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LIFE AND WORK OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

 DEATH AND BURIAL

The End Comes in His Sleep—Death Caused by a Pulmonary Embolism—His Last Words—Last Message to the American People—None Present When he Died—Burial in Old Cemetery Near His Home—A Simple but Deeply Impressive Ceremony, Such as He Desired—Distinguished Men at the Funeral.

The End Comes in His Sleep Death Caused by a Pulmonary Embolism His Last Words Last Message to the American People None Present When he Died Burial in Old Cemetery Near His Home A Simple but Deeply Impressive Ceremony, Such as He Desired Distinguished Men at the Funeral.
Death came to Theodore Roosevelt with an unexpectedness that stunned the nation, despite the fact that recurrent illness was known to have afflicted his last years. He passed away in sleep in his home at Oyster Bay, N. Y., at 4:15 o'clock in the morning of Monday, January 6, 1919, in the sixty-first year of his age.

It was not the end that the American people would have chosen for their great leader, nor the end that he would perhaps have chosen for himself. But the unexpectedness of it sent a thrill around the world, while it filled his fellow-countrymen with a distinct sense of irreparable loss.

The cause of death was a pulmonary embolism; that is, a clot of blood was carried through an artery to the lungs, where it stopped the circulation. Weakening of the blood vessels which caused the embolism accompanied an attack of inflammatory rheumatism for which Colonel Roosevelt had been treated at Roosevelt Hospital, New York, from November 11 to Christmas Day, 1918, two weeks before the end. The original cause of both manifestations was the infection of a tooth, dating back twenty years.
All his life the former President had drawn unmercifully upon his marvelous store of energy. Nevertheless up to a comparatively late date, it was generally supposed that he had many years yet to live. But he survived his sixtieth birthday by only seventy days.

The Colonel's Last Words

His last words were spoken to his personal attendant, James Amos, a negro who was devoted to him. As Amos was sitting at the foot of the bed, the Colonel said:
''Please turn out the light, James. I am in for a bit of sleep.''
Because of a spell of hard breathing that the Colonel had experienced after he retired on Sunday evening, having had two visits from a physician in the course of the day, Mrs. Roosevelt had asked Amos to stay in her husband's room all night and watch him. Stepping into the room at 2 o'clock Monday morning, she found him sleeping quietly and Amos keeping vigil at the foot of the bed.

A little after 4 o'clock Amos sprang to the bedside, for the Colonel's breathing was labored. He touched his master's shoulder, but received no response and the breathing seemed to stop. He left the room to summon a nurse, Miss Alice Thorns, and she called Mrs. Roosevelt.

A telephone message to the village brought Dr. George W. Fallen, the Oyster Bay physician, who had attended the Roosevelt family for twenty-five years. Dr. Fallen motored fast to Sagamore Hill, but found Colonel Roosevelt dead. He had breathed his last some minutes before —apparently while the man-servant Amos was notifying the nurse.

At the time of the death, no one was with the Colonel at home except his wife, the nurse, and the servants. His cousin and summer neighbor, W. Emlen Roosevelt, called on Sunday, found the Colonel asleep, and hearing good reports of his progress went away without disturbing him. His secretary, Miss Josephine M. Strieker, was to have gone to Sagamore Hill from his New York office on the fateful Monday with editorials and letters that he had dictated at the end of the week.

Needless to say, Theodore Roosevelt was active to his last waking moment. On the Sunday evening before his death he corrected proofs of his last article for the Metropolitan Magazine, and in front of a log fire in his library, with Mrs. Roosevelt sitting beside him, wrote a letter to his son, Captain Kermit Roosevelt, and inclosed a set of the proofs.

His Final Message

On Saturday, January 4, he dictated a message which was read at a meeting of the American Defense Society at the Hippodrome, New York, on Sunday night, a few hours before he died. In this message he phrased afresh the thoughts that had been burning in his mind, and this was his last ringing message to the American people:

'' There must be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism, merely because the war is over. There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory and that they intend to revive all the foreign associations which most directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people.

'' Our principle in this matter should be simple. In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America then he isn't doing his part as an American.

LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.

"We have room for but one language here, and that is the American language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.''

Captain Archie Roosevelt was to have read this characteristic message in the Hippodrome, but on the Saturday he and his wife received word from Boston of the death of her father, Thomas S. Lockwood.

Summoning of Relatives

Before 7 o'clock on Monday morning the secretary, Miss Strieker, learned over the telephone from Sagamore Hill of the Colonel's death. She wired all relatives in this country and also cabled Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who .was in Germany with the Twenty-sixth Infantry, in the American army of occupation, and asked him to notify all relatives in Europe, including Captain Kermit Roosevelt, U. S. A., who was also on active service.

