The second quality which I would mention as
typically characteristic of Roosevelt was his Cour-
274 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
age — not only his moral courage but his pugnacious
courage. Although he was not rash he apparently
had no sense of fear in physical danger. And his
courage was tested, for his life was placed at great
risk more than once. In his book describing his
explorations in South America he tells very simply
of the physical perils that he and his party went
through in the canoe voyage down "The River of
Doubt" — so simply, in fact, that the very great
seriousness of the peril almost fails to impress the
reader. In this adventure he became infected with
the terrible jungle fever of South America which
had much to do, I have always believed, with the ill-
ness that resulted in his untimely death. He nar-
rates in a quite matter-of-fact way that the infec-
tion resulted in an abscess on his leg in which the
surgeon had to place a drainage tube that would
have kept the average man on his back in a well-
equipped hospital. But he went on, struggling
and stumbling over the rocks and through the
matted underbrush of the jungle. I quote the
story in his own words from his volume "Through
the Brazilian Wilderness" :
The men were growing steadily weaker under the endless
strain of exhausting labour. Kermit was having an attack
of fever and Lyra and Cherrie had touches of dysentery, but
all three continued to work. While in the water trying to
PERSONAL QUALITIES 275
help with an upset canoe I had by my own clumsiness bruised
my leg against a boulder; and the resulting infection was
somewhat bothersome. I now had a sharp attack of fever,
but thanks to the excellent care of the doctor it was over in
about forty-eight hours; but Kermit's fever grew worse and
he too was unable to work for a day or two. We could walk
over the portages, however. . . .
Our men were discouraged, weak, and sick; most of them
already had begun to have fever. Their condition was in-
evitable after more than a month's uninterrupted work of
the hardest kind in getting through the long series of rapids
we had just passed; and a long further delay, accompanied
by wearing labour, would almost certainly have meant that
the weakest of our party would have begun to die. . . .
The previous evening Cherrie had killed two monkeys and
Kermit one, and we all had a few mouthfuls of fresh meat;
we already had a good soup made out of a turtle Kermit had
caught. When a number of men doing hard work are
most of the time on half rations, they grow to take a lively
interest in any reasonably full meal that does arrive. . . .
The wearing work under the unhealthy conditions was
beginning to tell on everyone. Half of the Camarads had
been down with fever and were much weaker; only a few of
them retained their original physical and moral strength.
Cherrie and Kermit had recovered; but both Kermit and
Lyra had bad sores on their legs from the bruises received
in the water work. I was in worse shape. The after ef-
fects of the fever still hung on and the leg which had been
hurt while working in the rapids had taken a turn for the
bad and had developed into an abscess. The good doctor,
to whose unwearied care and kindness I owe much, had cut
it open and inserted a drainage tube; an added charm being
given the operation and the subsequent dressings by the en-
thusiasm with which the piums and boroshudas, two species
of stinging flies, took part therein. I could hardly hobble
and was pretty well laid up. But "there aren't any 'Stop,
276 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
conductor!' while a battery's changing ground." No one
has any business to go on such a trip as ours unless he will
refuse to jeopardize the welfare of his associates by any delay
caused by a weakness or ailment of his. It is his duty to go
forward, if necessary on all fours, until he drops.
It is true that Roosevelt did not jeopardize the
welfare of his associates, that he got out safely,
and that he had five years more of active and useful
life, but he told me once on his return that at the
climax of this experience he seriously considered,
not from despondency but from a sense of moral
duty, whether he ought not to end his life then and
there in order to save his companions — who were
being delayed by his disability — from the danger of
death by starvation.
When an assassin shot him in Milwaukee during
the Progressive campaign, making a wound that
would have laid many a man low, he insisted upon
going to the hall and completing the speech that he
was engaged to make. He said: "It may be the
last message that I shall ever be able to utter."
Roosevelt had just entered an automobile at
the doorway of the Gilpatrick Hotel in Milwaukee
on his way to make a political address at the
Auditorium of that city about the middle of
October, 191 2. He was standing up in the car
when the assassin drew a revolver and fired point
PERSONAL QUALITIES 277
blank. The assassin was immediately overpowered.
