Letters to His Children - Theodore Roosevelt
LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN
By Theodore Roosevelt
First published 1919.
Edited by Joseph Bucklin Bishop
INTRODUCTION
Most of the letters in this volume were written by Theodore Roosevelt to
his children during a period of more than twenty years. A few others are
included that he wrote to friends or relatives about the children. He
began to write to them in their early childhood, and continued to do
so regularly till they reached maturity. Whenever he was separated from
them, in the Spanish War, or on a hunting trip, or because they were at
school, he sent them these messages of constant thought and love, for
they were never for a moment out of his mind and heart. Long before they
were able to read he sent them what they called "picture letters," with
crude drawings of his own in illustration of the written text, drawings
precisely adapted to the childish imagination and intelligence. That the
little recipients cherished these delightful missives is shown by the
tender care with which they preserved them from destruction. They are
in good condition after many years of loving usage. A few of them are
reproduced in these pages--written at different periods as each new
child appeared in the household.
These early letters are marked by the same quality that distinguishes
all his letters to his children. From the youngest to the eldest, he
wrote to them always as his equals. As they advanced in life the
mental level of intercourse was raised as they grew in intelligence and
knowledge, but it was always as equals that he addressed them. He was
always their playmate and boon companion, whether they were toddling
infants taking their first faltering steps, or growing schoolboys, or
youths standing at the threshold of life. Their games were his games,
their joys those of his own heart. He was ready to romp with them in
the old barn at Sagamore Hill, play "tickley" at bedtime, join in their
pillow fights, or play hide-and-seek with them, either at Sagamore
Hill or in the White House. He was the same chosen and joyous companion
always and everywhere. Occasionally he was disturbed for a moment about
possible injury to his Presidential dignity. Describing a romp in the
old barn at Sagamore Hill in the summer of 1903, he said in one of his
letters that under the insistence of the children he had joined in it
because: "I had not the heart to refuse, but really it seems, to put it
mildly, rather odd for a stout, elderly President to be bouncing over
hayricks in a wild effort to get to goal before an active midget of a
competitor, aged nine years. However, it was really great fun."
It was because he at heart regarded it as "great fun" and was in
complete accord with the children that they delighted in him as a
playmate. In the same spirit, in January, 1905, he took a squad of
nine boys, including three of his own, on what they called a "scramble"
through Rock Creek Park, in Washington, which meant traversing the most
difficult places in it. The boys had permission to make the trip alone,
but they insisted upon his company. "I am really touched," he wrote
afterward to the parents of two of the visiting boys, "at the way in
which your children as well as my own treat me as a friend and playmate.
It has its comic side. They were all bent upon having me take them;
they obviously felt that my presence was needed to give zest to the
entertainment. I do not think that one of them saw anything incongruous
in the President's getting as bedaubed with mud as they got, or in my
wiggling and clambering around jutting rocks, through cracks, and up
what were really small cliff faces, just like the rest of them; and
whenever any one of them beat me at any point, he felt and expressed
simple and whole-hearted delight, exactly as if it had been a triumph
over a rival of his own age."
When the time came that he was no longer the children's chosen playmate,
he recognized the fact with a twinge of sadness. Writing in January,
1905, to his daughter Ethel, who was at Sagamore Hill at the time,
he said of a party of boys that Quentin had at the White House: "They
played hard, and it made me realize how old I had grown and how very
busy I had been the last few years to find that they had grown so that
I was not needed in the play. Do you recollect how we all of us used to
play hide and go seek in the White House, and have obstacle races down
the hall when you brought in your friends?"
Deep and abiding love of children, of family and home, that was the
dominating passion of his life. With that went love for friends and
fellow men, and for all living things, birds, animals, trees, flowers,
and nature in all its moods and aspects. But love of children and
family and home was above all. The children always had an old-fashioned
Christmas in the White House. In several letters in these pages,
descriptions of these festivals will be found. In closing one of them
the eternal child's heart in the man cries out: "I wonder whether there
ever can come in life a thrill of greater exaltation and rapture than
that which comes to one between the ages of say six and fourteen, when
the library door is thrown open and you walk in to see all the gifts,
like a materialized fairy land, arrayed on your special table?"
His love for the home he had built and in which his beloved children had
been born, was not even dimmed by his life in the White House. "After
all," he wrote to Ethel in June, 1906, "fond as I am of the White House
and much though I have appreciated these years in it, there isn't any
place in the world like home--like Sagamore Hill where things are our
own, with their own associations, and where it is real country."
