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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. 

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CHAPTER 1 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.
A   BOY  ARRIVES  AND  DISCOVERS  THE  WORLD
IN those days church spires were still the most conspicuous features in the skyline of New York.  Old Trinity still looked down upon the roofs of Wall Street, instead of craning its neck, looking up at them, as today.  Grace Church, huddled and hidden among dry-goods stores and glove factories at Broadway and Eleventh Street, in those days pleasantly dominated a dignified neighborhood of stately residences, where the "best families" lived on the borders of Washington Square. 

Canal Street was the northern boundary of the city's business section.  Ladies (in crinolines) went to Maiden Lane for their furs; to Park Row and Barclay Street for their dresses.  The newest hotel, the St.  Nicholas, gorgeous beyond description, according to the guidebooks of the time, stood at the corner of Spring Street and Broadway. 

"I remember," said the Garrulous Old Party we used to know "I remember when Gramercy Park was 'way up-town. "

That was in the 'fifties.   New York was in its 'teens in those days.  There were trees on Broadway, but no cable-cars.  There were not even horse-cars.  Those ambling conveyances, known grandly as the Harlem Railroad, were confined to the side avenues Third, Sixth, and Eighth.  Up Broadway and up Fifth Avenue lumbered innumerable omnibuses. 

It was a small New York compared with the metropolis of today.  But there were dust and bustle even then.  Old-timers complained that life was becoming all hurry and confusion, and indignant citizens wrote to newspapers, asking whether a fare on the horse-car did not entitle one to a seat.  The New York Fire Department about this time resolved, "if possible, to procure a steam fire engine" and to build an engine-house "somewhere between Bleecker Street and Fourteenth. "

New York was young, but it was beginning to grow up. 

The Republic, too, was young, for all its eighty years; but it, too, was growing and its growing pains were sharp.  The 'fifties were a tempestuous and bitter decade that began with Clay's Compromise, which was supposed to settle the slavery question but settled nothing, and ended with the election of Lincoln, which in due time settled a great many things.  Those intervening ten years were years of ferment.  There was gold in California; there were "Avenging Angels" in Utah; there was fire-and-sword in Kansas.  Everywhere was unrest.  Agitators abounded.  Abolitionists, woman suffragists, social reformers of every variety, preachers, lyceum lecturers, held forth as they never held forth before and have never held forth since.  Spiritualistic mediums flourished.  Fugitive slaves were snatched from their legal captors and spirited away with a blessing.  "Society," in New York, in Saratoga, in Newport, danced and dined with a reckless extravagance unheard of in this Puritan Republic. 

The 'fifties began with the hope, expressed by North as well as South, by Democrats as well as Whigs, that the slavery issue was settled, to be agitated no more.  But by 1854 the new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, had rekindled the sleeping fires.  On the plains of Kansas and in the halls of Congress the struggle drifted nearer and nearer civil war.  In the Congressional elections of 1858 came the first real test of strength of the Republicans' new anti-slavery party.  That summer, here and there through Illinois, Lincoln debated with Douglas, clarified the issues and, by skilful questioning, made Douglas commit himself to doctrines that turned the South against him without gaining him the support of the North. 

The campaign drew to a close.  On October isth Lincoln and Douglas, at Alton, held their last debate.  On the 25th, at Rochester, Seward made his famous "irrepressible conflict" speech. 

On October 26th, in New York City, Tammany Hall, as always on the wrong side, enthusiastically indorsed President Buchanan with booming of guns, music, a bonfire, and a half-empty house.  On the 28th Gen.  Jefferson Davis left Washington after an extended stay in the North, "charmed with his Northern tour," we read, "and with many of his ideas of Northern people changed. "

On the same day, or thereabouts, Grant, a failure and sick with fever and ague on his farm near St.  Louis, sold out his stock, his crops, and his farming utensils and gave up farming. 

On November 3d was Election Day. 
Meanwhile, in the midst of the shouting and the excitement of the last days of the campaign, on October 2yth, 1858, at 28 East Twentieth Street, New York, Theodore Roosevelt was born. 

The baby in Twentieth Street was two days old when a fusion meeting, of men of many parties opposed to the drifting policy of the Democratic Administration, was held, a dozen blocks south of where he lay, staring with curious eyes at the ceiling and four walls of the world he had just entered.  That meeting would have rejoiced his soul. 

Hear the words of the presiding officer: "Suffrage is universal.  The duty to exercise it is universal.  The consequences of neglecting it, by men of right principles, are bad government, dishonest and incompetent public men, general corruption of the public morals, and national disgrace.  In our elections neutrality and inactivity are a treason against popular government. "

They are ringing words, and it seems almost as though some spirit must have borne them from Astor Place to Twentieth Street and whispered them in the ears of the Roosevelts' new baby.  For they constitute, curiously enough, the very message which that baby, twenty three years later, and thereafter, in season and out of season, was to din into the ears of the American people. 

Whether a spirit actually did do anything as interesting and important as that, we do not know.  In any event, the baby showed no signs of it.  He looked around in what was to him the vvorld and, very much as other babies, began to take certain persons and certain landmarks into his consciousness. 

It is safe to say that for some time his mother engaged most of his attention.  She was a beautiful woman, a Southerner, whom Theodore Roosevelt the elder had married in Georgia four or five years before, when she was Martha Bulloch.  Her people had originally come from Scotland, though there was a strain of Huguenot and English blood in her veins, and had settled in Sunbury, Georgia, about the middle of the seventeenth century.  Theodore Roosevelt had met her at the wedding of a friend who had married her half-sister at Roswell, the Bulloch plantation and summer home, in the uplands near Atlanta.  He was himself as completely of the North as his wife was of the South, a member of an old Dutch family whose men had been bankers, aldermen, merchants, and solid citizens in New York City since the days when it was Nieuw Amsterdam and had five hundred inhabitants.  His ancestor, Klaes Martenszoon van Rosenvelt, arriving in 1644, had stepped into the middle of the colony's first political upheaval.  The burghers, it seemed, objected to the autocratic rule of Kieft, the governor-general, and wanted representation.  It is noteworthy that they got it.  In the veins of Theodore Roosevelt the elder flowed the blood of fighting freemen, not only Dutch, for there was a Puritan of Cromwell's generation among his ancestors, to say nothing of certain Welsh and English Quakers peace loving, but no pacifistsa number of Scotch-Irish, an Irishman or two, and certain Germans who fled to America in the latter half of the seventeenth century and founded Germantown-men and women, all of them, who loved liberty and refused to be oppressed. 

Theodore Roosevelt the elder had inherited a respected name, a certain tradition of public service, and a moderate fortune.  When his son Theodore was born he was already an established glass merchant in New York, with an office on Maiden Lane and a spacious house to live in a man who, in spite of his fortune and the extravagance and frivolity of the society into which he had been born, was, at the age of twenty-eight, already making a place for himself in New York.  He was a vigorous and courageous man, yet extraordinarily tender, gentle, and unselfish, with a gift for making friends and keeping them.  His range of friends was unusual, for among them were bankers and newsboys, ambassadors and down-and-outers, society folk who rode to hounds and little Italians who went to Miss Sattery's night-school.  At twenty-eight he already had, besides his business, endless interests, ranging from horses to philanthropy.  He entertained generously, though simply, for he himself loved good company, and his wife was an exquisite hostess and a witty and delightful companion.  He was a man who fulfilled his duties with the same zest with which he entertained his friends or drove a four-in-hand.  He took life with great seriousness, but he took it laughing, which means that to him all activity, however difficult, was a source of enjoyment; to him there was no such thing as a chore. 

Port Sumter was fired on when Theodore, Junior, was little more than a baby.  The war between North and South had been threatening for forty years, and yet, when it came, it came as a staggering surprise.  In the house on Twentieth Street the nation's tragedy was symbolized, for Theodore Roosevelt was as profoundly and whole-heartedly for the North as Martha Roosevelt was for the South.  Every fiber of him resented slavery and disunion; all her traditions, all her training, on the other hand, held her firmly to the belief that slavery was a sacred institution and secession a sacred right.  Her brother "Jimmy" and her brother Irvine, moreover, had both joined the Confederate navy.  Irvine was only sixteen when he went, and her mother, left alone at Roswell, had had to come North with her other daughter to live with her Northern son-in-law.  To Martha Roosevelt they brought the very heart and soul of the South with them to the house on Twentieth Street. 

It is a testimony to the strength and fineness of their spirits and the depth of the affection they held for each other that Theodore Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch should each have kept their own convictions without wavering, and yet should have been able to live harmonioush7 together and make a home for their children, which, from all accounts, was singularly happy.  They were both blessed with a sense of humor; both wholesome-minded; neither of them given to morbid brooding.  They accepted the tragic situation in which they were placed as they accepted every other challenge of life, and, without sacrificing a particle of their convictions, defied misfortune.  There was fighting blood on both sides, but these two chose to strive against mischance rather than each other. 

The war, which came so poignantly near to his father and mother, passed over the head of the younger Theodore Roosevelt like a thunderstorm in the night.  In a sense, he slept through it.  He was two and a half when it broke out, too young to be conscious of the tenseness and distress in the house in Twentieth Street or the excitement on the streets.  He probably saw the soldiers go down Fifth Avenue, but they left no impression on his mind.  He had an elder sister, and by and by he had a younger brother and another sister.  In a stately house at Broadway and Fourteenth Street he had a grandfather, and roundabout in the neighborhood he had certain cousins.  His mother's mother, "the dearest of old ladies," and his mother's sister Anna lived in the house on Twentieth Street.  With his father and mother, a sister, and certain fascinating uncles, these made up his world, and for the time being the things they did were of vastly greater consequence to him than what a man named Lincoln was doing in Washington or a man named McClellan was failing to do on the Potomac. 
The younger Theodore Roosevelt was joyously unconscious of the bitter business that was engaging his country; but his father was not.  His father was in the midst of the war activities from the very be-ginning.  He would have made a good soldier, possibly a great soldier; and the active, physical life unquestionably appealed to one who, in a generation that was not given much to violent exercise, was devoted to outdoor sports, and who, while advising caution in others, was rather fond of taking risks himself.  He did not become a soldier, for family reasons which seemed to his acute sense of duty unanswerable; but he worked tirelessly at home to help build that bulwark of public support which is as essential to victory as soldiers and munitions and food.  He helped raise and equip several regiments, among them the first regiment of negroes; he helped to organize the Sanitary Commission and later the Union League, an organization formed in the face of Confederate military successes and political disaffection in the North, to stimulate and focus patriotic sentiment; he helped to organize and to carry on the Loyal Publication Society, which from time to time issued pamphlets aiming to make clear the issues of the war. 

Theodore Roosevelt the younger, just turned three, saw little of his father that first winter of the war.  For his father, having done what he could to send soldiers to the front, had by that time turned his attention to the care of the families they had left behind them.  In many cases these families were starving, and the money they should have received from the husband and father was going into the pockets of the sutlers and hangers-on of the army camps.  Theodore Roosevelt went to Washington with a bill to establish "allotment commissions" to transfer to each soldier's family the money he could spare to send them.  Congress passed the bill after a three months' fight.  Theodore Roosevelt was appointed head of the commission from New York, and through the early months of 1862 went from camp to camp, visiting each of the eighty regiments New York had in the field.  There were no limousines in those days.  In storm and mud and cold, the commissioners lived in the saddle all day, and at times half the night, through that bitter winter.  They were jeered at in camp and opposed at home, but they succeeded.  The soldiers agreed to co-operate, and in New York alone millions were saved for women and children who otherwise would have starved. 

The war went on.  New Orleans and Antietam were won; Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville were lost.  Victory came again with Gettysburg.  Slowly the tide turned in favor of the North.  And Theodore Roosevelt the younger, now aged four, underwent his first and only spanking. 

It happened this way.  For some reason or other not quite clear he had bitten his sister's arm.  This was a crime, he knew, and he fled forthwith to the back yard and thence to the kitchen, where the cook, who was Irish, was baking bread.  He seized a handful of dough (preparedness!) and crawled under the kitchen table.  A minute later his father entered from the yard, asking for Theodore.  The cook was warm-hearted, and compromised between "informing" and her conscience by casting a significant glance under the table.  The elder Theodore Roosevelt dropped on all fours and darted for the younger.  That fugitive from justice heaved the dough at him and bolted for the stairway.  He was caught halfway up and treated as on the whole he deserved. 

And with that important event Theodore Roosevelt the younger actively enters history. 

CHAPTER 2 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE  GROWS

WHILE Grant was hammering toward Richmond in the autumn of 1864 Theodore Roosevelt celebrated his sixth birthday.  He was now old enough to realize faintly that beneath the smooth surface of life in the house on Twentieth Street there ran cross-currents of divergent opinion which failed to wreck the happiness of the household only because of the calm good sense and mutual affection of his father and mother.  Mrs.  Roosevelt, her sister Anna, and their mother, Mrs.  Bulloch, were as fervently for the South in 1864 as they had been in 1861.  Mr.  Roosevelt was as ardently a Lincoln Republican.  Mrs.  Roosevelt, moreover, was no more than her husband one to support a cause half-heartedly or only with words.  Surreptitiously, at intervals, boxes were packed with certain necessities which were becoming increasingly rare in the South.  The Roosevelt children were permitted to help, and found it a thrilling experience, made more thrilling still by the admonition that their father (who probably knew all about it, anyway, and agreed to pretend that he didn't) must not be told of it.  There were hints of blockade-runners who should bear these boxes to aunts and uncles in Savannah; and promptly Theodore the younger invented a game wherein he was the blockade (on one of the bridges over the bridle-paths in Central Park) and various boys and girls, mostly cousins, were the runners.  It is noteworthy that he took the Union side even there.  He was an ardent and vociferous Northerner.  Once, in fact, when he felt that he had been wronged by maternal discipline, he took vengeance on his mother by praying at her knee with loud fervor for the success of the Union arms.  His mother, it appears, had a sense of humor and was much amused, though she warned him not to repeat the offense, under penalty of being reported to the head of the family. 

The war ended.  A gigantic struggle, which had almost shattered the splendid dream of the founders of the Republic, had broken out, raged for four years, and subsided.  To Theodore Roosevelt the younger it was just a rumbling in the distance, and, now and then, a source of self-questioning why his father should look this way or his mother should act that way.  The rumblings ceased, the questionings were forgotten.  There came possibly an exciting echo of both when Uncle Jimmy, whose real name was James Dunwoodie Bulloch and who had been a Captain in the Confederate navy, came on a stealthy visit with his brother Irvine to see the sister who had married Theodore Roosevelt.  They came under assumed names, for they were noteworthy people and had been excepted from the general amnesty extended to those who had taken up arms against the Union.  Uncle Jimmy had in an English port built the famous Confederate sea-raider Alabama, long the terror of Northern shipping; Uncle Irvine had, as a midshipman, fired the last gun discharged from her batteries in the fight with the Kearsarge.  As far as young Theodore was concerned, they were like shadows that came and were gone. 

He was living his own life in his own small world.  That world consisted practically of nothing but the house on East Twentieth Street and the house next door and the two yards (made into one); but as far as it went it was interesting and full of things to thrill an inquisitive boy.  His father's brother Robert lived in No.  26.  Both houses had wide porches to the rear, overlooking their own yards and the gardens of the Goelet mansion on Nineteenth Street, and were the playground in which the children were deposited daily in "piazza clothes" to romp to their hearts' content.  Uncle Robert's
house was quite extraordinarily interesting, for Uncle Robert's wife had a taste for animals of various kinds, domestic and otherwise.  She had for a brief but exciting period kept a cow in the back yard (brought thither through the basement and the kitchen); but the neighbors did not encourage her attempt at city dairying and the cow was forced to depart in the way that she had come.  There were other, less placid animals on the piazzas and the upper floors.  There were parrots and pheasants and peacocks and other birds of beautiful plumage,
and on the lower piazza was a monkey that terrified the children of No.  28. 

Theodore Roosevelt the elder believed in work, but he believed quite as emphatically in play, and Theodore the younger was an enthusiastic play-boy from the start.  His elder sister, whom he called "Bamie," was now ten years old, a mature little lady, and from his point of view (and from hers) practically grown up.  She associated mainly with her parents.  Theodore's closest companions were his brother Elliott, known as Ellie, and his younger sister, Corinne, known as Conie.  There was another who began a. t this date to figure largely in his life.  This was a friend of Conie's who lived next to their grandfather's house on Union Square.  She was three years old, a daughter, six weeks older than Conie, of a friend of Mrs.  Roosevelt's; and her name was Edith Kermit Carow.  From all accounts she was a nice little girl and she liked Theodore, and included him in games of "house" from which Ellie was excluded.  He was a delicate boy, and he had a gentle way with him which Conie and Edith, who were rather little, gratefully appreciated. 

Theodore was the undisputed king of the nursery, even though Ellie and Conie, as they grew, developed into the most "rambunctious" of wild Indians and he himself remained delicate and to all intents and purposes a chronic invalid.  Almost from babyhood he had suffered from asthma; for years he could sleep only in a sitting posture.  But he was a patient youngster who bore pain and the thoughtless lack of consideration of the other children with unusual self-control and forbearance.  He dominated his suffering from the beginning, reading and playing and telling stories in spite of it.  His stories were magical, and enthralled Ellie and Conie and Edith and the various cousins who gathered in the nursery to listen.  They were all about the wonderful adventures of people who lived in trees and deep forests, and were always "continued in our next," sometimes for months on end, never reaching a conclusion. 

It was a small world in which he lived a quiet, proper world with few rough corners.  Most boys spend their first half-dozen years in narrow worlds such as his, but at six they go to school and immediately the world for them expands, taking in countless new individuals each with his  own particular circle.  Except for a few months at Professor McMullen's academy on Twentieth Street, within a stone's throw of the house where he lived, Theodore did not go to school.  Because of the frailness of his body, he was given no opportunity to experience the sharp contact with boys of all ages  which school offers.  His mind, moreover, was not fed with the varied interests that occupy large groups of boys, working and playing together.    It turned hungrily, therefore, to the world  of the imagination and the world of books.  

Theodore's imaginative mind, which made him so wonderful a story-teller and so satisfactory a playmate to Conie and Edith in their games of make-believe, was a source of vivid delight, but also occasionally of acute terror.  There was the adventure with that man-eating monster called the "zeal," for instance. 

    It happened one day that he was playing tag in Madison Square, just three blocks north of Twentieth Street, a pleasant park for children in those days, a mile or more away from the business section of the city and as quiet as a side-street in Brooklyn.  A Presbyterian church stood on the east side of the square and he drifted toward it, drawn irresistibly by the spirit of adventure.  It was Saturday.  The sexton was airing the building, and the front portal was open.  Theodore peered curiously, but cautiously, in. 

"Step inside," said the sexton, hospitably. 

"No, thank you," answered Theodore. 

"Why not?"

The boy hesitated.  "I know what you've got in there," he said, at last. 

The sexton was amused.  '' I haven't got anything that little boys shouldn't see," he said, encouragingly.  "Come on in and look around. "

Theodore cast a glance around the pews and galleries.  The spirit of adventure was struggling within him with timidity.  But timidity won.  "No, I I'd rather not," he said, and he ran over to the park again. 
But adventure called.  The open church fascinated him and he returned to it again and again.  But he did not enter. 

He told his mother about the hospitable sexton. 

"Why didn't you go in?" she asked. 

He was shy about explaining.  Possibly he was shy about exposing his timidity.  But after a little urging he reluctantly admitted that he had been afraid lest the "zeal" should jump out at him from some pew or other hiding-place in the shadowy church. 

"The zeal?" his mother asked.  "What on earth do you mean by the zeal?"

"Why," explained Theodore, "I suppose it is some big animal like a dragon or an alligator.  I went there to church last Sunday with Uncle Robert, and I heard the minister read from the Bible about the zeal, and it made me afraid. "

Mrs.  Roosevelt turned to the Concordance, and one after another read the texts that contained the word "zeal. " Suddenly Theodore's eyes grew big as he exclaimed, excitedly:

"That's it the last you read. "

It was from the Psalms, "For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. "

Theodore, those days, was not taking any chances. 
Life, on the whole, was not an undiluted joy for the youngster in East Twentieth Street.  Time and again his asthma kept him awake half the nights, coughing and trying to breathe.  In those sessions of pain his father was his most devoted companion, and night after night would walk up and down the room with the boy in his arms, or, in summer, take him driving for miles through the countryside in the dead of night.  It was possibly in those nocturnal vigils that the boy's affection for his father deepened into a devotion which the passage of time only strengthened. ^

. Theodore Roosevelt the elder was a man, if there ever was one, to stir a boy of seven or eight to devoted admiration.  He was now thirty-five, tall, stalwart, bearded, with the gentleness of a woman and the courage, energy, and simple heartedness of a backwoodsman; a man-of-universal feeling who touched every side of life, Aunt Anna Bulloch used to say that when lie talked with his children he reminded her of Greatheart in Bunyan.  He was, with all his bigness, very human.  He passionately loved a good time and "he could dance till he was dead. " A boy could cuddle up to him, moreover, and pick his pockets when he came home from business in the evening, confident that he would find something put there to be discovered, though it were such a strange matter as a sick kitten, found whimpering somewhere on the way home.  Theodore the younger was a born hero worshiper.  Delicate boys often are, especially if they have imagination.  It was, therefore, of the greatest moment to the growth of his character that he should have lived those early years so intimately close to a man of such unquestionably heroic stature. 

His father was his first and remained his greatest hero; but he began to read early, and, from his reading, to enlist a company of valiant characters who became the inspiration of his day-dreams and the leaders in his imaginary adventures.  Doctor Livingstone's Travels and Researches was probably the first "grown-up" book that he read, and he must have been very small when he read it, for it is recorded that he was in kilts and could hardly drag the heavy volume from place to place.  The adventures of this intrepid Englishman explorer, naturalist, and apostle of Christ woke his imagination.  Vague and unformed aspirations to be an explorer and naturalist himself, and to carry the light into dark, barbaric places, stirred in him.  He turned to Mayne Reid for further instruction in natural history and for adventures even more thrilling than Livingstone's.  His father, seeing the trend of his interests, placed before him sound and scientific books.  Meanwhile, simultaneously with Conie and Edith, he discovered Our Young Folks, best of children's magazines, and devoured Cast Away in the Cold, Grandfather's Struggle for a Homestead, and other thrilling boy and girl stories which taught no lessons in natural history, but unobtrusively emphasized certain ideals of manly conduct to which his father was, in his friendly way, constantly calling his attention. 

Cooper, too, became a source of more than excited interest.  With Natty Bumppo began his acquaintance with the American pioneer, the hard and narrow, but intrepid, indomitable, self-reliant, fighting frontiersman, the man who clears the forest and, having cleared it, pushes westward into deeper forests, saying little and imagining that he is only carving out his own daily existence, even while he is carving out a nation.  Boone and Dave Crockett joined King Olaf and Morgan's riflemen in that heroic company which inhabited his imaginings. 

Theodore the younger was during those early years primarily an indoor boy, bright as a new dollar, persistent as a mosquito on a summer night when he wanted information, but sickly and nervous much of the time, with good intentions, a will of his own and plenty of dreams, but with no more conception than any other boy of his age of the relation of dreams to accomplishment.  He loved to think about great men; vaguely he wanted some day to be like them; he wanted certainly to be like his father.  Meanwhile, he was a nice little boy who liked books and animals and enjoyed playing with Conie and Edith. 
So much, in general, we know of Theodore Roosevelt, aged nine. 

At this point, now, the boy himself comes out of the past to tell us about himself.  He comes in the shape of a diary written in a cheap notebook.  He kept it in Barrytown, up the Hudson, the summer before he was ten years old.  For twelve days he kept it steadily; then came a break of three days, then another break of nine; then two more attempts; then silence.  He was old enough to feel the need of keeping a diary, but he did not yet have the strength of will to persist at it.  He was very much like other boys of nine, "going on ten. "

In that diary, written (rather badly) for his own interest and intended for no prying eyes, we see Theodore Roosevelt as he truly was that summer before he was ten.  And what he was was just a boy, wholesome, active, loving the things boys love  meadows and brooks and ponies and birds' nests and fishes and candy.  He had a sorrel Shetland pony, named General Grant (after whom, Conie vaguely suspected, the President had been named), a lovable quadruped with the queer habit of always throwing off his rider once as a preliminary to a pleasant morning ride.  With him he rode the highways and byways. 

"I had a ride of six miles before breakfast," he writes one day in August.  "I will always have a ride of six miles before breakfast now. "

There was evidently endless variety to the life, for there is a record of cousins and uncles and friends coming and going.  On the day he began his journal a "Munday" he states that "The first fig of our garden was eatten that evening and uncle Jimmie left us that evening also. " Two departures in a day! A certain Dora came, a certain Annie left.  "My coussin Jimmie arrived and brought me a christal and some stones from Niagra falls.  We played Fort the rest of the day. " Altogether it was an exciting life. 

But it was not altogether a play season.  There is a significant entry under date of August 15th: "All the morning I played store and 'baby. ' In the afternoon I wrote, read and drew.  That afternoon I received a continuence of Washington's life. " The boy who was playing "kid's games" in the mornings, it seems, was beginning to put in some solid reading of two and three volume biographies in the afternoons. 

It was this same summer that Theodore Roosevelt began to take his nature studies with great seriousness.  The immediate stimulus had been the discovery of a dead seal, lying on exhibition in the market on Broadway to which he was occasionally sent before breakfast to buy strawberries.  The seal, which he was told had been caught in the harbor, thrilled his soul with memories of romantic tales of Mayne Reid and others.  Day after day, as long as the seal remained, he haunted the market.  With great earnestness he even measured the seal.  The fact that he did not have a tape measure to determine its girth did not deter him.  He used a folding pocket rule instead, making a careful record of the measurements.  He had for a time a wild ambition of owning and preserving that seal.  That ambition was frustrated.  He did, however, procure the skull, and on the strength of it promptly started the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History" with two of his cousins. 

Scientific investigation took on a keener interest, with the Museum as a background, and Theodore determined to write a book.  He wrote it in a notebook which was an exact twin of the one in which he conducted his diary.  One suspects that he bought both at the same time "two for five. "

The title of the book is on the first page: '' Natural history on insects.  By Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. " Under it comes the "Preface":

"All these insects are native of North America, Most of the insects are not in other books. 

"I will write about ants first. "

He did, and what he has to say about them is decidedly entertaining.  "Ants are difided into three sorts for every species.  These kinds are officer, soilder and work.  There are about one officer to ten soilders and one soilder to two workers. " He tells about the common black ant and the brown path ant and various other kinds of ants; he tells about spiders and lady bugs and fireflies and horned "beetlles" and dragon-flies and "misqueto" hawks.  "All the insects that I write about in this book,'' he adds, '' inhabbit North America.  Now and then a friend has told me something about them but mostly I have gained their habbits from of servation. ''

The reader is left in suspense concerning the particularly vicious "habbits" he may have gained from them by "ofserv-a-tion. "

The author of "Natural history on insects" adds to his volume a note or two on fishes.  There is something finely simple about his description of a crayfish.  "I need not' describe the form of the crayfish to you," he writes.  "Look at a lobster and you have its form. " The minnow is dismissed with one or two generalities: "The minnow is found in brooks in the same parts as the crayfish and eel.  It eats worms, catipallars, egg, bread, anything in fact.  It swims quite swiftly.  It is about seven inches long when full grown. "
There are several illustrations (by the author) in the book and at the close this personal note:

"P.  S.  My home is in North America.  All these stories were gained by observation. 

"Age.     Nine years.     Born 28th of October. "

The spelling in this "book" is picturesque, but the "ofservation," on the whole, is keen.  Theodore the younger was beginning, feebly, uncertainly, to express in action the faint stirrings of ambition which Livingstone's book had first awakened. 

CHAPTER 3 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE  GOES  ON HIS  TRAVELS AND LEARNS A THING OR TWO
MRS.  ROOSEVELT'S mother, Mrs.  Bulloch, most recklessly indulgent of grandmothers, died soon after the close of the war.  Anna Bulloch married.  The relief activities growing out of the war no longer demanded the elder Theodore Roosevelt's constant attention; his own business in Maiden Lane more or less ran itself.  Theodore Roosevelt, therefore, determined to take his family abroad for a year of travel through Europe.  They sailed from New York on the Scotia for Liverpool on May 12, 1869. 

Theodore Roosevelt the younger was ten and a half years old "a tall, thin lad, with bright eyes and legs like pipestems," as a fellow traveler on the Scotia years after described him.  To him a trip to Europe appeared very much as it would appear to most boys of ten and a half.  A trip to Africa or to China would have been a wild and glorious adventure.  Very few people went to either place, but everybody went to Europe.  A trip to Europe, therefore, was not an adventure at all.  It was a nuisance. 

He thought it was a nuisance the day he sailed, and he did not change his mind.  He was shown everything between the Trossachs and Vesuvius, but it made no difference.  Now and then some "sight" or other interested him mildly, but on the whole he showed himself utterly thick-skinned to every point of beauty or history.  This was curious in one who was as sensitive as he to impressions gained from books.  He was homesick the day he sailed and he continued to be homesick until the day he set foot again on American soil. 

We have the best of authorities for his daily doings and his state of mind during this unhappy year.  For, the day he sailed, he made another brave attempt to keep a diary.  His first attempt, the preceding summer, had not been very successful.  After twelve days that journal had petered out.  But in the intervening months Theodore's spine had evidently stiffened.  He kept his European diary, with scarcely a break, for eight months.  It reveals the pleasantest little boy imaginable. 

He was seasick on the way over, and in Europe was evidently ill much of the time, suffering from his old trouble, but he never complains, though, "I was sick of the Asthma last night," is a note that occurs again and again in the diary. 

The entry under date of June 26th is characteristic: "In the morning a doctor came to us and said my lungs were perfect.  In the afternoon we went to a riding-school and I was thrown. "

On September 26th he writes: "I was sick of the Asthma last night.  I sat up for 4 successive hours, and Papa made me smoke a cigar. "
At Munich, in October, he makes this entry: "In the night I had a nightmare dreaming that the devil was carrying me away and had collorer morbos (a sickness that is, not very dangerous) but Mama patted me with her delicate fingers"

Whether it was Theodore or the devil who had '' collorer morbos'' remains unsettled.  What is noteworthy in this entry, besides the unconscious humor of it, is the boy's charming reference to his mother.  Throughout this diary his attitude toward his parents is unusually tender.  He frankly resents their dragging him over Europe when he would much prefer to be home, but he takes pains to point out to himself that (according to their lights) they are trying to be good to him. 

He makes this entry at Vienna, on October 3d: "As I was not well Papa and I went to the country.  This excursion was in some respects similar to Hastings England.  There were only 2 of us.  I put myself to bed with noboddy in the room.  We had a nice walk alone, had Sunday school out, &c.  but I did not enjoy myself so much.  We got there just before dinner.  After it we walked in company with Papas friends (or as I thought them enemy) I having a miserable time (but it was not Fathers fault) untill we came home.  Then Papa and I went a long roam through the wood and had Sunday school in them.  I drew a church and I am now going to bed. "

A month or two later, at Dijon, he writes in much the same mood: "I was expecting a sociable evening and Mama tried to make it so, but Papa effectively stoped it by telling me a french friend which I must have when we come back to Paris and when I went to bed I cried for homesickness and a wish to get out of a land where friends (or as I think them enemys) who can not speak my language are forced on me. "

At that point it evidently occurred to him that he had possibly been not quite just to his father, for he closes the day's entry with the remark, "Papa and Mama both tried to make me have a sociable time. "

There is no question about his devotion to his father.  At Munich, he writes, "Papa, Mama, and Bamie went to an opera and Father was more handsome than I ever saw him. " Mr.  Roosevelt was evidently put to it at times to entertain his youthful and reluctant fellow-travelers, for on the train to Amsterdam, Theodore the younger relates: "Father told us such a nice story about a man who drowned his wife because his wife said his pants was cut with a scisor while he insisted that it was cut with a knife" the moral being that people who are stub-bornly fussy are likely-to come to a violent end. 

The "sights" of Europe made practically no impression whatever on Theodore or his younger brother and sister.  He scarcely mentions them, in fact.  "At Oxford," he writes, casually, "we drove around it and saw some colages. " The next day, he relates, "We went to Westminster Abbey and a man showed us the old tombs and all that round the church. " All he has to say of the Lake Country is a word concerning a climb at Windermere, "The view was splendid on the top and it was very windy and I bought a sweet cracker. "

Once there was a dramatic encounter, which Theodore records thus: "We went to our cousins school at Waterloo.  We had a nice time but met Jeff Davises son and some sharp words ensued. "

The thing that the Roosevelt children evidently enjoyed most, however, was exploring.  At York, Theodore writes: "Conie and I went alone to the museum where we saw birds and skeletons and Bamie and I went in for a spree and got two shillings worth of rock candy. " At Ouchy, "I took a walk around town investigating matters and petted a beautiful black pussey who as soon as I went away ran after me untill I peted her. " At Chamonix, "I found several specimens to keep and we went on the great glacier called ' Mother of ice. ''' (Theodore's French was a bit weak. ) "We explored the hotel (Conie, Ellie and I)," he continues, "and met with several cross chambermaids. "

"We saw a palace of the doges," he writes in Venice.  "It looks like a palace you could be comfortable and snug in (which is not usual) We went to another church in which Conie jumped over tombstones spanked me banged Ellies head &c. "

This sounds exciting, and one wonders with trepidation what unmentioned form of violence "&c" stands for; but glorious rough-houses of that sort were evidently few, in church or out. 

We are fortunate in having the vigorous Conie's own enlightening comment on the glories of Europe.  She, too, was writing a diary, though she was only eight, and here is the record of a day in Paris:

"I am so glad Mama has let me stay in the butiful hotel parlor while the poor boys have been dragged off to the orful picture galery. "

It was in November that the Roosevelts went to Paris, but Theodore the younger did not find the gay city any more attractive than Conie found it, for the asthma overcame him again and he had to stay in bed.  "I stayed in the house all day," he records on November 26th, "varying the day with brushing my hair, washing my hands and thinking in fact haveing a verry dull time. "

"Nov.  27.     I Did the same thing as yesterday. "

That does not sound exciting at all. 

All that year he corresponded off and on with Conie's friend, Edith Carow, aged eight.  "We boys and Conie have some boy and girl friends here," he writes from Rome, "and have quite a nice time but we want to get home.  We play soilder on the Pinchen Hill and Conie was bugler but is not now.  We have six soildiers.  I wont be captain because the soildiers sometimes rebel, and somehow the rebels always beat.  We rebel when the captain is to stern.  You are my most faithful correspondent.  Ever yours, T.  Roosevelt. "

In another letter he remains "Evere your loving friend. " In fact, during the time he was ill in Paris, "sick and in dull spirits," as he wrote her, he conceived a decidedly sentimental feeling for the little lady whose name he insisted for some reason on spelling "Eidieth. "

This is the diary's evidence under date of November 22d: "In the evening mama showed me the portrait of Eidieth Carow and her face stired up in me homesickness and longings for the past which will come again never aback never. "

With which romantic reflection we will close the record of Theodore Roosevelt's first journey through Europe. 

To Theodore, aged eleven, the beauties of Naples and Rome and Venice and the historic places even of England and Holland, the lands of his ancestors, were far less thrilling than the sight of a certain stuffed bird in the "departent of nests" in the museum in Vienna.  He had seen birds of that kind wild at home.  He had seen no "ancient monuments" or palaces, and he did not know what to make of them.  The fact is that he, who was precocious mentally, was in the matter of true understanding slow to develop.  He moved from discovery to discovery laboriously.  For him there were no leaps forward. 

Theodore, Ellie, and Conie returned to America in May, 1870, as blatantly confident that America was "God's country" and that Europe was a degenerate Old World which would shortly be kicked into outer darkness by the New as any three spread-eagle patriots who ever crossed the sea.  Theodore the younger returned joyously to his books and his bugs and the society of certain cousins whom he could safely regard as friends, since they spoke his language.  He went to school very little, or not at all, for his health was no better than it had been.  A succession of tutors injected into him the fundamentals of book-learning, while a growing intimacy with his father gave him the deeper education of the spirit. 

Father and son saw much of each other those years, especially in the summers which the Roosevelts spent within reach of New York, now at Madison, New Jersey, now at Dobbs Ferry on the Hudson, now at Barrytown, now somewhere else, each summer in a different place, in the hope that somewhere they would find a spot where Theodore the younger might be freed for a time from the agonies of his asthma.  Mr.  Roosevelt was immensely fond of driving a four-in-hand or a spike team that is, a pair with a third horse in the lead and, driving or riding, he liked to have his children at his side.  Apart from his recurring periods of illness never more than ten days apart the summers were a delight to Theodore.  He had every variety of pet cats, dogs, rabbits, even a 'coon, besides the pony, General Grant, which his first diary mentions.  As he wrote, many years later, "the seasons went by in a round of uninterrupted and enthralling pleasures," for there were the haying and harvesting to supervise, there were apples to pick, there were frogs and woodchucks to hunt, there were nuts to gather.  They played Indians, building wigwams in the woods and staining themselves (and their clothes) with poke-cherry juice, not always to the delight of parents even as patient and understanding as theirs. 

Meanwhile   he   was   continuing   his   studies   in natural history, devoting himself now not to "misqueto hawks" and "beettles," but to mammals and birds.  It was in.  the summer after he became thirteen that his first gun was given to him a breech-loading, pin-fire, double-barrel of French manufacture which had a reputation of being as nearly fool-proof as a gun can be.  The Roosevelts were living at Dobbs Ferry and it was there that summer that Theodore discovered, quite by accident, that he was at a hopeless disadvantage as a hunter; for birds which his friends shot right and left he could not even see.  Spectacles literally opened an entirely new world for him.  Countless beauties which he had never imagined existed stood suddenly revealed. 

His work as a naturalist now developed from a mere boys' pastime into actual and more or less scientific study.  In a musty little shop he discovered a former companion of Audubon's, a tall, cleanshaven, white-haired old gentleman named Bell, who subsequently gave him lessons in taxidermy and spurred and directed his interest in collecting specimens for mounting and preservation.  He had another friend at that time, Hilborrie West, a connection by marriage of his mother's, an intimate of many of the most noted scientists of his generation, who was neither an original thinker himself nor even a learned man, but who had the rare ability of explaining in words of one syllable the intricate theories and discoveries of his profounder brethren.  It was through the clear interpretation of Hilborne West that Theodore the younger made his first acquaintance with the ideas of Darwin and Huxley, which were then shaking the foundations of science and religion. 

Theodore Roosevelt was now in his 'teens, physically still "pig-chested and asthmatic" and undersized, but mentally reaching out into the great dominion of knowledge, a boy from his heels up, but a studious boy who took books with enormous seriousness and was reading more in a year than most boys read in ten.  He read sitting down and he read standing up; at times even he read standing on only one leg "like a pelican in the wilderness" supporting the other against the thigh of the first and using it as a book-rest.  His tastes were liberal and the books he devoured ranged from tales of the wildest adventure to Little Women, An Old-fashioned Girl, and A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life.  He loved Midshipman Easy and heartily disliked The Swiss Family Robinson, because he realized that it was scientifically false.  The old epics thrilled him.  The heroes of the ballads were still his heroes.  More ardently than ever he wanted to be like them. 

And then something happened. 

For, one day, he picked up the Dramatic Romances of Browning and read "The Flight of the Duchess"j and he had not read far before he came on a description of a young duke, a poor sprig of a grand line:
the pertest little ape That ever affronted human shape;
and this was the duke's ambition:

All that the old Dukes had been without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was, without being it.  
In other words, the duke admired his ancestors and wanted to appear to be like them without making any effort actually to be like them. 

Those lines pulled Theodore Roosevelt up sharp, like a lassoo.  He felt that the resemblance between that young duke and himself was close enough to be disquieting.  He felt discovered; he felt ashamed.  He, too, had had his heroes.  He' had wanted to be like those heroes; or had he wanted merely to appear to be like them ?

Those lines made him unhappy.  They pursued him, taunting him.  Then one day he suddenly discovered that a new resolve had taken shape in him.  There was no harm in dreaming, but henceforth he would not be satisfied unless, even while he dreamed, he labored to translate the dream into action. 

That was a very important resolve.  It gave Theodore Roosevelt back his peace of mind • and set his face in the direction of the highroad. 

It was not long after this new resolve had taken root in him that chance or destiny or the good Lord, who likes to test the vitality of the good resolutions that boys make, put Theodore Roosevelt's high-sounding decision to the test. 

He was, even at thirteen, a timid boy, as children who are frail physically are apt to be.  He had not had enough rough contact with boys to become accustomed to being hurt, and to give blows and take punishment as a matter of course; and his younger brother Elliott, who suffered from none of the ailments which pursued Theodore, had in consequence been his protector against bullies more than once.  It happened, in the summer of '72, however, that certain bullies descended on Theodore at a time when Elliott was a little more than five hundred miles away. 

Theodore had been suffering more than usual from asthma and had been sent to Moosehead Lake in Maine in the hope that the clear, crisp air would give him relief.  The last lap of the journey was by stage-coach, and on the coach with Theodore were two boys who were not slow in discovering that here was a victim sent to them from on high.  They were not really bullies, but they were strong, wholesome, mischievous boys, and Theodore was just a gift to them to break the tedium of the journey.  They proceeded forthwith to make him miserable, and succeeded.  He endured their attentions as long as he could; then he tried to fight. 

He was plucky, without question.  Perhaps he had visions of perishing nobly against overwhelming odds.  But no such fate was his.  The boys took him singly and handled him like a kitten.  And the worst of it all was, they did not even really hurt him.  They didn't have to, he was so easy to handle. 

Theodore Roosevelt spent his time at Moosehead Lake thinking this over.  He remembered the deeds of the men he most admired, the men he wanted most to be like.  And then he thought of the silly duke; and of something his father had recently said to him: "You have the mind, but you haven't the body.  It is hard work to build up the body. "

He remembered certain tiresome exercises his father had persuaded him to go through daily in the gymnasium on the third floor.  And then he thought of his resolution. 

He made up his mind then and there that if he was ever to be anything but a parody of the heroes of his dreams, he must first make himself fit physically to bear what they had borne, to fight as they had fought. 

He decided to take boxing-lessons. 

This was a praiseworthy decision; but what was really praiseworthy was the fact that when he returned to New York he confided the whole matter to his father, and, with the elder Theodore Roosevelt's enthusiastic approval, sought out a certain John Long, an exprize-fighter, and doggedly set to work,

In the winter following his son's memorable humiliation at Moosehead Lake, Theodore Roosevelt the elder took his family oversea a second time.  Theodore Junior's health was giving his parents anxiety, and they determined, therefore, to see what a winter in Egypt would do for it. 

It was toward the close of 1872 that the Roosevelts landed in Alexandria, bag, baggage, and taxidermy outfit.  At Cairo they engaged a dahabiyeh and began a leisurely sail up the Nile, which lasted two months or more and proved to Theodore the younger a continuous delight, broken only now and then by certain tiresome French lessons by "Bamie," which Mr.  Roosevelt insisted on in order that the younger children should during this play-winter not utterly forget that there was such a thing as work in the world.  

Theodore, Ellie, and Conie, on foot and on donkey-back, scrambled happily among ruins that winter, seeking out the most dangerous places as a matter of course.  But Theodore did something besides.  The "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History" had before his departure printed a set of special Roosevelt Museum labels in pink ink and given Theodore the younger a roving commission to bring home all the specimens he could.  He was not one to treat lightly a commission of that sort.  Morning, noon, and night he was out, terrifying not only the natives but the members of his own family, when he cavorted hither or yon on donkey-back, with his gun at a reckless angle.  His bird-collecting gave the Nile journey its chief zest.  He had picked up in Cairo an excellent book on the birds of Egypt, and deliberately set to work to gather something better than merely a boy amateur's collection. 

Theodore Roosevelt was very much the Young Professor that winter.  He took himself with enormous seriousness and played the part of the abstracted and single-minded naturalist, dedicated to science and aloof from the general world of human pleasures, as persistently as his natural boyish vitality and love of a wholesome good time would permit.  Like Kipling's famous Cat, he walked by his "wild lone. " There was something of Don Quixote about him during that period, especially when he was on donkey-back charging toward a "specimen," seeing the specimen and nothing else in heaven or on earth.  The fact that he suddenly began to grow that winter and was bulging out of his clothes in all directions long before the dahabiyeh could return to Cairo, where tailors were, distinctly added to his bizarre appearance.  He saved himself from being a joke mainly because, with all his queerness, he was such good company and so absolutely square, and had such a reliable sense of humor besides. 

The Roosevelt family went from Egypt to the Holy Land, and thence to Constantinople and Greece, and finally Vienna, where the elder Theodore Roosevelt had official duties as American Commissioner sent by President Grant to the International Exposition.  Everywhere, Theodore the younger collected specimens.  That was all very nice for Theodore and did not bother the family.  But wherever he went he also dissected specimens and followed the vocation of taxidermist. 

A taxidermist, as any one who has had experience will admit, is bad enough in his place, his place being a dingy shop well removed from the paths of human travel.  The trouble with Theodore was that his taxidermy laboratories were the hotel bedrooms which he shared with his brother Elliott. 

It happened in Vienna one day that Elliott, who happened to be the neatest and most particular of mortals, came to his father with a rather woebegone expression. 

"Father, do you think it would be extravagant," he inquired, "if I were now and then to have a room to myself in hotels?"

"'I suppose not, if you really wish it," said Mr.  Roosevelt.  "But why?"

Elliott did not try to explain.  '' Come and see our room," he said. 

Mr.  Roosevelt did.  There were bottles on the tables and the chairs; there were bottles on the mantel and the wash-stand.  Clothes were every-where where they happened to fall and in the basin were the entrails of animals recently deceased. 

What Mr.  Roosevelt said and did about Elliott's rebellion has not come down to us.  He was evidently unable to do much with Theodore at the moment, for it is recorded that Theodore remained "grubby" for some time to come.  Theodore was intent on scientific investigation, and neither his father's admonitions nor his brother's appeals could swerve him from what he conceived to be the path of duty. 

There was something ruthless in his persistence.  He had a tender heart, an affectionate nature.  He loved his father with a devotion such as he never gave again to any other man; he was deeply attached to his exquisite Southern mother.  And yet, when he saw before him a goal to be attained, he disregarded even them.  There was about him an almost terrible single-mindedness.  He saw the goal and nothing else.  If it seemed to him necessary to the interests of science to keep defunct field-mice in the family refrigerator, he kept them there; if it seemed to him important to house a snake or two in the guest-room water-pitcher, the possible emotions of a guest discovering them there did not enter into consideration.  He felt it his duty to study field-mice and snakes and that was all there was about it.  

"My boy, my boy," said his mother, not without apprehension, "you are a little berserker. "

Which means that in certain respects Theodore Roosevelt the younger was, at fourteen, with all his natural tenderness and charm, something of a savage. 

In the spring of '73 Mr.  Roosevelt returned to New York.  Mrs.  Roosevelt and "Bamie" went to Carlsbad, where Mrs.  Roosevelt was to take the cure, and the other children were left with a German family in Dresden.  Their cousins, Maud and John Elliott, were living in Dresden with their mother, and with them the Roosevelt children formed the "Dresden Literary American Club. " This "club" possessed a copy-book in which once a week each member of the society entered his or her contribution.  In this copy-book his cousin, Maud Elliott, aged eleven or thereabouts, wrote a story called "The Birthday," of which Theodore was the rather dubious hero; her description of him sounds accurate. 

Well, my dear little friends [she writes] I must tell you something about Theodore you know he was a naturalist on a small scale, he was a very amusing boy but he had a great fault he was very absent minded so much so that whenever his Mother would tell him to go and do something for her he would say "Oh yes you pretty little thing" but instead of doing it directly he would go and skin his birds or something that he took into his head to skin, and then he always thought that he could do things better than anyone else. 

Theodore, Ellie, and Conie spent three months or more in Dresden, in the family of an alderman and member of the Reichstag, Doctor Minkwitz, whose daughter undertook to teach them German.  To Theodore the life in the house of these typical Germans, who were a little stiff and formal, but endlessly patient and kind, had extraordinary charm.  He had difficulties with the language, but he felt at home in no time and promptly took up his established round of existence, which included hedgehogs and reptiles of all sorts and taxidermy and pleasant walks through what was known as Saxon Switzerland.  He found the sons of his host, who were corps-students, curious and fascinating.  One of them was a noted swordsman and was called Der rote Herzog (the Red Duke); another had had the tip of his nose cut off in a duel and sewn on again and was subsequently known as Herr Nasehorn (Sir Rhinoceros).  He liked these heroes of the student world.  There was an old painter named Wegener who gave him drawing-lessons and held wise and friendly discourses on their rambles through the neighboring hills.  But besides these his German acquaintances were few, for he was constantly suffering from asthma and frequently found conversation difficult.  He was, therefore, thrown all the more intimately into the companionship of books. 

It was this summer that he first read the Nibelungenlied. 

The gorgeous old epic made a profound impression upon him.  Instantly Rudiger and Hagen, Hildebrand and Dietrich von Bern became heroes of his imagination beside the heroes of the Norse sagas and the epics of Greece.  The intrepid courage of then who could face life and face death calmly and with clear eyes, rating life not too highly in the balance with what they deemed justice, set quivering every aspiration in his heart.  The fierce grandeur of the song kindled his blood; and his spirit unawares took over some of the primitive battle ardor of it, and made it its own. 

The Roosevelts returned to America that autumn and Theodore immediately set to work to prepare seriously for college.  His education had, owing to his frequent illnesses, been so haphazard that, while he was far ahead of his age in certain subjects, he was hopelessly behind in others.  His sister "Bamie," now eighteen, and Theodore's unofficial guardian, secured a tutor for him, and Theodore, who would have much preferred to run wild among "specimens," gritted his teeth and resigned himself to the agonies of Latin and mathematics. 

Theodore the younger was now fifteen, a slender boy with glasses, gifted, alert, energetic, dreaming deeply, but increasingly aware of the struggle it is to translate dreams into reality.  He was an unusual boy, but he was in no sense a genius.  Physically he was decidedly below the average; mentally he was bright but by no means brilliant.  He had a good memory and unusual power of concentration; and he liked books.  In that fall of 1873 there were probably scattered over the United States hundreds of boys fifteen years old more gifted than he.  What Theodore Roosevelt had, which most of the others had not, was a deep hunger to excel, to be of the fellowship of the doers of great deeds.  With it, vague at first but increasingly clear, came the recognition that men attain only through endless struggle against the sloth, the impurity, the fears, the doubts, the false content in their own hearts.  He determined to build up for himself a clean, valiant, fighting soul. 

This was not an easy undertaking.  He had lofty impulses and the best of intentions; he was naturally religious; he was singularly pure-minded; but he was still timid.  A sea-captain in one of Marryat's novels helped him here; for this captain admits to a frightened midshipman that once he, too, was afraid.  But he had determined at least to appear unafraid and, though he was not brave, at least to act as though he were.  And after a while he had actually become that which at first he had only feigned. 

Theodore Roosevelt took that sea-captain's lesson to heart. 

While he was developing the muscles of his spirit, Theodore Roosevelt was with no less persistence developing the muscles of his body.     He was not a natural athlete, but, by dint of steady work he gradually  became,   not  a  champion,   even  among boys of his own age, but an average boxer able in an emergency to defend himself even against opponents physically more powerful than himself.     Once, in a series of "championship" matches held by his teacher, the ex-prize-fighter, he did win a pewter cup in the light-weight   contest.     That was not much, but Theodore thought that it was decidedly better than being tossed about like a fuzzy rabbit by a couple of boys at Moosehead Lake.  He boxed and wrestled in the winters, and in the gymnasium of the new house at 6 West Fifty-seventh Street, into which the Roosevelt’s had moved after their return from Europe in the autumn of '73, chinned himself and struggled with the parallel bars patiently day after day.  He saw clearly what few boys of his age ever see at all that if you intend to build high you must first build deep. 

It was in the summer of '74 that Mr. Roosevelt leased a rambling old house at Oyster Bay, which was subsequently known as "Tranquillity. " His brothers had already established themselves on land near by, and thereafter the numerous cousins spent their vacations hunting, exploring, and cheerfully risking their necks in and about the woods and waters of Long Island's north shore.  Theodore hunted and collected specimens with the same persistence he had shown in Egypt, but with growing knowledge and insight.  He studied the flowers, and the songs of birds began to have for him the deeper significance they have for those who know the life-story of each unseen singer.  He was unusual, inasmuch as, with all his passion for science, he had a profound feeling for beauty.  The outdoor world stirred and stimulated not only his intellect, but his spirit; and his spirit, imaginative and audacious, soared to new mountain-tops looking for new worlds to conquer.  

CHAPTER 4 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE SEEKS OUT WISE FOLK OF VARIOUS SORTS, WITH VARYING RESULTS

TILDEN was running for President against Hayes, and the contest was close and hot.  Everybody who could make a speech was making several from the tails of carts; and everybody who couldn't make a speech was at least parading.  The Harvard Freshmen in the fall of 1876 paraded.  They could none of them vote, but they could make a great deal of noise, which is supposed to be the next best thing. 

The Republicans among them, armed with flickering oil-torches which ruined their overcoats, marched to Boston one night.  They were proceeding enthusiastically down, a Cambridge street when a second-story window was flung open and a Tilden supporter bawled out, "Shut up, you blooming Freshmen!"

That was pretty bad, but he also threw a potato, which was even more serious.  The paraders were indignant, and one wiry youngster with glasses flung down his torch furiously and shook his fist at the second-story malefactor with a whole-hearted anger that was good to see.  

One of his classmates turned to his neighbor.  

"Who's that man?" he asked. 

