On March 3, 1905, as the guests of my cousin Emlen Roosevelt, who took a special car for the occasion, the members of my family, my husband, and myself started for the inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt as President. Memories crowd about me of those two or three days at the White House. The atmosphere was one of great family gaiety, combined with an underlying seriousness which showed the full realization felt by my brother of the great duties which he was again to assume this time as the choice of the people. What a day it was, that inaugural day! As usual, the personal came so much into it. The night before, Mr. John Hay sent him a ring with a part of the lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair which John Hay himself had cut from the dead President’s forehead almost immediately after his assassination. I have never known my brother to receive a gift for which he cared so deeply. To wear that ring on the day of his own inauguration as President of the United States, elected to the office by the free will of the great American people, was to him, perhaps, the highest fulfilment of his desires. The day dawned dark and threatening and with snow filtering through the clouds, but occasionally rifts of sunlight broke through the sombre bank of gray. The ceremonies were fraught, to those of us who loved him so deeply, with great solemnity. The Vice-President taking his oath in the senate-chamber, the arrival there of the judges of the Supreme Court, the glittering uniforms of the foreign ambassadors and their suites, the appearance of the President-elect, and our withdrawal to the porch of the Capitol, from which he was to make his inaugural address--all of this remains indelibly impressed upon my mind. His solemn, ardent words as he dedicated himself afresh to the service of the country, the great crowd straining to hear each sentence, the eager attitude of the guard of honor (his beloved Rough Riders)--all made a vivid picture never to be forgotten. An eye-witness wrote as follows: “Old Chief Justice Fuller with his beautiful white hair and his long, judicial gown administered the oath, and Roosevelt repeated it so loudly that he could be heard in spite of the wind. In fact the wind rather added to the impressiveness than otherwise, as it gave the President a chance to throw back his shoulders to resist it, and that gave you a wonderful feeling of strength that went splendidly with the speech itself. The speech was short, and was mainly a plea for the ‘Peace of Justice’ as compared with the ‘Peace of the Coward.’ It was very stirring. The applause was tremendous.” I would have my readers remember that when Theodore Roosevelt pleaded for such a peace it was in 1905, nine years before peace was broken by the armies of the Huns, and during those long years he never once failed to preach that doctrine, and to the last moment of his life abhorred and denounced the peace of the coward.