Captain Archie Roosevelt had not reached Boston when the word reached him. He left the train, and returning to New York arrived in Oyster Bay on Monday afternoon. Also came the Colonel's eldest daughter, Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, from Washington with her husband. Mrs. Richard H. Derby, who was Miss Ethel Roosevelt, was on her way from Aiken, S. C., where she and her two children went for the winter, Dr. Derby being in France with the medical corps of the army.

Meanwhile a group of relatives and close friends of the Roosevelts went to Sagamore Hill from New York.
There were Mr. and Mrs. Emlen Roosevelt, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and her mother, Mrs. Alexander; Elon H. Hooker, who was treasurer of the Progressive party in the brave days of 1912; Joseph W. Bishop, whom President Roosevelt made secretary of the Panama Canal Commission, and a few others. They found Mrs. Roosevelt bearing up well, everything considered, and after learning her wishes as to the funeral W. Emlen Roosevelt set about making the arrangements.

Airplanes Drop Wreaths

Late in the afternoon of the day of death three airplanes flew out of the south and circled over the rambling old mansion at the top of Sagamore Hill. Each bore two aviators. They dropped wreaths of laurel among the elms near the house—their tribute to the memory of the former President and their own dead comrade, his youngest son, who was shot down while flying over the German lines six months before.

The planes came from Hazlehurst Field, where Quentin Roosevelt learned the use of wings, where his father also made a short flight as a passenger, and whence Quentin often flew to visit his parents at Oyster Bay in the course of his novitiate. The commander of Hazlehurst Field, Lieutenant-Colonel M. S. Harmon, announced that an airplane watch would be maintained over Sagamore Hill day and night until the time of the funeral, one plane relieving another every few hours.

The Physicians' Statement

Late in the afternoon of Monday Emlen Roosevelt went to the village of Oyster Bay and gave to the waiting newspaper men this statement of the physicians:

"Colonel Roosevelt had been suffering from an attack of inflammatory rheumatism for about two months. His progress had been entirely satisfactory and his condition had not given cause for especial concern. On Sunday he was in good spirits and spent the evening with his family dictating letters. He retired at 11 o'clock, and about 4 in the morning his man, who occupied an adjoining room, noticed that while sleeping quietly Colonel Roosevelt's breathing was growing very shallow. He died almost immediately, without awakening from what seemed to be a natural sleep. The cause of death was an embolus.

"G. W. fallen, M. D.
'' john H. richards, M. D.
"john A. hartwell, M. D."

Dr. Fallen is the Oyster Bay physician, Dr. Richards is a New York specialist who had attended the Colonel at the Roosevelt Hospital, and Dr. Hartwell, who is a relative of Mrs. Alexander, was called into the case as a consultant.
The Final Illness

Colonel Roosevelt's final illness dated from February, 1918. It was on the fifth of that month that, following an operation on one of his ears, he was removed from Oyster Bay to the Roosevelt Hospital in New York. He remained there until March 3, meanwhile undergoing two more operations.

Two months later he insisted on keeping speaking engagements arranged for him in many cities, and until the fall continued to give from the platform his views on international affairs. In November he was forced to return to Roosevelt Hospital for treatment of rheumatism. He remained there until Christmas Day, when he returned to Sagamore Hill.

An Earlier Embolism

It was learned after his death that Colonel Roosevelt suffered a pulmonary embolism which almost cost him his life three weeks before he left Roosevelt Hospital on Christmas Day. This was revealed by Dr. John H. Richards in telling of the Colonel's condition during his last illness.

In the same manner as his death was caused, a clot of blood became detached from a thrumbosed vein. On this former occasion, however, the passage of this clot through the arteries to the lungs or the brain was checked in time to save the patient's life.

Dr. Richardson revealed in his statement that the Colonel's inflammatory rheumatism, from which he suffered acutely at times, was traceable twenty years back to an infected tooth. This infection spread to nearly all the joints in the Colonel's body as the years went on.

The physician asserted that the Colonel had never suffered from mastoiditis, as was reported when he went under the operation a year before for an abscess of the inner ear, and that neither this operation nor the fever which he contracted while in South America could in any way be considered a contributory cause toward Ms death.

Effect of Quentin's Fate

It is probable that one thing which contributed to the losing fight of the Colonel was the anxiety in the summer of 1918 regarding the fate of his son Quentin. For some weeks previous to confirmation of his death there were reports that he had possibly been taken prisoner by the Germans and might turn up alive. This suspense added to the distress of the Roosevelt household.

When the sad news of the son's death finally was officially confirmed, General Pershing cabled Colonel Roosevelt that if desired the body of Quentin would be removed to America. France meanwhile had paid the fullest honors to the dead aviator and the Roosevelt family declined to accept the War Department's offer. In a letter to the Chief of Staff at Washington, Colonel Roosevelt wrote:

"Mrs. Roosevelt and I wish to enter a most respectful but most emphatic protest against the proposed course so far as our son Quentin is concerned. We have always believed that " 'Where the tree falls, There let it lie.'

