Rome, January 12, 1909. Friday J. sailed bravely away from Civitavecchia for Messina with the American Relief Expedition. Last night I had a message from the Embassy saying he was well and doing splendid work on the Bayern, the ship fitted out by the American Committee to go to the smaller desolated Calabrian villages that have as yet had little or no help. The Bayern is a North German Lloyd steamer our committee chartered and loaded with food, clothes, tools, nails, household and field utensils, coffee, medicines and tobacco. One dear American sent ten thousand cigars and five hundred boxes of cigarettes. He said:
“The poor devils will need a little luxury!”
From J.’s letter he spends most of his time in the hold, sorting out stores, when he is not interpreting for commander Belknap, or ravaging the cargo for sterilized milk. I had begun to write something of the Roman end of the frightful earthquake when I was taken ill from overwork for the profughi. How terrible it is that in this shuddering horror which really has engulfed all of us and turned the idlest into tremendous workers, I should still want to make notes for future use as “copy”? I do, though. It is like doctors and undertakers. They are not glad to have people suffering or dead, but as people must suffer and die, they must pull something out of it to their advantage.
Rome, January 25, 1909. J. came home last Sunday, none the worse, indeed much the better, for his errand of mercy in spite of the fact that he had been in a motor accident and his face was done up with sticking plaster. Commander Belknap, the leader of the expedition, called to tell me what good service he had done. My committee work keeps me very busy. Rome is crowded with the refugees and we are all at work trying to feed, clothe, and work for these poor bereft people. Of course this dreadful calamity, one of the most tragic events in history, has thrown everything out of kilter in the life of the city and the individual. The exhibition of “Diana of the Tides” had to be postponed—nobody has wanted to see pictures or do anything but his share in helping the sufferers. Queen Margherita has sent word that she will come in the early days of February to open the show.
One of my families of Messinesi, who have lost seventeen near relations, have asked me to try and find some black clothes for them. Poor lambs, we have all been so busy trying to keep them fed and alive that we have overlooked too much their natural feelings of grief and their desire to show respect to those they have lost by wearing mourning. I am buying up enormous quantities of handkerchiefs for my people—they all weep so terribly. It is a detail the larger committees leave out perforce.
Rome, February 23, 1909. To-day “Diana of the Tides” will be taken off the stretcher and packed. Till the last both Romans and tourists have swarmed to the studio. To-day came dear Mme. Helbig and the Professor. He called me his Aspasia and remembered my having posed for his tableau all those years ago. Mme. Barrère, the French Ambassadress, came to-day for the second time, bringing her daughter, who was a great friend of Mme. Blanc and knew all about you. It was one of the pleasant things to have the tables turned and to have the Romans who did not happen to have met or heard of you, admire your portrait as the mother-in-law and sometimes as the mother of the painter. You must not mind; the Romans had never heard of Paderewski when he came here quite lately to play. During his first concert they treated him rather cavalierly; that put him on his mettle, and before the end of the programme he had won out, but his audience with few exceptions had never heard about him, and were quite unaware that he was held to be the first living pianist!
Now comes the break-up of our second Roman home and our return to you. We shall have “wot larks” together. I shall not leave you again as long as you and I live, except at your request.
Boston, January 2, 1910. Went to our old friend Bowdoin’s (formerly my father’s steward) funeral and sent a wreath with this legend:
“From the children of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, in loving memory of their friend, Anthony Bowdoin.” The service was all as one would have wished, very properly done. I felt it deeply! The last of the old faithful hunting hounds of our great Huntsman gone! I think so much of that quality of leadership he had; when he wound his horn how these good hounds leaped to the chase,—Anagnos, Paddock, Bradford, Bowdoin, how many others, hardly a puling one in the pack.
Mr. Clement sent me a heavenly article about Papa. Not a review, but inspired by Laura’s book.[5] He has views, good ones, that we should interest ourselves in the memorial to S. G. H. If the movement is still-born as I fear, and there is nothing doing, I should like well to tell you Clement’s views. Where do we most belong,—in to-day, yesterday or to-morrow? That is the problem that confronts us all! We owe much to those who are gone, more to those who are living and most, perhaps, to those who will come after!
CHAPTER XXIII
Washington in 1910
Between 1894 and 1910 we lived more in Italy than in America and had the opportunity of observing the amazing developments that were taking place in the country that was, until the World War, the youngest of the Nations. Modern Italy was born in 1870, when France and Germany were too busy cutting each other’s throats to interfere with the realization of that dream of a United Italy that had so long haunted the imagination of poets and patriots. America’s part in the Risorgimento has still to be written; like England, the Great Friend, she played no small rôle in the happy consummation. From the early part of the last century Italian patriots and political exiles were comforted and upheld in the United States. In my mother’s girlhood some of the greatest lived in New York by giving Italian lessons. She and her sisters numbered in their circle of friends Foresti and Albinola, the companions of Silvio Pellico.
