In his later years Roosevelt wrote a vigorous paper on the parasite woman, appealing therein to American women to rear strong families for their country, and to train them to be prepared for military service if needed. A Michigan woman of the same brave pioneer stamp described above formed the conclusion that Roosevelt was writing without knowledge of the hardships many of her sex were forced to undergo, and wrote to him this letter: “Dear Sir: When you were talking of ‘race suicide’ I was rearing a large family on almost no income. I often thought of writing to you of some of my hardships, and now when ‘preparedness’ may take some of my boys, I feel I must. I have eleven of my own and brought up three stepchildren, and yet, in the thirty years of my married life I have never had a new cloak or winter hat. I have sent seven children to school at one time. I had a family of ten for eighteen years, with no money to hire a washerwoman though bearing a child every two years. Nine--several through or nearly--of my children have got into high school and two into State Normal School, and one into the University of Michigan. I haven’t eaten a paid-meal in twenty years or paid for a night’s lodging in thirty. Not one of the five boys--the youngest is fifteen--uses tobacco or liquor. I have worn men’s discarded shoes much of the time. I have had little time for reading. “I think I have served my country. My husband has been an invalid for six years--leaving me the care and much work on our little sandy farm. I have bothered you enough. To me race suicide has perhaps a different meaning when I think my boys may have to face the cannon. Respectfully. “MRS. ----” Roosevelt’s reply to her was warmly sympathetic, but there was no withdrawing from the principles he had set forth. The following paragraphs from his reply illustrate that tender yet just attitude that Roosevelt took toward American women, including, of course, the women of his own household: “Now, my dear Mrs. ----, you have described a career of service which makes me feel more like taking off my hat to you, and saluting you as a citizen deserving of the highest honor, than I would feel as regards any colonel of a crack regiment. But you seem to think, if I understand your letter aright, that ‘preparedness’ is in some way designed to make your boys food for cannon. “Now, as a matter of fact, the surest way to prevent your boys from being food for cannon is to have them, and all the other young men of the country--my boys, for instance, and the boys of all other fathers and mothers throughout the country--so trained, so prepared, that it will not be safe for any foreign foe to attack us. Preparedness no more invites war than fire insurance invites a fire. I shall come back to this matter again in a moment. But I will speak to you first a word as to what you say about race suicide.