The rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

by Edmund Morris.

PROLOGUE:

NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1907

AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK PRECISELY the sound of trumpets echoes within the White House, and floats, through open windows, out into the sunny morning. A shiver of excitement strikes the line of people waiting four abreast outside Theodore Roosevelt's front gate, and runs in serpentine reflex along Pennsylvania Avenue as far as Seventeenth Street, before whipping south and dissipating itself over half a mile away. The shiver is accompanied by a murmur: "The President's on his way downstairs." the sound of trumpets echoes within the White House, and floats, through open windows, out into the sunny morning. A shiver of excitement strikes the line of people waiting four abreast outside Theodore Roosevelt's front gate, and runs in serpentine reflex along Pennsylvania Avenue as far as Seventeenth Street, before whipping south and dissipating itself over half a mile away. The shiver is accompanied by a murmur: "The President's on his way downstairs."1 There is some shifting of feet, but no eager pushing forward. The crowd knows that Roosevelt has hundreds of bejeweled and manicured hands to shake privately before he grasps the coarser flesh of the general public. Judging by last year's reception, the gate will not be unlocked until one o'clock, and even then it will take a good two hours for everybody to pass through. Roosevelt may be the fastest handshaker in history (he averages fifty grips a minute), but he is also the most conscientious, insisting that all citizens who are sober, washed, and free of bodily advertising be permitted to wish the President of the United States a Happy New Year.2 On a day as perfect as this, nobody minds standing in line-with the possible exception of those unfortunates in the blue shadow of the State, War, and Navy Building. Already the temperature is a springlike 55 degrees. It is "Roosevelt weather," to use a popular phrase.3 Ladies carry bunches of sweet-smelling hyacinths. Gentlemen refresh their thirst at dray-wagons parked against the sidewalk. A reporter, strolling up and down the line, notices that the weather has brought out an unusual number of children, some of whom seem determined to enter the White House on roller skates. Ladies carry bunches of sweet-smelling hyacinths. Gentlemen refresh their thirst at dray-wagons parked against the sidewalk. A reporter, strolling up and down the line, notices that the weather has brought out an unusual number of children, some of whom seem determined to enter the White House on roller skates.4

"All citizens who are sober, washed, and free of bodily advertising."

Theodore Roosevelt receives the American people on New Year's Day. (Illustration prl.1) More music seeps into the still air. This time it is "The Star-Spangled Banner," played with dignified restraint by the Marine Band. (The President has had occasion to complain, in previous years, of too loud a welcome as he arrives in the vestibule.) After only one strophe, the anthem fades into silence, and another murmur runs down the line: "He's taking his position in the Blue Room." Now a German march. "He's begun to receive the ambassadors."5

FOR THE LAST half hour they have been rolling up in their glossy carriages-viscounts, barons, and knights bearing the greetings of emperors and kings to a plain man in a frock coat. A sizable crowd has gathered outside the East Gate to watch them alight under the porte cochere. Their Excellencies teeter down, almost crippled by the weight of full court dress. Plumed helmets wobble precariously, while silver nose-straps tweak at their mustaches. Great bars of medals tangle with their swaying epaulets, gold braid stiffens their trousers, and swords of honor slap against their thigh-length patent-leather boots. Officers of the White House detail, themselves as brilliant as butterflies, hurry across the sunny gravel to assist. Screened through the tall pickets of the White House fence, all this awkward pageantry dissolves into an impressionistic shimmer, and the crowd watches fascinated until the last diplomat has hobbled inside. half hour they have been rolling up in their glossy carriages-viscounts, barons, and knights bearing the greetings of emperors and kings to a plain man in a frock coat. A sizable crowd has gathered outside the East Gate to watch them alight under the porte cochere. Their Excellencies teeter down, almost crippled by the weight of full court dress. Plumed helmets wobble precariously, while silver nose-straps tweak at their mustaches. Great bars of medals tangle with their swaying epaulets, gold braid stiffens their trousers, and swords of honor slap against their thigh-length patent-leather boots. Officers of the White House detail, themselves as brilliant as butterflies, hurry across the sunny gravel to assist. Screened through the tall pickets of the White House fence, all this awkward pageantry dissolves into an impressionistic shimmer, and the crowd watches fascinated until the last diplomat has hobbled inside.6 Thousands of other onlookers throng Sixteenth Street and Connecticut Avenue to watch the cavalcade of Washington society converging upon the White House. Justices of the Supreme Court creak by in dignified four-wheelers. Congressional couples display themselves to the electorate in open broughams (necks crane for a glimpse of "Princess Alice" Longworth, the President's beautiful daughter, in apricot satin and diamonds). A silver-helmeted military attache steers his own electric runabout. Two energetic little mules haul a mud-spattered bus full of Army ladies.7 Inspired by the balmy weather, many of the President's guests arrive on foot. Lafayette Square is crowded with elegant young men and women. Naval officers march five abreast, their plumes frothing in unison. Chinese grandees drag heavy silk robes. Grizzled veterans of the Civil War stomp along with tinkling medals, and the crowd parts respectfully before them. The air is full of high-spirited conversation and laughter, while the music pouring out of the White House (a continuous medley, now, of jigs and Joplin rags) creates an irresistible holiday mood. A newspaperman is struck by the happiness he sees everywhere, on this, "the best and fairest day President Roosevelt ever had."8

SUCH SUPERLATIVES in praise of the weather are mild in comparison with those being lavished on the state of the union. "On this day of our Lord, January 1, 1907," the Washington in praise of the weather are mild in comparison with those being lavished on the state of the union. "On this day of our Lord, January 1, 1907," the Washington Evening Star Evening Star reports, "we are the richest people in the world." The national wealth "has been rolling up at the rate of $4.6 billion per year, $127.3 million per day, $5.5 million per hour, $88,430 per minute, and $1,474 per second" during President Roosevelt's two Administrations. reports, "we are the richest people in the world." The national wealth "has been rolling up at the rate of $4.6 billion per year, $127.3 million per day, $5.5 million per hour, $88,430 per minute, and $1,474 per second" during President Roosevelt's two Administrations.9 Never have American farmers harvested such tremendous crops; railroads are groaning under the weight of unprecedented payloads; shipyards throb with record construction; the banks are awash with a spring-tide of money. Every one of the forty-five states has enriched itself since the last census, and in per capita terms Washington, D.C., is now "the Richest Spot on Earth." Never have American farmers harvested such tremendous crops; railroads are groaning under the weight of unprecedented payloads; shipyards throb with record construction; the banks are awash with a spring-tide of money. Every one of the forty-five states has enriched itself since the last census, and in per capita terms Washington, D.C., is now "the Richest Spot on Earth."10 Politically, too, it has been a year of superlatives, many of them supplied, with characteristic immodesty, by the President himself. "No Congress in our time has done more good work," he fondly told the fifty-ninth, having battered it into submission with the sheer volume of his social legislation.11 He calls its first session "the most substantial" in his experience of public affairs. Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker of the House, agrees, with one reservation about the President's methods. "Roosevelt's all right," says Cannon, "but he's got no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license." He calls its first session "the most substantial" in his experience of public affairs. Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker of the House, agrees, with one reservation about the President's methods. "Roosevelt's all right," says Cannon, "but he's got no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license."12 "Theodore the Sudden" has been accused of having a similar contempt for international law, ever since the afternoon in 1903 when he allowed a U.S. warship to "monitor" the Panamanian Revolution. If he loses any sleep over his role in that questionable coup d'etat, he shows no sign. On the contrary, he glories in the fact that America is now actually building building the Panama Canal "after four centuries of conversation" the Panama Canal "after four centuries of conversation"13 by other nations. A few weeks ago he visited the Canal Zone (the first trip abroad by a U.S. President in office), and the colossal excavations there moved him to Shakespearean hyperbole. "It shall be in future enough to say of any man 'he was connected with digging the Panama Canal' to confer the patent of nobility on that man," Roosevelt told his sweating engineers. "From time to time little men will come along to find fault with what you have done...they will go down the stream like bubbles, they will vanish; but the work you have done will remain for the ages." by other nations. A few weeks ago he visited the Canal Zone (the first trip abroad by a U.S. President in office), and the colossal excavations there moved him to Shakespearean hyperbole. "It shall be in future enough to say of any man 'he was connected with digging the Panama Canal' to confer the patent of nobility on that man," Roosevelt told his sweating engineers. "From time to time little men will come along to find fault with what you have done...they will go down the stream like bubbles, they will vanish; but the work you have done will remain for the ages."14 Few, indeed, are the little men who can find fault with the President on this beautiful New Year's Day, but they are correspondingly shrill. Congressman James Wadsworth, a battered opponent of Roosevelt's Pure Food Act (which goes into effect today), growls that "the bloody hero of Kettle Hill" is "unreliable, a faker, and a humbug."15 The editor of the The editor of the St. Louis Censor St. Louis Censor, who has never forgiven Roosevelt for inviting a black man to dine in the White House, warns that he is now trying to end segregation of Orientals in San Francisco schools. "Almost every week his Administration has been characterized by some outrageous act of usurpation...he is the most dangerous foe to human liberty that has ever set foot on American soil."16 Another Southerner, by the name of Woodrow Wilson, is tempted to agree: "He is the most dangerous man of the age." Another Southerner, by the name of Woodrow Wilson, is tempted to agree: "He is the most dangerous man of the age."17 Mark Twain believes that the President is "clearly insane...and insanest upon war and its supreme glories." Mark Twain believes that the President is "clearly insane...and insanest upon war and its supreme glories."18 Roosevelt is used to such criticism. He has been hearing it all his life. "If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career, it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies."19 Yet even impartial observers will admit there is a grain of truth in Twain's assertions. The President certainly has an irrational love of battle. He ceaselessly praises the joys of righteous killing, most recently in his annual message to Congress: "A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace." Yet even impartial observers will admit there is a grain of truth in Twain's assertions. The President certainly has an irrational love of battle. He ceaselessly praises the joys of righteous killing, most recently in his annual message to Congress: "A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace."

Yet the fact about this most pugnacious of Presidents is that his two terms in office have been almost completely tranquil. (If he had not inherited an insurrection in the Philippines from William McKinley, he could absolve himself of any military deaths.) He is currently being hailed around the world as a flawless diplomat, and the man who has done more to advance the cause of peace than any other. If all Eastern Asia-and for that matter most of Western Europe-is not embroiled in conflict, it is largely due to peace settlements delicately mediated by Theodore Roosevelt. At the same time he has managed, without so much as firing one American pistol, to elevate his country to the giddy heights of world power.20 He never tires of reminding people that his famous aphorism "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" proceeds according to civilized priorities. Persuasion should come before force. In any case it is the availability availability of raw power, not the use of it, that makes for effective diplomacy. Last summer's rebellion in Cuba, which left the island leaderless, provided Roosevelt with a textbook example. Acting as usual with lightning swiftness, he invoked an almost forgotten security agreement and proclaimed a U.S.-backed provisional government within twenty-four hours of the collapse of the old. While Secretary of War William H. Taft worked "to restore order and peace and public confidence," American warships steamed thoughtfully up and down the Cuban coastline. The rebels disbanded, Taft returned to Washington, and the big white ships followed. Cuba is now assured of regaining her independence, and the Big Stick has been laid down unbloodied. of raw power, not the use of it, that makes for effective diplomacy. Last summer's rebellion in Cuba, which left the island leaderless, provided Roosevelt with a textbook example. Acting as usual with lightning swiftness, he invoked an almost forgotten security agreement and proclaimed a U.S.-backed provisional government within twenty-four hours of the collapse of the old. While Secretary of War William H. Taft worked "to restore order and peace and public confidence," American warships steamed thoughtfully up and down the Cuban coastline. The rebels disbanded, Taft returned to Washington, and the big white ships followed. Cuba is now assured of regaining her independence, and the Big Stick has been laid down unbloodied.21 Roosevelt hopes the episode will put to an end, once and for all, rumors that he is still at heart an expansionist. "I have about as much desire to annex more islands," he declares, "as a boa-constrictor has to swallow a porcupine wrong end to."22

TWO OR THREE political clouds, perhaps, mar the perfect blue of Theodore Roosevelt's New Year. Japan is not convinced that his efforts to end discrimination against her citizens in California are sincere, and there are veiled threats of war; "but," as yesterday's Washington political clouds, perhaps, mar the perfect blue of Theodore Roosevelt's New Year. Japan is not convinced that his efforts to end discrimination against her citizens in California are sincere, and there are veiled threats of war; "but," as yesterday's Washington Star Star noted confidently, "President Roosevelt thinks he can settle them." The stock market, despite the booming economy, seems paralyzed. Wall Street billionaires are predicting that Roosevelt-style railroad rate regulation will sooner or later bring about financial catastrophe. And there is an ominous paucity of blacks on line today-only fourteen, by one count-indicating that race resentment is growing against his dishonorable discharge of three companies of colored soldiers for an unproved riot in Brownsville, Texas. noted confidently, "President Roosevelt thinks he can settle them." The stock market, despite the booming economy, seems paralyzed. Wall Street billionaires are predicting that Roosevelt-style railroad rate regulation will sooner or later bring about financial catastrophe. And there is an ominous paucity of blacks on line today-only fourteen, by one count-indicating that race resentment is growing against his dishonorable discharge of three companies of colored soldiers for an unproved riot in Brownsville, Texas.23 As yet, these clouds do not loom very large. Roosevelt is free to enjoy the sensation of near-total control over "the mightiest republic on which the sun ever shone,"-his own phrase, much repeated.24 Youngest and most vigorous man ever to enter the White House, he exults in what today's Youngest and most vigorous man ever to enter the White House, he exults in what today's New York Tribune New York Tribune calls "an opulent efficiency of mind and body." He loves power, loves publicity for the added power it brings, and so far at least seems to have disproved the Actonian theory of corruption. Curiously, the more power Roosevelt acquires, the calmer and sweeter he becomes, and the more willing to step down in two years' time, although a third term is his for the asking. Until then he intends to exercise to the full his constitutional rights to cleave continents, place struggling poets on the federal payroll, and treat with crowned heads on terms of complete equality. Henry Adams calls him "the best herder of Emperors since Napoleon." calls "an opulent efficiency of mind and body." He loves power, loves publicity for the added power it brings, and so far at least seems to have disproved the Actonian theory of corruption. Curiously, the more power Roosevelt acquires, the calmer and sweeter he becomes, and the more willing to step down in two years' time, although a third term is his for the asking. Until then he intends to exercise to the full his constitutional rights to cleave continents, place struggling poets on the federal payroll, and treat with crowned heads on terms of complete equality. Henry Adams calls him "the best herder of Emperors since Napoleon."25 Expert opinion rates his influence over Congress as greater than that of Kaiser Wilhelm II over the Reichstag. Expert opinion rates his influence over Congress as greater than that of Kaiser Wilhelm II over the Reichstag.26 He commands a twenty-four-seat majority in the Senate, a hundred-seat majority in the House, and the frank adoration of the American public. A cornucopia of gifts pours daily into the White House mail-room: hams shaped to match the Rooseveltian profile, crates of live coons, Indian skin paintings, snakes from a traveling sideshow, chairs, badges, vases, and enough Big Sticks to dam the Potomac. One million "Teddy" bears are on sale in New York department stores. Countless small boys, including a frail youngster named Gene Tunney, are doing chest exercises in the hope of emulating their hero's physique. David Robinson, a bootblack from Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, has just arrived in Washington, bearing letters of recommendation from judges and members of Congress, and begs the privilege of shining the President's shoes for nothing. He commands a twenty-four-seat majority in the Senate, a hundred-seat majority in the House, and the frank adoration of the American public. A cornucopia of gifts pours daily into the White House mail-room: hams shaped to match the Rooseveltian profile, crates of live coons, Indian skin paintings, snakes from a traveling sideshow, chairs, badges, vases, and enough Big Sticks to dam the Potomac. One million "Teddy" bears are on sale in New York department stores. Countless small boys, including a frail youngster named Gene Tunney, are doing chest exercises in the hope of emulating their hero's physique. David Robinson, a bootblack from Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, has just arrived in Washington, bearing letters of recommendation from judges and members of Congress, and begs the privilege of shining the President's shoes for nothing.27 Nor is Roosevelt-worship confined to the United States. In England, King Edward VII and ex-Prime Minister Balfour consider him to be "the greatest moral force of the age."28 Serious British journals rank him on the same level as Washington and Lincoln. Even the august London Serious British journals rank him on the same level as Washington and Lincoln. Even the august London Times Times, in a review of his latest "very remarkable" message to Congress, admits "It is hard not to covet such a force in public life as our American cousins have got in Mr. ROOSEVELT."29 All over the world Jews revere him for his efforts to halt the persecution of their co-religionists in Russia and Rumania, and for making Oscar Solomon Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the first Jewish Cabinet officer in American history.30 France's Ambassador to the United States, Jules Jusserand, says publicly that "President Roosevelt is the greatest man in the Western Hemisphere-head and shoulders above everyone else." France's Ambassador to the United States, Jules Jusserand, says publicly that "President Roosevelt is the greatest man in the Western Hemisphere-head and shoulders above everyone else."31 And from Christiania, Norway, comes the ultimate accolade: an announcement that Theodore Roosevelt, world peacemaker, has become the first American to win the Nobel Prize.32