"We know that many good persons feel entirely different, but to us it is painful and harrowing long after death to move the poor body from which the soul has fled. We greatly prefer that Quentin shall continue to lie on the spot where he fell in battle and where the foeman buried him.

"After the war is over Mrs. Roosevelt and I intend to visit the grave and then to have a small stone put up by us, but not disturbing what has already been erected to his memory by his friends and American comrades-inarms."
The News in the Country

The news of the Colonel's death plunged the entire country into mourning. It came with a shock that made it almost unbelievable, but confirmation of the news sent the flags fluttering to half-mast in every city, town, and village throughout the land and started a flood of messages of sympathy and grief toward Oyster Bay. That village, stunned by the news, then prostrated by grief, did but typify all America. There the Colonel was fully appreciated as a world figure, but he also was looked upon as a fellow-townsman, like the village blacksmith or any other local citizen. Before night in the windows of nearly every store and residence were pictures of the former President, draped with crepe and surrounded by American flags—the emblems that he loved.

Colonel Roosevelt's old servants were inconsolable. All who ever served him were Ms friends. James Amos, to whom he addressed his last words, and his coachman, Charles Lee, had both been with him since his White House days.

"I have lost the best friend I have ever had," Lee said. "Yes, sir, the best friend that anybody ever had in all this world."

Last Public Appearances

On Labor Day, 1918, the Colonel celebrated a ship launching at Newburgh, N. Y., keeping a long standing promise, and had to shake so many persons' hands that he got no luncheon.. Late in October, just before election, he spoke at a Carnegie Hall meeting, called in the interest of the Whitman gubernatorial ticket, but on account of President Wilson's appeal to the people to elect a purely Democratic Congress it was converted into an answer to the President and a challenge.

Never did the Colonel blaze brighter than on that memorable night; his last act before going to the meeting was to dictate an "insert" for his speech, answering assertions that had been made about his own and William McKinley's appeals for partisan support when they were Presidents.

In the following week he again spoke in Carnegie Hall, this time in behalf of support for the Negro war unit. That was his last public utterance—an appeal for the Negro. The next morning the Colonel's right hand was swollen, and he did not leave his home until December 11, the day the European armistice was signed, when he went to the hospital again. When he emerged, on December 25, the public supposed that he merely had a furlough for Christmas and would return to the hospital. He motored to Sagamore Hill.

On the lawn was Mrs. Derby's little son, calling, "Conie, granda, we must go in and see what Santy has brought for Christmas." They had a rousing family party. Thereafter the Colonel did not leave Sagamore Hill, except for a trip or two to the village in his automobile.

Worked Despite His Pain

He and Mrs. Roosevelt walked about their grounds a good deal, but for him the Colonel led a very quiet life. Rheumatism had caused his left hand and leg to swell, and he suffered a good deal of pain, but worked at his desk prodigiously.

Always at Christmas time, except when the Roose-velts were in the White House or the head of the family was away exploring the far corners of the earth, he was accustomed to go on Christmas Eve down to the Cove School, where his flock had learned their A, B, C's, with presents which he would distribute to the children and then make a little talk which Oyster Bay folks would regard as better than any of his Presidential addresses. He could not go this time. Captain Archie Roosevelt represented him at the school's Christmas party, and handed the gifts around.

On New Year's Day, as the doctors revealed after his death, there was an acute attack of the inflammatory rheumatism, which was alarming, but did not last long. Dr. Fallen of Oyster Bay visited the patient twice a day and Dr. Richards and Dr. Hartwell also went to Sagamore Hill at regular intervals.

In High Spirits Sunday

On Sunday morning, January 5, Dr. Fallen found the Colonel in high spirits, and again at 8 o 'clock in the evening. In fact, the doctor had considerable trouble in getting the Colonel to talk about himself and how he felt. In his characteristic manner the former President was bubbling with talk about everything else under the sun.

He always acted as if he took his ailments lightly, although well aware that they might prove serious. At 11 o'clock on Sunday night the Oyster Bay physician was called again to Sagamore Hill. The nurse said that the Colonel had had a spell of shortness of breath. The Colonel himself said to the doctor:

"I felt as if my heart was going to stop beating. I couldn't seem to get a long breath."

"But the Colonel was not pale or nervous," Dr. Fallen said. He looked just as he usually did. His voice was as hearty as ever. In fact, he was quite jovial. There was nothing in his appearance to indicate what had occurred."

"Did he have any feeling that the end was near?" the physician was asked.

'' None whatever,'' was the answer. Dr. Fallen added that he examined the patient thoroughly, and detected no sign of trouble with the heart or the lungs. He left after twenty minutes or so and the Colonel retired. Then came the telephone call after 4 o 'clock in the morning, and the finding of Colonel Roosevelt dead in his bed. He lay on his left side with his arms folded in an attitude of natural sleep. His expression was serenity itself. The doctor was sure that the Colonel had not suffered, but had passed painlessly away.

