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MY BROTHER THEODORE  ROOSEVELT BY CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

CHAPTER 5
 THE YOUNG REFORMER
"Lift up thy praise to Life That set thee in the strenuous ways, And left thee not to drowse and rot In some thick perfumed and luxurious plot.
"Strong, strong is Earth With vigor for thy feet, To make thy wayfaring Tireless and fleet,
"And good is Earth, But Earth not all thy good, O thou with seeds of suns And star-fire in thy blood."
THE early part of the year 1881 was spent by Theodore Roosevelt and his young wife with my mother at 6 West 57th Street, and was devoted largely to literary work and efforts to acquaint himself with the political interests of the district in which we lived.

During the following summer, they travelled in Europe; he climbed Swiss mountains and showed his usual capacity for surmounting obstacles. June 16, 1881, he writes from Paris in connection with artistic wanderings in the Louvre. "I have not admired any of the French painters much excepting Greuze. Rubens' 'Three Wives' are reproduced in about fifty different ways, which I think a mistake. No painter can make the same face serve for Venus, the Virgin, and a Flemish lady." And again on August 24 from Brussels: "I know nothing at all, in reality, of art, I regret to say, but I do know what pictures I like. I am not at all fond of Rubens; he is mentally a fleshly, sensuous painter, and yet his most famous pictures are those relating to the Divinity. Above all, he fails in his female figures. Rubens' women are handsome animals except his pictures of rich Flemish house-wives, but they are either ludicrous or ugly when meant to represent either the Virgin or a Saint. I think they are not much better as heathen goddesses. I do not like a chubby Minerva, a corpulent Venus, or a Diana who is so fat that I know she could never overtake a cow, let alone a deer. Rembrandt is by all odds my favorite. I am very much attracted by his strongly contrasting coloring and I could sit for hours examining his heads; they are so life-like and impressive. Van Heist I like for the sake of the realism with which he presents to one, the bold, rich, turbulent Dutchman of his time. Vandyke's heads are wonderful; they are very life-like and very powerful but if the originals were like them, I should hardly have admired one of them. Perhaps, the pictures I really get most enjoyment out of are the landscapes, the homely little Dutch and Flemish interiors, the faithful representations of how the people of those times lived and made merry and died, which are given us by Jan Steen, Van Ostade, Teniers, and Ruysdael. They bring out the life of that period in a way no written history could do, and interest me far more than pictures of Saints and Madonnas. I suppose this sounds heretical but it is true. This time I have really tried to like the holy pictures but I cannot; even the Italian masters seem to me to represent good men and insipid, good women, but rarely anything saintly or divine. The only pictures I have seen with these attributes are Gustav Doree's! He alone represents the Christ so that your pity for him is lost in intense admiration and reverence. Your loving brother."

The above letter is one unusual in its type, because it was rare for Theodore Roosevelt to write as much about art. He always loved certain types of pictures, but his busy, active career had but small time for the more aesthetic interests! All these criticisms by the young man not yet twenty-three have their value because they show "So distinctly the character of the young man himself. One sees the interest which he takes in his humankind as represented by certain types of Dutch pictures, and also his love for spiritual beauty, when not belittled by insipidity. Perhaps the last sentence of this letter is most characteristic of all of his own vital spirit. He does not wish to pity the Christ; he almost insists that pity must be lost in admiration and reverence. Pity always seemed to Theodore Roosevelt an undesirable quality; tenderest sympathy he gave and craved but never pity.