TWELVE-THIRTY HAS COME and gone, but the White House gates are still firmly shut. He must have shaken at least a thousand hands already.... Fob watches flash in the sun as students of Washington protocol calculate how long it will take him to work his way down through the social strata. Twenty minutes are generally enough for all the ambassadors, ministers, secretaries, and charges d'affaires, assuming that each flatters the President for no longer than thirty seconds; ten minutes for the Supreme Court Justices and other members of the judiciary; a quarter of an hour for Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Congress (he'll probably spend a minute or two talking to old Chaplain Edward Everett Hale, who hasn't missed a reception in sixty-two years); a good half-hour, knowing Roosevelt's priorities, for officers of the Navy and Army; then five minutes apiece for the Smithsonian Institution, the Civil Service, and the Attorney General's office...which means the Grand Army of the Republic should be going through about now. Last in the order of official precedence will be veterans of the Spanish-American War, including the inevitable Rough Riders, some of whom are very rough indeed. One of today's newspapers complains about the President's habit of inviting "thugs and assassins of Idaho and Montana to be his guests in the White House." and gone, but the White House gates are still firmly shut. He must have shaken at least a thousand hands already.... Fob watches flash in the sun as students of Washington protocol calculate how long it will take him to work his way down through the social strata. Twenty minutes are generally enough for all the ambassadors, ministers, secretaries, and charges d'affaires, assuming that each flatters the President for no longer than thirty seconds; ten minutes for the Supreme Court Justices and other members of the judiciary; a quarter of an hour for Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Congress (he'll probably spend a minute or two talking to old Chaplain Edward Everett Hale, who hasn't missed a reception in sixty-two years); a good half-hour, knowing Roosevelt's priorities, for officers of the Navy and Army; then five minutes apiece for the Smithsonian Institution, the Civil Service, and the Attorney General's office...which means the Grand Army of the Republic should be going through about now. Last in the order of official precedence will be veterans of the Spanish-American War, including the inevitable Rough Riders, some of whom are very rough indeed. One of today's newspapers complains about the President's habit of inviting "thugs and assassins of Idaho and Montana to be his guests in the White House."33 But Roosevelt has never been able to turn away the friends of his youth. After assuming the Presidency he sent out word that "the cowboy bunch can come in whenever they want to." When a doorkeeper mistakenly refused admission to one leathery customer, the President was indignant. "The next time they don't let you in, Sylvane, you just shoot through the windows." But Roosevelt has never been able to turn away the friends of his youth. After assuming the Presidency he sent out word that "the cowboy bunch can come in whenever they want to." When a doorkeeper mistakenly refused admission to one leathery customer, the President was indignant. "The next time they don't let you in, Sylvane, you just shoot through the windows."34 Twelve fifty-five. A stir at the head of the line. Bonnets are adjusted, with much bobbing of artificial fruit; ties are straightened, vests brushed free of popcorn. The gates swing open, and two bowler-hatted policemen lead the way down the White House drive. As the crowd approaches the portico, nine-year-old Quentin Roosevelt waves an affable greeting from his upstairs window. The officers eye him sternly: Young "Q" has a habit of dropping projectiles on men in uniform, including one gigantic, cop-flattening snowball that narrowly missed his father.35 The music grows louder as the public steps into the brilliantly lit vestibule. Sixty scarlet-coated bandsmen, hedged around with holly and poinsettia, maintain a brisk, incessant rhythm: Roosevelt knows that this makes his callers unconsciously move faster. Ushers jerk white-gloved thumbs in the direction of the Red Room. "Step lively now!"36 Shuffling obediently through shining pillars, past stone urns banked with Christmas-flowering plants, the crowd has a chance to admire Mrs. Roosevelt's interior restorations, begun in 1902 and only recently completed.37 (One of her husband's first acts, as President, had been to ask Congress to purge the Executive Mansion of Victorian bric-a-brac and restore it to its original "stately simplicity.") These changes come as a shock to older people in line who remember the cozy, shabby, half-house, halfoffice building of yesteryear, with its dropsical sofas and brass spittoons. Now all is spaciousness and austerity. Regal red furnishings accentuate the gleaming coldness of stone halls and stairways. Roman bronze torches glow with newfangled electric light. The traditional floral displays, which used to make nineteenth-century receptions look like horticultural exhibitions, have been drastically reduced. Rare palms tower in wall niches; vases of violets and American Beauty roses perfume the air. (One of her husband's first acts, as President, had been to ask Congress to purge the Executive Mansion of Victorian bric-a-brac and restore it to its original "stately simplicity.") These changes come as a shock to older people in line who remember the cozy, shabby, half-house, halfoffice building of yesteryear, with its dropsical sofas and brass spittoons. Now all is spaciousness and austerity. Regal red furnishings accentuate the gleaming coldness of stone halls and stairways. Roman bronze torches glow with newfangled electric light. The traditional floral displays, which used to make nineteenth-century receptions look like horticultural exhibitions, have been drastically reduced. Rare palms tower in wall niches; vases of violets and American Beauty roses perfume the air.38 Here the Roosevelts live in a style which, to their critics, seems "almost more than royal dignity."39 Formality unknown since the days of George Washington governs the conduct of the First Family. Even the President's sisters have to make appointments to see him. During the official diplomatic season, beginning today, the White House will be the scene of banquets and receptions of an almost European splendor. (The President spends his entire $50,000 salary on entertaining.) Formality unknown since the days of George Washington governs the conduct of the First Family. Even the President's sisters have to make appointments to see him. During the official diplomatic season, beginning today, the White House will be the scene of banquets and receptions of an almost European splendor. (The President spends his entire $50,000 salary on entertaining.)40 Roosevelt's practice, on such occasions, of making dramatic entrances at the stroke of the appointed hour, offering his arm to the lady who will sit at his right, looks like imperial pomp to some. "The President," says Henry James, "is distinctly tending-or trying-to make a court." Roosevelt's practice, on such occasions, of making dramatic entrances at the stroke of the appointed hour, offering his arm to the lady who will sit at his right, looks like imperial pomp to some. "The President," says Henry James, "is distinctly tending-or trying-to make a court."41 Roosevelt himself scoffs cheerfully at such gibes. "They even say I want to be a prince myself! Not I! I've seen too many of them!"42 He is merely performing, with meticulous correctness, the duties of a head of state. Within the confines of protocol he remains the most democratic of men. He refuses to use obsequious forms of address when writing to foreign rulers, preferring the informal second person, as a gentleman among gentlemen. Nor is he impressed when they address him as "Your Excellency" in return. "They might just as well call me His Transparency for all I care." He is merely performing, with meticulous correctness, the duties of a head of state. Within the confines of protocol he remains the most democratic of men. He refuses to use obsequious forms of address when writing to foreign rulers, preferring the informal second person, as a gentleman among gentlemen. Nor is he impressed when they address him as "Your Excellency" in return. "They might just as well call me His Transparency for all I care."43 Yet some citizens are bent on killing this "first of American Caesars." Last year a man walked into the President's office with a needle-sharp blade up his sleeve. Ever since then, White House security has been tight.44 Uniformed aides confiscate bundles, inspect hats, draw pocketed hands into open view. All along the corridor, Secret Service men stand like statues. Only their eyes flicker: by the time a caller reaches the Blue Room, he has been scrutinized from head to foot at least three times. Roosevelt does not want to leave office a day too soon. Uniformed aides confiscate bundles, inspect hats, draw pocketed hands into open view. All along the corridor, Secret Service men stand like statues. Only their eyes flicker: by the time a caller reaches the Blue Room, he has been scrutinized from head to foot at least three times. Roosevelt does not want to leave office a day too soon.

"I enjoy being President," he says simply.45

NO C CHIEF E EXECUTIVE has ever had so much fun. One of Roosevelt's favorite expressions is "dee-lighted"-he uses it so often, and with such grinning emphasis, that nobody doubts his sincerity. He indeed delights in every aspect of his job: in plowing through mountains of state documents, memorizing whole chunks and leaving his desk bare of even a card by lunchtime; in matching wits with the historians, zoologists, inventors, linguists, explorers, sociologists, actors, and statesmen who daily crowd his table; in bombarding Congress with book-length messages (his latest, a report on his trip to Panama, uses the novel technique of illustrated presentation); in setting aside millions of acres of unspoiled land at the stroke of a pen; in appointing struggling literati to jobs in the U.S. Treasury, on the tacit understanding they are to stay away from the office; in being, as one of his children humorously put it, "the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral." has ever had so much fun. One of Roosevelt's favorite expressions is "dee-lighted"-he uses it so often, and with such grinning emphasis, that nobody doubts his sincerity. He indeed delights in every aspect of his job: in plowing through mountains of state documents, memorizing whole chunks and leaving his desk bare of even a card by lunchtime; in matching wits with the historians, zoologists, inventors, linguists, explorers, sociologists, actors, and statesmen who daily crowd his table; in bombarding Congress with book-length messages (his latest, a report on his trip to Panama, uses the novel technique of illustrated presentation); in setting aside millions of acres of unspoiled land at the stroke of a pen; in appointing struggling literati to jobs in the U.S. Treasury, on the tacit understanding they are to stay away from the office; in being, as one of his children humorously put it, "the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral."46 He takes an almost mechanistic delight in the smooth workings of political power. "It is fine to feel one's hand guiding great machinery."47 Ex-President Grover Cleveland, himself a man of legendary ability, calls Theodore Roosevelt "the most perfectly equipped and most effective politician thus far seen in the Presidency." Ex-President Grover Cleveland, himself a man of legendary ability, calls Theodore Roosevelt "the most perfectly equipped and most effective politician thus far seen in the Presidency."48 Coming from a Democrat and longtime Roosevelt-watcher, this praise shows admiration of one virtuoso for another. Coming from a Democrat and longtime Roosevelt-watcher, this praise shows admiration of one virtuoso for another.