Roosevelt's first thought was to save his assailant
from bodily injury, for when the man Schrank was
brought before him for identification the only re-
proach he uttered was : " Don't hurt the poor crea-
ture." Every effort was made to induce Mr.
Roosevelt to receive immediate medical attention,
but he refused. After his speech, which because
of the circumstances of its delivery is unique in
the history of oratory, he was taken to the hospital
first in Milwaukee and then in Chicago and X-ray
photographs showed that the bullet struck an
inch to the right and an inch below the right
nipple, fractured the fourth rib, happily did
not puncture the lung cavity but ranged upward
and inward four inches in the chest wall.
About a week later he was removed to his home
at Oyster Bay and I saw him there very soon after
his arrival. He was in bed, and there were still
signs of blood showing on the bandages which his
wound required. How, under the circumstances,
a mortal man could have kept on his feet and
spoken for an hour, it is almost impossible to con-
ceive. He began his speech in Milwaukee in this
way:
Friends, I shall have to ask you to be as quiet as possible.
I do not know whether you fully understand that I have been
2 7 8 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose [the
slang term describing a member of the Progressive party, a
term adopted as a badge of honour by the Progressives them-
selves]. But, fortunately I had my manuscript [holding up
the manuscript and showing the audience where the bullet
had gone through], so you see I was going to make a long
speech! And, friends, the hole in it is where the bullet went
through, and it probably saved the bullet from going into my
heart. The bullet is in me now so that I cannot make a very
long speech. But I will try my best. . . .
First of all, I want to say this about myself. I have alto-
gether too many important things to think of to pay any
heed or to feel any concern over my own death. ... I
want you to understand that I am ahead of the game any-
way. No man has had a happier life than I have had, a
happier life in every way. ... I am not speaking for
myself at all — I give you my word, I do not care a rap about
being shot, not a rap. I have had a good many experiences
in my time, and this is only one of them. What I do care
for is my country. I wish I were able to impress upon our
people the duty to feel strongly, but to speak truthfully of
their opponents. ... I say now that I have never said
on the stump one word against any opponent that I could not
substantiate . . . nothing that, looking back, I would
not say again.
After Mr. Roosevelt had concluded that portion
of his speech in which he referred to his injury, he
turned to the concrete issues of the campaign, and
spoke as if he had been delivering one of those ad-
dresses which were a matter of daily routine with
him. After he had been speaking for some time
he turned to the physician who, as a precautionary
Underwood & Underwood
Colonel Roosevelt in the Yosemite Valley
© Underwood & Underwood
A hunting trip in Colorado
PERSONAL QUALITIES 279
measure was sitting close by him, and said, " How
long have I been speaking?" "Three quarters of
an hour," replied the doctor, glancing at his watch.
"Well," said Mr. Roosevelt with a smile, "I will
talk for a quarter of an hour more." Actually he
spoke altogether for nearly an hour and a half.
After he recovered, a group of us were discussing
the event at one of our editorial luncheons. Some-
one reported that a newspaper despatch had stated
that Roosevelt's motive in insisting upon keeping
his engagement to speak was the desire to relieve
his friends, especially the Progressives all over the
country, from the anxiety of supposing that he
was dangerously injured. Roosevelt laughed:
"That would certainly have been very consid-
erate," was his comment, "but I must admit that
it never occurred to me. I suppose my real feeling
was an instinctive desire not to give up. Pioneers,
soldiers, boxers, and men of that type — and I have
had some of the experience of all three in my life —
are trained not to give way under attack, not
to let the other fellow for a minute think you are
down and out." In other words, in the phrase
of to-day, he wanted to "carry on."
The Milwaukee speech was a great and memor-
able physical feat. Nothing but the most perfect
self-control and the highest kind of physical cour-
280 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
age could have carried any man through it. But
Roosevelt's moral courage was as striking as his
physical courage.
Of this the Progressive campaign is perhaps a
sufficient example. He sacrificed friendships and
associations that were very dear to him. But the
loss of them did not deter him from pursuing a
course that seemed to him to be just and right.
