Part 27

“This has been a long day with hundreds of miles travelled by our special train through the valleys of Kentucky in a steady run. I wrote about 2000 words but do not imagine that all of it will get in the first edition which you will see in New England. Tonight, “T. R.” pulled one of his familiar stunts with his changing the whole introduction to his speech at one-half hour’s notice. He spoke for half an hour on the Adamson law and what he would have done to prevent the threatened railroad strikes. I had to shoot in 500 words additional just as we pulled out. It was written in long hand while the Colonel delivered the tail end of his talk. Louisville went wild over him. As we climbed down in the mud and rain, red fire burned, rockets glared in the mist, and the factory whistles screeched their welcome. As the New York correspondents travelling with the Colonel, we are members of his personal body-guard. You can imagine how seriously we take the job, when you remember that Mr. Roosevelt was shot and severely wounded when speaking at Milwaukee a few years ago; a man of such intense affections and such stirring convictions always has venomous enemies. For this reason, when we take the Colonel through a crowd as we did tonight, we completely surround him and use our elbows and fists if need be to protect him. If any harm should come to him, we would all be crushed. Tonight, however, he was only liable to be hurt by the overwhelming love of Louisville citizens.... Our relations with him could not be more cordial and democratic. This noon Colonel Roosevelt was terribly excited because Cronin and I did not get luncheon with him owing to the prevalence of Kentucky politicians who swarmed on the train like rats caught in a flood. He swore that he would eat nothing tonight until we had been fed. Tonight at 7 P. M. the porter came into my compartment and announced that Mr. Roosevelt was waiting dinner for Mr. Lewis and Mr. Cronin. He still apologized although we protested that the chef had filled our most prominent cavity successfully with sandwiches and coffee at 3 P. M. This gives you just one little glimpse of this remarkable man. I could write all night along this line. Mind you, he is taking all these precautions not for old friends but for two newspaper men whom he has never seen before and whose articles he has never read.

“Tonight as he left the hall, I jumped around to his right side, grabbed him by the arm and offered to act as a bumper against his admirers who fought like bears to shake his hand. He still remains the great idol of the American people. He smiled at me, drew his arm through mine and we swayed, pushed, and shoved our way out.

“The Colonel is a little older than he used to be. I think he will be fifty-eight the day we return to New York. At times, in the thick of the excitement, an expression of fatigue flashes across his features. There is a touch of sadness too, I believe, in his face, as he looks out over these crowds of people who have come for miles just to see him. He is not a candidate for President, thanks to the Chicago Convention,--but in spite of all these things which would discourage an ordinary man, he is travelling four thousand miles to win the election.... If the Colonel likes a person, he loves them with gigantic affection. His favorite character in literature is Great Heart from ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’

“We fought our way into the hall tonight after passing through miles of streets lined with black and white people, standing patiently in the rain just to see the Colonel go by. We had a difficult time getting him out by the rear entrance for the larger crowd which could not get inside insisted on a brief speech from a bandstand outside. Then, we hustled back through the rain to the railroad station, climbed on the train and now we are approaching the Indiana border en route to Arizona through Missouri and Kansas. We are to take our meals with the Colonel three times a day. He promises that this rule will be lived up to. He relies on us to read the daily newspapers, giving him material. He never reads the papers as near as I can make out. We look forward to these next days with great pleasure. We are to tour the plains and run almost to the rim of the Grand Canyon. The Colonel expects to present us to some of the old horse thieves and other respectable men with whom he associated in his cow-punching days!”

October 21, 1916, near Phœnix:

“The trip has been a wonderful experience for me in every way. Think of chatting with the Colonel three times a day at meals,--Mr. Roosevelt personally explaining the significance of every adobe, cactus, pinyon tree, or prairie dog! When we go by a piece of desert, scorching in the white heat of sun-baked alcali, T. R. recalls an experience thirty years ago, when he lost some cattle that had sunk in quicksand in a dry river channel. He has taken us into his absolute confidence. He tells us stories and gives us opinions which if put on the telegraph would convulse the country. We are all convinced that not only is he the greatest American citizen, but also the greatest American humorist. His sense of humor is as marvelous as his physical and mental energy. To show you how thoughtful the Colonel is, ... listen to this:--two of his friends climbed aboard at Prescott early this morning when I was shaving. That made two extra for breakfast, so Cronin and I insisted upon waiting for a second table. As we munched our toast and looked out at the giant cacti swiftly flowing by our window, who should come back to the table but T. R. ‘Are you boys getting enough to eat?’ he asked, sitting down. ‘I am so sorry that this inconvenience occurred. If my visitors had not been old friends who had not breakfasted, I should never have permitted it.’ How can a fellow help admiring a fellow like that, especially when he is an ex-President and one of the most famous characters in the world today?”