Through all his letters runs his inexhaustible vein of delicious humor.
All the quaint sayings of Quentin, that quaintest of small boys; all
the antics of the household cats and dogs; all the comic aspects of the
guinea-pigs and others of the large menagerie of pets that the
children were always collecting; all the tricks and feats of the
saddle-horses--these, together with every item of household news that
would amuse and cheer and keep alive the love of home in the heart of
the absent boys, was set forth in letters which in gayety of spirit
and charm of manner have few equals in literature and no superiors. No
matter how great the pressure of public duties, or how severe the strain
that the trials and burdens of office placed upon the nerves and
spirits of the President of a great nation, this devoted father and
whole-hearted companion found time to send every week a long letter of
this delightful character to each of his absent children.
As the boys advanced toward manhood the letters, still on the basis of
equality, contain much wise suggestion and occasional admonition, the
latter always administered in a loving spirit accompanied by apology
for writing in a "preaching" vein. The playmate of childhood became the
sympathetic and keenly interested companion in all athletic contests,
in the reading of books and the consideration of authors, and in the
discussion of politics and public affairs. Many of these letters,
notably those on the relative merits of civil and military careers, and
the proper proportions of sport and study, are valuable guides for youth
in all ranks of life. The strong, vigorous, exalted character of the
writer stands revealed in these as in all the other letters, as well as
the cheerful soul of the man which remained throughout his life as pure
and gentle as the soul of a child. Only a short time before he died, he
said to me, as we were going over the letters and planning this volume,
which is arranged as he wished it to be: "I would rather have this book
published than anything that has ever been written about me."
THE LETTERS
IN THE SPANISH WAR
At the outbreak of the war with Spain in the spring of 1898 Theodore
Roosevelt, who was then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in association
with Leonard Wood, organized the Regiment of Rough Riders and went into
camp with them at Tampa, Florida. Later he went with his regiment to
Cuba.
Camp at Tampa, May 6th, '98.
BLESSED BUNNIES,
It has been a real holiday to have darling mother here. Yesterday I
brought her out to the camp, and she saw it all--the men drilling,
the tents in long company streets, the horses being taken to water, my
little horse Texas, the colonel and the majors, and finally the mountain
lion and the jolly little dog Cuba, who had several fights while she
looked on. The mountain lion is not much more than a kitten as yet, but
it is very cross and treacherous.
I was very much interested in Kermit's and Ethel's letters to-day.
We were all, horses and men, four days and four nights on the cars
coming here from San Antonio, and were very tired and very dirty when we
arrived. I was up almost all of each night, for it happened always to be
at night when we took the horses out of the cars to feed and water them.
Mother stays at a big hotel about a mile from camp. There are nearly
thirty thousand troops here now, besides the sailors from the war-ships
in the bay. At night the corridors and piazzas are thronged with
officers of the army and navy; the older ones fought in the great Civil
War, a third of a century ago, and now they are all going to Cuba to war
against the Spaniards. Most of them are in blue, but our rough-riders
are in brown. Our camp is on a great flat, on sandy soil without a tree,
though round about are pines and palmettos. It is very hot, indeed, but
there are no mosquitoes. Marshall is very well, and he takes care of my
things and of the two horses. A general was out to inspect us when we
were drilling to-day.
Off Santiago, 1898.
DARLING ETHEL:
We are near shore now and everything is in a bustle, for we may have to
disembark to-night, and I do not know when I shall have another chance
to write to my three blessed children, whose little notes please me
so. This is only a line to tell you all how much father loves you.
The Pawnee Indian drew you the picture of the little dog, which runs
everywhere round the ship, and now and then howls a little when the band
plays.
Near Santiago, May 20, 1898.
DARLING ETHEL:
I loved your little letter. Here there are lots of funny little lizards
that run about in the dusty roads very fast, and then stand still with
their heads up. Beautiful red cardinal birds and tanagers flit about
in the woods, and the flowers are lovely. But you never saw such dust.
Sometimes I lie on the ground outside and sometimes in the tent. I have
a mosquito net because there are so many mosquitoes.
Camp near Santiago, July 15, 1898.