How far he was from feeling any foreshadowing of the end was shown by a letter received on the day of his death by a meeting of the Independent Citizens' Committee on Welcoming Returning Soldiers, of which he had been elected honorary chairman. It was written by his wife and said:

"Rheumatism has invaded Mr. Roosevelt's right hand and he wants me to write that he has telegraphed his acceptance. This is to assure you that he will be at your call by springtime.''

Funeral at Oyster Bay

The simplest obsequies ever accorded a man of great public distinction were those of Theodore Roosevelt. This was in accordance with his own expressed desire, and his wishes were faithfully carried out by his family and friends. Thus in .his death he once more gave the lie to those who had ignorantly charged him with ostentation and an uncontrollable desire for the limelight. In his death and the chosen manner of his burial, he was as simple and sincere as he had ever been in life to all who really knew him.

There was no lying-in-state, no eulogy over his grave, no special music and no honorary pallbearers at his funeral. He was laid away with the simplest rites of Christian burial. But as that simple funeral took place, a hush fell over the land. The wheels of industry were stopped and men stood bareheaded on the street in cities from Maine to California, in honor of him who was being laid to rest.

The funeral took place on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 8, 1919, two days after the Colonel died. In a casket wrapped with the American flag, the body was first taken to Christ Church, Oyster Bay, for a brief service, and was then interred in the Youngs' Memorial Cemetery, in a grave near the summit of a steep hill which looks out on Oyster Bay Cove and across the cove to the Roosevelt home on Sagamore Hill.

Service in the Home

At noon the Roosevelt family and very close friends of the Colonel gathered in the trophy room, where the master of Sagamore Hill had delighted visitors from many lands with his inimitable accounts of how he came by the treasures that were there stored. The group assembled for this first intimate service numbered about seventy-five. Mrs. Roosevelt was present, but did not go to the church or cemetery. The rector of Christ Church. Rev. George E. Talmadge, who has had the Oyster Bay parish for eight years and whose fondness for the Colonel was reciprocated, read a few simple prayers and then the Ninety-first Psalm, beginning:
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.''

Procession to Church

In a few moments this part of the ceremonies was ended. Closed automobiles were waiting, when the coffin was carried out to the motor hearse. Into the first stepped Mrs. Nicholas Longworth and Mrs. Richard Derby, the Colonel's daughters; his sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson; Mrs. Archibald Roosevelt, wife of the Captain, and Mr. Longworth. The chauffeur was the negro, Charlie Lee. Capt. Roosevelt and Theodore Douglas Robinson, nephew of the former President, had gone on to the church to take charge of the seating arrangements.

Snow had been falling since dawn in great, slow settling flakes that gave promise of an early clearing. As the procession turned into the Cove road from Sagamore Hill the first real sunlight of the day appeared. As the cars moved toward town, in front rode Capt. Edward Bourke of the New York Police Department who, according to tradition, won the then Police Commissioner Roosevelt’s attention when Bourke shouted " Gangway!" one morning when the Commissioner entered headquarters. The Colonel asked Bourke if he hadn't been a sailor. Bourke had indeed. He had been in the United States Navy. Roosevelt pushed him along in the Department, and the two became fast friends, as anyone may read in the Colonel's autobiography.

Bourke on horseback cantered ahead of the procession, and on either side of the hearse were three other giants of New York's mounted police, who with their captain formed the escort of honor.

While the cortege was approaching the village over the two miles or so of road skirting the Cove between Oyster Bay and Sagamore Hill, twenty-five New York policemen, not one less than six feet tall and some towering to six feet five, formed a line around the church. Service in Christ Church

Christ Episcopal Church, where the funeral service was held, was founded in 1705 and rebuilt in 1878. It was the church which the Colonel and his family usually attended when at home, there being no Dutch Reformed Church in the village and Mrs. Roosevelt being an Episcopalian. The church would accommodate less than 500 persons, so that admittance for the funeral was by card only. The cards were issued from the Colonel's New York office, at 347 Madison Avenue, and were given only to relatives and close friends.

Seated side by side in the first pew of the church were the representatives of the army and navy—General Peyton C. March and Admiral Cameron McR. Winslow—with their hands resting on the hilts of their swords, from which hung knots of crepe. Vice-President Marshall, representing President Wilson and the Government of the United States, was in the front of the church, where also were seated the members of the Congressional delegation, old political friends and old political foes of Colonel Roosevelt, equally anxious to do honor to his great memory. The pews were filled, the sides of the church were lined with men and women standing, and small rooms communicating with the nave of the church held those for whom room could not be otherwise provided.

The church was decorated with laurel which had been left since Christmas.