October 24, near Albuquerque:

“... It was nearly 100 sitting in the afternoon sun in front of the speaking stand today. My cloth touring hat was too hot for the occasion, but without it I imagine I would have keeled over from prostration or gradually melted away under the press-stand. When the Colonel got through, his face was dripping. He delivered a corking talk. There was no heckling because he had been tipped off to answer at the beginning, the question as to what he would have done in Mexico had he been President. After he got into his proper speech, and he read every word of it, there were no interruptions except cheers of approval. My confidential opinion is, however, that he realizes that while these western crowds are for him personally, and cheer whenever he shows his familiar face, they do not understand,--they are not in down-right serious accord with, the doctrine he preaches. The Republicans are up against a hopeless situation.... The Roosevelt plan for compulsory military service, and preparedness are not practical _this year_ because they have not wide-spread public support. The crowds come to hear _Roosevelt_.... The crowds in this country are too busy making money and planning how to make that money make some more, to realize the deep-rooted appeal of Theodore Roosevelt to their Americanism. Perhaps, through this hasty review of my impressions in Arizona, you dear folks at home can enter into this opportunity with me. I will have an interesting yarn to spin when I return to vote.”

October 25, leaving Denver for Chicago:

“We are swinging down from the lofty Denver plateau surrounded with white-topped mountain peaks, through the sugar-beet and cattle farms to Nebraska. We shall wake up in Chicago tomorrow morning on the last leg of our tour. Colonel Roosevelt makes two or three speeches in Chicago and then pulls out for New York. Everything was rush-rush-rush in Denver.... We came by Colorado Springs and Pike’s Peak at night but were all up, dressed and shaved when the enthusiastic Denverites descended on the Colonel with bands, bombs, bandannas, and general noise. Here was an old-fashioned, wild demonstration for the ex-President. He had not been in Denver for nearly six years. At one big meeting of 8000 women he showed them the fallacy of Mr. Wilson’s argument, ‘I have kept you out of war.’ He told them why he was for suffrage. He had them with him from the start. All of this stuff was extemporaneous and I had to write 1000 words on it. The night meeting was a near-riot. We had a stiff fight to get the Colonel out of the auditorium which is one of the largest halls in the country. They have an excellent arrangement for getting the speakers in--wide doors open like a circus and the automobile with the Colonel and ourselves was driven close to the speaker’s platform. Such a bedlam of noise I never heard. On the platform were the women speakers from the women’s special train. When they tried to speak, however, the crowd hooted them down with cries of ‘We want Teddy--Give us Teddy and Sit down,’ etc. Then as soon as he began to speak, the Wilson hecklers started shouting, ‘Hurrah for Wilson’--it was all very exciting.... ‘Let me shake hands with the greatest President since Lincoln,’ one old chap bawled, while I kept my fist under his chin as we formed a ring around the Colonel, and half-shoved and half-carried him to his automobile. The Colonel reached his hand around back of his neck and grasped the old man’s finger-tips, whereupon he subsided and fell back to tell his children that this had been the greatest moment in his life.

“There is no antagonism to the Colonel out here. Even the Wilson supporters love Roosevelt. We have to protect him against his friends, however.... There is a chap on the train now, an old friend of the Colonel who has been collecting pictures along the Mexican border. Some of the atrocities, particularly the burning of bodies and the execution of soldiers are the most gruesome sights I have ever seen. The Colonel mentions them when he ridicules the cry that ‘Wilson has kept peace in Mexico.’ He told me today that some day next week he will entertain the four of us fellows at Oyster Bay at luncheon in his home. He wants to show us the trophies room, filled with relics from his African explorations and his early western life. That will be a compliment to us as newspaper men on this trip.”

Friday, October 27, Pullman private car leaving Buffalo.

“We have just turned our watches ahead an hour, making it 10:15, and signifying that we are back in the home zone of eastern time. The trip is almost over. The rush and hustle of the trip, and the speed with which we have had to write and file our stories, make it seem a moving picture hodge-podge, now that it is over. Take yesterday, for instance,--we pulled into Chicago at 2 P. M. and were greeted by one of the wildest street demonstrations I have ever seen. The Colonel never sat down in his seat from the time he left the station until we arrived at the Congress Hotel. He was up waving his wide-brimmed black hat and bowing to the cheering mob. Every minute there was a flash, ‘some miscreant photographer,’ as T. R. calls them, had taken a bang at the Colonel. We had less than an hour to check our baggage in our rooms, wash up, arrange with the Western Union for filing stories, and get ready to accompany the Colonel to the Auditorium Theatre across the street.

