Obituary of Theodore Roosevelt, Founding Member
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Born—October 27, 1858 – Died—January 6, 1919
Holland Society Yearbook 1919
The members of The Holland Society of New York, in annual reunion assembled, record their profound sorrow in the death of their distinguished fellow member, Theodore Roosevelt. As one of its charter members, his affiliation with the Society had remained unbroken nearly thirty-five years—under which circumstances alone his death would have aroused unusual emotions.
But the conspicuous position which he occupied in the life of the world, his commanding influence in the beloved country of his birth and the lofty eminence which he had attained in contemporaneous history prompt a modest expression of our pride and gratification that so rare an achievement, so remarkable an accomplishment, so splendidly unique a life-work should have sprung from the heritage of a Holland-Dutch ancestry, become American—which inheritance is the sentimental bond of affiliation in The Holland Society of New York.
The dauntless courage, which before all other attributes must ever challenge the respect and admiration of mankind, the martial spirit, the unfathomable energy, the boundless enthusiasm, the amazing versatility, the spotless personal integrity, and above all else that which he himself first cherished, the intense and deathless Americanism of Theodore Roosevelt, in their rare association at once made him great among all great men of action, with a lasting place in the history of his country’s highest ideals and notable accomplishments, and enshrined him forever in the hearts of his friends, as an exemplar of their ideals in personal character and conduct.
A brave and dauntless soldier in the war for the liberation of mankind, the sword as well as the laurel wreath should be laid upon his bier. A fearless and devoted patriot he has won immortality in the annals of liberty. A hater of sham and hypocrisy he has gained for himself a shrine in the temple of Truth. Militant to his latest breath, he died as he lived —with sword in hand at the head of the storming party. And we may think of him as having “risen out of this dust” with fearless spirit, with heart at rest, and with those soul-stirring words of the immortal Latin singer on his dying lips —
“Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.”
Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-fifth President of the United States, was born in New York City, October 27, 1858. He was of the seventh generation of Roosevelts in America, (For an extended sketch of President Roosevelt’s Roosevelt ancestry see “Olde Ulster,” Vol. I, page 102.) the first of the name, Claes Martenzen van Roosevelt, having emigrated from Holland to New Amsterdam before 1638. (See page 272 of the 1917 Yearbook.) Members of the family were prominent in the commercial and public life of the colony under both Dutch and English rule, and, subsequent to the Revolution, in the State. Among them were merchants and lawyers of distinction, who served both in the Provincial and State Legislatures.
Theodore Roosevelt (1831-78), the father of the President, was widely known in New York City for his philanthropy and activity in charitable and reform movements. He did not enter the military service during the Civil War, but aided in the equipment and organization of negro troops, and was one of the founders of the Union League and of the Loyal Publication Society.
He suggested and drew up the Federal Allotment Law, devised for the purpose of saving the salaries of soldiers, and himself served as a member of the State Allotment Commission which saved more than five million dollars for the soldiers of New York State. On his mother’s side, Theodore Roosevelt was descended from some of the best-known families of the South, combining in his veins the blood of both Scotch-Irish and Huguenot ancestors. His great-great-grandfather, Archibald Bulloch, was a member of the Continental Congress, and the first State Governor of Georgia. One of his great-grandfathers, Daniel Stewart, was a brigadier-general in the Continental army. His mother, Martha Bulloch, married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., at her father’s home at Roswell, Cobb County, Ga., in 1853. Mrs. Roosevelt’s brother, James D. Bulloch, was an officer of the Confederate Navy, and acted during a greater part of the war as a secret agent of the Confederacy in England, where he contracted for the purchase of the privateers Florida and Alabama.
As a boy Theodore Roosevelt was not strong physically, being a sufferer from severe attacks of asthma, but he loved out-of door life and sports, and it was his devotion to these that made him, when he entered the freshman class at Harvard College in the fall of 1876, fully up to the normal strength of boys of his age. At college he continued to build up his strength by regular exercise in the gymnasium, and engaged in various athletic sports, but never distinguished himself in any of them except boxing. He was one of the editors of the Advocate, and was active in college politics. His record for scholarship was good, but not brilliant. He did, however, develop rather unusual powers of study and concentration, and at graduation took honors in natural history and economics. He had shaped his studies to some extent with the idea of fitting himself to be a professor in some branch of natural science, but gradually the desire for a more active career than that afforded by a college professorship possessed him. He took the degree of A. B. in June, 1880, and went abroad for a period of study and travel. Returning to the United States, he entered the Columbia Law School, at the same time reading law in the office of his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt.
