Topic 6
THE DRINK STORY

FEW things in Colonel Roosevelt's later life are fresher in the public memory than his suit against a Michigan editor who accused him of drunkenness.  The unfortunate editor, unable to produce a scintilla of proof, admitted his fault, and so far as the records go, the matter was disposed of.  There was nothing developed, however, to show where the tale started or what foundation, if any, it might have had.

Colonel Roosevelt had an explanation.  He gave it to us one afternoon in the trophy room in Oyster Bay, when passing the cigars around, he remarked that he would vouch for the quality.  "They must be good," he remarked, "for they're some of Leonard Wood's.  I never smoke myself, so I have to rely on the judgment of others."

"Did you ever smoke?" some one asked.

"There is where that story of my drinking started," he continued, not hearing the question or ignoring it.
"You see, when I would decline a cigar, saying I did not smoke, folks would often ask, in a joking way, 'What are your bad habits?' In the same spirit I would reply, ' Prize fighting and strong drink.'
"Now it so happens that the Lord in His infinite wisdom elected to create some persons with whom it is never safe to joke — solemn asses who lack a sense of humor.  I am very fond of that story of Sidney Smith's, who, playing with his children, stopped suddenly, saying, ' Children, we must now be serious — here comes a fool.' You know the kind he meant — those poor unfortunates who must take everything said to them literally.

"One of these to whom I made that remark said, 'Roosevelt, I hear, drinks hard.' The other fool replied, 'Yes, that's true.  He told me so himself.'

"And so the story went on its travels.

"That is all there ever was to the talk of my drinking.  From that start, it spread and spread until, in selfdefence, I was compelled to take action to stop it.  Some folks have said I went out of my way to find a little editor of small means and few sources of evidence who could not well defend himself.  The fact is, he was the one editor I could hold to account.  There were and are editors nearer New York I gladly would have sued under like circumstances, but they knew better than to print what they knew was untrue.  Had any of them done so, I would have hauled them up short, and with much more glee than I did the Michigan man, for the men I have in mind have real malice toward me, and he, I am satisfied, had none.

"We parted good friends.  I certainly had nothing against him.  In his zeal to do things, he put in print what shrewder and really malicious men who would harm me if they could, dare not print.  I believe he was honestly sorry when he found his error.

"However, the thing had its value.  We're never too old to learn and I learned to be careful with whom I cracked the simplest joke.  Thank God, there are many you can joke with in safety.  If we could n't laugh once in a while, what a world this would be! It would n't be a world — it would be a madhouse."