My Brother, Theodore RooseveltRobinson, Corinne Roosevelt
History
My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt
Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
The following day an incident occurred which had a certain prophetic
quality about it. A great dinner was to be given to him by Robert
Collier, and as usual with his loving thought of me (I had just
returned from a trip around the world and was in very ill health) he
wished to come to my house to spend the night so as to see me. He
arranged to be with me at five o’clock in the afternoon, thus to have a
long, quiet talk before the dinner. I came in from the country and had
afternoon tea waiting for him in my library. A half-hour passed, and
then another half-hour, and I began to get distinctly nervous, because
he was the most prompt of individuals. At a little after six he arrived
looking jaded and worried, and as he took his cup of tea, he turned to
me and said: “A very unpleasant thing happened which made me late. As
you see, I am dressed perfectly inconspicuously, and I slipped into
Scribners [his publishers] a little before five to say a word or two
about my ‘African Game Trails.’ [Scribners at that time was situated at
22d Street and Fifth Avenue.] When I went in there was no crowd at all,
but somebody must have seen me enter the bookstore, and when I came
out a short while afterward, a huge crowd had assembled, and literally
would not let me pass. They wanted to carry me on their shoulders;
they wanted to do utterly impossible and objectionable things; and I
realized at once that this was not the friendly reception of yesterday,
but that it represented a certain hysterical quality which boded ill
for my future. _That type_ of crowd, feeling _that_ kind of way, means
that within a very short time they will be throwing rotten eggs at me.
I may be on the crest of the wave now, but mark my words, the attitude
of that crowd means that they will soon try to help me into the trough
of the wave.” He was so impressed by this incident that that night at
the Collier dinner he repeated and enlarged upon the theme of the crest
and the trough of the wave.
Yet, in looking back over my brother’s life, I do not think it can be
said that in the true sense of the word he ever experienced the trough
of the wave. The great movement which resulted in the Progressive
party, instigated by internal dissensions in the Republican party,
brought Democratic rule into our country, but, although he was defeated
for public office, it did not throw him into the trough of the wave,
for in reality he emerged from that great movement the leader of the
majority of the Republican party, as was shown on Election day in
November, 1912, when the vote for Theodore Roosevelt was infinitely
larger than that cast for the “regular” Republican candidate, William
Howard Taft.
XIV
THE GREAT DENIAL
Who would not be
A baffled Moses with the eyes to see
The far fruition of the Promised Land!
--C. R. R.
How can we manage with our Brother gone,
We smaller folk who looked to him to voice our voicelessness?
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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