than on any other, depended the welfare of the tribe.
Colonel Roosevelt danced and shouted with glee after shooting his first "tusker." But he was not a game butcher, and, though his killing usually lacked as excuse the primordial need for food, it was as far as possible from being an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter.
The Lover of Nature
John Burroughs, the great naturalist, declared that he did not know a man with a keener and more comprehensive interest in Nature and wild life, an interest both scientific and human. Speaking of President Roosevelt's trip to the Yellowstone Park in April, 1903, Burroughs said he was struck with the extent of his natural history knowledge and his trained powers of observation. On that occasion the naturalist was able to help the President identify only one bird. All the others the President recognized as quickly as Burroughs himself.

It was while the President's party was in the Yellowstone that he remarked:

"I heard a Bullock's oriole a little while ago."

"You may have heard one," was the polite objection of a man familiar with the country, "but I doubt it. Those birds won't come for two weeks yet."-

"I caught two bird notes which could not be those of any bird except an oriole," the President insisted.

"You may have the song twisted," observed a friend.

As the members of the party were seated at supper in the cabin that evening Mr. Roosevelt suddenly laid down his knife and fork, exclaiming, "Look! Look!"

On a shrub before the window was a Bullock's oriole. Nothing that happened on the whole trip seemed to please the President so much as that verification of his bird knowledge.
After a visit to the President at Sagamore Hill in 1907, John Burroughs wrote that the one passion of Roosevelt's life seemed to be natural history, for a new warbler that had appeared in the woods "seemed an event that threw the affairs of state and the Presidential succession into the background." He told a political 'visitor at that time that it would be impossible for him to discuss politics then, as he wanted to talk and hunt birds, and for that purpose he took his visitors with him.

"Fancy," suggests Burroughs, "a President of the United States stalking rapidly across bushy fields to the woods, eager as a boy and filled with the one idea of showing to his visitors the black-throated green warbler!"

On this walk the party passed a large and wide-spreading oak. The naturalist pointed to it and observed that it was a remarkable example of the noble tree.

"Yes, and you see by the branching of that oak," said the President, "that when it grew up this wood was an open field, and maybe under the plough; it is only in fields that oaks take that form."

"That is true," agreed the naturalist, "but for the minute when I first observed the tree my mind didn't take in that fact."

Knew Animals and Birds

"Do you see anything wrong with the head of that pronghorn?" asked Roosevelt as he handed Burroughs a copy of his "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail."

It was a picture of a hunter bringing in an animal on the saddle behind him. Burroughs saw nothing wrong with the picture. The President took the naturalist into one of his rooms, where the mounted head of a pronghorn hung over the mantel, and pointed out that the eye was "close under the root of the horn," whereas the artist, Remington, had placed the eye in the picture two inches too low.

Mr. Roosevelt's interest in birds and natural history of course dated from his boyhood. Early in his teens he published a list of the birds in Franklin County, New York. He kept a bird journal at the age of 14, when he was in Egypt, and on that tour with his father up the Nile to Luxor his success as a naturalist was foreshadowed, for he made a collection of Egyptian birds found in the Nile Valley which is now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D. G.

When he went to Harvard, it was his ambition to be a naturalist, but there he became convinced, it is said, that all the out-of-door worlds of natural history had been conquered and that the only worlds remaining were to be conquered through the laboratory, the microscope, and the scalpel.
A Really Great Naturalist

In his natural history studies, as in all his other undertakings, Colonel Roosevelt was most painstaking and accurate and on more than one occasion he emerged triumphant from a dispute with professional naturalists over some rare specimen.

Scientists generally acknowledged the Colonel an authority in this field. Carl Akeley, kead of the elephant-hunting expedition in Africa for the American Museum of Natural History, and now connected with the Elephant Hall of the museum, paid tribute after the Colonel's death to this phase of his accomplishments. Mr. Akeley, while hunting elephants in the African wilds, encountered the Roosevelt expedition there and hunted with the party for some days.
"Colonel Roosevelt was an amateur naturalist, and yet he was a naturalist of splendid training," said Mr. Akeley. "He had the keen eye and mind of the ideal naturalist and he was further aided by a phenomenal memory such as few men profess. He found infinite joy in studying wild animal life in its native haunts, and the least of his pleasure in killing it. His greatest pleasures lay in seeing and learning, thereby proving him an ideal naturalist.

