Roosevelt said he vividly recalled all this. His face beamed as he said: "Is n't that fine! Very fine! I'm delighted to hear it!"
"You did that," I said to him; "without your sustaining me these men would have been either extradited or deported, which would have meant death."
"Both of us did it; it's fine! I'm delighted to hear it," he commented, his face glowing with its usual vivacity.
The next day Roosevelt left the hospital to return to his home in Oyster Bay. He apparently gave every indication that soon he would be entirely well again and be with us for many years. Certainly that is what we all expected. He was only sixty.
Exactly two weeks later, on January 6, 1919, I received a telephone call at seven o'clock in the morning from Miss Striker, secretary to Mr. Roosevelt, announcing that he had died early that morning. For thirteen years or more he had had a large and affectionate share in our lives and thoughts, and Mrs. Straus and I felt as though we had been stricken with the loss of a member of our immediate family. I can truly say that I never had a more loyal or a dearer friend. He always treated me and mine as if we were among his nearest relatives.
On January 8th my wife, my son's wife, and I motored to Oyster Bay to attend the funeral in the little Episcopal Church. It had been Roosevelt's wish that he be buried from the little church that was the place of worship of his family. The building held only about three hundred and fifty persons, so that none but his family and close friends could be present. There was a committee from the United States Senate headed by Vice-President Marshall; a committee from the House; several former members of the Cabinet—Elihu Root, Truman H. Newberry, Henry L. Stimson, James R. Garfield, Mrs. Garfield, ex-President Taft, Governor Hughes. William Loeb, Jr., and Captain Archie Roosevelt were ushers. The other sons, Theodore and Kermit, were still in France. The church was filled with a company of sincere friends and bereaved mourners. The regular Episcopal service was begun at twelve-forty-five, and lasted about twenty-five minutes, when we all accompanied the body to the little cemetery on the side of the hill half a mile away.
Hardly a day passes without its scores of pilgrims to that grave. They come from near and far. Many lay flowers on the grave. On holidays and Sundays they come by the hundreds. Two years ago the intimate friends of Roosevelt, who had been officially or personally associated with him, formed the Roosevelt Pilgrimage, an association whose purpose is to keep alive the ideals and personality of Theodore Roosevelt by an annual visit to his grave and a simple ceremony. The idea and organization originated with Mr. E. A. Van Valkenburg of the Philadelphia "North American." On January 6, 1922, some sixty persons made the pilgrimage, headed by Dr. Lyman Abbott, permanent chairman of the association. James R. Garfield read Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize address, delivered in Christiania in 1910, at the conclusion of which some wreaths were laid on the grave. Mrs. Roosevelt invited us all to luncheon, and the old-time hospitality and friendliness of the Roosevelt home brought many memories of our departed leader.
After luncheon the annual meeting of the Pilgrimage took place in the great North Room, where Roosevelt had so often received his friends and guests. Dr. Abbott made a brief and feeling address, and Mrs. Richard Derby (Ethel Roosevelt) read from original manuscript Roosevelt's proclamation of 1912 which called into being the Progressive Party. Hermann Hagedorn read a poem entitled "The Deacon's Prayer," by Samuel Valentine Cole, which had especially appealed to Roosevelt. The last stanza of this poem is as follows:
"We want a man whom we can trust
To lead us where thy purpose leads;
Who dares not lie, but dares be just—
Give us the dangerous man of deeds!"
So prayed the deacon, letting fall
Each sentence from his heart; and when
He took his seat the brethren all,
As by one impulse, cried, "Amen!"