That Sunday evening, just before Theodore Roosevelt told his faithful servant to “Put out the light,” there was a meeting held in New York under the auspices of the American Defense Society, at which he had hoped to be present. Not able to be there in person, he sent them a letter, and at the moment that he, at his beloved home on the hill, closed his eyes for the last time, his faithful followers listened to his ringing exhortation that there should be “no sagging back in Americanism.” The youth, twenty-three years of age, as an assemblyman at Albany had come to his native city to make his maiden address on that theme so near his heart, and the man, whose life-work, replete with patriotism, was drawing to a close, sent the same fervent message in his last hours to his fellow countrymen. All his life long he had been for those fellow countrymen “the patriotic sentinel; pacing the parapet of the Republic, alert to danger and every menace; in love with duty and service, and always unafraid.”--From Senator Warren G. Harding’s address on “Theodore Roosevelt” before the Senate and House of Ohio, late in January, 1919. * * * * * At six o’clock on that very Monday morning when I was hoping to go to him and enjoy his dear companionship, the telephone-bell in my room rang and my sister-in-law’s voice, gentle and self-controlled, though vibrant with grief, told me that he was gone, and that she wanted me to come at once to Sagamore. It was not long before my eldest son and I were climbing the familiar hill. As we neared the house, I could not bring myself to believe that the great personality who had always welcomed me there had passed away. That afternoon Mrs. Roosevelt and I walked far and fast along the shore and through the woodlands he had loved, and on our return in the waning winter twilight we suddenly became conscious that airplanes were flying low around the house. In a tone of deep emotion Mrs. Roosevelt said: “They must be planes from the camp where Quentin trained. They have been sent as a guard of honor for his father.” That night as I stood alone in the room where my brother lay, these lines came to me--I called them “Sagamore,” that old Indian word for which my brother cared so much. It means chief or chieftain, and Sagamore Hill, the chieftain’s hill. SAGAMORE At Sagamore the Chief lies low-- Above the hill in circled row The whirring airplanes dip and fly, A guard of honor from the sky;-- Eagles to guard the Eagle.--Woe Is on the world. The people go With listless footstep, blind and slow;-- For one is dead--who shall not die-- At Sagamore. Oh! Land he loved, at last you know The son who served you well below, The prophet voice, the visioned eye. Hold him in ardent memory, For one is gone--who shall not go-- From Sagamore! * * * * * * Transcriber’s note: