Part 16

It could not have been a pleasant thought to Mr. Thomas Platt (the acknowledged Republican boss of New York State, and a most interesting and unusual personality) when he realized that the tremendous popularity of the colonel of the Rough Riders would force him to accept the suggestion of some of the Republican leaders that this same colonel should be the Republican nominee for governor that autumn of 1898. The dash of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill was not more strenuous than Theodore Roosevelt’s sudden and unexpected storming of the Albany Capitol. What an autumn it was! Every imaginable obstacle was put in the way of his success. He was accused of not having paid his taxes; he was bitterly impugned by a certain number of his former friends and adherents--Independents--who did not believe that he should accept the “regular” nomination, and many and varied were the battles fought about and around his personality.

The whole campaign had to be arranged so suddenly and hurriedly that all kinds of amusing, although sometimes unpleasant, contretemps occurred. One remains clearly in my mind. There was to be held near Troy a country fair. Its date had apparently not been determined upon before my brother had agreed to speak at what promised to be a large colored meeting the evening of the same day on which the fair was to be held. My brother had not expected to have to go to the fair, but a sudden summons came, saying that it was very important that he should appear and make an out-of-door speech to a large concourse of up-state farmers. He was torn from Oyster Bay at an abnormally early hour and dashed up to Troy. Meanwhile, the newspapers of Albany and Troy had announced that he could not be present owing to his engagement for the evening in New York. The consequence was that the attendance at the fair at the time he was supposed to speak was almost nil, and he returned to New York much depressed at the apparent lack of interest. I came in from my country home to dine with him and go to the colored meeting. The colored people were especially enthusiastic about my brother’s candidacy, because the Tenth Regiment of regulars, a colored regiment, had stormed San Juan Hill side by side with the Rough Riders. The meeting scheduled had been widely heralded, and we started for the hall with the conviction that although the _day_ had been a failure the _night_ was going to justify our highest expectations. Arriving at the hall, one old man with a long gray beard, sitting in the front seat, was apparently the total of the great audience that had been promised. My brother and I waited in the little room near the platform, anxiously peering out every now and then, hoping that the hall would soon be filled to overflowing, but no one came, and after an hour and a half of disheartening disappointment, we shook hands warmly with the faithful elderly adherent--who had remained silently in his seat during this period of waiting--and left the hall. My brother, in spite of distinct distress of mind, turned laughingly to me as we walked rapidly away and said, quoting from Maria Edgeworth’s immortal pages: “Little Rosamund’s day of misfortunes!” The next day the morning newspapers announced that the evening newspapers had given the misinformation that the Republican candidate for governor would not be able to return from the Troy fair in time for the colored meeting, an announcement which had so discouraged the colored folk that only one old man had been true to his colors!

From that day on, through the strenuous campaign, my brother was known by the family entirely as “Little Rosamund.”

Another evening comes back to my mind. My husband and my brother had left me in my country home on the hill at Orange, and they were supposed to return at eleven o’clock that night. The last train arrived and my carriage returned from it empty. I was worried, for they were so thoughtful that I felt they would surely have telephoned to relieve my possible anxiety, and when at twelve o’clock the telephone-bell rang, I ran to the instrument expecting to hear a familiar voice, instead of which “I am a _World_ reporter” was what I heard, “and I would like to know where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson are.” “I cannot give you any information,” I replied discreetly, and more truthfully than usual, I confess. “It is very strange,” said the voice--a distant unknown voice at twelve o’clock at night, when you are the sole occupant of a remote country house, always has a somewhat eerie effect--“for we have traced them up to within the last hour and we cannot find them anywhere.” A slight wave of apprehension passed over me, but at the same time I was sufficiently confident of my two stalwart gentlemen not to have any serious fear concerning their whereabouts, and suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to be “funny”--a perfectly inexcusable inclination in a political campaign--I said to the reporter: “Wait one moment, please. Should you by any chance discover the whereabouts of Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Robinson, would you be kind enough to let _me_ know where they are?” I have always remembered the sound of the distant laugh of the man as I hurriedly put down the telephone-receiver, fully realizing my mistake in becoming jocose, and sure enough the next morning, in large headlines, appeared on the front page of the _World_: “Mrs. Douglas Robinson has no knowledge where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson have spent the night.”

Another incident that comes back into my memory was an evening in Chickering Hall, almost immediately before Election day, at which many well-known speakers were to make their plea for the election of Theodore Roosevelt, and at which, also, that most brilliant of speakers and charming of men, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, was to bring the evening to a climax. As Election day drew near, the great boss of Tammany Hall, Richard Croker, forsook his usual methods of strict silence, and began to be loquacious. Croker, when running a candidate, was always very careful indeed to keep the mystery of the Wigwam (Tammany) wrapped closely about him, but as the fight waxed hot and heavy, he lost his control and said many a foolish thing, and the Republican papers jubilantly announced that when Croker began to talk, it meant that he knew that his cause was lost.

