My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt

by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

Perhaps this sentence foreshadows more than any other contemporary expression the enormous instrument for honesty in high places in the history of his country which it was Theodore Roosevelt’s destiny to be.

Mingled with these great cares and far-reaching issues came, later, brighter moments, and it was about that time that during an interval of play at Oyster Bay, he started the custom of his famous “obstacle walks.” He would gather all the little cousins and his own children and mine, if I could bring them down for a week-end, on Sunday afternoon at Sagamore Hill (even an occasional “grown person” was considered sufficiently adventurous to be included in the party), and would start on one of the strenuous scrambles which he called an “obstacle walk.” It was more like a game than a walk, for it had rules and regulations of its own, the principal one being that each participant should follow the presidential leader “over or through” any obstacle but never “around.” There were sometimes as many as twenty little children as we stood on the top of Cooper’s Bluff, a high sand-bank overlooking the Sound, ready for the word “go,” and all of them children were agog with excitement at the probable obstacles in their path. As we stood on the brink of the big sand-bank, my brother would turn with an amused twinkle in his eye and say: “There is a little path down the side, but I always jump off the top.” This, needless to say, was in the form of a challenge, which he always accompanied by a laugh and a leap into the air, landing on whatever portion of his body happened to be the one that struck the lower part of the sand-bank first. Then there would be a shout from the children, and every one would imitate his method of progress, I myself, generally the only other grown person, bringing up the rear rather reluctantly but determined not to have to follow the other important rule of the game, which was that if you could not succeed in going “over or through” that you should put your metaphorical tail between your physical legs and return home. You were not jeered at, no disagreeable remark was directed at you, but your sense of failure was humiliation enough.

Having reached the foot of the bank in this promiscuous fashion, we would all sit on stones and take off our shoes and stockings to shake the quantities of sand therefrom, and then start on the real business of the day. With a sense of great excitement we watched our leader and the devious course he pursued while finding the most trying obstacles to test our courage. I remember one day seeing in our path an especially unpleasant-looking little bathing-house with a very steep roof like a Swiss chalet. I looked at it with sudden dismay, for I realized that only the very young and slender could chin up its slippery sides, and I hoped that the leader of the party would deflect his course. Needless to say, he did not, and I can still see the somewhat sturdy body of the then President of the United States hurling itself at the obstruction and with singular agility chinning himself to the top and sliding down on the other side. The children stormed it with whoops of delight, but I thought I had come to my Waterloo. Just as I had decided that the moment had come for that ignominious retreat of which I have already spoken, I happened to notice a large rusty nail on one side of the unfinished shanty, and I thought to myself: “If I can get a footing on that nail, then perhaps I can get my hands to the top of that sloping roof, and if I can get my hands there, perhaps by Herculean efforts I too can chin myself over the other side.” Nothing succeeds like success, for having performed this almost impossible feat and having violently returned into the midst of my anxious group of fellow pedestrians, very much as the little boy does on his sled on the steepest snow-clad hill, I was greeted with an ovation such as I have never received in later life for the most difficult achievement, literary or philanthropic! From that moment I was regarded as one really fit to take part in the beloved “obstacle walks,” which were, I cannot help but think, strong factors in planting in the hearts and characters of the children who thus followed their leader, the indomitable pluck and determination which helped the gallant sons and nephews of Theodore Roosevelt to go undauntedly “over the top” on Flanders Field.

“Over or through, never around”—a good motto, indeed, for Young America, and one which was always exemplified by that American of Americans, my brother, Theodore Roosevelt.

At the end of October that year, his affectionate concern for me (for I was delicate at the time) takes form in a lovely letter in which, after giving me the best of advice, and acknowledging humorously that no one ever really took advice offered, he says: “Heaven bless you always whether you take my advice or not.” He never failed to show loving and tender interest in the smallest of my pleasures or anxieties, nor did he and Mrs. Roosevelt ever fail to invite, at my instigation, elderly family friends to lunch at the White House, or gladly to send me autographs for many little boys, or checks to “Dolly,” the nurse of his childhood, whose advanced years I superintended.

In April, 1903, he started on a long trip, and at that time felt that, as the years of his inherited incumbency were drawing to a close, he could forward his own gospel. A humorous reference comes in a letter just before he starts, in which he says: “I was immensely amused with Monroe’s message [my second son, then at St. Paul’s School] about boxing and confirmation, the one evidently having some occult connection with the other in his mind. Give him my love when you write.... Well, I start on a nine-weeks’ trip tomorrow, as hard a trip as I have ever undertaken, with the sole exception of the canvass in 1900. As a whole, it will be a terrific strain, but there will be an occasional day which I shall enjoy.”

Again, as he actually starts on that “hard” trip, he sends me a little line of never-failing love. “White House, April 1, 1903. [This in his own writing.] Darling Pussie: Just a last line of Good-bye. I am so glad your poor hand is better at last. Love to dear old Douglas. The house seems strange and lonely without the children. Ever yours, T. R.” Those little notes in his own dear handwriting, showing always the loving thought, are especially precious and treasured.

After that exhausting journey, replete with many thrilling experiences, he returns to Oyster Bay for a little rest, and writes with equal interest of the beautiful family life which was always led there. My boy Stewart was with him at the time, and he speaks of him affectionately in connection with his own “Ted,” who was Stewart’s intimate friend:

“Stewart, Ted and I took an hour and a half bareback ride all together. Ted is always longing that Stewart should go off on a hunting trip with him. I should be delighted to have them go off now. Although I think no doubt they would get into scrapes, I have also no doubt that they would get out of them. We have had a lovely summer, as lovely a summer as we have ever passed. All the children have enjoyed their various activities, and we have been a great deal with the children, and in addition to that, Edith and I have ridden on horseback much together, and have frequently gone off for a day at a time in a little row boat, not to speak of the picnics to which everybody went.

“In the intervals I have chopped industriously. I have seen a great many people who came to call upon me on political business. I have had to handle my correspondence of course, and I have had not a few wearing matters of national policy, ranging from the difficulties in Turkey to the scandals in the Post Office. But I have had three months of rest, of holiday, by comparison with what has gone before. Next Monday I go back to Washington, and for the thirteen months following, there will be mighty little let-up to the strain. But I enjoy it to the full.