"Many of his statements on the subject of his explorations and discoveries were twisted and ridiculed by hostile and ignorant critics. His enemies made great fun of the Eiver of Doubt, the uncharted stream he traced to its source in the South American wilds. But the facts remain that he rendered a great service to the science of geography by locating it exactly, and that the Brazilian Government named it after him, 'Rio Teodoro.'

"Incidentally, I believe that his exposure and trials on that Brazilian trip led to his death."

As a nature-lover at all times the President seems to have stood the test of being able to see little things as well as big things, and of seeing without effort and premeditation. Yet a degree of patience was required for the accumulation of his knowledge in these fields. The warblers, both in color and song, are bewildering to the experienced ornithologist. Nevertheless, John Burroughs says, the President had mastered every one of them.

He wrote Burroughs one day that he had just come in from walking with Mrs. Roosevelt about the White House grounds looking up the arriving warblers.

"Most of the warblers," he said, "were up in the tops of the trees, and I could not get a glimpse of them, but there was one with chestnut cheeks, with bright yellow behind the cheeks, and a yellow breast thickly streaked with black, which has puzzled me. I saw the black bur-rian, the summer yellow bird, and the black-throated green.''

But he did not let his yellow-breasted visitor go away without learning his name. A few days later he wrote: "I have identified the warbler. It is the Cape May."
His Love of Song Birds

The ordinary hunter or ranchman would hardly interrupt his story of cattle and game to write such a passage as this about song birds, as Mr. Roosevelt did in one of Ms hunting books:

"The meadow-lark is a singer of a higher order (than the plain skylark), deserving to rank with the best. Its song has length, variety, power, and rich melody; and there is in it sometimes a cadence of wild sadness inexpressibly touching. Yet I cannot say that either song would appeal to others as it appeals to me, fgr to me it comes forever laden with a hundred memories and associations; with the sight of dim hills reddening in the dawn, with the breath of the cold morning winds blowing across lonely plains, with the scent of flowers on the sunlight prairie, with the motion of fiery horses, with all the strong thrill of eager and buoyant life. I doubt if any man can judge dispassionately of the bird songs of his own country; he cannot disassociate them from the sights and sounds of the land that is so dear to him."
Tale of a Shrew

Mr. Roosevelt's eyes were continually alert for the unusual when on hunting excursions. Once while in the Selkirks after caribou, with a hunter and an Indian guide, he amused himself while resting after lunch by getting a specimen of rare animal life for a friend.   He says:

"I was sitting on a great stone by the edge of the brook, idly gazing at a water-wren which had come up from a short flight—I can call it nothing else—underneath the water, and was singing sweetly from a spray-splashed log. Suddenly a small animal swam across the little pool at my feet. It was less in size than a mouse, and as it paddled rapidly underneath the water its body seemed flattened like a disk and was spangled with tiny bubbles like specks of silver. It was a water-shrew, a rare little beast. I sat motionless and watched both the shrew and the water-wren—water-ousel, as it should rightly be named. The latter, emboldened by my quiet, presently flew by me to a little rapids close at hand, lighting on a round stone and then slipping unconcernedly into the swift water. Anon he emerged, stood on another stone, and trilled a few bars, though it was late in the season for singing, and then dived into the stream again. In a minute or two the shrew caught my eye again. It got into a little shallow eddy and caught a minute fish, which it carried to a half-sunken stone and greedily devoured, tugging voraciously at it as it held it down with its paws. Then its evil genius drove it into a small puddle alongside the brook, where I instantly pounced on it and slew it, for I knew a friend in the Smithsonian at Washington who would have coveted it greatly.''

        A MAN!
About his brow the laurel and the bay
Was often wreathed,—on this our memory dwells,— Upon whose bier in reverence today
We lay these immortelles.
His was a vital, virile, warrior soul;
If force were needed, he exalted force; Unswerving as the pole star to the pole,
He held his righteous course.
He smote at Wrong, if he believed it Wrong, As did the Knight, with stainless accolade;
He stood for Eight, unfalteringly strong, Forever unafraid.
With somewhat of the savant and the sage, He was, when all is said and sung, a man,
The flower imperishable of this valiant age,— A true American!
clinton scollard, in N. T. Sun.