In Italy Margaret Fuller and other ardent Americans threw themselves and their resources into the struggle that gave the world a free and united Italy. We Americans are bound to Italy by the strongest of all alliances,—sentiment and sympathy. The American colonies in Rome, Florence, and Venice, while not to be compared in size with the “Little Italys” of Boston and New York, have done much to create a mutual good-will. They have fostered a reverence for Italian genius in our own land, and the reaction has been that the Italian immigrants in America have been received with a more intelligent understanding than many others. The marriages between American heiresses and Italian nobles—though it has been the custom to scoff at them—have proved, for the most part, extremely fortunate. The children of these unions show that the American woman can be safely trusted to choose her mate among Italians, to the advantage of both races.
About the middle of the nineteenth century Luigi Monti, a young Italian liberal, fleeing for his life, managed to conceal himself on board an American vessel lying in an Italian port. Though he had little English, the lad made the Captain understand that he wished to go to America.
“I will take you to the only place in America worth living in,” the Captain assured him. After a long cruise the skipper brought his young friend to Nantucket, where he was hospitably welcomed by the inhabitants, and settled down to learn English and teach Italian. He remained on the island for some time, in the belief that he was in the most important place in the United States, an impression first given by the skipper and fully maintained by the islanders. Somehow—and here my memory is at fault as to just the how and wherefore—Longfellow got wind of the young Italian teacher at Nantucket and managed to convince him that Boston was even more important than Nantucket. In my youth Signor Monti was one of the most prominent Italian residents of the Hub and held, if I mistake not, the post of Italian Consul.
In Sicily, after the Messina earthquake, Roosevelt was given a reception by the survivors that surpassed their welcome of their own King Victor. The horses were taken from his carriage and he was drawn by a cheering populace, who hailed him with shouts of:
“Viva il nostro presidente!”
The other day two Italians were seen at Oyster Bay, scraping up handfuls of earth from Roosevelt’s grave.
“What’s the idea?” asked the guard on duty.
“We are returning to Italy, where Theodore Roosevelt is greatly honored, and we wish to take this sacred earth with us as a relic,” the Italians explained.
On one of my visits to America, during our long residence in Rome, I had the happy idea of founding in Boston a little Italian club, now grown into an influential society, known as the Circolo Italiano. During the first few years of its existence, my mother was the leading spirit of the Circolo, in which she held the office of Honorary President. The first acting President was Count Salone Campello. We met at the houses of the members once or twice a month, and from time to time enjoyed a banquet at one of the Italian restaurants at the North End. At a certain dinner at the Lombardy Inn my mother made a great hit when she said in her speech of welcome:
“Out of the egg of Columbus was hatched the American Eagle!”
Novelli, the actor, who was the guest of honor, congratulated her on her beautiful enunciation. Years before Tommaso Salvini spoke to me of her rare gift of oratory; and Adelaide Ristori, who twice acted with her in private theatricals in Rome, praised her acting. It is not wonderful perhaps that my love for Italy is second only to that for my own country, for I have been privileged in knowing some of the great Italians of my time.
The first decade of the new century was nearly over before I found myself in America with the prospect of remaining there. An artist’s wife, like a soldier’s, must be ready to march at the tap of the drum and follow her husband wherever his work calls him. I remember saying this to Marion Crawford, and his whimsical summing-up of the whole duty of wives:
“My dear, no matter where your husband’s affairs take you, the most important thing you can do for him is to remind him to put on his rubbers when it rains.”
While thankful for all I had enjoyed in Italy, I rejoiced to be at home again among my own people. During the winter of 1910 we were much in Washington, for the installation of “Diana of the Tides.” This creation of my husband’s brush was given by our friends, Isabel and Larz Anderson, to the New National Museum, where it now occupies a place in the hall of the totems. We missed our friend, Czar Langley, who had been much interested in Diana.
Mr. Langley, for years secretary of the Smithsonian Institute and leading spirit of its manifold undertakings, died in 1906. It has been said that his useful life was shortened by disappointment at the failure of his flying machine and the cruel ridicule he received when the airplane, after rising from the ground, came to grief in the Potomac River.
