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MY BROTHER THEODORE  ROOSEVELT BY CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

CHAPTER 14 

THE GREAT DENIAL
Who would not be
A baffled Moses with the eyes to see
The far fruition of the Promised Land!
C. R. R.
How can we manage with our Brother gone,
We smaller folk who looked to him to voice our voicelessness ?
We do not call him to come back from that free plane where now he
moves untrammeled

Un-beset by littleness, by envy of his power to read our hearts, And blazon forth the message that he found there, So that those in highest place among us needs must hear And heed the will of usthe silent ones Who woik, and think, and feel, And are America.
Gene Stanton Baker.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT had been at home but a few short weeks when he realized fully that the policies so dear to his heart, and which he had left in what he considered absolutely safe-keeping, had not been carried out. Already, in Congress, a large number of the younger Republicans had combined together as what were then called "The Insurgents." In other words, the men who had fully believed in the policies of Theodore Roosevelt, who felt that no proper progress could be made toward better government of the United States unless those policies were followed, had met on all sides with great disappointment; and although the ex-President had hoped to keep as absolutely "out of politics " as he had done in the African jungle, these disheartened and disappointed men, representing largely the younger and more ardent spirits of his country, turned to him for leadership. These reminiscences of my brother are not a biography, nor are they a political analysis of his public life, and I must therefore pass over many occurrences, the most important of which was his effort in the autumn of 1910 to defeat the Barnes-Tammany combination in New York State by running Mr. Henry L. Stimson for governor, which finally resulted in the position he took in January, 1912.

During the eighteen months previous he had been contributing editor of The Outlook, and my letters from him in 1911 were few and far between, as we were frequently together. They were, as usual, full of deep interest in and affection for me and mine, and as at that time I began to publish verse, first anonymously and then under my own name, he gives me generous praise in a note dated August 21, 1911: "I saw B. the other day. He told me about the acceptance of your second poem, and spoke most strongly about it, and he, just like everyone else who has talked to me about the poem, dwelt upon its power and purpose. [The poem in question was "The Call of Brotherhood."] It is not merely pretty, pleasant, trivial, the kind of thing a boy or girl of twenty could have written; it is written about and for those who have toiled and suffered and worked, and who have known defeat and triumph; and it is written by one of them." In his busy life, called upon endlessly in every direction, he never failed to encourage any effort of mine worthy of encouragement, nor indeed to discourage any effort of mine of which he did not approve. "If convenient," he adds, "I will come in about five next Friday for an hour's talk with you and to see the other verses. I am sending you a zebra skin which I hope you will like."

On October 5, 1911, he writes, referring to a political situation in Herkimer County, where my son had run for state assemblyman, and where certain unsavory methods had been used to defeat him (later, through legal procedure, he was given his seat): "Teddy has been defrauded by as outrageous a piece of political scoundrelism as I have ever known. Of course, this scoundrelism could succeed, only because last year, the big business men, the great 'Conservatives,' and professional 'Intellectuals' and the like, joined in securing the victory of Tammany at the polls, and the consequent enthronement of the Barnes-Sherman crowd in our party. If only we could have elected Harry Stimson for governor, there would not have been an effort made to handle Teddy as he has been handled." Already his indignation was beginning to wax hot against certain methods much in vogue in the Republican party at that tune.

He had had no intention of running for the presidential nomination in 1912, and, indeed, in the autumn of 1911 told many of his most faithful supporters that he was very much averse to doing so; but already a swelling tide of disapproval of the Taft administration had increased in volume to such an extent that it swept over a large part of the country. The Insurgents pleaded for a definite leadership, and to them, and to many who did not call themselves by that name, there was but one leader whom they were willing to follow, and that was Theodore Roosevelt.

The force of this great wave culminated in the letter of the seven governors in January, 1912, a letter in which those same seven governors begged him to take, openly, the leadership of Progressive Republicanism, and to allow his name to be used as a presidential nominee in the June convention of 1912. Just before that letter was published, he writes in his usual sweet way in connection with a visit which he and Mrs. Roosevelt had intended to pay me in New York (they were at Sagamore Hill). After speaking of an illness which prevented Mrs. Roosevelt from coming to me, he said, knowing that I had made certain engagements for them: "Do you wish to have me come alone ? Do exactly what you think best. I will be in for Tuesday night in any case, and will be at your house as agreed. I don't know when I have ever enjoyed anything more than my lunch at Fannie's [our dear friend Mrs. James Russell Parsons],it was a real feast of Lucullus, only far better." This letter is very boyish and content with friends and family, and most unlike a man absorbed in schemes of sinister usurpation, schemes of which he was so soon to be accused.