"That? Oh, that's Theodore Roosevelt, of New York. "

It was thus, some six weeks after he had dropped off the car at Harvard Square to enter upon the life of a Harvard undergraduate, that Theodore the younger, just eighteen, made his first impression on his classmates.  That impression deepened, for his indignation in the face of what he considered unjust treatment of a good cause was characteristic, and the enthusiastic energy he put into it was sufficiently rare to be conspicuous.  His classmates decided that he was worth knowing, for he was "different. "

There was no question about his being "different. " He was at eighteen much the same intense, single-minded youth he had been in Egypt three years previous, even to his absent-mindedness.  Just before leaving Oyster Bay, to go to Cambridge, he had, for instance, put a price on field-mice, which had become a pest five cents apiece, a quarter for a family.  Then he had promptly forgotten the matter and gone to college, leaving to "Bamie," his counselor and friend, the pleasant task of receiving and paying for the flood of field-mice that began to pour in.  His asthma, moreover, was still with him at intervals, and the agonies which he could share with no one demanded a constant self-discipline which deepened his character.  He was the best sort of companion, and yet he was, in the high sense of the word, self-sufficient; he made his own world.  He could associate most amicably and delightfully with congenial acquaintances; no one loved a good time more than he.  But he could also withdraw himself into his own personal world abruptly and completely, leaving his friends vaguely wondering what had happened to Theodore.  He permitted his friends to go just so far, and no farther.  Nothing was said, but suddenly there was a closed door barring the way that led to his inmost being.  What was behind that door he revealed to no one.  Perhaps he scarcely knew himself. 

Theodore Roosevelt came to Harvard with half his college career made in advance.  As a member of one of the oldest Knickerbocker families, he was predestined to certain societies and clubs (for Harvard was less democratic then than she is now) and in due time belonged to the best of them, the Institute of 1770, the "Dickie," the A.  D,, the "Pork," the Signet, and the "Pudding. " None of them interested him greatly, for he had not gone to college for social purposes. 

He had gradually come to the conclusion that he wanted to be a professor of natural history.  His father had not greeted this decision with enthusiasm, for he recognized in Theodore the younger qualities which, in his judgment, demanded a wider field for expression than that of the college professor or the scientific investigator.  But he was not the man to impress his personal judgment on his children, and gave his consent to Theodore's choice of a career, stipulating only that Theodore make up his mind to be a thorough scientist or none at all, for he had an abhorrence for the mere amateur.  Theodore him self did not think much of people who did things by halves. 

He began his college life, therefore, with a certain advantage over the majority of his classmates; for he knew exactly what he wanted to do.  He took rooms, accordingly, not in a dormitory (where work, he knew, would be difficult), but in a private house at 16 Winthrop Street, and there, surrounded by birds and beasts he had shot and stuffed, and sundry animals on whom he had as yet committed neither offense a monstrous live turtle, for instance, a snake or two, and now and then an armful of bad-tempered lobsters he lived his whole four years. 

Most of his classmates thought Theodore Roosevelt slightly "queer"; but it occurred to no one to call him a "grind. " For a grind is a poor worm that bores day and night in books and knows no other world; and Theodore Roosevelt was active, if not prominent, in every phase of undergraduate life.  He was not only a member of clubs; he started one of his own, for the existing clubs seemed to him too aristocratic and snobbish. 

He had endless enthusiasm for an almost endless variety of matters.  He was a member, and in his Senior year, undergraduate head, of the Natural History Society, which was flourishing under the presidency of that rare and valiant man, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, professor of geology, poet, scientist, and veteran of Gettysburg.  The Art Club heard him discoursing at Charles Eliot Norton's pleasant "Shadyside"; the Rifle Club saw him practising target-shooting at the Watertown Arsenal.  He organized a Finance Club, to study currency systems here and abroad; he read papers on politics before the "O.  K" Society; he started the movement that led to the institution of track meets between Yale and Harvard; he wrote the first chapters of a notable book on the War of 1812. 

With all this, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, which honors only those who are leaders in under-graduate scholarship; he was an editor of the Harvard Advocate and an active officer in at least a half-dozen organizations; he taught Sunday-school (and was requested to resign from one church because he had given a boy a dollar as a consolation for a black eye received in defending his sister); he drove a trap, gaily, badly, and often; he rowed; he boxed; he ran; he wrestled; he hunted in Maine; he danced in Chestnut Hill; he acted in a comic opera; he inspired the whole Senior class with a sudden passion for skipping rope. 

He was not especially brilliant at any of these things.  But he put into each one of them every ounce of energy, ability, and enthusiasm which he had, and consequently in some cases did them better than men more gifted by nature than he. 

Meanwhile he found time for measles and for recurrent attacks of his old enemy, asthma; and, most important of all, for a new and deepening friendship with a girl a year or two younger than himself who lived in Chestnut Hill. 

Between his eighteenth year, when he entered college, and his twenty-second, when he graduated, Theodore Roosevelt grew from a shy and timid boy, frail in body, into a vigorous and determined man.  Into those four years he crowded the natural growth of ten, for from the very beginning he had a goal in view.  For him there was no groping, no stumbling about in blind alleys, no wasting of time and strength in the pursuit either of false, enervating pleasures or of vague social, political, and religious theories.  He knew exactly what he wanted. 

He wanted to become a man who did things. 

That was his goal.  He had seen it clearly from his fifteenth year, and with ever-increasing clearness he saw the road, the only road, that led to it.  The name of that road was Work.  He worked to build up his body, not for the sake of mere bodily strength; he worked to build up his mind, not for the sake of mere mental agility; but both together as muscle and sinew for that spiritual power which constitutes the backbone of great men. 

Exactly what it was that he wanted to do he did not yet know.  The desire to become a natural scientist evaporated as his college experience taught him what such a career would mean.  Scientific investigation, he found, meant in those days laboratory work and the microscope, and these only; for the faunal naturalist and observer of nature there was, it seemed, no place in the world of science.  The idea of spending his life peeking into a microscope was, for Theodore the younger, too absurd to be considered.  He decided that the life of a professor was not for him. 

This decision, meanwhile, in no way affected the main object of his life, which was to make himself a man as vigorous in body as he was alert in mind.  There were few forms of athletic sport with which, during these years, he failed in some way to associate himself; but he was most active as a boxer and wrestler.  He excelled in neither, but his indomitable spirit carried him far in both.  He was plucky, moreover; he took punishment with a grin, and he was a good sport. 

Once, for instance, in the middle of a hot bout, time was called.  He promptly dropped his hands, but his opponent did not.  That young man drew back and struck him square on the nose.  There were some classmates watching, and an indignant roar of '' Foul! Foul!" arose. 

Roosevelt, his face covered with blood, ran to the referee.  Above the noise of the angry protests his voice could be heard shouting: "Stop! Stop! He didn't hear! He didn't hear!"

Whether the other man really hadn't heard, and whether Roosevelt really thought he hadn't heard or was merely giving him the benefit of the doubt, we shall probably never know.  But the rumpus subsided.  Theodore the younger shook hands heartily with his opponent, resumed hostilities, and gave him the drubbing of his life. 

There was another fight, a more formal affair.  Theodore the younger had won his way to the finals in the light-weight sparring-contest, and was matched at last with a certain "Mr.  Hanks. " That gentleman seems to have defeated him, but not without some difficulty. 

"It was no fight at all," said one of his classmates, describing the bout.  "Hanks had the longer reach and was stronger, and Roosevelt was handicapped by his eyesight.  You should have seen that little fellow staggering about, banging the air.  Hanks couldn't put him out and Roosevelt wouldn't give up.  It wasn't a fight, but, oh, he showed himself a fighter!"

Many forces, besides time, operate to make a boy into a man.  In the case of Theodore the younger the guiding force was his own spirit, with one hand fighting bodily weakness, fighting timidity; and with the other plunging enthusiastically into the midst of life, as into a gigantic grabbag, for every wholesome pleasure and peril it contained. 

Yet there were other forces.  One was the joyous, circle of girls and boys in Chestnut Hill and that new friend who was its radiant center. 

Another was a backwoodsman of Aroostook County, bearded, and six foot four. 

That new friend's name was Alice Lee.  The backwoodsman's name was Bill Sewall.  They were not at all alike.  But they were destined both to play a great part in the building of his manhood. 
It was during the winter of his Freshman year in college that Theodore the younger first met Bill Sewall.  His tutor, Arthur Cutler, had "discovered" Sewall the year previous on a hunting trip with Theodore's cousin, Emlen Roosevelt, and had urged Theodore to run up to Island Falls with him as much for the privilege of knowing Bill Sewall as for the hunting.     For Bill Sewall, he said, was a man to know. 

Theodore found him all that Cutler had described, and more.  He was a great, stalwart man of thirty-three or so, with a vigorous, reddish-brown beard; warm, friendly eyes, that flashed on occasion; enormous physical strength; an alert mind; an indomitable spirit.  Theodore himself was eighteen, thin, pale, asthmatic, outwardly the typical "city feller. " In physical appearance they were, indeed, as far apart as a mountain-oak and a fuchsia. 

"I want you to take good care of this young fellow," said Cutler, taking Sewall aside.  "He's ambitious, and he isn't very strong.  He won't say when he's tired, he won't complain, but he'll just break down.  You can't take him on the tramps you take us. "

Bill Sewall listened, making no comments.  One day, shortly after, without thinking much about it, he took Theodore tramping twenty-five miles or more "a good, fair walk for any common man," he admitted.  Theodore survived, making no protests; and Bill Sewall decided that, in spite of his asthmatic "guffle-ing" as he called it, Theodore Roosevelt was no weakling.  Besides, as he told his nephew, Wilmot Dow, after a week, Theodore was "different" different from any other human being he had ever met. 

Theodore, on his part, saw in the great backwoodsman the living embodiment of his boyhood heroes.  For Bill Sewall belonged to the company of those sinewy and dauntless fighters who at heart are the same in all ages, though they be Roland's men at Roncesvalles or King Olaf's men of the northern seas or Washington's men at Valley Forge or brothers of Boone and Crockett on the Western frontier.  There was more than a hint of the viking in Bill Sewall. 

"I don't know but what my ancestors were vikings," he said to Theodore one day.  "There was a baby found on a sea-wall after the wreck of a viking ship on the English coast.  That's where the name comes from, they say.  I'm not so sure but what there's something in it. "

Theodore rather thought there was a good deal in it.  There was something about Bill Sewall that the dark, surrounding forests could not quite account for, a fierce glorying in the conflict with wind and storm, an exultant defiance of the elements that made his eyes burn and his lips burst into poetry.  Out in a canoe on Mattawamkeag when the waves were highest and the wind was blowing a gale, he would fling back his head and repeat:

                              He scorns to rest 'neath the smoky rafter,
                                  he plows with his bark the raging deep. 
                              The billows boil and the winds howl after.  
                                 The sea-king loves it better than sleep. 

It was not strange that Theodore, with dreams of sea-kings in his heart, should have been thrilled.  Everything in him that loved heroic actions turned fervidly to this heroic figure of the Maine woods.  Through him he learned that the line to which King Olaf and John Ridd belonged is not extinct.  Here, where a man brought down with his ax forty to fifty giants of the primeval forest in the course of a day's work, here were his heroes in flesh and blood.  With all his soul he wanted to be like them.  Reluctantly he admitted to himself that that was impossible.  It was characteristic of him that he decided that he would be as much like them as he could. 

"We hitched up well, somehow or other, from the start," said Bill Sewall, a long time after.  "He was fair-minded, Theodore was.  And then he took pains to learn everything.  There was nothing beneath his notice.  I liked him right off.  I liked him clear through.  There wasn't a quality in him I didn't like.  He wasn't headlong or aggressive, except when necessary, and as far as I could see he wasn't a bit cocky, though other folks thought so.  I will say, he wasn't remarkably cautious about expressing his opinion. "

They "hitched up" well, indeed, for the boy of eighteen and the man of thirty-three were equally clear-eyed in judging men, not by the externals of body and speech, but by the essentials of character and spirit. 

"He didn't look for a brilliant man when he found me," said the backwoodsman, many years later.  "He valued me for what I was worth. "

And a thousand miles away the blue-blooded aristocrat said, "How could I be a snob when I admired him so much?"

Twice a year at least during his college course Theodore Roosevelt explored the woods and waters of Aroostook County with his friend Bill Sewall, shooting ducks, partridges, and rabbits, but no big game, not even a deer, though once they started a bear and another time followed a caribou that eluded them. 

Those journeys in the wilderness, and especially on the waters of Lake Mattawamkeag and in the forests that bordered it, saw the growth of a deep and significant friendship.  They talked much of life and politics, finding that they wonderfully agreed in their opinions of what was right and what was wrong.  Bill Sewall was a democrat from his heels to his head, and there was one poem which he took a certain unobtrusive pride in repeating to Theodore Roosevelt on their expeditions through the great, quiet woods:

Who are the nobles of the earth,
The true aristocrats, 
Who need not bow their heads to kings
Nor doff to lords their hats? 
Who are they but the men of toil
Who cleave the forest down 
And plant amid the wilderness
The hamlet and the town? 
These claim no god of heraldry
And scorn the knighting-rod.  
Their coats of arms are noble deeds,
Their peerage is from God. 

Theodore Roosevelt had probably heard all that sort of thing before.  But he had never heard it from exactly such a source.  That made all the difference in the world. 

And so it came about that a backwoodsman in the heart of Maine taught a New York aristocrat and respected member of Harvard's most exclusive club a lesson in the meaning of democracy. 
Four years seem a century on the day a man enters college, and merely a watch in the night on the day he leaves it.  Into his own four years Theodore Roosevelt crowded a succession of fall and glowing days, clouded for a time by a great grief, when his father, that stanch and inspiring best friend of his, died in his Sophomore year; and lit by a great happiness when, two years later, he became engaged to Alice Lee. 

Those years found him at their beginning a frail boy, intellectually mature, but in many ways a child still.  They found him at their close a man in body and mind and spirit, matured by the experience of sorrow and joy, by physical hardship, independent thought, and contact with men of varied interests and divers surroundings.  In academic standing he graduated twenty-first in his class; in the affection of his classmates he stood far nearer the top. 

Theodore Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in June, 1880.  He had every reason to believe that he had before him an active and useful life of hardship and dangers and great endeavors. 

A day or two before he left Cambridge he went to his physician for a last physical examination. 

The doctor told him that he had heart trouble, that he must choose a profession that would demand no violent exertion, that he must take no vigorous exercise, that he must not even run up-stairs.  It was a stiff blow, but he took it as he had taken other blows.  "Doctor," he said, "I am going to do all the things you tell me not to do.  If I've got to live the sort of life you have described, I don't care how short it is. "

In October he married.  The following summer he went abroad and ascended the Matterhorn for no earthly reason except that two Englishmen with whom he was conversing seemed to be under the impression that they were the only ones who had ever ascended it and the only ones who ever would. 

And he survived in spite of the pessimistic doctor.  

CHAPTER 5 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE   FINDS   HIS   PLACE   IN   THE   UNIVERSE   WITHOUT QUITE   KNOWING IT

'I PUT myself in the way of things happening, said Theodore Roosevelt, "and they happened. " It was with the deliberate intention of having a part in the government of his country that Theodore Roosevelt joined the Twenty-first District Republican Association in the fall of 1880.  He did so from particularly grand passion for public service and with no notion that the country needed saving and lat he was the one to save it.  He wanted to be "on the team. " That was all.  It was that old desire of his boyhood, to be of the fellowship of the doers of great deeds.  Ward "Heelers," he might have said, were not as romantic as vikings, but they were probably in their way quite as effective fighters.  The battle between right and wrong, he might have added, is at bottom the same in all ages.  Merely the clothes and the weapons change.  Joe Murray, of the Twenty-first, might have had some difficulty fighting in King Olaf's chain armor.  King Olaf, on the other hand, would never have been able to swing the nominating convention for Theodore Roosevelt against Jake Hess and the party machine.  But Joe Murray and King Olaf would undoubtedly have liked each other very much; for they were both fighters, fearless and clean and strong. 

Roosevelt's friends told him mournfully that politics were "low," that political organizations were controlled not by "gentlemen," but by saloonkeepers, horse-car conductors, and the like.  Theodore replied that if saloon-keepers and horse-car conductors were the ones who were governing the United States, and the lawyers and merchants and social lights of his own class were merely the ones who were governed, he thought that the saloon-keepers and horse-car conductors were emphatically the ones he wanted to know. 

"If they're too hard-bit for me," he remarked, "I suppose I shall have to quit.  But I do not intend to quit until I have made an effort and have found out whether I actually am too weak to hold my own in the rough and tumble. "

So, to the distress of his friends, he joined the Republican Association and began to attend its meetings at Morton Hall, a large, barn like room over a saloon in Fifty-ninth Street.  The "boss" of the district was the City Commissioner of Charities and Correction, a man named Jake Hess, who treated him with distant affability; and the men he met at the meetings were the saloon-keepers and horse-car conductors he had been warned against.  But they were neither "unpleasant" nor "brutal. " For a time they were a bit wary of him, for, as one of them remarked later, "he looked like a dude, side-whiskers an' all, y' know. " But he soon showed his quality, and it was not long before the scoffers began to realize that Theodore Roosevelt possibly had more hard common sense and practical ability than the lot of them combined.  He showed his fighting qualities over a question of a non-partisan system of street-cleaning which he wished the organization to support.  The members applauded his speech on the subject enthusiastically, for they liked the "ginger" behind it.  Possibly it was nothing but stern duty which prevented them from voting as he wished.  But stern duty, in the shape of Jake Hess, shook its head and Roosevelt was buried 

Roosevelt took his defeat with a grin. 

His fellow-Republicans of the Twenty-first District liked that grin and began soon to have the kind of respect for the man behind the grin that they had for prize-fighters, political "bosses," and all others who could give and take vigorous punishment.  There was one man in particular who eyed him first with humorous tolerance and then with growing, and possibly slightly puzzled, interest.  He was a stockily built Irishman in the middle of the thirties, with sparse reddish hair and drooping mustache, a fine head, a fighter's chin, and twinkling eyes. 

His name was Joe Murray, and he had come over from Ireland in the steerage at the tender age of three, enlisted in the Army of the Potomac at eighteen, and at the close of the war "settled" on First Avenue as leader of a gang.  He was fearless, powerful, and energetic, and so it came about that the local Tammany Hall "boss" found a "job" for him of a kind that he enjoyed.  This "job " was with his gang to make life miserable for Republicans on Election Day.  He fulfilled every requirement nobly.  But it happened that a time came when the local "boss" waxed proud and forgot to reward Joe Murray and his "gang. " Joe Murray on his part was not forgetful.  He remembered for a full year, and at the next election it was not the Republicans who were knocked over the head.  As far as the Republicans of that particular district were concerned, justice that day "came to her own with a whoop. " The Republican leaders sent for Joe Murray and expressed their gratitude by giving him a place in the Post Office. 

Joe Murray and Theodore Roosevelt had met at the meetings and liked each other.  Like Bill Sewall, Murray, too, could see beneath the surface; and he admired the "college dude " for his ideas, his courage, his energy, his human understanding, his boyish and unreserved friendliness.  Roosevelt, on his part, noting not the superficial qualities which Joe Murray might lack, but the fundamental qualities which he possessed, conceived a great liking and admiration for the shrewd and witty Irishman.  He was not slow to realize that all the wealth and all the educational advantages in the world could not of themselves make a man a match for Joe Murray's unpretentious power and sagacity. 

That discovery made him fittingly humble. 

And so it was that an Irish immigrant gave Theodore Roosevelt another lesson in the meaning of democracy.  

Meanwhile, Theodore the younger was doing things besides attending meetings and learning to know the American '' ruling class. '' His uncle Robert had persuaded him to take up the study of law at Columbia, which he did without enthusiasm.  A part of every day he worked in his uncle's law-office; in off hours he went ahead with his history of The Naval Wat of 1812, which he had begun at college.  In the spring of 1881 he journeyed abroad with his wife, climbed a few mountains, visited endless picture-galleries, and returned in the autumn more ardently American than ever.  He found the Republican Association of the Twenty-first Assembly District oiling the machinery for the November election. 

The "boss," it seemed, wanted to renominate for the Assembly the man then representing the district.  That, under ordinary circumstances, would have been enough to end the discussion.  But it happened that that particular Assemblyman had figured, none too favorably, in the newspapers, and one of the "boss's" lieutenants had a firm conviction that the man would be defeated.  The big "boss" was obdurate, but the little "boss" was not a man to knuckle under at any one's dictation. 

For it happened that the little "boss" was Joe Murray. 

"I'm an organization man," he said to his friend, Major Bullard, with a wink.  "I'm always with the organization when it's of my way of thinking. "

So, without arguing the matter further with Jake Hess, Joe Murray and his friend Major Bullard contrived matters in such a way that they beat the "boss" at his own game and, without making any fuss or feathers about it, quietly obtained control of the nominating convention. 

That was all very well.  But they had no candidate. 

"How would young Roosevelt suit?" asked Joe Murray. 

Major Bullard was dubious.  '' Do you know anything about him?"

"We've got to elect some one," said Murray.  "And he's a live one.  He'll get the swells and the Columbia crowd. "

Columbia University was then at Fifty-fourth Street. 

That evening it happened that Roosevelt came to the hall. 

"By the way, Mr.  Roosevelt," remarked Joe Murray, casually, "how'd you like to go to the Legislature?"

"Pooh!" said Theodore Roosevelt, suspecting that the Irishman was poking fun at him. 

But Joe Murray was quite serious.  "I'm looking for a candidate. "

"It's out of the question for me to run," said Roosevelt, emphatically.  "I've been working against Jake Hess's man.  I'd be suspected at once of selfish motives. "

"Will you find me a candidate?"

"You can find plenty. "

"I want the right kind," the Irishman insisted. 

They parted, Roosevelt promising to look about.  They met again next evening by appointment: 

Well?" asked Joe Murray.  "Have you got a candidate?"

Roosevelt mentioned a half-dozen names.  Joe Murray objected to them all.  He had made up his mind, though he shrewdly did not say so. 

"The convention's coming on," he said, "and I've got to have a candidate to put up against Jake's man. "

"I'll find you some one," said Roosevelt. 

"In case you don't, would you be willing to?"

"Under certain conditions, but"
The next night Roosevelt ran up to Murray with both hands outstretched.  He had been endeavoring to secure a candidate.  He had found none, but he had found out something that made his eyes shine as he greeted his friend. 

"I owe you an apology," he cried, earnestly.  "Joe, I thought you were guying me.  I've found out you're really serious.  I'll run. "

Joe Murray carried the convention against the machine and Theodore Roosevelt was nominated. 

For an "off-year" election, the campaign that fall had its points; and for once Fifth Avenue was thoroughly interested, for it had two "silk-stocking" candidates in the field Theodore Roosevelt, running for Assembly, and William Waldorf Astor, running for Congress.  Astor kissed the babies, treated "the boys," and let the money run like water.  Theodore Roosevelt told the saloon-keepers, to the dismay of Joe Murray, that he favored not lower license, but higher license; he made speeches here, there, and everywhere, speaking of cleaner streets and cleaner politics.  He asked his neighbors for their votes not because of his name and not because of his money, but because of the things he stood for; and his neighbors, stirred by his sincerity, rallied to his support. 

Election Day came, and with it, from the seclusion of their brownstone fronts, came millionaires and college professors to work hand in hand with Joe Murray and the boys of the Republican Association to elect Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-three years old, to the Assembly.  His sisters folded ballots.  His brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, paid two dollars for the use of a news-stand and gave out tickets all day long.  The football and baseball squads of Columbia came out in a body, asking, "Where do you think the most trouble is going to be?" and demanding to be sent there. 

That night, after the returns were in, William Waldorf Astor was a defeated and bitterly disappointed man. 

But Theodore Roosevelt was an Assemblyman-elect.  Joe Murray sat back, chuckling, and decided that on the whole he had done a good job, an opinion for which there is much to be said. 

Albany in 1882 was very much like every other state capital in 1882.  There were in the Assembly and Senate a few disinterested, public-spirited men with ability and drive, a somewhat larger number of good people who preferred honest government to dishonest government, but had not the vision or the force to achieve it, and a sinister group, known as the "black-horse cavalry," who were the paid agents of "the interests" and whose point of view is best represented by the declaration of one Albany statesman: "I'm in politics working for my own pocket all the time.  Same as you. "

Theodore Roosevelt quickly found his place in the Assembly among that small number of Democrats as well as Republicans who were wise and forceful as well as "good. " He himself was whole-heartedly a Republican, but he realized soon that it was not on lines of party principle or political theories that the Legislature split.  "The interests" were powerful, and to them it made no difference whether the man who took their money was of one party or the other.  "When you've been here a little longer, young man," said one old war-horse to him one day, "you'll learn that there's no politics in politics. " It was not Democrats against Republicans.  It was honest government against corruption; justice and right against bribery, theft, and blackmail. 

Theodore Roosevelt needed no one to tell him which of these two forces to support.  He found a number of strong and attractive fighters, moreover, ranged on his side.  There was "Billy" O'Neill, for instance, who owned a country store in the Adirondacks somewhere, and had run for Assembly against the local "machine" and, with the aid of a buggy and a horse, beaten it.  There was "Mike" Costello, who had been elected as a Tammany man, believing that Tammany was a patriotic organization, and who cheerfully defied it when he discovered that it was nothing of the kind; and there was "Pete" Kelly, of Brooklyn, another Democrat, who also fought for the people of his state against the armed legions of corruption, and was later flung aside without pity by his "bosses," and died like a soldier.  Day after day,, night after night, with shoulders squared and feet, set firm, these men fought with Theodore Roosevelt for justice and honest government. 

It was not an easy battle to fight, for the enemy had wealth and powerful influence, and in many cases the issues were not clear.  Theodore Roosevelt and his friends found that it was often a heartbreaking business not so much to defend the right and defeat the wrong, but to find out which side was right and which side was wrong.  When Roosevelt came to Albany he thought that the agents of "the interests " would be the only ones he would have to fight.  He had to fight them, and he fought them hard.  But he had not been in the Legislature a week before he discovered that there was another variety of criminal there as bitterly hostile to the interests of the people of the state as any bribed tool of the corporations. 

That was the man who pretended to be a "friend of the people" and who introduced bills aimed at "big business" for no other reason except to be paid by "big business" not to push them.  Some of these bills were just; the majority of them, however, were wild and improper.  None of them were expected to pass.  They were introduced merely as blackmail a form of hold-up and highway robbery to which the corporations had to submit or perish 

Outwardly opposed to these two varieties of grafters, but actually their allies, were, on the one hand, certain good men who were naturally conservative and thought that rich men were a noble, national institution which should always be protected and coddled; and, on the other hand, certain other good men who were naturally radical and thought that rich men were always wrong and should always be thwarted, merely because they were rich.  There was another group besides these, consisting of "amiable idealists" who talked a great deal and never got very far. 

Between these various groups of ineffective men with high ideals and decidedly effective men with no ideals at all, Theodore Roosevelt and his associates took their stand, believing that men could follow a high ideal and still be effective.  Taken all in all, they put up a first-rate fight for clean government and a "square deal. "

The most important affair in which Roosevelt was individually prominent was the battle for the impeachment of Judge Westbrook, and in this Roosevelt from first to last played the leading part. 

The case was not unusual.  The judge had used his judicial office to further the schemes of Jay Gould and other financiers in connection with a fraudulent and bankrupt elevated railway company in New York City. 

The scandal was public and the newspapers called for action.  But no one acted.  The Legislature was averse to touching it.  There was dynamite in scandals of this sort.  The members hoped the thing would blow over. 

Theodore Roosevelt was in years, as well as in experience, the youngest member of the Legislature.  He had been in Albany less than three months.  He hoped that an older man would take the lead.  But no older man did.  The older men were cautious. 

Suddenly, on March 2gth, Roosevelt presented a resolution calling for an investigation.  And then the storm broke. 

A few friends stood by him, but the majority of the Legislature were either timid or openly antagonistic.  The newspapers took sides.  The New York Herald and Times applauded; the Sun rapped him sharply, declaring that he had rashly made charges which he could not support, and intimating that the whole matter was grand-stand play and that Roosevelt himself did not believe the charges. 

The politicians sharpened their knives.  For a week Roosevelt did nothing to bring his resolution to a vote.  People began to say that Roosevelt had been "called off. " The judge and his associates began to breathe more freely. 

And then, early in April, Roosevelt spoke. 

He did not speak long, but he spoke with vigor, presenting the damaging facts.  He called thieves thieves and swindlers swindlers. 

"Mr.  Roosevelt's speech was delivered with deliberation and measured emphasis," said the Albany correspondent of the Sun, next morning, "and his charges were made with a boldness that was almost startling.  The members gave the closest attention and he went through without interruption. "

"We have a right," cried Roosevelt, in closing, "to demand that our judiciary shall be kept beyond reproach and we have a right to demand that, if we find men acting so that there is not only a suspicion, but almost a certainty, that they have had dealings with men whose interests were in conflict with those of the public, they should be at least required to prove that the charges are untrue. "

He called for a vote on the resolution, but an old war-horse of Syracuse known as Old Salt, a master of parliamentary trickery, leaped to his feet and began to talk against time.  Roosevelt, in his inexperience, had made the mistake of introducing his resolution within an hour of the close of the day's session.  Old Salt took what remained of that hour to pour ridicule and contempt on "the young man from New York. "

Roosevelt interrupted and called for a vote to extend the session.  It was refused.  The session closed with the war-horse for the moment victorious. 

But the battle was to be fought not only on the floor of the Assembly.  By the next morning the whole state was the battle-ground.  The newspapers from Buffalo to Montauk Point carried the story of the fight.  The people of the state, whose cause Roosevelt was defending, began to take an interest. 

Meanwhile, in the words of the New York Times, "mysterious influences" were at work to cover up the scandal.  A messenger from John Kelly, the boss of Tammany Hall, hurried to Albany.  Agents "from wealthy stock gamblers " whom Roosevelt had openly denounced as "swindlers" appeared in the lobby of the Capitol.  Roosevelt himself was urged, not only by his enemies, but by his friends, not to press the hopeless fight.  They pointed out to him that, with "the interests" against him, he could never in the world secure the passage of the resolution; they made clear to him that he was ruining his promising career. 

He set his jaw which was already a solid jaw even in those days and presented a motion next day to lay aside the regular order of business in order to consider the resolution.  He needed a two-thirds vote.  He received it, but the clerk deliberately reported a false count, and once again he wab1 defeated. 

"We told you so," said his friends. 

Roosevelt's reply was characteristic.  This was the Sun's brief report next morning, '' Mr.  Roosevelt says he shall keep on trying until he wins. "

Everything and everybody were against Roosevelt and his resolution except the people.  The Easter recess interrupted the session.  The Assemblymen went to their homes.  When they returned, a change had come over them.  Roosevelt presented his resolution once more. 

It passed the Assembly 104 to 6. 

The fight had made a sensation, and though, subsequently, the majority of the investigating committee voted to "whitewash" the judge, the charges were not disproved.  Roosevelt became a state figure.  His renomination was inevitable.  

But Roosevelt had made enemies, and they were powerful and active.  The Times, pleading for his reelection, declared that Jay Gould's money was being used to defeat the young Assemblyman who had dared to attack the great financier and his judge. 

He had friends, moreover, who played the game of his enemies.  There was a prominent lawyer, for instance, an old family friend, who took him out to lunch one day. 

"You've done well in the Legislature, Theodore," he remarked.  "It's a good thing to make the 'reform play. ' It attracts attention.  You've shown that you possess ability of the sort that will make you useful in a large law-office or business.  But if I were you I don't think I'd overplay my hand. "

"Eh?" interrupted Roosevelt. 

"You've gone far enough," the lawyer went on, calmly.  "Now it's time for you to leave politics and identify yourself with the right kind of 'people. ' 

" The right kind"

"The people who control others and in the long run always will control others and get the only rewards that are worth having. "

"You mean to say," cried Roosevelt, hotly, "that you want me to give in to the 'ring'?"

The older man answered, impatiently: "You're talking like a newspaper.  You're entirely mistaken if you think there is a 'ring' made up of a few corrupt politicians who control the government.  Those men have only limited power.  The actual power is in the hands of a certain inner circle of big business men.  The 'big politicians, lawyers, judges are in alliance with them and, in a sense, dependent on them.  No young man can succeed in law, business, or politics who hasn't the backing of those forces.  That is as it should be.  For it is merely the recognition that business is supremely important and that everything else must bow to it. "

Theodore Roosevelt had never before come in contact with that point of view, and it gave him a shock.  It threw a vivid light backward on the impeachment investigation.  He understood now why, with all the evidence against the venal judge and the people of the state of New York calling for his impeachment, he had nevertheless escaped. 

Theodore the younger did not take his friend's advice.  "I think I'll try to go back to the Legislature," he said. 

And he did. 

He won his re-election in spite of the open opposition of Jay Gould and those other forces which his friend had declared no man could ever successfully oppose; in spite even of a Democratic landslide in the state which carried an almost unknown sheriff from Buffalo into the Governorship and introduced to a surprised world Grover Cleveland.  In the Twenty-first District, Roosevelt ran two thousand votes ahead of his party. 

Roosevelt was glad to return to Albany, no longer a novice now, but, at twenty-four, the leader of his party in the Assembly.  He was nominated for Speaker, but defeated, for the Democrats were in full control.  His force and influence were unquestioned.  He was known as the "cyclone member. "

It would have been strange if his swift rise had not somewhat turned his head.  It did turn it for a brief period.  He had won his place in the Assembly and in the respect of the people of the state through his straightforward and blunt independence.  He thereupon became so impressed with the virtue of complete independence that he paid no attention to the opinions or the prejudices of others.  He had fought the fight against Judge Westbrook practically alone.  He came to the conclusion consequently that he could fight any fight alone. 

He no longer sought advice or co-operation.  His own conscience, his own judgment, were to decide all things.  He refused to make concessions, being unable to see that a man might disagree with him on details or methods and yet be heartily with him in principle. 

His opponents talked of "big head. " His friends grumbled: "What's got into Roosevelt? He won't listen to anybody.  He thinks he knows it all. "

He fought hard for good causes.  But he was no longer successful.  Before he knew what was happening, his influence had evaporated.  He was a leader without a following the laughing-stock of his enemies, the despair of his friends. 

But he had vision; and he had a sense of humor. 

Gradually he began to understand.     No one can live by himself alone, he realized, and with increasing.  clearness he saw that his only hope of doing effective work lay in close co-operation with the men who, though differing from him in minor matters, agreed with him on the fundamentals. 

It was not easy for Theodore Roosevelt to eat humble pie.  But he ate it.  

CHAPTER 6 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE  GOES   ON  HIS  FIRST  REAL  HUNT

IT was in the late summer of 1883.  Theodore the younger had had a recurrence of his asthma, complicated by an attack of that other enemy of his boyhood, cholera morbus.  On a postal card addressed to his "motherling" he speaks of the "nightmare" of that period of illness.  Oyster Bay could give him no relief, and he fled westward, hoping that the dry air and vigorous outdoor life of Dakota would restore him to strength before the opening of another season of political struggle.  He had no particular destination.  He wanted to hunt buffalo while there were still buffalo to hunt that was all.  He wanted to taste the, life of the "wild West" before that life vanished like mist before the wind.  The West had begun to call him before he was out of his teens.  His brother Elliott, two years younger than he, had shot buffalo in Texas while Theodore the younger was tamely acquiring an education in Massachusetts, and had returned with thrilling stories of hairbreadth escapes from wild beasts and wilder men.  More than once he had been charged by a wounded buffalo; he had been caught in a stampede, escaping with his life by a miracle; his camp had been raided by Comanches and his horses stolen; he had gone for two days without water or food; now and then, at a ranch or at one of the border towns where he and his companions stopped for the night, he had become involved in what his journal briefly recorded as "big fights. " And he was just seventeen. 

Theodore ached to find the country where adventures like that grew.  But for the moment they were not for him.  It was five years before he saw the West on a brief and uneventful hunting-trip beyond the Red River in Dakota; it was six before he first saw the Little Missouri winding through those "Bad Lands" which, for all their sinister desolation, were, ever after, to be the best beloved of lands for him. 

Theodore Roosevelt, bound westward, left New York one evening in late summer, still weak and miserable from the effects of his illness.  But the mere prospect of a touch of wild life seemed to be a restorative.  Before he reached Chicago he had written his mother that he felt "like a fighting-cock"; before he arrived at his destination in Dakota he was ready for any hardships or adventures Dakota had to offer. 

Dakota, it seems, was ready for him with a complete assortment of both. 

It was three o'clock of a cool September morning when he dropped off the train at a station on the Northern Pacific, called Little Missouri.  • It was no metropolis.  It consisted of the "depot," a half dozen saloons, and a rather ramshackle building known as the Pyramid Park Hotel, and a population of more or less desperate characters which had given it the reputation of being the worst "town" of its size between the Canadian border and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Roosevelt dragged his duffle-bag through the blackness toward the hotel, and hammered on the door.  The frowsy proprietor, after a long while, admitted him, muttering oaths, and gave him lodging for what remained of the night.  But he knew of no guide who would take an Easterner with spectacles hunting bison. 

It happened, however, that a young man named Joe Ferris, who was employed near by as a teamster, was willing to take a chance with the anaemic-looking "dude. " He was running a ranch "on the side" with his brother and a friend, some six or seven miles up the Little Missouri River, and suggested that Roosevelt go there with him.  Roosevelt agreed. 

Chimney Butte Ranch turned out to be a log structure with a dirt roof, a chicken-house attached, and a corral for the horses near by.  There was only one room inside, with a table, three or four chairs, a cooking-stove, and bunks for Ferris, his brother Sylvane, and their partner, Bill Merrifield.  The three men were "ranchmen" that is, they were cowboys with a small herd of their own.  Roosevelt liked them, and after they had reconciled themselves to his glasses always looked upon with suspicion by plainsmen in those days "as a sign of a defective moral character" they decided that they liked him.  Joe Ferris volunteered to be the one to help Roosevelt to the buffalo he wanted.  Buffalo had been plentiful roundabout for several winters, but some six months previous the last of the great herds had been either destroyed or driven out, and only a few stragglers remained far up the river.  The hunters proceeded to the cow-camp of a Scotchman named Gregor Lang, forty miles south of the Chimney Butte, and from there began their hunt. 

The weather was abominable, but Roosevelt ignored his guide's plaintive suggestions that they wait for the rain to cease, and morning after morning started forth with his rifle over his saddle-bow.  He returned each night unsuccessful; but if Joe Ferris had expected that his "tenderfoot" would not be able to "stand the racket," he was doomed to disappointment.  It was Joe who each night wrapped himself exhausted in his buffalo robe immediately after supper; but Roosevelt sat up and launched into conversation.  He had found congenial spirits in Lang and his son Lincoln, a boy of sixteen; and they talked cattle together, and politics and again cattle, until midnight came and the hands of the clock crept up among the small hours.  It was a "new" region, only recently won from the Indians, and adventurous spirits from all over the world were coming to make their fortunes there.  Roosevelt began to dream dreams. 

The rain ceased at last, but the luck of the hunters did not change with it.  They came on the fresh track of a buffalo, lost it, found it again, and finally came upon their prey so suddenly that the great bull bison had plunged over a steep bank and disappeared before they had time to shoot.  They hunted all day in vain over brown, barren land in a steaming heat.  Then, at last, late in the afternoon, in the middle of a large plain, they saw three black specks. 

On hands and knees they crept forward, but the buffalo eluded them.  They mounted once more, loping their jaded horses along at a brisk pace.  Finally, when the sun had just set, they noticed that all three buffalo had come to a stand in a gentle hollow.  There was no cover anywhere.  They concluded to run them on their worn-out ponies. 

The bison faced them for an instant, then turned and made off.  Daylight was swiftly falling and Roosevelt spurred his pony to a last desperate spurt, closing in on the animal he had wounded just as the rim of the full moon rose above the horizon.  Ferris, better mounted, forged ahead.  The bull, seeing him coming, swerved.  Roosevelt cut across and came almost up to him.  The ground over which they were madly dashing was broken into holes and ditches.  It was impossible in the dull light to guide the horses, which floundered and pitched forward at every stride, utterly fagged and scarcely able to keep their feet. 

Roosevelt fired at the wounded bull at twenty feet, but the darkness blurred his vision and the violent motion of the pony threw out his aim.  He dashed in closer. 

The bull's tail went up and he wheeled suddenly and charged the pony, panic-stricken, spun round and tossed up his head, striking the rifle which Roosevelt was holding in both hands and knocking it violently against his forehead, cutting a deep gash.  The blood poured into Roosevelt's eyes. 

The buffalo passed him, charging Ferris, who dashed off over the broken ground as fast as the stumbling horse would go, with the buffalo snorting almost at his pony's tail.  Ferris, swerving suddenly and dismounting, fired at the buffalo, missed in the dim moonlight, fired again, and again missed. 

The wounded bull lumbered and labored off.  Roosevelt made after him on foot in hopeless and helpless wrath, until the great hulk disappeared in the darkness. 

They did not mount the exhausted horses, but led them, trembling, foaming, sweating, in the hope of somewhere finding water near by.  The horses as well as the men had drunk nothing for twelve hours and were parched with thirst.  At last in a reedy hollow they found a muddy pool, but the water was like thin jelly, slimy and nauseating.  They could drink a mouthful and no more. 

They unsaddled the horses, making their supper of a dry biscuit.  There were no trees or bushes about they could make no fire; and when they lay down to sleep they had to lariat their horses to the saddles on which their heads rested. 

They did not go quickly to sleep.  The horses were nervous, restless, alert, in spite of their fatigue, snorting and standing with ears forward, peering into the night.  Roosevelt remembered certain half-breed Crees they had encountered the day before.  It was quite possible that the Indians might come for their horses, and perhaps their scalps.  They dozed fitfully, feeling danger in the air.  At last they fell asleep. 

They were rudely wakened by having their pillows whipped from under their heads.  They leaped to their feet.  In the bright moonlight they saw the horses madly galloping off, with the saddles bounding and trailing behind them.  It occurred to them that the ponies had been stampeded by horse-thieves, and they threw themselves on the ground, crouching in the grass, with rifles ready. 

There was no stir.  At last in the hollow they made out a shadowy four-footed shape.  It was a wolf which strode noiselessly to the low crest and disappeared. 

They rose and went after the horses, taking the broad trail made by the saddles through the dewy grass. 

Once Ferris stopped.  "I've never done anything to deserve this!" he exclaimed, plaintively.  Then, turning straight to Roosevelt, evidently suspecting that the man with the "four eyes" must be a Jonah, he cried, wrathfully, "Have you ever done anything to deserve this?"

Roosevelt grinned. 

They found the horses sooner than they expected and led them back to camp.  Utterly weary, they wrapped themselves in their blankets once more, and went to sleep.  But rest was not for them that night.  A thin rain began to fall at three in the morning.  Until dawn they cowered and shivered under the blankets.  Then they rose and made their breakfast of the same sort of dry biscuit of which they had made their supper, mounted their horses, and started away through a drizzling mist. 

Traveling by compass over the foggy, shapeless plain, drenched to the skin by an occasional deluge of rain, they rode for several hours.  At last the fog lifted for a few minutes, and suddenly they saw ahead of them some black objects crossing a piece of rolling country.  They were buffalo. 

They picketed their horses and began stealthily to stalk the quarry, creeping forward on hands and knees.  A cold rain blew in their faces, blurring their vision and making their teeth chatter.  They came within a hundred yards of the nearest buffalo, looming black and distinct against the white wall of fog. 

Roosevelt fired and missed.  The buffalo band plunged into a hollow and were off, beyond pursuit, before his stiffened fingers could get another shot. 

They spent the night at Lang's.  Next morning the weather had improved, but not their luck.  Ferris's horse almost trod on a rattlesnake and narrowly escaped being bitten.  Shortly after, while they were riding along the face of a steep bluff, the sandy soil suddenly broke away under the ponies' hoofs.  They slid and rolled to the bottom, coming to a stop at last in a huddled heap of horses and men.  The hunters mounted the frightened animals again, but shortly after, while galloping through a brush-covered bottom, Roosevelt's pony put both forefeet in a hole made by the uprooting of a tree and turned a complete somersault, pitching his rider a good ten feet beyond his head. 

It's dogged as does it, runs a famous maxim. 

Roosevelt helped his horse to his feet and again mounted.  And a little later, in the bed of a dry creek which had all the appearance of solid ground, the earth suddenly gave way like a trap-door under his horse and let him down to his withers in soft, sticky mud.  Roosevelt flung himself out of the saddle and floundered to the bank, loosening the lariat from the saddle-bow.  Pulling and hauling, with Ferris's pony to aid, they drew the trembling and mud-plastered horse to safety. 

They returned to Lang's.  More than once Joe had wondered whether the Easterner would not confess that he had had enough; but he was forced to admit to the Scotchman and his son that this was a new variety of tenderfoot, "handy as a pocket in a shirt" and altogether a "plumb good sort. " Roosevelt, on his part, took a great fancy to his wilderness companions.  He liked the country, too.  It was bare and wild and desolate, a land of endless prairie, brown from the scorching heat of summer and varied only by abrupt and savage hills, known to the cowboys as buttes.  In the river-bottoms were waving cottonwood-trees; in the scarred uplands, cut by canons, here and there bleak and twisted cedars.  There was no soft loveliness in this country, but there was about it a stark beauty that made it a fit background for the men who lived and worked and suffered hardship in it. 

People called it the Bad Lands, not without reason, for winter and summer did their worst there.  It was a land of enormous distances, with no farms and no fences, only at wide intervals ranch-houses, where the men lived whose herds grazed over the prairie through the summers, and congregated in huddled, shivering, unhappy herds in the shelter of the canons through the winters.  The wild life mightily allured him.  He decided that, above all things, he wanted to be a part of it. 

Abruptly that evening he asked Lang to start a cattle-ranch for him and be his foreman.  Lang, it appeared, was already "tied up"; but he advised Roosevelt to talk the matter over with Merrifield and Joe's brother, Sylvane.  Roosevelt agreed and promptly sent the boy Lincoln to the Chimney Butte Ranch. 

Two days later the two attractive young argonauts arrived.  The conference was brief but satisfactory.  Roosevelt gave them a check for fourteen thousand dollars then and there, with instructions to secure him as large a herd as the money would buy.  He had been in the country only ten days, or less; he had seen the men only once before.  A cautious man would have hesitated; but, as Bill Sewall had a way of saying, Roosevelt was "not over-cautious. "

Roosevelt secured his buffalo next morning.  Near the upper waters of the Little Cannonball Creek his pony suddenly threw up his head and snuffed the air.  Roosevelt crept on foot up a narrow coulee, where the hoofprints of a buffalo were plainly visible, and came on his quarry at last grazing in the bunch-grass.  It was a great bull bison and he threw back his head and cocked his tail in the air. 

Roosevelt fired, hitting him behind the shoulder.  The buffalo bounded up the farther side of the ravine, heedless of two more shots that struck him in the flank, and disappeared over the ridge. 

They found him in the next gully, stark dead.  The following day Roosevelt went north to look at his new ranch.  Ten days later, in St.  Paul, he signed a contract with Sylvane Ferris and A.  W.  Merrifield, and, for better or worse, became a ranchman in the Bad Lands. 

He returned East, strengthened in body and spirit. 

He was re-elected to the Legislature in November and plunged into his work with new vigor and a more solid self-reliance.  He ardently supported civil-service reform; he was chairman of a committee which investigated certain phases of New York City official life, and carried through the Legislature a bill taking from the Board of Aldermen the power to confirm the Mayor's appointments.  He was chairman and practically the only active member of another committee to investigate living conditions in the tenements of New York, and, as spokesman of the worn and sad-looking foreigners who constituted the Cigar-Makers' Union, argued before Governor Cleveland for the passage of a bill to prohibit the manufacture of cigars in tenement-houses. 

The bill was passed.  The Governor signed it.  But it never became operative.  The Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional, declaring it an assault on "the hallowed associations of home"!

 Many of those homes consisted of a single room, where two families, sometimes with a boarder or two, lived and ate and worked!

Theodore Roosevelt raged at the injustice, at the absurdity of the decision, and began to wonder whether in such matters the people rather than the judges should not speak the final word. 

For two years Roosevelt had now worked in the Legislature, learning much of politics and of life and growing day by day in character and vision and spirit.  He saw, he could not help seeing, that he was making a striking success in politics.  He realized that there was u possibility that he might have ahead of him a great career.  With a little care in the choice of associates, with a little circumspection in his actions, he said to himself, perhaps .  .  . 

He began to adapt everything he said and did to the requirements of political nursing.  "How will this affect my career?" he began to say to himself.  ''How will that further or hinder my career?'

He nursed along his career for one month and for one month only.  Then, in utter disgust with himself, he decided one day that if such careful timeserving were the price of a "career," he would not have a "career" for all the glory in the world. 

It was vastly more useful, he decided, to do his day's work as it came along, and very much more fun. 

Life was running, on the whole, very smoothly for Theodore Roosevelt when in January, 1884, he entered upon his third term in the Legislature.  He was only twenty-five years old and he was one of the leading political figures in his state, with promotion to Congress in sight, if he wanted it.  He was happily married, he was finding a place for himself socially among congenial friends, he had wealth, he had a notable book on the War of 1812 to his credit. 

Then, suddenly, without warning, he was smitten. 

On February 12th, at ten o'clock in the morning, his wife gave birth to a daughter.  At four o'clock the following morning his mother died.  Six hours later his wife died. 

He was stunned and dazed. 

"But he stood right up under it," said Joe Murray, a long time after. 

"It was a grim and an evil fate," Roosevelt wrote to Bill Sewall in March, "but I have never believed it did any good to flinch or yield for any blow, nor does it lighten the blow to cease from working. "

He did not cease.  He took up his labors in the Legislature and threw himself so completely into the reform legislation of Governor Cleveland that, two months after that tragic day in February, Harper's Weekly paid tribute to his efforts in one of Nast's memorable cartoons. 

In June he was a delegate to the Republican national convention at Chicago to nominate a Presidential candidate.  Blaine was the favorite, but Blaine stood for all that seemed to Roosevelt least progressive in the Republican party.  Roscoe Conkling, who led the fight for Blaine, spoke scornfully of "that dentificial young man with more teeth than brains"; but George William Curtis, who was also a delegate, prophesied a great future for him. 

 Roosevelt fought in the convention for Edmunds.  His candidate was defeated.  Blaine secured the nomination. 

Many of his associates, among them some of the greatest men in the Republican party, "bolted the ticket,'' refusing to support Blaine.  They called upon Roosevelt to follow them. 

He refused.  He had disapproved of Blaine; he had, as he wrote to a critic in October, "worked practically to prevent it," and he considered his nomination a grave mistake.  But he was a member of the Republican party, he believed in its principles, and, as a citizen of a democracy, he considered it his duty to stand by the result of a fair vote even when it went against him. 

Friends and foes taunted him.  Where now, they cried, was his fine enthusiasm for reform, for civil service? '' Roosevelt wants to climb in politics,'' they cried, "and he isn't going to antagonize the machine. "

He let them talk and stood by his guns and, when the convention was over, fled, lonely and sick at heart, into the wilderness.  

CHAPTER 7 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE   LOOKS   FOR  ADVENTURES   AND   FINDS   THEM

THEODORE ROOSEVELT went to Dakota straight from the Chicago convention, arriving at Chimney Butte Ranch about the 8th of June.  The country was at its best, with the bright young grass in one unbroken carpet over the prairie, and here and there in daubs of vivid green on the dark red and purple of the buttes. 

Roosevelt entered with heart and soul on the work of a ranchman.  There was plenty to do, for the spring was the ranchman's busy season and matters which were merely "chores" to the expert cowpuncher had to be studied with solemn care by the tenderfoot.  For he was on trial, and he knew it.  The few inhabitants which the Bad Lands possessed were ready to scorn him and reject him at the first sign of weakness or cowardice, and he knew that only by sharing the cowboy's joys and hardships to the full could he achieve the respect of his hardy companions.  He was in the saddle from morning until night, riding among the cattle, hunting stray horses (and they were always straying), breaking ponies, assisting on the round-up.  Now and then he was a source of merriment to the experienced hands, for his skill was not always equal to his earnestness; but the various tricks they played upon him to test his temper or his nerve generally ended in the discomfiture of their authors.  The fact that one such test which included a breakneck gallop down a sharp and muddy slope resulted in the downfall of the expert while he himself kept his seat, proved discouraging to the devisers of mischief. 

One event, which occurred at a wild little "town" called Mingusville, some thirty miles west of the Little Missouri, furnished the kind of "talking material" the Bad Lands liked to hear, and gave Roosevelt a reputation. 

Mingusville boasted only one "hotel," and that was a wicked little place which Roosevelt would not have dreamed of entering if night had not overtaken him far from the ranch and left him no other choice.  As he was stabling his horse he heard two shots, fired, evidently, in the barroom.  He entered the place with misgivings. 

A shabby-looking individual in a broad-brimmed hat was walking up and down the floor, talking and swearing.  He was in full possession of the situation, for he had a cocked gun in each hand, and the half-dozen other men in the room, who were evidently sheep-herders, seemed to be in no way inclined to dispute his authority.  The clock had two holes in its face, which accounted for the shots Roosevelt had heard. 

"Four-eyes!" shouted the bully as he spied Roosevelt with his offensive spectacles.  There was a.  nervous laugh from the sheep-herders, in which Roosevelt joined.  "Four-eyes is going to treat!"

There was another laugh.  Under cover of it, Roosevelt walked quietly to a chair behind the stove and sat down, hoping to escape further notice. 

But the bully had had everything his own way and evidently had no intention of being thwarted now.  He crossed the room to where Roosevelt was sitting and repeated his command. 

Roosevelt passed the man's shout off as a joke.  But the bully leaned over Roosevelt, swinging his guns, and ordered him in foul and offensive language to "set up the drinks for the crowd. "

It occurred to Roosevelt like a flash that he was facing a crisis and that he must "make good or quit"; it occurred to him also that the man was foolish to stand so near, with his heels together.  1' Well, if I must, I must, I suppose,'' he said, and rose to his feet. 