After this brief artistic sojourn he plunged with great energy, on his return, into the drudgery of political life in his own district. Many were the criticisms of his friends and acquaintances at the thought of his taking up city or state politics from a serious standpoint. At that time, even more than now, "politics" was considered as something far removed from the life of any one brought up to other spheres than that of mud-slinging and corruption. All "politics" was more or less regarded as inextricably intertwined with the above. Theodore Roosevelt, however, realized from the very beginning of his life that "armchair" criticism was ineffectual, and, because ineffectual, undesirable. If one were to regard oneself in the light of a capable critic, the actual criticism immediately obligated the person indulging in it to do something about the matter. He often used to quote the old story of "Squeers" in "Nicholas Nickleby," that admirable old novel of Charles Dickens, in which "Do the Boys' Hall" was so amusingly described. Mr. Squeers, the master of the above school, would call up a pupil and ask him to spell window. He pronounced it "winder," and the pupil in turn would spell it "w-i-n-d-e-r." The spelling would not be corrected but the boy would receive the injunction to "go and wash it," and my brother always said that while he did not approve of "Squeers' " spelling nor indeed of other methods practised by him that the "go and wash it" was an admirable method to follow in political life. The very fact that, although by no means a wealthy man, he had a sufficient competence to make it unnecessary for him to earn his own living, made him feel that he must devote his life largely to public affairs. He realized that unless the men of his type and caliber interested themselves in American government, the city, state, and country in which they lived would not have the benefit of educated minds and of incorruptible characters. He therefore set himself to work to learn the methods used in ordinary political life, and, by learning the methods, to fit himself to fight intelligently whatever he found unworthy of free American citizenship.

He has described this part of his life in his own autobiography. He has told of how he met Joseph Murray, a force in the political district, who became his devoted adherent, and how he decided himself to become one of the "governing class." This effort resulted in his nomination for the New York State Assembly, and on January i, 1882, Theodore Roosevelt became outwardly, what inwardly he had always been, a devoted public servant. That winter remains in my mind as one of intense interest in all of his activities. We were all living at my mother's home in 57th Street, and he spent part of the week in Albany, returning, as a rule, on Friday for the week-end. Many were the long talks, many the humorous accounts given us of his adventures as an assemblyman, and all the time we, his family, realized that an influence unusual in that New York State Assembly was beginning to be felt. Already, by the end of a month or so, he was known as "the Young Reformer," ardent and earnest, who pleaded for right thinking, and definite practical interpretation of right thinking. His name was on the lips of many before he had been three months an assemblyman, and already his native city was beginning to take a more than amused interest in his activities.

A certain highbrow club called "The 19th Century Club," whose president was the editor of the Evening Post (a paper neither then nor later always in accord with the ideals and methods of Theodore Roosevelt!), invited the young assemblyman to make an address before its members. He accepted the invitation, feeling, as he always did, that it was well to give the type of message that he wished to give to the type of citizens of which that club was composed. Following my invariable custom whenever it was possible for me to do so, I accompanied him to the meeting. The method of procedure in "The 19th Century Club" was as follows: The speaker of the evening was allowed to choose his own subject, announced, of course, several weeks in advance, and he was given a half-hour in which to develop his idea. A second speaker was invited to rebut the first speaker. The speaker of the evening was then allowed ten minutes to rebut the rebutter. It is, I think, of special interest to remember that the young assemblyman, twenty-three years of age, chose for his subject the same theme on which the man of sixty, who was about to die, wrote his last message to his countrymen.

Theodore Roosevelt announced that he would speak to "The ipth Century Club" on "Americanism." A brilliant editor of an able newspaper was asked to make the speech in answer to the address of "the Young Reformer." As I say, I went with my brother to the meeting and sat directly under him in a front seat. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak in public and I confess to having been extremely nervous. He was never an orator, although later his speeches were delivered with great charm of manner and diction, but at this early stage of his career he had not the graces of an older and more finished speaker. I can see him now as he came forward on the platform and began with eager ardor his plea for Americanism. Every fibre of my being responded to him and to his theme, but I seemed to be alone in my response, for the somewhat chilly audience, full of that same armchair criticism of which I have spoken, gave but little response to the desire of the heart of Theodore Roosevelt, and when he had finished his half-hour's presentation of his plea, there was very little applause, and he sat down looking somewhat nervous and disappointed. Then the brilliant man, twice the age of Theodore Roosevelt, who had been chosen to reply to him, rose, and with deft oratorical manipulation rang the changes on every "ism" he could think of, using as his fundamental argument the fact that all "isms" were fads. He spoke of the superstition of spiritualism, the extravagance of fanaticism, the hypocrisy of hypnotism, the plausibility of socialism and the highbrow members of "The 20th Century Club " were with the brilliant orator from start to finish, and as he closed his subtile argument, which left Americanism high and dry on the shores of faddism, the audience felt that "the Young Reformer" had had his lesson, and gave genuine applause to his opponent.

