Some day also the President of Columbia University, who was once a “bully fellow,” will publish the scores, perhaps hundreds, of letters he received and they will throw a revealing light on Roosevelt’s loyalty. Mr. Bishop in a recent book, Notes and Anecdotes of Many Years, has given some personal recollections of him and his humanness which are illuminating.
If one asks men conversant with public affairs of the past thirty years, “What specifically did Roosevelt do while President that entitles him to be classed with the Immortals?” they find it very difficult to be specific in their responses. They will mention the taking of Panama and the organisation of the Commission to construct the Panama Canal, his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine when Germany was pressing her claims on Venezuela, his vigorous enforcement of the Sherman anti-trust law, and the Peace Conference at Portsmouth. These were most creditable accomplishments, but scarcely epoch-making. It was a beautiful gesture to bring Japan and Russia to the Council table, but it takes from the glamour to know that the suggestion came from the Japanese. And the breaking up of interlocking directorates, the unloosening of the hold of corporate influences on the government, required courage, judgment and self-reliance; but the historian of the future will be puzzled when he reads that Congress was insisting in 1924 that the railroads should do what they were prosecuted for doing twenty years before. Victory in the Northern securities case may prove finally to be the equivalent of defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt was essentially a great actor, but he wrote his own lines and submitted them to Cabot Lodge for deletion, addition and correction. Stunts of every kind appealed to him. He had a natural talent for accomplishing them which was enormously enhanced by practice. He got away with nearly everything he undertook. Had he given permanency to the Progressive Party, history would credit him with few failures. He knew how to make acquaintances feel that they were friends, and friends that they were loved.
Taken all in all, the features of his personality that attract me most are those revealed in the letters published by Mr. Bishop in the volume called Theodore Roosevelt and His Time, in the letters to his children and in the letters to Anne Roosevelt Cowles. This is possibly because he does not there reveal so much bitterness, so much contempt, it must indeed be said, so much hatred, as he reveals in the last letters to his dearest friend: hatred of his successor in the Presidency. Possibly the word “hatred” is not the right one. He despised Wilson, he commiserated the country that was obliged to suffer him, it was a disgrace to continue him in office; he knew less about the conduct of War than he knew about anything, and he knew nothing save academics. Wilson could do no right. But he did one thing which took the check-rein off Roosevelt’s inhibitions. He ignored him; he took no heed of his counsels, his detractions, his desires.
Roosevelt was just as sincere in this belief as he was in others, and he had a legion of sympathisers and supporters, at the head of which stood the man to whom the letters were addressed. Every one is entitled to, and has, his own opinion of the merits of the two Presidents as men and statesmen. Those to whom the one appeals are repelled by the other; but every one will agree that one was more lovable than the other; that he understood the heart of man and that he had one himself. Theodore Roosevelt was one of Nature’s wonders and he should take a place among the great Presidents because of what he was rather than what he did.
It must be admitted that the Roosevelt-Lodge letters leave a taste—not quite bitter, not quite acrid, but slightly disagreeable. It can be removed quickly by reading for a few minutes the volume entitled Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anne Roosevelt Cowles. Here he is revealed as the affectionate brother, the indulgent father, the sympathetic friend of children, especially those of Roosevelt blood. Loyalty to his family and confidence in himself radiate from most of the letters. Fancy a civilian of thirty writing, “'La Guerre et La Paix,’ like all Tolstoi’s works, is very strong and very interesting. The descriptions of the battles are excellent, but though with one or two good ideas underneath them, the criticisms of commanders, and of wars in general are absurd.”
On the eve of declaration of war with Spain, when McKinley seemed bent on peace, he wrote: “I’d give all I’m worth to be just two days in supreme command ... I’d have things going so nobody could stop them.” And that was what Theodore Roosevelt always wanted to do, to get things going so that nobody could stop them.
He always wanted to start something. He never disclaimed the children of his brain; they were all legitimate. He never mistrusted the potency of his brawn, it never failed him. Courage, self-confidence, self-belief, facilitated the conviction that he was a man of destiny. Though he was not such actually, he scaled the flaming ramparts of the world more gracefully and successfully than any man of his time.
I have never been able to convince myself that Southey was right when he said, “A man’s character can more surely be judged by the letters his friends address to him than by those he pens himself, for they are apt to reveal with unconscious faithfulness the regard held for him by those who knew him best.” If Theodore Roosevelt’s character were estimated from Cabot Lodge’s letters one would have to call him a god, not a man—a god who nodded once, in 1912.