The bully felt vainglorious and expected no retaliation.  Roosevelt struck him quick and hard with his right just to one side of the point of the jaw, hitting with his left as he straightened out, and then again with his right. 

The ruffian fired both guns, but the bullets went wide as he fell like a tree, striking the corner of the bar with his head.  He was senseless as Roosevelt bent over him, and the sheep-herders, with courage revived, carried him into a shed. 

Roosevelt took his dinner in a corner of the dining-room, away from the windows, and went to bed without a light.  But the would-be desperado made no move to recover his shattered prestige.  He departed next morning on a passing freight-train, and was seen no more. 

The news of the encounter spread like the proverbial wildfire.  "Four-eyes" became, overnight, "Old Four-eyes," which was another matter, and the Bad Lands ceased to regard 

"Teddy Roosenfelder " as a joke. 

Roosevelt had an experience of a somewhat similar sort that spring in the new and flourishing town called Medora, which a French adventurer, the Marquis de Mores, had established across the river from Little Missouri.  Medora was as raw as beef in a butcher-shop and the language that was spoken there was obscene beyond description.  The worst offender, by common consent, was a burly reprobate who went by the name of Hell-roaring Bill Jones.  He had had a checkered career, but was not without excellent qualities which Roosevelt had promptly recognized. 

It happened one day that Roosevelt was sitting in the office of the only other "literary gent" in the neighborhood, a young Michigan graduate named Packard, who was editor of the local weekly, the Bad Lands Cowboy.  There were a number of cow punchers in the room and the language was more than picturesque.  The most foul-mouthed of the lot, as usual, was Hell-roaring Bill. 

Roosevelt had no taste for foul stories.  Men who really knew him somehow failed to think of foul stories when he was about, or, if they thought of them, instinctively left them untold.      Evidently  Bill   Jones did not know   him very well. 

Roosevelt stood the foul stuff as long as he could.  Then he looked Bill Jones straight in the eye and "skinned his teeth" and said, "I can't tell why in the world I like you, for you're the nastiest-talking man I ever heard. "

The cow-punchers gasped.  Bill Jones was notoriously "light-triggered" and they expected his hand to fly to his gun. 

But Bill's hand did nothing of the sort.  There was deep silence in the room.  Then a sheepish look crept over the "bad man's" face as he said, apologetically: "I don't belong to your outfit, Mr.  Roosevelt, and I'm not beholden to you for anything.  All the same, I don't mind saying that mebbe I've been a little too free with my mouth. "

They were friends from that day; they remained friends until Bill Jones died, a pathetic wreck, thirty years later. 

It did not take many incidents of this sort to fix Roosevelt's reputation in the Bad Lands.  In a community in which the oldest inhabitant had resided only a year or two, it did not take a man long to establish himself.  In Medora there was a small law-abiding element, completely surrounded by a vast sea of iniquity.  Rascals of every degree of wickedness came and went, gamblers and game butchers, horse thieves and cattle thieves, boyish adventurers and fugitives from justice.  Roosevelt associated himself with the small group, including the editor of the Cowboy, which was endeavoring to bring law order into the untamed region.  His power was instantly recognized, and before the summer was well advanced one of the leading newspapers of western Dakota was speaking of him as a possible candidate for Congress. 

Roosevelt, however, had put politics temporarily behind him.  The vigorous outdoor life in a wild country amid hardy men thrilled him to the depths.  Beside it, the life of politics and society seemed for the moment unreal and valueless.  His double bereavement had made the very intercourse with acquaintances and friends of the happy former times a source of renewed pain.  His little daughter Alice was living with "Bamie" in the house on Fifty-seventh Street.  Soon that house was to be closed.  The old home and the home that had been his during the first years of his married life were both gone.  He determined that he would build a new home in surroundings that had no painful memories.  Forty miles north of Chimney Butte, where the Little Missouri took a long swing westward through a fertile bottom bordered along its mile or two of length by sheer cliff walls, on' a low bluff surmounted by cottonwood-trees, he found the bleached interlocked antlers of two great elk; and there he determined to build his house. 

He went East in the first days of July to take what part he could in the Presidential campaign and to make final arrangements with Bill Sewall and Will Dow, whom he had urged as early as March to try their fortunes in Dakota. 

Sewall had come to New York late the same month, elated at the prospect.    On his return to the East, early in July, Roosevelt wrote him once more:

Now, a little plain talk, though I do not think it necessary, for I know you too well.  If you are afraid of hard work and privation, do not come West.  If you expect to make a fortune in a year or two, do not come West.  If you will give up under temporary discouragements, do not come West.  If, on the other hand, you are willing to work hard, especially the first year; if you realize that for a couple of years you cannot expect, to make much more than you are now making; and if you also know that at the end of that time you will be in receipt of about a thousand dollars for the third year, with an unlimited rise ahead of you and a future as bright as you yourself choose to make it then come.  Now I take it for granted you will not hesitate at this time.  So fix up your affairs at once, and be ready to start before the end of this month. 

Sewall did not hesitate; nor did Dow.  They left New York with Roosevelt the last day of July, arriving at Chimney Butte the 5th of August. 

Sewall's eyes gleamed at the wildness of the country, but he turned that evening to Roosevelt with a troubled look.  "You won't make any money raising cattle in this country," he remarked. 

"Bill, you don't know anything about it!" retorted Theodore. 

Bill laughed.  "Well, I guess that's just about right, too," he said. 

The two backwoodsmen remained at Chimney Butte two days, and then, accompanied by one of Roosevelt's cowboys, rode north forty miles to Elkhorn, the new ranch, driving a hundred head of cattle before them; now following the dry river-bed, now branching off inland, crossing the great plateaus and winding through the ravines of the broken country.  There was already a shack on the new ranch, a primitive affair with a dirt roof, which Sewall and Dow now made their headquarters.  Now and again Roosevelt visited them. 

The cattle which were intended to be the nucleus of the Elkhorn herd were young grade short-horns of Eastern origin, less wild than the long-horn Texas steers, but liable, on new ground, to stray off and be lost in the innumerable coulees round about.  So each night they "bedded" them down on the level bottom, one or the other of them riding slowly and quietly round and round the herd, heading off and turning back into it all that tried to stray.  This was not altogether a simple business, for there was danger of stampede in making the slightest unusual noise.  Now and then they would call to the cattle softly as they rode, or sing to them until the steers had all lain down, close together.  And even then, at times, one of the men would stay on guard, riding round and round the herd, calling and singing. 

There was something magical in the strange sound of it in the clear air Under the stars. 

It was while Roosevelt was working with his men accustoming the cattle to their new surroundings that peremptory word came from the Marquis de Mores, sharply asserting that Roosevelt was building on his range and had better desist.  The Marquis had established himself in the Bad Lands with the idea of making the whole region in a sense his own feudal domain, and, as one of the cow-punchers expressed it, "he could not get over the idea that he had to run everything in sight. " He built a great slaughterhouse in Medora and had a dream that he could successfully rival the great packing industry of Chicago.  But he was not a man of experience or judgment and he had no knowledge of men.  His commands did not greatly agitate Roosevelt. 

He answered that there was nothing of the Marquis's on the land but dead sheep and he didn't think that they would hold it. 

The Marquis sent no reply.  This was curious, for Maunders, one of his chief assistants, and the ranch crew under him, were known as a "rough crowd" who had been involved in more than one shooting-affair.  Possibly the Marquis assumed that the young gentleman with the spectacles had decided to back down. 

"You'd better be on the lookout," Roosevelt remarked to Sewall and Dow.  "There's just a chance there may be trouble. "

"I cal'late we can look out for ourselves," answered Bill, with a gleam in his eye. 

The middle of August, Roosevelt set forth with Merrifield, and a queer Ulysses named Norman Lebo as teamster-a weather-beaten old plainsman "with an inexhaustible fund of misinformation"  on a hunting trip which he had long promised himself.  They traveled for weeks across the prairie, following the old Fort Keogh trail, to the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming.  There they left their wagon, proceeding with a pack-train into the heart of the high peaks. 

They followed an old Indian trail, ascending through the dense pine woods where the trunks rose like straight columns, close together, and up the sides of rocky gorges, driving the pack-train with endless difficulty over fallen timber and along ticklish ridges.  They pitched their camp at last beside a beautiful, clear mountain brook that ran through a glade ringed by slender pines; and from there hunted among the peaks round about.  The weather was clear and cold, with thin ice covering the dark waters of the mountain tarns, and now and again slight snowfalls that made the forest gleam and glisten in the moonlight like fairyland.  Through the frosty air they could hear the vibrant, musical note of the bull elk far off, calling to the cows or challenging one another. 

No country could have been better adapted to still hunting than the great, pine-clad mountains, studded with open glades.  Roosevelt loved the thrill of the chase, but he loved no less the companionship of the majestic trees and the shy wild creatures which sprang across his path or ran with incredible swiftness along the overhanging boughs.  Moving on noiseless moccasins, he caught alluring glimpses of the inner life of the mountains. 

There was elk-hunting such as Roosevelt had never known before; but it was not primarily elk that he was after.  He wanted to get a bear; but the bears, it seemed, eluded him, and he had been in the mountains a week before Merrifield rode into camp one morning, shouting that at last he had come across grizzly-bear signs in a tangle of ravines some ten miles away. 

By noon next day they were at their new camp in the heart of the bear region.  That afternoon, on a crag overlooking a wild ravine, Roosevelt shot a great bull elk.  Returning with Merrifield for the carcass next day, they found that a grizzly had been feeding on it.  They crouched in hiding for the bear's return.  But night fell, owls began to hoot dismally from the tops of the tall trees, and a lynx wailed from the depths of the woods, but the bear did not come. 

Early next morning they were again at the elk carcass.  The bear had evidently eaten his fill during the night.  His tracks were clear, and they followed them noiselessly over the yielding carpet of moss and pine needles, to an elk-trail leading into a tangled thicket of young spruces. 

Suddenly Merrifield sank on one knee, turning half round, his face aflame with excitement.  Roosevelt strode silently past him, his gun "at the ready. "

There, riot ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among the young spruces.  He had heard the hunters and reared himself on his haunches.  Seeing them, he dropped again on all-fours, and the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders bristled as he turned toward them. 

Roosevelt aimed fairly between the small, glittering, evil eyes, and fired.  The huge beast half rose, fell over, and was dead. 

The hunters broke camp the following morning and in single file moved down through the woods and across the canons to the edge of the great tableland, then slowly down the steep slope to its foot, where they found the canvas-topped wagon.  Next day they set out on the three-hundred-mile journey home to Chimney Butte.  

It was long and weary traveling across the desolate reaches of burnt prairie over which, day after day, Roosevelt galloped now in this direction, now in that, on the lookout for game, while the heavy wagon lumbered on.  At last, after many days, they reached a strange and romantic region of isolated buttes of sandstone, cut by the weather into most curious caves and columns, battlements, spires, and flying buttresses.  It was a beautiful and fantastic place and they made their camp there. 

The moon was full and the night clear, and the flame of the camp-fire leaped up the cliffs, so that the weird, carved shapes seemed alive.  Outside the circle of the fire the cliffs shone like silver under the moon, throwing grotesque shadows. 

It was like a country seen in a dream. 

The next morning all was changed.  A wild gale was blowing and rain beat about them in level sheets.  They spent a miserable day and night shifting from shelter to shelter with the shifting wind; another day and another night.  Their provisions were almost gone, the fire refused to burn in the fierce downpour, the horses drifted far off before the storm.  .  .  . 

The third day dawned clear and crisp, and once more the wagon lumbered on.  That night they camped by a dry creek on a broad bottom covered with thick parched grass.  To make sure that their camp-fire would not set the surrounding grass alight, they burned a circle clear and stood about with branches to keep the flames in check.  Suddenly there came a puff of wind.  The fire roared like a wild beast as it started up.  They fought it furiously but it seemed that they were fighting it in vain.  In five minutes, they told themselves, the whole bottom would be a blazing furnace.  Their hair and eyebrows were singed dry before they subdued the flames at last. 

They were three days from home, three days of crawling voyaging beside the fagged team.  The country was monotonous, moreover, without much game.  After supper that night Roosevelt concluded to press ahead of the wagon, with Merrifield, and ride the full distance before dawn. 

At nine o'clock they saddled the tough little ponies they had ridden all day and rode off out of the circle of firelight.  The September air was cool in their faces as they loped steadily mile after mile under the moonlight, and then under the starlight, over the rolling plains that stretched on all sides.  Now and again bands of antelope swept silently away from before their path, and once a drove of long-horn Texas cattle charged by, the ground rumbling beneath their tread.  The first glow of the sunrise was flaming up behind the level bluffs of Chimney Butte as they galloped down into the valley of the Little Missouri. 

Sewall and Dow meanwhile had been having a rather exciting time.  One day, on a round-up in the neighborhood, Dow overheard one of the Marquis de Mores' men remarking to another that " there'd be some dead men round that Elkhorn shack some day. "

Dow told Sewall. 

"Well," drawled Bill, "if there's going to be any dead men hereabouts I cal'late we can fix it so it won't be us A day or two after, one of the Marquis's men rode to where they were cutting timber.  "There's a vigilance committee around, I hear," he remarked, casually.  "They got a young fellow recently what was on foot, and, reckoning that he was probably getting ready to steal a horse, they strung him up so his feet just touched the ground.  They wanted him to confess.  But he said he didn't have nothing he could confess.  It was too bad about him.  You haven't seen the vigilance committee about, have you? I hear they're considering making a call on you folks. "

The men from Maine said to each other that the thing began to look '' smoky. '' They carried rifles and revolvers after that when they went to cut timber. 

The vigilantes did not come, but six of the Marquis's men did, heralding their arrival with revolver-shots in the air.  It was Sunday morning.  Sewall was alone.  Unostentatiously his hand fell on his gun and remained there.  He invited them into the shack to have some beans. 

"The boss of the gang had been drinking," said Sewall, telling Roosevelt about it later.  '' He had a good appetite, so I got all the beans into him I could, to make him feel good.  I guess he finally decided I wasn't worth shooting. "

Sewall and Dow greeted Roosevelt on his arrival with a full account of their adventures. 

"People are breathing out slaughter against us folk," said Sewall. 

"What for?" asked Roosevelt, sharply. 

"It's that Frenchman's outfit," said Sewall. 

"I thought there'd be trouble there. " in  "Maunders he's the boss trouble-maker of the Frenchman's outfit he says he wants to shoot you," said Sewall. 

This was decidedly interesting.  Maunders was known as a good shot, and had, in fact, recently killed a man. 

Roosevelt went out to the corral, roped and saddled his horse, and rode to Maunders's shack.  Maunders was there.  Roosevelt rode up to him. 

"I hear that you want to shoot me," he said, quietly.  '' I came over to find out why. ''

After a brief conversation it appeared that Maunders did not, after all, want to shoot him.  He had been "misquoted. " They parted, excellent friends. 

Roosevelt went East again late in September to do what he could in an uninspiring campaign to help elect  Blaine President.  But Cleveland was victorious and Roosevelt, resigning himself to a fact that no effort of his could now alter, returned to Dakota. 

Sewall and Dow were at Elkhorn, busy cutting the timber for the new house, which was to stand under the shade of a row of cottonwood-trees overlooking the broad, shallow bed of the Little Missouri.  They were both mighty men with the ax.  Roosevelt himself was no amateur, but he could not compete with the stalwart backwoodsmen. 

One evening he overheard one of the cowboys ask Dow what the day's cut had been.  "Well, Bill cut down fifty-three," answered Dow, "I cut forty-nine, and the boss," he added, dryly, not realizing that Roosevelt was within hearing "the boss he beavered down seventeen Roosevelt remembered a tree-stump he had seen recently, gnawed down by a beaver, and grinned. 

Winter settled down over the Bad Lands.  There was little snow, but the cold was fierce in its intensity.  By day, the plains and buttes were dazzling to the eye under the clear weather; by night, the trees cracked and groaned from the strain of the biting frost.  Even the stars seemed to snap and glitter.  The river lay fixed in its shining bed of glistening white, "like a huge bent bar of blue steel. " Wolves and lynxes traveled up and down it at night as though it were a highway. 

Roosevelt was now living mainly at Chimney Butte, writing somewhat and reading much, sharing fully meanwhile in the hardship of the winter work.  It was not always pleasant to be out of doors, but the herds had to be carefully watched and every day (which began with breakfast at five three hours before sunrise) he or one of his men was in the saddle from dawn to dark, riding about among them and turning back any herd that seemed to be straggling toward the open plains.  In the open country there was always a strong wind that never failed to freeze ears or fingers or toes, in spite of flannels and furs.  The cattle suffered much, standing huddled in the bushes in the ravines; and some of the young stock died of exposure. 

During the severest weather Ferris and Merrifield, whom Roosevelt had sent out to buy ponies, returned with fifty which had to be broken then and there.  Day after day in the icy cold Roosevelt labored with his men in the corral over the refractory animals, making up in patience what he lacked in physical address.  He did not find this business altogether pleasant, and the presence of a gallery of grinning cowboys, gathered '' to see whether the high-headed bay could buck the boss off," did not make it any easier to preserve a look of smiling indifference while the panic-stricken pony went through his gyrations. 

The high-headed bay did buck the boss off; and he wasn't the only one who did.  But it is worth remarking that in the end it was not the boss, but the pony, who was "broken. "

Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-six years old, no longer asthmatic now, but as hardy in body as he was fearless in spirit, became in scarcely more than a year from that early September morning when he had first descended from the train at Medora, an important factor in the life of the Bad Lands. 

He had established himself firmly in the respect and affection of those law-abiding ranchmen whose respect and affection were worth having; and it was not long before they began to look upon him as a leader.  He had, from the first, felt the need of government in this strip of wild country which offered so secure a refuge to evil-doers and had done what he could to secure the organization of the county in which Medora was situated.  But the time was not yet ripe for this step and Roosevelt decided, therefore, to endeavor to bring the honest ranchmen together in an association for mutual protection.  Early in December, 1884, he issued the following appeal in the columns of the Bad Lands Cowboy: notice Of a Proposed Meeting of the Stockmen
of the Little Missouri. 

At the request of Messrs.  Huidekooper, Wadsworth, Eaton, Truscott, the N.  P.  R.  C.  Co. , and of several other stockmen having ranges on the Little Missouri and Beaver Creek, a meeting of the stockmen of this river and its tributaries is hereby called to be held in Roberts Hall, Medora, at u A. M. , Friday, December 19th.  The object is to bring together the cattle-men of this vicinity in order that they may discuss certain questions of immediate and pressing interest to them, and in order that they may take measures to provide for a more efficient organization of the stockmen of this vicinity in the future, both so that they may be able to act more as a unit than has been the case in the past, and so that they can combine to protect their interests against unjust interference from the outside. 
All gentlemen interested in stock-raising, both those on the Littb Missouri and those on the neighboring waters, are urgently requested to attend. 
(By request)
THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

On December 19th a dozen or more ranchmen met, in response to this letter, in a dance-hall over Medora's leading and most wicked saloon, and formed the Little Missouri River Stockmen's Association, for mutual protection, as the by-laws ran "against frauds and swindles, and to prevent the stealing, taking, and driving away of horned cattle, sheep, horses, and other stock from the rightful owners thereof. "

Roosevelt was presiding officer at the meeting and was elected chairman of the association, though he was one of the youngest men present.  The whole matter attracted little attention; but it meant the beginning of the end of lawlessness in the Bad Lands.  

CHAPTER 8 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

SOME FOLKS FROM MAINE TURN A NEW HOUSE INTO A  NEW HOME

'"THE ranch-house was completed in the late A spring.  It was a spacious place for that region, and, in its plain fashion, comfortable and homelike.  It was, above all, "fit for women folks," which was more than could be said of the shack with a dirt roof at Chimney Butte.  Wilmot Dow was sent East in July "to fetch them out. "

They came in early August, Will Dow with his newly wedded bride, escorting Bill Sewall's wife and three-year-old daughter.  They were back-woodswomen, self-reliant, fearless, high-hearted, true mates to their stalwart men.  Before Roosevelt knew what was happening they had turned the new house into 'a home. 

And now for them all began a season of deep and quiet contentment that was to remain in the memories of all of them as a kind of idyl.  It was a life of elemental toil, hardship, and danger, and of strong, elemental pleasures rest after labor, food after hunger, warmth and shelter after bitter cold.  In that life there was no room for distinctions of social position or wealth.  They respected one another and cared for one another because and only because each knew that the others were brave and loyal and steadfast. 

Life on the ranch proved a more joyous thing than ever, after the women had taken charge.  They demanded certain necessities at once.  They demanded chickens; they demanded at least one cow.  No one had thought of a cow.  So Roosevelt and Sewall and Dow between them roped one on the range and threw her, and sat on her, and milked her upside down, which was not altogether satisfactory, but was, for the time being, the best thing they could do.  There was now a new charm in shooting game, with women at home to cook it.  And Mrs.  Sewall baked bread that was not at all like the bread Bill baked.  Soon she was even baking cake, which was an unheard-of luxury in the Bad Lands.  Then, after a while, the buffalo berries and wild plums began to disappear from the bushes round about and appear on the table as jam. 

"However big you build the house, it won't be big enough for two.  women," pessimists had remarked.  But their forebodings were not realized.  At Elkhorn no cross word was heard.  They were, taken alltogether, a very happy family.  Roosevelt was "the boss," in the sense that, since he footed the bills, power of final decision was his; but only in that sense.  He saddled his own horse; now and then he washed his own clothes; he fed the pigs; and once, on a rainy day, he blacked the Sunday boots of every man, woman, and child in the place.  He not encouraged to repeat that performance.  The folks from Maine made it quite clear that if the boots needed blacking at all, which was doubtful, they thought some one else ought to do the blacking not at all because it seemed to them improper that Roosevelt should black anybody's boots, but because he did it so badly.  The paste came off on everything it touched.  The women "mothered" him, setting his belongings to rights at stated intervals, for he was not conspicuous for orderliness.  He, in turn, treated the women with the friendliness and respect he showed to the women of his own family.  And the little Sewall girl was never short of toys. 

Elkhorn Ranch was a joyous place those days.  Cowboys, hearing of it, came from a distance for a touch of home life and the luxury of hearing a woman's voice. 

The summer days were for Roosevelt, as well as for his men, full of vigorous toil, beginning before the stars had fully faded out of the sky at dawn and ending in heavy slumber before the last of the sunset had been swallowed by the night.  He was in the saddle much of the time, working among the cattle, salvaging steers mired in the numerous bog-holes and quicksands, driving in calves overlooked in the spring branding, breaking ponies, hunting.  Meanwhile he was writing a series of magazine articles dealing with politics, and was preparing for the press a remarkably entertaining volume of hunting experiences called Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, which he had written the previous winter.  Much of the time he was away from the ranch on the various round-ups, either alone or with as many of his men as could be spared from the daily chores of the ranch.  He enjoyed enormously the excitement and rough but hearty comradeship of these round-ups, which brought him in touch with ranchmen and cowboys from hundreds of miles around.  The work was hard and incessant and not without danger from man and beast.  The cattle never harmed him, but the ponies did.  He was a good, but not extraordinary, rider, and even extraordinary riders were at times sent over the heads of their ponies.  During the round-up that summer Roosevelt was bucked off more than once.  On one occasion the point of his shoulder was broken.  There were no surgeons in that round-up.  The shoulder had to mend by itself as well as it could while its owner went about his work as usual. 

As for the men, with them Roosevelt had little trouble.  There were rough characters among them and his spectacles were always a source of deep suspicion; but the diplomacy of "do your job and keep your mouth shut ". kept him, as a rule, out of difficulties.  Arriving at a strange round-up camp with his drove of eight or ten ponies always late in the day, if possible, so that the horses would be ready to rest he reported to the captain of the round-up, and then to whatever wagon-boss the captain assigned him, or, in his absence, to the cook, a privileged, outspoken character always.  Having received in polite silence the outburst of profanity which was that functionary's habitual form of friendly greeting, he deposited his roll of bedding a little outside the ring, where it would be in no one's way, ate supper in silence, turned a deaf ear to certain derogatory remarks about "four eyes" which were sure to be made by some one or other, and went to sleep.  Now and then it happened that his quiet demeanor was misunderstood. 

There was one man at one of the round-ups, a Texan, who insisted on "picking on" Roosevelt as a "dude. " Roosevelt laughed.  But the man continued, in season and out of season, to make him the butt of his gibes. 

It occurred to the object of all this attention that the Texan was evidently under the impression that the "dude" was also a coward.  Roosevelt decided that, for the sake of general harmony, that impression had better be corrected at once. 

One evening, when the man was being particularly offensive, Roosevelt strode up to him. 

"You're talking like an ass!" he said, sharply, and drew his gun.  "Put up or shut up! Fight now, or be friends!"

The Texan stared, his shoulder dropped a little, and he shifted his feet.  "I didn't mean any harm," he said.  "Make it friends. "

They shook hands, and a little later the Texan joined the Elkhorn "outfit. "

The day's work on the round-up commenced at three in the morning with a yell from the cook, and lasted until sundown or after, and not infrequently the whole night through.  All day Roosevelt remained in the saddle.  The morning and it was generally eight hours long was given to "riding the long circle" in couples, driving into the wagon camp whatever cattle had been found in the hills.  The afternoon was spent in '' cutting out'' of the herd thus gathered the cattle belonging to the various brands.  This was difficult and dangerous work.  Representatives of each brand rode in succession into the midst of the herd, working the animal they were after gently to the edge, then with a sudden dash taking it off at a run.  The calves would follow their mothers and would then be branded with the mark of the owner of the cow. 

At night there was occasionally guard duty, a two hours' slow patrol about the restless herd.  It was monotonous work, and in stormy weather no joy at all; but on clear, warm nights Roosevelt, sleepy as he was from the day's exertion, was not sorry to lope through the lonely silence under the stars, listening to the breathing of the cattle, alert every instant to meet whatever emergency might arise from out that dark, moving mass, 

One night there was a heavy storm.  Fearing a stampede, the night herders sent a call of "all hands out. " Roosevelt leaped on the pony he always kept picketed near him.  Suddenly there was a terrific peal of thunder.  The lightning struck almost into the herd itself, and with heads and tails high the panic-stricken animals plunged off into the blackness.  For an instant Roosevelt could distinguish nothing but the dark forms of the cattle rushing by him like a spring freshet on both sides.  The herd split, half turning off to the left, the rest thundering on.  He galloped at top speed, hoping to reach the leaders and turn them. 

He heard a wild splashing ahead.  One instant he was aware that the cattle in front of him and beside him were disappearing; the next, he himself was plunging over a cut bank into the Little Missouri.  He bent far back.  His horse almost fell, recovered himself, plunged forward, and, struggling through water and quicksand, made the other side. 

For a second he saw another cowboy beside him.  The man disappeared in the darkness and the deluge, and Roosevelt galloped off through a grove of cotton-woods after the diminished herd.  The ground was rough and full of pitfalls.  Twice his horse turned a somersault, throwing him.  At last the cattle came to a halt and after one more half-hearted stampede, as the white dawn came, turned reluctantly back toward camp. 

Roosevelt gathered in stray groups of cattle as he went, driving them before him.  After a while he came upon a cowboy carrying his saddle on his head.  It was the man he had seen for a flash during the storm.  His horse had run into a tree and been killed.  He himself had escaped by a miracle. 

The men in the camp were just starting on the long circle when Roosevelt returned.  Only half the herd had been brought back, they said.  He snatched a hurried breakfast, leaped on a fresh horse, and again was away into the hills.  It was ten hours before he was back at the wagon camp once more for a hasty meal and a fresh horse. 

When he went to sleep that night he had been in the saddle forty hours.  The cow-punchers decided that "the man with four eyes" "had the stuff" in him. 

And so, quietly "doing his job" from day to day, in no way playing on his position or his wealth, but accepting the discipline of the camp and the orders of the captain of the round-up as every other selfrespecting cowboy accepted them, Theodore Roosevelt gradually made his place in the rough world of the Bad Lands.  He was not a crack rider or a fancy roper, but the captain of the round-up learned by and by that if a cow persisted in lying down in a thick patch of bulberry-bushes, refusing to come out, Roosevelt's persistence could be relied on to outlast the cow's.  At the end of the day, as well as the beginning, he could be counted on to do the unattractive task that fell in his way.  That, the captain decided, was of considerably greater importance for the success of a round-up than any handiness with a lariat. 

Roosevelt's leadership of the forces of order, meanwhile, had brought him into rather strained relations with the romantic and dazzling Marquis de Mores.  For events over which he exercised only partial control had forced the Marquis into a position where he was virtually the protector of the unruly element.  A few months previous to Roosevelt's advent in the Bad Lands the Marquis had been drawn into a local feud, and in consequence of the machinations of Jake Maunders, the Marquis's wily foreman, who wanted to get the Marquis into his power, had been made a party to an ambuscade in which a hunter named Riley Luffrey was killed.  Maunders and his friends thereafter enjoyed immunity, and carried on a flourishing trade in stolen horses without hindrance.  The Marquis was indicted for murder, but the case did not come to trial until September, 1885, two and a half years after the killing.  One of the murdered man's friends, who had been instrumental in bringing the case to trial, was a German known as "Dutch Wannigan," who worked for Roosevelt.  He had previously deposited certain savings with Joe Ferris, who had become storekeeper and was the local banker.  On his way to the trial he withdrew it.  The Marquis heard of the transaction and jumped to the conclusion that Roosevelt was backing the prosecution. 

He wrote Roosevelt angrily.  He had supposed, he said, that there was nothing but friendly feeling between himself and Roosevelt, but, since it was otherwise, there was always "a way of settling such differences between gentlemen. "

Roosevelt read the letter aloud.  "That's a threat," he said.  "He's trying to bully me.  He can't bully me.  I'm going to write him a letter myself. "

He wrote the letter and brought it to Sewall for inspection.  He had no unfriendly feeling for the Marquis, he wrote, "but, as the closing sentence of your letter implies a threat, I feel it my duty to say that I am ready at all times and all places to answer for my actions. "

"Now," said Roosevelt, "I expect he'll challenge me.  I don't believe in fighting duels.  My friends don't any of them believe in it.  They would be very much opposed to anything of the kind, but if he challenges me I shall have the choice of weapons, which will be quite a different matter than if I should challenge him and he were able to choose the weapons, which would probably be swords, which he can use and I can't.  If he does challenge me, I shall tell him that I choose Winchesters at twelve paces, shoot and advance, until one or the other gets enough. " He paused.  "Then we'll see. "

Sewall grunted.  "You'll never have to fight any duel of that kind with that man," he said.  "He won't challenge you.  He'll find some way out of it. "

Roosevelt was not at all sure of this.  The Marquis was a bully, but he was no coward. 

A few days later the answer came.  Roosevelt brought it over to Sewall. 

"You were right, Bill, about the Marquis," he said. 

It seemed that the Marquis, though a game man, recognized that now and then discretion was the better part of valor.  So long as he did not publicly lose caste or incur ridicule by backing down, he did not intend, it appeared, to run the risk of losing his life without an adequate object. 

Sewall read the letter.  The Marquis declared that Roosevelt had completely misconstrued the meaning of his message.  The idea he had meant to convey was that there was always a way of settling affairs of that sort between gentlemen without trouble.  And wouldn't Mr.  Roosevelt do him the honor of dining with him, and so forth and so on? 
 
And so it came about that there was profound peace thereafter between the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham. 

Roosevelt found the life of the Bad Lands wonderfully satisfying, and he loved the plain, great-hearted people.  But he could not easily forget what he had lost.  It was in his hours of deep loneliness and depression that Bill Sewall would take him out into the open prairie and, to use his own expression, "go for him bow-legged. " He talked to him as though he were a boy. 

'' I know how you feel,'' he would say to him, '' and I sympathize with you.  But you'll feel different by and by and then you won't want to stay here.  If you can't think of anything else to do, start some reform.  You'd be a good reformer.  You're made of the right kind of stuff.  You're always thinking of making things better instead of worse. "

And at that Roosevelt would grin, in spite of the blues. 

Roosevelt did not then and there "start a reform. " He merely entered more deeply than ever into the life on the ranch, living in the saddle all day, and then, at dusk, grimy and hot, sinking into a rocker on the porch and reading Keats or Swinburne or just rocking and looking sleepily out across the river at the weird buttes, "while the green and brown of the hilltops changed to amber and purple and then to shadowy gray as the somber darkness deepened. " The leaves of the cottonwood-trees before the house were never still, and often the cooing of mourning-doves would come down to him from some high bough.  He heard the skylark and the thrush in the thicket near by, and in the distance the clanging cries of the water-fowl.  He knew the note of every bird, and they were like friends calling to him. 

Roosevelt went East just before Christmas, returning early in March.  It was like coming home from a foreign country to see the Little Missouri once more, and the strangely fascinating desolation of the Bad Lands, and the home ranch, and the "folks " from Maine and the loyal friends of Chimney, Butte.  He had good friends in the East, but there was a warmth and a stalwart sincerity in the comradeship of these men and women which he had scarcely found elsewhere.  Through the cold evenings of that early spring he loved to lie stretched at full length on the elk-hides and wolf-skins in front of the great fireplace, while the blazing logs crackled and roared and Sewall and Dow and the "women folks" recounted the happenings of the season of his absence.  There were great stories to tell.  There was the tale of Hell-roaring Bill Jones and the lunatic, for instance, and how Bill Jones, who was the sheriff, used to let the lunatic escape once a day just to see if Snyder, the huge Dutchman who was his deputy, could catch him; and how Bixby, the town joker, tried to plague the lunatic, and how Bill Jones "learned him" by letting the lunatic out at him one night, and how the lunatic nearly bit off Bixby's ear.  There were other stories that were not quite so humorous stories of cattle frozen in the drifts, of "line-riding" from outlying camp to camp in the bitter, biting cold, stories of a year's profits  gone  glimmering in a week of wild weather. 

Spring came early that year, and about the middle of March a great ice-jam which had formed at a bend far up the river came slowly past Elkhorn, roaring and crunching and piling the ice high on both banks, grinding against the cottonwoods in front of the porch and threatening to sweep away the house.  But the force of the freshet carried the jam onward, leaving an open channel at last between solid masses of ice.  The water ran through it like a mill-race. 

Roosevelt had brought out a clinker-built boat to ferry him and his men to the opposite shore when the river was high.  One afternoon they crossed the raging channel to bring home the carcasses of a number of deer they had shot for meat and hung up in a thicket of dwarf cedars.  They found that the carcasses had been completely devoured, evidently by mountain-lions.  They followed the tracks into a tangle of rocky hills, but the oncoming night obscured the footprints and they returned home, resolved to renew the pursuit at dawn.  They tied the boat securely to a tree high up on the bank.  The next morning the boat was gone. 

It was Bill Sewall who made the discovery.  He was not a man easily excited and he took a certain quiet satisfaction in sitting down to breakfast and saying nothing while Roosevelt expatiated on what they were going to do to the mountain-lions.   "I guess we won't go to-day," said Sewall, at length, munching the last of his breakfast. 

"Why not?" Roosevelt demanded. 

"Some one has gone off with the boat. "

Roosevelt leaped indignantly to his feet to see for himself.  Sure enough, the rope had been cut. 

They had little doubt who the thieves were.  They had heard that there were three suspicious characters up the river who had good reasons for wanting to ''skip the country. '' The leader was a man named Finnegan, who had been heard to boast that he was "from Bitter Creek, where the farther up you went the worse people got,'' and he lived '' at the fountain-head. " The vigilantes had been looking his way for some months.  Travel by horse or foot was impossible.  The Elkhorn boat had evidently appeared to Finnegan and company in the nature of a godsend. 

Roosevelt ran to saddle his horse.  But Sewall restrained him, pointing out that if the country was impassable for the horses of the thieves it was no less impassable for the pursuers.  He declared that he and Dow could build a flat-bottomed boat in three days.  Roosevelt told him to go ahead.  With the saddle-band his forty or fifty cow-ponies on the farther side of the river, he could not afford to lose the boat.  As a deputy sheriff, moreover, he had certain responsibilities.  In an unsettled community he knew it was fatal to submit tamely to injury. 

They left a cowboy named Rowe as guard over the ranch and "the women folk," and, with their unwieldy but watertight craft laden with two week?' provisions of flour, coffee, and bacon, started, one old morning toward the end of March, to drift down the river. 

The region through which they passed was bare and bleak and terrible.  On either side, beyond the heaped-up piles of ice, rose the scarred buttes, weather-worn into fantastic shapes and strangely blotched with spots of brown and yellow, purple and red.  Here and there the black coal-veins that ran through them were aflame, gleaming weirdly through the dusk as the three men made their camp that night. 

The weather was cold and an icy wind blew in their faces. 

"We're like to have it in our faces all day," remarked Will Dow, cheerfully, paddling at the bow.  "We can't, unless it's the crookedest wind in Dakota," answered Sewall, who was steering. 

They followed the river's course hither and thither in and out among the crags, east and west, north and south. 

"It is the crookedest wind in Dakota," muttered Sewall to himself. 

The thermometer dropped to zero, but there was firewood in plenty, and they found prairie-fowl and deer for their evening meals.  Late the third day, rounding a bend, they saw their boat moored against the bank.  Out of the bushes, a little way back, the smoke of a camp-fire curled up through the frosty air.  They flung off their heavy coats.  Sewall was in the stern, steering the boat toward shore.  Dow was at Roosevelt's side in the bow.  Roosevelt saw the grim, eager look in their eyes, and his own eyes gleamed.  

He was the first ashore, leaping out of the boat as it touched the shore ice and running up behind a clump of bushes, so as to cover the landing of the others.  Dow was beside him in an instant.  Sewall was fastening the boat. 

They peered through the bushes.  Beside a fire in a grove of young cottonwoods in the lee of a cut bank a solitary figure was sitting; his guns were on the ground at his side. 

"Hands up!"

Roosevelt and Dow rushed in on the man, who was not slow to do as he was told.  He was a halfwitted German, a tool of rogues more keen than he, and he readily promised, at the point of a gun, to make no move to warn the others. 

Finnegan and the third man, a half-breed Swede named Bernstein, had gone hunting, believing themselves safe.  Sewall guarded the German while Roosevelt and Dow crouched under the bank and prepared to greet the others. 

They waited an hour or more.  Then, afar off, they heard them coming, and then they saw them, walking leisurely through the long, dry grass, with the sun glinting on the rifles they carried over their shoulders, now forty yards away, now thirty, now twenty .  .  . 

"Hands up!"

The half-breed obeyed, but for an instant Finnegan hesitated, glaring at his captors with wolfish eyes.  Roosevelt walked toward him, covering the center of the man's chest to avoid over-shooting. 

"You thief, put up your hands!" 

Finnegan dropped his rifle with an oath and put up his hands. 

They camped that night where they were.  Sewall and Dow set to work chopping firewood, while Roosevelt kept watch over the sullen prisoners.  To secure them effectually the obvious resource was to tie them hand and foot.  But the air was icy; before morning hands and feet would have been frozen off.  Roosevelt searched them, taking away everything that might have done service as a weapon.  He corded his harvest in some bedding well out of reach of the thieves.  Then a further precaution occurred to him. 

"Take off your boots!" he ordered. 

It had occurred to him that bare feet would make any thought of flight through that cactus country extremely uninviting.  The men surrendered their boots.  Roosevelt gave them a buffalo robe in return and the prisoners crawled under it, thoroughly cowed. 

Captors and captives started down-stream in the two boats the next morning.  The cold was bitter.  Toward the end of the day they were stopped by a small ice-jam which moved forward slowly, only to stop them again.  They ran the boats ashore to investigate, and found that the great Ox-bow jam which had moved past Elkhorn a week ago had come to a halt and now effectually barred their way.  They could not possibly paddle up-stream against the current.  They could not go on foot, for to do so would have meant the sacrifice of all their equipment.  They determined to follow the slow-moving mass of ice, and hope, meanwhile, for a thaw. 

They continued to hope; day after weary day they watched in vain for signs of the thaw that would not come, breaking camp in the morning on one barren point, only to pitch camp again in the evening on another, guarding the prisoners every instant, for the trouble they were costing made the captors even more determined that, whatever was lost, Finnegan and company should not be lost. 

Their provisions ran short.  They went after game, but there was none to be seen, no beast or bird, in that barren region.  Soon they were reduced to unleavened bread made with muddy water.  The days were utterly tedious, and were made only slightly more bearable by a perusal of The History of the James Brothers, which the thieves quite properly carried among their belongings.  And the thieves had to be watched every minute.  And the wind blew and chilled them all to the bone. 

Roosevelt thought that it might be pleasant under certain circumstances- to be either a Dakota sheriff or an Arctic explorer.  But he did not find great joy in being both at the same time. 

When the flour was nearly gone Roosevelt and his men had a consultation. 

"We can't shoot them," said Roosevelt, "and we can't feed them.  It looks to me as though we'd have to let them go. "

Sewall disagreed.  "The flour '11 last a day or two more," he said, "and it's something to know that if we're punishing ourselves we're punishing the thieves also. "

"Exactly!" cried Roosevelt.  "We'll hold on to them. "

The next day Sewall, on foot, searched the surrounding region far and wide for a ranch, and found none.  The day after, Roosevelt and Dow covered the country on the other side of the river, and at last came on an outlying cow camp of the Diamond C Ranch, where Roosevelt secured a horse. 

It was a wiry, rebellious beast. 

"The boss ain't no bronco-buster," remarked Dow, apologetically, to the cowboys. 

But "the boss" managed to get on the horse and to stay on.  Dow returned to Sewall and the thieves, while Roosevelt rode fifteen miles to a ranch at the edge of the Kildeer Mountains.  There he secured supplies and a prairie-schooner, hiring the ranchman himself, a rugged old plainsman, to drive it to the camp by the ice-bound river.  Sewall and Dow, now thoroughly provisioned, remained with the boats.  Roosevelt with the thieves started for the nearest jail, which was at Dickinson. 

It was a desolate two days' journey through a bleak- waste of burnt, blackened prairie, and over rivers so rough with ice that they had to take the wagon apart to cross.  Roosevelt did not dare abate his watch over the thieves for an instant, for they knew they were drawing close to jail and might conceivably make a desperate break any minute.  He could not trust the driver.  There was nothing for it but to pack the men into the wagon and to walk behind with the Winchester. 

Hour after hour he trudged through the ankle-deep mud, hungry, cold, and utterly fatigued, but possessed by the dogged resolution to carry the thing through, whatever the cost.  They put up at the squalid hut of a frontier granger overnight, but Roosevelt, weary as he was, did not dare to sleep.  He crowded the prisoners into the upper bunk and sat against the cabin door all night, with the Winchester across his knees. 

"What I can't make out," said the ranchman from the Kildeers, bewildered, "is why you make all this fuss instead of hanging 'em offhand?"

Roosevelt grinned, and the following evening, after a three-hundred-mile journey, deposited three men, who had defied the laws of Dakota, in the jail at Dickinson

CHAPTER 9 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

THE  END   OF   THE  IDYL

THE season which began with Finnegan and company proved poor from a business stand-point, but rich in varied experiences.  The cattle had not come through the winter well.  Many of the weaker animals had died.  The price of beef, meanwhile, remained low.  But though Roosevelt was not getting much financial return on his rather generous investment, he was getting other things, for him at this time of far greater value.  He who had been weak in body and subject to racking illnesses had in these three years developed a constitution as tough and robust as an Indian's.  He had achieved something besides this.  Living, talking, working, facing danger, and suffering hardships with the Sewalls and the Dows, with Merrifield and the Ferrises and Hell-roaring Bill Jones and countless other stalwart citizens of the Bad Lands, he had come very close to the heart of the ''plain American. ''

He loved the wild country, he loved the vigorous life, but, most of all, he loved the "plain Americans" as he came to know them in Dakota. 

And it happened that they also loved him Even Finnegan.  For Finnegan, who had cried out, before they parted, "If I'd had any show at all, you'd have sure had to fight, Mr.  Roosevelt," wrote him a few weeks later,'' Should you stop at Bismarck this fall, make a call at the prison.  I should be glad to meet you. "

It was. no wonder that Roosevelt wrote his brother-in-law that July, " If I continued to make long stays here I should very soon get to practically give up the East entirely. "

Roosevelt wrote much that summer, putting the finishing touches on his Life of Benton; but more than half the time he was in the open, working on the various round-ups, riding among the line camps, hunting, breaking colts.  He broke other things besides colts a rib on one occasion when the pony bucked him off on a rock.  He made a speech to a Fourth of July crowd of cowboys and grangers at Dickinson; he opened a hop with the wife of a notorious gun-fighter at Medora; he pronounced a friendly benediction on two babies which arrived at Elkhorn Ranch within a week of each other; and once, when he was alone on the prairie, he successfully repulsed a small band of Indians. 

The Indian adventure happened this way.  He had been traveling along the edge of the prairie on a solitary journey to the unexplored country north and east of the range on which his cattle grazed, and was crossing a narrow plateau when he suddenly saw a group of four or five Indians come up over the edge, directly in front.  As they saw him they whipped their guns out of their slings, started their horses into a run, and came toward him at full speed. 

He reined up instantly and dismounted. 

The Indians came on, whooping and brandishing their weapons. 

Roosevelt laid his gun across the saddle and waited.  When they were within a hundred yards he threw up his rifle and drew a bead on the foremost rider. 

The effect was instantaneous.  The Indians flung themselves over the sides of their horses, scattered, wheeled, and doubled on their tracks.  At some distance, they halted and gathered, evidently for a conference. 

Thereupon one man came forward alone, making the peace sign first with his blanket and then with his open hand.  Roosevelt let him come to within fifty yards.  The Indian was waving a piece of soiled paper, his reservation pass. 

"How! Me good Indian!" he called. 

"How!" Roosevelt answered.  "I'm glad you are.  But don't come any closer. "

Now from the right and the left the other Indians began almost imperceptibly to draw toward him. 

Roosevelt whipped up his gun once more, covering the spokesman.  That individual burst into a volume of perfect Anglo-Saxon profanity; but he retired, which was what he was supposed to do.  Roosevelt led the faithful Manitou off toward the plains.  The Indians hovered about, but he was watchful, and they knew that he had a gun and that he was not afraid.  They vanished in the radiant dust of the prairie. 

He had another adventure that summer, and it came uncomfortably close to costing him his life.  It was in September and he had gone west to the Coeur d'Alene Mountains with Merrifield and a guide an extraordinary woodsman but a man of more than dubious morals for a fortnight's chase after white goats.  The country through which they hunted was a vast wooded wilderness of towering peaks on every side, and valleys that lay half in darkness between timbered slopes or steep rock walls.  Wild torrents sprang down through the chasms. 

They camped far up in the mountains, hunting day after day through the deep woods just below the timber-line.  The climbing was very hard, and the footing was treacherous.  There was endless underbrush, thickets of prickly balsam or laurel but there were no goats. 

At last, one mid-afternoon, as he was supporting himself against a tree, half-way across a long landslide, Roosevelt suddenly discovered one of the beasts he was after/a short distance away, waddling down a hill, looking for all the world like a handsome tame billy.  He was in a bad position for a shot, and as he twisted himself about he dislodged some pebbles.  The goat, instantly alert, fled.  Roosevelt fired, but the shot went low, only breaking a foreleg. 

The three men raced and scrambled after the fleeing animal.  It leaped along the hillside for nearly a mile, then turned straight up the mountain.  They followed the bloody trail where it went up the sharpest and steepest places, skirting the cliffs and precipices. 

Roosevelt, intent on the quarry, was not what Bill Sewall would have called "over-cautious" in the pursuit. 

He was running along a shelving ledge when a piece of loose slate with which the ledge was covered slipped under his foot.  He clutched at the rock wall, he tried to fling himself back, but he could not recover himself. 

He went head first over the precipice. 

There is probably something in the theory of guardian angels.  Theodore Roosevelt's particular guardian angel that day took the form of a clump of evergreens in the ravine forty or fifty feet below.  The angel whoever he was caught the falling huntsman in a tall pine, sent him bouncing through it, and brought him up, finally and reasonably comfortably, in a thick balsam, somewhat shaken and scratched, but with no bones broken and with his rifle still clutched in his hand. 

From far above came the hoarse voice of the guide, "Are you hurt?"

"No," answered Roosevelt, a trifle breathlessly. 

"Then come on!"

Roosevelt "came on," scrambling back up the steep height he had so swiftly descended, and raced after the guide.  He came upon the goat at last, but, winded as he was and with the sweat in his eyes, he shot too high, cutting the skin above the spine.  The goat plunged downhill and the hunters plunged after him, pursuing the elusive animal until darkness covered the trail. 

Roosevelt brought him down next day at noon. 
He returned to Elkhorn to find that, during his fortnight's absence, two important things had happened. 

The first was the arrival of a letter notifying him that a non-partisan organization, including the most prominent citizens of New York City, Democrats as well as Republicans, intended, with his consent, to make him their candidate for Mayor at the coming election. 

The other was the return of Wilmot Dow from Chicago with the report that the best price he had been able to secure for the hundreds of cattle he had taken to the market there was less by ten dollars a head than the sum they had cost to raise and transport. 

Roosevelt had gone into the cattle business against the urgent advice and remonstrances of his family and his other friends.  He did not like to admit that he had not "made good. " He was not at all sure, in fact, that with ordinary luck he might not yet succeed.  But he recognized that Sewall had been right that first evening at Chimney Butte.  The Bad Lands were not a good region for cattle.  The winters were too severe for the young stock.  He might yet win through, and he might not.  The thing was a gamble in any event.  He himself could afford to take the risk.  Sewall and Dow could not. 

He called them to his room.    He had made a verbal agreement with them the year previous, stipulating that if business were prosperous they were to have a share in it; if not, they were to have wages in any event. 

"What do you think of that, Bill?" Roosevelt had said. 

"I call that a one-sided trade," Sewall had answered.  "But if you can stand it, I guess we can. "

In his room that day, a year later, Roosevelt told them that he had been "figuring up things. " He would stand by his agreement, he said, if, facing an uncertain outcome, they wished to remain; but, if they were willing, he thought they had better '' quit the business and go back. "

Sewall and Dow did not hesitate.  They said they would go back. 

"I never wanted to fool away anybody else's money," Sewall added.  "Never had any of my own to fool away. "

"How soon can you go?" asked Roosevelt. 

Sewall turned and went into the kitchen "to ask the women folks. " Their babies known to their families and to an endless succession of cowboys who came from near and far to inspect them, as "the Bad Lands babies" were just six weeks old. 

"They say they can go in three weeks," Sewall reported. 

"Three weeks from today," answered Roosevelt, "we go. "

And so the folks from Maine who had made a rough and simple house in a desolate country into the only home Theodore Roosevelt had known in almost three years, began to gather together their belongings and pack up.  It was the end of what had been a wonderful idyl whose impermanence Wise old Bill Sewall had been the only one fully to recognize. 

"You'll come to feel different," he had said the year before, when Roosevelt had been lonely and despondent, "and then you won't want to stay here. "

Sewall had been right.  Life, which for a while had seemed to Theodore Roosevelt so gray and dismal, had slowly taken on new color.  He had become engaged to Edith Carow, the "Eidieth" of the portrait which had '' stired up " in him '' homesickness and longings for the past which will come again never aback never," that far-away November in Paris when he was just eleven.  His interest in politics reawoke. 

And yet during those last weeks at Elkhorn he was not at all sure that he wished to re-enter the turmoil of politics.  He rode out into the prairie one day for a last "session" with Bill Sewall shortly before the three weeks were up.  He told Sewall he had an idea he ought to go into law. 

"You'd be a good lawyer," said Bill, "but I think you ought to go into politics.  Good men like you ought to go into politics.  If you do, and if you live, I think you'll be President. "

Roosevelt laughed.  "That's looking a long way ahead. "

"It may look a long way ahead of you," Sewall declared, stoutly, "but it isn't as far ahead as it's been for some of the men who got there
 
"I'm going home now," said Roosevelt, "to see about a job my friends want me to take.  I don't think I want it.  It will get me into a row.  And I want to write. "

Roosevelt went East a day or two after, leaving his cattle in charge of Merrifield and the Ferrises, on shares.  The Sewalls and Dows, with the little girl and the "Bad Lands babies," followed within a week. 

Neither Roosevelt nor the "folks from Maine" were sentimentalists.  They shed no tears, but they were all aware that for all of them a "golden age" had come to an end.  The women were conscious of it, but it was the men who felt it most keenly. 

There were six of them Bill Sewall and Will Dow, Joe Ferris and his brother Sylvane, Joe Merrifield, most daring of all, and Theodore Roosevelt.  They had bunked together and eaten together; hunted together and ridden on the round-up together; suffered hunger and thirst together on the parched plains and among the scraggy buttes of the Bad Lands; struggled against the fierce storms of winter when there was no such thing as turning back and every step forward was sheer, aching misery; risked their necks together and called it the "day's work"; and on winter evenings sat before the blazing fire together in the warm security of the ranch-house and talked of poetry and adventure and of the needs and the great past of their country. 

For five of them it was a joyous experience to remember to their dying day and to tell their children about, and their children's children so much and no more.  But for the sixth it was a decisive factor in his life, that transformed an Eastern aristocrat with a Northern father and a Southern mother into a democratic American, whom thereafter no section could claim exclusively, because in his spirit he was akin to all. 

Theodore Roosevelt accepted the nomination of the independents for Mayor of New York City, believing that the non-partisan organization which had offered him the nomination actually represented a fusion of large and important elements in the Democratic and Republican parties.  When the Republican organization indorsed his nomination, he decided that there was a real chance that he might win, and leaped whole-heartedly into the campaign. 