Half-way through that opponent's address, I confess, on my own part, to having experienced a great feeling of discouragement; not because I agreed with what he said, but because of the effect produced upon the listeners; but suddenly I saw my brother smile the same smile which used to cross his face in later years when some heckler would try to embarrass him from the back of a great hall, and he took a pencil and wrote something on his cuff. The smile was transitory but it gave me fresh hope, and I knew quite well that the audience would hear something worth while, if not to their liking, in the last ten minutes of the evening, when, as I said before, the speaker of the evening was allowed to rebut the rebutter. The clever editor sat down amidst interested applause, and "the Young Reformer" stepped once more forward to the edge of the platform. He leaned far over from the platform, so earnest, so eager was he, and this is what he said: "I believe that I am allowed ten minutes in which to refute the arguments of my opponent. I do not need ten minutes I do not need five minutes I hardly need one minute I shall ask you one question, and as you answer that question, you will decide who has won this argument myself or the gentleman on the other side of this platform. My question is as follows: If it is true that all isms are fads, I would ask you, Fellow Citizens, what about Patriotism? " The audience rose to its feet; even "The 19th Century Club" could not but acknowledge that patriotism was a valuable attribute for American citizens to possess. That was the first time that Theodore Roosevelt, in public, asked of his fellow countrymen, "What about Patriotism?" but all his life long, from that time on, it was the question forever on his lips, the question which his own life most adequately answered.

In April of that same year, Theodore, an assemblyman not yet twenty-four, had already made himself so conspicuous a figure that mention of him and his attitudes was constantly in the New York press. In an envelope, put away long ago, I find an excerpt from the New York Times, April 5, 1882. It is yellow with age and brittle, but there was something ineffaceable and prophetic in the faded words; I quote:

"He called from the table his resolution directing an investigation by the Standing Judiciary Committee of the acts of Judge Westbrook and Ex-Attorney General Ward in connection with the gigantic stock jobbing scheme of the Manhattan Railroad Co. (Elevated). Ex-Governor Alvord tried to prevent resolution, but it was carried 48-22. As Mr. Roosevelt rose to speak, the House, for almost the only time during the Session, grew silent and listened to every word that he uttered."

In the midst of a body of men somewhat inclined to a certain kind of careless irreverence, it is of marked interest that "as Mr. Roosevelt rose to speak, the House, for almost the only time during the Session, grew silent and listened to every word that he uttered." To how few young men of twenty-three would "the House" accord such respect! As I say, the attitude was prophetic, for the following forty years, no matter how fiercely he was criticised, no matter what fury of invective was launched against him, no matter how jealously and vindictively he was occasionally opposed, there was never a place where Theodore Roosevelt rose to speak that he was not listened to with great attention.
In the Sun of the same date the account of the incident runs as follows: "Mr. Roosevelt's speech was delivered with deliberation and measured emphasis, and his charges were made with a boldness that was almost startling." Those first two years of his career as an assemblyman showed, indeed, again, that the youth was father to the man. The characteristics which marked his whole public life never showed more dominantly than as a young assemblyman in Albany. Uncompromising eourage was combined with common sense, and the power of practical though never unworthy compromise was as evident then as later in his life. Those years have been fully dwelt upon in his own autobiography.

The great tragedy of his young wife's death at the birth of her first child was an even greater tragedy because the death of our lovely mother occurred twenty-four hours before her son's wife passed away. Our mother's home at 57th Street had been the background of our young married life, as it had been the foreground of our youth, and the winter of 1884 had been spent by my husband and myself at 6 West syth Street, and the consequence was that as Theodore also made his headquarters there, we had been much together, and that very fact made it even harder to break up the home which had been so long the centre of our family life.

The next two years were almost the saddest of our happy lives. My brother had, fortunately, already interested himself in a ranching enterprise in North Dakota, and although he returned to the assembly in February, 1884, and with his usual courage finished his year of duty there, he turned gladly to the new life of the West, and became, through his absolute comprehension of the pioneer type of the cowboy and the ranchman, not only one of them from a physical standpoint, but also one of them from the standpoint of understanding their mental outlook.