With his clicking efficiency and inhuman energy, the President seems not unlike a piece of engineering himself. Many observers are reminded of a high-speed locomotive. "I never knew a man with such a head of steam on," says William Sturgis Bigelow. "He never stops running, even while he stokes and fires," another acquaintance marvels, adding that Roosevelt presents "a dazzling, even appalling, spectacle of a human engine driven at full speed-the signals all properly set beforehand (and if they aren't, never mind!)." Henry James describes the engine as "destined to be overstrained perhaps, but not as yet, truly, betraying the least creak...it functions astonishingly, and is quite exciting to see."49 At the moment, Roosevelt can only be heard, since the first wave of handshakers, filing through the Red Room into the Blue, obscures him from view. He is in particularly good humor today, laughing heartily and often, in a high, hoarse voice that floats over the sound of the band.50 It is an irresistible laugh: an eruption of mirth, rising gradually to falsetto chuckles, that convulses everybody around him. "You don't smile with Mr. Roosevelt," writes one reporter, "you shout with laughter with him, and then you shout again while he tries to cork up more laugh, and sputters, 'Come, gentlemen, let us be serious. This is most unbecoming.'" It is an irresistible laugh: an eruption of mirth, rising gradually to falsetto chuckles, that convulses everybody around him. "You don't smile with Mr. Roosevelt," writes one reporter, "you shout with laughter with him, and then you shout again while he tries to cork up more laugh, and sputters, 'Come, gentlemen, let us be serious. This is most unbecoming.'"51 Besides being receptive to humor, the President produces plenty of it himself. As a raconteur, especially when telling stories of his days among the cowboys, he is inimitable, making his audiences laugh until they cry and ache. "You couldn't pick a hallful," declares the cartoonist Homer Davenport, "that could sit with faces straight through his story of the blue roan cow."52 Physically, too, he is funny-never more so than when indulging his passion for eccentric exercise. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge has been heard yelling irritably at a portly object swaying in the sky, "Theodore! if you knew how ridiculous you look on top of that tree, you would come down at once." Physically, too, he is funny-never more so than when indulging his passion for eccentric exercise. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge has been heard yelling irritably at a portly object swaying in the sky, "Theodore! if you knew how ridiculous you look on top of that tree, you would come down at once."53 On winter evenings in Rock Creek Park, strollers may observe the President of the United States wading pale and naked into the ice-clogged stream, followed by shivering members of his Cabinet. On winter evenings in Rock Creek Park, strollers may observe the President of the United States wading pale and naked into the ice-clogged stream, followed by shivering members of his Cabinet.54 Thumping noises in the White House library indicate that Roosevelt is being thrown around the room by a Japanese wrestler; a particularly seismic crash, which makes the entire mansion tremble, signifies that Secretary Taft has been forced to join in the fun. Thumping noises in the White House library indicate that Roosevelt is being thrown around the room by a Japanese wrestler; a particularly seismic crash, which makes the entire mansion tremble, signifies that Secretary Taft has been forced to join in the fun.55 Mark Twain is not alone in thinking the President insane. Tales of Roosevelt's unpredictable behavior are legion, although there is usually an explanation. Once, for instance, he hailed a hansom cab on Pennsylvania Avenue, seized the horse, and mimed a knife attack upon it. On another occasion he startled the occupants of a trolley-car by making hideous faces at them from the Presidential carriage. It transpires that in the former case he was demonstrating to a companion the correct way to stab a wolf; in the latter he was merely returning the grimaces of some small boys, one of whom was the ubiquitous Quentin.56 Roosevelt can never resist children. Even now, he is holding up the line as he rumples the hair of a small boy with skates and a red sweater. "You must always remember," says his English friend Cecil Spring Rice, "that the President is about six."57 Mrs. Roosevelt has let it be known that she considers him one of her own brood, to be disciplined accordingly. Between meetings he loves to sneak upstairs to the attic, headquarters of Quentin's "White House Gang," and thunder up and down in pursuit of squealing boys. These romps leave him so disheveled he has to change his shirt before returning to his duties. Mrs. Roosevelt has let it be known that she considers him one of her own brood, to be disciplined accordingly. Between meetings he loves to sneak upstairs to the attic, headquarters of Quentin's "White House Gang," and thunder up and down in pursuit of squealing boys. These romps leave him so disheveled he has to change his shirt before returning to his duties.58 A very elegant old lady moves through the door of the Blue Room and curtsies before the President. He responds with a deep bow whose grace impresses observers.59 Americans tend to forget that Roosevelt comes from the first circle of the New York aristocracy; the manners of Gramercy Park, Harvard, and the great houses of Europe flow naturally out of him. During the Portsmouth Peace Conference in 1905, he handled Russian counts and Japanese barons with such delicacy that neither side was able to claim preference. "The man who had been represented to us as impetuous to the point of rudeness," wrote one participant, "displayed a gentleness, a kindness, and a tactfulness that only a truly great man can command." Americans tend to forget that Roosevelt comes from the first circle of the New York aristocracy; the manners of Gramercy Park, Harvard, and the great houses of Europe flow naturally out of him. During the Portsmouth Peace Conference in 1905, he handled Russian counts and Japanese barons with such delicacy that neither side was able to claim preference. "The man who had been represented to us as impetuous to the point of rudeness," wrote one participant, "displayed a gentleness, a kindness, and a tactfulness that only a truly great man can command."60 Roosevelt's courtesy is not extended only to the well-born. The President of the United States leaps automatically from his chair when any woman enters the room, even if she is the governess of his children. Introduced to a party of people who ignore their own chauffeur, he protests: "I have not met this gentleman." He has never been able to get used to the fact that White House stewards serve him ahead of the ladies at his table, but accepts it as necessary protocol.61 For all his off-duty clowning, Roosevelt believes in the dignity of the Presidency. As head of state, he considers himself the equal, and on occasion the superior, of the scepter-bearers of Europe. "No person living," he curtly informed the German Ambassador, "precedes the President of the United States in the White House." He is quick to freeze anybody who presumes to be too familiar. Although he is resigned to being popularly known as "Teddy," it is a mistake to call him that to his face. He regards it as an "outrageous impertinence."62

CORDS OF OLD GOLD velvet channel the crowd into single file at the entrance to the Blue Room. Since the President stands just inside the door, on the right, there is little time to admire the oval chamber, with its silk-hung walls and banks of white roses; nor the beauty of the women invited "behind the line"-a signal mark of Presidential favor-and who now form a rustling backdrop of chiffon and lace and satin, their pearls aglow in the light of three sunny windows. velvet channel the crowd into single file at the entrance to the Blue Room. Since the President stands just inside the door, on the right, there is little time to admire the oval chamber, with its silk-hung walls and banks of white roses; nor the beauty of the women invited "behind the line"-a signal mark of Presidential favor-and who now form a rustling backdrop of chiffon and lace and satin, their pearls aglow in the light of three sunny windows.63 Roosevelt is shaking hands at top speed, so the observer has only two or three seconds to size him up. Roosevelt is shaking hands at top speed, so the observer has only two or three seconds to size him up.

A FEW SECONDS FEW SECONDS, surprisingly, are enough. Theodore Roosevelt is a man of such overwhelming physical impact that he stamps himself immediately on the consciousness. "Do you know the two most wonderful things I have seen in your country?" says the English statesman John Morley. "Niagara Falls and the President of the United States, both great wonders of nature!"64 Their common quality, which photographs and paintings fail to capture, is a perpetual flow of torrential energy, a sense of motion even in stillness. Their common quality, which photographs and paintings fail to capture, is a perpetual flow of torrential energy, a sense of motion even in stillness.65 Both are physically thrilling to be near. Both are physically thrilling to be near.

Although Theodore Roosevelt stands three inches short of six feet, he seems palpably massive.66 Two hundred pounds of muscle-those who think it fat have not yet been bruised by contact with it-thicken his small-boned frame. (The only indications of the latter are tapered hands and absurdly small shoes.) A walrus-like belt of muscle strains against his stiff collar. Muscles push through the sleeves of his gray frock coat and the thighs of his striped trousers. Most muscular of all, however, is the famous chest, which small boys, on less formal occasions, are invited to pummel. Members of the White House Gang admit to "queer sensations" at the sight of this great barrel bearing down upon them, and half expect it to burst out of the Presidential shirt. Roosevelt has spent many thousands of hours punishing a variety of steel springs and gymnastic equipment, yet his is not the decorative brawn of a mere bodybuilder. Professional boxers testify that the President is a born fighter who repays their more ferocious blows with interest. "Theodore Roosevelt," says his heavyweight sparring partner, "is a strong, tough man; hard to hurt and harder to stop." Two hundred pounds of muscle-those who think it fat have not yet been bruised by contact with it-thicken his small-boned frame. (The only indications of the latter are tapered hands and absurdly small shoes.) A walrus-like belt of muscle strains against his stiff collar. Muscles push through the sleeves of his gray frock coat and the thighs of his striped trousers. Most muscular of all, however, is the famous chest, which small boys, on less formal occasions, are invited to pummel. Members of the White House Gang admit to "queer sensations" at the sight of this great barrel bearing down upon them, and half expect it to burst out of the Presidential shirt. Roosevelt has spent many thousands of hours punishing a variety of steel springs and gymnastic equipment, yet his is not the decorative brawn of a mere bodybuilder. Professional boxers testify that the President is a born fighter who repays their more ferocious blows with interest. "Theodore Roosevelt," says his heavyweight sparring partner, "is a strong, tough man; hard to hurt and harder to stop."67 The nerves that link all this mass of muscle are abnormally active. Roosevelt is not a twitcher-in moments of repose he is almost cataleptically still-but when talking his entire body mimes the rapidity of his thoughts. The right hand shoots out, bunches into a fist, and smacks into the left palm; the heels click together, the neck bulls forward, then, in a spasm of amusement, his face contorts, his head tosses back, spectacle-ribbons flying, and he shakes from head to foot with laughter. A moment later, he is listening with passionate concentration, crouching forward and massaging the speaker's shoulder as if to wring more information out of him. Should he hear something not to his liking, he recoils as if stung, and the blood rushes to his face.68 Were it not for his high brow, and the distracting brilliance of his smile, Roosevelt would unquestionably be an ugly man. His head is too big and square (one learned commentator calls it brachycephalous),69 his ears too small, his jowls too heavy. The stiff brown hair is parted high and clipped unflatteringly short. Rimless pince-nez squeeze the thick nose, etching a tiny, perpetual frown between his eyebrows. The eyes themselves are large, wide-spaced, and very pale blue. Although Roosevelt's gaze is steady, the constant movement of his head keeps slicing the pince-nez across it, in a series of twinkling eclipses that make his true expression very hard to gauge. Only those who know him well are quick enough to catch the subtler messages Roosevelt sends forth. William Allen White occasionally sees "the shadow of some inner femininity deeply suppressed." his ears too small, his jowls too heavy. The stiff brown hair is parted high and clipped unflatteringly short. Rimless pince-nez squeeze the thick nose, etching a tiny, perpetual frown between his eyebrows. The eyes themselves are large, wide-spaced, and very pale blue. Although Roosevelt's gaze is steady, the constant movement of his head keeps slicing the pince-nez across it, in a series of twinkling eclipses that make his true expression very hard to gauge. Only those who know him well are quick enough to catch the subtler messages Roosevelt sends forth. William Allen White occasionally sees "the shadow of some inner femininity deeply suppressed."70 Owen Wister has detected (and Adolfo Muller-Ury painted) a sort of blurry wistfulness, a mixture of "perplexity and pain...the sign of frequent conflict between what he knew, and his wish not to know it, his determination to grasp his optimism tight, lest it escape him." Owen Wister has detected (and Adolfo Muller-Ury painted) a sort of blurry wistfulness, a mixture of "perplexity and pain...the sign of frequent conflict between what he knew, and his wish not to know it, his determination to grasp his optimism tight, lest it escape him."71 His ample mustache does not entirely conceal a large, pouting underlip, on the rare occasions when that lip is still. Mostly, however, the mustache gyrates about Roosevelt's most celebrated feature-his dazzling teeth. Virtually every published description of the President, including those of provincial reporters who can catch only a quick glimpse of him through the window of a campaign train, celebrates his dental display. Cartoonists across the land have sketched them into American folk-consciousness, so much so that envelopes ornamented only with teeth and spectacles are routinely delivered to the White House.72 At first sight the famous incisors are, perhaps, disappointing, being neither so big nor so prominent as the cartoonists would make out. But to watch Roosevelt talking is to be hypnotized by them. White and even, they chop every word into neat syllables, sending them forth perfectly formed but separate, in a jerky staccatissimo staccatissimo that has no relation to the normal rhythms of speech. The President's diction is indeed so syncopated, and accompanied by such surprise thrusts of the head, that there are rumors of a youthful impediment, successfully conquered. that has no relation to the normal rhythms of speech. The President's diction is indeed so syncopated, and accompanied by such surprise thrusts of the head, that there are rumors of a youthful impediment, successfully conquered.73 His very voice seems to rasp out of the tips of his teeth. "I always think of a man biting tenpenny nails when I think of Roosevelt making a speech," says an old colleague. His very voice seems to rasp out of the tips of his teeth. "I always think of a man biting tenpenny nails when I think of Roosevelt making a speech," says an old colleague.74 Others are reminded of engines and light artillery. Sibilants hiss out like escaping steam; plosives drive the lips apart with an audible Others are reminded of engines and light artillery. Sibilants hiss out like escaping steam; plosives drive the lips apart with an audible pfft. pfft.75 Hearing him close up, one can understand his constant use of "dee-lighted." "dee-lighted." Phonetically, the word is made for him, with its grinning vowels and snapped-off consonants. So, too, is that other staple of the Rooseveltian vocabulary, "I." He pronounces it Phonetically, the word is made for him, with its grinning vowels and snapped-off consonants. So, too, is that other staple of the Rooseveltian vocabulary, "I." He pronounces it "Aieeeee," "Aieeeee," allowing the final e's to rise to a self-satisfied pitch which never fails to irritate Henry Adams. allowing the final e's to rise to a self-satisfied pitch which never fails to irritate Henry Adams.76 The force of Roosevelt's utterance has the effect of burying his remarks, like shrapnel, in the memory of the listener. Years after meeting him, an Ohio farmer will lovingly recall every inflection of some such banality as "Are you German? Congratulations-I'm German too!" (His ability to find common strains of ancestry with voters has earned him the nickname of "Old Fifty-seven Varieties.")77 Children are struck by the tenderness with which he enunciates his wife's name-"Edith." Children are struck by the tenderness with which he enunciates his wife's name-"Edith."78 H. G. Wells preserves, as if filmed and recorded, an interview with the President in the White House garden last summer. "I can see him now, and hear his unmusical voice saying, 'the effort's worth it, the effort's worth it,' and see the...how can I describe it? The friendly peering snarl of his face, like a man with sun in his eyes." H. G. Wells preserves, as if filmed and recorded, an interview with the President in the White House garden last summer. "I can see him now, and hear his unmusical voice saying, 'the effort's worth it, the effort's worth it,' and see the...how can I describe it? The friendly peering snarl of his face, like a man with sun in his eyes."79 The British author declares, in a Harper's Weekly Harper's Weekly article, that Roosevelt is as impressive mentally as physically. "His range of reading is amazing. He seems to be echoing with all the thought of the time, he has receptivity to the pitch of genius." article, that Roosevelt is as impressive mentally as physically. "His range of reading is amazing. He seems to be echoing with all the thought of the time, he has receptivity to the pitch of genius."80 Opinions are divided as to whether the President possesses the other aspect of genius, originality. His habit of inviting every eminent man within reach to his table, then plunging into the depths of that man's specialty (for Roosevelt has no small talk), exposes but one facet of his mind at a time, to the distress of some finely tuned intellects. The medievalist Adams finds his lectures on history childlike and superficial; painters and musicians sense that his artistic judgment is coarse. Opinions are divided as to whether the President possesses the other aspect of genius, originality. His habit of inviting every eminent man within reach to his table, then plunging into the depths of that man's specialty (for Roosevelt has no small talk), exposes but one facet of his mind at a time, to the distress of some finely tuned intellects. The medievalist Adams finds his lectures on history childlike and superficial; painters and musicians sense that his artistic judgment is coarse.81 Yet the vast majority of his interlocutors would agree with Wells that Theodore Roosevelt has "the most vigorous brain in a conspicuously responsible position in all the world."82 Its variety is protean. A few weeks ago, when the British Embassy's new councillor, Sir Esme Howard, mentioned a spell of diplomatic duty in Crete, Roosevelt immediately and learnedly began to discuss the archeological digs at Knossos. He then asked if Howard was by any chance descended from "Belted Will" of Border fame-quoting Scott on the subject, to the councillor's mystification. Its variety is protean. A few weeks ago, when the British Embassy's new councillor, Sir Esme Howard, mentioned a spell of diplomatic duty in Crete, Roosevelt immediately and learnedly began to discuss the archeological digs at Knossos. He then asked if Howard was by any chance descended from "Belted Will" of Border fame-quoting Scott on the subject, to the councillor's mystification.83 The President is also capable of declaiming German poetry to Lutheran preachers, and comparing recently resuscitated Gaelic letters with Hopi Indian lyrics. He is recognized as the world authority on big American game mammals, and is an ornithologist of some note. Stooping to pick a speck of brown fluff off the White House lawn, he will murmur, "Very early for a fox sparrow!" The President is also capable of declaiming German poetry to Lutheran preachers, and comparing recently resuscitated Gaelic letters with Hopi Indian lyrics. He is recognized as the world authority on big American game mammals, and is an ornithologist of some note. Stooping to pick a speck of brown fluff off the White House lawn, he will murmur, "Very early for a fox sparrow!"84 Roosevelt is equally at home with experts in naval strategy, forestry, Greek drama, cowpunching, metaphysics, protective coloration, and football techniques. His good friend Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge cherishes the following Presidential document, dated 11 March 1906: Roosevelt is equally at home with experts in naval strategy, forestry, Greek drama, cowpunching, metaphysics, protective coloration, and football techniques. His good friend Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge cherishes the following Presidential document, dated 11 March 1906: Dear Nannie Can you have me to dinner either Wednesday or Friday? Would you be willing to have Bay and Bessie also? Then we could discuss the Hittite empire, the Pithecanthropus, and Magyar love songs, and the exact relations of the Atli of the Can you have me to dinner either Wednesday or Friday? Would you be willing to have Bay and Bessie also? Then we could discuss the Hittite empire, the Pithecanthropus, and Magyar love songs, and the exact relations of the Atli of the Volsunga Saga Volsunga Saga to the Etzel of the to the Etzel of the Nibelungenlied Nibelungenlied, and of both to Attila-with interludes by Cabot about the rate bill, Beveridge, and other matters of more vivid contemporary interest. Ever yours Ever yours,THEODORE ROOSEVELT85 There is self-mockery in this letter, but nobody doubts that Roosevelt could (and probably did) hold forth on such subjects in a single evening. He delights like a schoolboy in parading his knowledge, and does so so loudly, and at such length, that less vigorous talkers lapse into weary silence. John Hay once calculated that in a two-hour dinner at the White House, Roosevelt's guests were responsible for only four and a half minutes of conversation; the rest was supplied by the President himself.86 He is, fortunately, a superb talker, with a gift for le mot juste le mot juste that stings and sizzles. Although he hardly ever swears-his intolerance of bad language verges on the prissy-he can pack such venom into a word like "swine" that it has the force of an obscenity, making his victim feel more swinish than a styful of hogs. that stings and sizzles. Although he hardly ever swears-his intolerance of bad language verges on the prissy-he can pack such venom into a word like "swine" that it has the force of an obscenity, making his victim feel more swinish than a styful of hogs.87 Roosevelt has a particular gift for humorous invective. Old-timers still talk about the New York Supreme Court Justice he pilloried as "an amiable old fuzzy-wuzzy with sweetbread brains." Critics of the Administration's Panama policy are "a small bunch of shrill eunuchs"; demonstrators against bloodsports are "logical vegetarians of the flabbiest Hindoo type." President Castro of Venezuela is "an unspeakably villainous little monkey," President Marroquin of Colombia is a "pithecanthropoid," and Senator William Alfred Peffer is immortalized as "a well-meaning, pin-headed, anarchistic crank, of hirsute and slabsided aspect." Roosevelt has a particular gift for humorous invective. Old-timers still talk about the New York Supreme Court Justice he pilloried as "an amiable old fuzzy-wuzzy with sweetbread brains." Critics of the Administration's Panama policy are "a small bunch of shrill eunuchs"; demonstrators against bloodsports are "logical vegetarians of the flabbiest Hindoo type." President Castro of Venezuela is "an unspeakably villainous little monkey," President Marroquin of Colombia is a "pithecanthropoid," and Senator William Alfred Peffer is immortalized as "a well-meaning, pin-headed, anarchistic crank, of hirsute and slabsided aspect."88 When delivering himself of such insults, the President grimaces with glee. Booth Tarkington detects "an undertone of Homeric chuckling." When delivering himself of such insults, the President grimaces with glee. Booth Tarkington detects "an undertone of Homeric chuckling."89 Theodore Roosevelt is now only one handshake away. His famous "presence" charges the air about him. It is, in the opinion of one veteran politician, "unquestionably the greatest gift of personal magnetism ever possessed by an American."90 Other writers grope for metaphors ranging from effervescence to electricity. "One despairs," says William Bayard Hale, "of giving a conception of the constancy and force of the stream of corpuscular personality given off by the President...It begins to play on the visitor's mind, his body, to accelerate his blood-current, and set his nerves tingling and his skin aglow." Other writers grope for metaphors ranging from effervescence to electricity. "One despairs," says William Bayard Hale, "of giving a conception of the constancy and force of the stream of corpuscular personality given off by the President...It begins to play on the visitor's mind, his body, to accelerate his blood-current, and set his nerves tingling and his skin aglow."91 The word "tingle" appears again and again in descriptions of encounters with Roosevelt. He has, as Secretary Straus observes, "the quality of vitalizing things,"92 and some people take an almost sensual pleasure in his proximity. Today, the President radiates even more health and vigor than usual-he has spent the last five days pounding through wet Virginia forests in search of turkey. His stiff hair shines, his complexion is a ruddy brown, his body exudes a clean scent of cologne. and some people take an almost sensual pleasure in his proximity. Today, the President radiates even more health and vigor than usual-he has spent the last five days pounding through wet Virginia forests in search of turkey. His stiff hair shines, his complexion is a ruddy brown, his body exudes a clean scent of cologne.93 He stands with tiny feet spraddled, shoulders thrown back, chest and stomach crescent as a peacock, his left thumb comfortably hooked into a vest pocket. For what must be the three thousandth time, his right arm shoots out. "Dee-lighted!" "Dee-lighted!" Unlike his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt does not limply allow himself to be shaken. He seizes on the fingers of every guest, and wrings them with surprising power. "It's a very full and very firm grip," warns one newspaper, "that might bring a woman to her knees if she wore her rings on her right hand." Unlike his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt does not limply allow himself to be shaken. He seizes on the fingers of every guest, and wrings them with surprising power. "It's a very full and very firm grip," warns one newspaper, "that might bring a woman to her knees if she wore her rings on her right hand."94 The grip is accompanied by a discreet, but irresistible sideways pull, for the President, when he lets go, wishes to have his guest already well out of the way. The grip is accompanied by a discreet, but irresistible sideways pull, for the President, when he lets go, wishes to have his guest already well out of the way.95 Yet this lightning moment of contact is enough for him to transmit the full voltage of his charm. Yet this lightning moment of contact is enough for him to transmit the full voltage of his charm.