But he had misjudged the situation.  A new "United Labor Party" had nominated Henry George on a single-tax platform; Tammany Hall had resorted to camouflage and nominated Abram S.  Hewitt, an admirable and public-spirited citizen.  The fight was hopeless from the start.  The thoughtful elements in the city, on whose support against the radicalism of Henry George on the one hand, and the corruption of Tammany on the other, he had believed he could safely count, became panic-stricken at the possibility of a labor victory and gave their votes to Hewitt. 

Roosevelt conducted a lively campaign, and here and there among his audiences the spark of his enthusiasm for just and honest government began to kindle the hearts of young men to a fervor more profound and lasting than the effervescence of ordinary election excitement. 

For the first time young men, under the spell of the hot sincerity of Theodore Roosevelt, aged twenty-eight, began to say, "That's the man for me!"

He was not elected; in fact, he ran third.  

"But, anyway," he said, cheerfully, "I had a bully time. "

He went abroad immediately after election, and in December, at St.  George's, Hanover Square, London, he married Edith Kermit Carow. 

Theodore Roosevelt and his wife returned to America early in the new year and immediately moved into the new house on Sagamore Hill, at Oyster Bay, which Roosevelt had built two years previously and which, with its wide view over woods and waters, was to be "home" thereafter.  Aside from certain work in the Republican organization, Roosevelt took no part in politics.  He thought of himself, in fact, not as a politician at all, but as a man of letters.  His Life of Benton had been published the previous autumn and had quickly run into a second and third edition.  He was now at work on its successor, the Life of Gouverneur Morris, and was already gathering material for what was to be his greatest historical work, The Winning of the West. 

Meanwhile, the news from Dakota was bad.  The winter had been terrible in its severity.  The snow-fall had been unprecedented, beginning in November and, day by day, piling the drifts higher and higher until the ravines were almost level.  The cattle on the hills died by hundreds and thousands of starvation and the cold.  Half of Roosevelt's herd was destroyed. 

It was a severe blow.  He went West in April to see for himself how great the loss was. 
You cannot imagine anything more dreary than the look of the Bad Lands when I went out there [he wrote to Sewall on his return].  Everything was cropped as bare as a bone.  The sage-brush was just fed out by the starving cattle.  The snow lay so deep that nobody could get around; it was almost impossible to get a horse a mile.  In almost every coulee there were dead cattle.  There were nearly three hundred in Wads-worth bottom.  Annie came through all right; Angus died.  Only one or two of our horses died; but the OX lost sixty head.  In one of Monroe's draws I counted in a single patch of brushwood twenty-three dead cows and calves.  

The losses are immense; the only ray of comfort is that I hear the grass is very good this summer.  You boys were lucky to get out when you did; if you had waited till this spring I guess it would have been a case of walking. 

During his flying visit to the Little Missouri in April he moved the Ferrises and Merrifield down from Chimney Butte to Elkhorn.  In the autumn he was again at the ranch to assist in the round-up of a train-load of cattle which he subsequently sold at Chicago (again at a loss, for the prices for beef were even lower than the previous year).  He went on a brief hunt after antelope in the broken country between the Little Missouri and the Beaver; he fought a raging prairie fire with the blood from the split carcass of a steer; and, feeling very fit, returned back to his family and his books. 

A month later, his son, Theodore Roosevelt, Junior, was born. 

He was now increasingly busy with his writing, completing that winter a volume of vigorous sketches of the frontier called Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, besides his Life of Gouverneur Morris and a book of Essays on Practical Politics.  He took some part in the Presidential campaign that summer, but in September he was again at Elkhorn and again on the chase, this time in the Selkirks in northern Idaho, camping on Kootenai Lake, and from there, on foot, with a pack on his back, ranging among the high peaks with his old guide, John Willis, and an Indian named Ammal, who was pigeon-toed and mortally afraid of hobgoblins.  He brought down a black bear and a great bull caribou, and returned East only to throw himself into a struggle of another sort.  The political campaign was drawing to a close.  President Cleveland was running for re-election against Benjamin Harrison, the Republican nominee.  Harrison was elected. 

Roosevelt was now living, winter and summer, at Oyster Bay, writing and studying, gathering material for his new book, and keeping in physical trim by playing polo (not well, but as well as he could) with certain neighbors of his who, like himself, cared more for the sport than the exact science of the game.  In the same spirit he hunted with the Meadowbrook hounds and was regularly in at the death, not because he was a good rider on a good horse, but because, though only a respectable rider riding an ex-buggy horse, he would not allow even a broken arm or the fact that his horse might take it into his head to throw him at every fence to interfere with the day's business.  He led a life of varied activity, but still he was half uncertain whether he had actually found his proper career.  More than once he was impelled to go into business.  He felt that he must in self-respect leave to his children a heritage either of wealth or a widely honored name.  He had grave doubts whether his books would bring him either.  The critics took particular pains to point out to him, not altogether correctly, that, though his writings were interesting, they were not "literature. "

The new Administration was inaugurated in March, 1889.  In May, President Harrison offered Roosevelt a place on the Civil Service Commission.  'Roosevelt had hoped that he might be appointed First Assistant of Blaine, who was Secretary of State, but Blaine was afraid of the younger man's rather aggressive independence. 

The position of Civil Service Commissioner was not one to appeal to an active and ambitious man.  It was in a sense a graveyard where many a good man had been deposited by his friends to be heard of no more.  It led nowhere except to oblivion, for the conflict which a Civil Service Commissioner must carry on unceasingly with Congressmen on questions of patronage is not of a character to make smooth the road of political advancement. 

Roosevelt's friends advised him earnestly not to accept the place.  He would be side-tracked for life, they said. 

He believed heartily in civil-service reform.  He was restless, moreover, for some definite work into which he could fling his superabundant energy, besides study and the making of what the critics stubbornly refused to call "literature. "

He accepted the offer, to the despair of his counselors, and immediately set out for Washington to take over his new duties. 

CHAPTER 10 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE BRINGS A GRAVEYARD TO LIFE AND INCIDENTALLY COMES  TO   CLOSE  GRIPS  WITH  A  BEAR

THEODORE ROOSEVELT plunged into his new work with vigor and enthusiasm.  There was much to be done.  The Civil Service Commission was still in its infancy.  Its friends looked upon it hopefully, but not with the burning hope of the earlier days of the "reform," for it had not revolutionized politics yet; its enemies, the spoilsmen, still nourished the belief that they could kill it.  The country at large, meanwhile, knew next to nothing about it. 

The commission, consisting of two Republicans and two Democrats, had been created six years previous, after a long struggle in which Roosevelt as an Assemblyman in New York had done his share.  Its purpose was to eradicate as far as possible the abuses which had grown since the days of President Jackson in the matter of appointments to offices under the government, by supplanting the "spoils system," based on favoritism, with the "merit system," based on character and ability.  Fourteen thousand minor offices had already been brought tinder the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission, but the old-time politicians who believed that "to the victor belong the spoils" yelped and howled like hungry wolves at every attempt made by the commission and its friends in Congress to extend what was known as the "classified service. "

Roosevelt saw at once that what the Civil Service Commission needed if it were to do effective work, if, in fact, it were to survive at all, was the support of an enlightened public opinion.  Roosevelt's predecessors on the commission, and one or two of the commissioners serving with him, had conducted their work with as little publicity as possible, fearing that public discussion would merely rouse the "spoilsmen" to fiercer opposition.  Roosevelt pursued the opposite theory.  No good cause, he believed, need fear the light of day.  In a democracy, moreover, where the people ruled, or were supposed to rule, it was, he was convinced, the duty of every public servant to keep in constant touch with the people and to keep the people in contact with all civic movements.  He therefore threw his doors wide to the correspondents of newspapers from every section of the country.  He took the people into his confidence.  He told them what civil-service reform meant to them; he told them what the "spoils system" was costing them.  He fought his battles with Congressmen and Senators in the open.  The whole country watched the sparks fly.  He advertised the merit system as it had never been advertised before, and Congressmen who in the past had opposed it began to hear protests from their districts 

Roosevelt on the Civil Service Commission did what Roosevelt in the Assembly had done.  He told the people what he was doing, why he was doing it, how he was doing it, and why and how other people were trying to prevent him from doing it.  He made the Civil Service Commission, which had been practically unknown outside a narrow circle of reformers and their enemies, the topic of dinner-table discussion over the length and breadth of the land; and so doing he made the American people his allies in the fight for good government. 

He met misrepresentation with a vigorous statement of facts and a challenge to the man who had questioned his motives.  He met frequent cuts in appropriations by the simple expedient of refusing to hold examinations for the civil service in the districts of Congressmen who advocated the cuts.  He found that he could safely rely on the Congressmen's constituents to bring their representatives to terms. 

He enjoyed the work, for there was fight in it, and the enemies of good government never left him alone long enough to allow the rather prosaic daily routine to become dull.  He fought certain Senators, like Gorman of Maryland, for instance, who told the Senate a pathetic story about an estimable young man who had been rejected for a position as letter-carrier because he did not know the shortest route from Baltimore to China; and when Roosevelt demanded the name and address of the poor victim was unable to produce them.  He fought local bosses in various parts of the country who tried in one way or another to evade the civil-service regulations; he fought department chiefs who insisted on giving the "plums" to personal friends; he fought a member of President Harrison's Cabinet, "the little gray man in the White House," as he wrote his sister, "looking on with cold and hesitating disapproval, but not seeing how he can interfere. "

During those years his sister Anna, the "Bamie" of his boyhood, was living in England and his correspondence with her reveals attractive glimpses of the life he was leading. 
Washington is just a big village [he writes in February, 1894], but it is a very pleasant big village.  Edith and I meet just the people we like to see.  This winter we have had a most pleasant time, socially and officially.  All I have minded is that, though my work is pleasant, I have had to keep at it so closely that I never get any exercise save an occasional ride with Cabot [Henry Cabot Lodge].  We dine out three or four times a week, and have people to dinner once or twice; so that we hail the two or three evenings when we are alone at home, and can talk or read, or Edith sews while I make ineffective bolts at my third volume.  The people we meet are mostly those who stand high in the political world, and who are therefore interested in the same subjects that interest us; while there are enough who are men of letters or of science to give a pleasant and needed variety.  . . .  It is pleasant to meet people from whom one really gets something; people from all over the Union with different pasts and varying interests, trained, able, powerful men, though often narrow-minded enough. 

He saw much of his friend Lodge, whom he had known since his college days, when Lodge, ten years his senior, was an instructor in history at Harvard; learned to know and to cherish John Hay and greatly to respect "gruff old Olney," with whom he quarreled officially in the mornings over the construction of the civil-service law, and played tennis with in the afternoons, continuing the controversy between sets.  William Roscoe Thayer, in his Life of John Hay, tells how Roosevelt made a place for himself in Washington society, "mixing cheerily with all sorts of men, equally at home with Cabinet officers and cowboys, surprising some, puzzling others, amusing nearly all. " Rudyard Kipling used "to drop in at the Cosmos Club at half past ten or so in the evening," writes Thayer, "and presently young Roosevelt would come and pour out projects, discussions of men and politics, criticisms of books, in a swift and full-volumed stream, tremendously emphatic and enlivened by bursts of humor.  'I curled up in the seat opposite,' said Kipling, 'and listened and wondered, until the universe seemed to be spinning round and Theodore was the spinner. '"

As his letter to his sister indicates, Roosevelt was keeping up his historical writing, though not without difficulty for distractions were many. 

I am very glad to have been in this position; I think I have done good work, and a man ought to show that he can go out into the world and hold his own with other men; but I shall be glad when I get back to live at Sagamore and can devote myself to one definite piece of work.  We Americans are prone to divide our efforts too much. 

A little later he writes, out of a vague discontent with himself:
I have been going out too much.  I wish I had more chance to work at my books.  Here I am occupied, but never busy, all day, and go out in the evening; so I don't feel as if I were really working to lasting effect. 
Two years later he was writing in the same mood, still certain that the writing of books was his real career, "though I fear that only a very mild and moderate success awaits me. "

It was during these years in Washington that his elder children, now growing out of babyhood, began to have an increasingly important place in his life.  Every Sunday afternoon he took them to Rock Creek Park, a wilderness in those days, and scrambled up and over the crags with them.  He did not encourage any of his children to avoid the places of danger, though he generally carried a rope to help them over the steeper cliffs. 

Now and then, when Mrs.  Roosevelt was away, he had his responsibilities indoors and he took them with relish. 

All this last week [he writes] I have been here alone with the four younger bunnies.  . . .  At breakfast I generally have to tell Ted and Kermit stories of hunting and of ranch life; and then Ted walks part way down to the office with me.  In the evening I take my tea with Ted and Kermit and Ethel while they are having supper, and then I read, first to the two smallest, and afterwards to Ted.  As for Archie, he is the sweetest little fellow in the world and I play with him as much as I possibly can.  .  .  .  The children are just too sweet for anything.  The other day, discussing their futures, Ted said, "I'll be a soldier," to which Kermit solemnly answered, "I'll just be a plain man with bunnies, like Father!"
Meanwhile, the "plain man with bunnies" was righting the good fight vigorously and not without a certain delight in making the men of his own party toe the civil-service mark as strictly as the Democrats, who, under President Cleveland, were in power during the greater part of his period on the commission. 

I am trying to persuade the President [he wrote early in 1894] to make some real extensions of the classified service.  I only wish he would make all that are possible now.  If the Republicans do come in again, I hope they'll have as little patronage to quarrel over as possible. 

The American people, from Maine to California, watched the dramatic battle in which Roosevelt led the forces of honesty and fair play against the hordes of corruption and favoritism; and here and there young men who dreamed of cleaner politics and better government began to take hope, seeing that a man might be honest and have a high purpose and nevertheless be more than a match for the dishonest experts in guile.  Here and there young men began to realize that politics might offer a career that a self-respecting man might follow.  Roosevelt, endeavoring to interest the American people in a great and urgently necessary reform, unconsciously set in motion forces of progress which were gradually to revolutionize American politics. 

For six years he preached civil service reform to the American people.  The people listened to his words, and forgot them.  But they did not forget the ardent spirit who uttered them.  Words are cheap and perishable things, but a flaming spirit burns his mark on the hearts of men and is not forgotten.  Here and there young men awoke to a new vision of justice and service. 

And so, in work and struggle, six years went by.  If the Civil Service Commission was, as Roosevelt's friends had declared, "a political graveyard," it was during those years the liveliest and most inspiring graveyard the world has ever seen. 

Theodore Roosevelt, government official and plague of the spoilsmen, was, for all the prickings of his conscience, not neglectful of what he regarded as his real profession, the making of books.  In 1891 he had published a history of New York City; two years later The Wilderness Hunter, a stirring narration of his hunting experiences here and there through the West; and the same year American Big Game Hunting, the book of the Boone and Crockett Club.  Two years later, again, he published Hunting in Many Lands, likewise for the club; and in collaboration with Henry Cabot Lodge, then a member of the House of Representatives, Hero Tales from American History.  During the later years of his commissioner-ship he occupied himself, whenever occasion offered, with The Winning of the West.  He was quite sure that writing, and not politics, was his true vocation. 

I have really enjoyed my work [he writes to his sister, Mrs.  Douglas Robinson, of his Civil Service activities].  I feel it incumbent on me to try to amount to something either in politics or literature, because I have deliberately given up the hope of going into a money-making business.  Of course, my political life is but an interlude it is quite impossible long to do much between two such sets of kittle-cattle as the spoilsmen and the mugwumps.  

He lived mainly in Washington, remaining at his desk even through the scorching summers, with only occasional brief vacations at Oyster Bay.  Every autumn, however, he went West for a month, for half his heart was always in Dakota. 

I go on for a hack at the bears in the Rockies [he wrote his younger sister in 1889].  I am so out of training that I look forward with acute physical terror to going up my first mountain. 

He took his "hack" in September, just west of Yellowstone Park, in Idaho.  His companion was a crabbed, rheumatic old mountain hunter named Hank Griffin, who had an extraordinary gift for finding game, but also a surly temper and profound contempt for " tenderfeet," especially "tenderfeet" who wore spectacles.  He had never "trundled a tenderfoot" before, he remarked, and gave the impression that he considered Roosevelt in the light of one who had blackened his otherwise spotless record.  He took his revenge by lying abed late and letting Roosevelt do all the work about the camp. 

Finally, one day, he refused altogether to go out on the day's hunt.  He had a pain, he said. 

Roosevelt went out by himself, returning at dusk, to find that the "pain " had during his absence flourished on a flask of whisky which he kept in his kit for emergencies.  Hank was sitting very erect on a tree-stump, with his rifle across his knees.  Roosevelt nodded in greeting.  The guide leered at him.  He was evidently very drunk. 

Roosevelt leaned his rifle against a tree near the cooking-things and walked over to where his bedding lay.  He suspected that his flask had been tapped.  He rummaged among his belongings.  The flask was there, but the whisky was gone. 

He turned on the man swiftly.  "Hank, you've emptied my flask!" he cried. 

The guide chuckled drunkenly.  "Suppose I have," he said.  "What are ye going to do about it?"

"I'll tell you what I am going to do about it," answered Roosevelt, hotly.  '' I am going to take one of the horses and go on by myself. "

Hank stiffened up and cocked his rifle.  "You can go alone," he muttered, "but you won't take a horse. "

Roosevelt saw that the man was in a dangerous mood.  "All right!" he said.  "If I can't, I can't, I suppose. " Then he began to move about, in search of some flour and salt pork.  The guide, misled by his apparent acceptance of the situation stared straight ahead drunkenly. 

Hank Griffin's cocked rifle lay across his knees, the muzzle pointing to the left; Roosevelt's rifle stood toward the right.  Roosevelt worked his way unobtrusively toward it.  Then suddenly he whipped it up and threw the bead on the old hunter. 

"Hands up!"

The man put up his hands.  "Oh come!" he said.  "I was only joking. "

"Well, I'm not!" Roosevelt replied.  "Straighten your legs and let your rifle go to the ground. "

"It '11 go off. "

"Let it go off!"

But the gun did not go off, after all, for the guide straightened his legs with care so that it slipped to the ground without a jar. 

"Move back!"

The guide obeyed and Roosevelt picked up the rifle.  The crabbed old man was quite sober now, and quizzical instead of angry. 

'' Give me back my rifle,'' he remarked, in a conciliatory tone, "an' we'll call it quits an' go on together. "

"I guess we won't do that," said Roosevelt.  "The hunt's about through anyway, and I think I'll go home. " He pointed to a blasted pine on an eminence about a mile from camp.  "Do you see that pine? If I see you in camp when I reach there, I'll leave your rifle there for you.  If you try to come after me, I'll take it for granted that you mean to get me if you can, and I'll shoot. "

"I'm not coming after you," grumbled the guide. 

Roosevelt started off, taking his little mare, his bed roll, and half the remaining supply of flour, bacon, and tea.  At the blasted pine he stopped and looked around.  Old Hank was still in camp.  Roosevelt left the rifle at the tree and pressed on.  At dusk he stopped and cooked his supper.  He did not believe that the old hunter would follow him, but there was just a chance that he might.  So he made use of a familiar trick of the trappers in the old Indian days.  Leaving his camp-fire burning brightly, he pushed ahead until darkness made further progress impossible.  Picketing the mare, but building no fire, he lay down and slept until the first streak of dawn, then again pushed on for two hours or more before halting to cook breakfast.  

There was no trail, but he kept his course along the foot-hills where glades and little prairies broke the pine forest; and it was not until the end of this, the second day of his solitary journeying, that he had difficulty finding his way.  That afternoon, however, he became enmeshed in a tangle of winding valleys at the foot of the steep mountains.  Dusk was coming on.  For the moment he was "lost. " He decided to camp where he was.  He threw his pack and his buffalo sleeping-bag on the soft pine needles and strolled off through the frosty gloaming with his rifle on his shoulder, to see if he could pick up a grouse for his supper. 

He found no grouse.  Among the tall, slender pines the daylight was rapidly fading and he turned toward his camp again at last. 

Suddenly, as he stole noiselessly up to the crest of a ridge, he caught the loom of a large, dark object. 

It was a great grizzly, walking slowly off with his head down. 

Roosevelt fired.  The bear uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy gallop.  Roosevelt ran to cut him off.  The bear entered a laurel thicket, and for a time remained hidden in the jungle of twisted stems and foliage, now and again uttering a strange, savage whine.  Roosevelt began to skirt the edge, peering anxiously through the dusk. 

The bear plunged out of the laurel on the farther side, wheeled, and stood for a moment broadside to the hunter.  Stiffly he turned his head.  Scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom  Roosevelt fired again.  Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his mouth.  Roosevelt saw his white fangs gleam as the grizzly charged straight at him, crashing and bounding through the laurel-bushes.  He did not fire at once.  The raging animal came plunging on.  As he topped a fallen tree, Roosevelt fired again.  The ball went through the bear's chest, but the grizzly neither swerved nor flinched, but came steadily on.  Roosevelt had only one more shot in his magazine, and in a second the bear would be upon him. 

He fired for the beast's forehead, but his bullet went low, smashing the bear's lower jaw and entering his neck.  Roosevelt leaped aside even as he pulled the trigger.  The smoke hung for an instant, and through it he saw a great paw striking viciously at him.  He flung himself back, hurriedly jamming a couple of cartridges into his rifle.  The rush of the grizzly's charge carried him past his pursuer.  As he struck he lurched forward, recovered himself, and made two or three leaps onward; then suddenly collapsed, rolling over and over. 

Roosevelt's "hack at the bears" had been successful. 
For a time he had still kept cattle on his ranges in the Bad Lands, with Merrifield and the Ferrises in charge at Elkhorn.  In 1890 he was at the ranch with Mrs.  Roosevelt; a year later he hunted elk with an Englishman named Ferguson, now his ranch partner, at Two-Ocean Pass in the Shoshones in northwestern Wyoming.  That autumn he closed the ranch-house.  A year later he returned to Elk-horn for a week's hunting.  The wild forces of nature had already taken possession.  The ranch grass grew tall in the yard and on the sodded roofs of the stables and sheds; the weather-beaten log walls of the house itself were one in tint with the trunks of the gnarled cottonwoods by which it was shaded. 

"The ranch-house is in good repair," he wrote to Bill Sewall, "but it is melancholy to see it deserted. "

His life had wonderfully expanded since the golden days of the ranch, seven years before; but those days had held a zest and glory which no success or family happiness could ever crowd from their unique place in his memory. 

The men and women who had been his companions in hardship and adventure were scattered.  The Ferrises had retired on their earnings, Merrifield had moved to Oregon, the Sewalls had settled down again to the life of the Maine backwoodsman, Will Dow was dead. 

A year or two later the waters of the Little Missouri rose and flooded the banks and carried away the ranch-house, and that was the end of that chapter in the life of Theodore Roosevelt.  

CHAPTER 11 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE JUMPS INTO A TIGER'S DEN AND EMERGES, TO THE DISCOMFITURE   OF   THE   TIGER

ROOSEVELT resigned his position on the Civil * Service Commission in the spring of 1895, and returned to New York to take up a commissionership of a different sort. 

A wave of virtuous indignation had in the autumn of 1894 thrown Tammany Hall out of power in New York City and instated a non-partisan group of public-spirited citizens under Mayor Strong.  Roosevelt, who in his first political fight in the Republican organization of the Twenty-first Assembly District had been snowed under on a motion to commit the organization to a non-partisan system of street-cleaning, was offered the position of Street Cleaning Commissioner. 

I have been dreadfully harassed over this offer of Strong's [he wrote his sister "Bamie," in December, 1894].  Finally I refused, after much hesitation.  I should much have liked to help him, and to find myself again in close touch with my New York friends; but I was not willing to leave this work at this time, just when the ends are loose. 

In April of the following year the Mayor offered him the Police Commissionership.  His friends, notably Lodge, whose judgment he trusted, urged him to accept. 

I hated to leave Washington [he wrote], for I love the life; and I shall have, if I go, much hard work, and I will hardly be able to keep on with my literary matters.  Moreover, it is a position in which it is absolutely impossible to do what will be expected of me; the conditions will not admit it.  I must make up my mind to much criticism and disappointment.  But, on the other hand, I am nearly through what I can do here; and this is a good way of leaving a position which I greatly like but which I do not wish permanently to retain, and I think it a good thing to be definitely identified with my city once more.  I would like to do my share in governing the city after our great victory; and so far as may be, I would like once more to have my voice in political matters.  It was a rather close decision; but on the whole I felt I ought to go, though it is "taking chances. "

He began his new work early in May, 1895.  The Force had, through years of Tammany mis-government, become demoralized by favoritism and corruption.   There was a regular table of charges for appointments and promotions, so much for admission to the Force, so much for each step upward.   A man without money or political backing had no hope of advancement.    Graft was everywhere.    Criminals received immunity.    Policemen, on the other hand, were punished for making arrests against the wishes of the politicians.    The morale of the rank and file had consequently suffered.   While the few who were dishonest intrigued and "grafted" and grew powerful, the majority who were "square" lost heart in their work and pride in the Force.     The poison of corruption sapped their energy and purpose.  

"The Police Department was in a coma," said a lieutenant of police, many years later, "and Roosevelt woke it up. "

"He put new morale into the Force," said a captain of police.  "All payments for advancement stopped at once.  No political boss could appoint, promote, or injure you.  Promotions were strictly on the level.  No man was afraid to do his duty while Roosevelt was commissioner, because he knew that the commissioner was behind him.  The crooks were afraid of the cops and the cops were not afraid of the crooks.  All the decent, manly fellows on the Force loved this strenuous master who led them.  He was human.  You could talk to him.  He made even people with a shady past feel at home with him. "

"No matter how you felt when you were going to him," said the lieutenant of police, "when you were with him you felt you were as good as he was.  He gets acquainted with me as an East Side kid, and because I was a genuine East Side kid he stuck to me.  And he made me feel that he would sooner be seen in the company of me and my kind than in the company of ambassadors and kings. "

"It took some months," said the captain of police, "to give the Force their faith in Roosevelt.  They thought he might be just a flash in the pan.  But they found out soon there was no bunk in him.  He had an open door for any member of the Force.  Every man who really tried to do right or, having gone crooked, reformed and showed he was trying to do right, always received a fair chance.  He detested cowardice and shirking and the milk-and water men, but he always stuck to the man who proved he was doing or trying to do his job. "

"He was a great sticker," said the lieutenant of police. 

"The whole thing in a nutshell was this," said the captain of police.  '' The Force, kickers, gamblers, and all, knew in their hearts that if they gave good and faithful service this man Roosevelt would stick to them.  And if they incurred the enmity of the underworld or the political world, no unjust accusation would hurt them.  It would help them, if anything. "

"I've had my troubles on the Force since he left," said the lieutenant of police, "and there's been times when I've felt, just as any man would, like getting my revenge, when the chance came, on men who were trying to hurt me, or doing things that other men were doing, but that weren't just all right.  But I thought of him and I didn't do them.  I said to myself, People know that you're his friend and what you do reflects on him.  You have a right to dabble with your own reputation, but you haven't a right to dabble with his. "

"I guess," said the captain of police, "that nine-tenths of the men that's ever come in contact with Theodore Roosevelt are better and squarer men because of it. "

The lieutenant of police was an East Side Jew named Otto Raphael; the captain of police was an Irishman named Edward Bourke.  Both owed their careers to the new ideas which Roosevelt introduced at Headquarters on Mulberry Street.  Under the old system, Raphael would never have had a chance even to join the Force, for he had neither money nor influence; and Bourke would have been dishonorably discharged and sent "up the river," for he had dared to do the unpardonable thing and to arrest a lawbreaker who had a "pull" with Tammany Hall.  Roosevelt picked Raphael out of a crowd because he liked his face, and urged him to take the examinations; and by his unexpected appearance in a police court saved Bourke from the "frame-up" that was to send him to the penitentiary because he had obeyed orders and closed a saloon that no "copper" had ever had the nerve to close before.  His action in both cases was of a sort unheard of in Mulberry Street.  It marked the beginning of a new order. 

Roosevelt plunged into the work of reform with passionate enthusiasm.  He had enjoyed his Washington activity; he had enjoyed the fight of it.  But the activity had been comparatively tame and the fights, though hot, were never dangerous.  To put integrity and pride and spirit back into a corrupted and disrupted police force was a different matter, less akin to the desk work of a Washington office than to the wild adventures of the Dakota days.  In Mulberry Street his work lay among strong, fearless, and often defiant and desperate men.  It called into play every ounce of courage and manliness he possessed.  The agents of evil within the Force allied themselves against him with the agents of evil without.  Yellow newspapers blackened his character, the politicians even of his own party endeavored to intimidate him and, failing, to legislate him out of office. 

The trouble was that every move he made for honesty and justice in the Force and in the execution of the laws brought him into conflict with the whole elaborate system which corrupt police officers, corrupt politicians, corrupt business men, and the agents of the underworld had built up to make easy the way of the (influential) transgressor.  The first great clash came over the enforcement of the so-called excise law, demanding that all saloons in the state be closed on Sunday. 

The law was extreme and public sentiment was against it.  It was on the statutes, however, and Roosevelt decided that respect for law and order demanded that it be enforced.  He set about vigorously to enforce it. 

A howl arose from all sides.  The saloon-keepers, the brewers, the politicians, the yellow journals indignantly cried that the law was "dead," that it had never been enforced and never could be enforced. 

Roosevelt replied that if the law was dead the thing to do was to repeal it. 

He found out shortly, however, that it was not "dead" at all, and that the police had been enforcing it right and left with vigor.  But they had been enforcing it not against all saloon-keepers alike, but only against those who had no political influence.  The men who paid blackmail to Tammany Hall were safe.  The men who refused to pay were subjected to every form of petty tyranny and injustice.  Roosevelt found that, as formerly in the matter of appointments and promotions on the Force, there were fixed charges for police "protection" covering every variety of lawbreaking. 

He flung all his energy into the fight.  Once more he appealed to the people.  The scoffers cried that he was merely seeking the lime-light, but he himself knew that the only hope of real reform lay in the creation of a public sentiment against the evils of police corruption.  He told the citizens of New York what he was trying to do to make their city a safe and decent place to live in, and demanded their support.  "I would rather see this administration turned out because it enforced the laws," he cried, "than see it succeed by Violating them. "

A parade was arranged in protest against his enforcement of the excise law.  Twenty thousand men were in line.  Jeeringly, he was invited to review it. 

It was a defiant challenge, intended as a joke.  To the amazement and consternation of the men who made it, he accepted it. 

He reviewed the parade.  It was the case of the Marquis de Mores over again.  The Marquis had wanted to shoot him, the saloon-keepers wanted to kill him politically.  In both cases his quick and decisive action saved the day. 

The parade began with jeers and sneers for Roosevelt.  It ended in the wildest enthusiasm for the man against whose policy the parade was supposed to be a protest!

While the struggle on the saloon question continued, Roosevelt was diligently building up the morale and discipline of the Force.  His enormous energy, his courage, his knowledge of men and sympathy with human nature, his ability to defy and crush the evil-doers with an iron hand and yet keep his heart tender and warm for the saving grace of humanity in them these characteristic qualities of his had never shone to better advantage. 

The lawbreakers [wrote Jacob Riis] predicted scornfully that he would "knuckle down to politics the way they all did," and lived to respect him, though they swore at him as the one of them all who was stronger than pull. 

To the Force he was like a continuous electric current that galvanized to life what had been an inert lump.  The newspapers called him "Haroun-al-Roosevelt" because night after night he would prowl about the streets of the East Side between midnight and dawn, or ride on horseback through the wilds of the Bronx, with only Otto Raphael for company, to see for himself how the men were performing their duty. 

Twice [this week] I have spent the night in patrolling New York on my own account [he wrote his sister after he had been in office a month] to see exactly what the men were doing.  My experiences were interesting, and the trips did good, though each meant my going forty hours at a stretch without any sleep tramping the streets, finding out by personal inspection how the police were doing their duty.  A good many were not doing their duty; and I had a line of huge, frightened guardians of the peace down for reprimand or fine, as a sequel.  .  .  .  These midnight rambles are great fun.  My whole work brings me in contact with every class of people in New York, as no other work possibly could; and I get a glimpse of the real life of the swarming millions. 

He became the terror of the sluggard even as he was the idol of the man who did his duty. 

"For the first time," said Riis, "a moral purpose came into Mulberry Street.  In the light of it everything was transformed. "

To men like Riis who had fought for playgrounds and better tenement conditions, the coming of Roosevelt meant the fulfilment of the dreams of a lifetime.  No wonder Riis worshiped him as a sort of archangel come down from heaven to repair all the ills of mankind.  Riis had pleaded for years in vain for something more useful to the poor of Mulberry Bend than distant pity and tenement-house laws which were never enforced.  Roosevelt had come to him even before he was commissioner, saying, "I want to help. "   Riis took him at his word. 

"He wasn't satisfied with what the socialists handed him," said Otto Raphael.  "He went to it himself.  Nothing would stop him. " 

And nothing did.  Winter and summer, but most in hot midsummer nights, Roosevelt went with Riis through the tenements to see for himself how "the other half" lived.  Neither filth nor stench could hold him back.  The president of the Police Board was also a member of the Health Commission.  It was therefore very much the business of the Police Commissioner to find out why in one group of tenements off Mulberry Bend one-third of all the babies died.  Other commissioners had not bothered about it.  Roosevelt did. 

The tenements came down.  Other tenements came down.  Landlords protested and rushed to the courts.  But they got no satisfaction.  Parks and playgrounds were opened, the overcrowded old Tombs prison was demolished and a new one erected on its site, the police lodging-houses, which had degenerated into harbors for every species of tramp and vagrant and nurseries of every variety of crime, were closed. 

And always the "grafters" howled, and the yellow newspapers jeered, fanning the flame of class hatred and the timid, good people protested and, because they did not understand, lent their strength to the people who were neither timid nor good. 

In the New York political world just at present [he wrote his sister, after he had been eight months in office] every man's hand is against me; every politician and every editor; and I live in a welter of small intrigue.  . . .  I rather think that in one way or another I sllall be put out of office before many months go by.  But as I don't see what else I could have done,.  I take things with much philosophy and will abide the event unmoved.  I have made my blows felt, at any rate!

Day by day the struggle became more bitter. 

I work and fight!  from dawn until dusk, almost; and the difficulties, the opposition, the lukewarm support, I encounter, give me hours of profound depression; but at bottom I know the work has been well worth doing, and that I have done it as well as it could be done, and what I most care for is its intensely practical, workaday character; it is a grimy struggle, but a vital one. 
Two weeks later he was writing:

All day I strive to push matters along; to keep on good terms with the Mayor, while rejecting his advice and refusing to obey his orders; not to be drawn into a personal quarrel with Platt; not to let my colleagues split either among themselves or with me; to work with reformers like Dr.  Parkhurst, and yet not let them run away with the Department; to keep weeding out the bad men; to attend to the thousand complaints, well and ill founded, of citizens; to try to improve discipline, and to build up the detective bureau and develop leaders; and so on and so on.  By evening I am pretty well tired. 

Gradually it began to dawn on the minds of the people of the city that the Police Department was becoming more efficient than it had been at any previous time in its history and '' the screeching mendacity of the newspapers'' began gradually to '' wear through. " But the politicians of both parties continued to fight him, hammer and tongs. 

There is nothing of the purple in it [he wrote of his work in June, 1896].  It is as grimy as all work for municipal reform over here must be for some decades to come; and it is inconceivably arduous, disheartening, and irritating, beyond almost all other work of the kind.  . . .  I have to contend with the hostility of Tammany, and the almost equal hostility of the Republican machine; I have to contend with the folly of the reformers and the indifference of decent citizens; above all I have to contend with the singularly foolish law under which we administer the Department.  The work itself is hard, worrying, and often very disagreeable.  The police deal with vile crime and hideous vice; and it is not work to be done on a rose-water basis.  The actual fighting, with any of my varied foes, if do not much mind; I take it as part of the day's work; but there is much that is painful.  But fight after fight is won, and it’s very memory vanishes. 

Meanwhile, his efforts had been made even more difficult by constantly increasing friction with other members of the board.  His "queer, strong, able colleague," Parker, whom he had described a year before as "the most positive character with whom I have ever worked on a commission," had turned violently against him.  "If he and I get at odds," Roosevelt had prophesied, "we shall have a battle royal," and a battle royal it turned out to be. 

I have endless petty rows with Fitch and Parker; very irritating, because they are so petty; but very necessary; the battle for decent government must be won by just such interminable, grimy drudgery; painful months of marching and skirmishing, mostly indecisive; the "glorious days" of striking victory, are few and far between, and never take place at all unless there is plenty of this disagreeable, preliminary work. 

Parker blocked every move he endeavored to make toward better conditions on the Force and among the poor. 

"Lord!" Roosevelt exclaimed in one of his letters.  "It is hard work trying to really accomplish something in civic reform!"

The fight within the board was as bitter in its way as the fight against the lawbreakers, the "grafters," and the landlords who wanted their dollars and did not care though the blood of children dripped from them.  It hampered the work of reform and threatened to destroy the new spirit and discipline of the Force.  But Roosevelt knew that the things for which he fought were right, and raged at the short-sightedness which insisted on blocking the gears of progress and justice.  Respectable people were shocked because he lost his temper.  But he was human, and he saw better than they the enormous needs to be met and the powers of evil to be conquered. 

It was, as he described it, a "grimy" struggle, but the letters of this period reveal how little of the grime remained on the man who spent his days in the midst of it.  The children at Sagamore furnished, it seems, a kind of spiritual bath that amid every variety of crime and vice kept him clean and strong.  His letters are full of the amusing doings of "the bunnies. " In the very midst of one of his "chronic" fights he was writing from Sagamore Hill:

The children are in the seventh heaven; I wish you could see their costumes, especially Kermit's; he wears blue overalls like those of our hired man, with a cap like that of a second-rate French cook, a pair of shabby tennis shoes, and as his hands are poisonned a pair of exceedingly dirty kid gloves.  When, in this costume, turning somersaults on the manureheap he is indeed a joy forever.  Ted has suddenly begun greatly to enjoy riding pony Grant.  Archie is the sweetest thing you ever saw and perfectly friendly with cows, dogs, and horses.  I have been teaching Ted and Kermit to shoot with the Flobert rifle.  .  .  .  We went on a picnic to the marsh [he wrote a month later].  We were out sk or seven hours, Alice steering one boat, while Edith steered mine.  Ted enjoyed himself hugely, and on the way home slumbered peacefully in the bilgewater.  The autumn brought delights of its own:

Bob [Robert Ferguson] passed Thanksgiving day here, and was just a dear, and the same playmate as ever.  In the afternoon he and I and Ted took a ten-mile tramp, with axes, to clear out a bridle track which had become overgrown.  Ted really stood the walk wonderfully.  We came home after dark.  The faithful Susan [a pet of the children who had been named regardless of his sex] was with us, and at the foot of our hill he treed a 'possum.  So Bob ran for a gun, while Ted (who had reached the tree, and had seen the 'possum before either Bob or myself) and Susan and I stayed to keep ward over the 'possum.  Bob returned leading the delighted Kermit, who, as we returned in triumph with our quarry, explained "that it was the first time he had ever seen a fellow shot. " He felt as if it was much like any other homicide; but much approved of it. 

Ted [aged eight] chops hard with me; today he got down an oak at least sixty feet high. 
Christmas brought a magic all its own.  There was first the excitement of selecting the tree, packing into a carriage, old and young, and driving through the woods under the gray sky amid the joyous racket of the dogs.  The master of Sagamore himself always chopped down the tree.  Then on Christmas morning there were first the bulging stockings, then the rush of bare feet into the room of the father and mother where the larger presents were: then the drive to the little church and the short address of Oyster Bay's Leading Citizen; and then home again to roast pig and "hearts" before the roaring wood fire. 
Romping at Sagamore Hill, fighting in Mulberry Street, plowing ahead on the fourth volume of his Winning of the West when occasion offered, making speeches sometimes night after night, the object of endless abuse in New York and the lion of hour in Chicago when he made the Washington's Birthday address there under the auspices of the Union League Club, Theodore Roosevelt lived his crowded life.  He took part in the Presidential campaign of 1896, speaking here and there in behalf of McKinley. 

His candidate was victorious, and once more a Republican Administration was to have control of the government.  Roosevelt continued doggedly at his desk, cleansing the Augean stables of political corruption as effectively as opposition on his own board, in the newspapers of his own city, and among the leaders of his own political party in the state would permit. 

Meanwhile, a few people came to love him for the glorious fight that was in him, and the Force came to idolize him because they knew he was "square"; and here, there, and everywhere over the country, civic workers gained a deeper insight, a wider vision, and a surer courage from his experience and his personality. 

Roosevelt was no longer merely a "reformer. " He was becoming a national inspiration

CHAPTER 12 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE  WALKS  THROUGH  THE  FIERY  FURNACE

ROOSEVELT had publicly preached national preparedness as early as 1882.  In the preface to the third edition of his Naval War of 1812, speaking of the land operations of that war, he had written:

They teach nothing new; it is the old, old lesson, that a miserly economy in preparation may in the end involve a lavish outlay of men and money, which, after all, comes too late to more than partially offset the evils produced by the original short-sighted parsimony.  .  .  .  It was criminal folly for Jefferson, and his follower, Madison, to neglect to give us a force either of regulars or of well-trained volunteers during the twelve years they had in which to prepare for the struggle that any one might see was inevitable.  .  .  .  Circumstances have altered widely since 1812.  .  .  .  There is now no cause for our keeping up a large army; while, on the contrary, the necessity for an efficient navy is so evident that only our almost incredible short-sightedness prevents our at once preparing one. 

If the need for an efficient navy was great in 1882, it was far more vital in March, 1897, when President McKinley was inaugurated and the Republican party returned to power.  To Roosevelt's keen love of justice and hatred of oppression America's continued indifference to Spanish misrule in Cuba was intolerable.  In 1895, a new revolution had broken out on the island.  General Weyler had been sent by Spain to suppress it, but in spite of his most cruel and oppressive measures, guerrilla warfare continued.  Between the barbarism of the insurgents, on the one hand, and the ruthless severity of the Spaniards, on the other, the Cuban people, and especially the women and children, suffered agonies of privation that roused the whole American people to protest.  Congress, reflecting the nation's indignant sympathy, demanded war, but President Cleveland believed that Spain might yet consent to give the Cubans self-rule, and again and again attempted to persuade the Spanish government to open negotiations with the insurgents.  The answer was invariably the same the honor of Spain forbade treating with rebels.  At last, in 1897, the Liberals in Spain came to power, recalled Weyler, and offered the Cubans a reasonable amount of self-government.  But feeling in the United States was running too high against Spain to be assuaged by the promise of reforms in the devastated island, for such promises had been made before, and broken.  The Cubans, realizing that they had the moral support of the American people, refused Spain's concessions. 

Roosevelt watched the course of events with keen interest.  He believed that it was the duty of the United States to intervene in Cuba; he was convinced that no act short of intervention would give the Cubans freedom from the intolerable yoke of tyranny.  For twenty years Spain had been holding out vague and indefinite promises of reform.  These promises she had never kept.  While the governments of the United States and Spain were exchanging notes, meantime, the people of Cuba were perishing in awful numbers. 

In season and out of season, Roosevelt insisted that in human pity Americans must drive the Spaniards out of Cuba. 

People shrugged their shoulders and called him a.  militarist and a firebrand. 

President McKinley was inaugurated in March, 1897.  Roosevelt was offered a post in the new Administration.  He chose the position that would give him the best opportunity to prepare the tools in that war which he had preached America must in duty wage.  He became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

He began at once to do what he could to make America's fleet ready for emergencies.  He reorganized the system of rank and promotion among naval officers, he adjusted the differences between the "line" and the "engineers" a quarrel reaching back to the days of sailing-ships; he asked Congress for $800,000 for target' practice, spent it, and to the horror of the peace-at-any-price folk asked for half a million more. 

"The shots that hit are the shots that count!" he pointed out. 

The situation in Cuba, meanwhile, was growing constantly more acute.  There was little actual fighting between the Spanish forces and the Cubans, but in the concentration camps the women and children were dying by the thousands.  Expeditions, financed by private individuals, were sent from the United States to feed the destitute.  This aroused the anger of the Spaniards in Cuba, who turned against the American residents.  General Fitzhugh Lee, American consul-general in Havana, demanded a warship to guard American lives and property. 

The Maine was sent, and on January 25, 1898, anchored in the harbor of Havana. 

On February 15th, without warning, she was blown up at the anchorage the Spanish authorities had assigned to her, with the loss of two officers and two hundred and fifty-eight men. 

War now became inevitable.  Roosevelt began to assemble the American fleet, recalling war-ships from foreign ports and gathering the men-of-war of the Atlantic squadron, scattered up and down the coast.  Several months previous he had succeeded in securing the appointment of Dewey as commander of the Asiatic squadron, against the advice of certain officers in Washington who thought that Dewey was a "dude. " He now succeeded, again in opposition to the powers that be, in revoking the order to recall Dewey's flagship to the United States. 

On February 25, 1898, he sent this cable:

DEWEY, HONG-KONG:
Order the squadron, except the Monocracy, to Hong-Kong.  Keep full of coal.  In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands.  Keep Olympia until further orders. 
ROOSEVELT. 

On April 21st Spain withdrew her minister at Washington and gave the American minister at Madrid his passports. 

Spain and the United States were at war. 

President McKinley called for volunteers.  Roosevelt had already made up his mind that, if war came, he would take an active part in it.  With his friend Leonard Wood, a surgeon in the army and a veteran of several Indian campaigns, he had already discussed the possibility of raising a regiment of mounted riflemen from among the skilled horsemen of the plains.  When Congress, therefore, authorized three regiments of cavalry, he immediately offered to raise one of them.  General Alger, the Secretary of War, accepted the offer, and, in turn, offered Roosevelt the colonelcy of the regiment. 

Roosevelt refused it, not feeling that he was yet competent to handle the regiment.  Leonard Wood was made colonel, and Roosevelt accepted the lieutenant-colonelcy. 

Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department amid a storm of protests.  The President, the Secretary of the Navy, and the newspapers urged him to stay where he was; his family and his friends implored him not to risk his life in battle when there was important work for him to do at home, and, when he would not listen to that argument, begged him not to wreck a promising political career.  Even Bill Sewall, that valiant fighter, counseled discretion. 

I thank you for your advice, old man [Roosevelt wrote him on April 23d, the day war was declared], but it seems to me that if I can go I better had.  My work here has been the work of preparing the tools.  They are prepared, and now the work must lie with those who use them.  The work of preparation is done; the work of using the tools has begun.  If possible I would like to be one of those who use the tools. 

He went.  At San Antonio, Texas, he assembled his "Rough Riders. "

I couldn't stay [he wrote his sister, Mrs.  Douglas Robinson, in May].  That was the sum and substance of it although I realize well. . .  what a change for the worse it means in my after life. 

For a month the First Volunteer Cavalry, or the Rough Riders, as they were nicknamed, trained at San Antonio, while Wood and Roosevelt scoured the country for supplies, determined that no lack of equipment should prevent the regiment from being the first on the firing-line.  The regiment was a motley crew, if ever there was one.  There were cowboys there, and "swells" from Fifth Avenue; Western "bad men" and Eastern college boys; West-Pointers, and Indians, and mining-prospectors, and gun-fighters, and bronco-busters, and town marshals everything that could shoot and ride and had an alert mind and a valiant spirit; a thousand of them chosen from thousands who swarmed to offer themselves.  They were "children of the dragon's blood," hardy and strong, with resolute, weather-beaten faces and clear, unflinching eyes. 

On May 29th the regiment entrained for Tampa.  There everything was chaos and confusion, and it was only by the exercise of ingenuity and "nerve" that Roosevelt and Wood were able to fling their troops aboard the transport assigned to them, when the orders came to embark A week or more later they were at anchor off Daiquiri on the southern shore of Cuba.  Again, as at Tampa, confusion reigned.  The orders were to land the horses and men.  The details were cheerfully left to Providence. 

"We disembarked," wrote Roosevelt, many years later, "higgledy-piggledy, just as we had embarked. "

The horses and mules were thrown overboard, and those which could swim swam ashore; those which could not were drowned.  It was very simple.  The men were treated with only a little more care.  They were crowded into the ship's boats of the transports and the men-of-war.  Those that were landed at the dock at Daiquiri were forced to clamber over slippery girders; those that were landed through the surf were generally flung into it and forced to make their way ashore as best they could. 

Fortunately, the Spaniards made no attempt to contest the landing.  Five hundred resolute men might have held the American army at bay. 

That night the Rough Riders camped on a dusty, brush-covered flat, between low hills a quarter of a mile inshore, with jungle on one side, and on the other a shallow, fetid pool fringed with palm-trees.  In the high grass the troopers pitched their dog-tents or built green bowers, thatched with palm leaves.  It was all very romantic, except for the huge land-crabs which scuttled noisily hither and thither and the lizards and evil-looking snakes which wriggled silently in and out of the underbrush. 

Roosevelt's baggage was "somewhere in Cuba. " His sole camp equipment was a mackintosh and a toothbrush.  He slept that night under a clear heaven of stars.  Cuba was at her best, enticing and irresistible in her tropic beauty.  Except for the land-crabs, the Rough Riders decided that war was certainly one grand lark. 

At noon the next day came orders from Gen.  Joseph Wheeler, who was in command in the absence of General Shafter, that the Rough Riders were to be ready to break camp at a moment's notice.  An hour later they were under way under the tropic sun, marching swiftly west through jungle country toward Siboney.  General Young, who commanded the brigade of which the Rough Riders were a part, expected to come in contact with the enemy next morning, and Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt were determined that their regiment was to be in the front rank when the firing began. 

At dawn next morning came the order to advance.  The enemy had been located four or five miles north of Siboney, and General Wheeler had ordered General Young to drive him from his position.  Two trails led through the jungle.  General Young, with a squadron each from the First and the Tenth Regular Cavalry, was to take the right-hand path through the valley; Colonel Wood with the Rough Riders was to take the left-hand trail along a wooded ridge.  They were to meet where the trails met and merged into a wagon-road to Santiago, at Las Guasimas. 

Neither Colonel Wood nor Lieutenant - Colonel Roosevelt had slept.  "Wood looked worn and haggard," wrote Edward Marshall, one of the New York correspondents, "and his voice was cracked and hoarse.  Roosevelt was as lively as a chipmunk, and seemed to be in half a dozen places at once. "

The Rough Riders climbed the difficult ascent to the ridge and proceeded swiftly north along a narrow trail bordered by thickets of tropic growth.  The forest under the deep blue sky was wonderfully beautiful and brilliant with color.  Now and again they heard bird-notes. 

They left the forest behind them.  To the right and left of them now were deserted plantations, overgrown in the space of a few years into a jungle that arched the road twenty feet above their heads.  The trail was like a tunnel with green walls.  The heat was oppressive and made the men gasp. 

Suddenly the column halted. 

Down the line came the order, "Silence in the ranks!"

The men had thrown themselves on the grass, chatting and chewing the grass-heads.  Roosevelt heard two of them discussing in low murmurs the conduct of a certain cow-puncher in quitting work on a ranch and starting a saloon in some New Mexican town. 

"How would you like a glass of cold beer?" he heard another call in a low voice. 

The men resented this and tossed bits of stick and stone at him.  One man blew a putty-ball in his direction. 

The Rough Riders had been told that they would meet the Spaniards before the day was done, but they did not really believe it.  They had never seen a Spaniard with a gun in his hand.  They strongly suspected that there was no such animal. 

The war was just a lark. 

Roosevelt, standing near a barbed-wire fence, uttered a sudden exclamation.  "My God!" he exclaimed, holding a severed strand in his hand, "this wire has been cut today. "

Marshall, the war correspondent, was at his side.  "What makes you think so?" he asked. 

"The end is bright.  And there has been enough dew, even since sunrise, to put a light rust on it. "

A surgeon lumbered up the line on a mule to the accompaniment of remarks from both the mule and the surgeon that did not contribute at all to the efforts Colonel Wood was trying to make to preserve silence.  Roosevelt jumped after them, urging them to keep quiet, and made more noise doing it than the original transgressors. 

The troopers thought it all extremely funny. 

On the trail ahead a shot rang out. 

Six men of L Troop, who had been sent out in advance of the regiment, had come into touch with the enemy. 

There was another shot, then a volley, and then "everything opened up. "

"Load chamber and magazine!"

Colonel Wood sent the order down the line.  He was utterly calm, showing no signs of undue excitement.  Roosevelt, on the other hand, was not calm at all.  He was literally jumping up and down.  He had been in perilous places before, often enough; but he had never been under fire.  He looked as though half of him wanted to run and half of him wanted to "lick the enemy" single-handed.  There was about him something of the bouncing fury of those savage battles with Parker at Police Head-quarters. 

Wood ordered him to deploy Troops A, G, and K into the tangle at the right.  Roosevelt repeated the order.  A dozen of his men climbed over the barbed-wire fence. 

Then he, too, crossed into the thicket.  And suddenly he was no longer excitable, but calm and cool, a heroic soldier, an inspiring leader of men. 

The country was confusing, for it was mountainous and covered with thick jungle.  The first troop which Roosevelt deployed into the thicket disappeared immediately as though the earth had swallowed it.  He kept the others in columns, determined to deploy them when he reached the firing-line.  Meanwhile, he had no idea where the firing-line was.  There was firing to the right and firing to the left.  But the Spaniards used smokeless powder, and, though the bullets rent'the air with the sound of ripping silk, he could not discover whence they came.  He decided that he could not go far wrong if he went forward, and plunged ahead with his men. 

Suddenly, one of the troopers crumpled up and lay still.  Then another, and then a third.  In less than three minutes nine men lay helpless. 

The Rough Riders had discovered that there were Spaniards in Cuba, after all. 

