JULIAN STREET

THE SPIRIT OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT *

(From The Most Interesting American)

We, whom Theodore Roosevelt used proudly and affectionately to call his "fellow Americans," have always listened with great relish to characteristic stories of him. His qualities, physical and spiritual, were so utterly his own, his individuality so intense and overmastering, that he seemed somehow to be projected among us, to be intimately known even to those of us who had never touched his hand or even seen him. It was this curious feeling as of personal acquaintance with him that caused us so to delight in the flavor of a typical Roosevelt story.

"Isn't that just like him!" we would say, as we might of a story hitting off familiar traits of our own father.

But whereas, on the night of January 5, 1919, a Roosevelt story might by many of us have been regarded merely as something entertaining, the next morning witnessed a great change. The wand of Death touching him as he slept, releasing him to further high adventure, to great, final explorations, transformed not him alone, but the environment and the legend of him. To every possession of his, from the wife and children he loved to such small objects as that inkstand, made from an elephant's foot, which stood upon his desk at Sagamore Hill, or the very pens and pencils there, thenceforth attached a quite new sacredness. And so, for us, his fellow Americans,

* Copyright, Collier's, February 1, 1919; also Century Co., 1920. Reprinted by permission of the author and of the publishers.

new sacredness attaches now to the rich legacy of wisdom he has left us, to every thought of his that we can learn, to every belief he held, and consequently to every authentic story that can in any way contribute to our knowledge of him.

In the vast amount of matter that has been printed of the Colonel I do not recall having seen any reference to a certain theory that he had (and, having it, of course he put it into practice) in connection with the bringing up of children. It was a characteristic theory, and now it, like all else, takes on a new significance.

As long since as when he was Governor of New York it was his practice to go every Saturday afternoon for a tramp in the country with Mrs. Roosevelt and the children. And it was understood between them that in the course of all such tramps he would lead them to some physical obstacle which must be overcome. Sometimes it would be merely the obstacle of long distance over a difficult terrain, calling for sustained effort in face of great fatigue; sometimes it would be a wide brook to be crossed at a difficult place; sometimes a deep ravine full of tangled underbrush to be traversed; and on one memorable occasion, less than a fortnight before the Colonel was nominated for Vice-President-that nomination designed by political enemies within his own party to terminate his political career-there was a steep cliff of crumbling slate to be ascended and descended.

The idea that Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt attempted to fasten in the children's minds was that life frequently presents obstacles comparable with those encountered on these walks, and that it is the part of good manhood and good womanhood squarely to meet and surmount them, going through or over, but never around. Thus early the Roosevelt children, whose later record has been so worthy of their father and their mother, had begun to learn pri

mary lessons in resourcefulness, perseverance, courage, stoicism, and disregard for danger-for sometimes, as in the Adventure of the Slate Cliff, there was danger.

The bank, soft and almost perpendicular, at first appeared insurmountable, but after an hour and a half all but one of that day's walking party had managed to climb up and down again. The exception was Alice Roosevelt, then a girl of sixteen, who, having reached the top, found herself unable to descend.

On this day Elon Hooker, an old friend of the Roosevelts, was with them. Walking along the base of the cliff, this young man found a stout tree growing up beside it. Climbing the tree, he leaned out and, seizing with one hand a hummock of slate at the crest of the little precipice, offered his arm as a bridge over which Alice could step into the tree, whence it would be no very difficult matter to climb down to earth.

The hummock was less secure than it appeared. As she stepped upon his arm the slate to which he was holding broke away and his arm fell beneath her. She had, however, managed to grasp with one hand a branch, and to this she clung until he succeeded in catching her and drawing her safely into the tree.

On reaching the ground they discovered that the fallen mass of slate had struck the Colonel fairly on the head, laying open his scalp from the forehead to a corresponding point at the back of the skull. Though the wound bled freely, they were immediately reassured by his smile. Finding a brook, they washed the gash as best they could; later a surgeon took a dozen stitches in the Colonel's scalp; and when, some ten days after, he attended the Republican National Convention he was none the worse for the accident. Few persons, indeed, knew of it at all, for it was characteristic of him to avoid any mention of his injuries or ailments, and if forced to men

tion them he would invariably pass them off as being of no consequence.

Thus, for example, when it became known a twelvemonth or so ago that he had been for many years stone blind in the left eye,. as the result of a blow received in boxing, the news came as a surprise to numerous friends who knew him well. Yet he had been blind in that eye when he shot lions in Africa. He was not in the least sensitive about his blindness, nor do I think he tried particularly to conceal it. It was simply that he had an aversion, resembling that of the aboriginal American, for the discussion of bodily ills; a contempt for the inconvenience or suffering resulting from them. And still, when others suffered physically or spiritually, he was the most solicitous, the gentlest, the tenderest of men.

It was like him, too, that throughout the afternoon on which he went to the hospital for a grave operation, a year before his death, he continued to dictate letters to his secretary, and that while dictating he had a hemorrhage and fainted three times, only to revive and resume his dictation. And until the doctor forbade it, he even contemplated going that night to a dinner at which he had agreed to speak.

On his hunting trips, when travelling, and more lately when confined to his bed in the hospital, he utilized every moment of his time for work, study, and reflection; he would concentrate upon a book or a conversation while enduring pain to a degree that would have rendered it impossible for most men to think consecutively, let alone converse upon important topics with a succession of visitors.

He was afraid neither to live nor to die. And in the purely orthodox sense he had no cause to fear death, for his soul was as clean as that of a little child. The ultimate biographer of Roosevelt will not have so much as

one single item to gloss over or conceal. And I am not sure that that is not the finest thing that may be said of any man.

Until a year ago I never heard him speak of death, but since then I have known him to speak of it more than once. I am wondering now if it merely happened so, or whether, as he lay there in the hospital a year ago, and again in the last months of the year just past, he may not have had a premonition that the end was perhaps nearer than those about him supposed. Certainly he knew a year ago, at the time of the operation for an abscess in the middle ear, which rapidly extended to the inner ear, that he was at death's door. Dr. Arthur B. Duel, his surgeon, told him so, and the Colonel promptly expressed a brave resignation.

I saw him in the hospital a few days after the operation. He was reading a book. After we had spoken a few words he said:

"Lying here, I have often thought how glad I would be to go now if by doing so I could only bring the boys back safe to Mrs. Roosevelt."

One day at luncheon last April, when we all thought him as vigorous as ever, he spoke again of his boys, and there was in what he said as much apprehension for them as he ever allowed himself to show-or perhaps I should say as much apprehension of the blow that the loss of any one of them would be to the remainder of the family.

"Mrs. Roosevelt has been perfectly wonderful," he said, "about their going to fight. We both realize that we have a very full, interesting, satisfying life to look back upon. Whatever may come now, we have had more than thirty years of happiness together, with all our children spared to us."

And again, less than a month ago, as I write, when I called at the hospital, Mrs. Roosevelt-who always stayed