At the meeting at Chickering Hall, when Mr. Choate rose to make the final speech of the evening, he said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is late; you have heard many speakers and I shall be brief. All that I wish to do is to recall to your minds a certain Bible story--you may not have the incident clear in your memory. I refer to the story of Balaam and his ass!” Here the learned speaker paused and his audience concentrated their attention upon him, somewhat puzzled as to what he was about to say. He continued: “You may remember that Balaam was riding upon the ass through a dark forest, and that suddenly the ass stopped, and even more suddenly, _the ass spoke_!” Mr. Choate paused again, and the audience suddenly rippled out their mirth and their realization that the “ass” who spoke had a distinct reference to the utterances of Croker. As the laughter grew louder, Mr. Choate suddenly lifted his hand in the most impressive manner, and continued in a serious tone full of dramatic power: “But, ladies and gentlemen, you have perhaps forgotten _why_ the ass spoke. The reason that he did so was because directly in his path, in shining garments, stood a young man with a flaming sword in his hand!” As one man the audience rose to its feet! Simultaneously, a great cheer rose to the lips of every one present, for the figure of speech had done its work, and each person in the house visualized the figure of Theodore Roosevelt, ardent and young, courageous and honest, truly “a young man with a flaming sword in his hand!”

Election day came and with it an overwhelming victory for the man who so lately had written to Douglas Robinson: “As for the political effect of my actions, I never can get on in politics.”

During his incumbency as governor of New York State he always made his headquarters either at the house of my sister, Mrs. Cowles, or at my house, and many were the famous breakfast-parties at 422 Madison Avenue in those strenuous days. He was criticised for breakfasting with Mr. Platt and Mr. Odell (Mr. Platt’s associate boss), but almost all of those much-discussed meals took place at my own house, and many a time Messrs. Platt and Odell had the unusual experience of finding that they were apparently expected to sit upon one chair, as my brother had invited so many more people to breakfast than could possibly be seated at my comparatively small table. After breakfast was over, Mr. Platt would say in a rather stern manner, “And now, Governor Roosevelt, I should like to have a private word with you,” and my brother would answer, “Why, certainly, Mr. Platt, we will go right up to my sister’s library--good-by, gentlemen,” turning to his other guests, and then to Mr. Platt again, “We shall be quite private except for my sister. I always like to have her present at all my conferences. She takes so much interest in what I am doing!” This with a humorous side-glance at me, knowing how irritating my presence was to the gentleman in question. I can bear witness to the fact that through those many conferences my brother’s courtesy to the brilliant older man never failed, nor did he ever lose his independent outlook or action. My brother’s effort to work with Mr. Platt rather than against him also never failed, and many a time I have heard him say: “Mr. Platt, I would rather accept your suggestion of an appointee than that of any one else _if_ you will suggest as good and honorable a man as any one else. I _want_ to work with you and I know that your great information about Republican affairs is of enormous value to me, but I must reserve my own power of decision in all matters, although I hope always to be in accord with you.”

The Rough Riders were always turning up on every occasion, or if they did not actually turn up in _propria persona_, strange letters on many and varied subjects came to my house from them. Amongst these letters one arrived when my brother was breakfasting with me one morning at my house. The mail that morning was unique in more ways than one, for another letter arrived with no name and no address on it. Instead of name and address there was a drawing of a large set of teeth, and on the reverse side of the envelope was written: “Please let Jack Smith, 211 W. 139th Street, know whether this letter reaches its destination. It is a bet and a lot of money hangs in the balance”! Those strong white teeth, which had been the terror of the recreant policemen, were quite as much a factor at the Capitol on the hill at Albany.

In the same mail, as I said, came a very characteristic epistle from a Rough Rider, which ran as follows:

“Dear Colonol: Please come right out to Dakota. They ain’t treatin me right out here. The truth is, Colonel, they have put me in jail and I ain’t ought to be here at all, cause what they say ain’t true, Colonel. They say that I shot a lady in the eye and it ain’t true, Colonel, for I was shootin at my wife at the time.--I know you will come and get me out of jail right off, Colonel,--please hurry. J. D.”

How my brother laughed as he turned the manuscript over to me, and said: “They are the most unconscionable children that ever were, but oh what fighting men they made!”