They advanced in quick, desperate rushes, rising out of the high grass, racing forward, then burrowing deep into the grass again and firing as they caught a glimpse of a comical hat in the underbrush ahead.  The heat was fierce in its intensity.  The sun blazed down in the men's eyes like a lime-light.  To right and left their comrades fell, shot down by an invisible enemy.  The men panted for breath, beating their way with their carbines through the tangle of vines and creepers. 

Roosevelt moved among them, here, there, and everywhere, exposing himself, not recklessly, but with a cool disregard of danger that quieted and steadied his men as no words could possibly have steadied them.  Once, while he was leaning against a palm-tree, a bullet passed through the trunk, filling his left ear and eye with dust and splinters. 

Firing and rushing forward, sometimes only the distance that a man can slide to a base, Roosevelt and his men advanced a mile and a half.  They came at last to the brink of a deep, jungle-filled valley. 

On the farther side, to the right, a troop of American regulars appeared.  On the left was lively shooting.  Roosevelt was puzzled to know what to do.  If he pushed ahead he might leave a gap for the Spaniards in case they should venture a counter-attack. 

He left his men where they were and started out to find Colonel Wood.  Major Brodie, in command of the left wing of the regiment, had been wounded, and Wood sent Roosevelt to command Brodie's battalion in addition to his own.  From his new position he was able not only to see all his men, but the Spaniards also.  They were shooting, he found, from a group of red-tiled ranch buildings on the crest of a low hill, a good distance ahead.  He charged forward with his men in stubborn, short rushes.  The Spaniards, after a short resistance, fled.  He took possession of the buildings. 

"They tried to catch us with their hands," protested a Spaniard, later. 

Firing had now ceased everywhere along the line.  The Spaniards were in full retreat on the main road north in the direction of El Caney.  Roosevelt found Colonel Wood near by in consultation with Generals Wheeler, Chaffee, and Lawton, and had difficulty in refraining from a grin of relief when they solemnly congratulated him on the way he had handled his troops.  He had not been at all sure that he might not have committed some awful sin for which he could be court-martialed. 

His superiors did not court-martial him.  On the contrary, when, a few days after the Las Guasimas fight, General Young was taken ill with fever and Colonel Wood was given command of the brigade, they made Theodore Roosevelt colonel of the Rough Riders. 

As for his men those of the right wing had had their baptism of fire under him, those of the left wing had charged with him to victory.  All of them were ready now to follow him to the end of the world. 

It was a week before the army came once more into contact with the enemy.  It had meanwhile moved northwestward to a village called El Poso, and it was from there that on the first day of July the advance on Santiago was made
 
The intervening days had been trying, for a deluge of rain came regularly every afternoon or evening; food was scarce; tobacco was lacking altogether; sleep was made difficult by rain and tarantulas; fever began to lay low one man after another; and what joy remained in life was spoiled by Spanish sharpshooters who from their distant eyries in the tops of the trees picked off men as they exposed themselves by day or as the lightning flashes by night shattered the security of the darkness. 

The Rough Riders had respected and admired Theodore Roosevelt from the San Antonio days, but it was only after the Las Guasimas fight that they began to love him.  During the fight he had shared every peril with his men; after the fight, he shared every privation.  If his men had no shelter, he had none; if his men had no food, he went without food likewise.  The occasional delicacies, sent up from the transports to the officers' mess, he sent on to the wounded and the sick.  He knew every man in the regiment by his first name.  He was the equal and friend of all, making no distinction of race or color or creed or politics or social standing.  It was like the old ranch days.  He was human, and so the men loved him; he was capable and brave, and so they respected him; he bore a great responsibility with coolness and reserve, and so they were glad to recognize him as "the boss. "

On the afternoon of June 3oth the Rough Riders received the order to advance toward Santiago, and at eight o'clock that night, with Colonel Roosevelt at their head, reached El Poso hill and bivouacked on its slopes.  General Wood, now in command of the brigade, was already there.  That night the two friends slept side by side under a starry sky. 

They were up and about before dawn, talking little, but making ready for the fight they knew was ahead.  The troopers were quiet with suppressed excitement.  They had learned that war was no lark at all; and they polished up their rifles, wondering who would be missing when night fell. 

At nine o'clock came the order to advance.  General Lawton's division had been ordered to take El Caney, General Sumner's division, including the Rough Riders, had been directed to move toward the San Juan hills, connect with General Lawton's division after the capture of El Caney, and the following morning capture the trenches on the San Juan ridge.  The road along which the Rough Riders advanced was scarcely more than a muddy trail, overcrowded now with thousands of men stepping on one another's heels.  Within an hour they came within the enemy's zone of fire. 

The Spaniards knew that road.  Their guns had the range of every inch of it, and with merciless accuracy they poured their fire into the advancing lines.  Men began to fall, right and left.  At a ford of the San Juan River, over the heads of the huddled troops, the commanding general sent up an observation balloon.  It made a perfect target for the enemy.  Shells began to break about it, scattering death among the soldiers below.  Volley on volley from the Spanish trenches raked the tall grass behind.  

Roosevelt, mounted on his pony, Texas, moved his men swiftly to the right along the farther side of the creek, out of the worst of the murderous fire.  The Rough Riders were a part of the Second Brigade.  The First Brigade had been directed to move to the right; then face the front.  The Second Brigade had been ordered to pass in the rear until clear of the First Brigade, and then likewise face the front.  The original plan had been that these two brigades should wait at the ford, and on receipt of definite orders proceed along the river and connect with General Lawton's forces after the capture of El Caney. 

Under the lee of the river-bank Roosevelt halted his men while the First Brigade disentangled itself sufficiently to spread out to the right according to the original plan.  His men stood waist-deep in water or crouched in the burning jungle grass.  The heat was intense.  They lay with rolling eyes, gasping for breath.  Round about the shells still broke and the whistling Mauser bullets found their marks.  Sharpshooters in the tops of trees picked off the troopers like sparrows from a fence. 

Overhead, the fatal gas-bag still hung, drawing the Spanish fire.  And under it, in that chute of death, seven thousand American soldiers, jammed into a narrow opening, waited where they had been told to wait for orders that did not come. 

The First Brigade formed at last in its new position and the Second Brigade, with General Wood in command, proceeded to the right to a patch of woods.  There Roosevelt sheltered his men as well as he could, but the Mauser bullets drove in sheets through the trees and the tall jungle grass, and on every side men crumpled up and lay still.  He walked or rode among his men, a clear target; but he was not hit, though again and again men fell beside him; and once, as he was sitting on a low bank, a trooper whom he was sending down the line for orders pitched suddenly forward, dead, across his knees.  A fragment of a shell had struck his wrist that morning at El Poso, raising a bump the size of a hickory-nut.  But beyond that he received no wound. 

Another division, under General Kent, which was to have been held in reserve, now appeared, completely blocking the trail.  Retreat was consequently out of the question.  To remain in that death-trap, on the other hand, or to follow out the original plan, marching under the very guns of San Juan blockhouse, meant annihilation. 

"There was no escape," said Richard Harding Davis, afterward, "except by taking the enemy by the throat and driving him out and beating him down. "

Roosevelt sent one messenger after another to find General Wood or General Sumner, who, in turn, it later appeared, were sending couriers madly down the line to where, three miles in the rear, General Shafter was nursing a gouty foot.  One of Roosevelt's messengers was killed, another was wounded, a third became hopelessly entangled in the mass of men blocking the muddy road; none of them returned with the anxiously awaited orders to advance.  

Roosevelt decided that, in the absence of orders, the safest move in the face of that slaughtering fire was to "march toward the guns. "

Suddenly word came from General Sumner that the Rough Riders were to support the Regulars in the assault on the hills, and that the immediate objective of the Rough Riders was a red-tiled ranch-house situated on an elevation which was later to be known as Kettle Hill. 

Roosevelt leaped to the advance.  He had not enjoyed the Las Guasimas fight at all, for he had at no time known definitely what he was supposed to do.  But this was different.  Here in the woods lay his regiment; there, across an open basin, was a red-tiled house on a hill, with a trench running along the front of it.  The problem was perfectly simple. 

He turned to his men.  "We'll have to take that hill," he shouted. 

"We'll have to take that hill," they shouted back; and down the line the exultant message ran, "We'll have to take that hill!"

Roosevelt leaped on his horse.  His face was streaked with dirt and streaming with perspiration.  His shirt was soaked with sweat, his trousers and boots and cavalry leggings were caked with Cuban mud.  From the back of his soiled campaign hat a blue bandana handkerchief with white dots hung to shield his neck from the sun.  That day it was the battle-flag of the Rough Riders. 

Roosevelt's orders were to "support the Regulars," but when, at the head of his regiment, he came up with the Ninth Regular Cavalry, a colored regiment, he found them still firing across the valley at the distant intrenchments. 

"Why don't you charge?" he demanded of one of the officers, who happened to be his inferior in rank. 

"We have no orders," was the reply. 

"Then I give you the order!" cried Roosevelt. 

The elderly officer in command hesitated. 

"Then let my men through, sir!" Roosevelt commanded. 

The lines of the Ninth Cavalry parted as Roosevelt, swinging his hat, charged through; and closed again as the colored troops with a cheer rose and swung into the charge. 

Through the tall grass of the basin Roosevelt led his men, wheeling his horse now to this flank and now to that as he kept true the wide line of scattered men.  He waved his sword, urging them on, the most conspicuous figure on the battle-field, the inspiration not only of his own men but of the Regulars now breaking cover on all sides. 

Forty yards from the top of the hill was a wire fence that for a minute held up the charge.  Roosevelt flung himself off his horse and over the fence and plunged forward on foot. 

It was a glorious spin [wrote his former ranch partner, Bob Ferguson, now a Rough Rider, to Mrs.  Roosevelt] over trenches and barbed wires instead of oaken panels one never expects to see the like again his courage was so simple and so true to him. 

Another minute and the crest was swarming with the Rough Riders and the colored troopers of the Ninth.  The Spaniards had fled from their trenches to the second line of defense and now opened fire with rifles and one or two pieces of artillery.  The shells broke directly overhead. 

I moved about in the midst of shrapnel explosions [Ferguson wrote], like Shadrach, Meshach & Co.  in the midst of the fiery furnace unharmed by the fire.  Every part of the air was strung by the vicious Mauser bullets or by the buzzing exploding bullets of the Irregulars save just under the lee of the crest where the thin line lay (and even there bullets from a crossfire kept drop-dropping and cutting men down as they lay).  Theodore preferred to stand up or walk about, snuffing the fragrant air of combat.  I really believe firmly now that they can't kill him. 

Frankly [Roosevelt himself wrote home], it did not enter my head that I could get through without being hit, but I judged that, even if hit, the chances would be about three to one against my being killed. 

He had now accomplished the task he had been ordered to accomplish.  He had captured the red-tiled ranch-house.  But the battle was by no means over.  To the left, General Kent's division was storming the San Juan blockhouse, and he ordered the troops on the crest to turn their fire on the troops defending it.  At last the Spaniards leaped from the trenches.  The blockhouse was in the hands of the Americans.  Roosevelt turned to General Sumner for permission to charge on to the next line of hills, where the troops who had held Kettle Hill were now intrenched. 

"Go ahead!" said Sumner. 

There was a barbed-wire fence along the crest.  Roosevelt jumped it, shouting to his men to follow, and started forward on the double-quick.  He had gone a hundred yards before he was aware that only five men were with him.  One of these fell, then another.  He shouted to the remaining three to stay where they were, and ran back to where the rest of the regiment was waiting in the high grass.  He taunted them bitterly. 

The Rough Riders looked grieved.  "We didn't hear you, we didn't see you go, Colonel," one of them protested.  "Lead on now.  We'll sure follow you. "

And they did.  The other regiments on the crest leaped forward with them, and they charged across the wide valley while the Spanish bullets ripped the grass round about.  At full speed they plunged up the farther hill.  The Spaniards began to break cover and run.  Two of them, leaping from the trenches, fired point-blank at Roosevelt and his orderly.  Roosevelt killed one with his revolver at less than ten paces. 

The Rough Riders plunged on, over this crest, to another line of hills, overlooking Santiago.  There they were ordered to halt.  The Spanish fire was severe, and shelter was scant, but for Roosevelt and his men there was no retreating.  Late in the afternoon they beat off a counter-attack, with cheers.  By the next day the battle had settled down into a siege. 

"Theodore has sure made his mark on the Spaniard," wrote Ferguson. 

He had also made his mark on his own country-men.  A day after the battle Edward F.  Bourke, late  of the New York police force and for the moment gun captain on the U.  S.  S.  Hist, off Guantanamo, saw a man in khaki passing in a launch, and called out: "How's Colonel Roosevelt getting on?"

"Colonel Roosevelt?" cried the man in khaki.  "He bears what you call a charmed life.  Wherever the bullets are flying thickest you'll find him.  He's the greatest thing you ever heard of!"
The news of Roosevelt's charge over crest on crest of the San Juan hills was the kind of news Americans like to hear.  From one end of the country to the other the splendid story was told.  Overnight, Roosevelt became a popular hero. 

Meanwhile, though the active fighting was over for the time being, there was little rest for the colonel of the Rough Riders, for the malarial fever was striking his troopers down right and left, and here and there a more sinister foe than Spain was touching his men with deathly fingers. 

There was no fighting malaria and yellow fever in that pestilential place, so Roosevelt did what he could to give the sick some measure of care and comfort there where doctors and nurses were few; and endeavored, in company with General Shafter and other division and brigade commanders, to persuade the War Department to send the army north for a brief period of bracing air in preparation for the campaign against Havana in the fall.  Santiago had surrendered.  Cervera's fleet was destroyed.  To keep the army in Cuba would be needlessly to sacrifice American lives General Shafter asked Roosevelt, as the only brigade commander who intended to return to civil life and therefore had no reason to fear offending the War Department, to write a letter stating conditions in Cuba.  Roosevelt wrote the letter and joined in writing another letter, a so-called "round-robin" signed by all the division and brigade commanders.  General Shafter gave both documents to the Associated Press correspondent. 

In the storm that ensued Roosevelt was praised for his courage and bitterly censured for what was called his insubordination.  But neither the praise nor the blame mattered very much to him.  The important point was that the army was ordered north. 

Meanwhile, his fame had set the politicians of New York State to thinking.  The Republican party there had fallen on evil days.  There was a. Governor to be elected in November.  Roosevelt heard rumors in Cuba that his brief career as a soldier might, after all, not mean so serious "a change for the worse" in his after-life as he had believed.  He did not take these rumors very seriously. 

As for the political effect of my actions [he wrote to his brother-in-law], in the first place, I never can get on in politics, and in the second, I would rather have led that charge and earned my colonelcy than served three terms in the United States Senate.  It makes me feel as though I could now leave something to my children which will serve as an apology for my having existed. 

The political rumors persisted.  Platt, Republican "Boss" of New York State, did not love Theodore Roosevelt.  He had, in the police days, endeavored more than once to side-track him.  But he was in a corner.  The people of the state had, under the eyes of a Republican Governor, been robbed of millions of dollars in the building of canals and other public works.  A Democratic victory was certain unless the Republicans nominated a man whom the people could really trust. 

Theodore Roosevelt, passing through New York City on his way to the camp of the Rough Riders at Montauk Point, was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. 

"There," said the politicians, "is the only man alive who can carry the Republican party to victory in November. "

Platt made a wry face.  But sentiment in favor of Roosevelt's nomination began to grow up-state.  A group of representative citizens distrustful of both parties traveled down to Montauk Point to offer Roosevelt an Independent nomination.  But Roosevelt, who had no sympathy with the crooked ways of political organizations, knew that, rightly directed, they were forces far more powerful for good government than any loose group of Independents could ever be.  When Lemuel Quigg, one of the Republican leaders, came to his tent, therefore, asking him what his attitude would be toward the organization in case the organization nominated him, his reply was direct and unmistakable:

"If I am nominated and elected I shall certainly confer with the organization men as with everybody else who seems to me to have knowledge of and interest in public affairs.  I shall try to get on well with the organization.  But the organization must, on the other hand, with equal sincerity, strive to do what I regard as essential for the public good.  In every case, after full consideration of whatever any one has to say who may possess real knowledge of the matter under consideration, I shall have to act finally as my own judgment and conscience dictate. "

"That is exactly what I supposed you would say," answered Quigg.  "It is all that anybody can expect. "

Two weeks after the Rough Riders were disbanded at Montauk Point Theodore Roosevelt was nominated by the Republicans for Governor of New York. 

The campaign began coldly.  The Independents had been shocked that Roosevelt should have "put his neck in Platt's collar," and now did what they could to throw a damper on his candidacy. 

Roosevelt saw defeat ahead.  But there was still a month before election.  He made up his mind that he would not go down without a struggle. 

Odell was managing the campaign.  Roosevelt went to him and said he would like to make a campaign tour through the state.  Odell did not like the idea.  Candidates who made too many speeches had a way of saying things that some people were bound to object to.  But appeals from the rural counties showed him clearly that apathy was general and that the campaign was lost unless Roosevelt could personally turn defeat into victory. 

Roosevelt "stumped" the state.  He "stumped" it up and down and zigzag and across, making speeches at every railroad station.  The campaign began to show signs of life.  Roosevelt, as usual, carried the war into the enemy's territory, disregarding the Democratic nominee, who was insignificant, and concentrating his fire on the Democratic boss, Richard Croker.  Croker was not a man to crawl into a corner under fire.  He answered with hot shot.  Roosevelt immediately grasped the opportunity to make clear to the voters that the issue lay not between himself and the Democratic nominee, but between himself and Tammany's notorious and unscrupulous chief. 

His sincerity and fire kindled his audiences; and the gay ardor of the Rough Riders who accompanied him took their fancy.  The campaign which began in gloom ended in enthusiasm. 

The election was close.  At ten o'clock in the evening, Roosevelt, who had received the returns at Sagamore Hill, went to bed, believing himself defeated.  At two o'clock he was routed by a band of happy enthusiasts, and, in a suit of scarlet pajamas, received the announcement of his election as Governor of New York.  

CHAPTER 13 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE GOVERNS A GREAT STATE JUSTLY IN  SPITE  OF THE "INTERESTS"

ROOSEVELT had hitherto been known principally as a powerful agitator of the public mind, 'an inspiration to patriotic effort, a trumpet to the slumbering, the lethargic, the apathetic, a man with a genius for advertising good causes.  He had proved his qualities as an executive, as president of the Police Board; he had proved himself a leader of men on the hot hillsides and in the steaming fever-camps of Cuba.  He had not been a week in office before men began to realize that he was also a notable administrator. 

There were grave issues facing him and the people of the state.  The people knew Theodore Roosevelt.  They had watched him grow up, and they believed in him.  But they also knew Thomas C.  Platt.  They had known him twice as long as they had known Roosevelt.  They had known him as the "Easy Boss" who for years had held the Republican "machine" in the hollow of his hand and who had never failed to use it as the "interests" directed.  They knew that no Republican had ever "bucked" Platt successfully.  

They liked Roosevelt.  They knew he was courageous and they believed he was "square. "

But Senator Platt was "boss" of the Republican party and Roosevelt had accepted his nomination from the hands of Platt and conferred with him during the campaign with a frank openness which seemed to support his opponents in their contention that he would be merely another "shadow Governor. "

For weeks one question above all others agitated the columns of the newspapers Would Platt swallow Roosevelt or would Roosevelt swallow Platt?

The men who constituted the "machine " had their own ideas on the subject.  Among themselves they said that they had Roosevelt "hog-tied. " They knew that the Legislature in both branches and the state department heads with one or two exceptions were controlled absolutely by Platt and did his bidding without question.  They themselves were powerful and unscrupulous men.  They "figured" that although they would have difficulty with the Governor, they would wear out his resistance in the end. 

Roosevelt himself made no statement on the matter.  He had told Quigg that he would consult members of the Republican state organization about legislation and appointments, reserving to himself the final decision.  The "machine" had agreed to this arrangement, but he had not yet been inaugurated before there was a clash. 

"I am glad to say," remarked Senator Platt, cheerfully, one morning a month or so after election "that you are going to have a most admirable man for Superintendent of Public Works. "

"What's that?" ejaculated Roosevelt. 

Platt handed him a telegram.    '' He has accepted,'' he said. 

Roosevelt knew the man and liked him.  But the main business of the Superintendent of Public Works would be to investigate the frauds connected with the deepening of the Erie Canal, and this man came from a city along the line of the canal.  Besides, thought Roosevelt, he would have to make clear sooner or later that he was the Governor-elect, and not Platt; and the sooner the better. 

"I am sorry," he said, quietly, "but I can't appoint that man. "

There was an explosion. 

Roosevelt made his own appointment; but he did not "crow" over the aged Senator.  On the contrary, he allowed Platt to publish the appointment as his own, glad to let the old gentleman save his dignity and to allow the impression to go out that all was harmony between him and the "Boss," for, though this picture of harmony worried the fireside moralists, those Independents "whose independence," Roosevelt explained, "consisted in one part moral obliquity and two parts of mental infirmity," it made for results.  Gradually, and before Platt and the "machine" themselves knew exactly what was happening, business methods began to supplant favoritism and political intrigue in the government of the state. 

From the very beginning Roosevelt insisted on a "policy of light" in the State House.  There were no "back entrances" to his private office, and regularly twice a day the correspondents of the press were invited to hear what the Governor was doing, what he had done, and what he was planning to do. 

Cynics remarked, "There is Theodore getting into the lime-light again. "But Roosevelt knew that if he were to accomplish anything at all as Governor he must have the people at his back, seeing clearly whither he was leading them.  In the Governorship, as in every other public office he had held, he made the people he was serving his most powerful ally. 

He fully needed their support.  Against the measures he considered just were ranged the hundreds of big and little leaders who constituted the "machine," and, behind them, the huge, silent forces of wealth that constituted the "interests. "

The history of Roosevelt's administration as Governor is largely the history of an unceasing struggle to govern honestly and justly in spite of the desire of the men who controlled the party which had elected him that he govern dishonestly and unjustly.  That struggle was in no way a simple one.  He could repudiate Platt and his confederates once and for all and win a certain amount of popular applause by so doing; or he could accept Platt's dictation and secure the powerful support of the "machine" in his future career.  If he did the first, he knew that he would be rendered utterly powerless to pass any legislation whatsoever, or, in fact, to achieve any results in any direction; if he did the second, he knew that he would lose something more precious than political honors namely, his self-respect.  He chose neither to repudiate Platt nor to accept him as his "boss," but to co-operate with him where co-operation was possible, and to fight him only on fundamental issues of right and wrong. 

He determined that he would strive for the best, but if he could not get it, he would fight to get the best possible. 

So it happened that the Governor and the Republican "boss" breakfasted together in Manhattan whenever the political waters grew troubled, and exchanged friendly expressions of mutual regard.  The Governor "had a way with him" that did wonders.  He allowed Platt to propose men for positions, and if the men were honest and able he accepted them.  If they were neither honest nor able, he asked Platt to suggest other names, incidentally suggesting one or two possibilities himself.  It was all very amicable and friendly.  In matters of legislation, Roosevelt, knowing that Platt's control of the Legislature was complete, won him over to important reforms by tact and cajolery. 

The politicians looked on, incredulous, wondering how long this curious alliance would last.  Those who did not know Roosevelt personally believed him to be quarrelsome, egoistic, headstrong, self-sufficient, and unthinking.  They did not know that there were two sides to this man, the one slow, reflective open-minded, eager for counsel; the other quick, reckless, and set.  The man they saw was the man of action; and never dreamed that there was in him another man who sought advice and deliberated and sought advice and deliberated again before he let the fighter in him loose at his enemies. 

So it happened that Platt, the political leader of the "interests," was persuaded to give what Roosevelt later called "a grudging and querulous assent" to the re-enactment of a civil-service law and the passage of a mass of labor legislation which Platt, in opposition, would never have dreamed of countenancing.  Much of this legislation was based on investigations which Roosevelt had personally made with Riis in the Police Board days, and further investigations which they now made together in the congested districts of the East Side.  Some of the legislation he demanded was accepted by the "machine" and passed; some of it was "lost in committee" or defeated on the floor of the Assembly or Senate.  Over all of it the fighting was hard and bitter. 

Once, by a clever political trick, the "machine" defeated a non-partisan appointment in which he had been deeply interested.  Roosevelt laughed outright when the report came.  He knew how the politician loves the sensation of driving a knife into a man's back. 

"They can beat me at that game every time," he said.  "I never look under the table when I play, and I never shall.  Face to face I can defend myself and make a pretty good fight, but any weakling can murder me.  Remember this, however, that if I am hit that way very often I will take to the open, and the blows from the dark will only help me in an out-and-out battle. "

Laws were presented and passed, at Roosevelt's instigation, for forest preservation and the protection of wild life, and against the adulteration of food products.  In every department, meanwhile, the administration of the laws was perfected; political intrigue was punished; honest service was recognized and given its reward.  A new spirit came into the administration of state affairs. 

When a measure was introduced in the Legislature, men were heard to ask with increasing frequency not, "Is it expedient?" or, "How is it going to help me?" or, "What is it worth to the party?" but, "Is it right?"

Roosevelt was stirring the conscience of the people of the state. 

At the end of four months the inevitable happened and Roosevelt reached a point in his relations with Platt and the "machine" when tact and what Bill Sewall used in the Dakota days to call "dieplomacy" failed, and open warfare seemed inescapable. 

A Republican Senator had introduced a bill for taxing franchises.  A franchise is a right, granted by the government of any city to a transportation company, to lay tracks and operate cars along certain public streets.  This right has enormous cash value, but no one had ever thought of levying a tax upon it.  The idea, moreover, of interfering in any way with public-service corporations was, in those days, unheard of.  The corporations had hypnotized the public into believing that any attempt by the people of the state to limit their complete freedom of action was to undermine national prosperity.  Every man who advocated such a thing was said to be a "socialist," an "anarchist," a bad character generally. 

The bill calling for a franchise tax had been introduced during the previous Administration, but had been allowed to slumber "in committee. " Roosevelt decided that the bill was just, and in a special emergency message urged its passage. 

He was scarcely prepared for the storm that broke over his head. 

Roosevelt talked the matter over with Platt, who gently reproached him for what he called his "various altruistic ideas," intimating that "altruism" was something which was not considered quite decent among men of the world.  He begged Roosevelt to drop the bill and let it die. 
Roosevelt, anxious to "give in" to the "Boss" on minor matters, for the sake of harmony, knew that here a fundamental principle was at stake and refused absolutely to give in. 

Platt made dire threats.  If the bill were passed, he declared, no corporation would ever contribute a dollar to any campaign in which Roosevelt might henceforth be a candidate.  The people would applaud his independence and forget.  The corporations would be resentful and would never forget. 

"Republican corporations, too?" asked Roosevelt. 

The "Boss" smiled a thin, bland smile.  "The corporations which subscribe most heavily to campaign funds subscribe impartially to both party organizations. "

"Under those circumstances," remarked Roosevelt, "it seems to me there is no alternative for me but to secure the passage of the bill. "

The "machine" allowed the bill to pass in the Senate, planning to "kill" it with delays in the Assembly. 

Roosevelt sent a message to the Assembly demanding an immediate vote on the bill. 

The session was drawing to a close.  The agents for the "interests" in both parties decided that if they could force even a slight delay the session could be adjourned before the bill could be brought to a vote. 

Roosevelt's message never reached the Assembly.  The Speaker of the House, to whom the Governor's secretary had delivered it, tore it up in a rage. 

Roosevelt prepared a duplicate and sent it to the Speaker with a note saying that if the bill were not read from the desk it would be read from the floor, and if it were not read from the floor, he would go to the hall of the Assembly and read it himself. 

The bill was read and passed. Roosevelt signed it in the Executive Chamber. 

"Well," he said, abruptly, snapping his teeth together, "I suppose that's the end of my political career. "

"You're mistaken, Governor," said a state Senator who was present.  "That is only the beginning. " 

He moved his official residence to Oyster Bay and spent the summer alternating work with the keen delights that Sagamore Hill and three adjoining households of children offered.  There were sixteen of the "bunnies" altogether, six of them his own, from Alice, who was fifteen, to Quentin, who was one.  They had a way, in the summers, of running as a herd, with the master of Sagamore Hill as chief counselor, companion, and friend. 

Theodore Roosevelt had a rare way of stimulating their sports and entering, as an equal and contemporary, into the pleasures and sorrows and thrills of boy-and-girl life.  As a boy, he himself had loved to explore and hunt and ride and play in the water.  He had, in fact, never ceased loving these things. 

In the terms of the politician, "he carried his own ward. " The sixteen children of Sagamore and round about elected him leader without a dissenting vote. 

They had great times together that summer.  They played "stage-coach" on the raft, among other things, which meant that the counselor and friend would tell an elaborate story whose climaxes came with the utterance of the word "stage-coach" which was the signal for "Everybody in!" There was a flashing of many legs and then an anxious moment for the Governor of the state standing on the raft, counting heads.  The boys discovered, by and by, that they could breathe out of sight under the raft, which did not simplify life for the Governor on the float.  

The water provided endless delights, for now and again the master of Sagamore would take the children camping overnight on the beach or on a wrecked and abandoned schooner half a dozen miles away.  There was an old barn, moreover, that stood at the meeting-spot of three fences and proved extraordinarily useful in obstacle races, at which the Governor was the conscientious timekeeper.  There were handicap races at Cooper's Bluff, a gigantic sand-bank rising from the edge of the bay, a mile from the house; and, as usual, a Fourth of July celebration that was as far removed from "safe and sane" as children who reveled in close shaves could make it. 

From a mere human standpoint, that summer was a great success; and politically it brought none of the disaster that Platt and the "machine" leaders had gloomily predicted.  The Governor's prestige grew.  He was conscious of his increasing popularity, but it was his heart rather than his head which expanded under it, for he knew too well the impermanence of popular favor. 

What great fun I have had as governor! [he wrote to Mrs.  Robinson in September].  Just at the moment I am on the crest of the wave.  I know perfectly well that the crest is always succeeded by the hollow, which makes it all the wiser to have good fun while on the crest. 

That was a sound piece of philosophy which he had reason to remember more than once during the succeeding months. 

He began the second year of his administration with a message to the Legislature that revealed vividly the amazing growth of his powers during the past twelve months. 

It was not merely an administrator's record of things accomplished and schedule of things yet to be done.  It was a statesman's clear analysis of the social, industrial, and political problems of his time, with a statesman's recommendations for their solution. 

Through that message, delivered on January 3, 1900, Theodore Roosevelt, in a sense, took command of the new century. 

Meanwhile, he was having what he called his "parochial troubles. " With the large issues of capital and labor, of trusts and conservation and just government, absorbing his attention more and more, he was not neglecting to attend to the practical application of his theories.  The result was that for a second time he came to death-grips with Platt and the "machine. "

The Commissioner of Insurance, "Lou" Payn, was a spoils politician of the old school, the "boss" of his county.  His term was drawing to a close.  Roosevelt determined not to reappoint him. 

Platt sent him word peremptorily that Payn must be reappointed. 

The Governor was firm. 

Platt declared that he would fight, and would see to it that any successor whom Roosevelt might name would be refused confirmation by the state Senate. 

Roosevelt, keeping his temper, genially replied that he would make his appointment after the Legislature adjourned. 

Platt insisted that as soon as the Legislature re-convened Payn would be reinstalled. 

"Very good," said Roosevelt.  "You can give me a very uncomfortable time if you want to, but I'll guarantee to make the opposition more uncomfortable still. "

The fight raged for weeks.  Meanwhile, Roosevelt was not letting the administration of public affairs altogether interrupt his other activities.  During the preceding year he had published The Rough Riders, describing the part of his regiment in the Cuban campaign.  He was now busy on a Life of Oliver Cromwell.  He made frequent speeches at public gatherings and in odd moments contrived to keep his body in trim. 

It was at the very height of the Payn affair that his passion for healthy exercise threatened to upset the serious business of the state. 

Recently [he wrote to his sister, Mrs.  Cowles, on January 22d] I have been having a little too much strenuous life with a large gentleman whom I have had up to wrestle with me.  First of all he caved in my ribs.  When I got over those I fetched loose one shoulder-blade, while endeavoring to give him a flying fall.  I think I shall take to boxing as a gentler sport. 

He carried out his intention.  Mike Donovan, the exlight-weight champion, whom he lured to Albany to box with him, has himself left a record of the gentleness of the sport as the Governor conceived it. 

After we shook hands [he writes in a book of reminiscences] I studied him carefully.  Then I led a left jab, following it up with a faint-hearted right that landed like a love-tap high up on his cheek. 

He dropped his hands and stopped.  "Look here, Mike," he said, indignantly, "that is not fair. "

I was afraid I had done something wrong.  "What's the matter, Governor?" I asked. 

"You're not hitting me," he said, shaking his head.  "I'd like you to hit out. "

"All right, Governor," I said, thinking to myself, this man has a pretty good opinion of himself. 

We started in again, and I sent in a hard right to the body as he rushed in, and then tried a swinging left for the jaw.  He stepped inside and drove his right to my ear. 

It jarred me down to the heels. 

I realized from that moment that the Governor was no ordinary amateur.  If I took chances with him I was endangering my reputation. 

The insurance fight went on.  Roosevelt picked out an honest and competent man from the organization as Payn's successor and prepared to send his appointment to the Senate for confirmation.  The afternoon before the nomination was to be made public he conferred with Platt and asked him for the last time to yield. 

Platt refused flatly, saying that if Roosevelt insisted it should be war to the knife.  "That will mean your political destruction," he said.  "Perhaps it will mean the destruction of the Republican party. "

"I am very sorry," Roosevelt answered.  "I simply can't yield in this.  If that means war, then war will have to come.  The nomination goes to the Senate tomorrow morning. "

They parted.  Shortly afterward Platt's right hand lieutenant sent Roosevelt a message requesting an interview that evening.  Roosevelt met him at the Union League Club. 

The man went over the old ground once more.  "Platt won't give in under any circumstances," he asserted.  "If you try to fight him, he'll beat you, and that will be your finish.  It seems too bad for you to end a fine career in a smash-up like that. "

Roosevelt repeated that he intended to stand fast.  The man protested.  They argued the matter for a half-hour more; then Roosevelt rose. 

"There's nothing to be gained by further talk," he said. 

"It's your last chance," cried the other.  "It's your ruin if you don't take it.  On the other hand," he added, "if you do, everything will be made easy for you. "

Roosevelt shook his head.  "There is nothing to add to what I have already said. "

"You have made up your mind?"

"I have. "

"You know it means your ruin?"

"We will see about that," cried the Governor, and walked to the door. 

"You understand the fight begins tomorrow.  And it '11 be to the bitter end. "

"I understand," said Roosevelt, and opened the door.  "Good night. "

And at that last word the politician took a quick step toward him.  "Hold on!" he cried.  "We accept.  Send in your nomination.  The Senator is very sorry, but he will make no further opposition. " 

Roosevelt had "called the bluff. ''' Payn was re-moved.  Roosevelt's appointee was confirmed.  On a clear-cut issue of right and wrong, Roosevelt had stood immovable, and had won. 

And he had won for a reason which the professional politicians who had appealed to his political ambitions would never have understood; he really had no "political ambitions" as they understood the term. 

On the sands at Montauk Point, the previous* autumn, Lincoln Steffens had asked him whether he wasn't thinking of the Presidency. 

Roosevelt had stopped short.  "No, no.  Don't ever say that again.  I never sought an office.  I always wanted a job, for I like work. "

The Governorship was a job, a chance to do certain things that ought to be done. 
I am proud of being Governor and am going to try to make a square and decent one [he had written to Sewall in January].  I do not expect, however, to hold political office again, and in one way that is a help, because the politicians cannot threaten me with what they will do in the future. 
The "Boss" and his henchmen would have saved themselves a great deal of time and trouble if they could have brought themselves to believe that Roosevelt was interested not in "holding an office," but in doing a job. 

Of course, they did not believe it.  Being them-selves men who lived by plotting and intrigue, they naturally thought that he, too, was an intriguer, ascribing to him a Machiavellian cunning which he never possessed.  He was, with all his learning and with all his experience and knowledge of men, still an unusually simple-hearted and, in the deepest sense, unsophisticated boy. 

Like Peter Pan, he had never grown up.  At forty he was applying to the tangled problems of government the ardor, the energy, and the unclouded standards of boyhood. 

And for that reason the politicians found him utterly baffling. 
Roosevelt's utterances concerning the rights of labor and the regulation of trusts had meanwhile been making the "interests" uneasy.  His personal force was great, his popularity was constantly increasing.  If life was to proceed undisturbed for the "predatory rich," it was highly important that Theodore Roosevelt should be "laid on the shelf. " There was no better shelf in American politics than the Vice-Presidency. 

Roosevelt, it happened, knew this as well as the politicians knew it, and he had no intention of stepping into the trap.  For he enjoyed being Governor and he was more than a little elated with his success. 
I am having my hands full here, as usual [he wrote to his sister, the end of February], but somehow I contrive to wiggle through.  Occasionally I talk pretty to the gentlemen; occasionally I thump them with a club; and by generally doing each at the right time and in the right way I have been able to get along better than could reasonably have been expected.  Everything is as straight as a string, and done as honestly as can be done He had his hands firmly on the reins at Albany.  But his activities were by no means confined to his state.  He was beginning to be recognized as the leader of the new progressive movement in the nation. 

During the winter and early spring of 1900 he spoke here and there over the country on the fundamental issues before the nation.  The American people listened, stirred by his youthful enthusiasm and the hot sincerity of his crusading spirit. 

There are dangers of peace and dangers of war [he said at Grant's birthplace in Galena, Illinois, late that April], dangers of excess in militarism and of excess by the avoidance of duty that implies militarism; dangers of slow dry rot and dangers which become acute only in great crises.  When these crises come, the nation will triumph or sink accordingly as it produces or fails to produce statesmen like Lincoln or soldiers like Grant, and accordingly as it does or does not back them up in their efforts.  We do not need men of unsteady brilliancy, or erratic power unbalanced men.  The men we need are the men of strong, earnest, solid character the men who possess the homely virtues, and who to these virtues add rugged courage, rugged honesty, and high resolve.  . . .  To do our duty, that is the sum and substance of the whole matter. 

He pleaded for national preparedness; for the acceptance and fulfilment of the nation's international obligations. 

Let us make it evident that we intend to do justice [he said].  Then let us make it equally evident that we will not tolerate injustice being done us in return.  Let us further make it evident that we use no words that we are not prepared to back up with deeds, and that while our speech is always moderate, we are willing and ready to make it good.  Such an attitude will be the surest guaranty of that self-respecting peace, the attainment of which is and must ever be the prime aim of a self-governing people.
 
Roosevelt's friends, meanwhile, were working for the same end as his foes and were pleading with him to allow himself to be nominated for the Vice-Presidency.  But Roosevelt refused utterly to consider the proposal. 

It would be an irksome, wearisome place where I could do nothing [he wrote Mrs.  Cowles].  At present it looks as if I would be renominated.  There is more work to be done in the Governorship in two years than in the Vice-Presidency in four; and with our kaleidoscopic politics it is foolish to look too far ahead as regards places as regards the work itself, I always follow the same lines.  My being in politics is in a sense an accident; and it is only a question of time when I shall be forced out.  The best thing I can do is to strive to get the position in which I can do most work, and that position is surely the Governorship. 
As the time of the national Republican convention drew near, however, both Roosevelt's friends and his foes intensified their efforts to persuade him to accept the second place on the ticket. 
But he went his way, refusing good-humoredly to take them seriously when they suggested that behind the Vice-Presidency might loom a greater honor in 1904. 

Cabot feels that I have a career [he wrote to Mrs.  Cowles, the end of April].    The dear old goose actually regards me as a Presidential possibility of the future, which always makes me thoroughly exasperated, because sooner or later it will have the effect of making other people think that I so regard myself and that therefore I am a ridiculous personage. 

He insisted again and again that he would not accept the nomination for the Vice-Presidency, that he would, in fact, rather be a private citizen than be Vice-President.  Platt apparently accepted his decision.  At the convention in Philadelphia, at which Roosevelt himself was a delegate, Platt, however, threatened to thwart Roosevelt's desire for a re-nomination as Governor if Roosevelt persisted in his refusal.  Roosevelt took up the challenge and announced that he would make the threat public.  Platt submitted.  The New York delegation was instructed to cast its votes for Lieutenant-Governor Woodruff for Vice-President. 

But Roosevelt as well as the "machine" was reckoning without the forces the Roosevelt had by his acts and his utterances awakened in the West.  The demand for Roosevelt for Vice-President became too insistent to be disregarded.  Senator Hanna, the national "boss" who had opposed Roosevelt, began to waver. 

That night a group of newspaper-men called on Roosevelt at his hotel.  He told them with all the emphasis at his command that he did not want the nomination and that he did not intend to be nominated if he could help it. 

It happened that he could not help it.  Strange forces worked together to set aside his personal desire. 

The Western delegates declared that unless Roosevelt were nominated for Vice-President they would abandon McKinley and nominate Roosevelt, not for second but for first place on the ticket. 

Roosevelt finally became convinced that there was a genuine desire that he take second place 
on the ticket in order to strengthen it before the country.  He yielded, deciding to do the duty that offered itself, and let the future bring what it might. 
President McKinley was renominated for President;  Roosevelt was nominated for Vice-President; both by acclamation. 

"I would not like to be in McKinley's shoes," said Roosevelt's classmate, Washbum, to a friend, shortly after.  "He has a man of destiny behind him. "

Roosevelt was sent into the field to be his party's spokesman, and for over two months he "stumped" the country, traveling twenty-two thousand miles making from five to six hundred speeches of considerable length, addressing face to face between three and four million of his fellow-citizens.  He was not an orator of the silvery sort.  His voice had no particularly pleasing quality, and, though he had a gift for creating telling phrases that caught the popular fancy, he had no gift at all for building up elaborate rhetorical effects. 

The strength of his speeches was altogether in the spirit from which they sprang.  He spoke with the passionate ardor of a crusader, and carried his audiences off their feet by the sheer force of his sincerity. 

For Roosevelt it was an exhausting experience.  But his tough constitution bore him through it.  The trip was an extraordinary success.  The campaign awoke, for the people had awakened. 

The Republican ticket was elected. 

Roosevelt, believing that his political career was ended, looked about for something to occupy him during his term in the Vice-Presidency and after-ward.  He made up his mind to expand his Winning of the West, and, in conjunction with his private secretary, William Loeb, Jr. , who, like himself, had an unfinished law course to his credit, determined to complete his preparation for admission to the bar, which had been interrupted by his election to the Assembly nearly twenty years previous. 

These plans were never carried out. 

On September 6th President McKinley was shot in Buffalo. 

Roosevelt heard the news at Isle La Motte, in Lake Champlain.  He went to Buffalo at once, arriving early the following morning, feeling, as he confessed that evening, "a hundred years old. " The sudden realization that he might at any moment be called to the chief place in the nation staggered him.  The possibility had never entered his head. 

The news with which he was greeted was cheering.  The President was resting well.  Recovery was more than possible.  Roosevelt's spirits rose. 

The bulletins from the bedside continued favorable.  He conferred with the members of the Cabinet, who had hurried to Buffalo.  The affairs of the nation were in firm control.  On the nth the physicians in attendance declared that the President was practically out of danger.  The members of the Cabinet began to leave the city.  Roosevelt decided to join his family, who were at the Tahawus Club in the heart of the Adirondacks. 

The morning of the i3th was misty, threatening rain, but Roosevelt had determined to ascend Mount Marcy with Mrs.  Roosevelt and the children that day, and at six they were on their way.  At a pretty lake called "Tear in the Clouds," Mrs.  Roosevelt and the smaller children turned back, while Roosevelt, who was hoping that above the clouds on the summit there might be sunlight, pushed on with the older boys.  On the peak, as below, they found only fog.  They descended and camped for luncheon at the timber-line.  A thin rain was falling.  They spread out their lunch, feeling wet and uncomfortable. 

News   had   meanwhile   come   to   North   Creek, thirty-five miles from Tahawus, that the President had had a sudden relapse.  The message was telephoned to the lower club, twenty-five miles north.  Mounted messengers were sent to the upper club, ten miles away. 

The man in charge of the club told the riders, when they came, that the Vice-President was somewhere on the sides of Mount Marcy. 

Runners were dispatched in all directions. 

Roosevelt, descending the mountain in the late afternoon, heard shots fired in the distance, at regular intervals.  It occurred to him that it was a signal.  He fired his own gun in answer. 

It was five o'clock when the men who were searching for him found him at last.  They gave him a message from the President's secretary:

The President's condition has changed for the worse.  CORTELYOU. 

He descended quickly to the club-house.  No further news had come.  He sent runners to the lower club-house, ten miles away, where there was telephone connection with the outside world, and waited.  The hours passed. 

He walked alone up and down in front of the cottage where he was living, trying to think it all out. 

At one in the morning the summons arrived, "Come at once. "

He flung his grip into the buckboard that was waiting for him and was off. 

It was a bad night, misty and black.  The road was less a road than a wide trail, cut into gorges only a day or two before by a cloudburst which had drenched Roosevelt on his way to the club. 

The driver turned to the man beside him, hesitating. 

"Go ahead!" cried Roosevelt. 

The man went ahead.  The light wagon jumped from side to side, threatening to fling its passengers out now on this side, now on that.  It skirted dangerous abysses, it just missed dashing into boulders and trees.  The driver turned once more. 

"Go on!" cried Roosevelt. 

He went on.  Into the blackness he went, the horses finding their way by instinct rather than sight, the wagon holding together by the grace of Providence. 

Ten miles down the trail they found fresh horses waiting for them.  Roosevelt helped the driver unhitch the exhausted team by the light of a lantern and hitch the new team to the shaken buckboard.  Then again they were off into the blackness. 

It was thirty-five miles to the railroad at North Creek.  Ten miles farther down they came on another fresh relay.  They changed the horses and again were away along the rocky trail at breakneck speed. 

Roosevelt clung to the seat as the wagon swayed this way and that. 

"Too fast?" cried the driver. 

"Go on!" cried Roosevelt. 

The east was paling as they dashed into North Creek at five in the morning.  A special train was waiting at the station.  The driver drew up at the platform. 

Loeb was there to meet him.  "The President is dead," he said. 

Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States.  

CHAPTER 14 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE   INAUGURATES  A  NEW  ERA

HE arrived at Buffalo at three o'clock that afternoon.  The members of the Cabinet, he was told, were awaiting him at the house of Ansley Wilcox, on Delaware Avenue, where he had stayed earlier in the week; but he asked to be driven first to the house where the body of William McKinley was lying.  The crowds on the streets were dense, and cheered him as he was driven swiftly by.  He drew back to the rear of the coach.  It did not seem to him the time for cheering. 

He found the members of the Cabinet assembled at the Wilcox house, when he arrived.  Only Secretary Gage and Secretary Hay were absent.  There were, besides, twenty or thirty personal friends in the room.  Elihu Root, Secretary of War, drew him aside.  With arms on each other's shoulders they conversed in whispers in the bay-window. 

Judge Hazel of the Federal Circuit Court drew near. 

The two men at the window turned.  Then the Secretary of War spoke. 

"Mr.  Vice-President" he began.  His voice broke.  "I" He dropped his head and was silent for what seemed an endless time.  The silence was oppressive.  No one stirred.  A bird chirped suddenly outside. 

Roosevelt's eyes were brimming with tears and his face was set in a stern effort at self-control.  The Secretary of War raised his head.  His voice when he spoke was tremulous with feeling, but his words were deliberate and clear.  The members of the Cabinet, he said, wished that, for reasons of state, he should take the oath at once. 

Roosevelt, too, had difficulty in controlling his emotion and governing his voice.  '' I shall take the oath at once in response to your request," he said.  "And in this hour of deep and terrible bereavement I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace and prosperity of our beloved country. "

Then Judge Hazel administered the oath. 

"I do solemnly swear," Roosevelt repeated, holding his hand high, "that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. "

And to that he added, with what one of the men present called his "terrible earnestness" "And thus I swear. "

A half-hour later he held his first Cabinet meeting. 

"I wish each of you gentlemen," he said, "to remain as a member of my Cabinet.  I need your advice and counsel.  I tender you the office in the same manner that I would tender it if I were entering upon the discharge of my duties as the result of an election by the people, with this distinction, however, that I cannot accept a declination. "

There were no declinations, though the Secretaries had their own notions concerning the possibility of a McKinley Cabinet becoming a Roosevelt Cabinet. 

And so the country again had a President.  The anarchist had with his crime shaken the American people to the depths, but not for an instant had he shaken the structure of orderly government.  A week passed by.  The new President returned from the funeral of his predecessor and took up his residence at the White House.  The business of the nation went on without a break. 

It was only after months had passed that men began dimly to realize that during the night of that wild ride from Tahawus to North Creek an era had ended. 

Theodore Roosevelt, suddenly the center of the world's attention, walked up and down his new study and began to dictate his first message to Congress. 

It was delivered on December 3d.  The last faint rumors that the new President was a wild revolutionist died amid the chorus of praise which the message evoked.  Europe recognized that a great constructive statesman was at the helm in America and paid enthusiastic tribute.  Only the papers of Vienna and Berlin growled.  They did not like the references to the Monroe Doctrine.  A London paper quoted the Kaiser as saying that the "American peril" was the great question of the future. 

Roosevelt's main interest, at the moment, was not in international affairs, but in the intelligent adjustment of the relations of capital and labor.  He saw, as few others saw it, that the era of unhampered, cutthroat competition, which had followed the Civil War, was ended.  Under pioneers like Morgan, Harriman, and James J.  Hill vast stretches of country had been opened to settlement and agriculture, and trade had wonderfully expanded.  Not these men only, but all their countrymen had, through their prosperity, prospered in turn.  The individualism of the pioneers had brought evils with it.  A generation ago the benefits of their activities had far outweighed the evils.  Gradually the balance had shifted.  The enormous growth and extension of the power of the financial and industrial leaders had given them an almost despotic control over vast numbers of their fellow-citizens.  Some of these leaders regarded themselves as above the law.  Governors, legislatures, and judges were their tools; college presidents, preachers, and the editors of the greatest newspapers in the country their agents and defenders.  Their grip on both great political parties seemed absolute.  An insurrection in one of them, such as the free-silver crusade in 1896, served by its crude excesses only to make more firm than before their control over the other. 

Meanwhile, the rapid increase in population caused congestion in the cities, and conditions approaching slavery in the mines and large industries.  The great mass vaguely known as "the working-class" muttered and protested.  There were strikes and riots, put down with ruthless violence by troops under the direct or indirect command of the employers.  Laws that were passed to better the conditions of the employee or to curb the greed of the employer were either never enforced or flatly declared unconstitutional by judges controlled by the financial interests, or out of touch with actual conditions. 

During the last decade of the nineteenth century the country was in grave danger of becoming a plutocracy, with tyrannical power in the hands of a small group of selfish and unscrupulous men.  That it did not become such a plutocracy is due largely to the clear vision and unfaltering leadership of Theodore Roosevelt. 

Roosevelt demanded that corporations be supervised and regulated.  He insisted, moreover, that they be punished, not for their size, but only for their misdeeds.  He promised capital, as he promised labor, even-handed justice, a "square deal. "

He discovered with somewhat of a shock that a "square deal" was not the sort of thing that either side wanted.  Both wanted favors at the expense of the other party. 

Roosevelt's first great action against the intrenched forces of capital was taken against the Northern Securities Company, a merger of five great railways in the Northwest.  The merger had been formed in good faith on the basis of a decision made by the Supreme Court in a case involving the Sugar Trust.  Roosevelt believed the decision unwarranted.  He knew, moreover, that if it were allowed to stand as a precedent, the hands of the government would be forever tied in its dealings with the trusts.  He ordered the Attorney-General to bring suit against the Northern Securities Company for dissolution. 

The "interests" protested wildly.  They knew what vital matters were at stake.  Roosevelt himself knew that on the decision of the court depended the question whether or not the government had power to deal with the great corporations.  The case went its leisurely way;   the  President  and  the country waited. 

Meanwhile, a new spirit was invading the official world of Washington.  Men going to the Capital with ideas in their heads no longer wandered from department to department, hunting in vain for some one to take them seriously.  They went straight to the White House, certain to find a welcome there.  

The President was a busy man, conferring with Senators and Congressmen, dictating messages and speeches and letters by the hundred, receiving deputations by the dozen, entertaining men from the four corners of the earth, a prince from Germany and a negro from Alabama, riding, boxing, playing tennis, unveiling a monument here, opening an exposition there, reading novels, history, poetry, and scientific treatises on the side, romping jubilantly with his children down the dignified corridors of the White House or up the crags of Rock Creek Park, fighting always at the drop of the hat for a good cause. 

Presidents in the past had all too often been slightly animated statues.  The new President was a throbbing machine.  He was a tireless worker, because by nature he loved work.  He reached out for information in a thousand directions; he poured out his gospel with unabating ardor. 

The Oldest Inhabitant declared that no President had ever flung himself with so much energy and enthusiasm into so many divergent activities; yet, nevertheless, he was accessible at all times to friends and opponents alike.  Cabinet officers, ambassadors, admirals, generals, and travelers from afar dropped in at the White House, confident that the President would have time for a word and a handshake; and Otto Raphael, police sergeant in New York, and Seth Bullock, marshal in South Dakota, rang the bell without waiting for an invitation, knowing that "the Colonel" would turn his back on princes and potentates with a cheer, to ask them about the wife and the babies.     Representatives of capital came, and representatives of labor came. 

"At last," said one of the "labor men" at luncheon one day, "there is a hearing for us fellows. "

"Yes!" cried the President, emphatically.  "The White House door, while I am here, shall swing open as easily for the labor man as for the capitalist and no easier,"

White men and black men, educated men and men with no education at all, rich men and poor men, men of every religion and men of none, were welcomed by the new President, not from any sense of duty, but from an inveterate hunger for understanding.  To him every man who crossed his line of vision was important.  He sought to learn from them all, from one a new point of view, from another a new method of approach, from a third, perhaps, the psychology of some dangerous prejudice which only clear vision and sympathy could overcome. 