“Thanks to the excellent police arrangements, we were able to walk unmolested through a human line of admirers who had been pushed into place by the mounted police. At 8 P. M. we called to interview the Colonel just before he left for the stock-yards. After the Women’s meeting Cronin and I had to run for the Western Union to get a start on our story. We taxicabbed back to the Congress Hotel, omitted dinner, and joined the Roosevelt auto procession to the stock-yards pavilion which is six miles out of Chicago. How those cars did shoot through the wide Chicago streets, preceded by a motor squad police patrol with the mufflers on the machines wide open. It seemed more like going to a fire than riding to a political meeting.

“In the mêlée of getting the Colonel into the hall, I got separated from the party and found myself confronted with six wooden-headed Chicago cops who refused to recognize the official ticket of admission, distributed to members of the Roosevelt party. I got by one of them by telling him that I had been all the way to Arizona with the Colonel. ‘Well, I’ll be damned’ he ejaculated. ‘If you’ve been in Arizona, there is no reason in h---- why you can’t get in here.’ After I got inside, however, there were more difficulties. The cops and ushers refused to let me up on the platform with the Colonel and the other correspondents. While I was fighting, pushing, and kicking around in the crowd, I heard someone shout down from above, ‘We want Mr. Lewis up here right away. Make way for Mr. Lewis.’ I looked up and saw that James R. Garfield, son of President Garfield, himself former Secretary of the Interior, had come to my rescue. Mr. Garfield had been travelling with us for two days, and with his assistance the rest was easy. I was almost carried reverently to the platform and placed on a perfectly good chair where I could see everything.

“By the way,--Mr. Garfield, next to the Colonel, is the most likeable, lovable man I met on this trip. He has a face that you like to watch silently, and contemplate, because you know how fine and corking he must be. I never heard such a long demonstration as the one which greeted the Colonel as he stepped out before 18,000 men and women, each of whom seemed to have a small flag. It began at three minutes before eight and it stopped at thirty-two minutes past eight. In that long interim you could hear nothing but one continuous roar of cheering shouts and stamping feet. There was nothing articulate, no special cries distinguishable from others, just one blast as though some Titan engineer had tied down the heavy chain which released the whistle of 100,000 voice power. All efforts to stop it were futile. There was nothing to do but to let it run down. The band played ‘Gary Owen’ and the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and other selections,--T. R. beating time with a large replica of a ‘Big Stick’ which had been handed to him. Meanwhile, in this bedlam, Cronin and I were writing new ‘leads’ to our story on pads in our laps. A Western Union man was sneaking up to the platform every ten minutes to get copy which was placed on wires on the pavilion. By writing this way, we got the story into New York before eleven o’clock, that is, when the meeting was over, by ten o’clock in Chicago; then there was the rapid shooting ride back to the hotel, a little grub and bath, and to bed. I _was_ tired.

“We left Chicago at 6.25 A. M., the Colonel’s car being hitched behind a regular train on the New York Central. The Colonel is fifty-eight years old today, as you will know, doubtless, before this letter reaches New Britain. I discovered the fact in reading his autobiography. He has been so fine to all of us; he has gone out of his way to make sure that we were treated like members of his own family; he has entertained us, as correspondents never were entertained; because what can excel the most interesting American, if not the greatest, telling anecdotes by the dozen of one of the most interesting, democratic, dynamic, forcible careers in American History? A thought that we ought to give him something to remember us by sprang simultaneously into the minds of Yoder and myself.... Our suggestions included a fountain-pen, pocket knife, or silver pencil--something that he could use. We elected Yoder to scout through the Colonel’s pocket. He went out on the observation platform and casually asked the Colonel if he could borrow his knife. ‘Yes--Yoder,’ T. R. said, digging into his pocket, ‘but I am ashamed of it. The blades are rusty, the handle is cracked. By George, I must get a new one.’ We decided after hearing Yoder’s report, that a knife was the thing. A handsome, little, flat, gold knife was picked out and the presentation came at luncheon today. Odell, in his solemn way, said that I had found out that he was born on October 27th. ‘Now, Colonel, you have been telling us of many desperate characters you met in the Southwest.... We decided, therefore, that you should have a weapon. We have taken counsel and have determined to give you a little reminder of our pleasure on this trip....’ The Colonel took the little box, pulled forth the knife, and smiling a more than Roosevelt smile, ‘By George, isn’t that fine!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have never had a good pocket knife in all my life, and I was going to buy one tomorrow. I shall always cherish this gift,--I shall always carry it with me,’ whereupon he attached it to the chain with his Phi Beta Kappa key and his little pencil;--‘and I want to say that I have enjoyed immensely having you with me, and the trip has been a pleasure to me mainly because you young men have been such good company. I am too old at the political game to enjoy making speeches. I do not like it, but we have had a bully good time on this tour, and we have met a lot of my old friends,--and now, gentlemen, remember this, if Mr. Hughes is elected on November 7th, I shall never be seen in politics again. I am through.’ I felt rather sorry to hear the Colonel say this. He is so energetic and courageous, so full of the fighting spirit that we need to tone up the national affairs, that it seems a pity to contemplate his retirement before he attains 60. Of course, he will write his views for the benefit of the reading public, but if he follows his inclination, he will become a quiet figure in the background, leaving younger men to carry through the ideas he created. We do not believe that the American people, however, will ever permit him to retire. Just as sure as Wilson is re-elected, there will be a demand for Theodore Roosevelt in 1920. He knows it and he is trying to start the talk now through us to show that it is the last thing on earth he cares to do. He would, I think, have liked to run _this year_; he would have liked to grapple with the problems which will arise after the war is over, but he took his licking at the hands of the old-line Republicans, and he really wants to see their candidate elected.”