Insofar as charm can be analyzed, Roosevelt's owes its potency to a combination of genuine warmth and the self-confidence of a man who, in all his forty-eight years, has never encountered a character stronger than his own-with the exception of one revered person, with the same name as himself.

Women find the President enchanting. "I do delight in him," says Edith Wharton. The memory of every Rooseveltian encounter glows within her "like a tiny morsel of radium."96 Another woman writes of meeting him at a reception: "The world seemed blotted out. I seemed to be enveloped in an atmosphere of warmth and kindly consideration. I felt that, for the time being, I was the sole object of his interest and concern." Another woman writes of meeting him at a reception: "The world seemed blotted out. I seemed to be enveloped in an atmosphere of warmth and kindly consideration. I felt that, for the time being, I was the sole object of his interest and concern."97 If he senses any sexual interest in him, Theodore Roosevelt shows no sign: in matters of morality he is as prudish as a dowager. That small hard hand has caressed only two women. One of them stands beside him now, and the other, long dead, is never mentioned. If he senses any sexual interest in him, Theodore Roosevelt shows no sign: in matters of morality he is as prudish as a dowager. That small hard hand has caressed only two women. One of them stands beside him now, and the other, long dead, is never mentioned.

Men, too, feel the power of his charm. Even the bitterest of his political enemies will allow that he is "as sweet a man as ever scuttled a ship or cut a throat."98 Senator John Spooner stormed into his office the other day "angry as a hornet" over Brownsville, and emerged "liking him again in spite of myself." Henry James, who privately considers Roosevelt to be "a dangerous and ominous jingo," is forced to recognize "his amusing likeability." Senator John Spooner stormed into his office the other day "angry as a hornet" over Brownsville, and emerged "liking him again in spite of myself." Henry James, who privately considers Roosevelt to be "a dangerous and ominous jingo," is forced to recognize "his amusing likeability."99 His friends are frank in their adoration. "Theodore is one of the most lovable as well as one of the cleverest and most daring men I have ever known," says Henry Cabot Lodge, not normally given to hyperbole. Crusty John Muir "fairly fell in love" with the President when he visited Yosemite, and Jacob Riis claims the years he spent with Roosevelt were the happiest of his life.100 Yet, for all the warmth of the handshake, and the squeaking sincerity of the "Dee-lighted!" "Dee-lighted!" there is something automatic about that gray-blue gaze. One almost hears the whir of a shutter. "While talking," notes the there is something automatic about that gray-blue gaze. One almost hears the whir of a shutter. "While talking," notes the Philadelphia Independent Philadelphia Independent, "the camera of his mind is busy taking photographs."101 If Roosevelt senses the presence of somebody who is likely to be of use to him, either politically or socially, he will instantly file the photograph, and with half a dozen sentences ensure that his guest, in turn, never forgets him. Ten years later is not too long a time for Roosevelt to call upon that man, in the sure knowledge that he has a friend. If Roosevelt senses the presence of somebody who is likely to be of use to him, either politically or socially, he will instantly file the photograph, and with half a dozen sentences ensure that his guest, in turn, never forgets him. Ten years later is not too long a time for Roosevelt to call upon that man, in the sure knowledge that he has a friend.102 Theodore Roosevelt's memory can, in the opinion of the historian George Otto Trevelyan, be compared with the legendary mechanism of Thomas Babington Macaulay.103 Authors are embarrassed, during Presidential audiences, to hear long quotes from their works which they themselves have forgotten. Congressmen know that it is useless to contest him on facts and figures. He astonishes the diplomat Count Albert Apponyi by reciting, almost verbatim, a long piece of Hungarian historical literature: when the Count expresses surprise, Roosevelt says he has neither seen nor thought of the document in twenty years. Asked to explain a similar performance before a delegation of Chinese, Roosevelt explains mildly: "I remembered a book that I had read some time ago, and as I talked the pages of the book came before my eyes." Authors are embarrassed, during Presidential audiences, to hear long quotes from their works which they themselves have forgotten. Congressmen know that it is useless to contest him on facts and figures. He astonishes the diplomat Count Albert Apponyi by reciting, almost verbatim, a long piece of Hungarian historical literature: when the Count expresses surprise, Roosevelt says he has neither seen nor thought of the document in twenty years. Asked to explain a similar performance before a delegation of Chinese, Roosevelt explains mildly: "I remembered a book that I had read some time ago, and as I talked the pages of the book came before my eyes."104 The pages of his speeches similarly swim before him, although he seems to be speaking impromptu. When confronted with a face he does not instantly recall, he will put a hand over his eyes until it appears before him in its previous context. The pages of his speeches similarly swim before him, although he seems to be speaking impromptu. When confronted with a face he does not instantly recall, he will put a hand over his eyes until it appears before him in its previous context.105 The small hard hand relaxes its grip, and the line moves on. Guests barely have time to greet the First Lady, who stands aloof and smiling in brown brocaded satin at her husband's elbow. She holds a bouquet of white roses, effectively discouraging handshakes. The White House's most brilliant entertainer since Dolley Madison, Edith Kermit Roosevelt is also its most puzzlingly private. Nobody knows what power she wields over the President, but rumor says it is considerable, particularly in the field of appointments. For all his political cunning, Roosevelt is not an infallible judge of men.106 "More lively please!" an usher calls at the door of the Green Room. The velvet ropes lead on through the East Room, down a curving stairway, then out into the sunshine.107 The crowd disperses with the dazed expressions of a theater audience. There are some perfunctory remarks about the diplomatic display, but mostly the talk is about the man in the Blue Room. "You go to the White House," writes Richard Washburn Child, "you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk-and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes." The crowd disperses with the dazed expressions of a theater audience. There are some perfunctory remarks about the diplomatic display, but mostly the talk is about the man in the Blue Room. "You go to the White House," writes Richard Washburn Child, "you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk-and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes."108

THE P PRESIDENT CONTINUES to pump hands with such vigor that his last caller passes through the Blue Room shortly after two o'clock. Mrs. Roosevelt, and most of the receiving party, have long since excused themselves for lunch. Considering the exercise to which he has been put, Roosevelt is doubtless hungry too; yet even now he cannot rest. Wheeling in search of more victims, he grabs the hands of Agriculture Secretary James Wilson, who has stayed behind to keep him company. "Mr. Secretary," croaks Roosevelt, "to you I wish a very, to pump hands with such vigor that his last caller passes through the Blue Room shortly after two o'clock. Mrs. Roosevelt, and most of the receiving party, have long since excused themselves for lunch. Considering the exercise to which he has been put, Roosevelt is doubtless hungry too; yet even now he cannot rest. Wheeling in search of more victims, he grabs the hands of Agriculture Secretary James Wilson, who has stayed behind to keep him company. "Mr. Secretary," croaks Roosevelt, "to you I wish a very, very very happy New Year!" happy New Year!"109 The fact that he has done so once already does not seem to occur to him. Still unsatisfied, the President proceeds to shake the hands of every aide, usher, and policeman in sight. Only then does he retire upstairs and scrub himself clean. The fact that he has done so once already does not seem to occur to him. Still unsatisfied, the President proceeds to shake the hands of every aide, usher, and policeman in sight. Only then does he retire upstairs and scrub himself clean.110 Events which he cannot foresee will reduce the total of his callers next year. Never again will Theodore Roosevelt, or any other President, enjoy such homage. The journalists may add another superlative to their praises. On this first day of January 1907, the President has shaken 8,150 hands, more than any other man in history. As a world record, it will remain unbroken almost a century hence.111

LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, the President, his wife, and five of his six children are seen cantering off for a ride in the country. Although reporters cannot follow him through the rest of the day, enough is known of Roosevelt's domestic habits to predict its events with some accuracy.112 Returning for tea, which he will swig from an outsize cup, Roosevelt will take advantage of the holiday quietness of his dark-green office to do some writing. Besides being President of the United States, he is also a professional author. The Elkhorn Edition of Returning for tea, which he will swig from an outsize cup, Roosevelt will take advantage of the holiday quietness of his dark-green office to do some writing. Besides being President of the United States, he is also a professional author. The Elkhorn Edition of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, just published, comprises twenty-three volumes of history, natural history, biography, political philosophy, and essays. At least two of his books, The Naval War of 1812 The Naval War of 1812 and the four-volume and the four-volume Winning of the West Winning of the West, are considered definitive by serious historians.113 He is also the author of many scientific articles and literary reviews, not to mention an estimated total of fifty thousand letters-the latest twenty-five of which he dashed off this morning. He is also the author of many scientific articles and literary reviews, not to mention an estimated total of fifty thousand letters-the latest twenty-five of which he dashed off this morning.114 In the early evening the President will escort his family to No. 1733 N Street, where his elder sister Bamie will serve chocolate and whipped cream and champagne. After returning to the White House, the younger Roosevelts will be forcibly romped into bed, and the elder given permission to roller-skate for an hour in the basement. As quietness settles down over the Presidential apartments, Roosevelt and his wife will sit by the fire in the Prince of Wales Room and read to each other. At about ten o'clock the First Lady will rise and kiss her husband good night. He will continue to read in the light of a student lamp, peering through his one good eye (the other is almost blind) at the book held inches from his nose, flicking over the pages at a rate of two or three a minute.115 This is the time of the day he loves best. "Reading with me is a disease."116 He succumbs to it so totally-on the heaving deck of the Presidential yacht in the middle of a cyclone, between whistle-stops on a campaign trip, even while waiting for his carriage at the front door-that he cannot hear his own name being spoken. Nothing short of a thump on the back will regain his attention. Asked to summarize the book he has been leafing through with such apparent haste, he will do so in minute detail, often quoting the actual text. He succumbs to it so totally-on the heaving deck of the Presidential yacht in the middle of a cyclone, between whistle-stops on a campaign trip, even while waiting for his carriage at the front door-that he cannot hear his own name being spoken. Nothing short of a thump on the back will regain his attention. Asked to summarize the book he has been leafing through with such apparent haste, he will do so in minute detail, often quoting the actual text.117 The President manages to get through at least one book a day even when he is busy. Owen Wister has lent him a book shortly before a full evening's entertainment at the White House, and been astonished to hear a complete review of it over breakfast. "Somewhere between six one evening and eight-thirty next morning, beside his dressing and his dinner and his guests and his sleep, he had read a volume of three-hundred-and-odd pages, and missed nothing of significance that it contained."118 On evenings like this, when he has no official entertaining to do, Roosevelt will read two or three books entire.119 His appetite for titles is omnivorous and insatiable, ranging from the the His appetite for titles is omnivorous and insatiable, ranging from the the Histories Histories of Thucydides to the of Thucydides to the Tales of Uncle Remus Tales of Uncle Remus. Reading, as he has explained to Trevelyan, is for him the purest imaginative therapy. In the past year alone, Roosevelt has devoured all the novels of Trollope, the complete works of De Quincey, a Life of Saint Patrick Life of Saint Patrick, the prose works of Milton and Tacitus ("until I could stand them no longer"), Samuel Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, the seafaring yarns of Jacobs, the poetry of Scott, Poe, and Longfellow, a German novel called Jorn Uhl Jorn Uhl, "a most satisfactorily lurid Man-eating Lion story," and Foulke's Life of Oliver P. Morton Life of Oliver P. Morton, not to mention at least five hundred other volumes, on subjects ranging from tropical flora to Italian naval history.120 The richness of Roosevelt's knowledge causes a continuous process of cross-fertilization to go on in his mind. Standing with candle in hand at a baptismal service in Santa Fe, he reflects that his ancestors, and those of the child's Mexican father, "doubtless fought in the Netherlands in the days of Alva and Parma." Watching a group of American sailors joke about bedbugs in the Navy, he is reminded of the freedom of comment traditionally allowed to Roman legionnaires after battle. Trying to persuade Congress to adopt a system of simplified spelling in Government documents, he unself-consciously cites a treatise on the subject published in the time of Cromwell.121 Tonight the President will bury himself, perhaps, in two volumes Mrs. Lodge has just sent him for review: Gissing's Charles Dickens, A Critical Study Charles Dickens, A Critical Study, and The Greek View of Life The Greek View of Life, by Lowes Dickinson. He will be struck, as he peruses the latter, by interesting parallels between the Periclean attitude toward women and that of presentday Japan, and will make a mental note to write to Mrs. Lodge about it.122 He may also read, with alternate approval and disapproval, two articles on Mormonism in the latest issue of He may also read, with alternate approval and disapproval, two articles on Mormonism in the latest issue of Outlook Outlook. A five-thousand-word essay on "The Ancient Irish Sagas" in this month's Century Century magazine will not detain him long, since he is himself the author. magazine will not detain him long, since he is himself the author.123 His method of reading periodicals is somewhat unusual: each page, as he comes to the end of it, is torn out and thrown onto the floor. His method of reading periodicals is somewhat unusual: each page, as he comes to the end of it, is torn out and thrown onto the floor.124 When both magazines have been thus reduced to a pile of crumpled paper, Roosevelt will leap from his rocking-chair and march down the corridor. Slowing his pace at the door of the presidential suite, he will tiptoe in, brush the famous teeth with only a moderate amount of noise, and pull on his blue-striped pajamas. Beside his pillow he will deposit a large, precautionary revolver. When both magazines have been thus reduced to a pile of crumpled paper, Roosevelt will leap from his rocking-chair and march down the corridor. Slowing his pace at the door of the presidential suite, he will tiptoe in, brush the famous teeth with only a moderate amount of noise, and pull on his blue-striped pajamas. Beside his pillow he will deposit a large, precautionary revolver.125 His last act, after turning down the lamp and climbing into bed, will be to unclip his pince-nez and rub the reddened bridge of his nose. Then, there being nothing further to do, Theodore Roosevelt will energetically fall asleep. His last act, after turning down the lamp and climbing into bed, will be to unclip his pince-nez and rub the reddened bridge of his nose. Then, there being nothing further to do, Theodore Roosevelt will energetically fall asleep.

"Such loveliness of line and tinting...such sweet courtesy of manner."

Martha Bulloch Roosevelt at twenty-two.(Illustration p1.1)

CHAPTER 1.

The Very Small Person Then King Olaf entered,Beautiful as morning,Like the sun at EasterShone his happy face.

ON THE LATE afternoon of 27 October 1858, a flurry of activity disturbed the genteel quietness of East Twentieth Street, New York City. afternoon of 27 October 1858, a flurry of activity disturbed the genteel quietness of East Twentieth Street, New York City.1 Liveried servants flew out of the basement of No. 28, the Roosevelt brownstone, and hurried off in search of doctors, midwives, and stray members of the family-a difficult task, for it was now the fashionable visiting hour. Meanwhile Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt lay tossing in her satinwood bed, awaiting the arrival of her second child and first son. Liveried servants flew out of the basement of No. 28, the Roosevelt brownstone, and hurried off in search of doctors, midwives, and stray members of the family-a difficult task, for it was now the fashionable visiting hour. Meanwhile Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt lay tossing in her satinwood bed, awaiting the arrival of her second child and first son.

Gaslight was flaring on the cobbles by the time a doctor arrived. The child was born at a quarter to eight, emerging so easily that neither chloroform nor instruments were needed. "Consequently," reported his grandmother, "the dear little thing has no cuts nor bruises about it." Theodore Roosevelt, Junior, was "as sweet and pretty a young baby as I have ever seen."

Mittie Roosevelt, inspecting her son the following morning, disagreed. She said, with Southern frankness, that he looked like a terrapin.2 Apart from these two contradictory images, there are no further visual descriptions of the newborn baby. He weighed eight and a half pounds, and was more than usually noisy.3 When he reappears in the family chronicles ten months later, he has acquired a milk-crust and a nickname, "Teedie." At eighteen months the milk-crust has gone, but the nickname has not. He is now "almost a little beauty." When he reappears in the family chronicles ten months later, he has acquired a milk-crust and a nickname, "Teedie." At eighteen months the milk-crust has gone, but the nickname has not. He is now "almost a little beauty."4 Scattered references in other letters indicate a bright, hyperactive infant. Yet already the first of a succession of congenital ailments was beginning to weaken him. Asthma crowded his lungs, depriving him of sleep. "One of my memories," the ex-President wrote in his Autobiography Autobiography, "is of my father walking up and down the room with me in his arms at night when I was a very small person, and of sitting up in bed gasping, with my father and mother trying to help me."5 Even more nightmarish was the recollection of those same strong arms holding him, as the Roosevelt rig sped through darkened city streets, forcing a rush of air into the tiny lungs. Even more nightmarish was the recollection of those same strong arms holding him, as the Roosevelt rig sped through darkened city streets, forcing a rush of air into the tiny lungs.6

THEODORE R ROOSEVELT, SENIOR, was no stranger to childhood suffering. Gifted himself with magnificent health and strength-"I never seem to get tired"-he overflowed with sympathy for the small, the weak, the lame, and the poor. Even in that age when a certain amount of charitable work was expected of well-born citizens, he was remarkable for his passionate efforts on behalf of the waifs of New York. He had what he called "a troublesome conscience."7 Every seventh day of his life was dedicated to teaching in mission schools, distributing tracts, and interviewing wayward children. Long after dark he would come home after dinner at some such institution as the Newsboys' Lodging-House, or Mrs. Sattery's Night School for Little Italians. One of his prime concerns, as a founder of the Children's Aid Society, was to send street urchins to work on farms in the West. His charity extended as far as sick kittens, which could be seen peeking from his pockets as he drove down Broadway.8 At the time of Teedie's birth, Theodore Senior was twenty-seven years old, a partner in the old importing firm of Roosevelt and Son, and already one of the most influential men in New York. Handsome, wealthy, and gregarious, he was at ease with millionaires and paupers, never showing a trace of snobbery, real or inverse, in his relations with either class. "I can see him now," remembered a society matron years later, "in full evening dress, serving a most generous supper to his newsboys in the Lodging-House, and later dashing off to an evening party on Fifth Avenue."9 A photograph taken in 1862 shows deep eyes, leonine features, a glossy beard, and big, sloping shoulders. "He was a large, broad, bright, cheerful man," said his nephew Emlen Roosevelt, "...deep through, with a sense of abundant strength and power." The word "power" runs like a leitmotif through other descriptions of Theodore Senior: he was a person of inexorable drive. "A certain expression" on his face, as he strode breezily into the offices of business acquaintances, was enough to flip pocketbooks open. "How much this time, Theodore?"10 For all his compulsive philanthropy, he was neither sanctimonious nor ascetic. He took an exuberant, masculine joy in life, riding his horse through Central Park "as though born in the saddle," exercising with the energy of a teenager, waltzing all night long at society balls. Driving his four-in-hand back home in the small hours of the morning, he rattled through the streets at such a rate that his grooms allegedly "fell out at the corners."11 Such a combination of physical vitality and genuine love of humanity was rare indeed. His son called Theodore Senior "the best man I ever knew," adding, "...but he was the only man of whom I was ever really afraid."12

IN ALL RESPECTS except their intense love for each other, Theodore and Martha Roosevelt were striking opposites. Where he was big and disciplined and manly, "Mittie" was small, vague, and feminine to the point of caricature. He was the archetypal Northern burgher, she the Southern belle eternal, a lady about whom there always clung a hint of white columns and wisteria bowers. Born and raised in the luxury of a Georgia plantation, she remained, according to her son, "entirely unreconstructed until the day of her death." except their intense love for each other, Theodore and Martha Roosevelt were striking opposites. Where he was big and disciplined and manly, "Mittie" was small, vague, and feminine to the point of caricature. He was the archetypal Northern burgher, she the Southern belle eternal, a lady about whom there always clung a hint of white columns and wisteria bowers. Born and raised in the luxury of a Georgia plantation, she remained, according to her son, "entirely unreconstructed until the day of her death."13 Of her beauty, especially in her youth (she was twenty-three when Teedie was born), contemporary accounts are unanimous in their praise. Her hair was fine and silky black, with a luster her French hairdresser called noir dore noir dore. Her skin was "more moonlight-white than cream-white," and in her cheeks there glowed a suggestion of coral.14 Every day she took two successive baths, "one for cleaning, one for rinsing," and she dressed habitually in white muslin, summer and winter. "No dirt," an admirer marveled, "ever stopped near her." Every day she took two successive baths, "one for cleaning, one for rinsing," and she dressed habitually in white muslin, summer and winter. "No dirt," an admirer marveled, "ever stopped near her."15 On Mittie's afternoons "at home" she would sit in her pale blue parlor, surrounded always by bunches of violets, while "neat little maids in lilac print gowns" escorted guests into her presence. Invariably they were enchanted. "Such loveliness of line and tinting...such sweet courtesy of manner!" gushed Mrs. Burton Harrison, a memoirist of the period. Of five or six gentlewomen whose "birth, breeding, and tact" established them as the flowers of New York society, "Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt seemed to me easily the most beautiful."16 Her exquisite looks were balanced by exquisite taste. Not surprisingly, for someone who made such a delicate pastel picture of herself, she was a connoisseur of painting and sculpture. She filled her house with the finest furniture and porcelain, and her need for "everything that was beautiful" is said to have strained even the considerable Roosevelt resources. Theodore Senior acknowledged that her palate for wine was superior to his own, and never paid for a consignment until she had personally approved it.17 Mittie was a woman of considerable wit. Her letters, written in a delicate Italian hand, show flashes of inventive humor.18 As a storyteller, especially when recounting what her enraptured children called "slave tales," she revealed great gifts of mimicry. One evening, at a family party, she grimaced her way through a piece called "Old Bess in a Fit," while Theodore Senior, who could not bear seeing her lovely face distorted, tried in vain to stop her. Eventually he was reduced to picking her up like a doll and carrying her out of the room on his shoulder. As a storyteller, especially when recounting what her enraptured children called "slave tales," she revealed great gifts of mimicry. One evening, at a family party, she grimaced her way through a piece called "Old Bess in a Fit," while Theodore Senior, who could not bear seeing her lovely face distorted, tried in vain to stop her. Eventually he was reduced to picking her up like a doll and carrying her out of the room on his shoulder.19

FROM HIS FATHER, young Teedie inherited the sturdy Dutch character of Klaes Martenszen van Rosenvelt, one of the early settlers of New Amsterdam, who stepped ashore sometime in 1649. From that day on for the next two centuries, every generation of Roosevelts-Teedie being the seventh-was born on Manhattan Island.20 Oom Klaes had been a farmer, but subsequent Roosevelts ascended rapidly in the social scale, becoming manufacturers, merchants, engineers, and bankers. A Roosevelt had served in the New York State Senate and helped ratify the Constitution with Alexander Hamilton. Another had received his bride from the hands of General Lafayette. Industrious and honest, the family amassed a comfortable fortune. Teedie's grandfather Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt was worth half a million dollars at a time when the average daily wage was fifty to seventy-five cents. Klaes had been a farmer, but subsequent Roosevelts ascended rapidly in the social scale, becoming manufacturers, merchants, engineers, and bankers. A Roosevelt had served in the New York State Senate and helped ratify the Constitution with Alexander Hamilton. Another had received his bride from the hands of General Lafayette. Industrious and honest, the family amassed a comfortable fortune. Teedie's grandfather Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt was worth half a million dollars at a time when the average daily wage was fifty to seventy-five cents.21 The only non-Dutch infusion that Teedie received through his father was that of Grandmother Roosevelt, but it was a rich admixture of Welsh, English, Irish, Scotch-Irish, and German strains traceable back to immigrant Quakers. Strangely enough, she, and not old Cornelius, taught Teedie the only Dutch he ever knew, a nursery song: Trippel trippel toontjes,Kippen in de boontjes...