He made himself accessible to the thoughts and feelings of every section of the American people; in countless ways he endeavored to find out their reaction to the problems of the time.  Then, with a clear understanding of their needs and their prejudices, he led them not where they, in their lethargy or their blindness to the true issues, desired to go, but where he, standing on the vantage-point of the Presidency, saw that they ought to go. 

He knew the compelling power of the line of least resistance.  He knew men's natural tendency to seek the easiest grade, and, being a good leader, he inspired the people with a desire to climb.  

The nation felt the new impulse before Roosevelt had been half a year in office.  Under its spell a new type of public servant began to appear here and there, a type vastly removed from the hard and callous politician to whom Washington was accustomed.  They were men who wanted neither money nor personal honor, but only the opportunity to serve; men of vision who realized that fate had suddenly thrust upon the country a man not only of power, but of constructive imagination. 

Two such men called on him the day he arrived in Washington after the funeral of President McKin-ley.  He had not yet taken up his residence at the White House, and they went to the house of his brother-in-law, Captain Cowles, where he was staying, to lay before him their plans for the reclamation and irrigation of the arid lands of the Southwest and the consolidation of the forest work of the government in the Forestry Bureau.  The men were Frederick Hayes Newell and Gifford Pinchot. 

Roosevelt had since the ranch days been a warm believer in reclamation, and immediately asked them to prepare material on the subject for use in his forthcoming Message.  They did so. 

"The forest and water problems," he declared in that Message, '' are perhaps the most vital problems of the United States. "

On the day the Message was read a committee was organized in Congress to prepare a Reclamation bill.  A bill was drawn up.  Roosevelt worked over it, revised it, fought for it against the forces of privilege who saw their interests threatened.  Before he had been President nine months the bill was passed. 

One of the greatest movements of the time, under the spur of his enthusiasm and determination, had developed in less than a year from a vague dream into a living and moving actuality. 

Congress had passed the Reclamation bill not without a struggle, for the men who were willing to sacrifice public to private interest were strong; but still, Congress had passed it, not realizing fully the far-reaching effect of the movement of which it marked the beginning.  On the control of corporations, however, Congress stood firm.  Roosevelt asked that they be legalized under restraint such as the Interstate Commerce Commission already exercised over the railroads. 

Congress turned a deaf ear.  It refused to create the Department of Commerce and Labor; it rejected reciprocity with Cuba. 

The President was not the man lightly to accept defeat.  He went over the head of Congress to the people.  He traveled hither and thither, making clear his attitude on the great questions of the day, especially '' big business'' and its regulation.  Everywhere, enormous crowds gathered to hear him.  Radicals and conservatives alike saw in his views, but most of all in his attitude of mind, a hope for the solution of the vexing problem.  The "common people" greeted him as their champion. 

"Under the old regime," said an admirer at the time, "the people got the impression that it was useless to fight against the influence of corporations and machine politics, but Roosevelt gave them back their hope and made them think that a fight was indeed worth while. "

In April he was at Charleston, in June at Pittsburg, in August and early September in New England (escaping death by a miracle at Pittsfield in a crash with a trolley-car that smashed his carriage, flung him on his face by the roadside, and killed the Secret Service guard on the box); three days later he was in West Virginia, then in Ohio, in Tennessee, in Indiana; then home again at the White House because of an abscess in his leg due to the Pittsfield accident, going through the busy round of his activities on crutches, and, in a new Message, reiterating his demands on Congress with the confidence that he had the people behind him.  Less than a week later, with his bandaged leg on a chair, he was moving to end the greatest strike in history. 

Early in the spring the workers in the anthracite coal-mines in Pennsylvania, under the leadership of John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers of America, had struck for higher wages, and during the succeeding months practically no coal whatever had been mined.  The miners and the operators became deeply embittered, and between them the public stood helpless.  Coal rose in September to twenty-five dollars a ton.  Unless coal should be promptly available a frightful calamity threatened the country, as terrible, Roosevelt knew, as an invasion of a hostile army of overwhelming force.  

Coal was a necessity of life, and he could, as he wrote Mrs.  Cowles, "no more see misery and death come to the great masses of the people in our large cities and sit by idly because under ordinary conditions a strike is not a subject for interference by the President," than he "could sit by idly and see one man kill another without interference because there is no statutory duty imposed on the President to interfere in such cases. "

Toward the end of September he communicated with the operators and with the miners, asking them to agree to the appointment of a commission of arbitration and to promise to accept its findings, the miners to go to work as soon as the commission was appointed, at the old rate of wages. 

The miners agreed, but the operators flatly refused. 

Thereupon, on October ist, the President invited the operators and representatives of the miners to the White House for a conference.  Two days later the conference was held.  Mitchell, speaking for the miners, repeated their acceptance of the President's proposal; but the operators were stubborn.  They said that they would far rather die of cold than yield on such a high principle as recognizing arbitration with the striking miners. 

The trouble with the excellent gentlemen was [wrote Roosevelt to his sister two weeks later] that they were not in danger of dying of cold.  They would pay extra for their coal and would get insufficient quantities and would suffer discomfort, but the poorer people around about them would and could get no coal, and with them it would not be discomfort, but acute misery and loss of life.  In other words, those people really meant that they would rather somebody else should die of cold than that they should yield.  Such a position was impossible. 

The conference broke up without result.  The operators exultantly announced that they had "turned down" not only the miners, but the President. 

Roosevelt refused to accept the rebuff, for he recognized that he had not only justice and right on his side, but also the majority of the American people.  From here, there, and everywhere came expressions of hearty support of his action and rage at his adversaries.  The country was losing patience.  In endless conferences with representatives of the operators he tried in vain to make clear to them that, in their own interest, they must yield or be completely overwhelmed. 

In his first Message he had said, "The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame. "

Roosevelt saw, what the operators refused to see, that in a winter of coal famine lay the menace of revolution. 

Day in, day out, he worked for an agreement. 

"May Heaven preserve me," he exclaimed in a letter to his sister at that time, "from ever again dealing with so wooden-headed a set, when I wish to preserve their interests!"

At last, after two weeks, the operators, seeing dimly the writing on the wall, yielded, agreeing to arbitrate. 

"Yes, we have put it through," wrote the President to Governor Crane of Massachusetts.     "But, heavens and earth! it has been a struggle. "

Roosevelt did not tell the operators until long after that if they had not voluntarily yielded he would have taken action which they would have long remembered.  His plans for the emergency were complete.  Major-General Schofield, supported by United States troops, would have taken over and operated the mines as a receiver while Grover Cleveland and a special commission arbitrated the miners' claims. 

The President had made up his mind that the American people were not to be without coal. 

Roosevelt brought the coal strike to an end the middle of October.  A month later he was hunting bears (unsuccessfully) in Mississippi.  A month later, again, he came suddenly face to face with Germany and the prospect of war. 

The crisis arose over the same troublesome nation which had come so near to precipitating war between the United States and England in 1895.  Venezuela was now under the dictatorship of a shrewd and unscrupulous adventurer named Castro, who, secure, as he believed, in the protection of the United States under the Monroe Doctrine, was cheerfully defying half of Europe.  Venezuelan citizens owed large sums of money to Germany, England, and Italy.  Collection of these debts proved difficult.  Castro intimated that Europe might come and get the money if it wanted it. 

Germany, always on the alert for an opportunity to gain a foothold in South America, as, a year or two previous, she had gained a foothold in China, now approached the governments of England and Italy with a view of effecting joint intervention to protect the interests of their citizens in Venezuela.  Both nations agreed to co-operate, and all sent gun-boats to blockade the Venezuelan coast.  Castro protested vociferously to the United States. 

John Hay, Secretary of State, answered that the Monroe Doctrine did not mean that the United States would preserve any South American nation from the consequences of its own financial indiscretions. 

The so-called "pacific blockade" continued for a year.  Numerous neutral vessels were sunk.  Hay lodged an emphatic protest and urged arbitration. 

The allied nations refused, and on December 8, 1902, England and Germany broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela, intimating that the next move would be the bombardment of Venezuelan towns and the occupation of Venezuelan territory. 

At this point President Roosevelt took charge of the negotiations.  He saw that in the invasion of a weak debtor state by a naval or military expedition lay a threat against the Monroe Doctrine.  He advised the nations to come to an understanding. 

England and Italy expressed their willingness to do so, but Germany refused, declaring that any occupation of territory would be only "temporary. "

Roosevelt, having notions of his own about the probability of Germany's relinquishment of any territory on which she had once planted her flag, summoned to the White House Doctor von Holleben, the German ambassador.  An American squadron, under Admiral Dewey, was off the coast of Cuba, he told him.  Unless Germany consented to arbitrate her Venezuelan claims he would order Dewey at noon, ten days later, to proceed to the Venezuelan coast and prevent, by force of arms, if necessary, the landing of a German expedition. 

The ambassador-whom Hay had described as a man "absolutely without initiative and in mortal terror of his Kaiser" protested that the Emperor had refused to arbitrate and could not change his mind now. 

"I am not arguing the question," answered the President.  "The arguments have all been gone over and no useful purpose is served in repeating them.  I am merely giving you information which you may consider important to transmit to Berlin. "

The ambassador was suave.  Of course, he would transmit the information, he said, though he knew what the answer would be.  It was evident that he was not perturbed.  He thought he knew the great American game of bluff. 

A week later he called again on the President.  He talked on various matters.  The one matter, however, that he did not touch on at all was Venezuela. 

When he rose to go Roosevelt asked him bluntly what answer he had received from his government. 

Von Holleben was light-hearted about the matter.  "You did not expect me to take your statement seriously?" he remarked.  His government, he said, had not communicated with him. 

The President snapped his teeth together.  

"Very good," he said.  "I shall instruct Admiral Dewey to sail not in three days, but in two. "

The ambassador was thunderstruck.  His whole manner changed.  He knew at last that he had made the most fatal mistake a diplomat can make  he had miscalculated the intention of his opponent.  He protested that the Kaiser could not give in. 

"Do you realize," he cried, in extreme agitation, "that this means war?"

' ' It means war," answered Roosevelt, "if Germany tries to land troops in Venezuela.  But not a stroke of a pen has been put on paper.  If the Emperor agree to arbitrate, I will heartily praise him for it and treat it as taken on German initiative.  But I must have an offer to arbitrate in forty-eight hours, or Dewey sails. "

Within thirty-six hours the ambassador returned to the White House, wreathed in smiles.  A despatch had just come from Berlin, he said, saying that the Kaiser would arbitrate. 

Roosevelt did as he promised and commended the Kaiser publicly for being so stanch a friend of arbitration.  Holleben was almost immediately recalled by his government.  The affair evidently rankled in the Emperor's mind.  But his attentions to America and Americans increased in fervor.  From the Venezuelan affair dated his almost romantic devotion to Theodore Roosevelt.  The President had spoken in the only way William the Second understood; and in his curious, medieval heart the Emperor loved Roosevelt for the very qualities which had revealed him as his master. 

Two weeks after the settlement of the Venezuelan affair in January, 1903, another international controversy which had for years been dragging its way up and down the corridors of diplomacy came before Roosevelt for action. 

Like the Venezuelan imbroglio, this affair also involved England.  After her initial mistake in allying herself with Germany in the so-called "peaceful blockade" of the Venezuelan coast, the British government had, in response to public sentiment in England, behaved extremely well.  In this other controversy, also, England showed her evident desire to keep on terms of close friendliness with the United States. 

The affair dealt with Alaska, whose eastern boundary along the strip above the 54° 40' line had been a matter of dispute for generations.  After endless delays, negotiations were reopened in January, 1903, for the settlement of the matter by a commission of three Americans and three Britishers. 

Up to this time Secretary Hay had had charge of the discussions.  At this point, however, President Roosevelt, who thought Hay's attitude indecisive, if not actually timid, took command. 

"The claim of the Canadians for access to deep water along any part of the Alaska coast," he wrote in a note intended indirectly for the British Cabinet, "is just exactly as defensible as if they should now suddenly claim the island of Nantucket. "

He would not arbitrate the possession of the large sections of Alaska which the Canadians demanded, he went on, but there were minor questions, topographical trifles, which they might discuss. 

''Go ahead and arbitrate,'' he said.  "But there is the map. "

Thereupon, he did two things.  He appointed as American members of the commission three of the most vigorous "fighting men" of the time, Lodge, Root, and ex-Senator Turner of Washington; and without ostentation, but openly, for England to observe, sent American troops into the disputed territory. 

Where upon, having done all he could, for the moment, to secure the rights of the American people abroad, he turned his attention once more to securing the rights of the American people abroad, he turned his attention once more to securing their rights at home. 

Congress, which had been stiff-necked during the previous session, had during the recess heard from the folks at home, and scrambled to pass the bills it had haughtily rejected.  The President appointed Cortelyou, the private secretary he had inherited from McKinley, Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and set the new Bureau of Corporations to work gathering material to form the basis of new legislation.  Roosevelt was eager to secure the creation of a Federal commission "to prevent monopoly, if possible, and uproot it when discovered," to "control and regulate all big combinations," and to "give honest business certainty as to what the law was and security as long as the law was obeyed. "

Congress balked, but, under the spur of the President, passed a law forbidding the railroads to grant rebates to favored customers.  The Attorney-General had, at the President's order, brought suits, meanwhile, against fourteen railroads in the West and numerous roads in the South for violation of the Anti-Trust law and the law relating to interstate commerce. 

Wall Street, led by the Standard Oil Company, protested wildly that the President was a radical who would overthrow the Constitution.  Roosevelt replied that the Constitution was elastic enough to be made to cover the new needs of the people under changing conditions.  If it was not strong enough to deal with the new problems, he asked that it be strengthened. 

But Roosevelt's interference in the coal strike had angered some and sincerely disquieted others among the believers in the supreme sanctity of private property.  This feeling of opposition was strengthened by the announcement in April of the decision of the United States Circuit Court, ordering the dissolution of the Northern Securities Company.  The case was appealed, but the court's decision foreshadowed what the final verdict would probably be; and Wall Street was up in arms, with a curious lack of logic blaming Roosevelt instead of the court which had rendered the decision. 

Roosevelt's prestige with the people grew as the opposition of the forces of privilege became evident.  In the spring the "promotion mania" which had seized the country in 1901 began to show its effects.  Stocks which had been sold at a high figure, though they represented no actual, tangible property, began rapidly to decline.  Newspapers controlled by the business interests complained that the shrinkage in values was due alone to the President's unnecessary agitation. 

Roosevelt could afford to smile at the sullen growls of the "interests," for during that spring of 1903 he had an opportunity to discover how firm a place he had made for himself in the affections of the American people.  Late in March he began a tour through the country which took him to the Pacific.  His purpose was obvious.  He had had difficulties with Congress; he foresaw that worse difficulties lay ahead.  His only hope of success lay in appealing directly to the people, for he had learned long ago that the people were always quicker to appreciate new ideas than their representatives in Congress.  His friends had suggested that he should coerce his opponents in Congress by withholding patronage.  He replied that, if coercion had to be used, he preferred that not he, but the constituents of the stubborn Congressmen, should exercise it. 

Day after day, again and again, in great halls to thousands of his fellow-citizens and at water-tank stations to a handful, he expounded the policies of his Administration.  He spoke of the Monroe Doctrine; of the need of building up the navy; of corporations and their control; of the army and the General Staff, newly created; of reclamation, conservation, public service; and over and over again of the pioneer virtues, the heroic virtues of courage and hardihood; the need for fellowship, for, "in the long run, and as a whole, we are going to go up or go down together"; the need for individual consecration, for "it lies with us ourselves to determine our own fate. "

He was greeted everywhere with extraordinary enthusiasm, for, more than any of his predecessors, he seemed to the people, with his aggressive, militant and fearless spirit, to typify America.  The very qualities which the more serious-minded folk in the East criticized, his occasional loudness of action or utterance, his undisguised delight in driving the "band-wagon," his familiarity with all sorts of men, his lack of Presidential pomposity, endeared him to the Western folk.  The words he spoke were simple words which they could all understand, and the matters he talked about were the matters which were closest to their own hearts.  Their own forebodings and aspirations for the first time became intelligible to them through his words.  He crystallized their cloudy musings. 

It was natural that, giving utterance as he did to the best that was in their hearts, he should strike there a spark of that high spirit of national service which burned so fiercely in his own being.  Under his spell men rediscovered their country and took pride in her and came to feel a personal responsibility for her welfare and honor.  He made them desire, not safety, but the doing of difficult things.  He made them want to do their duty.  He made them ashamed not to want to do their duty.  He stung their consciences to life. 

Roosevelt spoke at Chicago, Milwaukee, St.  Paul, Sioux Falls, Fargo.  At Medora he stopped to see old friends.  The Ferrises were there, but Hell-roaring Bill Jones had begun celebrating too early and was "all in. " The wild and fantastic landscape made his eyes wistful as the train sped on. 

"I know all this country like a book," he said to John Burroughs, who was at his side.  "I have ridden over it in all seasons and all weathers, and it looks like home to me. "

At Gardiner, Montana, at the entrance to Yellowstone Park, he left the world of politics and speeches and reporters and Secret Service men behind and with John Burroughs, and a squad of the park guards for escort, gave himself up to solitude and the wilderness. 

For two weeks he roamed through the park, now on snow-shoes or skees, laughing boisterously when he took a header in the deep snow; now on foot, crawling stealthily after a flock of mountain-sheep to spy on them for hours from some covert, or following a strange bird from glade to glade until he had identified his song; now on horseback, dashing after a herd of elk, delighted as a boy, when he rounded them up for his naturalist-companion to see.  Shooting in the park was forbidden and he did no hunting, but he pursued the deer and the agile antelope with a zest that knew no weariness. 

A brief trip through the Grand Canon of the Colorado, then three days in the Yosemite with another naturalist, John Muir. 

The first night was clear [he wrote later] and we lay in the open, in beds of soft fir boughs, among the huge cinnamon-colored trunks of the sequoias.  It was like lying in a great solemn cathedral, far vaster and more beautiful than any built by the hand of man.  Just at nightfall I heard, among other birds, thrushes which I think were Rocky Mountain hermits the appropriate choir for such a place of worship.  Next day we went by trail through the woods, seeing some deer .  .  .  mountain-quail and blue grouse . . .  a white-headed woodpecker.  . . .  A snowstorm came on toward evening, but we kept warm and comfortable in a grove of splendid firs near the brink of the wonderful Yosemite Valley.  Next day we clambered down into it and at nightfall camped in its bottom, facing the giant cliffs over which the waterfall thundered. 

He emerged from the wilderness to take up his Paul Revere-like passage from coast to coast.  His audiences, cheering wildly the strenuous fighter for equal justice, never dreamed that less than a day before he had been listening to bird-songs as though there were nothing else in the world. 

CHAPTER 15 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE   ESTABLISHES   HIMSELF   AND   HIS   COUNTRY  AS   A WORLD  POWER

The President returned to Washington early in A June and plunged once more into the turmoil of his administrative duties.  Corruption had been brought to light in the Post Office Department, and the Postmaster-General, though eager to end it, was nervous about the effect the exposure might have on the fortunes of the Republican party.  Roosevelt insisted on absolute publicity and relentless justice wherever the trail might lead.  The trail happened to lead to high quarters.  Politicians appealed frantically to Roosevelt to keep the scandals quiet.  The President made it clear that if he were going to preach clean government he would have a clean house of his own. 

Affairs at home and abroad alternately demanded his attention.  Not only in the Post Office Department was corruption revealed.  He discovered that frauds on a huge scale had been practised in the distribution of public lands and in the execution of the immigration laws, and set the wheels of justice moving
 
Meanwhile, early in July, a report reached him that the American vice-consul at Beirut, Turkey, had been murdered.  Instantly, he sent a squadron to the scene of the supposed crime, to support the American minister in his demand for satisfaction.  Europe gasped and timid folk in America shuddered.  The consul, as it turned out, had been attacked, but not killed.  The Turkish government was profuse in its expressions of regret, and suddenly showed a willingness to accede to certain long-standing requests concerning American missionaries.  The squadron sailed away.  No blood had been shed, but Europe had a new respect for American citizenship.  Straightforward, vigorous, unafraid toward the nations without and the conflicting groups within, Roosevelt appeared to the critical gaze of the Old World like some hero out of legendry, slashing with his broadsword and ringed by the bodies of his foes.  He was a storm-center always.  He appointed a negro to office in Charleston, and the South raged, while Boston applauded in pious horror at narrow-minded Carolina; he appointed a negro, thereupon, to office in Boston, and Boston fumed, while the South shook in boisterous delight.  He reinstated in a government place a non-union man discharged at the request of a union, and stood firm while labor leaders vociferously protested; he rebuked the heads of corporations with stinging words and gritted his teeth grimly while the ensuing editorial tempest passed over his head. 

On the 2oth of October the Alaska Commission, sitting in London, gave its verdict in favor of America, the British member having voted with the Americans against the two Canadians on every important issue.  The result completely justified Roosevelt's brusque assertions in January. 

Less than two weeks later he was confronted overnight with an international issue of far greater significance. 

For years negotiations had been pending regarding an interoceanic canal in Nicaragua or Panama.  The political complications in the way were huge, for not only the Central American republics of Colombia and Nicaragua, through whose territory the canal might run, were involved, but France and England likewise; for a French company had spent hundreds of millions in a vain attempt to construct a canal at Panama, and had on the spot some forty million dollars' worth of concessions and machinery for which it wanted three times the value; and England had an old treaty with the United States for the joint construction of a canal.  After years of wise diplomacy and fierce and discouraging struggles with the Senate, Secretary Hay had ironed out most of the difficulties.  The French company had agreed to sell out at $40,000,000; England had consented to abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.  Congress, after endless wrangles, had eliminated consideration of -the Nicaragua route and decided on a canal through the Isthmus of Panama. 

Nothing now remained but to make the necessary treaty with Colombia. 

But here the real difficulty arose, for Colombia was in a chronic state of revolution, passing from the control of one set of bandits only to fall into the hands of another. 

"You could no more make an agreement with the Colombian rulers," exclaimed Roosevelt later, "than you could nail currant jelly to a wall-and the failure to nail currant jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to the currant jelly. "

During 1903 Colombia was under the dictatorship of an adventurer named Marroquin, who, as Vice-President, had succeeded to the Presidency by clapping the President into jail and then announcing that "in the absence of the President he would fulfil his constitutional duties. " Marroquin and his friends saw in the desire of the United States to construct a canal at Panama a dazzling prospect of enormous loot.  Marroquin proposed a treaty more than favorable to Colombia.  Secretary Hay accepted it for the United States and during the summer presented it to Colombia for ratification.  But Marroquin had meanwhile devised a scheme for putting off the settlement of the Panama question until 1904, when the French concessions and machinery would revert to Colombia, and, instead of ten millions, fifty millions would be due from '' the nation of sordid dollar-chasers" to the north.  Believing the United States irrevocably committed to the Panama route, he now repudiated the agreement he had himself proposed; and under his direction the Colombian Senate unanimously rejected the treaty. 

The eyes of American statesmen now turned again toward Nicaragua; and Panama, which had more than once been an independent republic and in the past fifty-three years had suffered exactly fifty-three revolutions, began to fear the canal would be lost to her. 

Early in October Roosevelt heard that a fifty-fourth revolution was imminent there.  He shed no tears over the prospect, but he gave the rebel agents who came to Washington no encouragement.  He merely sent the cruiser Nashville to the general neighborhood to protect American interests in Panama as he had protected American interests in Turkey, and to keep open the isthmian railroad, as the United States government was by treaty bound to do. 

On November 3d four Colombian generals landed at Colon with four hundred and fifty men and proceeded at once to Panama, giving orders for the soldiers to follow.  But the railroad refused to transport the soldiers, and two of the Colombian gunboats declared in favor of the revolutionists.  The Nashville now landed marines to protect the railway and a day later word came from Washington that the United States would prevent the landing of Colombian troops within fifty miles of Panama.  That settled the matter. 

Two days later the American government recognized the Republic of Panama, and two weeks thereafter concluded a treaty with the new nation, which was immediately ratified.  The Canal Zone was secured to the United States in perpetuity.  By swift and decisive action in the face of a bandit's blackmail, Roosevelt had brought to a successful conclusion the unavailing efforts of a century. 

The American people applauded the act, but Roosevelt's old enemies, the "timid good," while not recommending the return of the Canal Zone to Colombia, protested loudly against the manner of its acquisition. 

Roosevelt, conscious that from a moral as well as a legal standpoint he had acted in the only way possible under the circumstances, defied his critics, accepting the full responsibility. 
The people of Panama were a unit in desiring the Canal and in wishing to overthrow the rule of Colombia [he wrote years after to William Roscoe Thayer].  If they had not revolted I should have recommended Congress to take possession of the Isthmus by force of arms.  . . .  I had actually written the first draft of my message to this effect.  When they revolted I promptly used the navy to prevent the bandits, who had tried to hold us up, from spending months of futile bloodshed in conquering or endeavoring to conquer the Isthmus, to the lasting damage of the Isthmus, of us, and of the world.  I did not consult Hay, or Root, or any one else as to what I did, because a council of war does not fight, and I intended to do the job once and for all. 

The controversy continued to rage.     But while the talking went on the President set about to make  the Canal Zone a sanitary place to live in, appointed a committee of engineers to decide on the type of canal to be constructed, and started Congress on the long wrangle he knew it would insist on having before the work could start. 

For Congress, in those first months of 1904, beginning to try his patience.  It blocked him at every turn; it seemed, indeed, to take a peculiar delight in blocking him.  Congress was conservative.  Congress believed firmly in the sacredness of big business, being less enlightened on the subject than the people it was supposed to represent.  A special session, called to ratify the Cuban reciprocity treaty, spent its energies in petty quarrels. 

The national election now began to absorb the whole interest of the country.  Santo Domingo was making trouble to the South, Japan and Russia were coming to death-grips in the Far East, but neither struggle could compete in interest with the Presidential campaign.  Roosevelt's nomination by the Republicans was definitely assured when his only possible rival, Senator Hanna, died in February.  The convention met in Chicago in June and was the scene of the wildest enthusiasm. 

While the convention was in session Roosevelt was involved in a delicate international situation which incidentally involved all the great Powers of Europe.  An American citizen, Ion Perdicaris, had been captured by bandits in Morocco under the leadership of a notorious chieftain named Raizuli, who had succeeded in terrorizing the Foreign Offices of most of the Powers.  Roosevelt demanded his release.  The Sultan of Morocco made promises, but Perdicaris was not set free.  Roosevelt thereupon sent an American warship to Tangier. 

Again Europe gasped, and again the "timid good" shuddered and talked about the swashbuckler who was throwing matches into the powder-magazine of Europe.  But Roosevelt knew, what the majority of the American people did not know, that the United States, having no possible territorial desires in Morocco, could maintain a standpoint there which no European nation could possibly take. 

The Sultan was impressed, but his own position in regard to Raizuli was none too safe.  Raizuli threatened to kill Perdicaris unless the ransom he demanded was paid.  The Sultan made helpless gestures. 

There upon, on June 22d, through Secretary Hay, Roosevelt sent a thunderbolt, "We want Perdicaris alive or Raizuli dead. "

The news of the ultimatum reached the convention at Chicago on the morning on which the nominations were to be made, and symbolizing, as it did, the President's attitude toward his opponents abroad and at home, kindled the delegates to flaming enthusiasm.  He was nominated without a dissenting vote. 

John Hay's diary tells succinctly the effect of the ultimatum in Morocco:
June 23d.   My telegram to Gummere [the American consul] had an uncalled-for success.  It is curious how a concise impropriety hits the public. 
June 24th.  Gummere telegraphs that he expects Perdicaris tonight. 
June 27th.  Perdicaris wires his thanks. 

The incident was comparatively slight; but it had a deep effect on the great body of American citizens.  They began to cherish more highly a citizenship on which their President set such store and to feel proudly conscious of their place in the world.  Sectional prejudice diminished in a new pride in the greatness of the whole. 

The Presidential campaign was unexciting.  To most people the result was a foregone conclusion, for Judge Parker, the Democratic nominee, had neither an inspiring personality himself nor a united and enthusiastic party behind him, while the President had both.  Roosevelt himself, however, was not at all certain of his election, for while the capitalists accused him of being a revolutionist, certain New York newspapers, pretending to champion the cause of the people, were printing elaborate and completely false stories showing how he had secretly "sold out" to J.  P.  Morgan.  Roosevelt underrated his own popularity.  His enemies accused him of overweening self-confidence, of immeasurable conceit; and the defiance he hurled at his opponents, great and small, lent some color to the charge.  But at heart he was humble, with a boyish humility in the presence of great tasks of which only his most intimate friends suspected the existence. 

It was that spring, Hay records in his diary, that he came on Roosevelt one day reading Emerson's '' Days. " He read the wonderful closing lines aloud:
"I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. "
"I fancy," Hay remarked, "you do not know what that means. 

"Oh, do I not?" the President exclaimed.  "Perhaps the greatest men do not, but I in my soul know I am but the average man, and that only marvelous good fortune has brought me where I am. "

Three weeks before the election he wrote:
On Election night . . .  we intend to have a little feast which can be turned into a festival of rejoicing or into a wake, as circumstances warrant!

The feast was held and was not turned into a wake, for Roosevelt was elected by the greatest majority any President had ever received. 

"I am glad," he said to Hay that evening, "to be President in my own right. "

The sense that he was no longer President by accident, but President by the overwhelming desire of his fellow-citizens, gave Roosevelt at the beginning of his second term new confidence and vigor in his dealings with Congress.  The House reflected the popular approval of the President and sought to cooperate, but the Senate, under the control of Aldrich of Rhode Island and Hale of Maine, opposed him with increasing bitterness.  The majority of the members were either themselves rich men or pliant tools of the financial groups which had secured their election.  They formed the bulwark of the "interests" and opposed Roosevelt with savage bitterness, holding him responsible for the social unrest beginning to make itself manifest.  When Roosevelt declared that all he wanted was to give justice to both capital and labor, they refused to believe what he said.  They accused him of desiring to overturn American institutions, failing utterly to comprehend that the President was seeking to conserve those institutions by adapting them to the swiftly changing conditions. 

They were, like King Canute, bellowing at the oncoming tide, and they called Roosevelt a revolutionist because he implored them to convert their throne into a raft. 

Roosevelt saw vividly what he had seen as far back as 1899, and which they could not even now perceive, that the old era of capital unrestricted was gone forever.  He saw the social forces seething all over the world, he saw the smoldering discontent, the growing consciousness among the masses that the relations between capital and labor were unevenly balanced and unfair.  The rumblings of social revolution in Europe were not lost to him.  He was aware of the sinister effect of the sinister exploitation of the aliens who sought on these shores a liberty which they failed to find.  He noted the beginning of an insurgent movement in the very stronghold of conservatism, the Republican party.  The significance of the election of Democratic so-called "reform" Governors in five of the states which had given him their electoral vote was not lost to him.  There had been revolution in the air at the time of the coal strike, in the autumn of 1902.  The peril had for the moment been averted, but the fundamental causes remained.  Roosevelt knew that the overturn of the existing order was sooner later inevitable unless the forces of capital and the forces of labor met on the common ground of governmental regulation and control.     And because he knew that such an overturn would bring anarchy to the country and misery to the working-man as well as to the capitalist, he sought with all his energies to prevent it.  He was assailed on every side with inconceivable bitterness.      But he was   a   valiant fighter   and    the people as a whole were    with   him, though capitalists accused    him harshly   of   pandering   to   labor, and labor leaders accused    him   of yielding   to  capital.    He sought  to give justice to both sides and .  both sides accused him of temporizing. 

Roosevelt was determined to enlarge the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission over rail-road rates, and under his direction the Hepburn Rate bill was introduced.  The Senate rejected it, as it had rejected certain arbitration treaties he had presented for ratification, as a personal rebuke and in fear of increasing his power. 

Roosevelt once more turned to the people.     During that spring of 1905 he made another speech-making tour through the country, preaching the doctrines he had always preached with stubborn, unwearying insistence.  Congress granted him not half of what he asked, though a year later it passed the Hepburn bill and consented reluctantly to investigations of the Standard Oil Company, the American Tobacco Company, and the Beef Trust.  

Roosevelt had, however, familiarized the American people, meanwhile, with the problems he was seeking to solve, and even while he was meeting defeat again and again in Congress he was creating in the people a desire for reform.  His old genius for advertising good causes had never served the country better.  He was not always altogether adroit as a politician, and crafty Senators, playing their deep games, deliberately angered him to the point of fury, in order to discredit and defeat him.  But among the people he was steadily successful.  Never did the fact that, as he himself said, he was merely an average man with average capabilities developed to the full, stand him in better stead.  Being an average man, he understood the average man.  No wall of abnormally acute intellectuality stood between them.  Highly intellectual folk, in those days, took to smiling at the President a little patronizingly, calling him "platitudinous. " They recalled what Speaker Reed had said about Roosevelt "What I admire most about Theodore is his discovery of the Ten Commandments. " Roosevelt grinned and admitted that it was the common, everyday things that interested him above all, and went on preaching the evangel of public service and business regulation. 

Everywhere the people responded.  But the great newspapers, controlled by the "interests," took to calling him a "demagogue. "

His campaign for the regulation of "big business" went on steadily, with many setbacks, but without interruption.  Meanwhile, he was striking at the irresponsible power of the few from another angle, *without any great blaring of trumpets, but with visible success.  The Reclamation bill had, by judicious cutting of red tape, been put into immediate effect under the direction of Newell and Pinchot, and by 1906 projects were already under way for the irrigation of more than three million acres.  Parallel with this activity went the movement, likewise directed by Pinchot, for the preservation and extension of the national forests, the regulation and control of water-power, and the protection everywhere of public lands in the public interests.  The area of the national forests was increased from 43 to 194 million acres, the water-power resources of the national forests put under the control of the government, to prevent speculation and monopoly, and cattle-raisers grazing their herds on the reserves were forced to pay for what they got. 

This steadily expanding policy incurred the wrath of men who had always regarded the natural resources of the nation as the divinely appointed field of private exploitation.  Unrestricted enterprise had done much to open the Western country; the country was now open; but the resources of it were being rapidly exhausted. 

'' The rights of the public to the natural resources,'' Roosevelt contended, "outweigh private rights. "

The fight raged in Congress, where again and again efforts were made to abolish the Forest Service.  Land speculators, gamblers in water rights, timber-slashers, sheep-owners, coal barons, and the politicians, local and national, who served their interests, howled about "executive usurpation. " Roosevelt went on, not serenely for serenity was never a conspicuous quality of his but with the dash and fire he had shown on the day of Las Guasimas, when, not knowing which way he was supposed to go, he had decided to press on in the direction of the guns. 

Out of the forest movement grew the general conservation movement which applied to the other natural resources of the nation the principle there laid down, that the executive is the steward of the public welfare.  In March, 1907, Roosevelt created the Inland Waterways Commission.  In October he took a trip down the Mississippi as guest of the commission, skilfully using the dramatic news-value of the incidents of the trip to call the attention of the country through the newspapers, day after day, to the question of conservation.  He announced his intention of calling a conference on conservation at the White House the following spring.  The Governors of all the states were invited to attend it. 

The conference was held in May, 1908.  The fact that it was the first national conference of state Governors on any subject attracted enormous attention.  Overnight conservation became a great national issue.  A National Conservation Commission was appointed to prepare an inventory, the first ever made for any nation, of all the natural resources which underlay its property.  The inventory was completed in six months.  A Joint Conservation Congress, meeting in December, suggested the holding of a North American Conservation Conference to which representatives of Canada and Mexico were invited; this conference, meeting in February, 1909, recommended that all nations should be invited to join together in conference on the subject of world resources, and their inventory, conservation, and wise utilization.  The invitation was sent to forty-five nations. 

From a conference of three men in Captain Cowles's house in September, 1901, a small reclamation project had, through the vision and persistence of Theodore Roosevelt,  expanded into an international  movement   for   the   conservation   of   all natural resources.  Roosevelt's second term was not rich in legislative accomplishment, for the Senate was consistently hostile, and gradually even the House turned against him, accusing him of overweening ambition and dictatorial methods.  His repute with the people, meanwhile, grew, and his influence with them deepened.  They exulted, in the face of cynical Europe, that during the first year of Roosevelt's administration the United States had kept her promise to Cuba and withdrawn her troops; they exulted that, amid the sordid orgy of the continental Powers in China, the United States had returned for educational purposes in China half of the indemnity paid to the United States by China after the Boxer outrages.  They took pride in the decisive action that had won them Panama, and the persistence which, after endless wrangling and administrative difficulties, resulted in the beginning on firm basis of the construction of the Canal; they respected themselves and their neighbors more because the person of an American citizen was safe in any part of the world and because his government thought him worth fighting for against any Power.  Above all, they were proud that they were part of a government which fearlessly and impartially executed justice within its own borders. 

During that first decade of the twentieth century to be an American citizen meant what it had meant during the first century to be a citizen of Rome. 

During the summer of 1905 President Roosevelt once more made Europe aware of the changed position of America in world affairs, by suddenly offering his services to end the Russo-Japanese War. 

The war had been proceeding a year and a half, with terrible bloodshed on both sides.  Roosevelt sent identical notes to both belligerents, asking whether his mediation would be acceptable.  Both replies were in the affirmative, and in August the peace commissioners arrived and began their sessions at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 

The American people watched the conference with mingled feelings of pride and apprehension.  The President's enemies screamed loudly that he was riding for a fall; that, to satisfy his vanity, he had undertaken an impossible task which could result only in failure and a lamentable loss of prestige for the country. 

Indeed, failure seemed for a time inevitable.  The commissioners themselves expected nothing else Japan demanded an indemnity.  Russia refused absolutely to pay it.  There the matter hung. 

Roosevelt conferred with the commissioners at Sagamore Hill and on the Mayflower again and again.  With dogged persistence he clung to hope after all others had abandoned it, advised this, recommended that, suggested this other. 

Early in September a treaty was signed.  The war was over. 

Roosevelt's part in the negotiations was immediately recognized on all sides, and had an extraordinary influence both abroad and at home.  America's place in world affairs was, by it, definitely established, and Roosevelt's own position in the eyes of his countrymen gained a new security.  The least enlightened began to realize that in Roosevelt they had a President who was an international force. 

Roosevelt was meanwhile endeavoring to establish closer relations with the Spanish-American states by so dealing with the weak and helpless among those states that America's position as the dominant nation in the Western' Hemisphere would become to all the source of confidence and satisfaction, instead of apprehension.  He protected the weaker peoples, threatened by foreign nations or by the misrule of adventurers, but at the same time he sought to cooperate with those Central and South American governments with whom dealing on terms of equality was possible.  He helped to establish a Central American Court of Arbitration, and in 1906 sent Elihu Root, Secretary of State in succession to Hay, who had died the previous year, on a tour through South America.  Root was extraordinarily successful, for he knew the Latin mind, and established among the statesmen of South America a confidence in the great neighbor to the north which they had never before felt. 

"Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far. "

Roosevelt had preached this motto for ten years or more.  As President, he practised it without and within.  In his diplomacy he was cordial, sympathetic, fair-minded, but at the same time unmistakably firm.  He made no threats which he did not intend, if necessary, to put into effect.  He never blustered.  The words he spoke were clear, unambiguous.  Every one knew exactly what they meant.  Every one knew, likewise, that behind them was an indomitable will, a stiff spine, and the utmost force of the United States. 

That force Roosevelt brought to a point of efficiency it had never known before.  The army he did not enlarge, though he increased greatly its practical usefulness.  The navy he doubled in size and more than doubled in effectiveness.  In season and out of season he preached preparedness against war.  He pleaded with Congress for a program of four battle-ships a year, but he pleaded in vain.  Reluctantly, Congress granted two.  His opponents in newspaper offices protested against the President's "militaristic" mind which could not realize that the era of war was over and that the world was entering on "the era of peace. "

California passed a number of vigorous anti-Japanese regulations. ' Japan protested, and Roosevelt wondered how secure the establishment of that "era of peace" really was. 

The feeling between Japan and the United States became suddenly tense.  The '' yellow press'' of both countries fanned the flames.  Japan, flushed from its victory over Russia, was self-confident; the American people, believing the Philippines, Hawaii, and the whole Pacific coast threatened, were ready, if necessary, to defend them with their blood Roosevelt kept his head and held a series of conferences with Baron Takahira, the Japanese ambassador.  He made clear the intention of the United States to limit Oriental immigration, but he made clear, at the same time, his desire in no way to humiliate Japan.  His tact, coupled with his great popularity, not only in California, but in Japan, carried the day.  A'' gentlemen's agreement" was arranged.  War between Japan and the United States was, for the time at least, averted. 

Roosevelt had taken a leading part in the movement for international arbitration, and had endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to persuade the Senate to ratify twenty or more treaties of limited arbitration.  But he knew that peace can be kept by no treaty, however sacred, unless that treaty is backed by force. 

Early in 1907 he announced, to the amazement of the country and the incredulity even of naval experts, that he intended to send the American battleship fleet on a trip around the world.  European experts declared flatly that the thing could not be done.  The timid folk asserted that it meant war.  Congress cried that it would cost too much money. 

The President stood firm.  He had two reasons for desiring to send the fleet on this long journey.  He wished, in the first place, in some dramatic way to call the attention of the American people to the navy and its needs; he wished, in the second place, to show other nations, including Japan, the power of the United States. 

It was a bold project, and, as in the Panama affair, Roosevelt took full responsibility for it, not even consulting the Cabinet. 

"In a crisis," he said, "the duty of a leader is to lead and not to take refuge behind the generally timid wisdom of a multitude of councilors. "

In October, 1907, the fleet set sail, accompanied by the torpedo flotilla.  It passed through the Straits of Magellan, then north to San Francisco, where the flotilla remained, then west to Japan and Australia.  Everywhere it was received with enthusiastic hospitality.  The ships of war proved to be the most potent ambassadors of peace.  The great Powers were deeply impressed.  The American people began to understand the mighty thing their navy was. 

Meanwhile, with all the energy at his command, Roosevelt was pushing ahead the construction of the Panama Canal.  While Congress was debating the relative merits of a sea-level and a lock canal, he sent a corps of sanitary engineers to the Isthmus to make what had been a strip of death into a healthy place where men might work in safety.  The effort was extraordinarily . successful.  When, therefore, early in 1907, the definite plans for the Canal were ready, he was ready to have the actual construction begin.  Congress put the work in charge of a civilian commission of engineers.  But dissension arose; construction lagged.  Roosevelt, thereupon, turned the work over to the Engineering Corps of the Army with Major George W.  Goethals in practically autocratic control.  The work proceeded with new vigor.  He himself went to Panama to the perturbation of finicky folk who said that it was against the rules for an American President to leave American soil and for three days of tropic rain and mud inspected the work of construction.  It was a vast project which might easily, under other leadership, have lost its momentum in graft and red tape, inefficiency and executive timidity, to become a national scandal at last, ending in ignominious failure.  It was Roosevelt who made such an outcome impossible at the very start.  With his own enthusiasm he kindled the enthusiasm alike of engineer and ditch-digger and woke in the American people a sense of the grandeur of the undertaking and a high determination that it should be greatly accomplished. 

Roosevelt's hold on affairs within the nation, meanwhile, did not for an instant slacken.  His battles with Congress increased in bitterness, and again and again he turned directly to the people for support against their blind and stubborn representatives.  He preached national righteousness, and the people, whose standards he himself had reshaped, rose to his summons. 

A great change had come over the American people.  Thanks largely to him, men did not do in 1908 the things they had done in 1901.  Roosevelt had set the nation thinking.  He had awakened the social conscience.  Because of him the nation had nobler ideals, a deeper respect for law, a keener sense of the responsibilities of power.  Through his influence, the tone of public life had been noticeably raised.  In the Federal service, corruption, intrigue, and inefficiency had everywhere given place to a new devotion to the public good.  Men working under him felt that they were not his inferiors so much as coworkers with him in a great cause, standing with him on the same level of purpose and service.  He asked and took their advice "with that singular amiability and open-mindedness," as Hay recorded in his diary, "which form so striking a contrast with the general idea of his brusque and arbitrary character. "

The American people recognized the high quality of the Administration and watched its activities with deep satisfaction.  As far back as 1905 a movement had been started to nominate Roosevelt for a third term, but he had made a public declaration on the night of his election in 1904 that he would under no circumstances be a candidate for reelection, and in subsequent statements he made it clear that he had in no way changed his mind.  Meanwhile his popularity grew as his militant sincerity in dealing with domestic problems and his great international prestige impressed themselves on his fellow-citizens.  During those years Roosevelt was no longer merely a popular hero.  He became a national obsession.  Everywhere he was the topic of excited conversation.  His acts, his policies, his speeches, his virtues, his faults were thrashed through at every dinner-table.  Friendships of lifelong standing were shattered on the rock of his personality. 

Men adored him and men hated him as no man in American public life had ever been hated or adored.  If he had consented to be nominated, his reelection would have been assured. 

The panic of 1907, for which the newspapers attempted to hold him responsible, scarcely diminished his prestige, for his action in the crisis was swift and sure.  Without hesitation he took the only remedy possible to prevent a national disaster of incalculable dimensions, even though the remedy was presented by men who had consistently been his bitterest enemies and though he knew that his action would lay him open to subsequent charges of pandering to "the interests. " Faced by the overwhelming facts, he had the courage to make an exception to a rule he had himself insisted on, and to let the demagogues howl.  

The temptation to keep the enormous power he held in his hands and to carry through the great movements he had put under way was great.  He might have made himself virtually a dictator.  He put the temptation behind him, working harder to prevent a renomination than most Presidents have worked to achieve one. 

He was keeping a pledge he had made three years previous.  There was no glory in that.  No one commended him for it.  The • accusations of arrogant ambition continued as loud as before, and in the Senate and the House the men who had been held in check by the fear that he might be renominated and reelected began to howl and snarl in defiance. 

The Republican national convention was held in Chicago in June.  Roosevelt sent Senator Lodge as his special representative to prevent a possible stampede in his favor.  The man he had suggested as his successor, William Howard Taft, was nominated on the first ballot. 

Ten days later, Roosevelt was writing to Bill Sewall:

I have thoroly enjoyed the job.  I never felt more vigorous, so far as the work of the office is concerned, and if I had followed my own desires I should have been only too delighted to stay as President.  I had said that I would not accept another term, and I believe that the people think that my word is good, and I should be mighty sorry to have them think anything else.  Moreover, for the very reason that I believe in being a strong President and making the most of the office and using it without regard to the little, feeble, snarling men who yell about executive usurpation, I also believe that it is not a good thing that any one man should hold it too long.  Taft was triumphantly elected in November. 

The last months of Roosevelt's administration were full of savage warfare between the President and Congress.  It seemed as though the pent-up passions of years were being let loose in one final effort to even up old scores. 

Ten days before the inauguration of his successor, on February 22d, the battle-ship fleet he had sent out sixteen months previously, amid the protests and sneers of his enemies, steamed into Hampton Roads, having successfully circumnavigated the globe and in every port where it had touched having, by the behavior of officers and men, made friends for the American people. 

Once more Roosevelt had been justified.  America's place in the respect of nations was more firmly established because of his audacious and far-sighted act. 

There was a snow-storm in the air, but no cloud on the political horizon at home or abroad when, ten days later, the man whom the rich had called a "revolutionist" and the pacifists had called a ''war lord" drove to the Capitol with his successor and became once more a private citizen.  

CHAPTER 16 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE GOES OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS

ALMOST a year before the close of his term Roosevelt had decided to take a hunting-trip through Africa when he retired from the Presidency.  He had ever since his college days been eager to hunt the big game of the tropics.  He was hungry, moreover, for the wilderness.  Except for brief trips in the West, coursing wolves in Oklahoma and hunting bears with hounds in Colorado and Mississippi, he had kept to the crowded haunts of men

Immediately after the close of the convention which nominated Taft he had written to Mrs.  Cowles:
I am very much pleased with the result; and now, as regards myself, I am already looking away from politics and towards Africa.  When I am thru with a thing I am thru with it; and as long as I have power to work I want to turn heart and soul to the next bit of work to be done.  With the life I have led it is unlikely that I shall retain vigor to a very advanced age, and I want to be a man of action as long as I can.  I do not want to make the African trip as a mere holiday, and I am trying to arrange, and hope to succeed in arranging, that I shall go on a regular scientific trip representing, say, the National Museum, with one or two professional field taxidermists to cure the trophies and arrange for their transport back to this country.  

He made the arrangements he desired with the Smithsonian Institution, and less than three weeks after he left the White House on that stormy 4th of March, with his son Kermit, aged nineteen, as his companion, was on board the S.  S.  Hamburg, moving slowly down the harbor, amid the din of a thousand steamboat whistles, leaving behind him a disconsolate people who wondered how they were going to get along for twelve months without "T.  R. "

Wise men shook their heads and said he was too old for Africa, and if the lions did not get him, the fever would.  His friends were apprehensive; his enemies hoped for the worst; the "timid good" thought him bloodthirsty, and said so.  The American people as a whole wished him "good hunting," knowing quite definitely that he would come back, for the simple reason that they needed him. 

At Naples he changed from the Hamburg to the Admiral of the German East Africa line.  A day in the Italian city gave Europe its first opportunity to see the amazing American who had set European newspapers and European dinner-tables agog with curiosity and admiration. 

The King and Queen of Italy came to greet him.  The German Emperor sent gifts and messages.  The crowds went wild. 

The "folks back home" felt a thrill as they heard of it, feeling themselves honored in their fellow-citizen.  But Roosevelt, who was after bigger sport, was glad when the Admiral steamed past Capri toward Suez.  

He landed at Mombasa in British East Africa on April 21st, and found R.  J.  Cunninghame and Leslie Tarlton, famous African hunters and old friends of his, waiting for him with all the preparations complete for the long expedition through the heart of Africa to the Sudan, The actual hunt was to begin at Kapiti Plains, three hundred miles by train from the beautiful bay where Mombasa lay framed in tropic foliage. 

For two days the tram moved slowly north-westward through what seemed to Roosevelt's fascinated eyes a thrilling vision of a long-vanished era.  He sat on a seat across the cow-catcher.  The country through which he passed was a great government preserve and a very paradise for the naturalist.  Strange birds of every description brilliant rollers, sun-birds, bee-eaters, and weaver-birds-flew past or started up suddenly almost under the wheels of the train.  In the dusk the engine barely escaped running over a hyena. 

At one time [he wrote later] we passed a herd of a dozen or so great giraffes, cows and calves, cantering along through the open woods a couple of hundred yards to the right of the train.  Again, still closer, four waterbuck cows, their big ears thrown forward, stared at us without moving until we had passed.  Hartebeests were everywhere; one herd was on the track, and when the engine whistled they bucked and sprang with ungainly agility and galloped clear of the danger.  A long-tailed straw-colored monkey ran from one tree to another.  Huge black ostriches appeared from time to time.  Once a troop of impalla, close to the track, took fright; and as the beautiful creatures fled we saw now one and now another bound clear over the high bushes.  A herd of zebra clattered across a cutting of the line not a hundred yards ahead of the train; the hurried their progress, but only for a moment, and as we passed they were already turning round to gaze. 

At Kapiti Plains, their safari the term denoting both the caravan with which an expedition is made and the expedition itself was waiting for them, the tents already pitched.  Cunninghame, who knew the ways of the natives, was in charge of the small army of porters, gun-bearers, tent-boys, horse-boys, and native soldiers which was assembled at the station, two hundred or more of them, for the safari was traveling with heavy baggage.  There were four tons of salt alone to be carried for the curing of the skins, and an endless array of canned food.  One native bore a leather case of books.  That was the Pigskin Library, containing some eighty volumes ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Gregorovius's History of Rome.  The Roosevelts, it seemed, had no intention of being bored in Africa, for lack of reading-matter. 

On the third day in camp Roosevelt, having completed the arrangement of the "outfit," went on his first African hunt, riding northward from the railroad across the desolate flats of short grass to the low hills or kopjes beyond.  Almost immediately he came upon the shy denizens of the wilds here, there, and everywhere about him, hartebeest and wildebeest (antelope and brindled gnu), countless zebra and beautiful gazelles.  In a shower, the first of the season's "big rains," he shot his first African game. 

The day following he rode with his party to the hills of Kitanga, sixteen miles away, where Sir Alfred Pease, who had hunted with him the day before, had a large farm.  It lay in a beautiful country.  Below the one-story house, with its shady veranda on three sides, was a green valley with countless flat-topped acacia-trees; beyond were wide, lonely plains, low hills, and beyond these the snowy summit of Kilmanjaro, crimson in the twilight.  The plains were bare except for low bushes covered with flowers like morning-glories; but along the watercourses were mimosas in blossom and giant cactus-like euphorbias shaped like candelabra, and on the higher hills fig-trees and wild olives.  Wild flowers and birds were everywhere, brilliant with many colors. 

Day after day, Roosevelt rode, with only his native horse-boy and gun-bearers for company, out over the strange and fascinating plains.  These rides with his silent black followers through the lonely country, teeming with game, had a peculiar charm.  Here a herd of zebra stared at him as he rode by; there a hartebeest, perched as a lookout on some huge anthill a dozen feet high, leaped frantically away as it became aware of his presence.  On the plains were herds of hundreds and herds of thousands of the beautiful wild creatures; in the brush of the ravines were strange rustlings.  All day he was out, dozing at midday under some wide-branching tree or watching with his telescope the distant herds.  Then again he would mount, riding home finally as the vast, mysterious African landscape grew to wonderful beauty in the dying twilight.  