DARLING ETHEL:
When it rains here--and it's very apt to rain here every day--it comes
down just as if it was a torrent of water. The other night I hung up my
hammock in my tent and in the middle of the night there was a terrific
storm, and my tent and hammock came down with a run. The water was
running over the ground in a sheet, and the mud was knee-deep; so I was
a drenched and muddy object when I got to a neighboring tent, where I
was given a blanket, in which I rolled up and went to sleep.
There is a funny little lizard that comes into my tent and is quite tame
now; he jumps about like a little frog and puffs his throat out. There
are ground-doves no bigger than big sparrows, and cuckoos almost as
large as crows.
YOUTHFUL BIBLE COMMENTATORS
(To Miss Emily T. Carow)
Oyster Bay, Dec. 8, 1900.
The other day I listened to a most amusing dialogue at the Bible lesson
between Kermit and Ethel. The subject was Joseph, and just before
reading it they had been reading Quentin's book containing the
adventures of the Gollywogs. Joseph's conduct in repeating his dream to
his brothers, whom it was certain to irritate, had struck both of the
children unfavorably, as conflicting both with the laws of common-sense
and with the advice given them by their parents as to the proper method
of dealing with their own brothers and sisters. Kermit said: "Well, I
think that was very foolish of Joseph." Ethel chimed in with "So do I,
very foolish, and I do not understand how he could have done it." Then,
after a pause, Kermit added thoughtfully by way of explanation: "Well,
I guess he was simple, like Jane in the Gollywogs": and Ethel nodded
gravely in confirmation.
It is very cunning to see Kermit and Archie go to the Cove school
together. They also come down and chop with me, Archie being armed with
a hatchet blunt enough to be suitable for his six years. He is a most
industrious small chopper, and the other day gnawed down, or as the
children call it, "beavered" down, a misshapen tulip tree, which was
about fifty feet high.
FINE NAMES FOR GUINEA PIGS
(To E. S. Martin)
Oyster Bay, Nov. 22, 1900.
Mrs. Roosevelt and I were more touched than I can well say at your
sending us your book with its characteristic insertion and above all
with the little extract from your boy's note about Ted. In what Form
is your boy? As you have laid yourself open, I shall tell you that Ted
sings in the choir and is captain of his dormitory football team. He
was awfully homesick at first, but now he has won his place in his own
little world and he is all right. In his last letter to his mother in
response to a question about his clothes he answered that they were
in good condition, excepting "that one pair of pants was split up the
middle and one jacket had lost a sleeve in a scuffle, and in another
pair of pants he had sat down in a jam pie at a cellar spread." We
have both missed him greatly in spite of the fact that we have five
remaining. Did I ever tell you about my second small boy's names for his
Guinea pigs? They included Bishop Doane; Dr. Johnson, my Dutch Reformed
pastor; Father G. Grady, the local priest with whom the children had
scraped a speaking acquaintance; Fighting Bob Evans, and Admiral Dewey.
Some of my Republican supporters in West Virginia have just sent me a
small bear which the children of their own accord christened Jonathan
Edwards, partly out of compliment to their mother's ancestor, and partly
because they thought they detected Calvinistic traits in the bear's
character.
A COUGAR AND LYNX HUNT
Keystone Ranch, Colo., Jan. 14th, 1901.
BLESSED TED,
From the railroad we drove fifty miles to the little frontier town
of Meeker. There we were met by the hunter Goff, a fine, quiet, hardy
fellow, who knows his business thoroughly. Next morning we started on
horseback, while our luggage went by wagon to Goff's ranch. We started
soon after sunrise, and made our way, hunting as we went, across the
high, exceedingly rugged hills, until sunset. We were hunting cougar and
lynx or, as they are called out here, "lion" and "cat." The first cat
we put up gave the dogs a two hours' chase, and got away among some high
cliffs. In the afternoon we put up another, and had a very good hour's
run, the dogs baying until the glens rang again to the echoes, as they
worked hither and thither through the ravines. We walked our ponies up
and down steep, rock-strewn, and tree-clad slopes, where it did not seem
possible a horse could climb, and on the level places we got one or
two smart gallops. At last the lynx went up a tree. Then I saw a really
funny sight. Seven hounds had been doing the trailing, while a large
brindled bloodhound and two half-breeds between collie and bull stayed
behind Goff, running so close to his horse's heels that they continually
bumped into them, which he accepted with philosophic composure. Then the
dogs proceeded literally to _climb the tree_, which was a many-forked
pinon; one of the half-breeds, named Tony, got up certainly sixteen
feet, until the lynx, which looked like a huge and exceedingly
malevolent pussy-cat, made vicious dabs at him. I shot the lynx low, so
as not to hurt his skin.