One bright winter day, two years after Mr. Langley’s death, the notables of Rome were assembled on the russet plain of the Roman Campagna to witness America’s latest victory, the conquest of the air. King Victor was there, surrounded by a group of officers and representatives of the great powers. The Americans were led by the Ambassador’s wife, lovely Elsa Griscom, who seemed, with her eager upturned face, her slight figure a-thrill with expectation, the living embodiment of American genius. It was a proud moment for us when the white-winged airship appeared from its hangar, ran along the ground for a few rods, and rose, circling like a gigantic bird, up and up till it looked no bigger than an eagle.
“Hurrah for Wilbur Wright!” The words burst from an excited Westerner.
“Hurrah for U. S. us!” shouted another compatriot.
I could only murmur under my breath, “Oh, Langley, Langley!”
“This is an historic scene!” a friend said. “Wilbur Wright, the first man to make a practical success of aviation, soaring over the towers of Rome. Not since Daedalus flew from Crete to Cumae and hung up his wings in the Temple of Apollo has such a thing been seen in Italy.”
A few nights later I met Wright and his sister at an Embassy dinner. Miss Wright, a breezy, sprightly girl, took pains to impress it on me that her brother Orville deserved as much credit as Wilbur for their joint invention, though for the moment Wilbur seemed to be getting the lion’s share of limelight. I put this question to Mr. Wright:
“Will you tell me just how much help Mr. Langley’s experiments have been to you?”
He gave an evasive answer; for all that, the name of Samuel Pierpont Langley of Boston will always be numbered among those pioneers who, for good or ill, have made aviation possible. Years before either Langley or Wright, Tennyson foretold it all in Locksley Hall, as the poets have always prophesied every step in human progress:
Saw the Vision of the World, and all the wonders that would be;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the Nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue.
Washington, since we had seen it, had grown in grace and beauty beyond belief; it was now a noble city with broad avenues, spacious parks, magnificent public buildings, and palatial dwellings. In this, the second year of President Taft’s administration, the capital seemed gayer than ever before. The entertainments were far more formal and elaborate than in the sixties, when my mother visited Mrs. Eames of the famous salon. One dined out every night as a matter of course, just as in London during the season. I found a few of the old friends, Mrs. Bayard, Senator and Mrs. Cabot Lodge, Justice and Mrs. Wendell Holmes, and Uncle Joe Cannon. Some of these regretted with me the changes in the social life since the simpler days I remembered of Miss Loring’s Sunday evenings and Mrs. Bancroft’s afternoons. The changes were inevitable, of course, and only reflected those in the life of the nation. In our great cities to-day, plain living and high thinking are rare as snow in August; this does not imply that they do not exist; only one must light a candle and look for them! The growth of wealth and luxury seems even to have affected the national physique. There were fewer of the spare American type than when I first remember Washington, and more fat men among our legislators. Marking this, I became reconciled to the monstrous growth of public interest in athletics and sports. Uncle Sam, realizing the dangers of too good living, has gone into training as a matter of self-preservation!
On this visit I first realized that to-day the world is run by committees. I spent much time at the Capitol, where the best speaking was heard in the different committee rooms, rather than in the Senate or the House. The Pinchot-Ballinger controversy on the preservation of the forests and other natural resources was the issue of the hour; my journal records that I was present at many of the hearings.
More than once we were included in the group that gathered every day for luncheon at the table of Henry Adams. He lived in a large house built for him by his friend, Richardson the architect. The dwelling was characteristic of both men; it had a rare flavor, expressive of its owner’s taste and character—all for use and comfort, nothing for show—and the ample spaciousness the colossal architect put into everything he built.
Mr. Adams was that rara avis, a good talker who is a good listener as well. This in some measure accounts for the many distinguished men among his intimates; he possessed, besides, a positive genius for friendship, not often found in our hurried land, and his company was eagerly sought by such overworked men as Roosevelt, John Hay, Saint-Gaudens, John La Farge, and Cabot Lodge. Though Henry Adams accomplished more than most people, he gave the impression of a certain large leisure and of always having time for his friends. This was in part due to his having a fortune large enough to make him independent, yet not so cumbrous as to bring heavy responsibilities, and in part to the tragedy of his married life. In middle age he lost a beloved wife. All the pain and mystery of his irreparable loss his friend, Saint-Gaudens, was able to express in that shrouded bronze figure, popularly called Nirvana, that broods over her grave in Rock Creek Cemetery. No happily married person can hope to compete in the capacity of friendship with such a man as Adams, if for no other reason, because the day is but twenty-four hours long.
