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The Boys' Life of
Theodore Roosevelt
BY HERMANN HAGEDORN
Author of
"YOU   ARE   THE   HOPE   OF   THE   WORLD:
AN   APPEAL   TO   THE   BOYS
AND GIRLS OF AMERICA"
Edited for School Use By H.  C.  NEWTON, A. M. 
Head of the English Department
Blodgett Vocational High School
Syracuse, N.  Y. 
 
HARPER & BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS
NEW   YORK   AND    LONDON
 
To the Memory
of QUENTIN ROOSEVELT
who died at twenty, fighting in the clouds
against odds, and for a great cause
this story of adventure, valor and service
is reverently dedicated. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

IN recording his indebtedness to many men and women in the making of this book, the writer of it must inevitably place at the top of his list his deep obligation to the central figure of his narrative.  Colonel Roosevelt has from the outset aided him in his researches with characteristic generosity.  He has opened doors which only he could open; he has turned over to him the diaries of his boyhood and his later hunting-days; with a patience and good nature which showed no abatement he has allowed himself to be catechized in person and by letter. 

Scarcely less great is the author's debt to Colonel Roosevelt's sisters, Mrs.  W.  S.  Cowles and Mrs.  Douglas Robinson, who have turned over to him Colonel Roosevelt's letters to them, covering a period of almost forty years.  The friends of his youth in Maine and of his manhood in Dakota, Willam W.  Sewall and Mrs.  Sewall, of Island Falls, Maine, and Mrs.  Wilmot Dow (now Mrs.  Fleetwood Pride, of Houlton), have, in response to Mr.  Roosevelt's "Tell all you know about me.  Tell the worst you know and the best you can conscientiously say," dived into dusty recesses for old letters and countless memories of days which remain in a sense a golden age to them.  Joseph Murray, who inducted Theodore Roosevelt into politics; Edward Bourke and Otto Raphael, who served under him on the New York police force; William Loeb, Jr. , who was his private secretary as Governor, Vice-President, and President; Nathaniel Elsberg, who fought at his side in Albany, Lawrence Abbott and others have in one way and another given help that has been invaluable and is herewith gratefully acknowledged. 

The author's obligations to various books dealing with this phase or that of Theodore Roosevelt's career are wide and deep.  Pore-most again stands his indebtedness to the subject of his narrative, who has, to the good fortune of the present biographer and all who shall succeed him, told with vigor and charm of his adventures in politics and in the wilds of Dakota.  Africa, and Brazil.  He is indebted, furthermore, to the publishers who gave their permission for the use of historical material, notably to Messrs.  Charles Scribner's Sons ("African Game Trails," "Through the Brazilian Wilderness," "A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open," "The Rough Riders," and "Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter," all by Theodore Roosevelt); to The Macmillan Company ("Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography," "Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen," and "The Making of an American," by Jacob A.  Riis; "Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man," by James Morgan); to Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's Sons ("Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," " The Wilderness Hunter," "The Naval War of 1812," "Addresses and Messages," "American Ideals," "The Strenuous Life," and "African and European Addresses," all by Theodore Roosevelt); to The George H.  Doran Company ("Pear God and Take Your Own Part" and "The Foes of Our Own Household," by Theodore Roosevelt); to The Century Company ("Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," by Theodore Roosevelt); to Messrs.  Dodd, Mead & Company ("The Many-sided Roosevelt," by George William Douglas); to Messrs.  D.  Appleton & Company ("The Man Roosevelt," by Francis E.  Leupp); to TheHoughton Mifflin Company ("Theodore Roosevelt The Logic of His Career," by Charles G.  Washburn; "The Life of John Hay," by William Roscoe Thayer; and "Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt," by John Burroughs); to Messrs.  A.  C.  McClurg 6" Company ("From Rough Rider to President," by Max Kullnick, translated from the German); to The G.  W.  Dillingham Company ("The Rough Riders," by Edward Marshall); to Messrs.  B.  W.  Dodge & Company ("The Roosevelt That I Know," by Mike: Donovan); to The Chappie Publishing Company ("From the Jungle Through Europe with Roosevelt," by John Callan O'Laughlin); to Messrs.  John W.  Luce & Company ("Theodore Roosevelt as an Undergraduate," by Donald Wilhelm); to The Review of Reviews Company ("A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career," by Albert Shaw).  To the publishers, but above all to the authors of these books, and of certain magazine articles, one by Lincoln Steffens in McClures', another by O.  K.  Davis in Munsey's, the author of "The Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt" gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness. 
H.    H. 
SUNNY TOP FARM FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT
August 15, 1918. 