Though the family had requested that no flowers be sent, the friends would not be denied that sad privilege, and the chancel was covered with floral pieces. One of these was a wreath of pink and white carnations sent in accordance with cable directions from President Wilson. A large wreath in the foreground bore a wide ribbon marked "United States Senate" in gold letters. A bunch of pink and white carnations was sent by the officers of the battleship Indiana. A piece made of heather, pink roses, and violets came from a Japanese organization, the Osaka Osahe. The American Historical Association of Washington sent a cluster of lilies. Orchids, violets, and peach blossoms came from the Republican National Committee. Floral pieces came also from the American Defense Society, the Camp Fire Club of America, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Boone and Crockett Club, and other organizations.

As the church began to fill there was interest in another decoration of the rear wall of the edifice of which Colonel Roosevelt was particularly proud—two sheets of foolscap, under glass, on which were written with pen and ink the names of ninety-eight members of the parish who had entered the national service, the first four names being Roosevelts, and the one name of the ninety-eight distinguished by a gold star being that of Quentin Roosevelt.

Allied Nations Send Delegates

When the church had filled many were in uniform besides the official representatives of the army and navy. There were officers present in British and French uniforms, and most of the nations of the Allies were represented by military or diplomatic delegates.

Captain Archibald Roosevelt, thin, very pale and only partly recovered from his wounds, wearing the Croix de Guerre and two other medals on Ms breast, moved up and down the center aisle of the church, acting as usher. He gave a respectful military salute when the official representatives of the nation arrived and took them to their seats. He saluted and gripped the hand of ex-President Taft. Others who acted as ushers were William Loeb, Jr., Theodore Douglas Robinson, and Representative Nicholas Longworth.

Just before the service began the sun broke out for the first time during the day. During the morning the snow fell so thickly as to make flying impracticable and the airplane watch over the Roosevelt home was discontinued. At about noon the snowfall ceased, but the sky remained overcast. At 12:50 o'clock, just three minutes before the service began, however, rays of sunlight fell on the stained glass windows, lessening the gloom in the church and touching it here and there with faint glows of
purple, yellow, and ruby.

Arrival at the Church

The funeral party from Sagamore Hill arrived seven minutes before 1 o 'clock. Reciting the words of the processional, beginning, "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord," the rector, Dr. G. E. Talmadge, walked up the aisle, preceding the coffin, carried by six men. The coffin bore the American flag and upon that a wreath and two banners, the regimental standard of the Rough Riders and the national standard of the Rough Riders. The wreath was the gift of the members of Colonel Roosevelt’s famous regiment who were in attendance at the funeral. It was of bronze laurel, intertwined with a rare acacia, the yellow being the cavalry color.
In clear tones the rector read the service, while the 500 persons in the church, Americans and foreigners, whose mourning symbolized that of the United States and of the allied nations, sat with grave faces. Some of the devoted admirers of Colonel Roosevelt could not control themselves and covered their faces with their hands. It was plain that only the simplicity and formality of the service made it possible to go through with it without an outburst of uncontrollable grief. Had there been a eulogy, the feelings of the men and women in the church would have broken all bounds.
The first variation from the ritual order for the burial of the dead was the reading by Dr. Talmadge of the hymn, "How Firm a Foundation," which was Colonel Roosevelt's favorite, and the following prayer attributed to Cardinal Newman:

0, Lord, support us all the day long of this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen and evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over and our work is done. Them of Thy great mercy grant us a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(The music note to the hymn can be found in the photo section)

Colonel Roosevelt’s Favorite Hymn, with Two Tunes to Which it is sung.

How firm a Foundation

1.	How firm a foun-da-tion, ye saints of the Lord, Is  laid for your faith in His
2.	“Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dis-mayed, For I am thy God, I will
3.	“when thro’ the deep water I call  thee to go,  The riv-ers f sorrow shall
4.	“When thro’ fi-ery tri- als thy path-way shall lie, My grace, all-suf – ficient, shall

1.	ex-cel-lent word! What more can He say than to you He hath said,  To you, who for
2.	still give thee aid; For   I will be with thee, thky tri-als to bless, And sanc-ti-fy
3.	not  o-verflow;For   I will be with thee, thy tri-als to bless,  And sanc-ti-fy
4.	be   thy sup-ply, The flames shall not hurt thee;I on-ly de-sign  Thy dross to con-

1.	ref-uge to Je – sus have fled? To you, who for ref-uge to Je-sus have fled?
2.	Gra-cious,om-nip  - o-tent hand, Up-held by my gra-cious,om-nip-o-tent hand
3.	To thee thy deep-est dis-tress. And sac-ti-fy  to thee thy deep-est distress.
4.	Sume,and thy gold to re – fine, Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to re-fine.”

 An Affecting Incident

In one other respect the service in the church differed from the expected. That departure was a glowing thing, distinguishing the formalities of this service from all others, as the man who lay there was distinguished among men. When the moment for the benediction arrived, the Rev. Dr. Talmadge advanced in the chancel and raising his hands uttered the name "Theodore!" He looked straight at the sealed coffin and seemed to be speaking to the one who lay therein.