In the autumn of 1881 he was nominated by the Republicans of the old Twenty-first District of the City of New York as their candidate for the State Assembly. The nomination came to him unexpectedly and unsought. Roosevelt had already identified himself with the “reform” element in the city, but he was “regular” as far as party enrollment went. He was elected after a spirited campaign and took his seat at Albany in January, 1882. His entry into political life caused him to abandon the pursuit of the law and turned his activities into a career of public service to which he was determined to devote his energies and talents. In 1882, the year in which Grover Cleveland was elected Governor, Roosevelt was re-elected by a large majority, despite the fact that it was a Democratic year. In 1883 he was elected for a third term. During his second term he was the Republican floor leader, and in his third was a candidate for the Speakership, but was defeated through the influence of Warner Miller. He was a delegate to the Republican State Convention at Utica in 1884 and was made one of the delegates at-large and chairman of the delegation from the City of New York to the Republican National Convention at Chicago in the same year. He took a prominent part in the proceedings at the Chicago Convention and during the bitter struggle which ensued over the balloting worked and voted steadfastly for George F. Edmunds of Vermont as candidate for the Presidency, and was one of the nine New York delegates who voted for him on the final ballot. After the Convention Roosevelt went to his ranch in North Dakota, returning to the East in time to take part in the Presidential campaign.
After the campaign was over he went back to his North Dakota ranch, near Medora, on the Little Missouri River, where he spent the greater part of the next two years. It was by no means his first experience in ranch life but this time his stay was for a longer period. This rough and unconventional life, amid surroundings where a man’s position was measured not by pedigree or bank account, but by his own worth, had a powerful influence on the future President’s career. It resulted for him not only in an entire readjustment of values, but gave him an object lesson in democracy that he never forgot. He entered into the life of the frontier region not as an outsider with the message of a more highly developed civilization, but as one with the desire to enter into the life about him and accept things as they were. Yet through it all there ran an insistence on the recognition of the reign of law. More than once he taught by example. On one occasion he organized and led a posse in midwinter on a month’s chase after cattle thieves, and broke all precedents by bringing his prisoners safely back to jail instead of following the usual custom of hanging them where they were captured.
Roosevelt was recalled from the ranch in the ‘fall of 1886 to become a candidate for Mayor of New York City. He was the nominee of the independent Committee of One Hundred, and of the Republican party. His opponents were Henry George, running on a Labor and single-tax platform, and Abram S. ;Hewitt, whom Tammany had nominated in one of its •periodic simulations of righteousness. Mr. Hewitt was elected Mayor. Theodore Roosevelt was appointed a member of the National Civil Service Commission in May, 1889, by President Harrison. He served throughout Harrison’s Administration, and was retained in office by President Cleveland. Roosevelt resigned from the Civil Service Commission in May, .1895, and accepted one of the Police Commissionerships tendered him hy Mayor Strong, of New York City, his associates on the board being Andrew D.Parker, Frederick D. Grant, and Avery D. Andrews. Roosevelt was chosen President of the Board, and from the first stamped his personalIty on the Department. His Commissionership was signalized by a thorough re-organization of the force, by the strict enforcement of the Excise Law and the Police Civil Service Law. Roosevelt resigned his position as Police Commissioner in March, 1897, to return to Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He had always been interested in naval affairs, as his naval history of the war of 1812, written shortly after leaving college, proved. He, therefore, accepted the post in the Navy Department with eagerness. Under his direction the various bureaus of the department were overhauled and red tape cut in every direction. He was responsible for the greatly increased target practice, which resulted in the wonderfully effective work of the American gunners in the war with Spain and, in that war, it was he who urged successfully that Admiral Dewey be retained in command of the Asiatic station, when it was proposed to supplant him, and one of his last official acts was to write the dispatch which sent Dewey to Manila. He raid the regiment popularly known as “the Rough Riders” which was mustered into the service as the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. His influence secured the appointment of Colonel for Leonard Wood and he himself was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel. The regiment was recruited at San Antonio, Texas, whence it was transferred to Tampa to await orders. When Cervera’s fleet locked itself in Santiago harbor, Roosevelt became convinced that the first land fighting was to take place at that point. He secured the attachment of his regiment to Gen. Shafter’s command, and when the latter was transferred to Cuban soil It was Roosevelt’s prompt action that secured for his men the most coveted passage on army tranports, when other less fortunate regiments were compelled to remain behind until all the fighting was over. Roosevelt’s conviction proved right. In the first conflict with the Spanish, at Las Guasimas (June 24, 1898) the “Rough Riders” saw severe fighting, and conducted themselves well. Before another engagement, Wood was promoted to be Brigadier-General and Roosevelt became commander of the regiment. The regiment took part in the assault on Santiago (July i, 1898), Roosevelt displaying great bravery and leading his men in person. Before the fighting was over, the death or wounding of the other commanding officers left him the ranking officer of the brigade. The regiment was under fire all the next day and night, but maintained the position on the hills which it had won. The regiment lay in the trenches before the city until its surrender, Roosevelt being in command of the second brigade of the cavalry division from the middle of July. In September 1898, Roosevelt was nominated for Governor of the State of New York at the Republican State Convention at Saratoga and was subsequently elected. At the end of his two years term, he was nominated at the Republican National Convention in 1900, at Philadelphia, for Vice-President on the same ticket with President McKinley, and was elected in November of the same year.