He was working, I think, at this time on that unique volume, “The Education of Henry Adams.” Interesting as it is, the book does not do justice to its hero, and leaves behind a curious sense of disappointment and thwarted ambition that one did not feel in the man himself. The same thing is true of the autobiography of his brother, Charles Francis Adams. Both the Adamses were men of uncommon ability, gifted far above the average of their fellows; each attained an enviable distinction in their day and generation, yet in their memoirs they seem to confess themselves woefully disappointed with life. Different interpretations have been made of this attitude of frank disillusionment, in both brothers. I believe it to have been purely temperamental.
“Is life worth living?”
“It all depends upon the liver.”
The last time I met Henry Adams I found him delightfully mellowed, like a russet apple in the month of February. His wit was less caustic; it was as if, in spite of himself, the man were softening. It could not have been long after this that he said to the friend who bore him company during the latter stage of the journey:
“I have not heard my wife’s name spoken for over twenty years. That was a great mistake.”
The mistake was largely his own. His friends believed—and no man ever had warmer friends—that Mr. Adams did not wish them to mention his wife after her tragic death. So, wittingly or unwittingly, he and they entered into a conspiracy of silence that was only broken when the sands of his life were nearly run.
[To Laura Richards.]
Washington, March 15, 1910.
This morning our old friend, Franklin MacVeagh, now Secretary of the Treasury, called for us by appointment with the Treasury carriage—rather an old-fashioned turnout with two horses and a colored coachman—and took us to call on President Taft. We drove to the executive offices in one of the new wings McKim has added to the White House. We waited in a big round room with a soft green carpet. A picture of Roosevelt hung on the wall, a vase of pink roses stood on the table under it.
“I brought you early,” Mr. MacVeagh explained, “that you might see the Cabinet assemble and meet the Ministers, while waiting for the President.”
The first to arrive was Mr. Dickinson, Secretary of War.
“Is this your office?” I asked him. “Aren’t these roses emblems of peace rather than of war?”
“My office is next door,” the Secretary answered, “but there are roses there too. Washington is famous for its flowers; we have many fine conservatories. I have, by the way, more concerns of peace than of war on my hands at present. The Panama Canal and the Philippines take up most of my time.”
George Meyer, Secretary of the Navy—and incidentally our distant cousin—was the next comer. He was very dapper, wearing, like the others, a frock coat and tall hat. We had not met since Meyer was Ambassador to Italy. He asked many questions about Rome, which he seemed to regret. We talked of the splendid work our navy did for Italy after the Messina earthquake. I asked him if he had read Commander Belknap’s report.
“Enough of it to get an idea of what good service you all did down there,” he answered.
I seemed to hear again the click of Belknap’s typewriter at the American camp at Mosella, when he sat writing those notable reports to the Navy Department late into the night.
Admiral Brownson thinks that Meyer is the best Secretary of the Navy we have ever had. Adams says that Senator Lodge got him the job. Mr. Lodge was offered the post of Secretary of State, but refused it and tried to get the position for Meyer, but had to be content with the Navy portfolio.
“What gossip!” I hear you cry.
Well, isn’t to-day’s gossip to-morrow’s history?
Mr. MacVeagh next introduced Mr. Knox, Secretary of State, a small stocky man with an harassed face. He was the only one of them who seemed to show his hand. One had a sense of the heavy weight—superhuman almost—that rested on all these men; the others seemed to be able to make light of it for the moment, while Mr. Knox seemed troubled and nervous. His son’s sudden marriage last week may have had something to do with it.
“I have been bothered by interviewers all the morning,” he complained. “We are unlike any other Cabinet officers in the world. Delcassé tells me he never sees any but the most important persons, and those only by appointment. The English Cabinet members are equally well protected. We are at the mercy of Tom, Dick and Harry. Our time is wasted on all sorts of minor matters, by insignificant nobodies. Some of us, like your friend MacVeagh here, have social duties as well. I myself avoid those as much as I can.”
“I like to dine out,” Mr. MacVeagh put in; “it takes my mind off public affairs and is a real treat. I even like to make calls on certain people—this season they have been out of the question, we are all too hard pressed with work.”
“I get my rest in walking and driving,” Mr. Knox observed. “Whenever it is possible I run down to my farm at Valley Forge.”
As we were talking, President Taft walked in upon us, unannounced. He has a perfectly disarming personality, kind blue eyes and the golden smile of a child. As he shook hands with us, he looked a little piteously at Mr. MacVeagh for prompting. The royalties we have met learn their lessons better, and seem to know quite as much about you as you can know about them.
“Mr. Elliott had a very nice letter from you, Mr. President,” Mr. MacVeagh explained, “thanking him for the work he did at Messina and conferring upon him the medal of the Red Cross.”