"Theodore," he said, "the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, both now and evermore. Amen."

These words, omitting the salutation, are found in the Book of Common Prayer. The minister of Christ Church had adapted them to this occasion, and in so doing had transfigured them. The effect was most stirring.

The congregation rose then as the bearers lifted the coffin and carried it down the aisle. Into the silence broke the tolling of the church bell. Each clang of the hammer was echoed by the answering bell in the steeple of the Presbyterian Church nearby. Thus the former President was borne to the portico.

Those in the church moved slowly outside into a clear space about the edifice which had been drawn by the New York traffic policemen.

Up and down the street, outside the police lines, were from 3,000 to 4,000 men, women, and children of Oyster Bay and visitors from New York and elsewhere.

Representative Joseph Gr. Cannon of Illinois, with his head bowed, walked out of the church in the Congressional delegation near Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who also appeared much affected. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, and an old personal friend of Colonel Roosevelt, wore an expression of deepest grief. Some of the other official representatives at the funeral were Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York State, Admiral Albert Gleaves, General Louis Collardet and Captain Christian Pierret of the French Mission to this country, Assistant Secretary of State William Phillips, and Mayor Hylan of New York City.

The members of the Senate delegation were Senators Lodge of Massachusetts, Calder of New York, Knox of Pennsylvania, Kellogg of Minnesota, Poindexter of Washington, Curtis of Kansas, Hardwick of Ohio, Chamberlain of Oregon, Smoot of Utah, Phelan of California, Henderson of Nevada, Gay of Louisiana, King of Utah, Martin of Kentucky, New of Indiana, and Sutherland of West Virginia.

The members of the House committee included Speaker Clark, Representatives Sherley of Kentucky, Webb of North Carolina, Flood of Virginia, Dent of Alabama, Sherwood of Ohio, Padgett of Tennessee, Stedman of North Carolina, Estopinal of Louisiana, Biordan of New York, McAndrew of Illinois, Gallivan of Massachusetts, Smith of New York, Mann of Illinois, Fordney of Michigan, Gillett of Massachusetts, Volstead of Minnesota, Cooper of Wisconsin, Kahn of California, Butler of Pennsylvania, Mott of New York, Hicks of New York, Chandler of New York, Cannon and Bodenburg of Illinois, and Bowers of West Virginia.

Scene in the Cemetery

Standing in the snow, among the bare locusts and green cedars about the grave was a small group of relatives and intimate friends of Colonel Roosevelt, some of the nation's greatest and most honored public men, and a number of boys and girls from the Oyster Bay Cove School, three or four of them negro children.

The automobiles, which had come a mile and a half from Christ Episcopal Church to the cemetery, stopped at the gate of the cemetery on the Oyster Bay Cove road, a few feet from the water's edge. The narrow road into the cemetery was too steep and rough for automobiles. Senators and Representatives in Congress, members of the Rough Riders, relatives of Colonel Roosevelt, and intimate friends therefore climbed with the children of the village up the hillside and stood with bare heads.

The sun, which, after a morning of snow, had come out of the clouds just before the body was carried into the church, was still shining when the simple burial service of the Episcopal Church was held at the grave. Snow was melting and falling from the locusts and evergreens which form a thick grove about the plot which Colonel Roosevelt had selected as his last resting-place.

Ex-President William Howard Taft, the picture of grief, stood near the grave, with his head bent forward and tears in his eyes. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who appeared hardly able to command himself, stood a short distance away. Senator Chamberlain, who was between them, seemed almost equally affected. Some less famous men among Colonel Roosevelt's intimates were sobbing like children. His two daughters were overcome with grief. Mrs. Roosevelt was not present, and did not leave the home after the service of prayer which was held there for the family.

Major-General Leonard Wood, who had come from Camp Funston, Kansas, on receiving the unexpected news of his friend's death, had arrived during the morning and stood with the members of the Roosevelt family.

The members of the family stood on ground up the hill from the grave, which was in sloping ground. The Congressional delegations, representatives of national organizations, and old friends were ranged among trees on the slope and below the grave. The circle was completed by the line of school children.

The earth, which had been removed for the concrete-lined grave, was concealed by flowers. The oak coffin, partly covered by the flag, rested on four rough finished boards, on each side of the opening.

Sorrowing Group About the Grave

In the group about the grave were men who had first put Colonel Roosevelt forward prominently in the State and nation. One sorrowful old man was Joseph Murray, the Republican leader of the Twenty-first District in 1881, who first induced Theodore Roosevelt to run for office and of whom the Colonel wrote in his autobiography:

"It was not my fight, it was Joe's; and it was to him that I owe my entry into politics.''

The man who brought him into his first great national prominence was Senator Lodge, of whom Colonel Roosevelt said in the same volume:

"In the spring of 1897, President McKinley appointed me Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I owed the appointment chiefly to the efforts of Senator H. C. Lodge of Massachusetts, who was doubtless actuated mainly by his long and close friendship for me, but also—I like to believe—by his keen interest in the navy."