Roosevelt’s term as Vice-President was destined to be of short duration. He took office on March 4, 1901, and presided over the Senate at the succeeding session. His relations with President McKinley and his Cabinet were close and cordial. Unlike many former Vice-Presidents, he was in full agreement with the Administration policy. September found him with his family camping in the Adirondacks, and It was there that he received the news of the shooting of President McKinley. He hurried at once to Buff”alo, but at the end of three days, being assured by the attending physicians that the President would probably recover, he returned to the mountains. When the fatal complications set in, he was again sent for, but President McKinley died before he reached his bedside. The Vice-President took the oath of office as President of the United States at Buffalo on the afternoon of September 14, 1901, in the presence of the Cabinet. At the Republican National Convention at Chicago, in June 1904, PresidentPresident Roosevelt was nominated by acclamation to succeed himself. Charles Warren Fairbanks, of Indiana, was named for Vice-President. On the opposing Democratic ticket were Alton B. Parker, of New York, for President, and Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, for Vice-President. Roosevelt and Fairbanks were elected by a large plurality. The events and achievements of President Roosevelt’s administration need not be recorded here. They constitute one of the foremost chapters of the history of the Republic. At the end of President’s Roosevelt’s two terms and in accordance with his assertion that he would not run for the Presidency again, the President, throughout 1908, worked strenuously for his personal candidate, William H. Taft, then Secretary of War. The Republican Convention met in Chicago on June 18, 1908, and Taft was nominated for President on the first ballot, and the following day James S. Sherman was named for Vice-President. The Republican candidates were elected. On March 4, 1909, William H. Taft was inaugurated as President of the United States, and on that day Roosevelt left Washington. His connection with the Outlook, as contributing editor, began immediately, and, after a period of comparative quiet, in preparation for his African hunting trip, he sailed for the Mediterranean on March 23, 1909. After more than a year’s absence in Africa and Europe he returned to the United States in June, 1910, and in the fall of that year he again became an active factor in politics. His entry into the State and Congressional campaigns of 1910 was really begun when the New York Legislature refused to pass the Cobb Direct Primary bill after he had urged its passage.At the meeting of the Republican State Committee On August 16, Roosevelt was turned down as temporary chairman of the State Convention, after he had expressed his willingness to accept the honor. However,he carried his fight to the floor of the Saratoga Convention, and defeated his rival, James S. Sherman, Vice-President of the United States, by a vote of 567 to 445. Roosevelt’s candidate, Henry L. Stimson, was named for Governor, but was defeated at the polls.
