“Darling Corinne—My letter must have crossed yours. It was just exactly as you and Alice said. Now there is nothing to explain. I have been much amused at the fact that my English friends are wholly incapable of understanding my reasons for the view I take, and think it due to weakness or some fantastic scruple on my part. My theory has been that the presidency should be a powerful office, and the President a powerful man, who will take every advantage of it; but, as a corollary, a man who can be held accountable to the people, after a term of four years, and who will not in any event occupy it for more than a stretch of eight years....” Nothing is more conclusive of my brother’s attitude than that sentence “who will not in any event occupy it for more than a stretch of eight years.” He did not believe in a third term consecutively, but in no way did he pledge himself at that time, or at any other time, not to consider again the possible gift of the highest place in the nation, should an interval come between his occupancy of the White House and the renewed desire of the people that he should fill that place in the nation once more. I have given some time to his attitude on this question, as it has been much misunderstood.
In amusing contrast to the seriousness of his decision not to accept a renomination comes a characteristic incident in the President’s career. The account of this I quote from a letter to me of Mr. Gustavus Town Kirby, a participator himself in the event. The letter runs as follows:
“In 1908 the Olympic Games had been held at London, England, and when the athletes returned to this country, most of them went, with some heads of the American Olympic Committee, including the late James E. Sullivan and myself, to visit and receive the congratulations of the then President of the United States at his summer home in Oyster Bay. [What committee, on no matter what important business, did not receive the congratulations of that eclectic President at his summer home at Oyster Bay!] I shall never forget the enthusiasm of the gathering, nor how, no sooner had either Sullivan or I presented a member of the team to the President, than he would, by use of his wonderful memory and in his most inspiring manner, tell the special athlete all about his own performance,—how far he had put the shot to win his event, or how gamely he had run; by how much he had beaten his competitor; his new world-record time, and the like. At the time I marvelled, and I thought even one as great as he must have ‘brushed up’ for the occasion, but ‘Billy’ Loeb, his Secretary, told me afterwards that it was not so, and that all during the Games he was kept constantly informed of the result of the performances of our boys; and while he actually knew none of these boys by sight, he not only knew them by name, but their performances as well. Not only to me, but to all gathered at this reception was this feat of memory most astounding. Mr. Roosevelt’s gracious cordiality, his fine speech of congratulation, and his magnetic personality had such an effect on all that it was with great difficulty that they could be literally driven from the grounds and onto the Long Island boat for their return to New York.
“Michael Murphy, the trainer, many years trainer at Yale, and thereafter at ‘Pennsylvania,’ and also for the New York Athletic Club, whose team in 1895 was triumphant over the great team of the London Athletic Club, was also a member of the party. On the way back in the boat I happened to pass through the cabin, which was entirely empty except for Michael Murphy, who, like the all but wizened-up old man he was, having but about a quarter of a lung, and deaf except to those things which he could not hear, sat huddled in a corner. I went up to Mike and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He answered, ‘I am thinking!’ I replied, ‘Yes, that is evident; but what are you thinking about?’ He then said: ‘Well, Mr. Kirby, I suppose there is no doubt but that I am the greatest trainer of men in the world.’ ‘That certainly is true,’ I said. He went on: ‘Mr. Kirby, you are all wrong; until we went down to Oyster Bay I thought I might be, but now I know I am not.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘Mike, that is nonsense. What do you mean?’ Then Mike answered, ‘Give me sixty men, every one of whom is a champion, and let that man at Oyster Bay have sixty other men, every one of whom is a dub, and his team would lick mine every time!’ I said, ‘Mike, this is impossible; it could not be,’ and then Mike continued,—showing how that magnetic personality of Mr. Roosevelt’s had taken hold of him, and how truly he, Mike Murphy, understood the psychology of inspiration,—‘Yes, Mr. Kirby, you see it’s this way; that man down there would tell a miler that he could reel off a mile in four minutes, (as you know, no one has run, or ever will run a mile in four minutes) and not only would that man think he could run a mile in four minutes, but, by Gad, he’d go out and do it.’”