Fifty years later, when he went hunting in Africa, he sang this song to Boer settlers and found that they recognized it. "It was interesting," he wrote, "to meet these men whose ancestors had gone to the Cape about the time that mine went to America two and a half centuries previously, and to find that the descendants of the two streams of emigrants still crooned to their children some at least of the same nursery songs."22 From his mother, Teedie acquired several refined French traits. Although her forebears were predominantly Scots-James Bulloch of Glasgow emigrated to Charleston in 1729-they had early married into the Huguenot family of de Veaux.23 Mittie, with her rococo beauty and elegance of manner, could have been mistaken for a Frenchwoman, and she passed on to Teedie a certain Gallic volubility. Mittie, with her rococo beauty and elegance of manner, could have been mistaken for a Frenchwoman, and she passed on to Teedie a certain Gallic volubility.

The Bullochs also contributed aristocratic qualities, not shared by the Roosevelts. Whereas Oom Oom Klaes had been a man of the soil, ranking far below Governor Pieter Stuyvesant, James Bulloch was a learned planter who could entertain Governor James Edward Oglethorpe on equal terms. Klaes had been a man of the soil, ranking far below Governor Pieter Stuyvesant, James Bulloch was a learned planter who could entertain Governor James Edward Oglethorpe on equal terms.24 Unlike the Roosevelts, who with two or three exceptions preferred the security of commerce to the glamor of politics, Unlike the Roosevelts, who with two or three exceptions preferred the security of commerce to the glamor of politics,25 the Bullochs stepped naturally into positions of power. Among his direct maternal ancestors Teedie could count six distinguished politicians, including Archibald Bulloch, the first President of Revolutionary Georgia. the Bullochs stepped naturally into positions of power. Among his direct maternal ancestors Teedie could count six distinguished politicians, including Archibald Bulloch, the first President of Revolutionary Georgia.26 Few Americans, surely, have been born into such a perfectly balanced home environment as the son of Theodore and Mittie Roosevelt. There was a harmony of Southern refinement and Northern vigor, feminine humor and masculine seriousness, and-later on-the rewards of privilege and the responsibilities of charity. Through the front window of the house Teedie looked down on carriages and cobblestones, and heard coming from Broadway and Fifth Avenue the rumble and throb of a great city. Through the rear window he gazed out into another world, an enormous, block-wide garden full of trees and flowers, roamed by ornamental peacocks.27 Were it not for the weight of asthma in his lungs, he might consider himself a child of Paradise. Were it not for the weight of asthma in his lungs, he might consider himself a child of Paradise.

But then, five months after his second birthday, Southern cannons fired upon Fort Sumter, and the harmonies of 28 East Twentieth Street were jarred into discord.

WHEN WAR WAS DECLARED, on 12 April 1861, Teedie and his six-year-old sister Anna ("Bamie") had been joined by a fourteen-month-old brother, Elliott ("Ellie"), and Mittie Roosevelt was already pregnant with her final child, Corinne ("Conie"), who arrived in the fall. No sooner had the last been born than Theodore Senior left home, and sadness filled the house.28 He had spent most of the summer agonizing, to the tramp of mustering regiments, over what role he should play in the war. Although he was not yet thirty, and in prime physical shape, his domestic situation was such that he could not contemplate taking up arms. Under his roof lived three women-Grandmother Bulloch, Mittie, and her sister Annie-who owned slaves and a plantation and were passionate in their support of the Confederacy. (Mittie allegedly once hung out the Stars and Bars after a Southern victory.) Two of Mrs. Bulloch's sons were fighting for the South. Could he fire upon, or receive the bullets of, his brothers-in-law? In anguish Theodore Senior did what many of his wealthy friends were doing. He hired a substitute soldier.29 Yet as a strong Lincoln Republican, his "troublesome conscience" would not let him rest. A certain strain developed between himself and his wife, although their mutual love never wavered. "I wish we sympathized together on this question of so vital moment to our country," he told her gently. "I know you cannot understand my feelings and of course do not expect it."30 Eventually he announced that he had decided to aid the war effort in a civilian capacity, and, true to his nature, soon found a charitable cause. Eventually he announced that he had decided to aid the war effort in a civilian capacity, and, true to his nature, soon found a charitable cause.

Already, in these early days of war, millions of government dollars were flowing through the pockets of Union soldiers and into the hands of sutlers, who infested military camps, hawking bottles of liquor hidden in loaves of bread. The sutlers charged such exorbitant prices that their customers soon had no money left to send home to their families. It was to right this wrong that Theodore Senior set off to Washington, and, conquering his natural distaste for politics, began to lobby for remedial legislation.

With two colleagues, he drafted a bill for the appointment of unpaid Allotment Commissioners, who would visit all military camps and persuade soldiers to set aside voluntary pay deductions for family support. This proposal, which eventually became standard military practice, seemed eccentric, if not downright suspect, in 1861, as a family friend recalled many years later: For three months they worked in Washington to secure the passage of this act-delayed by the utter inability of Congressmen to understand why anyone should urge a bill from which no one could selfishly secure an advantage. When this was passed he was appointed by President Lincoln one of the three Commissioners from this State. For long, weary months, in the depth of a hard winter, he went from camp to camp, urging the men to take advantage of this plan; on the saddle often six to eight hours a day, standing in the cold and mud as long, addressing the men and entering their names. This resulted in sending many millions of dollars to homes where it was greatly needed, kept the memory of wives and children fresh in the minds of the soldiers, and greatly improved their morale. Other States followed, and the economical results were very great.31 Lincoln's private secretary, a round-headed, slant-eyed youth named John Hay, proved a willing conduit to the President, and Theodore Senior made the most of his assistance. "It is a great luxury to feel I am at last doing something tangible for the country," he wrote Mittie. Homesickness nevertheless tugged at him. "I cannot," he confessed, "get Bammie's and Tedee's [sic] [sic] faces, as they bid me goodbye at the door, out of my mind." faces, as they bid me goodbye at the door, out of my mind."32 It is significant that Theodore Junior, when he came to write his own autobiography, made no mention whatsoever of his father's role in the Civil War-his invariable practice being to leave painful memories unspoken, "until they are too dead to throb."33 To serve in mufti was, in his opinion, something less than manly, and his tacit disapproval of the episode is the only indication that Theodore Senior was ever less than a god to him. Many biographers, including his own sister, have suggested that guilt over that substitute soldier explains the future Rough Rider's almost desperate desire to wage war. He himself, at the age of three, made no bones about his wish to be at the front. "Teedie was really excited," wrote Annie Bulloch, "when I said to him, 'Darling, I must fit this zouave suit...' his little face flushed up and he said, 'Are me a soldier laddie?' I immediately took his own suggestion and told him he was and that I was the Captain." To serve in mufti was, in his opinion, something less than manly, and his tacit disapproval of the episode is the only indication that Theodore Senior was ever less than a god to him. Many biographers, including his own sister, have suggested that guilt over that substitute soldier explains the future Rough Rider's almost desperate desire to wage war. He himself, at the age of three, made no bones about his wish to be at the front. "Teedie was really excited," wrote Annie Bulloch, "when I said to him, 'Darling, I must fit this zouave suit...' his little face flushed up and he said, 'Are me a soldier laddie?' I immediately took his own suggestion and told him he was and that I was the Captain."34 His liveliness, abnormal even for a small boy, was something of a trial to the languid Mittie. Six weeks after Theodore Senior's departure she complained: "Teedie is the most affectionate and endearing little creature in his ways, but begins to require Papa's discipline rather sadly. He is brimming full of mischief and has to be watched all the time."35 Yet the child was simultaneously sinking into what seemed like chronic invalidism. From the moment his father left home, the catalog of Teedie's ailments became continuous. He suffered from coughs, colds, nausea, fevers, and a congenital form of nervous diarrhea which the family euphemized as cholera morbus. cholera morbus.36 "I feel badly," he told his mother one morning, "-I have toothache in my stomach." On top of all this, his asthma was worsening. "Rarely, even at his best, could he sleep without being propped up in bed or in a big chair," remembered Corinne. Lack of appetite brought about symptoms of malnutrition. At one stage his whiteness and fragility were such that Annie Bulloch compared him to a very pale azalea. It seemed that he would not live to see his fourth birthday. "I feel badly," he told his mother one morning, "-I have toothache in my stomach." On top of all this, his asthma was worsening. "Rarely, even at his best, could he sleep without being propped up in bed or in a big chair," remembered Corinne. Lack of appetite brought about symptoms of malnutrition. At one stage his whiteness and fragility were such that Annie Bulloch compared him to a very pale azalea. It seemed that he would not live to see his fourth birthday.37 The other children were not much healthier. Bamie, who had been dropped as a baby, suffered from a spinal defect that obliged her to wear a harness; Elliott was prone to colds and rushes of blood to the head; even little Corinne was ailing, and would soon fall victim to asthma as well.38 To Theodore Senior, sloughing tirelessly through the freezing mud of military camps, Mittie's letters made depressing reading. He was plainly bewildered by the fact that two such beautiful physical specimens had produced such a sickly brood of children. "I cannot help feeling," he wrote early in 1862, "that there must be something about the furnace or something that prevents them all from being healthy." With characteristic optimism he hoped for improvements in the summer, when he would be home for a visit, and exhorted his wife: "Remember to enjoy yourself just as much as you can."39 How much Teedie's asthma was aggravated by the absence of his father may be inferred from some remarks he made thirty-seven years later to Lincoln Steffens, after a steeplechase which left the reporter breathless: Handsome dandy that he was, the thought of him now and always has been a sense of comfort. I could breathe, I could sleep, when he had me in his arms. My father-he got me breath, he got me lungs, strength-life.40

WHEN T THEODORE S SENIOR FINALLY came home, on leave of absence from Washington, the garden behind 28 East Twentieth Street was lush with summer, the children were better, and his own mood had improved. He was able to tell stories of rides with President and Mrs. Lincoln, who had apparently fallen victim-as everybody did sooner or later-to his charm. The First Lady even took him shopping and asked him to choose bonnets for her. came home, on leave of absence from Washington, the garden behind 28 East Twentieth Street was lush with summer, the children were better, and his own mood had improved. He was able to tell stories of rides with President and Mrs. Lincoln, who had apparently fallen victim-as everybody did sooner or later-to his charm. The First Lady even took him shopping and asked him to choose bonnets for her.41 The effect of his lusty reappearance in the household was like a tonic to his women and children. The latter especially worshiped him "as though he were a sort of benevolent Norse god."42 During morning prayers they would compete for the privilege of sitting in the "cubby-hole"-a favored stretch of sofa between his body and the mahogany arm. Later in the day, when he was away at work, they would wait for him on the piazza behind the house, until his key rattled in the latch and he burst upon them, laden with ice cream and peaches. He would feed the fruit to them as they lay spread-eagled on the edge of the piazza, letting the juice drip down into the garden. Afterward they would troop into his room to look on while he undressed, eagerly watching his pockets for the "treasures"-heavy male trinkets which he would solemnly deposit in the box on his dressing-table, or, on occasion, present to a lucky child. During morning prayers they would compete for the privilege of sitting in the "cubby-hole"-a favored stretch of sofa between his body and the mahogany arm. Later in the day, when he was away at work, they would wait for him on the piazza behind the house, until his key rattled in the latch and he burst upon them, laden with ice cream and peaches. He would feed the fruit to them as they lay spread-eagled on the edge of the piazza, letting the juice drip down into the garden. Afterward they would troop into his room to look on while he undressed, eagerly watching his pockets for the "treasures"-heavy male trinkets which he would solemnly deposit in the box on his dressing-table, or, on occasion, present to a lucky child.43 This ritual would one day be faithfully reproduced by the President of the United States before his own children. This ritual would one day be faithfully reproduced by the President of the United States before his own children.

Despite the joy Theodore Senior felt at being at home again, he lost no time in restoring paternal discipline. It was during this summer that naughty Teedie felt for the first time the weight of his father's hand.

I bit my elder sister's arm. I do not remember biting her arm, but I do remember running down to the yard, perfectly conscious that I had committed a crime. From the yard I went into the kitchen, got some dough from the cook, and crawled under the kitchen table. In a minute or two my father entered from the yard and asked where I was. The warm-hearted Irish cook had a characteristic contempt for "informers," but although she said nothing she compromised between informing and her conscience by casting a look under the table. My father immediately dropped on all fours and darted at me. I feebly heaved the dough at him, and, having the advantage of him because I could stand up under the table, got a fair start for the stairs, but was caught halfway up them. The punishment that ensued fitted the crime, and I hope-and believe-that it did me good.44

THEODORE S SENIOR never chastised his son again. It was not necessary. There hung about his big, relaxed body an ever-present threat of violence, like that of a lion who, dozing, will suddenly flick out a lethal paw. His reaction to any form of wrong-in particular "selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness"-was so quick, and so certain, that nobody, child or adult, crossed him more than once. "Be sure to make the children obey your never chastised his son again. It was not necessary. There hung about his big, relaxed body an ever-present threat of violence, like that of a lion who, dozing, will suddenly flick out a lethal paw. His reaction to any form of wrong-in particular "selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness"-was so quick, and so certain, that nobody, child or adult, crossed him more than once. "Be sure to make the children obey your first first order," he told Mittie. order," he told Mittie.45 Although her success was indifferent, they nevertheless came to understand "that the same standard of clean living was demanded for the boys as for the girls; that what was wrong in a woman could not be right in a man." Although her success was indifferent, they nevertheless came to understand "that the same standard of clean living was demanded for the boys as for the girls; that what was wrong in a woman could not be right in a man."46