TO  THE  TEACHER
The publication of this book in a school edition is for you an opportunity and a challenge; an opportunity to put into the hands of your students the best revelation to boys and girls of the qualities which made one of our greatest Americans what he was; to help them discover that it is possible to put into practice in the world of politics the highest and noblest of ideals; to help them to apprehend the obligation which lies upon every one of them, boys and girls alike, to "Fear God and Take Your Own Part. " A challenge to find a place in your course for a book that is modern and American, and full of matters vital to the children of today and the citizens of tomorrow; to find a place for it even at the expense of displacing some book reflecting some other age and some foreign civilization, which may seem hard to part with because custom has made it sacred, though its message may be thin and meaningless to your students.  A challenge to you to realize that it is the obligation of the teacher of high school literature to reveal to the minds in his care not literature in a vacuum, but literature as an expression of American tradition and contemporary American life; literature which shall make clear American conditions and problems, develop a comprehension of American ideals, and create in the student a sense of individual responsibility as a citizen of our American democracy. 

I have tried to put into this edition helps and suggestions which will aid in fixing attention upon Roosevelt's characteristics; upon the social, political, and economic conditions of the years during which he lived; upon the problems which he faced, and upon his reaction to those conditions and his solution of those problems.  These helps and suggestions will, I believe, encourage the utmost of oral and written self-expression concerning these matters. 

Study of the sort here suggested may not be traditional, but it is vital, it is interesting, and it is effective far beyond the more traditional sort; and most important of all, it is at the same time the most Americanizing sort. 
As this book is put into your hands you need have no doubt that you will find it a most interesting and profitable one to read.  Its subject is the life story of a sickly boy who grew up to manhood eagerly and intensely desiring to become a man who could do things.  He succeeded so well that during much of the time between the beginning of his work as civil service commissioner in 1889, and his death in 1919, newspapers great and small had to keep prominent headlines about him and his doings and his sayings and prominent cartoons of him constantly before the people so eager were they to learn what "Teddy" had last done or said.  He succeeded so well that he came to be loved by most and hated by many for reasons that you will discover more intensely perhaps than any other man in our history except Lincoln.  He succeeded so well that by common consent he is named with Washington and Lincoln as one of the men who have done most to make this vast country of ours what it is today. 

How this could be accomplished by one who as a boy was a weakling puny, near-sighted, a chronic sufferer from asthma is one of the most interesting things about this man's most interesting life-story.  You may find it hard to believe now, but I think Mr. Hagedorn shows you that, as Mr.  Roosevelt himself believed, he was a man of only average abilities, who, however, had certain traits of character because of which he became so great. 

"I am not a genius," said Roosevelt, on one occasion.  "I am only a man of ordinary capabilities, extraordinarily developed. "

It was the purposefulness of his life and his un-swerving determination to accomplish his purpose that enabled him to climb so high.  Whether he was chasing a butterfly as a boy of fourteen on the banks of the Nile, or delivering an address in Milwaukee with a would-be assassin's bullet in his breast, it was the same trait of character which lay behind his action.  You will find this to be one of the keys to an acquaintance with Roosevelt such as I hope you and your teacher will gain.  And it is the same thing that wins debates and battles and football games and all other kinds of life battles. 

You and I and our friends are the victims of many conditions from which we should like to be free.  Taxes and prices are frequently high.  Wages seem often inadequate.  The service of street-car and railway companies is often unsatisfactory.  Our city, state, and national governments are often managed by men who do not serve us as they should.  Our courts are slow in giving us justice, and our judges often decide cases in favor of the privileged interests.  (You'll discover the meaning of that term as you read this book. ) These, and many other things that ought not to be so, make life much less happy and comfortable than it might be.  Now if all those who have a part to play in governing us, or if even comparatively few of those in the highest positions thought of government as Roosevelt did, and did their best as he did to put their ideas into practice, we should all be vastly better off.  Hagedorn again and again speaks of this conception of government that Roosevelt had, and tells you how Roosevelt tirelessly, determinedly, unselfishly, and fearlessly worked to make the government of New York City, later of New York State, and still later of the United States, what he thought it ought to be.  I hope and believe that you will be able to discover just what Roosevelt's idea on this matter was, and to discover how he tried to work out his idea.  And I think you ought to talk among yourselves and with your teacher about whether city, state, and national officials and legislators of your time are trying to give us the kind of government that Roosevelt was trying to give us. 