Others about the grave were among the most distinguished men in the nation as artists, authors, explorers, scientists, and men who had stood in various relations to Colonel Roosevelt; college friends, hunting and fishing friends, sparring partners, policemen, and priests. One man who came to the funeral at the express wish of Mrs. Roosevelt was Father J. J. Curran of Wilkes-Barre, who aided Colonel Roosevelt in settling the anthracite coal strike in 1902.

"I came," said Father Curran, "to pay my tribute to the best man that ever lived."

Schools and shops were closed in Oyster Bay during the funeral, and most business places and some residences were hung with crepe. Many persons in the village wore buttons bearing the picture of Colonel Roosevelt over a bit of crepe or black ribbon.

The grave was guarded after the burial by young men of Oyster Bay, recently discharged from the service of, the nation, who patrolled the cemetery in their uniforms. They were under Lieutenant C. T. Reynolds of East Norwich.
Youngs' Memorial Cemetery

"The Youngs' Memorial Cemetery, at Oyster Bay, where Theodore Roosevelt is now taking his long sleep, has an especial interest to me because I was in college for two years at Cornell with William Jones Young," saicl Julius Chambers, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

"When the Cornellian Council was organized, five years ago, he and I were chosen life members thereof to represent our respective classes.

"Meantime, each of us had had experience with the world. He emerged from the practice of law in 1899, as Governor Roosevelt's private secretary, after which he became a United States District Attorney, with an office in Brooklyn.

"The heretofore purely local burial place at Oyster Bay will now become a world-wide shrine, to be visited by those who reverence the name of the great American buried there.

"I sincerely hope that a tall shaft, visible from many points of vantage, will some day surmount the hill upon which is the Roosevelt grave. Other monuments will rise in his honor at many places in this land; but Oyster Bay is the site for the real testimonial of national affection and pride.

"He chose to rest with the people of his own community, among whom he had passed much of his life—his townfolk, who knew him better than other friends and universally respected and loved him.

"Mount Vernon, Springfield, Oyster Bay—sacred to the memories of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt!"

Theodore Roosevelt's Will

The last will and testament of the former President was filed for probate at Mineola, N. Y., on January 11, 1919. While the value of the estate was not disclosed, it was estimated to exceed $500,000.

The income of the estate was bequeathed to Mrs. Roosevelt, who was authorized to dispose of the principal to the children in any way she desires.

A trust fund of $60,000 left to Col. Roosevelt by Ms father was divided among his children.

To Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, who was Alice Roosevelt, the Colonel left "all the silver given as wedding presents on my marriage with her mother," who was Miss Alice Lee of Boston when she became Theodore Roosevelt's wife. She died in 1884. The rest of the family silver was divided among the other children, Mrs. Ethel Derby, Theodore, Jr., Archibald, and Kermit.

The executors, Theodore, Jr., Mrs. Roosevelt, and George Emlen Roosevelt, were authorized to sell or dispose of all real or personal property held by them and to change the investments whenever they please without being held responsible "for any losses arising therefrom."

The will directed that the executors should not be required to file an inventory of the estate, and authorized them to sell and partition any of his real and personal property and allot the same to the several legatees as provided by the will.

Frank Harper of Oklahoma City, Okla., and George Douglas Wardrop of New York, witnessed the document.
The Colonel's Last Letter

Major E. J. Vattman, who was ranking Roman Catholic chaplain with the United States Army when he was retired fourteen years ago and who for years before that had enjoyed the fullest friendship and confidence of Colonel Roosevelt, could not hold back the tears when news of the Colonel's death reached him in Wilmette, 111.

Almost before he had recovered his self-possession the noon mail was placed before him. A familiar envelope topped the pile. Major Vattman's hand trembled as he reached for it.

"How can I believe him dead?" he asked. "His friendship lives for me still."

Here is the Colonel's letter to the venerable chaplain —one of the last he lived to write and almost certainly the last to reach Illinois:

"Dear Mgr. Vattman: Mrs. Roosevelt and I were really very much impressed by Father Garecbe's poem, 'The War Mothers.’"We value the book for its own sake, and we value it especially because it comes from you. "With all good wishes,
"Gratefully yours,
'' theodore roosevelt. ''
Pension for Mrs. Roosevelt
On January 20, 1919, the Committee on Pensions of the House of Representatives, to whom was referred a bill granting a pension of $5,000 per annum to Mrs. Edith Carow Roosevelt, widow of the former president, unanimously approved the bill, and adopted as its report the following letter of Hon. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, to whom the bill was referred for comment, "because it constitutes one of the most beautiful, fair, and just tributes to the life and character of the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt which could be written:"

Department of the Interior, Washington, January 20, 1919.