In June, 1884, however, before starting for Dakota, he was to meet one of the serious political decisions of his life. That spring, when it came time to elect delegates to the Republican National Convention, he was, with the hearty approval of the great mass of his party, chosen as the chief of the four delegates-at-large from New York State. Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop gives in his history of "Theodore Roosevelt and His Time" a short account of that convention, of which I quote part:

"He went to the National Convention an avowed advocate of the nomination of Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont as Republican Candidate for the Presidency in preference to James G. Blaine. The New York Times of June 4th, 1884, refers to him as the leader of the Younger Republicans, and says, 'when he spoke, it was not the voice of a youth but the voice of a man, and a positive practical man.''

Mr. Bishop describes Mr. Roosevelt's efforts and the efforts of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to secure the nomination of their choice, and then continues: "By the nomination of Mr. Blaine which followed later, Roosevelt was confronted with what, in many respects, was one of the most serious crises of his career. He had to decide which of the two courses he should choose; he must separate himself completely from his party and become an absolute Independent, or stay within his party and support its regularly appointed candidate. The nomination of Mr. Blaine had been fairly won. He was unquestionably the choice of the Convention. There was no claim that the will of the majority had been subverted either through the action of a committee on contested seats or in any other way. The problem before him was thus a quite different one from that presented to him twenty-eight years later in the National Republican Convention of 1912. In opposing the nomination of Mr. Blame, he and his Republican Associates had been acting with a considerable body of Professional Independents. These men were without allegiance to either of the great political parties. Though he had been, during his brief public career, an avowed Republican, seeking to accomplish all his reforms through Republican aid and inside party lines, his Independent associates, as soon as the Blaine nomination was made, assumed that he would leave his party and join them in seeking to accomplish Mr. Blaine's defeat by supporting the Democratic candidate. In fact, they not merely asked but demanded that he abandon the course which he had followed since his entry into political life and upon which he had built his public career. They were sincere in their belief that he should do so. It seemed incredible to them that he could do anything else. He gave them full credit for sincerity but declared that the question was one that he must insist upon deciding for himself.

"He admitted frankly that he had worked hard for the nomination of Edmunds but he declined to say at once what course he should pursue in regard to the nomination of Mr. Blaine. Various devices were used to force him to declare his intentions, some by Republican politicians and others by leading Independents, but all in vain. He insisted upon deciding the question for himself and in his own way and time. He went direct from the Convention in Chicago to his ranch in Dakota, and several weeks later put forth a formal statement in which he denned his decision as follows: 'I intend to vote the Republican Presidential ticket. While at Chicago, I told Mr. Lodge that such was my intention but before announcing it, I wished to have time to think the matter over. A man cannot act both without and within the party; he can do either, but he cannot possibly do both. Each course has its advantages and each has its disadvantages, and one cannot take the advantages or the disadvantages separately. I went in with my eyes open to do what I could within the party. I did my best and got beaten, and I propose to stand by the result. It is impossible to combine the functions of a guerilla chief with those of a colonel in the regular army; one has a greater independence of action, the other is able to make what action he does take vastly more effective. In certain contingencies, the one can do most good; in certain contingencies the other; but there is no use in accepting a commission and then trying to play the game out on a lone hand. I am by inheritance and by education a Republican. Whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public life has been accomplished through the Republican party. I have acted with it in the past and wish to act with it in the future. I went as a regular delegate to the Chicago Convention and intend to abide by the outcome of that Convention. I am going back in a day or two to my Western ranch as I do not intend to take any part in a campaign this Fall.'" [This determination not to take part in the campaign he recalled later, for reasons which were eminently characteristic.] ' When I started out to my ranch two months ago,' he said in October, 'I had no intention of taking any part whatever in the Presidential canvass, and the decision I have now come to is the result of revolving the matter in my mind during that time. It is altogether contrary to my character to keep a neutral position in so important and exciting a struggle, and besides any natural struggle to keep a position of some kind, I made up my mind that it was clearly my duty to support the ticket.' "

He faced the storm of disapproval and abuse calmly, and in reply to an open letter of regret and remonstrance from an Independent, he wrote: "I thank you for your good opinion of my past service. My power, if I ever had any, may or may not be as utterly gone as you think, but most certainly, it would deserve to go if I yield any more to the pressure of the Independents at present, when I consider them to be wrong, than I yielded in the past to the pressure of the machine when I thought it wrong." He declined a renomination for the assembly, which he could have had without opposition, and two separate offers of nominations for Congress, on the ground that his private interests, which he had neglected during his service in the legislature, required his attention.