The kind blue eyes, that had been so bewildered, softened as Mr. Taft said:
“Miss Mabel Boardman is the Red Cross—I am only the President. Every now and then she tells me what to do and I do it.”
The sweetness and lack of pose of him were enchanting. Many men would have let us suppose that he was the power behind the Red Cross, but he gave all the credit to a woman. Mr. MacVeagh then told him that, like La Fille de Mme. Argot, I was the daughter of my mother.
“I have had some correspondence with her about the Armenians,” said the President. “I was obliged to her for bringing their sad condition to my notice.”
“I have brought you a poem written by the old sibyl in her ninety-first year. It contains a message for you all.” I handed him the magazine containing the poem on the Capitol, with these lines underscored:
With deeply reverent soul draw near,
To lift the weight that most offends,
The need that other needs transcends.
We now passed into the Cabinet room, where we were introduced to Mr. James Wilson, for the last thirteen years Secretary of Agriculture.
“Sit in my chair, Mrs. Elliott,” was his greeting. “We shall have women in the Cabinet some day, you know.”
When Mr. MacVeagh told him I was Mother’s daughter, he almost hugged me; he seemed to feel the magic of her name more than any of them.
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” he quoted. Mr. Wilson looks much older than the others. He seems a man of real weight, with an impressive personality. He is tall, grave, and cavern-eyed. How he must have suffered from the battering of the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy! I showed him a photograph of Mama.
“I never saw her,” he said; “but she looks just as I thought she would.”
“I brought this for our Unitarian President,” I confessed, “but I did not have the courage to give it him.”
“Let me have the honor,” Mr. MacVeagh volunteered.
The Cabinet was now assembled, it was time to leave.
“Thank you all for letting us have a peep at the centre of the big beehive,” I said.
“You are right,” Mr. Nagle exclaimed, “we are all busy as bees.”
I told Mr. MacVeagh I felt ashamed to have taken up even a few minutes of their time.
“Not at all,” he answered gallantly. “We are all glad to see you. You did not want anything; if everybody would only let us off so easily!”
This was as he was putting us in the carriage. We drove to the White House to leave our cards, then to Mr. Adams’ for lunch. I told him how all the Cabinet impressed me as being men too heavily weighted down, but very gallant in their bearing.
“They are,” he said. “We kill all our Presidents. There is never more than one ex-President alive. By killing, I don’t mean murdering them like Lincoln and McKinley; we work them all to death.”
The fact is, we have outgrown ourselves! The evolution of the machinery of government has not kept pace with our amazing development as a nation. I imagine in the future we shall be forced to subdivide the country into departments, like the Ancient Romans, grouping the States into South, North, Middle West and North West, all united under the central Federal Government, as were Hispania, Britain, and Gaul, at the height of Rome’s power.
Since that visit to the Cabinet, I have been torn with conflicting feelings. I am still furious about the treatment of Gifford Pinchot and all he stands for, but this is the crew that must sail the ship this voyage, this is the captain with his hand on the tiller. We ought all to stand by, oughtn’t we? And yet, and yet, we cannot forget! The situation is very strange! There was an article in the Washington Post last week, called “The Back-to-Elba Club.” It is aimed at the Rooseveltians. They are a strongly entrenched body, Henry Adams one of the strongest. There is a sort of romance, a “Charlie-over-the-Water” sentiment, which is lovely, romantic, and touching—but is it quite fair? Harry White has ranged under the new banner, though he was unjustifiably chucked out of office by the Administration. He is now in high favor, and going down to South America as the head of the delegation to the Conference at Argentina. I am full of wonder about this Cabinet. The present is surely in a very difficult political situation. I suppose to those who have more knowledge, this is true at all times.
In the winter of 1912 I was again in Washington, on a visit to our old friend, John Loudon, and our new friend, Lydia Loudon, his charming American wife. Loudon was now Minister from the Low Countries to the United States, and the Dutch Legation was counted one of the most attractive houses in the capital. The Loudons had been stationed in Japan, where Lydia had taken a course in the art of arranging flowers. Early on the first day of my visit we drove to the market, where I watched her choose with care branches of yellow forsythia, bunches of daffodils, jonquils, primroses, sprays of feathery mimosa. By lunch time it seemed that spring had come to the legation, though winter still reigned outside. Madame Loudon, like every true artist, is possessed with the passion for perfection that compels her to do whatever she does with all her heart. As I watched her patient, tireless hands, weaving the spell that held her guests of the afternoon enthralled, I had a realizing sense of my own artist’s motto:
“If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well!”