In the library at my own house in New York City, a fateful meeting took place shortly after this last letter came. I confess to having had serious doubts as to what his answer should be to that request of the seven governors. Personally, I felt the sacrifice asked of him was almost too great. I realized perfectly the great struggle before him and all that it probably would mean, and it seemed to me that he had already given all that was required of just such service to his beloved country. But, just as he felt in 1898 that, having preached war upon Spain, he must take active part in that war, so in 1912 he came to feel strongly that, having inaugurated certain policies as President which had not been carried out by his successor having preached the necessity for industrial legislation which had not been backed by those in public authority it was his duty to bare his breast to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and accept the position of leader of Progressive Republicanism in order to try to translate into practical reality the ideals which he had upheld before his countrymen. His answer to the seven governors pledged himself to such leadership, and the great upheaval of 1912 took place.

Never before in his varied career had Theodore Roosevelt felt such a sense of loneliness, for many of his nearest and dearest friends were not in sympathy with some of his beliefs in 1912. I shall never forget the great meeting at Carnegie Hall, when he proclaimed "the faith that was in him." He was like an inspired crusader that night when he cast away the notes from which he had occasionally been reading and made the magnificent peroration in which he proclaimed the fact that his doctrine was "Spend and Be Spent," and that no man worthy the name of man would not be willing to be an instrument for the success of his ideals a broken instrument if need be. He returned after that thrilling speech to my house, and we sat a long while talking over the serious step he had taken and the possibilities the future held for him, and I felt that there was a sense of dedication about him such as I believe the martyrs of old must have felt.

In spite of the storm that broke around him after this declaration, in spite of the manifold activities into which he immediately cast himself, he takes the time to write to me, March 5, 1912, when my infant grandchild, born the month before, had died of whooping-cough: "My darling Sister: You have indeed been through the waters of bitterness. The little baby! I love little babies so, and I think of my own little granddaughter, and I mourn with you and Douglas. Now, I think only with a pang of our lovely day last Sunday. [We had spent that Sunday with him at Oyster Bay.] If I could have come up to Albany I would have done so. Ever your devoted brother."

The great convention of 1912 took place, and through the ruling of the chairman certain delegates pledged to Theodore Roosevelt were deprived of their seats, a ruling which meant his defeat as Republican candidate. I was ill at the time and could not be present on that epoch-making occasion. I only know that its result after the above ruling was considered by my brother absolutely inevitable, and that he never regarded that result, as did so many people, as the most unfortunate circumstance of his life. Writing a year and a half later for the Century Magazine, in October, 1913, he says: "Fundamentally the reason for the existence of the Progressive Party was found in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between the old parties which correspond to those parties; and, second, the determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use the party organizations and their control of the Government, for the purpose of dealing with the problems really vital to our people. ... A party which alternately nominated Mr. Bryan and Mr. Parker for President, and a party wherein Messrs. Pen-rose, LaFollette, and Smoot, stand as the three brothers of leadership, can by no possibility supply the need of this country for efficient and coherent governmental action as regards the really vital questions of the day." In the same article he proceeds to analyze the reasons for the formation of the Progressive Party, and continues:

"The problems connected with the trusts, the problems connected with child labor, and all similar matters can be solved only by affirmative national action. No party is progressive which does not set the authority of the National Government as supreme in these matters. No party is progressive which does not give to the people the right to determine for themselves, after due opportunity for deliberation, but without endless difficulty and delay, what the standards of social and industrial justice shall be; and, furthermore, the right to insist upon the servants of the people, legislative and judicial alike, paying heed to the wishes of the people as to what the law of the land shall be. The Progressive party believes with Thomas Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson, with Abraham Lincoln, that this is a government of the people, to be used for the people, so as to better the condition of the average man and average woman of the nation in the intimate and homely concerns of their daily lives; and thus to use the government means that it must be used after the manner of Hamilton and Lincoln to serve the purposes of Jefferson and Lincoln.

"We are for the people's rights. Where these rights can best be obtained by exercise of the powers of the State, there we are for States' rights. Where they can best be obtained by the exercise of the powers of the National Government, there we are for National rights. We are not interested in this as an abstract doctrine; we are interested in it concretely. . . . We believe in the principle of a living wage. We hold that it is ruinous for all our people, if some of our people are forced to subsist on a wage such that body and soul alike are stunted."

Referring to the Industrial and Social Justice plank of the platform of the Progressive party, he continues:

"The propositions are definite and concrete. They represent for the first time in our political history the specific and reasoned purpose of a great party to use the resources of the government in sane fashion for industrial betterment. . . .