He also sacrificed the personal prestige which every
man who has won it likes to preserve, and subjected
himself to an extraordinary amount of contumely
and abuse. The Philadelphia North American,
on October 10, 191 2, four days before Roosevelt
was shot, published the following list of epithets
applied to Roosevelt by a certain American news-
paper of the opposition in the issues of a single
month :
"Shrieks his hostility"; "ridiculous"; "contemptible";
"his antics"; "gnashing his teeth"; "eager to use fraud";
"unparalleled viciousness and dishonesty"; "a dangerous
demagogue"; "insensate ambition"; "charlatanism"; "plain
aberration"; "bad faith"; "unworthy methods"; "shocking
demagogism"; "baseless and dangerous appeals"; "no
scruples"; "revolutionary and subversive"; "horrible glib-
ness"; "indecent performance"; "Aaron Burr"; "shame-
less"; "crazy socialistic scheme"; "blatant insincerity";
"hypocritical and dangerous"; "howling mobocracy";
''shabby tactics"; "damning proof of hypocrisy"; "hollow
and untrustworthy"; "duplicity"; "shrewd political trick-
PERSONAL QUALITIES 281
ery"; "utter untrustworthiness"; "dangerous and self-
seeking autocrat"; "unblushing effrontery"; "squalid ban-
dying of words"; "no respect for truth."
One of the results of the Progressive campaign
was a libel suit which at the time greatly interested
the entire country as a cause celebre. In October,
19 1 2, a weekly newspaper of Michigan, called Iron
Ore, published a scurrilous article which, after
accusing Roosevelt of political and personal black-
guardism, said: "He gets drunk, too, and that not
infrequently, and all his intimates know about it."
Mr. Roosevelt instantly brought action for libel
against the editor and proprietor of this paper and
the case was tried in Marquette, Mich., during
the week of May 26-31, 1913.
It has sometimes been asked why Roosevelt
should have sued a small weekly publication in
Michigan. It was because the statement as to his
drunkenness, although a matter of rumour and
gossip, was published in this instance for the first
time by a responsible man of sufficient means to
make the libel suit really effective. A large party
of friends and supporters accompanied Mr. Roose-
velt to Marquette, glad to go as witnesses in his
behalf. This group of friends literally invaded the
little town of Marquette, which is beautifully situ-
ated on the shore of Lake Michigan, and were
282 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
received with cordiality and hospitality by Roose-
velt's many friends in the community. The com-
pany included a large number of distinguished
persons.
It is, I believe, a principle of trials for libel in
this country that the plaintiff may make certain
pleadings that will compel the defendant to open the
case and prove his statement if he can do so.
The plaintiff may then submit the case for judicial
decision without introducing any evidence if the de-
fendant fails to make good, thus avoiding what is
sometimes an awkward inquiry into his, the plain-
tiff's, private life. This was not Roosevelt's method.
He wished to go on record himself and have his
friends on record in telling franklyall the facts about
his alleged use of intoxicating beverages. He him-
self was the first witness and related with delightful
frankness what his custom was as to the use of wine
and stated that he not only did not use but dis-
liked whisky, brandy, and beer. His testimony
which showed his rather unusual abstention from
alcoholic beverages was confirmed by his Cabinet
associates, by his physician, and by his personal
friends. For example, Dr. Alexander Lambert,
his family physician, testified that he had known
Roosevelt for twenty-two years; had been in and
out of his household at all hours of the day and
PERSONAL QUALITIES 283
night; had been off with him on hunting trips;
attributed his remarkable recovery from the as-
sassin's bullet in Milwaukee "to his splendid, un-
poisoned physique"; and declared that he "was an
exceedingly temperate man, and an unusually
abstemious one." This was the view of a great
array of witnesses, whose accounts of Roosevelt
really amounted to a delightful kind of biography
of him.
When Roosevelt's lawyers rested their case the
defendant actually threw up his hands. He could
produce no testimony whatever, except hear-say
evidence. In exculpation of his act he said that
his article was written because of his, the defend-
ant's, opposition to Roosevelt's candidacy; that
his statement of Mr. Roosevelt's drinking to ex-
cess was based upon common gossip; and that he
now in open court withdrew the charge. As a
matter of fact, while this capitulation was expressed
in legal terms it was evident, not only to the spec-
tators but to the Court, that the defendant who
had made the libellous accusation had not a leg
to stand on.