The Loudons’ musicale brought together the music lovers of Washington, who listened in complete silence to a perfect program. Madame Loudon’s singing is a pure joy. As I heard the rich notes of her contralto voice blend with the dearly familiar tones of my old friend, the harmony seemed happily to express the union of these two uncommon persons. The Loudons are what all hostesses recognize as the rarest of created beings, a perfectly delightful couple. We all know plenty of charming women, and dozens of interesting men, to invite to our dinners; but a pair like the Loudons is a rarity not often met in any sphere, least of all in formal society where such twin souls are scarce as roc’s eggs.
During my stay I had the pleasure of lunching with Mr. and Mrs. Cabot Lodge, another pair of wedded stars; and after lunch I had a few words over the coffee with the host, on the subject that was at that time beginning to be whispered wherever Roosevelt’s friends chanced to meet. I asked Mr. Lodge flatly if in his judgment it would be expedient to nominate Theodore Roosevelt for President at the June convention.
“No,” he said, very decidedly. “In 1916, possibly—it is too early to say more.”
In spite of this pronouncement from Roosevelt’s sagacious and well-loved friend, I went a few days later to see Mr. Roosevelt, at the office of the Outlook in New York, and urged him to allow his name to be proposed for President at Chicago. In that hour I nailed the Roosevelt colors to my mast where they still fly. Looking back to that time, and weighing well all that has happened since, I do not regret my action, though it cost me more than one of my best friends. Could I hope to be remembered at all, it would be as one of the founders of the Progressive Party. Like thousands of Progressives, I would have died for Roosevelt without a thought. We loved him without measure and beyond reason as our leader, the champion of human progress, the hope of the world, the greatest American of our time.
CHAPTER XXIV
Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party
In October of the year 1910, as the first decade of the Twentieth Century was drawing to a close, my mother passed from the world where for nearly ninety-two years she had lived and labored. It seemed to us that for a moment the restless throng paused to note the passing. A long succession of meetings of commemoration were held by her church, her clubs, the many associations she had founded and worked for. So great was the outpouring of love and reverence that it seemed as if her beloved name were writ in fire across the firmament. The largest of the memorial meetings was held in Symphony Hall, Boston, and was given by the city.
At the request of the committee of arrangements I had written,—asking Mr. Roosevelt to address the meeting. His answer has been preserved:
The Outlook,
287 Fourth Avenue, New York City
January 6th, 1911.
My dear Mrs. Elliott:
It would give me the utmost pleasure were I able to be present on the 8th, to speak of your dear mother. You know that I felt for her not merely the highest regard, and indeed I may say reverence, because of her work, but a very warm personal affection. Unfortunately my engagements are such that it is physically impossible for me to get to Boston before the 10th. There was not a man or woman in America for whom I felt the same kind of devotion that I felt for your mother. I am more sorry than I can say that I cannot be present.
Sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.
It may well be that I inherited my devotion to Roosevelt from my mother, but I rather think that it was her spirit in me that recognized in him the leader of those causes dear as life itself.
January 11, 1911. J. went to see Henry James, whom he found in bed, very poorly. He is nervously ill and looks badly. Before the visit was over he jumped up and went about the house in his pyjamas and slippers, showing J. some pictures by his nephew, William James, son of the elder William. He brightened up wonderfully during the visit and seemed almost himself, J. says, before he left.
January 12, 1911. This morning I had a “bust of feeling” and wrote a note to Theodore Roosevelt, sending with it a volume of Mother’s poems and my “Sicily in Shadow and in Sun.” J. took them and found “Rosy” at Judge Lowell’s. He was most cordial and said he would try and look in on me that afternoon. He came, bringing Kermit, at four o’clock. Bridget the cook opened the door and said I was “out”! I heard a roar; “I am Theodore Roosevelt,” and flying to the head of the stairs I begged him to come up. He came roaring and magnificent into the room, looking, J. says, twenty years younger than the day he last saw him at Messina.
March 24, 1911. To-day, at long last was produced “Hippolytus”, the play Mama wrote for Edwin Booth, and that he and Charlotte Cushman were rehearsing when the jealousy of the stage manager’s wife, who had a part she did not like, prevented the production. This was a lifelong disappointment to Mother! The play, thanks to Margaret Anglin, was given at the Tremont Theatre with Walter Hampden in Booth’s part of Hippolytus and Margaret Anglin in Charlotte Cushman’s part of Phedra. The play was splendidly produced; Miss Anglin’s rendering of Phedra was admirable and Hampden was a perfect Hippolytus. The audience was deeply moved. The beauty of the lines is consummate. The play has pulse, passion, and dramatic climax. The youth and romance of it all impressed everybody. It has been a long hard struggle to have this play produced but I am rewarded. Miss Anglin is an angel, and Isabel Anderson and Betty Wiggins archangels, for having worked like Trojans for this. Miss Anglin is one of the serious and inspired actresses of the day, with temperament, beauty, charm, and that steadiness of character without which dramatic talent is so ineffectual.