"To sum up, then, our position is, after all, simple. We believe that the government should concern itself chiefly with the matters that are of most importance to the average man and average woman, and that it should be its special province to aid in making the conditions of life easier for these ordinary men and ordinary women, who compose the great bulk of our people. To this end we believe that the people should have direct control over their own governmental agencies, and that when this control has been secured, it should be used with resolution, but with sanity and self-restraint, in the effort to make conditions fairer and better for the men and women of the nation."

I have inserted this quotation from his own writings in 1913, for it gives clearly the objects and aims of that party, born at Chicago amid scenes of almost religious enthusiasm hi June, 1912, nor did that enthusiasm wane for one single moment during the following months; on the contrary, it rose to the heights of dedication.

There were some who lost their sense of proportion, but by far the greater number of those who followed Theodore Roosevelt in that extraordinary campaign were imbued with a high sense of a "Great Cause," a cause which had never before been translated into the common sense of possible achievement. The New York State Progressive Convention met at Syracuse, and at that assemblage I was able to be present, and whatever doubts might have been in my breast before were swept away by a deep conviction of the fact that the Progressive Party was the true interpretation of the highest ideal of democracy.

Just about the time of the Progressive Convention at Syracuse, an article appeared, written by a citizen of Unadilla, N. Y., C. C. Penny by name, in which the above citizen gives the reasons which induced him to vote for "Teddy," as he affectionately calls the colonel.
" To the Editor of the Utica Daily Press:

"Having had the question put up to me as to what Roosevelt has ever done politically to better conditions, I would submit the following: First, What did Mr. Roosevelt do as President that he should not have done in the public interest, or that was dangerous or hurtful to business? Mr. Roosevelt's intervention in the coal strike benefited all consumers; Mr. Roosevelt is responsible for the Pure Food and Drugs Act; the open door to American commerce with China; the settlement of the Russo-Japan War; Panama Canal project; conservation of natural resources; reduction of interest-bearing debt by more than ninety million dollars; settlement of the Alaska boundary dispute; an act calling for the extension of forest reserves; national irrigation act; employers' liability act; safety appliances and regulation of railroad employees' hours of labor. Was Mr. Roosevelt's work in bringing about the settlement of the Russo-Japan War dangerous and hurtful to business? Was Roosevelt's Panama Canal project dangerous and hurtful to business? Was his movement for the conservation of our natural resources dangerous and hurtful to business ? These are a few of the things which he suggested and carried through with the help of his followers. Besides, he recommended many other reforms such as Postal Savings Bank, Parcels Post, and Inheritance Tax and Income Tax which he had not time to carry through during his last term.

"All these, it seems to me, are reforms to better the conditions of the great mass of people. The Progressive platform has been growing for the last sixteen years all through the Northwest, and West and South, only waiting for a man to come out, bold enough to take the lead. Mr. Roosevelt, it seems, has dared to take this step, and whether we win or lose, it is a step forward to the betterment of the conditions of all who toil and consume. I have always voted the Republican ticket, but I consider that true Republican principles at this time rest with the Progressive Party, and I shall vote for that party this Fall, and for Teddy, win or lose."
In October that year my volume of poems called by the title of its first poem, "The Call of Brotherhood," was published, and my brother writes me at once, though in the midst of pressing duties: "I love 'The Call of Brotherhood'; somehow it seems to express just what we are now battling for in the political arena. Well, the feeling, the longing, the desire, the determination you have made throb in these poems, also make it impossible for us to sit in fat content and not strive for better things in actual life. When we felt rather inarticulately just what you have written, we simply couldn't refrain from the effort [he refers to the Progressive Party] as a practical means to realize high ideals. That is what we must do with high ideals, apply them and try to live up to them, and to make them work. Joe and Teddy have done wonderful work; and so has Douglas. . . . I seem to have cost my friends much in all kinds of ways in this campaign; that was one of the reasons why I so hated to go into it." Many people misjudged his motives and thought that he went into it for selfish purposes; never was there a more mistaken conception of the actions of a patriot.

In a letter written September 1, he says: "I am just leaving for the West. It has been a very interesting fight, and never was there a fight better worth making, but the exertion is tremendous, and I look forward to Election Day as the end of a battle."