There is another way in which Roosevelt was different from many legislators and officials.  It is in the fact that Mr.  Lodge and Mr.  Murray both mention in the brief paragraphs they have addressed to you.  He believed that if a certain man ought to be appointed or elected to a certain office or ought not, if a certain law ought to be passed or ought not, if a certain reform ought to be brought about or prevented, if a certain war ought to be brought to an end or another brought about, the quickest and most effective way to bring it about was to get the people to thinking and talking about it.  That is the greatest reason, perhaps, why the newspapers couldn't keep him off their front pages.  The people were so interested in what Roosevelt was doing for them and saying to them that they simply would not buy papers that did not print cartoons, headlines, news articles, and editorials telling them of Roosevelt.  Watch for evidence of this in Hagedorn's book, and you will find it one of the most interesting things about Roosevelt. 

"What Theodore Roosevelt was trying to do," said his friend, Henry Cabot Lodge, in the eulogy he delivered in the Senate after Colonel Roosevelt's death, "was to strengthen American society and American government by demonstrating to the American people that he was aiming at a larger economic equality and a more generous industrial opportunity for all men, and that any combination of capital or of business which threatened the control of the government by the people who made it was to be curbed and resisted, just as he would have resisted an enemy who tried to take possession of the city of Washington. 

"Theodore Roosevelt's power and the main source of all his achievement was not in the offices which he held, for those offices were to him only opportunities, but in the extraordinary hold which he established and retained over great bodies of men.  He had the largest personal following ever attained by any man in our history, and the fact that he had it and what he did with it for the welfare of his fellow men have given him his great place and his lasting fame. "

"He was closer to the plain people not alone in    this country, but throughout the world," said "Joe" Murray, who guided Roosevelt's first steps in the political world, "than any other man that ever lived.  He knew no fear, except the fear of doing wrong. "

Mr.  Hagedorn has succeeded in his book in giving you a wonderfully clear conception of Roosevelt, but he has made it more than a picture of the man.  He has made it also a wonderfully clear picture of the United States of Roosevelt's time, with all its social, economic, and political conditions and problems.  This, too, you should get as completely as possible into your mind, because you don't know Roosevelt or understand his services and his worth to our people until you do see him against this background.  You ought, before you begin your reading, to read a brief sketch of the history of the period during which Roosevelt was President.  I doubt if you can find a better one than that in Muzzey's History of the United States, pages 591-609. 

There hangs before me upon my study wall a picture labeled "In the Land He Loved. " In the foreground, clad in a hunting suit, standing out against the background of the Yosemite Falls in the distance, is Roosevelt.  How expressive of one side of this man: of his love of the limitless, free, wild out-of-doors, with its pure air, its mountains, streams, and forest, and its wild life.  And if you will turn to the frontispiece of this volume, you will find a picture taken while Roosevelt was President, that expresses another side of this man: his love of justice and the "square deal," his dedication to the service of the people, his love of a fair fight for the right.  And now as I remember that the last great fight to which he gave himself and his was that against our ruthless foe of a few short years ago, and that he was engaged in this struggle the last thing before lying down to sleep the sleep during which he answered the last great summons, there come to my mind these lines from Browning's "Prospice":
Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe; Where he stands, The Arch Fear, in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall, Tho' a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.  I was ever a fighter, so one fight more,
The best and the last!
How beautifully do these lines express the spirit with which Roosevelt flung himself into every struggle; even the "last. "

Hermann Hagedorn was known to a narrow circle as a writer of verse and fiction before the success of his Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt gained him a wider public.  He was born in 1882 and graduated from Harvard in 1907, making his first impression in the world of letters with his class poem, "A Troop of the Guard," which was widely reprinted.  He has published eight or ten books, including three books of verse, a number of novels, a poetical play for young people entitled "The Heart of Youth," and an appeal to the boys and girls of America, called "You Are the Hope of the World. " It was Mr.  Roosevelt himself who selected him to be his interpreter to the coming generations, and The Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt, published just before Colonel Roosevelt's death, won the great American's warm approval.  Mr.  Hagedorn is now secretary of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, and director of the Bureau of Roosevelt Research.  His most important historical work, entitled Roosevelt in the Bad Lands, dealing with Mr.  Roosevelt's ranching days, has just been published under the auspices of the Association. 
From a resolution drafted by Hermann Hagedorn and adopted by the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America at its annual meeting in March, 1919:

He was found faithful over a few things and he was made ruler over many; he cut his own trail clean and straight and millions followed him toward the light. 