The Box, Contoocook, New Hampshire. March 1, 1911. Being rather run down, came up with Isabel Anderson to breathe the elixir of this New Hampshire air instead of going, as some friends advised, to the South. Davos cannot be more exhilarating than Contoocook. Went for a four-mile tramp. The walking good, the snow crisp and hard enough to bear. Saw hardly a person moving. The loneliness is appalling. No children, no young people coasting or frolicking! Farm after farm silent and lifeless; had it not been for the smoke from the chimneys they might be abandoned, like those farms I saw in Maine a few years ago. These eight days have built me up wonderfully. The wide waste of the snow world outside, lonely and wild as the Russian steppes, with the contrast of the cozy interior of the Box where not a crumpled rose-leaf hurts, is piquant enough. Isabel is in her loveliest mood. We went over a story of hers and she sketched in a children’s play that seems to have real possibilities for a merry Christmas frolic. Some of the pictures of this visit will remain with me long: Isabel with her white fox furs leading me for a tramp through the snow. J. and Isabel warming the butterflies to life before the mammoth fireplace up at the bungalow, where the fire of white birch logs roared on the hearth bringing out the perfume of the green balsam branches that covered the roof. Outside the wide circle of hills topped by distant Mt. Kearsarge seen through the thick veil of a violent snowstorm—the bare brown and purple hills with the frozen lake at their feet—what a panorama! Why, O why, do we have to go to Switzerland when we have New Hampshire?
Washington. January 23, 1912. Talked with Count Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador. He said, à propos of Mr. Roosevelt’s possible election:
“Every body seems to want him, but we in Washington are so faithful to the Administration.”
January 27, 1912. Lydia Loudon’s dinner for me. Thomas Nelson Page, Senator Newlands and Edith, Miss Mabel Boardman. The talk was largely political, the general drift, of course, towards the absorbing subject, “Taft or Roosevelt”? Miss Boardman reported that Mr. Taft had said,
“I can never forget what Roosevelt has done for me, but his conduct has seared my soul.”
John Loudon’s summing up is the wisest I have heard:
“Roosevelt is really a great man; it seems a pity not to use him while you have him.”
Page read aloud one of his funny darky dialect stories. I read two of Mother’s poems.
The Loudons sang charmingly and Edith Newlands played beautifully, a feast for which the peerless Dutch coffee and cordial fortified us.
February 1, 1912. A letter from Mr. Roosevelt asking me to come to see him. I found him in the outer office of the Outlook. The place was filled with reporters and others waiting to see him. I caught a glimpse of T. R. talking with a fat blond-bearded German. I asked one of the clerks who he was; he said “an artist”, as if that were an answer. Finally T. R.’s secretary took in my card. T. R. came out and shook hands with me; his first words were:
“I could no more have come to lunch with you than I could have flown”; then told them to take me to his private office, a suite of three rooms all filled with men. I was shown into the outer room where there were the fewest. A gentleman of his own sort was reading a book of poems; I think it was one of the classics. T. R. had given me a copy of the Outlook published that day containing a long article of his on Woman Suffrage with many tributes to Mother. When he came in, I thanked him for the article.
“You know that neither my own mother nor my wife is in favor of suffrage,” he said; “I believe your mother more than any one else converted me to it.”
“To her it was not so much a question of right as of duty,” I reminded him.
“That is just what I am trying to teach them,” was his answer.
Then I cried out, “Come back to us, come back to us!”
“But Massachusetts doesn’t seem to want me back,” he protested; “or, at least, the Back Bay does not.”
“I find that the people who love you best say, Wait till 1916, but the people who love the country best say, Now, now, now!” I said.
“That’s just it,” he flashed out, “the time to set a setting hen is when she wants to set!”
He looks a little older and stouter, but his perfectly tremendous personality impresses one more than ever. He is more like the Corliss engine than anything else!
February 27, 1912. Yesterday Roosevelt announced that he would accept the nomination for President if offered to him. He is staying at the Brandegees’ in Brookline, and spent the day with Robert Grant. Matsu (a highly educated Japanese servant) says he is like Napoleon and is turning from his greater to his lesser self. I do not see it so, but many people do. I feel Loudon was right. When you have a man of genius it seems a pity not to use him.