His courageous attitude in connection with the disapproval of the Independents was indeed characteristic. He was invariably willing to run the risk of the disapproval of any faction when he had positively made up his own mind as to the right or wrong of any question, and he set his mind and heart upon those "private interests" of which he speaks.

In a later chapter I give several of his letters of this period in connection with a trip which he arranged for the members of his family to the Elkhorn Ranch and the Yellowstone Park in 1890. All his craving for the out-of-door life, all his sympathy with pioneer enterprise, such as his heroes Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett had indulged in, were satisfied by those long days on the open prairies, and by the building of his ranch-houses with the assistance of his old friends, Bill Sewall and Will Dow, the two stanch Maine lumbermen, uncle and nephew, with whom he had made many an excursion in the Maine woods in earlier days. Theodore Roosevelt, however, was not to be allowed by his country to remain too long the rider and dreamer under cottonwood-trees, or even a potent influence for good in Western affairs, as he became. Already rumors were abroad that he would be the choice of the Republican party for the nominee for mayor of New York City, and he was recalled from the wilds of North Dakota to a stirring triangular campaign in which Henry George, representing "Single Tax" beliefs, Abraham S. Hewitt, Democratic nominee, and the young ranchman from Dakota battled lustily against each other, with the result that Mr. Hewitt was elected mayor of New York.

In the autumn of 1886 he sailed for Europe to marry his old friend Edith Carow, and for a brief period led a life of leisure and travel. Only very rarely in his busy existence had he time for just that life again, and the consequence is that some of his letters at that period have an unusual value. He humorously described some of his travels in Italy in a letter dated December, 1886, as follows: "My lack of knowledge of the language has given me some soul-harrowing moments, a mixture of broken English with German and French proving but an indifferent substitute for Italian, so I sometimes get what I do not want, as when yesterday, an effort to state that after dinner we wished only black coffee, expressed with deprecatory waves of the hand and the idiomatic phrase, Vest genuch' produced in addition, cheese, pastry, and fruit, all brought by the waiter in a wild hope that some one of those might satisfy what he evidently supposed was my untranslatable demand."

A little later, from Sorrento, he writes in characteristic fashion, showing that even in so romantic and enthralling a spot as Rome he was still "on duty bent" from the standpoint of writing articles for the Century. He says: "I finished six articles for the Century on ranch life while in Rome and sent them off. I do not know whether the Century will want them or not. I read them all to Edith and her corrections and help were most valuable to me. Now I am wondering why my 'Life of Benton' has not come out. Here, [at Sorrento] I generally take a moderate walk with Edith every morning, and then a brisk rush by myself. I had no idea that it was in me to enjoy the 'dolce far niente' even as long as I have. Luckily, Edith would dislike an extended stay in Europe as much as I would."

In this letter, after speaking of ranch losses which necessitated selling his beloved hunter, Sagamore, he signs himself, "Your extravagant and irrelevant but affectionate brother, the White Knight," the latter being a reference to the character in "Alice in Wonderland," from which enchanting book we invariably quoted in ordinary conversation or letters.

From Venice, in February, he writes: "Venice is perfectly lovely. It is more strange than any other Italian town, and the architecture has a certain florid barbarism about it, Byzantine,-dashed with something stronger that appeals to some streak in my nature." They returned to London later, and were shown many attentions, for even at that early period in his life, England recognized the statesman in Theodore Roosevelt. He speaks of Mr. Bryce the historian as a "charming man" their friendship was to last all through my brother's life, and he mentions many other well-known young Englishmen, who have now grown old in their country's service. In a letter dated March 6 he says: "I have been having great fun in London, and have seen just the very nicest people, social, political, and literary. We have just come back from a lunch at the Jeunes', which was most enjoyable. Edith sat beside Chamberlain, who impresses me very much with his keen, shrewd intellect and quiet force. I sat between Trevelyan, who was just charming, and a Lady Leamington."

