The Project Gutenberg eBook, My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

Note:

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See [ https://archive.org/details/mybrothertheodor1921robi]

MY BROTHER
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

From a photograph, copyright by C. Le Gendre.

Theodore Roosevelt with his little granddaughter,
Edith Roosevelt Derby, 1918.

BY
CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1921

THE SCRIBNER PRESS

WITH TENDER AFFECTION I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO MY SISTER
ANNA ROOSEVELT COWLES
WHOSE UNSELFISH DEVOTION TO HER BROTHER
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
NEVER WAVERED THROUGH HIS WHOLE LIFE, AND FOR WHOM
HE HAD FROM CHILDHOOD
A DEEP AND UNSWERVING LOVE AND ADMIRATION

PREFACE

This Preface I write to my fellow countrymen as I give into their hands these intimate reminiscences of my brother, Theodore Roosevelt.

A year and a half ago I was invited by the City History Club of New York to make an address about my brother on Washington’s Birthday. Upon being asked what I would call my speech, I replied that as George Washington was the “Father of his country,” as Abraham Lincoln was the “Saviour of his country,” so Theodore Roosevelt was the “Brother of his country,” and that, therefore, the subject of my speech would be “The Brother of His Country.”

In the same way, I feel that in giving to the public these almost confidential personal recollections, I do so because of the attitude of that very public toward Theodore Roosevelt. There is no sacrilege in sharing such memories with the people who have loved him, and whom he loved so well.

This book is not a biography, it is not a political history of the times, although I have been most careful in the effort to record facts accurately, and carefully to search my memory before relating conversations or experiences; it is, I hope, a clear picture, drawn at close hand by one who, because of her relationship to him and her intercourse with him, knew his loyalty and tenderness of heart in a rare and satisfying way, and had unusual opportunity of comprehending the point of view, and therefore perhaps of clarifying the point of view, of one of the great Americans of the day.

As I have reread his letters to me, as I have dwelt upon our long and devoted friendship—for we were even more friends than brother and sister—his character stands out to me more strongly than ever before as that of “The Great Sharer.” He shared all that he had—his worldly goods, his strong mentality, his wide sympathy, his joyous fun, and his tender comprehension—with all those with whom he came in contact, and especially with those closest and dearest to him—the members of his own family and his sisters.

In the spirit of confidence that my frankness will not be misunderstood, I place a sister’s interpretation of a world-wide personality in the hands of my fellow Americans.

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.

September, 1921.

		PAGE
I.	The Nursery and Its Deities	[1]
II.	Green Fields and Foreign Faring	[34]
III.	The Dresden Literary American Club	[69]
IV.	College Chums and New-Found Leadership	[94]
V.	The Young Reformer	[116]
VI.	The Elkhorn Ranch and Near-Roughing It in Yellowstone Park	[135]
VII.	Two Recreant New York Policemen	[155]
VIII.	Cowboy and Clubman	[164]
IX.	The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol at Albany	[181]
X.	How the Path Led to the White House	[194]
XI.	Home Life in the White House	[206]
XII.	Home Life in the White House (Continued)	[236]
XIII.	Wall Street Hopes Every Lion Will Do Its Duty	[254]
XIV.	The Great Denial	[264]
XV.	Whisperings of War	[276]
XVI.	“Do It Now”	[303]
XVII.	War	[323]
XVIII.	“The Quiet Quitting”	[359]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Theodore Roosevelt with his little granddaughter, Edith Roosevelt Derby, 1918	[Frontispiece]
	FACING PAGE
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., aged thirty, 1862		[8]
Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, twenty-two years old, about 1856		[8]
Theodore Roosevelt, about eighteen months old, 1860		[18]
Theodore Roosevelt, about four years old, 1862		[18]
Elliott Roosevelt, aged five and a half years, about 1865		[32]
Corinne Roosevelt, about four years old, 1865		[32]
Theodore Roosevelt, aged seven, 1865		[32]
Corinne Roosevelt, 1869, at seven and a half years		[46]
Theodore Roosevelt at ten years of age		[46]
Anna Roosevelt at the age of fifteen when she spoke of herself as one of the “three older ones”		[46]
The Dresden Literary American Club—Motto, “W. A. N. A.” (“We Are No Asses”)		[72]
Theodore Roosevelt, Oyster Bay, September 21, 1875		[92]
Theodore Roosevelt, December, 1876, aged eighteen		[92]
Portrait taken in Chicago, July, 1880, on the way to the hunting trip of that season		[114]
We had that lovely dinner on the portico at the back of the White House looking toward the Washington Monument		[230]
A review of New York’s drafted men before going into training in September, 1917		[332]