The region in which the Pease farm lay was noted lion country.  Lions were, in fact, the terror of the neighborhood, carrying off natives bodily and frequently attacking even mounted men.  All the men with whom Roosevelt hunted had had their adventures with the king of beasts.  Some of them had been badly mauled; all had had narrow escapes.  Every day, Roosevelt came on the skeleton of a zebra or a gnu some lion had killed and eaten, leaving the last of the ghastly meal to the vultures and ravens and the hideous marabout storks. 

He hunted lions twice in vain.  The third time, after beating through the ravines all morning with Kermit and his host without result, in a dry, sandy watercourse he came upon the track of a lion.  They all dismounted and walked cautiously along each side of the "creek," the horses following close behind.  The two dogs that ran ahead began to show signs of scenting the lion. 

The natives shouted and threw stones into each patch of brush, while Roosevelt and the other hunters stood where they could best command any probable exit. 

The hair of the dogs suddenly bristled as they drew toward a patch of brush in evident excitement. 

"Simba!" called one of the natives, pointing with his finger. 

The patch which he indicated was scarcely more than five yards away, just across the little ravine.  Roosevelt peered eagerly into the bushes.  He caught a glimpse of tawny hide. 

"Shoot!" some one called.  

Roosevelt fired.  There was a commotion in the bushes.  Kermit fired.  Two lions the size of a mastiff broke out on the farther side.  They were cubs and badly wounded.  The hunters, deeply disappointed, killed them in mercy. 

It was late afternoon, and th;re was scarce hope of another lion that day, but in the winding bed of another watercourse, two miles or so away, they came suddenly upon the spoor of two big lions. 

They beat through the brush without result and again mounted, riding to another patch a quarter of a mile away.  They shouted loudly as they approached it. 

The response was immediate.  There were loud grumblings, then crashings through the thick brush. 

The hunters flung themselves from their horses and for a breathless minute waited. 

Suddenly, thirty yards off, galloping out of the brush, appeared the tawny form of a great, mane-less lion. 

Roosevelt fired.  The soft-nosed bullet plowed forward through the lion's flank and he swerved, so that the shot that followed missed.  A third time Roosevelt fired. 
Down he came, sixty yards off, his hind quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, his jaws open and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, as he endeavored to turn to face us.  His back was broken.  .  .  .  Kermit, Sir Alfred and I fired, almost together, into his chest.  His head sank and he died. 

The other lion had leaped out of the brush like-wise, and was now galloping off across the plain, six or eight hundred yards away.  The hunters flung themselves on their horses in pursuit.  Seeing them rapidly gain on him, the lion suddenly halted and came to bay in the tall grass of a slight hollow. 

Roosevelt, on horseback a hundred and fifty yards away, fired, but without effect.  Kermit fired with the same result.  Old Ben, the dog, barked loudly.  The lion ignored him. 

Roosevelt's black sais, his horse-boy, came running up and took hold of the bridle of his master's sorrel, the only man afoot, with a lion in the brush near by, making ready to charge.  Roosevelt dismounted quickly.  If the lion charged he would have to trust to straight powder to stop him.  Any attempt to get away on the horse was out of the question, with the plucky sais on foot. 

"Good," he said to the black boy.  "Now we'll see this thing through. "

The lion was now standing up, with head held low, glaring at his enemies and lashing his tail.  He growled, and his growling sounded like harsh and savage thunder, as, lashing his tail more and more quickly, he came on. 

Roosevelt knelt, resting his elbow on the boy's bent shoulder, took steady aim, and fired.  The lion fell over on his side, recovered himself, and stood up, growling savagely.  Again Roosevelt fired.  The bullet broke the lion's back.  He did not rise again. 

The Roosevelt party spent a fortnight at the ranch in the Kitanga Hills, then started "on safari" northward, the big line of burden-bearers laden with the baggage of the expedition, sixty pounds to a man.  The American flag, that flew each night over the tent of Bwana Makuba, as the natives called the Great Chief, was borne at the head of the column.  The saises led the extra horses, and here and there among the porters, or marching at their side, were the askaris, the rifle-bearing soldiers who guarded the caravan from attack from without and protected its white members from possible rebellion.  In the camps the tents were pitched in long lines, and every night countless fires were lighted to frighten away the hyenas and the lions that grunted and prowled in the darkness round about. 

Near the first camp they made, by a water-hole in a half-dried stream, Roosevelt killed three lions. 

The black askaris, pacing up and down with their rifles at the edge of the camp, kept a watchful eye that night. 

The safari moved on across the high veldt to the foot of Kilimakiu Mountain, over innumerable game trails that crossed and crisscrossed to hidden drinking-places baked dry after a two years' drought; past countless herds of game.  They camped near a large ostrich-farm in a grove of shade-trees over-looking the vast plain, with the far-off mountains amber and purple in the dusk. 

Roosevelt, hunting next morning with Slatter, the owner of the ostrich-farm, some nine miles from camp, had just sent a runner to fetch Heller, the naturalist of the expedition, to strip and prepare the skin of an eland he had shot, when a savage from a native village near by came running up to tell him and his companions that there was a rhinoceros on the hillside three-quarters of a mile away. 

They sprang to their saddles.  The huge beast was standing in the open, like an uncouth statue of some prehistoric creature.  Unsuspecting, he lay down. 

As Roosevelt stepped out of the shelter of the bushes to take aim, the piglike eyes of the rhinoceros saw him for the first time.  With extraordinary agility he jumped to his feet.  Roosevelt fired.  The animal wheeled and galloped full on him, the blood spouting from his nostrils. 

Roosevelt fired once more, the bullet entering between the neck and shoulder and piercing the heart.  The great bull came on, plowing the ground with horn and feet, and dropped dead just thirteen paces away. 

Now through the merciless equatorial heat the safari moved across the endless flats of scorched grass that were the Athi Plain.  At the junction of the Nairobi and Rewero rivers lay Jujo Farm, the ranch of an American named McMillan.  There they halted. 

For a week Roosevelt enjoyed the hospitality of the typical East African farm with its low, vine-shaded house and its garden beautiful with flowers and strange tropic birds.  Game lingered and fed directly around the house.  Hartebeests, wildebeests, and zebra grazed in sight on the plain.  Now and then a hippopotamus from the river near by came up by night and ravaged the garden. 

In the woods at the valley's edge, Roosevelt shot the stately water-buck and the graceful impalla that bounded with birdlike lightness in flight.  With a bullet he broke the neck of a python that charged him.  On the plain he shot giraffes.  One day he spied a hippopotamus in a black wooded pool. 

As we crept noiselessly up to the steep bank which edged the pool, the sight was typically African.  On the still water floated a crocodile, nothing but his eyes and nostrils visible.  The bank was covered with a dense growth of trees, festooned with vines; among the branches sat herons; a little cormorant dived into the water; and a very large and brilliantly colored kingfisher, with a red beak and large turquoise crest, perched unheedingly within a few feet of us. 

The hippopotamus escaped, for, as he was stealthily creeping upon him, there was a crash of a great body in the papyrus near by. 

"A rhino!" cried his companions.  "Shoot! Shoot!"

The rhinoceros broke from cover, tv/itching its head from side to side as it came lumbering straight at him.  Roosevelt fired, but the ungainly brute seemed to come on only more swiftly.  He fired again.  The rhinoceros turned heavily into the thicket.  Cautiously Roosevelt pursued him through the tangle of thorn-bushes, reeds, and small low-branching trees.  There was a sudden furious snorting.  Once more the animal turned and charged.  As Roosevelt fired again the rhino wheeled, struggled back into the thicket, and fell. 

From Jujo Farm, the Roosevelt party proceeded a dozen miles to the ranch of a settler named Heatley, who owned a twenty-thousand acre farm on the Kamiti River.  Game of all sorts was abundant there, the hartebeest and zebra running in great herds.  It was the buffalo they were after here, however, the huge beasts that made their home in the papyrus swamps.  Once, cautiously creeping on two or three, they were suddenly confronted with eighty or more that had lain hidden in the tall grass and now, at the sight of danger, fronted the hunters in a quarter-circle with angry, outstretched heads. 

It was not a nice country in which, to be charged by the herd [wrote Roosevelt, later], and for a moment things trembled in the balance.  There was a perceptible motion of uneasiness among some of our followers. 

"Stand steady!    Don't run!" I called out. 

"And don't shoot!" called out Cunninghame; for to do either would invite a charge. 

A few seconds passed, and then the unwounded mass of the herd resumed their flight. 

The Roosevelt party now proceeded to Nairobi, on the railroad, where the professional naturalists, Heller and Mearns, prepared the hundreds of specimens the members of the party had shot, for shipment to the coast.  They spent a week in the prosperous and attractive town, then, after a brief trip up the railway, started south from Kijabe on June sth for a sixty-mile trek through the waterless country which lies across the way to the Sotik on the border of German East Africa. 

They had added four ox-wagons to the expedition, each drawn by seven or eight yoke of the native humped cattle, and for three days crawled through "the thirst," making the longest halt by day and trekking steadily forward by night under a full moon.  The trail led first through open brush, then out on the vast and dusty plain.  The natives sang weirdly.  At intervals a zebra barked in the dim distance; jackals shrieked; and the plains plover wailed and scolded overhead.  During the third night came a deluge of rain.  Through it Roosevelt heard two lions grunting not far ahead.  The storm had made them bold; they were after prey.  Roosevelt set a guard; the natives built fires; the lions crept away. 

Day by day the expedition moved southward, camping now by running streams amid aloes and cactus and mimosa and every variety of strange beast and bird, tiny and huge.  There was good hunting by day of giraffes and rhinoceroses, topi and cheetah and lion, and comfortable traveling, for the weather was cool.  By night the huntsmen told stories about the fire while lions moaned close by. 

They turned northward at last toward Lake Naivasha, crossing a dry watercourse known as the "salt marsh," where the beauty of bird-song and color overhead gave no hint of the cobras that lurked beneath.  There were no paths here made by human feet, and the safari followed the game trails or made their own way.  They were now among bold mountain ridges in a wild and beautiful country of flowers of many colors in the open places and tangled archways through forests of strange trees.  The trail wound through narrow clefts, across ravines of singular beauty, and along the brink of sheer cliffs.  At the end of four difficult days they descended to Lake Naivasha. 

Here, Roosevelt had been told, would be hippopotami in the lagoons and among the lily-pads; and he heard them that night, bellowing and roaring as they fought among themselves.  An English settler took him in a steam-launch after his quarry next day, but it was twenty-four hours later before he brought down his game.  He struck the tremendous beast at a hundred yards as it was about to lumber off into the papyrus.  The hippopotamus spun round, plunged into the water, and charged him where he stood in the launch, floundering and splashing through the water-lilies, his huge jaws wide open.  Again and again Roosevelt fired.  The beast never swerved, though every bullet found its mark.  He fired again, this time striking the brain; the charge was ended. 

Two days later, in a rowboat in deep water, he wounded another hippopotamus.  It sank.  A native felt for the body with a pole and immediately called out in terror as the huge monster came to the surface, striking the boat so that it nearly upset.  He was followed by another and another, until the water seemed to boil with the ungainly beasts, scattering hither and thither. 

The two rowers, with frightened eyes, began to back water out of the perilous neighborhood.  Suddenly, twenty feet away, a huge head shot out of the lake, the jaws wide open, making ready to charge.  

Roosevelt fired on the instant.  The beast sank out of sight.  Roosevelt felt the boat quiver as the hippo passed underneath. 

In the midst of his hippo-hunt he was prostrated by a sudden attack of the fever from which he had.  suffered at long intervals ever since his Cuban campaign.  But he did not let it interfere seriously with the day's business.  His diary for that period of illness runs as follows:

July 16.  Wrote fever.  July 17.  Wrote fever.  July 18.  Getting better July 20.  5 Hippo. 
The party returned once more to Nairobi, the naturalists to pack and transport the accumulated skins and antlers, Roosevelt to visit some neighboring missions and to lay a cornerstone or two.  Then again they left civilization behind them for a four days' march across the high plateaus and mountain chains of the Aberdare range to Neri. 

The steep, twisting trail was slippery with sand.  Our last camp, at an altitude of about ten thousand feet, was so cold that the water froze in the basins, and the shivering porters slept in numbed discomfort.  There was constant fog and rain, and on the highest plateau, the bleak landscape, shrouded in driving mist, was northern to the senses.  The ground was rolling and through the deep valleys ran brawling brooks of clear water; one little stream, suddenly tearing down a hillside, might have been that which Childe Roland crossed before he came to the dark tower. 

At Neri, the District Commissioner had arranged a great Kikiyu dance in Roosevelt's honor, and before him the half-naked savages swung rhythmically in rings and columns, springing and shouting while the drums throbbed and the horns blared and the women shrieked their shrill applause.  The next day he was again on his way with Cunninghame, making for snow-capped Mt.  Kenia. 

They made their camp well up among the foot-hills in an open glade, surrounded by the green wall of the tangled forest, where parrots chattered and monkeys called.  They were after elephant. 

Three days of cautious progress through the dim, cool archways of the forest, and at last they came upon the herd whose tracks they had been stealthily following.  The great, lumbering animals were now only a few rods in advance of them, but the jungle was dense, and even now they could see nothing. 

They crept closer.  A great bull with heavy tusks lifted his head and slowly turned it toward the hunters.  Roosevelt fired.  The shock stunned the elephant, who stumbled forward, half falling, recovered himself, and fell crashing to earth under a second bullet. 

At the same instant the thick bushes parted at Roosevelt's left and through them surged a huge bull elephant, charging.  The matted mass of tough creepers snapped like a pack-thread before his rush.  He could have touched Roosevelt with his trunk. 

Roosevelt leaped aside.  He had had no time to reload his gun.  He dodged behind a tree trunk, opening his rifle, throwing out the empty shells, and slipping in two cartridges. 

Cunninghame fired right and left and flung him-self into the bushes. 

The elephant stopped short in his charge, wheeled, and disappeared in the thick cover. 

The two men ran forward, but the jungle had closed behind him.  They heard him trumpet shrilly in the distance.  Then there was silence. 

Roosevelt left the naturalists in charge of his elephant and returned to Neriboma to gather a safari of Kikuyu porters for a hunting trip along the Guaso Nyero.  Cunninghame and Heller joined him in a week, and together they proceeded to Meru on the northeastern slopes of Mt.  Kenia, where Kermit Roosevelt and Tarlton, who had been on a safari of their own, rejoined the party.  At Meru they remained a fortnight, hunting elephant and rhinoceros; then the party once more split, Roosevelt and Cunninghame with a donkey-train going off for a month along the Guaso Nyero after giraffe and ostrich and eland and oryx and buffalo and crocodile.  It was a hunter's paradise through which they trekked, and a land of varying and fascinating beauty.  October was two-thirds over before they again reached Nairobi.  

Five days later they were once more under way, starting from the railroad at Londiani for the Uasin Gishu plateau and the foot-hills of Mt.  Elgon.  There, crossing and recrossing the equator, now shivering in northern cold, now baking in tropic heat, they spent a month.  At Sergoi Lake they watched a company of savage warriors surround and kill a lion with their spears. 

Roosevelt returned to Nairobi the end of November, to bid farewell to his friends there and to the safari that had served him faithfully for seven months.  Then he proceeded with his party to Kisumu on Lake Victoria Nyanza where a twenty-four hours' trip by steamer took them to Eutebbe, the seat of the English Governor of Uganda.  The shores they skirted were beautiful with luxuriant meadows and forests, but the fisherfolk who had once prospered there had vanished, stricken with the terror that had crept on them out of the jungle to the north and slain them by thousands with the sleeping-sickness. 

Roosevelt secured a new safari at Kampalla, just west of Eutebbe, and, after paying his respects to the little black King of Uganda, proceeded with his party northwestward toward Lake Albert Nyanza.  For days they passed through the high elephant grass, twice as tall as a man on horseback.  In it, here and there, were strange trees where monkeys chattered and birds of many colors sprang like bright sparks in and out of the green shadow.  The hills became higher as they went on, and thorn-trees and royal palms flanked the trail.  Once they passed a company of porters returning from the Congo.  Their master, an elephant-poacher, had been killed by natives.  Once they came upon elephant spoor, and, following it through dim, cavernous windings in the dark, vine-covered jungle, were charged by the huge beast.  Steadily, silently, his feet swishing through the long grass, he came on.  Roosevelt and Kermit, facing him together, stopped him, and then, as he veered round, followed him for hours through the wild tangle.  They finished him at last. 

His trunk made excellent soup. 

The chiefs of the native villages had been warned some time before of their coming, and each camp, with open rest-house and wicker-work fence, was prepared for them when they arrived.  The local chief greeted them, when they came, with music of rudimentary fiddles and harps, and bowing and clapping of hands.  At Hoima, a little native town, they stayed for a day, exchanging courtesies with the King of Unyoro and the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic missionaries.  Then once more they proceeded northwestward through the luxuriant thicket where birds were a delight and puff-adders a constant peril.  On January 5th they reached Lake Albert Nyanza. 

A flotilla consisting of a crazy little steam-launch, two sailboats, and two large rowboats  was waiting for them, and immediately started northward down the White Nile. 

The brilliant tropic stars made lanes of light on the lapping water as we ran on through the night.  The river-horses roared from the reed-beds, and snorted and plunged beside the boat, and crocodiles slipped sullenly into the river as we glided by.  Toward morning a mist arose, and through it the crescent of the dying moon shone red and lurid.  Then the sun flamed aloft and soon the African landscape, vast, lonely, mysterious, stretched on every side in a shimmering glare of heat and light; and ahead of us the great, strange river went twisting away into the distance. 

They disembarked after two days in the Lado, northeast of the Belgian Congo, to hunt the white rhinoceros.  Here they were in the heart of the African jungle, a wild and lonely country where they saw no human beings except an occasional party of naked savages armed with bows and poisoned arrows.  The heat by day and night was terrific.  Roosevelt was bitten by the sleeping-sickness fly, but escaped infection, though at a river village where they had stopped the day before eight natives were dying of the dread disease, and the other white members of the party were all suffering at times from fever, dysentery, or heat prostration.  All night the hippopotami grunted and brayed and splashed among the reeds close to their camp, and now and again the hunters would hear the roaring of lions and the trumpeting of elephants.  One night a party of lions, scenting rhinoceros meat, prowled within fifteen feet of the tents. 

Game was plentiful and the party remained in the neighborhood three weeks or more, securing specimens for the museum.  For meat they depended entirely on their rifles.  Once Kermit shot a crocodile.  It was a female and contained a little more than four dozen eggs.     They scrambled the eggs and ate them. 

Once more they took to their flotilla and steamed and drifted down the Nile, white men and black men, tents, food, and spoils of the chase all huddled together under the torrid sun.  At Nimule, twenty-six hours later, they embarked, to begin on February 17th the ten days' march through the terrifying heat to Gondokoro. 

At quarter of three in the morning the whistle blew; we dressed and breakfasted while the tents were taken down and the loads adjusted.  Then off we strode, through the hot starlit night, our backs to the Southern Cross and our faces toward the Great Bear; for we were marching northward and homeward.  The drum throbbed and muttered as we walked, on and on, along the dim trail.  At last the stars began to pale, the gray east changed to opal and amber and amethyst, the red splendor of the sunrise flooded the world, and to the heat of the night succeeded the more merciless heat of the day.  Higher and higher rose the sun.  The sweat streamed down our faces and the bodies of the black men glistened like oiled iron. 

And so they came to Gondokoro and the world of officials, and palatial ships, and telegrams from potentates, and gloomy letters from old friends telling how the things that Theodore Roosevelt had fought for among his own people were in peril of destruction. 
The great hunting trip of Bwana Makuba was ended.  

CHAPTER 17 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE  WALKS  WITH  KINGS

FOR a year, in spite of his absence from the scenes of its vital affairs, the world, and especially that part of it which calls itself the United States, had been talking of Theodore Roosevelt and arguing about Theodore Roosevelt and asking what Theodore Roosevelt would say about this and do about that, and counting the days until Theodore Roosevelt should emerge from his self-imposed exile and take up once more his leadership of the forces of progress.  Unexpected, disquieting things had happened meanwhile.  The Republican party was in a bad way, the country was in a ferment, a tide of popular unrest was rising. 

Roosevelt refused to make any statement on the political situation.  He was out of politics, he said. 

The world gave Theodore Roosevelt its glad 

"Welcome home!" at Khartoum amid beating drums and flying banners.  He made speeches here and there, he inspected a college, he reviewed troops.  The British officials praised him as a great statesman, the fellaheen in their blue robes at the river's edge cheered him as a mighty hunter.  

He had planned to slip through Europe as a private citizen.  Khartoum taught him that he had evidently made a miscalculation.  He cabled to New York for a stenographer. 

His trip down the Nile was a series of receptions and speeches to cheering crowds.  

At Luxor, a discordant note broke harshly into the enthusiastic harmony.  He received word indirectly from the Egyptian revolutionary party that in case he should presume to pass judgment on the assassination of the Egyptian Premier, Boutras Pasha, a month previous, he would himself be assassinated.  

He knew the facts.  Boutras Pasha had stood for law and order.  The Nationalists, who had abetted his murder, stood for chaos and anarchy.  Three days later he spoke at Cairo before the University of Egypt, and in unequivocal terms condemned the assassination and all who defended it. 

There was a violent outcry.  Extra guards were set about him wherever he went.  The Nationalist newspapers excoriated him.  But sober public sentiment applauded; and no one made the threatened attack against his life. 

He proceeded to Rome and was immediately the center of another bitter controversy.  He had asked to be presented to the Pope.  The Vatican had sought to make his presentation conditional on his declaration that he would not call at the college of the Methodists, the Church's active opponents in Rome.  Roosevelt felt that self-respect and his position as an American citizen forbade his acceptance of any restriction on his freedom of action, and, knowing that the most effective foe of misunderstanding was publicity, gave the full correspondence to the press.  The newspapers of Europe and America flamed with the story.  A fierce religious controversy threatened.  Roosevelt sent out a statement to the American people "expressing the earnest hope that the incident would be treated in a matter-of-fact way, as merely personal, and, above all, as not warranting the slightest exhibition of rancor and bitterness"; rebuked the head of the Methodists in Rome who attempted to make capital out of it; and flung himself with zest into the celebrations of every sort arranged for him by the King of Italy, the Italian government, and the City of Rome. 

The journey of the "private American citizen" north through Italy to Venice and along the Riviera was a triumphant succession of receptions and wildly cheering crowds.  At the home of his sister-in-law, Miss Carow, at Porto Maurizio, he rested to catch up with his mail.  But from all directions came distinguished Italians; the municipality welcomed him as "the promoter of international peace and the champion of human fraternity and solidarity," conferred on him the freedom of the city, and named a street after him; laymen and prelates sought his counsel; peasants and artisans bombarded his carriage with flowers as he drove by.  '' Viva, viva, viva Roosevelt!" was the cry on all sides. 

Once more he was on the wing, first to Venice, then to Vienna.  At the Austrian frontier he was met by a representative of the Emperor Francis Joseph, who welcomed him to Austria in the name of "His gracious Catholic Majesty. " The people who lined the streets saw in him the foremost fighter in the world for popular rights against special privilege; the princes and diplomats who crowded about him in the palace recognized the powerful administrator, the champion of law and order, the rounded and magnetic personality.  Hunters and soldiers and scientists and men of letters vied with one another to do him honor. 

Before his coming, the Viennese had expressed doubts of his real greatness.  Those doubts his visit dissipated.  

"Ist das ein Mensch!" was the phrase.  "What a man!"

And the head waiter of the hotel where Roosevelt was stopping stared with large eyes at the crowd gathered to see the great American enter his carriage, and cried: "This is wonderful.  I never saw anything like it before, and yet we have had many kings staying here. "

He proceeded to Hungary.  At the station at Budapest thousands were waiting for him in a heavy downpour of rain.  Here he met the same enthusiasm he had found in Rome and Vienna.  In the Hungarian House of Parliament, Count Apponyi greeted him officially as "the champion of human rights and liberty and international justice. " He called on Francis Kossuth, the son of the great Hungarian patriot. 

"I am ill," said Kossuth, "but if you had not been kind enough to call on me, I should have been conveyed to your hotel on a litter. "

He drove out into the country, and in every village through which he passed he was greeted with delegations and garlands, with triumphal arches, and flowers and cheers.  He returned to the city, and tens of thousands of people, filling the avenues along the Danube outside his hotel, cheered, and would not cease cheering until he appeared. 

The Hungarian people, aching for liberty, recognized in him the kind of leader of whom they themselves were most sorely in need. 

Roosevelt went to Paris, and on April 23d, in the amphitheater of the ancient Sorbonne, delivered his address on "Citizenship in a Republic. " Once more the streets through which he passed were filled with immense crowds, and in the hall where he spoke three thousand of the most eminent men of France were gathered to hear him. 

It was a message from the citizen of one republic to the citizens of another that he delivered there, vivid and pungent and eloquent, a denunciation of cynicism and intellectual aloofness, and a laudation of those "commonplace, every-day qualities and virtues" which make character and which he had persistently in season and out of season exalted among his own people.  In ringing words he denounced the phrase-maker in a republic, '' the phrase-monger" whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, and held high      the man of action who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great , enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. 

Paris and all Prance were stirred by his words.  His speech was sent to every school-teacher in the republic.  Political leaders gained new courage from it, the people new inspiration.  Not only during his stay, but for weeks after he had gone, the speech and the man were still the main topic of conversation.  The French Cabinet dared, on May ist, to present a firmer front under the threat of an unruly Socialist demonstration than any French government had in fifteen years dared to do. 

He left in the minds of these people," said a Parisian, '' some of that intangible spirit of his they felt what he would have felt in a similar emergency, and for the first time in their lives showed a disregard of voters when they were bent upon mischief. "

Roosevelt went to Brussels and was entertained by King Albert and the Queen; he went to The Hague and was received by Queen Wilhelmina and the Prince Consort; he went to Copenhagen, to Christiania.  Everywhere were banners and elaborate decorations and royalties on the station platform, and banquets and cheering crowds and statesmen and scientists and soldiers and poets crowding round him to have a minute's talk.  To these men he was the personification of the moral force in man which translates ideals into accomplished benefits; and they studied him as a strange and wonderful expression of a new spirit in the affairs of men. 

At Christiania he delivered a lecture on "Inter-national Peace" before the Nobel Prize Committee which, in 1906, had awarded him the peace prize for bringing about the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, pleading for a league of nations backed by adequate force.  He went to Stockholm, and again he was received with the honors of a king. 

He turned southward.  At Stockholm he had received news of the death of King Edward VII of England, and all further festivities had every  where been canceled.  The German Emperor had planned a series of entertainments of extraordinary magnificence for this hero of his whom he so frankly idolized, but King Edward's death made these impossible.  Roosevelt was not sorry.  He had had more than his share of state banquets, and a gala performance at the opera had no charms for one to whom any performance at the opera was a torture. 

Berlin was on the surface as enthusiastically hospitable as the other capitals of the Continent.  The Roosevelt party arrived early in the morning.  At noon they were escorted to Potsdam by the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, von Schoen.  The Emperor was on the steps of the Imperial Palace, awaiting them.  It was late afternoon before he allowed them to depart. 

The next morning Roosevelt was again at the Emperor's side, on horseback, riding to the great troop maneuvers at Doeberitz.  For five hours they watched the maneuvers of the thousands on thousands of trained troops; then the long, brilliant march past. 

At last the maneuvers were over.  The competing generals with their staffs gathered about the Emperor for discussion. 

The Emperor turned to his guest.  "Roosevelt, my friend," he said, "I wish to welcome you in the presence of my Guards.  I ask you to remember that you are the only private citizen who ever reviewed the troops of Germany. "

The next day, May i2th, the Emperor and Empress and the highest military and civil officials of the government gathered with the faculty and student body of the University of Berlin to hear Roosevelt's lecture on "The World Movement. " They waited and waited.  Roosevelt did not appear.  He arrived at last, some twenty minutes late.  The crowds at Berlin, it seemed, were as enthusiastic as the crowds elsewhere.  They had jammed the street through which Roosevelt's car had to pass to reach the university, and kept him a prisoner with their ovation. 

But though the Emperor was cordial, the news-papers, on the whole, friendly, and the populace vociferous, Roosevelt was conscious in Berlin as nowhere else of a veiled hostility to himself and to the United States.  The truth was that the professors thought his address platitudinous, without realizing, as the French intellectuals did, that the Ten Commandments are platitudes; the statesmen were not interested in it, for they were not interested in its theme, which was international cooperation; the military officers resented the Emperor's attentions to a civilian, and were frank in their expressions of displeasure that a mere American should have been allowed to review Prussian troops. 

All the leading officials were undisguisedly scornful of America; none of them made the slightest attempt to conceal his hostility.  They frankly asserted their conviction . that America was a land of dollar-chasers in which a man of Roosevelt's idealism was the exception which proved the rule.  One German newspaper described him as a spiritual descendant of Frederick the Great, and another as so much like Bismarck as really to have no American qualities at all.  In this respect the German papers followed those of Italy and France, which persisted in praising him at the expense of his countrymen.  Rome thought him much more like Garibaldi than like an average American; Paris considered him as distinctly Gallic in temperament; London declared that he was much more of the type of an English than an American statesman.  All agreed that the hero-worship of Theodore Roosevelt was not American, but European.  "America," they declared, "America does not understand the man whom Europe delights to honor. "

Roosevelt arrived in London the middle of May. 

The King's death had, of course, completely altered the arrangements made for his visit; and a message from President Taft appointing him special ambassador of the United States at the funeral altered his own status.  He made his headquarters at Dorchester House, the residence of Whitelaw Reid, the American ambassador, which immediately became a Mecca whose only rival was the somber Abbey where the body of a dead king lay in state. 

London was full of living kings during the days preceding the funeral, and one after another broke all the rules of royal custom by calling in person at Dorchester House.  The footmen suffered spasms at being confronted at any hour of the day by some king wishing to pay his respects to a Certain Eminent Private Citizen; and Whitelaw Reid, who had a fondness for earthly grandeur, beamed.  But Roosevelt, trying frantically to catch up with his correspondence, was heard to exclaim, when a flustered footman announced another sovereign:

"Hang these kings! I wish they would leave me alone!"

The kings were plentiful, and they had curious ways.  The King of Bulgaria was in London, at daggers'-points with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, because each had wished to have his special car immediately next to the engine on the Orient Express two days before, and though the King of Bulgaria had won on that question, the Archduke had revenged himself by not letting the King pass through his car on the way to the diner. 

The German Emperor was there also, evidently glad to see Roosevelt again. 

One evening at Buckingham Palace, in a room that was full of kings, Roosevelt was conversing with Ferdinand of Bulgaria.  The Emperor suddenly and brusquely interposed. 

"Friend Roosevelt," he cried, "come over here! Here's a man you really want to talk to. "

Roosevelt was amused and wondered what the "bush-league czar" was thinking.  The other man was the King of Spain. 

And so Alphonso and the American who had done more than any other man to break Spain's hold on her island possessions met after twelve years and cordially shook hands. 

The funeral of King Edward was a great and solemn pageant, but to the eye of an American it was not without its humorous aspects.  The elaborate ceremoniousness was a source of unending amusement to the man who had been the most democratic of American Presidents since Jackson.  The seriousness with which ambassadors of foreign states, even of republics, took each detail of gilded pomp struck him as hugely comic.  He had all he could do to prevent the ambassador with whom he rode in the procession from making an international issue of the fact that the coach assigned to them was not a glass coach, as the coaches of the kings were, and that the footmen who rode before and behind wore black livery when the footmen of the kings were wearing red. 

Roosevelt was glad for the inspiration which had impelled him, after an overdose of royalties, a fortnight before, to cable to Seth Bullock, United States marshal in South Dakota, to come over to London as his guest.  He wanted to see somebody who talked his own language. 

He remained in England a little short of four weeks.  Late in May Cambridge University conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws; early in June Oxford made him a Doctor of Civil Law. 

On a day halfway between these solemn academic occasions he made a speech at the Guildhall in London that set all England by the ears. 

It was about Egypt.  The Lord Mayor had conferred on him the freedom of the City of London.  In expressing his thanks he spoke of his experience in four English protectorates in Africa during the past year.  He lauded British rule there, but declared flatly that in the case of Egypt the attitude of the British government was weak, timid, and sentimental. 

Either you have the right to be in Egypt or you have not, either it is or it is not your, duty to establish and keep order.  If you feel you have not the right to be in Egypt, if you do no wish to establish and to keep order there, why, then, by all means get out of Egypt.  .  .  .  Some nation must govern Egypt.  I hope and believe that you will decide that it is your duty to be that nation. 

The speech raised a storm.  The Liberals attacked Roosevelt as a meddler who had no business to give his advice on matters which were no concern of his; the extreme radicals were wild; the extreme conservatives contemptuous; the majority of thoughtful men, however, commended Roosevelt'h courage and vision.  Statesmen who had the interests both of Egypt and of England at heart expressed their gratitude.  The affair came up in Parliament.  The Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, thereupon announced that he had seen the address before its delivery and approved of it; that it had, in fact, been delivered at his expressed desire. 

The opposition collapsed.  Roosevelt sailed for home with the cheers of Englishmen, high and low, ringing in his ears. 

'' Mr.  Roosevelt came to a Europe which was sick and weary of talk, perpetual talk, about rights," said an American commentator on the Continent, "and it listened with avidity and hope to a man who spoke of duties, and spoke of them plainly and emphatically. "

"It is, in the end, as a sort of whirlwind of purification that one thinks of him," said a notable Englishman. 

And a Frenchman added: "It was a great reputation that had preceded him, that he was forced to live up to.  He succeeded.  He goes a greater man in the eyes of Europe than he was when he came.  

CHAPTER 18 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE   RETURNS   TO    HIS    OWN    PEOPLE   AND   FIGHTS   A GOOD   FIGHT AGAINST  ODDS

HE returned to his own people a greater man than he had been when he went.  His countrymen had been eagerly and anxiously waiting for him.  During the fifteen months of his absence the struggle for popular government in which for ten years he had been the leader had been moving swiftly to a crisis.  Signs of popular unrest had been plentiful, and manifest to all except those who stubbornly refused to see.  While Roosevelt was President the unrest had been sporadic and local.  A majority of the American people which far transcended the lines of the Republican party was satisfied that the administration of national affairs was conscientious, efficient, progressive, and free from the control of "special privilege. "

His successor had inherited this popular confidence.  No President for generations had come to office under more favorable auspices.  On March 4, 1909, a united Republican party entered on a new term of service amid the cheers of a united and prosperous nation which asked nothing of it except that it should continue on the road along which Roosevelt had led it. 

Four months later, almost to a day, the new President signed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff bill.     The platform on which he had been elected had pledged revision   downward.  The bill as it was passed revised upward.      Progressives of both parties   protested.  The   President warmly   defended the bill.     Popular confidence  turned to dismay. 

Scandals within the Cabinet intensified the feeling of distrust.  Many of the commissions which Roosevelt had appointed were discontinued.  Notable projects lapsed.  Men felt that the conservation policy was imperilled when Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester, was dismissed for insubordination because he protested against what he believed was the connivance of the Secretary of the Interior in the schemes of a group of coal speculators in Alaska.  The American people discovered, to their amazement, that the radical they had elected to carry on the policies of Roosevelt's administration had allied himself with the most obdurate group of reactionaries.  The forces which had been struck into impotence when Roosevelt came to power were once more gaining control of the government.  When Roosevelt emerged from the jungle, less than a year after the inauguration of the new President, the
Republican party, which he had left a solid and united organization, pledged to progressive principles, had been disrupted.  A fierce factional fight was raging.  The "stand-patters" in Congress, under Aldrich and Cannon were confronted by a  small group of "insurgents" under Borah, La Follette, Beveridge, and Cummins.  The President stood with the '' stand-patters. ''

All eyes were turned to Roosevelt.  At Khartoum he had refused to comment on the political situation in the United States.  Both factions hoped for his support.  Meanwhile his triumphal journey through Europe greatly heightened his prestige.  In the national enthusiasm for the returning hero party lines played no part.  To the American people Theodore Roosevelt was no longer either Republican or Democrat.  He was the foremost American citizen and they welcomed him home as such. 

He arrived in New York on June i8th.  He was met at Quarantine by a committee of prominent citizens and, after a parade of water-craft, taken on a special tug to the Battery, where the Mayor was waiting to receive him with bands and banners and committees and a great throng of American citizens at the water's edge, hungry to catch a first glimpse. 

He was driven up Broadway, where, three deep, along the sidewalks, the people of New York shouted their welcome.  Men and women wept for joy.  No man had ever received such an ovation there. 

That 18th of June he reached the zenith of his popular fame.  Wherever he went crowds gathered about him, cheering. 

"It is a kind of hysteria," he said to a friend.  "They will be throwing rotten eggs at me soon. "
Roosevelt was back home again.  Now the question was what to do with him.  Wild suggestions were made. 

On one thing only every one seemed united  this man of force and boundless energy must be utilized in the service of the country; every one, that is, with a few exceptions.  The exceptions wanted him to retire from public life and become the Sage of Oyster Bay until with years he became America's Grand Old Man, beloved by all because he should never under any circumstances do anything to hurt anybody's feelings. 

Such a prospect did not allure Theodore Roosevelt.  He was not made to be a sage in retirement. 

He was a fighter born and bred, to whom no champion of a good cause appealed in vain.  

Before he had been home two weeks Governor Hughes of New York had asked his support of a direct primary bill.  He gave it whole-heartedly.  The opponents of the bill attacked him with vigor, and at once, to the distress of many of his friends who were jealous of his great fame, but to the surprise only of those who did not know him, he was again up to his neck in politics.  

It was truly a good cause which called him.  In New York State, as in the nation, was raging the struggle between the "special interests" and the people, between the "stand-patters" who believed that property rights were supreme, and the "progressives" who believed with Roosevelt that "human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man, and not man to property. " Both the Republican and Democratic parties in the state were under the iron rule of the bosses and the financial interests, who at need conspired together, irrespective of party, to gain their sinister ends. 

Roosevelt's sympathies in such a struggle were altogether with the people.  He realized, moreover, that to suppress the endeavors of the people to secure their rights meant, sooner or later, revolution. 

While the opposing forces were mustering their adherents during the summer he made a trip through the Middle West in support of those progressive principles for whose success he had fought so persistently as President.  Here, as in Europe and on Broadway that i8th' of June, his journey was a triumphal progress.  But the enthusiasm of the enormous crowds that greeted him had a deeper meaning than those other demonstrations.  For the crowds that lined the streets of Kansas City, of Omaha, of Cheyenne, that packed the great Denver Auditorium and thronged about him, twenty-five thousand strong, at Osawatomie, were not moved by curiosity or the effervescent thrill of watching a popular hero pass.  Wherever he went he was greeted as a personal friend who understood, as a very human champion of human rights against the hard and merciless tyranny of organized greed. 

The men and women of the nation he found were in a grave mood.  There was a sense of impending conflict in the air.  The people had gradually become conscious that they were being defrauded, that public interest was being sacrificed everywhere to private interests.  Roosevelt made the issues clear.  The rights of property, he declared, required protection.  Whenever those rights came into conflict, however, with human rights, they must be subordinated.  It was not sufficient, moreover, to play the game fairly according to the rules.  Whenever the rules were shown to be unfair they should be changed. 

At Osawatomie he struck the keynote: "The object of government is the welfare of the people.  The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. "

It was an old doctrine that he had preached persistently for twenty years, and put in practice at every opportunity.  His demands for the regulation of trusts, for the conservation of natural resources, were his practical applications of it.  " The interests'' had attacked him on it in the past, but those attacks were as nothing compared to the drumfire with which the metropolitan newspapers, representing privilege, now assailed him.  At Osawatomie, he spoke of the "new nationalism" which was gradually developing out of the new conception of the duties of government, pointing out the necessity for Federal action when the separate states showed themselves incapable of safeguarding the public interest.  The phrase was taken up by . the hostile newspapers and made the text of scathing denunciations.  The doctrine it proclaimed was declared by the New York Sun "more nearly revolutionary than anything that ever proceeded from the lips of any American who has held high office in our government. "

Before Roosevelt returned from the West, early in September, he was once more the storm center of American politics.     In New York the Republican organization was making a frantic effort to control the state convention that was to nominate a Governor.  The forces of reaction were led by the Vice-President, Sherman of Utica, and the battle turned about the election of the temporary chairman of the convention.  Roosevelt took charge of the progressive forces against the machine and after a fierce contest was victorious.  The progressives begged him to run for Governor himself, but he refused, suggesting Henry L.  Stimson, a lawyer who had successfully prosecuted the Sugar Trust.  Stimson was nominated. 

The opposition shouted that Roosevelt, who was pretending to fight the "bosses," was himself the "boss-boss" of all. 

"I am a leader," Roosevelt replied.  '' I am not a boss.  The difference between a boss and a leader is that the leader leads and the boss drives. "

The explanation was received with scornful laughter.  Now followed a campaign bitter in the extreme.  The Republican machine leaders refused to abide by the decision of the convention and made no secret of their support of Dix, the Tammany nominee.  They were followed by the majority of the great newspapers of the state and by many prominent Republicans. 

The attack centered on Roosevelt.  From the beginning he was the main issue, and though he endeavored to make clear that he had no intention of exercising any direction over Stimson, if elected, he remained the issue to the end.  The opposition to him, which at the opening of the six weeks' campaign was tempered by the recognition that in defeating the Albany bosses he had done the state a notable service, became frantic.  "The interests" realized, as the people themselves scarcely realized, that the victory of the Republicans under Roosevelt's leadership meant not only the dominance of Roosevelt in the Republican party, but also the dominance of the progressive principles of which he was the foremost defender.  But they did not dare fight him on that issue.  Through the newspapers which they controlled they created the impression that Roosevelt was seeking to overthrow the Constitution and the rights of the people.  They declared that he wanted to make himself dictator.  They shouted that he wanted to be king. 

Roosevelt laughed at that.  "They forget that I've been seeing kings," he remarked, dryly. 

Party lines were ignored in the struggle, Republican reactionaries combining with Democratic reactionaries to defeat the acknowledged leader in the fight for the restoration to the people of their fundamental rights of self-government. 

It is not that Roosevelt is aiming to be a king, as they charge [exclaimed the New York Press, which supported him].  It is not that Roosevelt is an enemy of the courts, as they charge; it is not that Roosevelt is seeking to foment discontent merely to serve his own ambitions, as they charge; it is not that Roosevelt is a madman, as they charge.  It is that Roosevelt is leading the American people, who are going out to battle against the boss rule which works in behalf of the special interests!

"The interests" did not fear the coming of a dictator.  They feared the coming of justice. 

The fight was a struggle between the people and the forces of privilege, and the forces of privilege won.  Roosevelt was disastrously defeated not only in New York, but in Indiana and in other states where the men he had actively supported went down under a Democratic landslide.  In less than five months after his triumphal progress up Broadway the reversion he had prophesied was complete. 

His enemies shouted triumphantly that he was discredited and politically dead, and "the man on the street" who had shouted himself hoarse for Roosevelt five months previous cracked jokes about the "poor back-number who thought he was the Lord God Almighty. " A man in Wisconsin who tried to auction off a signed photograph of Theodore Roosevelt was greeted with derisive laughter and found no bidder at twenty-five cents. 

Defeat was a new experience to Roosevelt.  With the motto in his mind, "When I'm through with a thing I'm through with it," he bore it with equanimity and humor, knowing that the fight had been worth all that it had cost him.  Since his retirement from the Presidency he had been a contributing editor of the Outlook, and through its columns continued to fight for the cause he had at heart.  The delight of his opponents in the triumph of the Democrats in the state was short-lived.  As he had prophesied, Tammany Hall took complete control of the new Governor.  Roosevelt found a certain grim satisfaction in the wails of disillusionment that came from the newspapers which had insisted so violently on electing the wrong man. 

The strength of the progressive element in the Republican party steadily grew as the months went by.  In the West there was sentiment for La Follette for President, but the East believed him, not unjustly, to be brilliant but ill-balanced, a vigorous fighter, but personally pompous and vain, and intellectually radical in the extreme.  They turned to Roosevelt as to their natural leader.  Early in 1912 La Follette's supporters in the West joined the progressives in the East in a demand that Roosevelt agree to run. 

To friends Roosevelt stated that he did not wish to be a candidate, that he did not want the office again, that he had everything to lose and nothing to gain by entering the contest; but that, if there should be a popular demand for him he should not refuse to be drafted.  The supporters of other candidates were struggling for delegates.  He stated again and again that he did not wish any attempts made to secure delegates pledged to him.  But the trend toward him became day by day more definite and unmistakable. 

On February 10, 1912, the progressive Republican Governors of seven states met in Chicago and sent him a formal letter asking him to become a candidate for the Presidency.  Two weeks later he sent his acceptance.  In his own phrase, "his hat was in the ring. "

Now began a fierce fight between the factions of the party for delegates and for control of the convention which was to meet in Chicago in June.  The President was the candidate of the conservatives, the "stand-patters. " Popular sentiment, from the very first, was against him.  In March the results of primary elections in different states began to show with unmistakable clearness that the rank and file of the party wished to have Roosevelt as their candidate.  One state after another, including the President's own, declared itself for him by an overwhelming majority. 

But the National Committee, not the rank and file, was to have charge of the convention, and the National Committee was controlled by the "standpatters. " When, early in June, the convention met in Chicago, they exercised this control with cynical disregard of the verdict the primaries had delivered.  Many of the "bosses" who during these June days relentlessly excluded from the convention delegates pledged to Roosevelt were merely crooked politicians trying to save their own skins; but the foremost among them, men like Elihu Root and the President, in whose behalf the unjust struggle was carried on, sincerely believed that a great principle was at stake and that Roosevelt was seeking to undermine the Constitution.  They fought as men fight for a religion whose foundation appears to threatened. 

But Roosevelt and the progressives, too, were fighting for a principle.  To them the battle was a battle for social justice against "the powers of the darkness of this world," and they were willing to be flung to the lions for it.  Between two groups thus arrayed there was no hope for a saving compromise. 

The National Committee gave no quarter; they made no attempt to deal justly with the claims of delegates opposed to them.  Before the convention was ready to vote on candidates, the progressive members withdrew.  In a neighboring hall they held a meeting and organized a new National Progressive party. 

The Republican convention nominated the President without further opposition; the Democratic party, meeting shortly after at Baltimore, nominated Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey. 

On August 6th delegates of the new Progressive party met at Chicago and held a convention such as had never before been held in the history of American politics.  The clap-trap, the iron rule of a small group, the sordid bickering and bargaining of cheap politicians all were absent.  Instead, there was the deep religious enthusiasm of a revival meeting.  The prayers that were spoken were not perfunctory, but rather the devout expression of a great desire for unselfish and successful service.  Men and women were there whose lives had been devoted to the public good and who saw in this meeting the coming to fulfilment of the dreams of a lifetime; politicians were there, "professionals in the game," who turned against their own past as they caught a gleam of something higher than anything they had known before.  In a sense, the meeting was not a political convention at all, but a gathering of crusaders, who sang "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" with the rapt devotion of men "who meet at Armageddon to battle for the Lord. "

Truly, the American people were in a grave mood. 

Roosevelt made a notable speech, a "Confession of Faith" which stirred the delegates to wild enthusiasm and won the admiration even of his enemies.  He was nominated for President by acclamation. 

In the campaign that followed, as in 1910, Roosevelt was the target for the shafts of both Republicans and Democrats.  He was attacked with the utmost virulence by the newspapers of both parties, abused as a "dangerous demagogue" of "unparalleled viciousness and dishonesty," shameless, revolutionary, hypocritical, self-seeking, an ambitious Aaron Burr, "eager to use fraud. " 

He fought back with all the power that was in him.  Most of the men with whom he had been associated in the past turned against him.  One friendship after another he saw shattered.  He fought on, struggling forward over the prostrate bodies of friend and foe alike.  He spared others no more than he spared himself.  To him in this battle individuals no longer mattered.  The cause was all.  He gave himself to the cause with his whole soul. 

The leader, for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won.  In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is spend and be spent.  It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind.  We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. 

He campaigned in different parts of the country most of the summer and autumn.  On the evening of October i4th he was to speak at Milwaukee.  He had dined at the Gilpatrick Hotel and was cheered toy a throng outside as he crossed the sidewalk to enter the automobile that was to take him to the Auditorium. 
Suddenly, out of the dark crowd in the dimly lighted street beyond, a man stepped forward, raised his right arm, and at ten feet distance fired point blank at the ex-President.  

The men who were with him sprang on the assailant.  Roosevelt sank back in the automobile.  But in an instant he was on his feet again.  "Stop!" he called to the men who were struggling with the assassin.  "Don't hurt him.  Bring him to me. "

The man was lifted up.  For an instant the assailant and the man he had sought to kill stood face to face.  Then the assassin was turned over to the police. 

"Now to the hospital!" some one cried. 

"You get me to that speech!" ordered Roosevelt, with savage emphasis.  "It may be the last one I shall ever make. "

His friends protested, but he stood firm.  In an anteroom of the Auditorium he consented to have a clean handkerchief tied over the wound.  Then he walked to the stage.  Ten thousand men and women roared a welcome.  The chairman quietly told the audience that the ex-President had been shot, and a roar of anger shook the hall that was succeeded by a deafening roar of applause as Roosevelt carne forward to speak. 

He drew the manuscript of his speech from his right-hand breast pocket.  A shudder ran through the audience.  There were two bullet holes in each sheet.  The manuscript had been folded.  One hundred thicknesses of paper had served to save his life. 

He began his speech a little ramblingly, for the sight of the manuscript had for an instant shaken even his iron nerves.  Then he proceeded with his speech.  His friends on the platform, one after another, tried to interrupt him, to persuade him to allow himself to be taken to the hospital to have the wound attended to.  He insisted on saying what he had to say.  For an hour and a half with a bullet in his breast he defended the principles of the progressive cause. 

"I tell you with absolute truthfulness," he said, "I am not thinking of my own life, I am not thinking of my own success.  I am thinking only of the success of this great cause. "

When he had finished, he consented to be taken to the hospital.  The bullet, he found, had passed within half an inch of his right lung.  The man who had fired it was a poor insane wretch who had been led by the denunciation of Roosevelt in the newspapers to believe that he had a call from Heaven to remove this "menace to American liberties. "

Governor Wilson offered at once to cease campaigning, but Roosevelt refused to allow himself thus to be favored. 

"The welfare of any one man in this fight is wholly immaterial," he answered.  "This is not a contest about any man; it is a contest concerning principles.  . . .  I shall be sorry if Mr.  Wilson does not keep on the stump. "

The campaign went on.  Roosevelt's extraordinary constitution asserted itself and in a fortnight he was once more speaking to the American people. 

The election was held on November 5th.  Woodrow Wilson was elected. 

CHAPTER 19 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

HE GOES OUT AFTER NEW ADVENTURES AND NEARLY FINDS  THE  GREATEST  OF  ALL

ONCE more Theodore Roosevelt had been defeated.  Being a wise observer of political currents, he had scarcely expected to win.  It was a Democratic year, with the Democratic party everywhere overwhelmingly victorious.  Republicans blamed Roosevelt bitterly for the Democratic landslide and for the complete disruption of their own party, refusing to see that the party had been disrupted not by Roosevelt, but by the reactionary forces which had turned it from the course in which Roosevelt as President had led it to success.  The winds of controversy continued to beat about his head.  Roosevelt let them blow and sat down and wrote his autobiography.  Through the Outlook he continued to swing his broadsword for progressive principles; and once in court he swung it most effectively in defense of his own personal reputation.  For an editor in Michigan had rashly expressed in print the charge that had been current here and there during the campaign, that Roosevelt was a hard and habitual drinker.  Roosevelt sued him for libel, supported by an array of "character witnesses" that included former Cabinet ministers and ambassadors, ministers of the Gospel, social workers and temperance workers, soldiers, editors, journalists, naturalists, hunters, secret service men, and household servants.  That lie he was determined to nail, and he nailed it. 

He disposed of the Michigan slanderer in June.  A month later he was on the rim of the Grand Canon of the Colorado with his younger sons, Archie and Quentin, hunting cougar.  He himself this time carried no gun.  This was their own particular holiday, and he who wished his sons to serve their apprenticeship in the great world of hardship and adventure was glad to leave the thrills of it to them.  From the gorgeous country above the canon, fresh with pine and spruce and clear springs, he led them into the grim desolation of the Navajo Desert.  It was a world of incredible wildness and desolate majesty, savage, grotesque, terrible.  Lizards and rattlesnakes were there, the only living things.  Only at the water-holes, ten or fifteen miles apart, they met an occasional group of Indians, watering their flocks. 

At Tuba they rested for a day, then moved north-ward through the parched, mountainous landscape to the upper reaches of cedar and pine at March Pass; and on, with their pack-train, past villages of the cliff-dwellers in ruins, through emerald valleys of magical luxuriance, to the foot of the Navajo Mountains; and again on, through an eerie wilderness over a perilous trail that was no trail at all by ghastly precipices, to the gorge of the Natural Bridge.  To right and left loomed enormous cliffs bounded each to each by a triumphal arch of inconceivable majesty. 

They bathed in the dark pool beneath. 

For three days they retraced their steps, then crossed the Black Mesa to climb at last the steep and narrow rock-ridge on whose summits in bold outline against the blue sky rose the three rock villages of the Hopi. 

In one of them a snake-dance was to be held. 

The villages were crowded with visitors, but of the men not of the tribe Roosevelt alone, as a former Great Chief at Washington, was admitted to the sacred room, the kiva, in which the snake-priests had for a fortnight been preparing for the sacred dance.  He entered the chamber through a hole in the roof.  Squatting on the floor were eight or ten priests, lithe, sinewy, naked, copper-red.  On a dais against the wall near by lay intertwined a moving mass of thirty or more rattlesnakes. 