Before the presiding Justice charged the jury
Mr. Roosevelt addressed the Court as follows:
Your Honor, in view of the statement of the defendant,
I ask the Court to instruct the jury that I desire only nomi-
284 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
nal damages. I did not go into this suit for money; I did
not go into it for any vindictive purpose. I went into it,
and as the Court has said, I made my reputation an issue
because I wish once for all during my lifetime thoroughly
and comprehensively to deal with these slanders so that
never again will it be possible for any man in good faith to
repeat them. I have achieved my purpose, and I am con-
tent.
Whereupon the presiding Justice, Judge Flanni-
gan, of the Circuit Court for the County of Mar-
quette, State of Michigan, charged the jury in
these words:
The injury to the reputation and feelings of the plaintiff
which naturally, proximately, and necessarily followed upon
the false publication, would warrant a verdict in the plain-
tiff's favour in a substantial amount, and would sustain a
verdict in any sum up to the amount claimed in the plain-
tiff's declaration, which is ten thousand dollars.
But, as the Court is advised by the plaintiff, the object
of the plaintiff in bringing and prosecuting this action being
the vindication of his good name and reputation, and not the
recovery of a money judgment; and he having in open
court freely waived his right to the assessment of his actual
damages, it only remains for the Court to direct a verdict
in his favour for nominal damages, which, under the law of
Michigan, is the sum of six cents.
You are, therefore, gentlemen, directed to render a verdict
in favour of the plaintiff for that amount.
It should be added as a matter of record that Mr.
Roosevelt's case was entrusted to the firm of
Messrs. Bowers and Sands of New York City who
PERSONAL QUALITIES 285
after the trial refused to accept any fee whatsoever
on the ground that they believed they were per-
forming a public service in defending an ex-Presi-
dent from slander.
It required moral courage on the part of Roose-
velt to subject his private life to the kind of inter-
rogatory and analytical searching that takes place
in a libel suit, and his request to the Court that
the defendant, whose original publication had been
unusually vindictive and scurrilous, should be re-
lieved of the final burden of his unjust act when
he virtually apologized for it, displays the warm-
hearted magnanimity of .Roosevelt toward a van-
quished enemy — one of his marked characteris-
tics.
No man that I have known liked personal ap-
proval more than Roosevelt. He had a kind of
childlike responsiveness to commendation and
praise. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve,
but I think he was really hurt when those to whom
he was attached were displeased with him. There
are people who thought he was thick-skinned. On
the contrary, he was highly sensitive; by this I
do not mean that he ever showed pique or irrita-
tion or resentment or hysterical sorrow which are
the things that come to mind when we speak of a
"sensitive girl"; I mean sensitive in the exact use'
286 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
of the word — quick to receive impressions. But
if this sensitiveness to mental or spiritual sensa-
tions pained him he rarely if ever gave any sign,
except by depending more and more upon the devo-
tion and affection of those who liked and trusted
him. He was, as he says in his Milwaukee speech,
a happy man. I never knew him to be "blue"
or despondent or to complain of disappointments
or an adverse fate. His courage was buoyant and
unshaken to the last.
The third of Roosevelt's qualities which I wish
to make note of — the quality that, to me, was the
most appealing and engaging in his personality and
that I most naturally and instinctively think of
when I recall him to mind — was his Sense of
Humour.
A sense of humour is not merely an agreeable and
pleasing social virtue of an ephemeral and super-
ficial kind; it is a fundamental virtue. A man who
possesses a sense of humour can be neither vain,
nor conceited, nor a prig, nor a pedant. For if
he falls into any of these errors, which are so apt to
entrap men of great reputation who receive much
public adulation, his sense of humour comes to the
rescue and punctures the bubble of self-glorifica-
tion.