Yesterday we were in the saddle for ten hours. The dogs ran one lynx
down and killed it among the rocks after a vigorous scuffle. It was in a
hole and only two of them could get at it.
This morning, soon after starting out, we struck the cold trail of a
mountain lion. The hounds puzzled about for nearly two hours, going up
and down the great gorges, until we sometimes absolutely lost even the
sound of the baying. Then they struck the fresh trail, where the cougar
had killed a deer over night. In half an hour a clamorous yelling told
us they had overtaken the quarry; for we had been riding up the slopes
and along the crests, wherever it was possible for the horses to get
footing. As we plunged and scrambled down towards the noise, one of my
companions, Phil Stewart, stopped us while he took a kodak of a rabbit
which sat unconcernedly right beside our path. Soon we saw the lion in a
treetop, with two of the dogs so high up among the branches that he was
striking at them. He was more afraid of us than of the dogs, and as soon
as he saw us he took a great flying leap and was off, the pack close
behind. In a few hundred yards they had him up another tree. Here I
could have shot him (Tony climbed almost up to him, and then fell twenty
feet out of the tree), but waited for Stewart to get a photo; and he
jumped again. This time, after a couple of hundred yards, the dogs
caught him, and a great fight followed. They could have killed him by
themselves, but he bit or clawed four of them, and for fear he might
kill one I ran in and stabbed him behind the shoulder, thrusting the
knife you loaned me right into his heart. I have always wished to kill a
cougar as I did this one, with dogs and the knife.
DOGS THAT CLIMB TREES
Keystone Ranch, Jan. 18, 1901.
DARLING LITTLE ETHEL:
I have had great fun. Most of the trip neither you nor Mother nor Sister
would enjoy; but you would all of you be immensely amused with the dogs.
There are eleven all told, but really only eight do very much hunting.
These eight are all scarred with the wounds they have received this
very week in battling with the cougars and lynxes, and they are always
threatening to fight one another; but they are as affectionate toward
men (and especially toward me, as I pet them) as our own home dogs. At
this moment a large hound and a small half-breed bull-dog, both of whom
were quite badly wounded this morning by a cougar, are shoving their
noses into my lap to be petted, and humming defiance to one another.
They are on excellent terms with the ranch cat and kittens. The
three chief fighting dogs, who do not follow the trail, are the most
affectionate of all, and, moreover, they climb trees! Yesterday we got
a big lynx in the top of a pinon tree--a low, spreading kind of
pine--about thirty feet tall. Turk, the bloodhound, followed him up, and
after much sprawling actually got to the very top, within a couple of
feet of him. Then, when the lynx was shot out of the tree, Turk, after a
short scramble, took a header down through the branches, landing with
a bounce on his back. Tony, one of the half-breed bull-dogs, takes such
headers on an average at least once for every animal we put up a tree.
We have nice little horses which climb the most extraordinary places you
can imagine. Get Mother to show you some of Gustave Dore's trees; the
trees on these mountains look just like them.
THE PIG NAMED MAUDE
Keystone Ranch, Jan. 29, 1901
DARLING LITTLE ETHEL:
You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch. The most
thoroughly independent and self-possessed of them is a large white pig
which we have christened Maude. She goes everywhere at her own will; she
picks up scraps from the dogs, who bay dismally at her, but know they
have no right to kill her; and then she eats the green alfalfa hay from
the two milch cows who live in the big corral with the horses. One of
the dogs has just had a litter of puppies; you would love them, with
their little wrinkled noses and squeaky voices.
ADVICE AND NEWS
Oyster Bay, May 7th, 1901
BLESSED TED:
It was the greatest fun seeing you, and I really had a satisfactory time
with you, and came away feeling that you were doing well. I am entirely
satisfied with your standing, both in your studies and in athletics. I
want you to do well in your sports, and I want even more to have you do
well with your books; but I do not expect you to stand first in either,
if so to stand could cause you overwork and hurt your health. I always
believe in going hard at everything, whether it is Latin or mathematics,
boxing or football, but at the same time I want to keep the sense of
proportion. It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or
to take big chances unless for an adequate object. I want you to keep in
training the faculties which would make you, if the need arose, able to
put your last ounce of pluck and strength into a contest. But I do not
want you to squander these qualities. To have you play football as well
as you do, and make a good name in boxing and wrestling, and be cox
of your second crew, and stand second or third in your class in the
studies, is all right. I should be rather sorry to see you drop too near
the middle of your class, because, as you cannot enter college until
you are nineteen, and will therefore be a year later in entering life,
I want you to be prepared in the best possible way, so as to make up
for the delay. But I know that all you can do you will do to keep
substantially the position in the class that you have so far kept, and I
have entire trust in you, for you have always deserved it.
