The great hall was already filled to overflowing when we arrived, and it was difficult for us to find our seats, even although they had been carefully reserved for us. The atmosphere of the crowd in the great building was different from that of any concourse of people who had hitherto waited the coming of Theodore Roosevelt. At other times, in other crowds, when their favorite leader was expected, there had always been a quality of hilarity and gay familiarity showing itself in songs and demonstrations in which the oft-repeated “We want Teddy--we want Teddy” almost always was heard, but in this great assemblage there was a hushed silence and solicitude for their beloved friend, a personal outflowing of silent sympathy for the man whose youngest, whose “Benjamin,” had so lately paid the final price, and even a few minutes later, when to the strains of the “Star-Spangled-Banner,” Colonel Roosevelt was escorted up the aisle by my son, Senator Robinson, and Congressman Cox, from his own Nassau County, the many faces turned eagerly to watch him showed in strained eyes and set though quivering lips their efforts at self-control. As he began his speech, we realized fully that he was holding himself firmly together, but as he poured out his message of Americanism, as he pleaded for the finer and truer patriotism to be brought more closely and definitely into political action, he lost the sense of the great bereavement that had come to him, in his dedication anew to the effort to arouse in his countrymen the selfless desire for service, with which he had always fronted the problems of his own life. Toward the end of the speech, though he never referred to his sorrow, the realization of it again gripped him with its inevitable torture, and again the people who sat in breathless silence--listening to one to whom they had always listened--followed in their hearts the hard path that he was bravely treading.