Another amusing incident occurred at the house of my sister, where we were all lunching one day, having one of our merry family reunions to meet the governor. My sister had just returned from Europe with a “perfect treasure” of an English butler, who had not yet become entirely accustomed to the vagaries of the Roosevelt family! We were in the midst of a specially merry argument when the door-bell rang and the butler left the dining-room to answer the bell. In a few moments he returned with a somewhat puzzled expression on his face, and leaning over my brother’s chair, he said in a stage whisper: “There is a ---- there is a ---- _gentleman_ in the hall, sir ---- he says, sir, that his name, sir, is ---- _Mr._ ‘Happy Jack’ of Arizona.” “Why,” said my brother, leaping to his feet, “I didn’t know that ‘Happy Jack’ was in New York,” and he hurriedly left the room to welcome his precious Rough Rider. In a few moments he came back literally doubled up with laughter, and burst out: “You know, there has been a great deal in the newspapers about the trouble that I have had with importunate office seekers, who have forced themselves, in a very disagreeable way, into the executive mansion at Albany. Dear old ‘Happy Jack’ read, way out in Arizona, about the annoyance I was having with these people, and he just packed his kit and came all the way from Arizona to offer to be ‘bouncer-out’ of the executive mansion! Wasn’t that fine of ‘Happy Jack’!”

Several years later, when my brother was President of the United States, I was in England and I spent a week-end with the St. Loe Stracheys in Surrey, where Lord and Lady Cromer were also passing Sunday. Lord Cromer having, as a young man, visited our Western plains and prairies, adored the stories of the Rough Riders, and especially the incident of “Happy Jack’s” desire to become “bouncer-out” of the executive mansion. He loved the story so much that he insisted upon my telling it to another English peer, in whom the sense of humor was less striking than in Lord Cromer. I shall never forget the dreary sensation of struggling to tell Earl S---- that particular story. We were at a rather dreary garden-party, and Lord Cromer had presented his friend for the special purpose of having me tell this Rough Rider story. Much against my will, I acceded to his request, and the story seemed to get longer and longer and duller and duller in the telling. Having mentioned the “perfect treasure” of a butler in the beginning of the tale, that seemed to be the rudder to which Earl S---- clung through the involutions of Rough Riderism, and as I stumbled on to the ever-lengthening end of that unfortunate anecdote, the English peer in question turned to me as I fell into silence and said, coldly and courteously: “Is that all?” “Yes,” I said hastily, “quite all.” “Oh!” said my companion, with a sigh of relief, and then feeling that he had not been quite sufficiently sympathetic, he added courteously: “And did the butler stay?” When I returned with this sequel to the story of “Happy Jack” of Arizona and recounted it to my brother, he laughed immoderately and said: “I know you must have suffered telling the story, but that postscript to the story is worth all the pain you suffered.”

One afternoon in May, I think in the year 1900, my brother telephoned me that he wanted to bring several men to dinner the following day, amongst others, Mr. Winston Churchill, of England, now so well known all over the world, but then still very young, though having had many experiences as a writer in connection with the Boer War. He was making a speaking tour in America. As usual, the little party grew, and when we assembled at dinner the following evening, dear old General Wheeler (Fighting Joe), Mr. St. Clair McKelway, of the Brooklyn _Eagle_, and one or two others, I remember being very much interested in Mr. Churchill’s method of probing Governor Roosevelt’s mind. The young Englishman, of mixed parentage, had on his American side a certain quality unusual in the average Englishman, and the rapid fire of his questioning was very characteristic of the land of his mother’s birth, while a certain “sureness” of point of view might be attributed to both countries. At one period during the dinner he referred to a certain incident that had occurred in Africa, and relegated it to the action which took place at Bloemfontein. My brother very courteously said: “I beg your pardon, but that particular incident took place, if I am not mistaken, at Magersfontein.” The young Englishman flushed and repeated with determination that it had occurred at Bloemfontein, and added the fact, which was already known to us, that he had been there. My brother again, his head a little on one side, and still most courteously, reiterated: “I think, Mr. Churchill, if you will stop and think for a moment, you will remember that I am right in this instance, and that that incident took place at Magersfontein.” Mr. Churchill paused a moment in the ever-ready flow of his talk and then suddenly, with a rather self-conscious frown, said: “You are right, governor, and I am mistaken. It did occur at Magersfontein.” This anecdote I give simply to show, what is known by all who were intimate with my brother, namely, the extraordinary accuracy with which he followed the affairs of the day, and the equally extraordinary memory which retained the detail of individual occurrences in a most unusual manner. In the soft spring air we sat later in the evening by the open window while General Wheeler, son of the South, veteran of the Civil War, and Theodore Roosevelt, son of the North, who had so lately led his famous regiment through the Cuban jungles in close proximity to General Wheeler, told story after story of the way in which, shoulder to shoulder, they had buried the old differences in the new co-operation.