The weather has been lovely here. The cherry trees are in full bloom,
the peach trees just opening, while the apples will not be out for
ten days. The May flowers and bloodroot have gone, the anemonies and
bellwort have come and the violets are coming. All the birds are here,
pretty much, and the warblers troop through the woods.
To my delight, yesterday Kermit, when I tried him on Diamond, did
excellently. He has evidently turned the corner in his riding, and was
just as much at home as possible, although he was on my saddle with his
feet thrust in the leathers above the stirrup. Poor mother has had a
hard time with Yagenka, for she rubbed her back, and as she sadly needs
exercise and I could not have a saddle put upon her, I took her out
bareback yesterday. Her gaits are so easy that it is really more
comfortable to ride her without a saddle than to ride Texas with one,
and I gave her three miles sharp cantering and trotting.
Dewey Jr. is a very cunning white guinea pig. I wish you could see
Kermit taking out Dewey Sr. and Bob Evans to spend the day on the grass.
Archie is the sweetest little fellow imaginable. He is always thinking
of you. He has now struck up a great friendship with Nicholas, rather to
Mame's (the nurse's) regret, as Mame would like to keep him purely for
Quentin. The last-named small boisterous person was in fearful disgrace
this morning, having flung a block at his mother's head. It was done in
sheer playfulness, but of course could not be passed over lightly, and
after the enormity of the crime had been brought fully home to him, he
fled with howls of anguish to me and lay in an abandon of yellow-headed
grief in my arms. Ethel is earning money for the purchase of the Art
Magazine by industriously hoeing up the weeds in the walk. Alice is
going to ride Yagenka bareback this afternoon, while I try to teach
Ethel on Diamond, after Kermit has had his ride.
Yesterday at dinner we were talking of how badly poor Mrs. Blank looked,
and Kermit suddenly observed in an aside to Ethel, entirely unconscious
that we were listening: "Oh, Effel, I'll tell you what Mrs. Blank looks
like: Like Davis' hen dat died--you know, de one dat couldn't hop up on
de perch." Naturally, this is purely a private anecdote.
ARCHIE AND QUENTIN
Oyster Bay, May 7, 1901.
BLESSED TED:
Recently I have gone in to play with Archie and Quentin after they have
gone to bed, and they have grown to expect me, jumping up, very soft
and warm in their tommies, expecting me to roll them over on the bed
and tickle and "grabble" in them. However, it has proved rather too
exciting, and an edict has gone forth that hereafter I must play bear
with them before supper, and give up the play when they have gone to
bed. To-day was Archie's birthday, and Quentin resented Archie's having
presents while he (Quentin) had none. With the appalling frankness of
three years old, he remarked with great sincerity that "it made him
miserable," and when taken to task for his lack of altruistic spirit he
expressed an obviously perfunctory repentance and said: "Well, boys must
lend boys things, at any rate!"
INCIDENTS OF HOME-COMING
Oyster Bay, May 31st, 1901.
BLESSED TED:
I enclose some Filipino Revolutionary postage stamps. Maybe some of the
boys would like them.
Have you made up your mind whether you would like to try shooting the
third week in August or the last week in July, or would you rather wait
until you come back when I can find out something more definite from Mr.
Post?
We very much wished for you while we were at the (Buffalo) Exposition.
By night it was especially beautiful. Alice and I also wished that
you could have been with us when we were out riding at Geneseo. Major
Wadsworth put me on a splendid big horse called Triton, and sister on
a thoroughbred mare. They would jump anything. It was sister's first
experience, but she did splendidly and rode at any fence at which I
would first put Triton. I did not try anything very high, but still some
of the posts and rails were about four feet high, and it was enough to
test sister's seat. Of course, all we had to do was to stick on as the
horses jumped perfectly and enjoyed it quite as much as we did. The
first four or five fences that I went over I should be ashamed to say
how far I bounced out of the saddle, but after a while I began to get
into my seat again. It has been a good many years since I have jumped a
fence.