One of the most beautiful and spiritual of all the
© Underwood &: Underwood
Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt with their children, Theodore,
Kermit, Ethel, Archie, and Quentin at Sagamore Hill
PERSONAL QUALITIES 287
saints in the calendar of the Church, St. Francis
of Assisi, so appreciated the virtue of a sense of
humour that he urged its cultivation, in one of the
precepts of the Rule of his Brotherhood. Sabatier,
in his delightful " Life of St. Francis, " quotes this
precept and remarks: "In the history of the early
Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter
which ring out high and clear/'
The precept, as Sabatier gives it, reads as follows :
Caveant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus
nubilosos et hypocritas; sed ostendant se gaudentes in Dom-
ine, hilares et convenientes gratiosos.
As this Latin was the colloquial language of the
mediaeval Church, I venture to translate it into
our own colloquial vernacular:
Let the brothers take care not to appear long-faced,
gloomy or over-pious; but let them be joyous about their
faith in God, laughing and good mixers.
Roosevelt certainly was joyous in his faith that
there is a power that makes for righteousness in
the universe and he was convenienter gratiosus, a
good mixer in the best sense of the phrase. The
characteristic falsetto intonation of his voice when
he felt the humour of what he was saying was inde-
scribably infectious in its cheerfulness.
288 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
This sense of humour crops out in much of
Roosevelt's writing. It is especially to be found
in certain chapters of his Autobiography and in
the "Rough Riders." Take this example from
the chapter entitled "The Vigour of Life" in the
Autobiography. It is permissible, now that both
men have gone on, to say that the " prize-fighting
friend" about whom Mr. Roosevelt relates the
incident was John L. Sullivan.
On one occasion one of my prize-fighting friends called on
me at the White House, on business. He explained that he
wished to see me alone, sat down opposite me, and put a very
expensive cigar on the desk, saying: "Have a cigar." I
thanked him and saLd I did not smoke, to which he responded:
"Put it in your pocket." This I accordingly did.
Having thus shown, at the outset, the necessary formal
courtesy, my visitor, an old and valued friend, proceeded to
explain that a nephew of his had enlisted in the Marine Corps,
had been absent without leave, and was threatened with dis-
honourable discharge on the ground of desertion. My visi-
tor, a good citizen and a patriotic American, was stung to the
quick at the thought of such an incident occurring in his fam-
ily, and he explained to me that it must not occur — that
there must not be the disgrace to the family — although he
would be delighted to have the offender "handled rough"
to teach him a needed lesson. He added that he wished I
would take him and handle him myself, for he knew that I
would see that he "got all that was coming to him."
Then a look of pathos came into his eyes, and he explained :
"That boy I just cannot understand. He was my sister's
favourite son, and I always took a special interest in him my-
self. I did my best to bring him up the way he ought to go.
PERSONAL QUALITIES 289
But there was just nothing to be done with him. His tastes
were naturally low. He took to music!"
What form this debasing taste for music assumed I did not
inquire; and I was able to grant my friend's wish.
Or this, from Roosevelt's autobiographic account
of his experiences as Police Commissioner at a time
when he was carrying on a crusade against illegal
liquor selling:
All kinds of incidents occurred in connection with this
crusade. One of them introduced me to a friend who re-
mains a friend yet. His name was Edward J. Bourke. He
was one of the men who entered the police force through our
examinations shortly after I took office. I had summoned
twenty or thirty of the successful applicants to let me look
them over; and as I walked into the hall, one of them, a well-
set-up man, called out sharply to the others: "Gangway!" —
making them move to one side. I found he had served in
the United States navy. The incident was sufficient to
make me keep him in mind.
A month later I was notified by a police reporter, a very
good fellow, that Bourke was in difficulties, and that he
thought I had better look into the matter myself, as Bourke
was being accused by certain very influential men of grave
misconduct in an arrest he had made the night before. Ac-
cordingly, I took the matter up personally. I found that on
the new patrolman's beat the preceding night — a new beat —
there was a big saloon run by a man of great influence in
political circles known as "King" Calahan. After midnight
the saloon was still running in full blast, and Bourke, step-
ping inside, told Calahan to close up. It was at the time filled
with "friends of personal liberty," as Governor Hill used at
29 o IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
that time, in moments of pathos, to term everybody who re-
garded as tyranny any restriction on the sale of liquor.
Calahan's saloon had never before in its history been closed,
and to have a green cop tell him to close it seemed to him so
incredible that he regarded it merely as a bad jest.
On his next round Bourke stepped in and repeated the