ABOUT THE TIME Teedie turned four in October 1862, he began dimly to realize that his parents were not one in their views about the Civil War. These differences had been for the most part diplomatically concealed from the children during the summer, although Bamie recalled nights when Mittie would dine alone in her room rather than be exposed to the brutal Unionism of male conversation downstairs. "She must have been homesick for her own people until her heart bled in those early days...it was out of the very fulness of her heart that she used to tell us of home." Teedie turned four in October 1862, he began dimly to realize that his parents were not one in their views about the Civil War. These differences had been for the most part diplomatically concealed from the children during the summer, although Bamie recalled nights when Mittie would dine alone in her room rather than be exposed to the brutal Unionism of male conversation downstairs. "She must have been homesick for her own people until her heart bled in those early days...it was out of the very fulness of her heart that she used to tell us of home."47 Mittie, however, was not entirely alone. The flames of Southern patriotism burned as high in the breasts of her sister and mother, who, fond as they were of Theodore Senior, felt some embarrassment at having to live under the roof of a Lincoln Republican. As soon as their host left home these scruples vanished, and the three women busied themselves in support of the Confederacy. There were "days of hushed and thrilling excitement" when little Teedie helped the ladies of the house pack mysterious boxes, "to run the blockade."48 As Teedie became aware of the intensity of their feelings, he learned to play upon them, with some cruelty. "Once, when I felt I had been wronged by maternal discipline during the day, I attempted a partial vengeance by praying with loud fervor for the success of Union arms, when we all came to say our prayers before my mother in the evening." Mittie's sense of humor neutralized this moment of truculence, so Teedie tried the same trick on Aunt Annie, who was much less amused. She said she would never forget "the fury in the childish voice when he would plead with Divine Providence to 'grind the Southern troops to powder.'"49 Annie Bulloch had volunteered to pay for her bed and board by giving all the Roosevelt children their first lessons, an offer her lethargic sister was only too happy to accept. Perhaps with some trepidation, she now undertook the education of Teedie. It was on her knee that he learned the three Rs, and showed a decided preference for the first two at the expense of the third. Aunt Annie was a born teacher: energetic, practical, and kindly, with a dramatic flair that enlivened the dullest fact. Often as not-for she was an even better storyteller than her sister-the lessons would drift into reminiscences of the Old South. A mood of spinsterish melancholy colored Aunt Annie's tales of life on the Georgia plantations: of minuets under the mistletoe, and coach lamps drowned in warm darkness, as lovesick young men drove away-forever; of cock-fights and turkey-wrestling; of horses that had been named after, or (to a child who had only recently confused God with a fox) perhaps were were Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett; of the famous fighting Bullochs and their exploits during the American Revolution; of Bre'r Rabbit, the Tar Baby, and "queer goings-on in the Negro quarters." Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett; of the famous fighting Bullochs and their exploits during the American Revolution; of Bre'r Rabbit, the Tar Baby, and "queer goings-on in the Negro quarters."50 Teedie thus, at a very early age, acquired a love for legend and anecdote, and inherited a nostalgia for a way of life he had never known. The key to his imagination had been unlocked by a woman to whom the past was more real than the present. As an adult reader of history, and as a professional writer of it, he always showed a tendency to "live" his subject; he always looked for narrative which was "instinct with the truth that both charms and teaches."51 Since Aunt Annie had three other children to take care of, she could not spend all her time satisfying Teedie's lust for information, which rapidly became insatiable. Confined indoors by ill health and winter weather, he wheezed restlessly from room to room in search of further entertainment. For a while he amused himself with objets d'art objets d'art in the parlor: a Russian moujik pulling a tin sledge across a snowfield of malachite; a carved Swiss hunter chasing chamois goats around an improbably small mountain; and floor-to-ceiling mirrors in which he could exchange stares with a small, blond, stern-faced boy. Dominating his little universe, like some remote yet brilliant galaxy, was a gas chandelier coruscating with cut-glass prisms. "These prisms struck me as possessing peculiar magnificence," he wrote in later life. "One of them fell off one day, and I hastily grabbed it and stowed it away, passing several days of furtive delight in the treasure, a delight always alloyed with fear that I would be found out and convicted of larceny." in the parlor: a Russian moujik pulling a tin sledge across a snowfield of malachite; a carved Swiss hunter chasing chamois goats around an improbably small mountain; and floor-to-ceiling mirrors in which he could exchange stares with a small, blond, stern-faced boy. Dominating his little universe, like some remote yet brilliant galaxy, was a gas chandelier coruscating with cut-glass prisms. "These prisms struck me as possessing peculiar magnificence," he wrote in later life. "One of them fell off one day, and I hastily grabbed it and stowed it away, passing several days of furtive delight in the treasure, a delight always alloyed with fear that I would be found out and convicted of larceny."52 The splendors of the parlor soon palled. There was little to detain him in the dining room, except at mealtimes; besides, its black haircloth furniture scratched his bare legs. The kitchen was terra non grata terra non grata to pesky children. Eventually he was forced to explore the most forbidding room in the house: a windowless library, with tables, chairs, and gloomy bookcases. to pesky children. Eventually he was forced to explore the most forbidding room in the house: a windowless library, with tables, chairs, and gloomy bookcases.53 Chancing upon a ponderous edition of David Livingstone's Chancing upon a ponderous edition of David Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in Southern Africa Missionary Travels and Researches in Southern Africa, Teedie opened it, and found within a world he could happily inhabit the rest of his days.

Although the book's pages of print meant nothing to him, its illustrations were copious, explicit, and strangely thrilling. Here were rampant hippopotami with canoes on their backs, horizon-filling herds of zebra, a magnified tsetse fly, as big as his hand, and an elephant so spiked with assegais as to resemble an enormous porcupine. For weeks Teedie dragged the volume, which was almost as big as he was, around the library, and begged his elders to fit stories to the pictures.54 Among the first books Teedie learned to decipher for himself were an unscientific study of mammals by Mayne Reid, and two natural histories by the English biologist J. G. Wood.55 He pored endlessly over these in the library, curled up in a tiny chair which became his favorite article of furniture. Softly upholstered in red velvet, and fringed with long tassels, it seemed designed to comfort the scrawny angles of his body. For years the boy and his "tassel chair" were so inseparable it even accompanied him to the photographer's studio for his formal birthday portraits. He pored endlessly over these in the library, curled up in a tiny chair which became his favorite article of furniture. Softly upholstered in red velvet, and fringed with long tassels, it seemed designed to comfort the scrawny angles of his body. For years the boy and his "tassel chair" were so inseparable it even accompanied him to the photographer's studio for his formal birthday portraits.

The library's gloom vanished at night, when gas lamps began to hiss, and the coal fire made its rugs and tapestries glow a rich, romantic red. Teedie was given free access to all the books on the shelves, save only a racy novel by Ouida, Under Two Flags Under Two Flags. "I did read it, nevertheless, with greedy and fierce hope of coming on something unhealthy; but as a matter of fact all the parts that might have seemed unhealthy to an older person made no impression on me.... I simply enjoyed in a rather confused way the general adventures."56 As his reading abilities developed, and his ill-health continued, he turned more and more to stories of outdoor action, in which he could identify with heroes larger than life: the novels of Ballantyne, the sea-yarns of Captain Marryat, Cooper's tales of the American frontier. Epic poetry, too, inspired him-above all Longfellow's Saga of King Olaf Saga of King Olaf, with its wild warlocks, blaring horns, and shields shining like suns.

I was nervous and timid. Yet from reading of the people I admired,-ranging from the soldiers of Valley Forge, and Morgan's riflemen, to the heroes of my favorite stories-and from hearing of the feats performed by my Southern forefathers and kinsfolk, and from knowing my father, I felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and could hold their own in the world, and I had a great desire to be like them.57

IN THE SPRING of 1863 Theodore Senior, whose voluntary war services were now more and more concentrated in New York State, transported his ailing family to Loantaka, a country place in Madison, New Jersey. The children reacted to their rural surroundings with such delight, and with such general improvement to their health, that Loantaka remained the Roosevelt summer home for four consecutive seasons. of 1863 Theodore Senior, whose voluntary war services were now more and more concentrated in New York State, transported his ailing family to Loantaka, a country place in Madison, New Jersey. The children reacted to their rural surroundings with such delight, and with such general improvement to their health, that Loantaka remained the Roosevelt summer home for four consecutive seasons.

Here the bookish Teedie became aware of the "enthralling pleasures" of building wigwams in the woods, gathering hickory nuts and apples, hunting frogs, haying and harvesting, and scampering barefoot down long, leafy lanes. Despite his frail physique and asthma, he seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of nervous energy. This, combined with the ability to improvise countless stories about his environment, caused him to be accepted as an unquestioned leader by Corinne and Elliott, and such family friends as came to stay. (Bamie's four-year seniority, along with a certain adult seriousness of manner, disqualified her from membership in his gang.) Even on days when illness confined him to bed, the other children would forsake the fields in order to be entertained by the prodigal Teedie. His stories, remembered by Corinne into old age, were "about jungles and bold, mighty and imaginary fights with strange beasts...there was always a small boy in the stories...who understood the language of animals and would translate their opinions to us."58 Even in these early years, his knowledge of natural history was abnormal. No doubt much of it was acquired during his winters in the "tassel chair," but it was supplemented, every summer, by long hours of observation of the flora and fauna around him. The other children noticed that their leader "also led a life apart from us, seriously studying birds, their habits and their notes."59 At first this study was haphazard, and Teedie made no attempt to document his observations, beyond filing them in his retentive memory. Not until he was seven years old, and back in New York City, did his formal career as a zoologist begin. At first this study was haphazard, and Teedie made no attempt to document his observations, beyond filing them in his retentive memory. Not until he was seven years old, and back in New York City, did his formal career as a zoologist begin.

I was walking up Broadway, and as I passed the market to which I used sometimes to be sent before breakfast to get strawberries, I suddenly saw a dead seal laid out on a slab of wood. That seal filled me with every possible feeling of romance and adventure. I asked where it was killed, and was informed in the harbor...As long as that seal remained there I haunted the neighborhood of the market day after day. I measured it, and I recall that, not having a tape measure, I had to do my best to get its girth with a folding pocket foot-rule, a difficult undertaking. I carefully made a record of the utterly useless measurements, and at once began to write a natural history of my own, on the strength of that seal. This, and subsequent natural histories, were written down in blank books in simplified spelling, wholly unpremeditated and unscientific. I had vague aspirations of in some way or another owning that seal, but they never got beyond the purely formless stage. I think, however, I did get the seal's skull, and with two of my cousins promptly started what we ambitiously called the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History."60 His next major thesis was entitled "The Foregoing Ant." According to Corinne, it was inspired by a passing reference in Wood's Natural History Natural History. Teedie assumed that the adjective was physiological, perhaps referring to the ant's gait, and his subsequent essay on the subject was read aloud to a circle of mystified adults.61 Unfortunately for posterity, neither the Broadway Seal nor the Foregoing Ant appear in surviving records of Teedie's museum. There exists, however, a rather more learned opus, entitled "Natural History on Insects," which dates from his ninth year. "All the insects that I write about in this book," the author declares, "inhabbit North America. Now and then a friend has told me something about them but mostly I have gained their habbits from ofserv-a-tion." He discusses and illustrates various species of ants, spiders, lady-bugs, fireflies, horned "beetlles," and dragonflies. Then, with a fine disregard for the limitations of his title, he moves on to the study of hawks, minnows, and crayfish. The latter rather defeats his childish powers of description: "Look at a lobster," he suggests, "and you have its form."62 Apart from such lapses, Teedie's "ofserv-a-tion" is amazingly keen. A paragraph on the tree-spider, for example, notes that it is "grey spoted with black," and lives "in communitys of about 20" under patches of loosened bark; its web "looks exactly like some cotten on the top but if you take that off you will see several small little webs, all in a 'gumble' as we children yoused to call it, each having several little occupants." Even more remarkable, for a nine-year-old boy, is the methodical arrangement of classifications, and the patient indexing.

Teedie's interest in all "curiosities and living things" became something of a trial to his elders. Meeting Mrs. Hamilton Fish on a streetcar, he absentmindedly lifted his hat, whereupon several frogs leaped out of it, to the dismay of fellow passengers. Houseguests at No. 28 learned to sit on sofas warily, and to check their water-pitchers for snakes before pouring. When Mittie, in great disgust, threw out a litter of field-mice, her son loudly bemoaned "the loss to Science-the loss to Science."63 From time to time, members of the domestic staff threatened to give notice. A protest by a chambermaid forced Teedie to move the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History out of his bedroom and into the back hall upstairs. "How can I do the laundry," complained the washerwoman, "with a snapping turtle tied to the legs of the sink?" Finally, when a noxious odor permeated the entire house, even the good-natured cook issued her ultimatum: "Either I leave or the woodchuck does." Teedie had killed a fine specimen for anatomical study and ordered her to boil the animal, fur and all, for twenty-four hours.64

ON 28 A APRIL 1868, Teedie wrote a letter to Mittie, who was paying a visit to Savannah along with Theodore Senior and Corinne. It is the earliest of his 150,000 letters to survive, yet there glitters, in virtually every sentence, a facet of his mature personality.

My Dear Mamma I have just received your letter! What an excitement. What long letters you do write. I don't see how you can write them. My mouth opened wide with astonish when I heard how many flowers were sent in to you. I could revel in the buggie ones. I jumped with delight when I found you heard the mocking-bird, get some of its feathers if you can. Thank Johnny for the feathers of the soldier's cap, give him my love also. We cried when you wrote about Grand-Mamma. Give my love to the good-natured (to use your own expresion) handsome lion, Conie, Johnny, Maud and Aunt Lucy. I am sorry the trees have been cut down. Aunt Annie, Edith, and Ellie send their love to you and all I sent mine to...In the letter you write me tell me how many curiosities and living things you have got for me. I miss Conie very much. I wish I were with you and Johnny for I could hunt for myself I have just received your letter! What an excitement. What long letters you do write. I don't see how you can write them. My mouth opened wide with astonish when I heard how many flowers were sent in to you. I could revel in the buggie ones. I jumped with delight when I found you heard the mocking-bird, get some of its feathers if you can. Thank Johnny for the feathers of the soldier's cap, give him my love also. We cried when you wrote about Grand-Mamma. Give my love to the good-natured (to use your own expresion) handsome lion, Conie, Johnny, Maud and Aunt Lucy. I am sorry the trees have been cut down. Aunt Annie, Edith, and Ellie send their love to you and all I sent mine to...In the letter you write me tell me how many curiosities and living things you have got for me. I miss Conie very much. I wish I were with you and Johnny for I could hunt for myself ...Yours loveingly ...Yours loveingly.THEODORE ROOSEVELTP.S. I liked your peas so much that I ate half of them.65 Promptness, excitability, warmth, histrionics, love of plants and animals, physical vitality, "dee-light," sensitivity to birdsong, fascination with military display, humor, family closeness, the conservationist, the natural historian, the hunter-all are here. Teedie mentions, passim passim, the name of his future wife, and there is a hint of the two-hundred-pound President in the embarrassed postscript. Even the large, childish handwriting is touchingly similar to that of the dying Colonel Roosevelt, scrawling his last memorandum half a century later.

DURING THE SUMMER of 1868, about the same time he was completing his "Natural History on Insects," Teedie began to keep a diary. of 1868, about the same time he was completing his "Natural History on Insects," Teedie began to keep a diary.66 The Roosevelts were then living in their new country place at Barrytown-on-Hudson, New York, and the little volume is full of the joys of bird-nesting, swimming, hiking, and long rides through grass "up to the ponys head." Apart from one reference to "an attack of the Asmer" on 10 August, the diary reads like that of any normal nine-year-old. Yet Teedie's health was as bad as ever: he was never well for more than ten days at a time. So accustomed was he, by now, to recurrences of illness that he rarely bothered to record them. The Roosevelts were then living in their new country place at Barrytown-on-Hudson, New York, and the little volume is full of the joys of bird-nesting, swimming, hiking, and long rides through grass "up to the ponys head." Apart from one reference to "an attack of the Asmer" on 10 August, the diary reads like that of any normal nine-year-old. Yet Teedie's health was as bad as ever: he was never well for more than ten days at a time. So accustomed was he, by now, to recurrences of illness that he rarely bothered to record them.