In May, 1899, I received one of the comparatively few letters which came to me while my brother was governor, for we met so frequently that we rarely wrote. The following letter, coming as it did at the end of his first year of service as governor of New York State, is of special interest.

“Darling Corinne,” he says, “your letter touched me deeply. It was so good to catch a glimpse of you the other day. I have accomplished a certain amount for good this year. I want to see you and go over it all at length with you. In a way, there is a good deal that is disappointing about it because I had to act, especially towards the end, _against_ the wishes of the machine people who have really given me my entire support, and _with_ the reformers, labor and otherwise, who are truly against me whenever it comes down to anything really important to me. We have just returned from a really delightful driving trip to a quaint, clean, little inn at Crooked Lake, some eighteen miles off. We drove out there Saturday with every child except Quentin, and back again on Sunday. Everything went off without a hitch and Edith and I enjoyed it as much as the children.... My love to Douglas and to blessed little Corinne. Ever yours, T. R.”

Nothing was more discouraging to my brother during his long and varied career than the fact that the so-called reformers were frequently so visionary that they were rarely, if ever, to be counted upon where an effort to achieve a distinct practical purpose was concerned, but the disappointments which he perpetually endured from this attribute never induced him to yield to the machine politicians unless he felt that by so doing he could achieve the higher end for which he always worked.

A little later in May of that same year, 1899, he writes me in patient answer to various questions: “In reference to my attitude on the bills that have not passed, there are hundreds of people to whom, if I had time, I should explain my attitude, but I have not the time. I have the gravest kind of doubts, for instance, as to the advantages to the State of our High School system, as at present carried out.... I strongly believe that there has been a tendency amongst some of the best educators recently to divert from mechanical trades, people who ought, for their own sake, to keep in at the mechanical trades.” He was always so willing to answer my questions, even when pressed by many harassing affairs.

From Oyster Bay, on July 17, 1899, he writes as one freed temporarily from the cares of state, and speaking of my eldest boy, who was then sixteen, he says: “I am afraid it is dull here for Teddy. You see, we have no one here quite his age and he has passed the time when such a simple pleasure as a scramble down Cooper’s Bluff appears enthralling, although I take him down it nevertheless. He is a very fine fellow.... I have been giving him information about his hunting trip.” Again the painstaking effort to be helpful to me and mine, and, indeed, all those who needed his help or advice.

On December 18, having returned to Albany, he plans a hurried trip to New York, and writes characteristically: “On Thursday, December 21st, may I have dinner at seven o’clock? If you are going out, do remember, that seriously, I am quite as happy with bread and milk as with anything else. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt.” What could be more unusual than the governor of New York State being “quite as happy with bread and milk as with anything else”! And I really think he was rather happier with bread and milk than with anything else, much to the occasional discomfort of the fastidious companions who sometimes ran across his rather primitive path.

My last letter of that year, and, indeed, of the period during which he was governor, was late in December, 1899, and it ran as follows: “On Saturday I find Senator Platt wants me to breakfast with him at the Fifth Avenue.” That was one of the rare occasions when the unfortunate senator induced the governor to part from his sister, and the inevitable presence of that sister at the conferences which Senator Platt quite naturally preferred to have alone with the governor. The letter continues: “On Friday, at half past eight, General Greene, Mr. F. S. Witherbee, Mr. Fox and Mr. MacFarlane will give you the unexpected pleasure of breakfasting with you. Is this all right?” Needless to say, it was all right; only, if I remember correctly, a large number were added equally unexpectedly to the four above-mentioned gentlemen. Those breakfasts were the most delightful of meals. My brother’s friend Professor William M. Sloane in later days was frequently a member of the breakfast-parties at my house, and he used, laughingly, to remark that he wondered why we were all bidden so promptly at half past eight when the gentleman who so sternly called others from their comfortable beds on cold winter mornings at that matutinal hour seemed always able to sit over the breakfast-table until about eleven! That, however, was not the case in those early gubernatorial days, for the young governor was pressed with too many affairs to yield to his Southern inclination to “brood” over the breakfast-table.

In later days at the rare periods of comparative leisure, between 1910 and 1912, the “half-hours at the breakfast-table” were prolonged into several whole hours, and many a time my friend Mrs. Parsons and I have listened to the most enchanting discussions on the part of Colonel Roosevelt and Professor Sloane, dealing occasionally with Serb or Rumanian literature or the intricacies of Napoleonic history.