Unless I am mistaken, that was the first time my brother met Sir George Trevelyan, with whom he carried on a faithful and interesting correspondence for many years. "Mrs. Jeune has asked us to dine to meet Lord Charles Beresford and Lord Harrington, and I have been put down for the Atheneeum Club, and also taken into the Reform Club. Last night, I dined at a Bohemian Club, the famous Savage Club, with Healy and one or two Parnellites, (having previously lunched with several of the Conservatives, Lord Stanhope and Seton-Carr, and others). The contrast was most amusing, but I like Heaiy immensely. Later on I met a brother of Stanhope's who is a radical, and listened to a most savage discussion with a young fellow named Foster, a nephew of the late Secretary of Ireland, who has also been very polite to me. I have enjoyed going to the House of Commons under the guidance of Bryce, the historian, and a dear old Conservative member named Hoare, very greatly. It is amusing to see the Conservatives, fresh-looking, well-built, thoroughly well-dressed gentlemen, honest and plucky but absolutely unable to grapple with the eighty odd, erratic Parnellite Irishmen. The last named, by the way, I know well of old, I have met them in the New York Legislature!"

These comments by the young man of twenty-eight are along the line of comments made much later when almost all of his reactions to the men named or suggested had come true. The travellers were more than glad to get back to their native land, and by the early summer were settled at Sagamore Hill, to begin there the beautiful family life which grew in richness up to the moment of my brother's death.

   June 8, 1887, he writes from Sagamore, describing amusingly his efforts to become a polo-player. He has often expressed his own feeling about sports he loved them, enjoyed his hunting and other athletic exercises to the full, but they were always a relaxation, never a pursuit with him. "Frank Underhill and I ride industriously around the field and brandish our mallets so as to foster the delusion among simple folk that we likewise are playing polo. Two other would-be players also come now and then; but as they have not yet even learned to sit on horseback and strike the ball simultaneously, and, after trial, having found it impracticable to do so alternately, our games are generally duels. Yesterday, I beat Frank two out of three and in addition, stood on my head on the sward in the enthusiasm of one melee where we got rather mixed. Day before yesterday, I rowed Edith to Lloyd's Neck, portaged across at low tide, the hardest work I ever did almost, into Huntington Harbor, then rowed out into the Sound. We took our lunch and some volumes of Thackeray. It was an ideal day but wasn't I stiff and blistered next morning! Do come soon and stay as long as possible. Yours as ever, Theodore Roosevelt."

During that same summer I took my little niece Alice, with my children, to our old home on the Mohawk Hills for a change of air, and he writes me in his usual loving way of his warm appreciation of the pleasure I was giving the child, and sends his love to the little "yellow-haired darling," and incidentally, in the letters, says his book "Morris ["Gouverneur Morris"] goes drearily on by fits and starts, and in the intervals, I chop vigorously and have lovely rowing excursions"; and so the happy summer wore to its close and was crowned in September by the birth of his first boy, the third Theodore Roosevelt. He describes with amusement little Alice's remark" a truthful remark," he says" My little brother is a howling polly parrot." All through the letter one realizes his joy and pride in his firstborn son, and shortly after that, in December of the same year, he writes me to congratulate me on the birth of my second son, Monroe, and says: "How glad I am that Ted, Junior, has a future playmate. Just won't they quarrel, though!"
Owing to the fact that in my brother's own biography he describes fully his work as civil service commissioner, police commissioner, and assistant secretary of the navy, I do not purport to give a detailed account of his labors, especially as during the period that he served in the first position, I have comparatively few letters from him, and it was not until he returned to New York in the second capacity that I saw as much of him as usual. One winter, however, we had a most characteristic intercourse. I do not remember exactly the date of that winter. I had married young, my children had been born in rapid succession, and owing to the delicacy of my health just before I was grown up, I was conscious of the fact that I was not as grounded in certain studies, especially American history, as I should have been, and I found myself with a very slim knowledge of the most important facts of my nation's birth and early growth. The consequence was that when my brother returned for a brief period to New York, I decided to consult him as to how best to study American History, thinking perhaps that I might go to Columbia College or something of that kind.

