Theodore Roosevelt with his little granddaughter, Edith Roosevelt Derby, 1918. MY BROTHER THEODORE ROOSEVELT BY CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON WITH ILLUSTRATIONS   NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1921 Copyright, 1921, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Published September, 1921 THE SCRIBNER PRESS WITH TENDER AFFECTION I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY SISTER ANNA ROOSEVELT COWLES WHOSE UNSELFISH DEVOTION TO HER BROTHER THEODORE ROOSEVELT NEVER WAVERED THROUGH HIS WHOLE LIFE, AND FOR WHOM HE HAD FROM CHILDHOOD A D

This Preface I write to my fellow countrymen as I give into their hands these intimate reminiscences of my brother, Theodore Roosevelt. A year and a half ago I was invited by the City History Club of New York to make an address about my brother on Washington’s Birthday. Upon being asked what I would call my speech, I replied that as George Washington was the “Father of his country,” as Abraham Lincoln was the “Saviour of his country,” so Theodore Roosevelt was the “Brother of his country,” and t

The first recollections of a child are dim and hazy, and so the nursery at 28 East 20th Street, in New York City, does not stand out as clearly to me as I wish it did—but the personality of my brother overshadowed the room, as his personality all through life dominated his environment. I suppose I must have been about four, and he about seven, when my first memory takes definite form. My older sister, Anna, though only four years older than my brother Theodore, was always mysteriously classed wi

From the nursery in 20th Street my early memories turn with even greater happiness to the country place which my parents rented at Madison, N. J., called Loantaka, where we spent several summers. There the joy of a sorrel Shetland pony became ours—(Pony Grant was his name)—a patriotic effort to commemorate the name of the great general, still on the lips of every one, whose indomitable will and military acumen had at that very moment been the chief factor in bringing the Civil War to a close. I,

After our return to America the winter of 1874 was passed at our new home at 6 West 57th Street. My brother was still considered too delicate to send to a boarding-school, and various tutors were engaged for his education, in which my brother Elliott and I shared. Friendships of various kinds were begun and augmented, especially the friendship with the little girl Edith Carow, our babyhood friend, and another little girl, Frances Theodora Smith, now Mrs. James Russell Parsons, to whose friendshi

During the winter and summer of 1876, preceding that September when Theodore Roosevelt left his home for Harvard College, he had entered more fully into the social life of the boys and girls of his immediate acquaintance. As a very young boy, there was something of the recluse about him, although in his actual family (and that family included a number of cousins) he was always the ringleader. His delicate health and his almost abnormal literary and scientific tastes had isolated him somewhat fro

The early part of the year 1881 was spent by Theodore Roosevelt and his young wife with my mother at 6 West 57th Street, and was devoted largely to literary work and efforts to acquaint himself with the political interests of the district in which we lived. During the following summer, they travelled in Europe; he climbed Swiss mountains and showed his usual capacity for surmounting obstacles. June 16, 1881, he writes from Paris in connection with artistic wanderings in the Louvre. “I have not a

From the cloistered life of American college boys, sheltered from the ruder currents of the world by the ramparts of wealth and gentle nurture, he passed, still very young, to the wild and free existence of the plains and the hills. In the silence of those vast solitudes men grow to full stature, when the original stuff is good. He came back to the East, bringing with him, as Tennyson sang, “The wrestling thews that throw the world.”      —From a speech by John Hay. My brother has written so muc

Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the state. —Arthur Hugh Clough. There is sprung up a light for the righteous; and joyful gladness for such as are true-hearted.—97th Psalm. The years between 1890 and 1896 were busy years, with devoted service as Civil Service Commissioner, winters at Washington and happy summers at Oyster Bay, when Theodore Roosevelt gave himself up to family joy and the activities of the growing children. In 1893 he writes most lovingly of my children and his—his never-fai

A RHYME OF THE ROUGH RIDERS Those April days of 1898 in Washington were full of an underlying current of excitement. Drifting toward war we certainly were, and within a very short few weeks the drift had become a fixed headway, and Captain Dewey, on the receipt of a certain telegram from a certain acting secretary of the navy, was to enter Manila Bay, and by that entrance, and by the taking of Cavite, to change forever the policy of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt had been criticised for t

