My Brother, Theodore RooseveltRobinson, Corinne Roosevelt
History
My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt
Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
Again Kermit was his companion, and the latter has given, as no one
else could give, the most vivid description of that trip in his book
called “The Happy Hunting Grounds.” In that book he describes his
father’s desperate illness, and his heroic and unflinching courage
when, with a temperature of one hundred and five, he struggled
on through the mazes of the jungle, weak and weary, unselfishly
begging his companions to leave him to die, for he felt that his
condition endangered the possibility of their escape alive from their
difficulties. As in Africa, so in South America his tireless energy,
even when weakened by illness, never failed to accomplish his purpose,
and not only did he put the “River of Doubt” on the map--a river which
from that time forth was called Rio Teodoro, after Theodore Roosevelt,
the explorer--but during those suffering, exhausting weeks he never
once failed to keep his promise to his publishers, and to write, on
the spot, the incidents of each day’s adventures. Robert Bridges, of
Scribners, has shown me the water-soaked manuscript, written in my
brother’s own handwriting, of that extraordinary expedition. In several
places on the blotched sheets he makes a deprecatory note--“This is not
written very clearly; my temperature is 105.” Such perseverance, such
persistence are really superhuman; but perhaps it is also true that
the _human_ being must eventually pay the price of what the superman
achieves.
Theodore Roosevelt returned from that Brazilian trip a man in whom a
secret poison still lurked, and although his wonderful vitality, his
magnificent strength of character, mind, and body, seemed at times
to restore him to the perfect health of former days, he was never
wholly free from recurrent attacks of the terrible jungle fever, which
resulted in ill health of various kinds, and finally in his death.
True to his loyal convictions, he was determined to give all the aid
possible to the candidates on the Progressive ticket for the election
of 1914. His wife writes, August, 1914: “Theodore seems really better,
although I scarcely think he will have voice for the three speeches
he has planned for the last of the month. I asked him if I could say
anything from him about the War, and he simply threw up his hands in
despair.” This letter was written nine days after the cataclysm of
the Great War had broken upon the world. From the beginning he said to
his family what he did not feel he could state publicly, owing to the
fact that he did not wish to embarrass President Wilson. Having been
President himself, he knew it was possible for one in high authority
to have information which he could not immediately share with all the
people, and he hoped this might be the reason of President Wilson’s
failure to make any protest when the enemy troops invaded Belgium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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