I began my effort for information by saying: "Theodore, I really know very little about American history." I can see the flash in his eyes as he turned to me. "What do you mean?" he said; "it's disgraceful for any woman not to know the history of her own country." "I know it is," I replied, "and that is just why I am consulting you about it. I know you feel I ought to know all about American history, but I also know that you preach large families, and you must remember that I have done my best in that direction in these last five years, and now I am ready to study American history!" "Do you mean really to study? " he said, looking at me sternly. "Just as really to study as whooping-cough, measles, chicken-pox, and other family pleasures will allow," I said. "Well," he replied, still sternly, and not laughing at my sally, "if you really mean to study, I will teach you myself. I will come at nine o'clock every week on Tuesday and Friday for one hour, if you will be ready promptly and give me all your attention." Needless to say, I was enchanted at the thought, and, true to his word, the busy man came at nine o'clock every Tuesday and Friday for several months, and in my library at 422 Madison Avenue I was ready with note-book and blackboard, and he lectured to me for that hour twice a week as if I were a matriculating class at Harvard College. I have now many of the notes he made for me at that time, and I shall always remember the painstaking way in which he drew the battle-fields, and explained how "one commander came up in this position at just the right moment and saved the day," or how the lack of preparedness ruined many a courageous adventure. These quiet hours come back to me with a rush of recollection as I write, and I am proud to think that he felt it was worth while to give me such instruction. Once I said to him: "How can you do this, Theodore; how can you take the time to study for these lectures?" "Oh!" he said, "I do not have to study; I could not, of course, give quite as much time as that. You see, I just happen to know my American history." He certainly did "happen to know" his American history, as was proved in many a controversy later in his life. His American history and, indeed, the history of almost every other country of the world were all at his finger-tips. During his civil service commissionership, a period of a number of years, the letters were few and far between, but I have one dated July 28, 1889, in which he writes: "Struggle as I will, my life seems to grow more and more sedentary, and as for my polo, it is one of the things that has been; witness the enclosed check which is for Cranford, and I am trying to sell Diamond too; how I hate to give it up! We have had lovely days this summer, however, at Sagamore. I took all the children down on the pond once, and made them walk out on a half-sunken log, where they perched like so many sand-snipes. I am leaving for the West soon to have a whack at the bears in the Rockies; I am so out of training that I look forward with acute physical terror to going up the first mountain. [He seems for the moment to have forgotten that his life was growing very "sedentary."] I have mortally hated being so much away from home this summer, but I am very glad I took the place [civil service commissionership] and I have really enjoyed my work. I feel it incumbent on me to try to amount to something, either in politics or literature because I have deliberately given up the idea of going into a money-making business. Of course, however, my political life is but an interlude it is quite impossible to continue long to do much between two sets of such kittle-kattle as the spoils men and the mug wumps."

The seed of the birth of the Progressive party of 1912 was sown by that feeling of Theodore Roosevelt of the difficulty to do much "between two sets such as the spoilsmen and the mugwumps." The honest effort to play honest politics for honest purposes and practical ideals was the stimulating idea translated into action in that great attempt for better government called the Progressive party; but this letter of the young Civil Service Commissioner was written in 1889, and it was not until twenty-three years later that the seed fructified into a movement which, had it succeeded, would, I verily believe, have changed the fate of the world.

But to return to the Civil Service Commission. He gave faithful effort and all his intelligence to the improvement of that important service, and often had the sensation, which he was doomed to have in so many of his positions, that he was more or less beating his head against the wall. He sent me at that time a copy of a letter to the Civil Service Commissioners from an applicant who had been summoned to an examination and had not appeared. To show the ignorance of some of the applicants, I cannot resist quoting from the letter.
Alabama Mobile October 6, 1890. To the Comishers of Sivel Serves,

My dear brothers: I am very sorry that I could not Meet you on the day you said but gentlemen, i am glad of the cause that kept me away. Let me tell you Mr. Comisher, i hav bin mard five years antel the Other Da me and my wife hav bin the onley mbrs en ow Famly. Well Sir on the Da before youre examnenashun My Wife Had a Kupple ov tuins, gest think of it, Mr. Comischer  and of course i couddnt go off and Leave her and them, i just staid home and we had a sellabration  and i invited all my friends to dinner, i wish you had been thare. i Hope i can be thare next time Mr. Comischer.
Very truly yours.
I remember my brother saying humorously that, after all, that particular gentleman might just as well have stayed away with his "tuins" and "sellabration," as he really doubted whether he could have passed the "examnenashun" had he appeared 1