MY DEAR MR. KEY : I have your letter of January 14, submitting for my consideration H. R. 13879, in which it is proposed to provide a pension of $5,000 per annum for Mrs. Edith Carow Roosevelt and asking that the committee be informed as to "what widows of ex-Presidents of the United States have been allowed pension by means of a special act of Congress and the amounts of the pension in each instance." I find that it has been the pleasure of Congress to provide a pension of $5,000 per year for:

Sarah Childress Polk, widow of James K. Polk.
Julia Gardner Tyler, widow of John Tyler.
Mary Lincoln, widow of Abraham Lincoln.
Julia Dent Grant, widow of U. S. Grant.
Lucretia R, Garfield, widow of James A. Garfield.
Ida S. McKinley, widow of William McKinley.

Your letter also suggests that I am at liberty to make other comment than a mere formal report upon the proposed bill. I would gladly avail myself of such an opportunity if I thought that any word that I could say would add to the strength of the sentiment that urges the passage of this measure. The impress
that Theodore Roosevelt's personality has made upon the world does not, however, need emphasis. Whatever his fame as a statesman, it can never outrun his fame as a man. However widely men may differ from him in matters of national policy, this thing men in their hearts would all wish, that their sons might have within them the spirit, the will, the strength, the manliness, the Americanism of Roosevelt. He was made of that rugged and heroic stuff with which legend delights to play. The Idylls and the Sagas and the Iliads have been woven about men of his mold. We may surely expect to see developed a Roosevelt legend, a body of tales that will exalt the physical power- and endurance of the man and the boldness of his spirit, his robust capacity for blunt speech, and his hearty comradeship, his live interest in all things living—these will make our boys for the long future proud that they are of his race and his country. And no surer fame than this can come to any man—to live in the hearts of the boys of his land as one whose doings and sayings they would wish to make their own.
Cordially, yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE. 

HON. JOHN A. KEY,
 Chairman Committee on Pensions, House of Representatives.

The bill was passed unanimously by both the House and the Senate.
Theodore Roosevelt's devotion to his country above all else was never more courageously shown than in the statement he issued July 17, 1918, upon receiving the news of his son, Quentin's, death in an aerial combat in France.
Colonel Roosevelt said:

"Quentin's mother and I are very glad that he got to the front and had the chance to render some service to his country and to show the stuff there was in him before his fate befell him."

General Pershing, verifying the report of Quentin's death, wired the Colonel:
"You may well be proud of your gift to the nation in his supreme sacrifice."

Colonel Roosevelt’s Last Editorial for the Star (From the issue of Dec, 25)

A Square Deal for the Men at the Front.
Br y Theodore roosevelt

We should show oar respect for the men at the front by more than mere adulation. They are the Americans who have done most and suffered most for this country It was announced in the press that in many cases they and the families they have left behind have not for months received their full pa; Tula It an outrage. All civil officials are paid. The Secretary of War to paid and he, ought not to touch a dollar of bi> salary and no high official should touch a dollar of his salary until the enlisted men and junior officers are paid every cent that is owing to them, and this payment should be prompt There is liter-ally no excuse for even GO much as three days delay in the payment.

Moreover, these men at great cost to themselves to paying everything including, in fifty or sixty thousand cases, their lives, nave gone to the front at a wage from one-half to one-fifth as great As that their companions who stayed behind have received during the same period. They enlisted to do a specific job. They made the sacrifice In order to do that too. We on our side should see that just as soon as the job is done the men are taken home, allowed to leave the army and begin earning their livelihood and take care of the wives and children that the married ones among them have left behind.

   Recently in the public press there have appeared various artless and chatty statement from the State. War and Navy departments that our men might be kept in Europe to do general police work and might not be brought back here until the summer of 1920 There are three types of soldiers on the other side, There are regular Army men, who have entered the Regular Army as a profession, and to whom it is a matter of indifference whether they stay in Europe, come back here, go to the Philippines or do anything else. That is a small proportion of our force on the other side The bulk are divided between volunteers, who enlisted in the National Guard or sometimes in the regular regiments to fight this war through, and the drafted men who were put into the army under a taw designed to meet this war and this war only Not one in ten of the volunteers would have dreamed of volunteering to do police work in European squabbles Not ten congressmen would have voted for the Draft Law if  it was to force selective men to do police duty after the war was over All these men went in to fight this war through to a finish and then to come home It is not a square deal to follow any other course as regards them-The minute that peace comes every American soldier on the other side should- be brought home as speedily as possible save, of course, the regulars who make the Regular Army their life profession, and any ether man who chose to volunteer to go over, or who can with entire propriety be used for gathering up the loose ends. The American fighting man at the front has given this country a square deal during the war Now let the country give him a square deal by letting him get out of the army and go to his home as soon the war is finished The Red Cross has done wonderful work in taking care of the dependents of these men pending settlement by the government, but the government should not be content to rely on any outside organization to make up its own shortcomings.