THE MAN WHO CAN (Old Saxon for “The King”) Written of Theodore Roosevelt It could not have been a pleasant thought to Mr. Thomas Platt (the acknowledged Republican boss of New York State, and a most interesting and unusual personality) when he realized that the tremendous popularity of the colonel of the Rough Riders would force him to accept the suggestion of some of the Republican leaders that this same colonel should be the Republican nominee for governor that autumn of 1898. The dash of the

Frédéric Mistral, the Provençal poet, said of Theodore Roosevelt: Toward the spring of 1900, while my brother was in his second arduous year of activity as governor of New York State, he came one afternoon to my house, as he frequently did, for he made headquarters there whenever he was in New York. I remember I was confined to my room with an attack of grippe. The door-bell rang in the rapid, incisive way which always marked his advent, and in a moment or two I heard him come bounding up the st

The deed of the cowardly assassin had done its work. William McKinley was dead; the young Vice-President had made the hazardous trip from the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, had taken the solemn oath in Buffalo, had followed the body of his chief to the final resting-place, and had returned to Washington. From Washington he telegraphed to my husband and myself, with the thought which he always showed, and told us that as Mrs. Roosevelt was attending to last important matters at Sagamore, she

One of the most extraordinary things about my brother was that in the midst of his full political life, a life “pressed down and overflowing,” he still had time for the most loving interest in personal family matters. Just after the great moment of his inauguration, he sent me a number of photographs of my eldest son and his young wife, just married, who had gone around the world and were staying with General Wood in the Philippines, and adds in the letter: “It was such a pleasure to have Dougla

THE LION THAT ROOSEVELT SHOT A great though quiet and personal demonstration came to Theodore Roosevelt just before he sailed for Africa. The heart of the people turned to him with overwhelming affection and he received, during the last week in his own country, between fifteen and twenty thousand farewell letters. Hundreds of mothers wrote him that they felt as if their own son were leaving them, and that their prayers would follow him in his wanderings; hundreds of others wrote that they would

Theodore Roosevelt had been at home but a few short weeks when he realized fully that the policies so dear to his heart, and which he had left in what he considered absolutely safe-keeping, had not been carried out. Already, in Congress, a large number of the younger Republicans had combined together as what were then called “The Insurgents.” In other words, the men who had fully believed in the policies of Theodore Roosevelt, who felt that no proper progress could be made toward better governme

SAGAMORE HILL No man in America ever received the backing of so large a personal following as did Theodore Roosevelt in the election of 1912, but owing to the fact that opinion was divided, the Democratic party, although a minority party, was put in power. It has been the habit of some to speak of my brother as having split the Republican party. This has always seemed to me an unfair criticism. It was proved by the actual vote at the polls that the larger half of what up to that time had been th

I went to Sagamore Hill the very moment that I returned from Chicago after that exciting convention. In fact, I took the first train possible to Oyster Bay. My heart was aflame, for it seemed to me then, as it has seemed to me frequently in such contests (nor does this refer solely to contests in which my brother took part), that the will of the people had been frustrated. My brother was seated in the library when I arrived at Sagamore Hill, and when I burst out, “Theodore—the people wanted you.

Election Day, 1916, dawned with the apparent success of the Republican party at the polls, but it eventually proved that the slogan, “He kept us out of war,” had had its way, and that the Democrats were returned to power. Needless to say, the disappointment both to the followers of Charles E. Hughes and of Theodore Roosevelt was keen beyond words. My brother, however, following his usual philosophy, set himself to work harder than ever to arouse his countrymen to the true appreciation of the fac

On November 11, 1918, the armistice with Germany was signed by General Foch. The war was over! So many years had passed since that fateful August 1, 1914, that at first the mind of the world was not attuned to peace. It now seemed as incomprehensible that we should be at peace as it had seemed impossible that we should be at war. Just before the armistice was signed the United States had proved by the ballots cast on Election day that the request of President Wilson that a Democratic Congress sh