Theodore Senior grew seriously worried as the summer went by, and Teedie, for all his hyperactivity, remained pasty-faced and skeletal. The other children were blooming in comparison-but only with their brother. Bamie's crippled spine, Elliott's tendency to rushes of blood in the head, and little Corinne's own asthma tormented all his protective feelings. Yet another cause for alarm was the strange decline of Mittie Roosevelt.

A certain wistfulness, combined with increasing fragility and indolence, had begun to affect this exquisite woman since the end of the Civil War. It was as if Sherman's looting of her ancestral home, and the simultaneous death of her mother, not to mention the banishment overseas of her two Secessionist brothers,67 had cut the Southern lifelines that hitherto sustained her. Gradually she sank into a kind of gentle invalidism which was something not unlike a second childhood. Always helpless and fluttery, she grew incapable of running the house, and was treated by her children as one of its prettier ornaments-a doll in the parlor, whom they could pet when they chose. "Sweet little china Dresden mother," Elliott used to call her affectionately. Coaches summoned to take her for her three o'clock drive would creak up and down Twentieth Street for hours while Mittie made flustered attempts to get ready. Often as not she would never emerge at all. had cut the Southern lifelines that hitherto sustained her. Gradually she sank into a kind of gentle invalidism which was something not unlike a second childhood. Always helpless and fluttery, she grew incapable of running the house, and was treated by her children as one of its prettier ornaments-a doll in the parlor, whom they could pet when they chose. "Sweet little china Dresden mother," Elliott used to call her affectionately. Coaches summoned to take her for her three o'clock drive would creak up and down Twentieth Street for hours while Mittie made flustered attempts to get ready. Often as not she would never emerge at all.68 Although she remained beautiful, charming, and witty, Theodore Senior was saddened to see yet another blossom wilt upon his boughs. Although she remained beautiful, charming, and witty, Theodore Senior was saddened to see yet another blossom wilt upon his boughs.

When Mittie herself suggested in the winter of 186869 that a trip to Europe might do the whole family good, he welcomed the idea. His business was prospering, and after the hard grind of his war work, a Grand Tour of Europe sounded like a welcome diversion. It would be of immense educational value to the children, none of whom had yet received outside schooling. With characteristic enthusiasm, Theodore Senior sat down and drafted an itinerary that must have given his wife pause, for it covered nine countries and a whole year of traveling time. The children reacted with even more dismay. They had been hoping to return to the Hudson Valley that summer. Theodore Senior turned a deaf ear to their pleas, and went ahead with the bookings. On 12 May 1869, he escorted his tearful brood aboard the paddle-steamer Scotia Scotia, bound for Liverpool.69 Although Teedie later declared that he "cordially hated" the Roosevelt Grand Tour, he recorded it at great length in his diaries. During all the 377 days he was away from home, he did not miss a single entry, with the exception of one stormy week on the return crossing. The spelling, in these cheap, battered notebooks, is that of a child, but the density of remembered detail would be extraordinary even in an adult. Some entries read like miniature museum catalogs. Evidently the cornucopia of Europe awakened his faculty of near-total recall.

The diaries begin on an enigmatic note. "It was verry hard parting from our friend," Teedie writes, confessing that he "cried a great deal." This mysterious person was almost certainly a seven-year-old girl named Edith Carow. For as far back as he could remember, quiet, steady-eyed little "Edie" had been his most intimate acquaintance outside the family circle. Indeed, it seemed at times that she lived within it, for her father's house was on Union Square, only a few blocks away from 28 East Twentieth Street, and she had come to regard the latter as her second home. Edith and Corinne had been born within weeks of each other, and were wheeled side by side in their baby carriages. When Aunt Annie began giving lessons to the younger Roosevelts, it was natural that Edith should be included. Although she was, in these early years, more attached to Corinne than anyone else, it was plain that a special relationship was developing between herself and Teedie. He was permitted to play "house" with her, whereas Elliott was not. They shared a passionate interest in books, and their characters complemented each other. Where he was ardent and impulsive, feverish in his enthusiasms, she was sensitive and cautious, a cooling breeze across his sometimes overheated landscape.70 Seasickness and homesickness were added to Teedie's normal quota of ills, as the Scotia Scotia thrashed her way slowly across the Atlantic. He remained aloof from the deck-games of other children on board, burying himself in books, or else gazing vaguely at gulls and passing ships, "a tall, thin lad," someone remembered, "with bright eyes and legs like pipe-stems." thrashed her way slowly across the Atlantic. He remained aloof from the deck-games of other children on board, burying himself in books, or else gazing vaguely at gulls and passing ships, "a tall, thin lad," someone remembered, "with bright eyes and legs like pipe-stems."71 During the latter part of the voyage he made friends with a learned gentleman from the West Indies, and had long conversations with him on the subject of natural history. Late on the evening of 21 May the ship docked at Liverpool, and Teedie set foot in "Briten" for the first time. During the latter part of the voyage he made friends with a learned gentleman from the West Indies, and had long conversations with him on the subject of natural history. Late on the evening of 21 May the ship docked at Liverpool, and Teedie set foot in "Briten" for the first time.72

WHILE M MITTIE PLUNGED INTO an ecstatic, ten-day reunion with her exiled brothers, the younger Roosevelts "jumped and romped" on the chilly English seashore. Theodore Senior, however, had not brought them abroad to play, and began to expose them to the bewildering variety of English history and architecture. Trips were made to the Duke of Devonshire's country seat at Chatsworth, and "Haden hall an old feudeul castle of the 11th century," where Teedie admired "the Leathern jacket in which a lord received his death wound." In early June they proceeded north via "furnace abby" and the Lake District to "Edinbourg." Despite the inevitable Scottish rain Teedie overcame an attack of asthma and greatly enjoyed visits to Walter Scott's mansion at Abbotsford, "the tweed (quite a decent brook)," and "Loch Lomend...where the poem 'Lady of the lake' was lade." The pace of sight-seeing intensified as the Roosevelts swung south via York to Oxford, by which time the young diarist had developed a formidable headache. "I have a tendency to headache," he noted in London five days later, apparently still suffering. He was "a little disappointed" at the range of fauna in the Zoological Gardens, but had fun playing in "hide park" and visiting "Westnubster abby." The "rare and beautiful specimens" in the British Museum fascinated him, as did the "christal palace" with its "imitations of egyptian, roman, greek etc. marbles," and the ancient Tower of London, where "I put my head on the block where so many had been beheaded." During this stay a doctor examined him and pronounced his lungs perfect. Teedie was immediately stricken with asthma so violent he had to be rushed to Hastings for three days of sea air. an ecstatic, ten-day reunion with her exiled brothers, the younger Roosevelts "jumped and romped" on the chilly English seashore. Theodore Senior, however, had not brought them abroad to play, and began to expose them to the bewildering variety of English history and architecture. Trips were made to the Duke of Devonshire's country seat at Chatsworth, and "Haden hall an old feudeul castle of the 11th century," where Teedie admired "the Leathern jacket in which a lord received his death wound." In early June they proceeded north via "furnace abby" and the Lake District to "Edinbourg." Despite the inevitable Scottish rain Teedie overcame an attack of asthma and greatly enjoyed visits to Walter Scott's mansion at Abbotsford, "the tweed (quite a decent brook)," and "Loch Lomend...where the poem 'Lady of the lake' was lade." The pace of sight-seeing intensified as the Roosevelts swung south via York to Oxford, by which time the young diarist had developed a formidable headache. "I have a tendency to headache," he noted in London five days later, apparently still suffering. He was "a little disappointed" at the range of fauna in the Zoological Gardens, but had fun playing in "hide park" and visiting "Westnubster abby." The "rare and beautiful specimens" in the British Museum fascinated him, as did the "christal palace" with its "imitations of egyptian, roman, greek etc. marbles," and the ancient Tower of London, where "I put my head on the block where so many had been beheaded." During this stay a doctor examined him and pronounced his lungs perfect. Teedie was immediately stricken with asthma so violent he had to be rushed to Hastings for three days of sea air.73 On 13 July the Roosevelts sailed down the Thames, "a verry, verry small river or a large creek," and crossed the English Channel to Antwerp. Teedie prided himself on being the last of his family to vomit, and "the first one that got on the continent." From Antwerp they began a leisurely tour of the Netherlands and northern Germany. While traveling up the Rhine, Teedie began to wheeze and cough: a rainy visit to Strasbourg made him "verry sick" and he spent the next morning in bed. In Switzerland he suffered alternate attacks of gastroenteritis, toothache, and asthma, yet showed amazing bursts of energy in between. He climbed an eight-thousand-foot mountain at Chamonix, scorning mules, walked nineteen miles across "the tatenwar" (La Tete Noire), thirteen miles around Visp, twenty miles through the Grimsel Pass, and ascended alone the steep hill of Wallenstein. "It is 3-and 3 miles back, and I went and came in 1 hour." Such incredible statistics might be dismissed as boyish exaggeration were it not for the fact that Theodore Senior frequently accompanied him and confirmed them. In his diaries, as in all his later writings, Teedie was a scrupulously accurate reporter.

Despite recurring moments when the boy was "verry verry home sick," he continued to stare seriously at everything around him, sketching the plan of a grotto in Geneva, comparing live Swiss chamois with the carved ones at home in East Twentieth Street, exploring the "gloomey dungeons" of Chillon Castle, researching everything he saw in guidebooks and geographies. In lighter moments he clowned raucously with Elliott and Corinne, gorged himself on fresh berries and cream, and waged war upon "several cross chambermaids."

On 9 September, Teedie and his father hiked over the crest of the Splugen Pass. The other Roosevelts followed in a carriage. "Soft balmy Italy of the poets," Teedie noted sarcastically, "is cold dreary smelly." However the "sceneerry" around "lake Coma" soon improved his attitude, and after a row across the lake "by the light of a golden moon" he himself began to wax poetical. "I strayed from the rest and now in the wood around the villa Colata...with no sound save the waterfall and the Italian breeze on my cheek, I all alone am writing my Journal."

The moon changed to "silver" over Lake Lugano, and Isola Bella, on Lake Maggiore, was "the most beautiful creation of mans, with lemons cactuses camphor trees lemons bamboos sugar cane in sight of snow white alps." Here a particularly vicious attack of asthma struck. "It came to a point," wrote Mittie to her sister, "where he had to sit up in bed to breathe. After taking a strong cup of black coffee the spasmodic part of the attack ceased and he slept...Had the coffee not taken effect he would have gone on struggling through the night, and been a complete wreck the next morning, in which condition you have so often seen him."74 Teedie's dormant literary talents were stimulated afresh by Venice. "We saw the moonlight on the water and I contrasted it with the black gondola's darting about like water goblins." Although the weather here was clear and dry, he became so "dreadfully ill" that on 20 September he collapsed in total exhaustion.

During the next two weeks his attacks of diarrhea and asthma were incessant. One night on the Austrian border, "I sat up for 4 successive hours and Papa made me smoke a cigar." This unorthodox remedy seems to have had temporary effect, for the following day he climbed the Adelsberg for two hours "in the broiling sun." But the long train trip to Vienna laid him low yet again. Theodore Senior, whose compassion for his son was tempered by an aggressive attitude to illness, refused to mollycoddle him. After only a day in bed Teedie was whisked off to the Treasury to see "the crowns of Charlamang and Roudolph the 2d rudly carved jewels and pearls yellow with age contrasting strangly with the polished pearls and sparkling gems of moddern times. Then Father and I went to a Natural history museum. It is a most interesting place, but I was hurried."

Throughout Teedie's diaries the masterful, all-capable figure of Theodore Senior strides with giant steps, tirelessly encouraging, comforting, supervising, and protecting his family. Handsome and resplendent in evening dress, he escorts Mittie and Bamie to the Vienna Opera. He leaps like a tiger upon a monk who shoves Teedie aside, and hurls him bodily into the crowd. Determined to picnic in an attractive orange grove, he overcomes the hostility of peasants and proprietor, and ends up gaily entertaining all comers to chicken, champagne, and honey. Only once, in the entire twelvemonth tour, does he lose patience with his children, and angrily call them "bothers." Even this mild imprecation is enough to make Teedie miserable for a whole evening.

As autumn settled over the Alps, the frequency of Teedie's asthma attacks increased until they were rarely more than three days apart.75 His diaries become poignant reading. In Salzburg, "I had a nightmare dreaming that the devil was carrying me away and have collerer morbos." In Munich, "I was verry sick...Mama was so kind telling me storrys and rubing me with her delicate fingers." In Dresden somebody more vigorous massaged his chest until "the blood came out." Yet the touring and sightseeing relentlessly continued. Teedie calculated that the Roosevelt Grand Tour was not yet half over, and he was overcome by a paroxysm of homesickness. His diaries become poignant reading. In Salzburg, "I had a nightmare dreaming that the devil was carrying me away and have collerer morbos." In Munich, "I was verry sick...Mama was so kind telling me storrys and rubing me with her delicate fingers." In Dresden somebody more vigorous massaged his chest until "the blood came out." Yet the touring and sightseeing relentlessly continued. Teedie calculated that the Roosevelt Grand Tour was not yet half over, and he was overcome by a paroxysm of homesickness.

October 17th Sunday [Dresden] I am by the fire with not another light but it...It is now after 5. All was dark excep the fire. I lay by it and listened to the wind and thought of the times at home in the country when I lay by the fire with some hickory nuts until like the slave whoAgain he is king by the banks of the nigerAgain he can hear the wild roar of the tigerAgain I was lying by the roaring fire (with the cold October wind shrieking outside) in the cheerful lighted room and I turned around half expecting to see it all again and stern reality forced itself upon me and I thought of the time that would come never, never, never.

His misery lasted through visits to Berlin and Cologne, where he noted gloomily that 27 October was "the first of my birthdays that it snowed on." However, the Roosevelts celebrated the occasion with their customary blend of warmth and formality, donning full evening dress for dinner and showering him with such splendid gifts that his mood noticeably improved.

Five days into his twelfth year, the child gives the first of several indications that the man is beginning to develop within him: "We went to a shoe makers [in Brussels] and I saw a girl...the most beautiful but ferocious girl I have ever seen in my life." Another, more emotional entry, written three weeks later in Paris, records that "Mama showed me the portrait of Eidieth Carow and her face stired up in me homesickness and longings for the past which will come again never, alack never."

TEEDIE REMAINED DEPRESSED and ill in Paris. A doctor was summoned to his bedside three times, and three times changed his medicine; but neither this nor frequent "russian baths" had any effect. When at the end of November the Roosevelts started south to winter on the Riviera, his melancholy spilled out in tears: "I cried for homesickness and a wish to get out of the land where friends (or as I think them enemies) who can not speak my language are forced on me." and ill in Paris. A doctor was summoned to his bedside three times, and three times changed his medicine; but neither this nor frequent "russian baths" had any effect. When at the end of November the Roosevelts started south to winter on the Riviera, his melancholy spilled out in tears: "I cried for homesickness and a wish to get out of the land where friends (or as I think them enemies) who can not speak my language are forced on me."