He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength.  He was timid; he made himself a lion of courage.  He was a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all time. 

Men put their trust in him; women found a champion in him; kings stood in awe of him, but children made him their playmate. 

He broke a nation's slumber with his cry, and it rose up.  He touched the eyes of blind men with a flame that gave them vision.  Souls became swords through him; swords became servants of' God. 

He was loyal to his country and he exacted loyalty; he loved many lands, but he loved his own land best. 

He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak; joyous and tireless, being free from self-pity; clean with a cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale. 

His courtesy knew no wealth, no class; his friendship no creed or code or race.  His courage stood every onslaught of savage beast and ruthless man, of loneliness, of victory, of defeat. 

His mind was eager, his heart was true, his body and spirit defiant of obstacles, ready to meet what might come.  He fought injustice and tyranny; bore sorrow gallantly; loved all nature, bleak spaces and hardy companions, hazardous adventure and the zest of battle.  Wherever he went he carried his own pack; and in the uttermost parts of the earth he kept his conscience for his guide. 

I believe in honesty, sincerity, and the square deal; in making up one's mind what to do and doing it. 
I believe in fearing God and taking one's own part. 
I believe in hitting the line hard when you are right. 
I believe in speaking softly and carrying a big stick. 
I believe in hard work and honest sport. 
I believe in a sane mind in a sane body. 
I believe we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people. 

 
The Boys' Life of
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
PROLOGUE
THIS is a book for boys and girls, for tomboys and for men. 

Sentimentalists and slackers and folk who serve two masters will find nothing in it to appeal to them.  But lovers of heroic tales will find the story, if not the telling of it, music and honey to their hearts so long as there is the need of intrepid fighters for right and justice in this world and that will be a long time. 

The story of Theodore Roosevelt is the story of a small boy who read about great men and decided that he wanted to.  be like them.  He had vision, he had will, he had persistence, and he succeeded.  What the final historical estimate of Theodore Roosevelt will be we do not know.  We only know that when he died he was known not only to Americans, but to the people of the four corners of the earth, as one of the world's greatest men.  He was not a second Washington.  He was not a second Lincoln.  He was not a second Andrew Jackson.  He was not a second anybody.  He was Theodore Roosevelt, himself, unique.  There has never been anybody like him in the past, and, though the world wait a long while, there will never be any one like him in the future. 

For he had something of the Prophet Ezekiel in him and something of Natty Bumppo, something of Hildebrand the valiant warrior, something of Olaf the seaking, something of Cromwell, something of Charlemagne.  He belongs to the Heroic Line, and we need not ask what those grand fellows would have thought of him. 

For eight years before he died Theodore Roosevelt was beaten in every political campaign he entered.  During those years he made '' mistakes'' that would have killed and buried twelve ordinary public men.  He was placed on the shelf as a mummy a half-dozen times, yet, to the end, every word he spoke was "news"; and when he went to a health farm and lost fourteen pounds, the newspapers carried the tidings, column long, on the front page, because they knew that the least thing that happened to "T.  R. " was more interesting to the average American citizen than a diplomatic secret or a battle.  He was more conspicuous in retirement than most of our Presidents have been under the lime-light of office. 

For Theodore Roosevelt was the epitome of the Great Hundred Million; the visible, individual expression of the American people in this first quarter of the twentieth century.  He was the typical American.  He had the virtues we like to call American, and he had the faults.  He had energy, enterprise, chivalry, insatiable eagerness to know things, trust in men, idealism, optimism, fervor; some intolerance; vast common sense; deep tenderness with children; single-minded fury in battle.  He had the gift of quick decision; a belief in cutting through if you couldn't satisfactorily go around; real respect for the other fellow as long as he was straight, and immeasurable contempt for him if he was crooked or a quitter; love of fair play, of hardship, of danger, of a good fight in a good cause.  A level-headed winner, a loser who could grin, his glory was not that he was extraordinary, but that he was so complete an expression of the best aspirations of the average American.  He was the fulfiller of our good intentions; he was the doer of the heroic things we all want to do and somehow don't quite manage to accomplish. 
~
 He knew us and we knew him.  He was human, he was our kind, and, being our kind, his successes and his fame were somehow our successes and our fame likewise. 

There is something magical about that.  You can no more explain it than you can explain Theodore Roosevelt.  And you cannot explain him any more than you can explain electricity or falling in love. 

You can only tell his story, which we will now proceed to do.