Following the 1910 campaign, Roosevelt remained out of active politics for a time. The rumored break with President Taft became an acknowledged fact, and on February 26, 1912, four months before the date set for the Republican National Convention of that year, Roosevelt announced his determination to be a candidate for the Presidential nomination. Then followed one of the most sensational periods in the history of the Republican party. In each and every State there were pronounced Taft and Roosevelt factions, and when the convention was called the number of delegates seemed to be evenly divided with the odds slightly favoring Roosevelt. However, many Roosevelt delegates were unseated, and the convention when finally organized stood 564 for Taft and 510 for Roosevelt. Charges and counter charges flew thick and fast, and Roosevelt was entreated by the progressive wing to bolt the party and accept an independent nomination. Finally, when, on June 19, he saw the hopelessness of being able to win a majority of the votes he gave the word to bolt and withdrew from the convention as did many of his delegates. On the following day, June 20, the convention nominated Taft. There followed feverish days with plans being hurriedly made for the calling of a convention of all Progressives, as the members of the new party elected to call themselves. It was finally determined to hold a convention at Chicago, on August 5, and there and at that time Roosevelt was nominated by a gathering which seemed actuated by a deeply religious inspiration. Against Taft and Roosevelt, the Democratic party nominated Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of the State of New Jersey and before that President of Princeton University. The 1912 campaign was marked by the bitterness engendered between the Republicans and Progressives. Woodrow Wilson was elected President and Roosevelt was second with Taft third, receiving the electoral votes of only two States.
In the fall of 1913 Roosevelt left the United States for his second extended hunting and exploring trip. This time he went to South America, and after many months in the jungle emerged to tell the world he had discovered a river one thousand miles long, which he named the Rio Duvido, or River of Doubt, a tributary of the Rio Madeira. His announcement caused much discussion in scientific circles, and opinion was divided as to the authenticity of his claims. It was in May, 1914, that Roosevelt made his last trip abroad.He went to Spain to attend the marriage of his son, Kermit, and Miss Belle Wyatt Willard, daughter of the United States Ambassador to Spain. He was royally received in that country and received a special mark of distinction when he rode with King Alfonso. Later in 19 14 Roosevelt refused the Progressive nomination for Governor of New York, and between that time and 1916 he became reconciled once more to the Republican organization. He was a candidate for the Presidential nomination in 1916, but when Charles Evans Hughes was nominated he supported him vigorously. During the trouble on the Mexican border in 191 5 Roosevelt was a critic of President Wilson’s Mexican policy, and from the beginning of the European War in 1914 he had urged that this country join the conflict on the side of the Allies.
When, in April, 1917, the United States did declare war on Germany, Roosevelt offered himself and a division of troops to be recruited from 285,000 volunteers for active service in France. This offer was refused by the War Department, and Roosevelt did not engage actively in any war work, although his four sons, Theodore, Jr. Kermit, Archibald, and Quentin, and Dr. Richard Derby, the husband of his daughter Ethel, all volunteered for active service and were assigned to duty in France. In the Gubernatorial campaign of 191 8 Roosevelt followed a neutral course and backed the organization candidate for Governor, If Theodore Roosevelt had any profession in private life, it was that of literature. Almost from the time he left college, and even during his Presidential term, essays, histories, biographies, and books of a narrative or descriptive character came from his facile pen with the regularity of the seasons, while numerous contributions to the magazines and reviews further attested his literary activity. Within two years of his graduation from Harvard he published his “Naval Operations of the War Between Great Britain and the United States, 1812-1815,” which became at once, and still remains, the recognized authority for this period. His published works after the above-mentioned history, which appeared in 1882, were in the order of their appearance: “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman” (1886), “Life of Thomas Hart Benson” (1887), in American Statesmen Series; “Life of Gouverneur Morris” (1888), in American Statesmen Series; “Ranch Life and Hunting Trail” 1888), “Essays on Practical Politics” (1888), “New York City: A History” (1891), “American Big Game Hunting” (1893), “the Wilderness Hunter” (1893), “Hero Tales from American History” (1895), a collaboration with Henry Cabot Lodge; “The Winning of the West” (4 vols., 1896), his most extensive historical work; “American Ideals, and Other Essays,” “The Strenuous Life” (1897), translated into the French as “La Vie Intense” (1900), “The Rough Riders” (1899), (1902), “Oliver Cromwell” (1901), also in a French translation. He also furnished chapters for several collaborative books on hunting and camp life. President Roosevelt was known among his friends as a man of singularly pure personal life, devoted to his wife and family-He married first in 1883, Alice Lee, of Boston, who died in 1884, leaving one child, Alice Lee Roosevelt, who married Nicholas Longworth. He married again in 1886 Edith Kermit Carew. The children of this marriage were Theodore, Jr. Kermit, Ethel, who married Dr. Richard Derby, Quentin and Archibald Bulloch.