Perhaps no one has ever more cleverly expressed the extraordinary power of that personality than that wizened old trainer, sunk into despondency because he realized that where men are concerned skill and science are as nothing compared to the genius of leadership.
That summer my brother showed to my husband and myself his never-failing love and consideration in a very special manner. My husband’s mother had died a couple of years before, and her son and daughter and myself had decided that the most fitting memorial to one who was specially beloved and missed in the immediate vicinity of her old home would be the erection of a small free library to the memory of her and her husband. The building was completed, and my husband wished to have a dedication service, at which time he would hand over the keys to the library trustees in our village of Jordanville. My husband’s old home, a grant in the time of Queen Anne to his great-great-great-grandfather, Doctor James Henderson, of Scotland, had always been a place for which my brother had a deep affection. Situated as it was on the high Mohawk hills overlooking the great sweep of typical American farm-land, we lived a somewhat Scotch life in the old gray-stone mansion copied from the manor-house of Mr. Robinson’s Scotch ancestors. My brother delighted in our relationship with the neighbors in our environment, and accepted gladly my husband’s earnest desire that he should make the speech of dedication when the library was given by us to the little village of Jordanville.
It was a great day for that tiny village when the President of the United States, his secretary of state, Mr. Elihu Root, and the Vice-President-elect, James S. Sherman, a native of the next county, after being our guests at luncheon, proceeded on my husband’s four-in-hand brake to the steps of the little colonial building three miles away, designed by our friend Mr. S. Breck P. Trowbridge.
What a day it was and what fun we had! After the library exercises we held a reception at our home, Henderson House, and hundreds of every sort and kind of vehicle were left or tethered along the high ridge near our house. My brother and I stood at the end of the quaint old drawing-room, and an endless file of country neighbors passed before him, and each and all were greeted with his personal enthusiasm and the marvellous knowledge of their interests with which the slightest word from me seemed to make him cognizant. The sunset lights faded over the Mohawk hills and lost their last gleam in the winding river below before the last “dead-wood coach” or broken-down buggy had disappeared from the grounds of Henderson House, and then in the old hall my own family servants—many of them had been twenty or thirty years upon the place—came in to greet him after supper, and sang the hymn which they often sang on Sunday evenings: “God be with you till we meet again.” The stories of that day will be told in time to come by the children’s children of my kind friends of Warren Township, Herkimer County. Theodore himself writes of the experience as follows:
“Oyster Bay, August 27, 1908. Dearest Corinne and Douglas: There is not a thing I would have missed throughout the whole day. It was a very touching little ceremony, and most of all it was delightful to see you two in your lovely home, living just the kind of life that I feel is typical of what American life should be at its best. I was so glad to see all your neighbors, and to see the terms they were on with you. Moreover, the view, the grounds, the house itself, and all there was therein, were delightful beyond measure; and most delightful of all was it to see the three generations ranging from you two to the babies of dear Helen and Teddy. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt.” As usual, he never spared an effort to do the lovely thing, and then say the satisfying thing to those for whom he had done the service.
And now the time of Theodore Roosevelts incumbency as President was drawing to a close. There is always a glamour as well as a shadow over “last times,” and my last visit to the White House, in February, 1909, stands out very clearly. My brother, the year before, had sent the great American fleet around the world, an expedition discountenanced by many, and yet conceded later to have been one of his most brilliantly conceived strategic inspirations. “In time of peace, prepare for war,” said Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt always followed that maxim. That trip around the world of the American fleet was more conducive to peace than any other action that could have been taken. The purpose was “friendly,” of course, but those splendid battle-ships of ours, engineered by such able commanders, could not fail to be an object-lesson to any who felt that the United States was too isolated to care for her own defense.