On my brother’s return from this trip, so graphically described by the young and able correspondent whose prophecy that America would not let Theodore Roosevelt retire into obscurity was so soon to come true, he continued, up to the evening of the election, to hammer his opinions in strong, virile sentences into the minds of the audiences before whom he spoke. I was present in the Brooklyn Theatre, where the crowd was so great that one of the newspapers reported the next day:

“Say what you will,--there is no other one man in this country that can draw as large a crowd as Theodore Roosevelt. He is always an interesting talker as well as an interesting personality. He is not running for _any_ office this Fall, though to hear some of the other speakers and to read some of the other newspapers, one might be pardoned for thinking that he was running for _all_ of them.”

It was at that great meeting in Brooklyn that he referred to a speech made a few days before by President Wilson in Cincinnati. In the Cincinnati speech Mr. Wilson had made the remark “that it would never be right for America to remain out of _another_ war.”

Colonel Roosevelt, after ringing the changes on the fact that what would be necessary in the future was in this case just as necessary in the present, ended with a stirring exhortation and the emphatic words: “Do it now, Mr. President.”

In spite of Colonel Roosevelt’s strong plea that we should take our stand shoulder to shoulder on the side of the Allies in the great cause for which they were fighting, it must not be thought for one moment that Theodore Roosevelt put internationalism above nationalism. All through the exciting campaign of 1916, he laid the greatest emphasis upon true Americanism. At Lewiston, Maine, in August, 1916, he said: “I demand as a matter of right that every citizen voting this year shall consider the question at issue, from the standpoint of America and not from the standpoint of any other nation.... The policy of the United States must be shaped to a view of two conditions only. First--with a view of the honor and interest of the United States, and second--with a view to the interest of the world as a whole. It is, therefore, our high and solemn duty, both to prepare our own strength so as to guarantee our own safety, and also to treat every foreign nation in every given crisis as its conduct in that crisis demands.... Americanism is a matter of the spirit, of the soul, of the mind; not of birthplace or creed. We care nothing as to where any man was born or as to the land from which his forefathers came, so long as he is whole-heartedly and in good faith an American and nothing else.... The policies of Americanism and preparedness taken together mean applied patriotism. Our first duty as citizens of the nation is owed to the United States, but if we are true to our principles, we must also think of serving the interests of mankind at large. In addition to serving our own country, we must shape the policy of our country so as to secure the cause of international right, righteousness, fair play and humanity. Our first duty is to protect our own rights; our second, to stand up for the rights of others.”

The above quotation seems to me to answer indisputably the mistaken affirmation that “America First” could ever be a selfish slogan.

On October 24, 1916, a letter had been sent, directed to “The Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, en route, Denver, Colorado.” This missive was received on the special train from which young Edwin Lewis had just written to his family the stirring letters which I have quoted above. It is an interesting fact that the letter which I am about to give was signed by men the majority of whom had not followed Theodore Roosevelt on his great crusade for a more progressive spirit in American politics. Some of them had agreed with him in 1912, but the majority had felt it their duty to remain inside of the political party to which they had given their earlier faith. Now, in the moment of the great crisis of our nation, these very men turned for leadership to the man whom they realized was in truth the “noblest Roman of them all.” The communication ran as follows:

“It is our conviction that no other Presidential campaign in the history of the nation ever presented graver issues or more far-reaching problems than does this. Not only is the domestic welfare of the nation profoundly to be affected by the result, but the honor and the very safety of the Republic are at stake.... In this momentous hour, the vital need is for such a presentation of the issues as will arrest the widest attention and carry the clearest message to the public mind, and this task we commend to your hands. No living American has a greater audience. You have done memorable service to your country in awakening it to a sense of its perils and obligations and you have revealed an unselfish patriotism that makes your voice singularly potent in councils and inspiration. Will you not lend it to the cause once more by addressing the people of the nation from a vantage ground of a great mass meeting in the metropolis? Under these circumstances, a message from Theodore Roosevelt on America’s crisis would ring from coast to coast.... The undersigned suggest Cooper Union as the place....”