A priest spread a blanket for him, and he sat down with his back to the snakes, scarcely three yards away.  A snake glided sinuously toward him.  He pointed him out to the guardian of the snakes, who stroked it gently with a fan of four eagle feathers until it turned and crawled back.  A half-dozen times other snakes drew silently near and were quietly repulsed.  One escaped the eye of the watcher and passed within six inches of Roosevelt's knee.  A priest on the other side threw a pinch of dust m its face.  The watcher stroked it, and it too withdrew. 
Two days later Roosevelt descended into the temple room for the ceremony of the washing of the snakes. 

There were twenty priests in the room, and eighty or a hundred snakes lay singly or in tangled groups about on the dais.  Two priests stood near the snakes, two stood beside a rude altar at the farther end of the room, a half-dozen surrounded a great wooden bowl of water in the middle. 

The chief priest near the bowl began to chant softly and the other priests swayed to the rhythm, uttering now and then a single word or exclamation in unison, shaking the sacred rattles.  Gradually their calm gave way to intense, restrained emotion.  The chanting increased in fervor.  Now the two men nearest the dais each picked up a handful of rattlesnakes and quietly handed them to two of the Indians squatting about the bowl.  The chanting continued.  The priests returned and picked up each another handful of the poisonous serpents and delivered them to one of the priests about the bowl; again they gathered a handful, and again and once again, until each squatting Indian about the bowl held three or four of the venomous snakes. 

Then suddenly the chanting quickened and rose to a scream, and at the same instant the priests plunged the snakes into the water, drew them as suddenly forth again, and hurled them half across the room on and about the altar. 

The snakes began to glide rapidly in every direction.  Priests with feather fans gently herded them back. 
The ceremony was repeated until all the snakes had been washed.  Then again the chief priest prayed and the others chanted, slowly and ever more slowly.  The noise of the rattles died.  The chant died.  The ceremony was over. 
Roosevelt returned home from the Southwest in August (1913).  Two months later he was aboard the Lamport and Holt S.  S.  Vandyck, steaming southward in quest of new adventures.  He had been invited to speak before certain learned societies in South America on the problems of government in a democracy, and had accepted with zest, seeing in the invitation an opportunity to carry out an old and cherished plan of his to explore the jungles of Brazil. 

He reached Rio de Janeiro the middle of October, and for six weeks traveled on the beaten trail southwest to Montevideo in Uruguay, and Buenos Aires in the Argentine; northwest to Tucuman; southwest again across the Andes to Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile; straight south to the borders of Patagonia; and then once more across the Andes by ox-train through wild and wonderful country northeastward back to Buenos Aires.  Much of the country was like the ranch country of the West he knew so well, but the inland cities were quaint and strange and the seaboard capitals had a mature beauty that was more like the Old World than the New. 

His journey might have been a continuation of his triumphant passage through Europe.  Every-where he was given the honors of a reigning sovereign and greeted by the crowds that lined the streets and thronged the squares with extraordinary enthusiasm.  Here as in Europe he spoke fearlessly and directly, wasting no breath on empty flattery.  Again and again he thrust at the habit of revolution as the worst foe of democratic progress; he discussed the Monroe doctrine; he eloquently defended his action in regard to Panama. 

They called him an hombre mundial, a world man, belonging not to one race or country, but to the whole of humanity; and again they said, "Roosevelt is the United States," typical of all that was best in a great progressive land.  "He speaks the truth," they said, "because he speaks from the heart. "

To Roosevelt this six weeks' succession of ever-changing scenes and men was one of absorbing interest; and years of popular favor had failed to make him blast to the cheering of great crowds.  But he loved adventure even more than he loved politics, and he was not sorry when, early in December, accompanied by Kermit, who was on engineering work in South America, and Father Zahm, himself an explorer, he left the cheering crowds of Buenos Aires behind him for Asuncion, and four days later left Asuncion and the civilized world for the jungles of Brazil. 

The President of Paraguay had put his own gunboat-yacht at the disposal of the Roosevelt party for the ascent of the Paraguay, and day after day they steamed northward through the level ranch country under the tropic heat, mooring now and again by picturesque old towns whose history went back three hundred years to the conquistadores, or stopping for wood at quaint settlements where scantily clad Indians gazed at them curiously.  At the Brazilian border they were met by Colonel Rondon, an intrepid explorer of the upper Amazon whom the Brazilian government had put at Roosevelt's disposal; and at Corumba by Fiala, Cherrie, and Miller, the naturalists assigned to the party by the Museum of Natural History, under whose auspices Roosevelt was to make his explorations.  From Corumba they took a week's hunting-trip up the Taquary after jaguar and peccary, then, on Christmas Day, again proceeded up the Paraguay in a shallow little steamer they had chartered to take them and their paraphernalia to the great wilderness, the matto grosso, of western Brazil.  After a day they branched off into the swirling brown waters of the Sao Lourengo, then into the Cuyaba.  Now, to right and left, was the dense foliage of the tropics, splashed here and there with brilliant flowers.  They passed the thatched huts of an Indian fishing-village half hidden under luxuriant branches, then came once more into open cattle country, where a ranch-owner welcomed them and for three days gave them hospitality and good hunting.  They returned to the Sao Lourengo and steamed slowly southward through wet and stifling weather, anchoring a day after, once more to hunt jaguar in the dense wilderness.  Through the jungle on foot, drenched with sweat, torn by the spines of innumerable small palms, bitten by mosquitoes and fire ants that swarmed in the humid thickets, a ad stung by the red wasps that on occasions had been known to kill, they followed the trail.  They waded up to the hips through the marshes, and twice, with their guns held over their heads, swam long bayous through marsh grass and slime.  The heat was terrific.  There was no breath of air.  They had left the camp at dawn.  It was after midday.  They had had nothing to eat. 

Fiala, who had remained on the boat, heard a call on the bank late that afternoon.  It was one of the Indians who had accompanied the hunting-party. 

"Burroo-gurra-harru," he muttered, fell into a corner, and went to sleep. 

Twenty minutes later another Indian stumbled out of the forest.  "Plenty work tired," he cried, and fell and also went to sleep.  A third Indian came and dropped on the deck. 

Worried for the safety of the hunters, Fiala started out with a relief party.  The sun was setting.  In a clearing a short distance from the river he came upon one of the Brazilian officers, lying exhausted on the ground, his clothes torn, his face and neck covered with dust and blood. 

They sent him to camp under the care of three natives, and pushed on.  In a clearing beyond, under the last slanting rays of the sun, they came on Roosevelt and Kermit, dragging another Brazilian officer through the jungle.  Roosevelt's clothes were in tatters, but on his grimy face was a look of warlike determination. 

"All right, Colonel?" called Fiala.  "I'm bully," answered Roosevelt. 

The Brazilians were laid up for two days, but Roosevelt and Kermit were about, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  The Indians looked on them thereafter with a new awe. 

They returned to the Paraguay and steamed northward once more through marshy country to Sao Luis de Caceres, where they exchanged their little steamer for a launch and dugouts and moved northward again up the swift, clear water of the River of Tapirs.  Now and again they hunted in the dense forest that rose from the river-bank like a wall, the trees matted with vines, the lower growth an almost impenetrable jungle.  In one grove shoots of fig-trees were creeping murderously over the palms and slowly strangling them.  It was a sinister place, evil and dark and silent. 

Slowly they steamed northward, now and then passing a lonely ranch, now gliding through pitiless wilderness, now mooring by some clearing of exquisite beauty of palms and violet orchids and butterflies of gorgeous coloring.  The current became more rapid.  Here and there they ran into broken water. 

The middle of January they reached Tapirapoan and, leaving the river behind, proceeded with horses, pack-mules, and oxen into the highland wilderness.  Their course lay for a day through dense tropical forests where the machetes had to cut a trail for them as they went; then up on a high sandy plateau of coarse grass and stunted, twisted trees, where the air that blew over the limitless, rolling plains was cool and wonderful and full of vigor.  Day after day they moved forward, camping now and then by pleasant streams, with pampas-deer to eat and tales of marvelous adventure to exchange beside the camp-fire.  The weather was cloudy or wet, for the rainy season was on, but the desolate country had a charm of its own for one who loved great open spaces, and here and there were splashes of unexpected beauty. 

They came at last to a native village, where the Sacred River breaks in majestic, thunderous falls.  The natives were friendly, for Colonel Rondon was a counselor and guardian loved of old, and received the explorers without fear or shyness.  At this village they spent the night, then pushed on through pouring rain to the Falls of Utiarity, where the river dropped from a great shelving rock amid the towering growth of the tropical forest, three hundred feet to the gorge of swirling water below.  Here, too, there was a village where the natives played head-ball when the weather cleared at last, and danced and chanted in their honor. 

At Utiarity the party separated, Father Zahm returning to Tapirapoan and Fiala proceeding northward to explore the Rio Papagaio, while Roosevelt with the other members of the expedition turned eastward into the wild region of the naked Nhambiquaras.  Day after day now they crossed desolate country, passing skeletons of mules and oxen and little barbed-wire inclosures which marked the graves of men who had died on the road.  They drove a dozen steers ahead of them for food on their journey, but there was no forage.  The mules as well as the oxen weakened.  Nine of them dropped behind in the first three days.  They pushed on through tropical heat, now and then coming on parties of Nhambiquaras, some clad in a string of beads, most of them without even that adornment.  They saw the savages dance in the moonlight and heard them singing their weird, wailing chants. 

They crossed the headwaters of the Tapajos, ferried across by a native soldier who guarded the telegraph line which Colonel Rondon had constructed far up into the wilderness.  The country now became more hilly, with many swollen rivers which they waded or crossed by rude native bridges.  At last they came to a large basin cut into swampy valleys covered with tropical forest and rich pastures, into which the animals quickly turned.  There was respite here from the torment of the insects, and they rested a day; then moved on once more up and through steep valleys and broad basins where giant rubber-trees towered above the wild bananas.  Azure butterflies flitted through the sunny glades; bell-birds called through the huge silence of the forest.  Now through dreary wastes they went, now through fertile basins, now into dark forests and out into open cattle country.  At a cluster of huts called Bonifacio they paused for a day and once more divided the party.  Miller and three of the Brazilians moved on to descend the Gy-Parana to Manoas; Roosevelt, Rondon, Kermit, Cherrie, and two of the other Brazilians, with sixteen paddlers and seven dugouts, proceeded to the bank of the unexplored stream near by, known as the River of Doubt. 

On the afternoon of February 27th the Roosevelt party started down the river.  The swollen torrent was swift and brown, and of the canoes one was small, one was cranky, and two were old, waterlogged, and leaky.  All were overladen.  The paddlers, lithe as panthers and brawny as bears, were expert watermen. 

The expedition proceeded slowly, for Rondon and Kermit had undertaken the arduous task of surveying the river's tortuous course.  To right and left was dense forest with little wild life, only here and there a monkey and some bright-plumaged parakeet or venomous coral-snake.  Four days through varying weather they drifted leisurely down-stream, camping at the river's edge.  The silent forest had a deep fascination of its own.  Where they slowly went no white man had ever gone before. 

On the fourth day the current quickened.  They heard rapids ahead, and ran the unwieldy canoes ashore while they pushed forward on foot.  They found that the river-bed, which not a mile above was a hundred yards wide, here narrowed in one place to six feet or less, gushing torrentially through a craggy gorge. 

The rapids were far too wild to run in the canoes, and for two and a half days they labored, carrying the heavy dugouts, with their cargo, a mile through the dense jungle.  They chopped a road through the forest and, harnessed two by two on the rope, dragged the heavy boats along six-foot rollers, bumping and sliding.  It was laborious business, and the faces and hands of all were swollen with the bites and stings of countless insects. 

They started once more on the river that wound in and out in endless curves through scenes of captivating beauty; then came to rapids once more.  Three days they portaged, paddled half a day, and portaged another.  Then, one night as they were sleeping, the river unexpectedly rose, swamping two of the water-logged canoes, so that they broke from their moorings and were crushed.  Now followed days of sweating labor with ax and adz, making a new dugout from the trunk of a huge tree near the camp.  The forest round about was dense; there was no stir in the humid air.  The insects bit them and stung them until their whole bodies seemed to burn. 

They started out once more.  The current was swift, and here and there were whirlpools and threatening rapids where the water leaped into the clumsy dugouts and again and again threatened to swamp them.  The day following, drifting on smooth water, they heard once more the roar of broken water ahead.  Kermit, leading, was caught by a floating whirlpool and driven straight into the maelstrom.  With his two negro paddlers, he held the canoe upright, riding the rapids to their base.  There he made for the shore, but another whirlpool swept him back to midstream and upset the canoe.  One negro was drowned; Kermit and the other barely reached the shore in safety. 

They portaged the dugouts and came on other rapids immediately below.  As they were seeking a passage for the canoes along the shore one of the dogs in the thicket near by suddenly gave a howl of pain; then another.  They ran up to him.  He was dead, with two Indian arrows in his side. 

Cherrie stayed at the head of the portage and Roosevelt at the foot, as guards against attack.  One-third of their food was gone and they had covered probably scarce a sixth of their journey.  They had lost a man and four canoes; another man was down with fever.  They were in a country of wild Indians who could shoot.  They determined to push ahead, abandon some of their equipment, and let a dozen of the paddlers go on foot along the shore until they reached a place where they could profitably construct new canoes. 

In and out and around the whirling rapids they moved slowly on.  Once they came on the fresh tracks of Indians, and a moment later heard them near by; but the savages fled in panic.  Shortly after they came on a fishing-village, recently abandoned, and left propitiatory gifts. 

They built two new dugouts and again proceeded northward through the dripping and streaming forest, portaging four hours or more for every one they paddled.  It was slow, heartbreaking work, with ever in the backs of their minds the dread of disaster by starvation if they did not make haste, and ever the fear of disaster by drowning or the loss of their provisions if they took a chance in the rapids in order to gain time.  There was practically no game near by in the forest.  Fish were scarce.  Only at intervals they found cocoanut or wild honey, and now and then they shot a monkey.  Palm cabbage was the only steady item of diet the jungle contributed. 

They came to a long, deep gorge through which the river rushed at dangerous speed.  To take laden canoes through the gorge was out of the question; to portage them over the rock-strewn mountainside was likewise impossible.  Accordingly, they cut their baggage to the bone and bore what was essential laboriously over the rough trail they carved through the forest to the foot of the rapids, while Kermit directed the passage of the canoes, and with infinite labor and peril after four days brought them through with the loss of only one.  They started again, only to find another gorge ahead, and once more they bore their baggage over a craggy mountain, and once more they piloted their canoes through the wild cataract.  Again a canoe was lost. 

They made camp while the camaradas brought the loads from over the hill.  One of the men, named Paishon, brought in a carbine.  Another, a surly and ferocious man named Julio, who had frequently been reproached by Paishon, the sergeant, for shirking his work, dropped his load, picked up the carbine, and returned as though up-stream.  A minute later there was a shot.  Julio had taken a bloody vengeance. 

Paishon was dead when they reached him.  The murderer fled into the fever and famine of the wilderness. 

The exertions and privations were now beginning to wear on men scarcely ever more than half fed.  The camarodas were growing constantly weaker under the strain of exhausting labor; Kermit was ill with fever; Cherrie and Lyra were suffering from dysentery; Roosevelt bruised his leg against a boulder in the water and inflammation resulted.  A day later he, too, was down with fever. 

For forty-eight hours he was deadly ill, tormented by the heat, tormented by the venomous insects that hummed about him and crawled over him, biting and stinging; tormented most by the thought that the provisions were running low and they had far yet to travel, and that every hour's delay brought disaster just so much nearer to all.  He lay helpless on his broken, insect-riddled cot, not knowing whether he would be well enough to proceed in a day or two days or in a week. 

He felt that he was at the end of the tether.  Death had no horrors for him.  It scarcely had any regrets except for those who were dearest to him.  He had had a wonderful time in life; he had had a wonderful time on the expedition; he had done a scientific service that. was worth doing.  He was ready to pay with his body. 

But he could not bear the thought that his slow dying might mean slow death to his companions.  He begged Colonel Rondon to leave him behind and to save the rest of the expedition at least from disaster.  The fine old Brazilian warrior would not listen to him.  Roosevelt implored.  The Brazilian was obdurate. 

For forty-eight hours Roosevelt was on the very  verge of death.  Then the fever broke a little.  By a great effort he mustered what strength remained to him and said that he was well enough to go on.  He could barely crawl over the portages that day.  Kermit's fever grew worse, and one after another the camaradas sickened. 

Ahead of them loomed new mountains, with sinister promise of new, perilous, end grinding labor.  But for a day fortune favored them.  The hills gradually sank into a level plain; they made twenty miles on the swift-flowing, unimpeded current, and only at the day's end became aware of new cataracts ahead.  They bore their baggage around the stretch of swirling water and paddled on, again portaged, and again moved swiftly down smooth water.  The country was very lovely, for the river was bordered by exquisite palms and wound around hills cloaked in fresh green that glistened brightly in the sunshine. 

Then again they were among rapids, running ten minutes, all told, for eight hours that they portaged.  Again all the next forenoon they dragged their boats and their baggage through the tangled thicket, scarce able to drag their own bodies; then toward sunset they found respite at last.  The river began to run in tranquil reaches.  At the water's edge they suddenly came across cuttings, a year old, made evidently by pioneer rubber-men.  The next day, farther down, they came upon a post with the initials, "J.  A. ," and an hour later upon a palm-thatched house, cool and clean, guarded by two dogs. 

   Late that afternoon at the home of a rubber-man they saw the first human being outside their own party they had encountered in seven weeks.  They were once more among civilized men. 

The peril of disaster to the expedition was over.  But for Roosevelt himself the peril of death was still imminent.  The fever clung on, and the leg which he had hurt working in the rapids developed an abscess.  He hobbled about with difficulty, in racking pain.  But there was no halting even here on the outskirts of civilization.  He kept on his feet until the worst of the rapids were past, then succumbed and, while the canoes for ten days drifted downward on the wide, placid stream, lay stretched in the bottom of a dugout under the intolerable heat and the blinding storms, burning with fever and pain. 

The end of April they reached the hamlet of Sao Joao, and two days later arrived by steamer at Manaos on the Amazon.  They had discovered, explored, and placed on the map a river a thousand miles long.  A portion of it near its source had bee» known as the River of Doubt.  It was a river of doubt no more.  In ,the name of the Brazilian government it was rechristened the Rio Teodoro. 

CHAPTER 20 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

THE  GREAT AWAKENER

  ROOSEVELT returned to the United States the middle of May, 1914.  Three months later the world was engulfed in the most terrible war in history. 

From the first day of the crowded week of feverish negotiations and telegrams flying to and fro between the chancelleries and sovereigns of Europe, Roosevelt's mind was absorbed in the fierce struggle.  At once domestic issues, even those over which he had struggled most persistently for half his lifetime, yielded their place in his thoughts to what he saw at once was the foremost issue not only to the nations of Europe, but to his own country.  The hand that had thrown the blazing torch into the powder-magazine of the Old World had, he saw clearly, at the same moment completely shifted the national issues in the New. 

He was from the first acutely conscious of the nation's responsibilities toward herself and toward humanity.  That autumn he published a series of articles in which he pointed out the peril to America of trusting for her safety to arbitration treaties that rested not on the nation's defensive strength, but merely on the good will of other nations.  He pointed to the example of Belgium to show how worthless treaties are when armed force is lacking to defend them, and called for an increase in the nation's armament to safeguard her in the thousand perils the World War must inevitably bring in its train. 

His demand was greeted with cries of horror and disgust and violent accusations.  The timid and the sentimental railed at him; the smug and self-assured smiled in superior fashion at the "discredited and disappointed demagogue " who was seeing hobgoblins and making political capital out of his hysterical imaginings. 

Undeterred, he persisted, pointing out the need of some great league of nations to bring about and preserve the peace of righteousness by means of an international tribunal backed by military force. 

The idea of a league of nations was pleasant to the ear, and was approved; but the idea of a military force without which such a league would be a joke as grim and lamentable as the Hague Court was repellant to men unwilling to face facts. 

Once more the storms blew about Roosevelt from every direction of the compass at once.  They blew hardest from Germany.  Before the great war was two months old the German papers, ostentatiously courteous to all other Americans, were virulently attacking Theodore Roosevelt.  The German-language press in the United States took up the fight.  Even the American newspapers printed scathing letters, and no one guessed that three years later the eminent doctors of divinity who signed them would be revealed as the paid agents of Germany.  Through the German-American societies ran the word that Theodore Roosevelt was persona non grata.  One after another they revoked the honorary membership they had once been proud to offer him.  They burned his portrait and assailed him in resolutions. 

Germany and her sympathizers had recognized at a glance the one American that an ambitious and ruthless autocracy had most to fear. 

With the new year came the proclamation by Germany of a war zone about England to be enforced with submarines.  Roosevelt heartily applauded the President's note holding Germany to "strict accountability" and again pleaded for preparedness to meet any national exigency which might present itself in consequence of it.  The peace-at-any-price folk protested, assailing him for his bloodthirsty militarism.  The pro-Germans sneered and scolded.  The timid good, bewailing the fate of the Belgians over their teacups, were shocked at his stern demands.  The great mass ol the people were too busy that first winter, fighting hard times, to listen to him; as spring came, and with it the first hint of a new and bloody prosperity, they became too dazzled by alluring "war brides" to hear the voice of a prophet calling to arms. 

On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was sunk. 

"Without twenty-four hours' delay," said Roosevelt, next day, "this country should declare that, in view of Germany's murderous offenses against the rights of neutrals, all commerce with Germany shall be henceforth forbidden and all commerce of every kind permitted and encouraged with France, England, and the civilized world.  This would not be 3 declaration of war.  I do not believe the assertion of our rights means war, but we will do well to remember there are things worse than war. "

He himself expected war.  Sooner or later he knew that the crash must come, that the United States could not indefinitely bow to a Junker's arrogance and ruthless disregard of right, without losing all self-respect and all prestige among the nations; and he pleaded for that preparedness not only of battle-ships and armed men, but of the spirit, which alone could prevent national disaster. 
There must not be merely preparedness in things material [he cried].  There must be preparedness in soul and mind.  To prepare a great army and navy without preparing a national spirit would avail nothing.  .  .  .  We should devote ourselves as a preparation to preparedness, alike in peace and war, to secure the three elemental things; one, a common language, the English language; two, the increase in oui social loyalty citizenship absolutely undivided, a citizenship which acknowledges no flag except the flag of the United States and which emphatically repudiates all duality of national loyalty; and third, an intelligent and resolute effort for the removal of industrial and social unrest, an effort which shall aim equally to secure every man his rights and to make every man understand that unless he in good faith performs his duties he is QOS' entitled to any rights at all. 
Vigorously and with burning sincerity, in season and out of season, he preached preparedness, Americanism, and national self-respect.     He met first a feeble and then a growing and deepening chorus of assent.  But the voices of the pacifists and the sentimentalists and the materialists, who were well satisfied to eat, to drink, and to be merry on their new-won millions, filled the air with shrill, opposing cries or surly growls "to leave well enough alone. " On all sides was heard the chatter of men and women eager to believe that eloquence could fling a conqueror back within his boundaries.  During those months, that ran at last into years, the country was possessed by a very spirit of mad and sentimental theorizing.  An automobile manufacturer chartered a ship and led a crusade of social workers, verse-writers, stenographers, and elderly small-town oracles to release the soldiers from the trenches.  Every manner of scheme was devised to frighten the German terror away with gestures and words on paper. 

And always Roosevelt's voice boomed like a great bell through the endless chattering, saying: "You can't do it that way.  You can't have the millennium for a scratch of a pen on parchment.  You can't have peace without sacrifice.  You can't have security without service.  You can't enjoy rights without fulfilling obligations!"

It was a hard, unwelcome doctrine, and derision, hatred, and scorn were poured over the preacher of it.  The American people had been allowed to drift into complacent indifference to intolerable wrongs.  Their conscience had been lulled.  A period of prosperity never paralleled in the history of the country had followed the years of business depression and want.  The American people desired neither to think deeply nor to feel deeply.  They wanted to enjoy. 

"Safety first!" was the slogan that flew over the country. 

"Duty first!" boomed Roosevelt. 

Gradually, here and there, his doctrines gained converts, but it was a long, up-hill fight, for complacency in ignoble ease was held up by well-meaning supporters of peace as a commendable virtue, and his own insistence on the duty of American citizens to uphold and, if need be, to defend their rights, was cried down as rank jingoism.  As the presidential election of 1916 drew near it became evident that the issues of national preparedness and national duty which he had raised would mark the line of cleavage between the two parties.  With the coming of the new year Roosevelt's campaign of education began to show its results.  All over the country the sentiment in favor of preparedness began to grow.  The Democratic leaders, who had ridiculed or evaded the question, now skilfully checked their opponents by themselves demanding preparedness on a huge scale without a day's delay. 

The natural leader for an issue which Roosevelt had created was Roosevelt himself, and with increasing emphasis the demand was made that he become a candidate for the Presidency. 

His answer to the question whether he would enter the race was clear and ringing:

It would be a mistake to nominate me [he said, in a statement which he made at Trinidad, after a trip through the Spanish Main early in March] unless the country had in its mood something of the heroic; unless it feels not only like devoting itself to ideals, but to the purpose measurably to realize those ideals in action. 

During the months that followed Roosevelt made no partisan or factional fight for the nomination, but here and there he spoke on the broad questions of Americanism and national honor in a spirit and with an eloquence that kindled the best impulses of the American people.  Roosevelt, who had been "repudiated" in 1910, defeated in 1912, and in 1914 consigned to oblivion alike by American and foreign observers after being deserted by the members of the party he had created and led in the bitterest political struggle in fifty years, was again the foremost figure in American politics.  Defeat had been unable to keep him in obscurity; calumny had left no blot on his character; the pitiless light of a political libel suit had revealed no word or act in his long public record of which he or his supporters need feel ashamed. 

The conventions of the Republican and Progressive parties met simultaneously at Chicago early in June.  There was much running to and fro among the leaders of both parties, much scurrying about in search of a basis of common action.  But the stand-pat Republican leaders had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, and the Republican delegates were hard-bit, short-sighted, and politically timid men and refused to grasp the clear issue which the nomination of Roosevelt would present.  They nominated Justice Hughes instead.  The Progressives nominated Roosevelt.  Roosevelt, recognizing clearly that in division lay defeat and counting the cause for which he had so valiantly fought as supreme over all personal considerations, refused the nomination and offered his support to Hughes. 

In the ensuing campaign the Democratic party, led by the President as a candidate for re-election, appealed to the people on its record of keeping the country out of war.  Roosevelt begged the Republican managers that the issue be made unmistakably clear, that against "Safety First!" the slogan of "Duty First!" be the battle-cry of the Republicans.  But the counsels of timidity prevailed, and in an uninspiring campaign the Republican party lost the chance of a century to achieve either a glorious victory or to go down to a scarcely less glorious defeat. 

The President was re-elected.  Three months later the German ambassador was given his passports.  Two months thereafter America was at war with Germany. 

During the Mexican troubles of the preceding spring Roosevelt had offered to raise a division of volunteers similar in character to the Rough Riders.  The day the German ambassador was expelled he renewed his offer.  It was declined.  Congress thereupon authorized the raising of four divisions of volunteers.  Two hundred thousand men had meanwhile asked to serve under his command, and Roosevelt once more made his offer.  It was again and now definitely declined. 

Roosevelt was deeply disappointed.  "As far as I am concerned," he said, "this is a very exclusive war. "

He could not go himself, but he was not without representatives at the front.  One after the other his four sons volunteered and sailed, Theodore, Archibald, and Quentin for France, Kermit for Mesopotamia.  Quentin, the youngest, was only nineteen. 

"It was hard when Quentin went," said one to whom they were dear, "but you can't bring up boys to be eagles and expect them to act like sparrows. "

Roosevelt, forbidden to fight in the field, turned his attention to the winning of the war at home.  There was no good cause which during the months that followed he did not aid with the force of his eloquence;   no evidence of vacillation and incompetency that he did not castigate in words that stung.  He reserved the right of public criticism of the acts of the administration, and exercised it practically alone among the leaders of the opposition party, with an energy and incisiveness which won the gratitude of men eager that America should act speedily and act greatly, and drew on him the cry of  "Treason!"   from  all  the  sinister,   half-hidden forces still working in the interests of enemy. 

He was called "a common scold" and cheerfully bore the accusation, seeing the demands that he made for action in this field or the other, one after another, accepted.  A private citizen, he became one of the most potent factors in the translation into effective action of the President's eloquent expression of the nation's aims. 

CHAPTER 21 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

'SO HE PASSED OVER AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED"

ALMOST imperceptibly, Theodore Roosevelt had  / A risen for a second time to leadership in the nation.  The steps of his unconscious progress had scarcely been noted.  In 1914 men had said that he was definitely "done for" politically; his enemies had exultantly proclaimed his final downfall; even his friends had despaired of his return to his lost eminence.  But the American people, walking in strange paths amid storms and phantasms and perilous, seductive voices, were hungering for a clean, clear trumpet-call.  Roosevelt gave it.  For four years, regardless of political expediency, regardless of counselors imploring him to sacrifice truth to a sentimental phrase, regardless of all things but facts and the right behind the facts, he thundered through the land like a prophet in Israel; and millions from coast to coast thanked God for Theodore Roosevelt and, in troubled days, said what they had said ten years before: "It's all right.  Roosevelt is on guard!" He was never more deeply loved and never more bitterly hated.  The traitors and his old enemies, the "timid good," assailed him and ridiculed him and misrepresented his motives.  He fought with the splendid fury of the archbishop at Roncesvalles.  His sons had, long ago, nicknamed him "the Lion," and like a lion he fought and made his voice heard above the pipings of lesser men.  Without reservation, he flung himself into the battle, denouncing what seemed to him the unforgivable delays and evasions of the men responsible for the conduct of the war.  He struck without mercy; he gave no quarter.  Even his friends shuddered at times at the terrible nakedness of the truths he uttered, being more mindful of his future than he was himself.  He denounced what appeared to him as the collusion of high public officials with the traitorous elements of the yellow press in a powerful indictment that struck and quivered like a bare blade; he seized on complacent self-justifications and held them up to public scorn in words torn out of Scripture and fired with new splendor. 

Between himself and his opponents in power he knew no middle ground of compromise and party truce.  The issues that divided him from them were to his mind fundamental and to be evaded only at the sacrifice of those eternal verities which, in a career devoted to a "practical idealism," involving endless personal concessions, he had consistently re-fused to sacrifice.  To him the issues were not po-litical, but moral.  He fought the controlling forces of the administration not because they differed from him on certain political principles, but because, rightly or wrongly, he was convinced that they were governed not by any principles, either political or moral, but solely by the injunctions of day-by-day expediency. 

Roosevelt's personal life and public career had always equally been determined from day to day by certain clear and unalterable principles acting on the clearly discerned and unalterable facts of experience.  Rightly or wrongly, he was convinced that the course of the administration was determined by theories yielding not to facts, but only to political convenience.  To him, therefore, the battle was a battle to the death. 

On frequent speaking-tours and through the pages of the Metropolitan Magazine and the Kansas City Star, he adjured the American people to beware of seductive sentimentalities and to face facts.  The impression he made was profound, how profound, in the general reluctance, under the strain of war and of laws inhibitive of public criticism to reveal in words the restless stirrings of the spirit, only later events indicated. 

His sudden and dangerous illness early in 1918 revealed at the same time both his own complete absorption in the battle he was waging and the dependence of a great part of the people on his vigor-ous leadership. 

The Brazilian fever had seized him once more, complicated by a fistula and abscesses in his middle ears, and one dusk in the beginning of February, he lay on a couch at the Hotel Langdon, where he generally stayed when he spent the night in New York, dictating to his secretary.  His face was very gray. 
"You are tired, Colonel Roosevelt," his secretary said.  '' Suppose we leave the rest of these letters until to-morrow morning?"

"No, we'll finish up to-night," he said, biting off the words.  "When I was President I cleaned decks every day and I'm going to clean decks now. "

He finished dictating.  A minute later he fainted away with pain, rolling from the couch to the floor.  The couch was drenched with blood. 

A friend found him next morning lying across his bed, evidently in agony.  He believed that the end was not far off. 

"I don't mind pain," he said, slowly and with difficulty, "when I'm only paying for something that I've had.  I don't mind having to die.  I've had my good time.  I've had my full life. " The eyes in the pallid face flashed suddenly.  "But to think that those creatures will say that I'm out of the game!"

He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital for an operation on his ears.  The surgeon in charge was frank.  Only four similar operations had come under his personal observation; in every case the patient had died. 

"There are certain things I should like to live for," Roosevelt answered, quietly.  "I should like to live to see my sons come back from France.  But if it can't be, all right, doctor.  I don't give a hang!"

It seemed that the whole nation stood breathless as it waited to hear whether Theodore Roosevelt was to live or to die.  A rumor of his death flew through the city.  Everywhere men gathered in groups and asked each other for the latest news about "T.  R. " A morning paper sent this challenge to the man fighting with the assailing shadows:

Theodore Roosevelt, listen! You must be up and well-again.  We cannot have it otherwise.  We could not, run this world without you. 

He fought, and he won.  A week later he was working in bed, dictating the key-note address he was to deliver in April at a Republican Convention in Maine. 

He returned to the battle, declaring he felt "bully," and went West on a speech-making tour in which his hours on the public platform proved practically the only hours he did not spend in his state-room on the trains, fighting fever.  An infection in his left leg gave him much pain.  He admitted that perhaps it might be wise to restrict his public appearances. 

Apprehension for the safety of his sons was always the background of his thoughts, though when he spoke of them it was the pride and never the fear that found expression.  Archibald was wounded; Theodore was gassed and later wounded; Quentin fell fighting in the air, high over the German lines.  But a friend who approached him with words of condolence was met by him with an exclamation that was almost exultant: "Haven't I bully boys? One dead and two in the hospital!"

    About him rang the tumult of battle, the taunts and recriminations, the ridicule and the cheers.  He went his way, struggling to make the full force of America felt on the battle-lines in France. 

Republican politicians, preparing in the summer of 1918 for the presidential campaign of 1920, turned, with an accord which in 1914 would have seemed to them the ultimate impossibility, but which the facts of the situation now made inevitable, again to Theodore Roosevelt.  In the New York State Republican Convention at Saratoga the men who had fought him most bitterly appealed to him once more for leadership, realizing that in the great schism of 1912 he, and not they, had been right, and calling him the "savior of the party," the "savior of the country. " They begged him to accept the nomination for Governor.  He refused.  His whole heart was in the war, he said, and he would not attempt to serve two masters. 

Early in the autumn the Republican leader of one of the Atlantic states and a former Progressive leader of one of the Pacific states were seated with Roosevelt after dinner in the study at Sagamore Hill. 

"Are you going to run for President in 1920?" asked the man from the East. 

Roosevelt, looking odd a,nd unlike himself in his stiff white shirt-front and dinner-coat, with his right leg crossed over his left, answered promptly and without evasion:

"Yes, I will run if the people want me, but only if they want me.  I will not lift a finger for the nomination.  I will not make a contest for it.  It will have to come to me. It would be worthless on any other basis."

"Colonel, it will be yours, without strings, and on your own terms."

The statement, on the surface, was rashly confident, but it was not without justification. Roosevelt had throughout the war been the one outstanding figure in the Republican party, and now, at its close, was its acknowledged, undisputed leader. When, less than two weeks before the Congressional elections in November, the President issued an appeal for a Democratic Congress, it was inevitable that Roosevelt should be the one to answer him. In what proved one of the most powerful speeches of his career, Roosevelt drove the answer home. He struck, without mercy, blow on blow. His logic was clear, stern, and altogether relentless; before it the eloquent persuasiveness of the President's appeal dissolved like fog before a hot sun. He spoke four days after the event as the average man might dare to speak after the winds and rains of a hundred years had sifted and settled the issues. He knew he was right, and he spoke with the unqualified assurance which that knowledge gave him. His opponents cried out at his "hysteria," his "violence"; but the American people rallied behind him. In the elections the Democrats were disastrously defeated. The Republicans returned to power in Congress with the man they had rejected and who had rejected them as their unrivaled leader.

Roosevelt's health was, meanwhile, bothering him again. The abscess in his leg would not heal satisfactorily, and an attack of sciatica caused him much pain.  He was forced to return to the hospital, and as week followed week and seemed to bring no healing, his friends became uneasy.  The sciatica developed into inflammatory rheumatism.  The prospect was set before him as not out of the range of possibilities that, like his gallant sister, Mrs.  Cowles, he might be condemned to spend the rest of his life in a chair. 

"All right!" he answered, after a pause.  "I can live that way, too!"

But that fear seemed to prove without foundation.  He improved slowly and on Christmas Day left the hospital to spend the holidays with his family.  Christmas Day had always been a joy and a romp at Sagamore, but the death of Quentin had laid a shadow over all thoughts of festivities, and for the first time in years Roosevelt himself was not the presiding genius of the celebrations in the church at the Cove. 

His illness scarcely abated the boiling activity of his days.  His correspondence was more voluminous than at any time since the Progressive campaign, and his articles in the Metropolitan and the Kansas City Star, which were his periodic messages to the American people, suffered in neither volume nor force by the fact that they were written on a bed of pain.  The physicians, meanwhile, were encouraging, in spite of one or two sharp attacks which he had suffered in the hospital; and Roosevelt, restless for adventure after two years of ceaseless work, laid plans for an expedition early in March after devil-fish in the Gulf of Mexico with his "pirate-friend," Russell Coles. 

The old year went out and the new year came in.  For him, a prisoner in bed or in his chair, there was no cessation of activity.  He read, he wrote, he dictated endless letters; for the Kansas City Star he dictated an article pleading for realism in the conception of a league of nations; for the Metropolitan he dictated another article, calling on the new Republican Congress to keep "Eyes to the front!"

The first week of the year ended in a Sunday that was the happiest that Sagamore Hill had known since, one after the other, four sons had set sail for France.  For once there were no guests; none of the children even were home, and Roosevelt spent the day alone with their mother, reading aloud alternately with her.  In the afternoon he wrote a long letter to Kermit, in France, corrected the proofs of his Metropolitan article, browsed among books.  Altogether, it was one of those rare, happy days that fall at long intervals suddenly like the quiet of heaven into the noise and confusion of life. 

He had promised months before to speak that night at a patriotic meeting at the Hippodrome, but his illness had made public speaking for the moment impossible and he had sent a letter instead.  At nine o'clock that evening it was the fifth of January his message was read:

There must be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism merely because the war is over.  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 English 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. 

Roosevelt, reading aloud in the study at Sagamore, did not hear the cheers that echoed through the great hall.  He was not feeling altogether fit.  As he was about to retire, at eleven, he had difficulty breathing.  The trained nurse sent for the physician.  He came, and gave Roosevelt a treatment.  Roosevelt was curious about his physical state and discussed it with the physician.  He was not at all worried about himself; objectively, the thing interested him and he wanted to know all about it.  The physician thought "the Colonel" looked sturdier and ruddier than he had looked for many months.  At midnight Roosevelt went to bed. 

His mind had been occupied with the political situation in Washington and with the brilliant young chairman of the Republican National Committee who was one of the most potent factors in it; and he picked up a scratch-pad and pencil that lay on a table beside his bed. 
Hays [he wrote].  See him; he must go to Washington for ten days; see Senate and House; prevent split on domestic policies. 
Then he called to his valet, a negro servant who had been with him since the White House days:
"Please put out that light, James. "

James put out the light. 

Roosevelt went to sleep.  At two in the morning Mrs.  Roosevelt looked in on him.  He was sleeping quietly.  At four, James, watching at the foot of the bed, said to himself that there was something strange about "the Colonel's" breathing.  It had a hollow sound. 

He became alarmed and summoned the nurse. 

When she reached the bedside the breathing had stopped. 
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. 
Five hours later the headlines on the streets of New York carried the woeful tidings; but all the headlines and the pages of fine print that followed them said less than the message which a son, invalided home, sent to his brothers in France:

"The Lion is dead. "

A cheerless sky and chilly air and a downfall of mingled snow and rain gave way before a sun that was like early April.  A few hundred friends strode in whispering groups from the station through the awed streets of Oyster Bay to the church.  Otto Raphael, of the police-commissioner days, kept the door; Edward Bourke headed the squad of mounted police that was the only official guard.  "Joe" Murray, of the "Old Twenty-first," was there, and Leonard Wood, and Lodge, most loyal of friends and counselors, and Taft whom he had made President, and Root who had fought at his side, and fought against him and had lived to fight at his side once more in his last and mightiest battle. 

There was no organ music; there was no singing.  There was only a quiet, unemotional reading of the funeral service as the coffin was borne in under the flag and borne out again.  Over the snow of the steep slope to the grave the bearers carried their flag-draped burden.  The level rays of the sun blazed through the files of the wood across the hill. 

And so it was that the scarred body of a hero was laid to rest. 

But the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt did not sleep.  It stalked mightily through the hearts of his countrymen, raising dead souls to life. 

The End

A concluding word from Robert J.  Kuniegel

TR AMERICAN PATRIOT hopes you enjoy our books.  Theodore Roosevelt lived his life in a manner that is the only way possible to make government responsive to the people.  He has written how to make meaningful reform possible not only for his generation but for future generations, if we read what he has said.  We only need to interest others in reading what he has said to transform our government. 

Reading the books on TR AMERICAN PATRIOT DOT COM  and having others do the same, will develop citizens and leaders capable of transforming American politics into a system of government that will be honest, and responsive to “a square deal”.  A square deal has no special deals for the rich, the middle class, or the poor.  Our government today has degenerated into a system that rewards citizens for not being productive.  It promotes entitlements under the guise of helping people, when in fact it only helps politicians to protect their own royal positions.  Policies that foster a special privileged class was the type of government policies Theodore Roosevelt fought against and won.  He was a visionary.  He knew this fight would need to be fought through the ages if we were to keep our country strong.  He was an intrepid pioneer that blazed a trail through a jungle of corrupt government, so that others might follow his proven and highly successful common sense approach toward honest government.  His fearless course helped make America a beacon of hope to all that seek justice.  His endless devotion to America helped make America a super power that no just nation has needed to fear as long as our citizens value his lofty resolute square deal policy toward our fellow citizens and those of other nations. 

Theodore Roosevelt’s greatest gift to this country is before us.  It is not in the past, if we as Americans recognize that his message is not just a story from American history pages.  His message is an example, clearly defined.  It details actions that are required if we desire to do something meaningful for our country.  Join the good fight today.  You only need to read and interest others to do the same.  

David Boyd, repeating what he had read, once said, “The person we become is because of our experiences in life, the people we meet, and the books we read. ” It is time to have others meet Theodore Roosevelt.  It is time for a Theodore Roosevelt revival, “Fear God and do your own part”.  Dare to help make Theodore Roosevelt the standard and not the exception.  America needs to adopt a wise, fearless and honest role model as the standard we revere, so that our public servants know what we expect.  The first step to honest government is no harder than setting proper standards of conduct for our public servants through the use of a proper role model.  Can you find one quality in Theodore Roosevelt that is not right in a public servant?  If you think you can, I bet your conjecture is based upon something other than truth and honest reasoning and this American would love an opportunity to debate any such conjecture.

CHAPTER  22

HELPS   AND   REQUIREMENTS    FOR   STUDY

Some of these topic sentences are simply sentences selected from the text because the thoughts they express are so important and so valuable that it is worth while for students to prove their comprehension of them by developing paragraphs upon them.  The rest of them are expressions of thoughts that naturally occur to a thoughtful reader, and the attempt to develop which will mean a much more comprehensive grasp of what is contained in and suggested by Mr.  Hagedorn's text.  It is not expected that student or teacher will, in every case, agree with the point of view expressed.  Some of the sentences are so formulated as to be challenges to develop the opposite points of view.  And the student should be encouraged to formulate and develop topic sentences of his own. 

CHAPTER 1
1. 	Enumerate the influences   affecting  Theodore  Roosevelt
while a young child.     What kind of person will he become
because of them?
2. 	What traits of character do you discover in him?   What
kind of man will he become?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	'Born into such a home, Theodore Roosevelt would naturally
become a great man. 
2. 	From generations back of both father and mother Theodore
Roosevelt inherited the instinct to strive fearlessly for high
ideals of freedom. 

CHAPTER 2
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	The reading that Theodore had done by the time he was
nine years of age must have been of great value to him in
boyhood and in later life. 
2. 	Theodore was fortunate to have such a father. 
3. 	Theodore was an observer as well as a reader. 

CHAPTER 3
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. 	The influences that molded Theodore Roosevelt during boy
hood. 
2. 	Theodore Roosevelt's handicaps (?). 
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Theodore Roosevelt was a boy of great persistence. 
2. 	Theodore Roosevelt was far more purposeful than most boys. 
3. 	At fifteen and sixteen years of age Theodore was laying deep
foundations for a life of great usefulness. 
4. 	Theodore Roosevelt's handicaps (?) really operated greatly
to his advantage. 
5. 	I should (not) have enjoyed Roosevelt as a chum. 

CHAPTER 4
ESSAY TITLES
1. 	How to Get the Most out of Four Years at College. 
2. 	How to Get the Most out of Four Years at High School. 
TOPIC SENTENCES
Roosevelt's act of giving a dollar to the boy with the black eye is just what I should expect of him.  Roosevelt's life  during youth  and young manhood was dominated by the desire to become a man who could do things. 

CHAPTER 5
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION
". . .  business is extremely important and everything else must bow to it. "
SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITION
1. 	Explain the composition of the legislature that Roosevelt
entered. 
2. 	Write a brief speech that might have been delivered in the
21st district advocating Theodore Roosevelt's re-election. 
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	We need more politicians like Joe Murray. 
2. 	Joe Murray taught Theodore Roosevelt that .  .  . 
3. 	Roosevelt's fight against Westbrook was a success. 

CHAPTER 6
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION
Was Roosevelt right in refusing to bolt, or was he acting the part of a partisan in politics?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	This hunt certainly proved Roosevelt no "tenderfoot. "
2. 	Had Roosevelt continued to regulate his conduct in public
life by the consideration, "How will this affect my career?"
he would have greatly limited his usefulness to his country. 

CHAPTER 7 TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	It seems that Roosevelt did not know what fear is. 
2. 	Roosevelt took many unnecessary risks. 
3. 	Roosevelt's efforts for Blaine were consistent with his attitude after Blaine's nomination. 
4. 	Winter in the bad lands meant extreme hardship for men
and animals. 
5. 	Roosevelt commanded the respect of friend and enemy alike. 

CHAPTER 8 COMPOSITION SUBJECTS
1. 	Give your explanation as to why "Jim" the "bad man"
and Roosevelt became friends instead of having trouble. 
2. 	Why didn't Roosevelt "hang 'em offhand"?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	There were many attractive features in the life Roosevelt
lived on his ranch. 
2. 	Roosevelt will become a better soldier because of his ranch
life in the West. 
3. 	Roosevelt had a high conception of a sheriff's duty. 
4. 	When he goes back East Roosevelt will make a fine chief
of police or police commissioner. 

CHAPTER 9 TOPIC SENTENCES
i.     Roosevelt's western life and experiences transformed an eastern aristocrat into a democratic American. 
a.    Roosevelt's life in the West was the kind in which men come to know each other. 
3.    Roosevelt was guided by no fixed purpose in life from the end of his career in the New York Legislature to his acceptance of Harrison's offer.  Anyone who had followed Roosevelt through the preceding chapters expected from him as a soldier just what this chapter records. 
2. 	It was a miracle that Roosevelt was not even wounded. 
3. 	Such leadership must have an inspiration to every soldier in
Roosevelt's regiment. 
4.    Roosevelt's investment in his ranch was unwise and a failure. 

CHAPTER 10
What opportunities do you know about for the application of Roosevelt's "opposite theory"?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	While   civil   service   commissioner,   Roosevelt   made   the
American people his allies in the fight for good government. 
2. 	". . .  a flaming spirit burns his mark on the hearts of men. . . "
(Show how this is true of Roosevelt. )
3. 	Instead of attacking this bear Roosevelt should have done
his best to get away from the vicinity without attracting
the bear's attention at all. 

CHAPTER 11 TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Roosevelt fought with the same strategy in the "tiger's den"
that he had used in the "graveyard'' and only this strategy
could have brought him success. 
2. 	Of inestimable value to him was Roosevelt's ability to
understand characteristics and motives of other men, and
to judge how they would act under given circumstances. 
3. 	What a relief home must have been to Roosevelt after a
week of his "grimy" struggle!
4. 	Roosevelt was right in his views and policy as to administration of the law for Sunday saloon closing. 
5. 	Roosevelt was a great moral force in the life of New York
City. 

CHAPTER 12
TOPIC SENTENCES
1.    It was Roosevelt's duty to remain at his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy rather than go into the army.  

CHAPTER 13
POINTS TO BE EXPLAINED
1. 	Explain how Platt dominated the Republican Party in the
interest of the "interests. "
2. 	Explain Roosevelt's statement that the independence of
some independents "consisted in one part moral obliquity
and two parts mental infirmity. "
3. 	Explain Roosevelt's statement " the blows from the dark
will only help me in an out-and-out battle. "
4. 	How and why are bills "lost in committee"?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Roosevelt's great service to the state was   (Complete and
show the truth of your statement. )
2. 	Roosevelt had no political ambitions. 
3. 	Roosevelt had no right to take such risks as he did during
his wild night ride to North Creek. 
4. 	Franchises should be taxed. 
5. 	It was of vital importance to the public that Roosevelt
should win the fight over the insurance commissionership. 

CHAPTER 14
What arguments might Roosevelt have used to show the coal-mine operators that in their own interests they should yield?
POINTS TO BE EXPLAINED
1.     Look up and explain fully the process by which the federal government brings a case before a federal court.  
2.     Look up and explain how and to whom rebates are granted by railroads.     What are the evils of rebate granting?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Not for an instant did the anarchist who shot McKinley
shake the structure of orderly government. 
2. 	That the government did not become a plutocracy "is due
largely to the clear vision and unfaltering leadership of
Theodore Roosevelt. "
3. 	The chief element in Roosevelt's strategy in national af
fairs is still the same that he used so effectively in "The
Graveyard" and in "The Tiger's Den. "
4. 	Roosevelt   "crystallized"  the   "cloudy  musings"  of the
people. 
5. 	Roosevelt's settlement of the coal strike was a service of
tremendous value to the public. 
6. 	President Roosevelt was a tireless worker. 

CHAPTER 15
POINTS TO BE EXPLAINED
1. 	Explain what it ought to mean to be a citizen of the United
States. 
2. 	Explain the importance to us of the Panama Canal. 
3. 	Explain the significance to 1906 readers of the Philadelphia
Press of the "Big Stick" cartoon. 
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. 	Should  we have  been justified in following  Roosevelt's
recommendation "to take possession of the isthmus by force
of arms" if Panama had not revolted?
2. 	Was Roosevelt right in the belief that the overturn of the
existing order is inevitable unless the forces of capital and
the forces of labor meet on the common ground of govern
mental regulation and control?
3. 	Write an article to commend or to criticize Roosevelt's act
of sending our fleet on its world-girdling voyage. 
4. 	Would it have been to the advantage of the country if
Roosevelt had served it as President a third term?
5. 	Was Congress right in calling Roosevelt ambitious and
dictatorial?
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	"Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far. "
2. 	"The rights of the public to the natural resources outweigh
private rights. "

CHAPTER 16
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Only a man of great physical endurance could have come
through an experience like Roosevelt's in Africa. 
2. 	Roosevelt was a man of great courage and self-control
in the face of danger. 

CHAPTER 17
TOPIC SENTENCE
Roosevelt was the personification of the moral force in man which translates ideals into accomplished benefits. 

CHAPTER 18
POINTS TO BE EXPLAINED
1. 	Explain fully why each great party in the United States
was hoping that Roosevelt would speak in its favor in Egypt. 
2. 	Explain what may have passed through Roosevelt's mind
when he saw the bullet hole in his manuscript, and explain
fully what nerved him for the delivery of his speech. 
3. 	Explain as fully as possible what  Roosevelt meant  hy
"Human rights must have the upper hand. "
4. 	Explain Roosevelt's defeat in the New York contest. 
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Our newspapers exert a tremendous influence for right or
wrong. 
2. 	Roosevelt's acceptance. of nomination by the Progressive
Party was a great political mistake. 
3. 	"The leader is but an instrument. "
4. 	"We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the
world. "
5. 	Roosevelt's recovery from the wound received in Milwaukee
was due to the way in which he had lived. 

CHAPTER 19
TOPIC SENTENCES
1. 	Roosevelt's life was full of the most extreme contrasts. 
2. 	What will power!
3. 	To take such a trip was folly. 
CHAPTER 20
POINTS TO BE EXPLAINED
1. 	Show that the Republican Party had the chance of a century either to achieve a glorious victory or to go down to
a scarcely less glorious defeat. 
2. 	 How was it that one who had been so popular and had rendered such services could become so unpopular?
TOPIC SENTENCES
Develop "Safety First!" and "Duty First!" to show what each meant, as they were used in 1915, 1916, and 1917. 
GENERAL ESSAY TOPICS
1.  Roosevelt said, "I owe more than I can express to the West. " Prepare an address or an essay upon "Roosevelt's Debt to the West. " Roosevelt's Greatest Service to His Country. 
2. 	The Menace of "Privilege" in American Life. 
3. 	Roosevelt's Conception of Government. 
4. 	Roosevelt, the Great Democrat. 
5. 	Roosevelt in Private Life. 
THEME SENTENCES
(To be kept in mind throughout an essay, and made its dominating thought, as a topic sentence is similarly developed in a paragraph. )
1. 	Roosevelt always put his case before the people as a last
resort. 
2. 	Roosevelt's indomitable determination was one of the greatest factors in his success. 
3. 	Roosevelt always took defeat with a grin and came back
strong. 
4. 	Roosevelt was the embodiment of all that we think of as
typically American. 
5. 	Roosevelt was "always a boy in his heart. "
THE END