During that Western trip, he had one of his greatest personal ovations. One of the Western newspapers says:

"In Portland, Oregon, the city practically stopped business and turned out to receive its guest. In each city, the personal element of the greeting was remarkable. No one was thinking of Colonel Roosevelt in connection with his past office as President. He was 'Roosevelt.' It was 'Hello Teddy' and 'Hurrah for Teddy' everywhere along the densely packed streets where he appeared. His speeches to these multitudes were neither original nor new, but the people understood them. The enthusiasm of these western cities for the ex-President seems almost fabulous. At Portland, hundreds of school children escorted the automobile. Women brought their children, cripples were wheeled to horse blocks, men climbed on cornices and pediments, mothers of twins pressed to the side of the car, people literally blackened sidewalks, residence verandas, windows of houses, even the trees. At Tacoma a woman was heard to remark, 'If this ex-President has lost his popularity, I would hate to be in a crowd that had gathered to see an ex-President who had not lost his popularity,' and everywhere he preached the common-sense doctrine:

"Now friends, what I have said to you is pretty elementary, so elementary that it comes mighty near being commonplace, but I will tell you that the truths that really count are the elementary truths. The individual whom we respect is not merely the brilliant individual. The man whom we wish our sons to resemble is the man who has the ordinary virtues developed to more than the ordinary degree."

He himself believed that he was not a man of genius but only a man with average talents, talents which by sheer determination and will-power he had developed to a more than ordinary degree.

Shortly after the ovation in Oregon, he writes on September 15 from San Francisco: "Of course this trip is inconceivably wearing, but what a fine fight it is, anyhow!" To him it was a great crusade for the right, and his soul was at white heat in the cause of righteousness.

Later came the dramatic moment in Milwaukee when he received in his breast the bullet of a would-be assassin. He protected the man, believing him to be insane, from the angry crowd who would have gladly torn him limb from limb; and then proceeded, though bleeding from an open wound, to make what he fully believed would probably be the last speech that he would ever make in this world. The doctors could not influence him to give up the speech, for he said that should it prove to be his last, it was all the more important that he should make it. But, thank Heaven, it was not his last!

During his convalescence in the hospital in Chicago, he sent me one of his sympathetic letters about another recently published poem, and also replied to a letter from Sir George Trevelyan as follows: "I must say I have never understood public men who got nervous about assassination. For the last eleven years I have, of course, thoroughly understood that I might at any time be shot, and probably would be shot sometime. I think I have come off uncommonly well. What I cannot understand is any serious-minded public man not being so absorbed in the great, vital questions with which he has to deal, as to exclude thoughts of assassination. I don't think this is a matter of courage at all. I think it a question of the major interest driving out the minor interest. Exactly as with the army, a private may have qualms,not so a General. He is responsible for more than his personal safety. It is not a question of courage, it is a question of perspective, of proper proportion." Nothing has ever been more in keeping with the actions of Theodore Roosevelt than the above sentence: "it is a question of the major interest driving out the minor interest." With him, all through his life, the sense of proportion was a prominent part of his make-up. The "major interest" always drove out the "minor interest," and so strong was his sense of responsibility, so absorbed was he in the great affairs of his country, that the thought of possible assassination never entered his valiant breast.

The greatest moment of all that inspiring period of his life came late in October, at the end of the campaign, when Theodore Roosevelt, the bullet still in his breast, but miraculously restored to health and strength, came to the city of his birth to make the final speech of the Progressive campaign at Madison Square Garden. Not only was the spirit of the Crusade higher than ever, but the danger so lately experienced by their leader had given to his followers an exaltation never surpassed at any time in our political history. I have always been glad that for some unexplained reason the pass which had been given to me that night for my motor was not accepted by the policeman in charge, and I, my husband, my son Monroe, and our friend Mrs. Parsons were obliged to take our places in the cheering, laughing, singing crowd which formed in line many blocks below the Garden to walk up to the entrance-door. How it swayed and swung! how it throbbed with life and elation ! how imbued it was with an earnest party ambition, and yet, with a deep and genuine religious fervor. Had I lived my whole life only for those fifteen minutes during which I marched toward the Garden already full to overflowing with my brother's adoring followers, I should have been content to do so. We could hardly get into the building, and indeed had to climb up the fire-escape, which we were only allowed to do after making it well known that I was the sister of the "Colonel." (There never was but one "Colonel" in American history!) The whole meeting was one of an ineffable and intense emotional quality. We could hear the singing and the cheers of the thousands outside on the street, as inside my brother came forward to the platform, and the vast audience rose to its feet to acclaim its hero. Such moments do not often occur in a lifetime, and when they do, they leave in their wake a wonderful sense of what the highest type of religion should mean a religion selfless as the Christ like faith upon which all true religion is founded.

A few days later, Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic though minority candidate, was elected President of the United States.