Newport, March 17, 1912. Worked on my paper, “Artists’ Life in Rome”, for the Current Topics Club. I tried to give three vivid pictures,—Ancient Rome, the Renaissance, Modern Rome.
March 19, 1912. Much telephoning about the pictures for the little show to be held in connection with my lecture.
March 20, 1912. A fine day for our show. To town on the nine o’clock trolley to help hang the pictures. Wm. Sargeant Kendall generous in lending several of his best canvases. The show proves amazingly good and is very well hung. The audience remarkably large for winter Newport. The lecture a little heavy, must lighten it with a few more laughs.
March 21, 1912. Harrison Morris writes me that he and Mrs. M. are for Roosevelt. I am thankful to find at last some one among my friends who feels as I do. The papers continue to slang him. The great, patient, silent army of men and women at the bottom of the ladder are silent. Will they be allowed to lift their voices and speak at the election? There is no doubt for me that we should elect T. R. unless all our delegates are “inflooenced” by fear, the trusts, and the sacred property-right idiots. Property isn’t sacred—only ideals. Much embarrassed to defend my views, as I am attacked by nearly every friend I possess. This doesn’t change my conviction that he is the man of the hour. He has a mind large enough to cope with the loosened floods of humanity that socialism and practical Christianity have partly freed from their frozen slavery. Taft is the mouthpiece of the rich class, Roosevelt is the tribune of the people.
March 31, 1912. Made a great effort to go to church, it being Palm Sunday. Ill rewarded. The minister made a most unchristian address. He began by analyzing Judas Iscariot, found that wounded pride was the cause of his downfall, and coupled with him Daniel Webster, Aaron Burr, and Theodore Roosevelt. A bitter, burning attack. I wept with anger and was on the point of rising and walking out of church to show my disapproval, when the thought that I was sitting in Mother’s seat and that she might not approve the action restrained me. After church I avoided speaking to the minister as I usually do.
April 17, 1912. To-day came the awful news of the sinking of the White Star Steamer Titanic. Even greater loss of life than when the Ville du Havre sank some forty years ago. Little news yet, but apparently all the great ship’s company, save some six or eight hundred, went down in that icy polar sea. First reports say there are six hundred survivors on the Carpathia. The ominous words, “boats all accounted for”, mean no hope of other rescues. We have more than one acquaintance on board. It is believed that Frank Millet is among the survivors. Poor John Jacob Astor is apparently lost, his wife and her maid saved. The romance of the rescue is soul-stirring. No one thinks of anything else.
April 27, 1912. Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi recited a parody of the Apostles’ Creed in the Senate as an attack upon Roosevelt. The most blasphemous happening that has ever disgraced the Senate in my memory or knowledge. Feel to write a protest and will try to do so.—Did write the protest and sent it to the Boston Herald and Woman’s Journal.
April 29, 1912. J. and I went to a meeting at William Sargeant Kendall’s. J. is asked to be one of the founders of the Newport Art Association. We nominated Mr. Kendall for president. I think we could make a good thing out of this. It is really an outgrowth of the little exhibition that went along with my Current Topics Club lecture on “Artists’ Life in Rome.”
April 30, 1912. Am possessed to arrange a banner with Mother’s name and portrait for the Suffrage Parade in New York on Saturday. With great effort arranged to have it made by Baldwin Coolidge. After the order was given I heard that Mrs. Blatch, leader of the procession, had written Boston headquarters, asking for such a banner. Another case of “wireless.” I get them oftener and oftener.
May 3, 1912. To Boston on early train and to Baldwin Coolidge’s. The banner very successful. On one side a good reproduction of J.’s portrait of Mother, her name above—below “Our God is Marching On.” The reverse shows the legend, “Gens Guilia” at the top—below, “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.” Got Margaret Foley from the Suffrage Association to see the banner and promise to carry it, as Coolidge assured me I was not strong enough to carry it myself.
May 4, 1912. A perfect day for the great parade, which led by fifty young women on horseback marched from Eleventh Street up Fifth Avenue to Carnegie Hall. Marion Lawson and Clara Fuller among the riders. Florence Hall and I marched with the Massachusetts delegation, who were all dressed in white. Miss Foley gallantly carried the banner, little Floss and I walking on either side, holding the gold cords that held it in place. It was greeted with great applause all along the line of march. One very rough-looking man took off his hat to the dear portrait and stood bareheaded until we passed.
May 10, 1912. A good letter from Mr. van Allen of the Church of the Advent, thanking me for the protest in the Herald against Senator Sharp’s profanity. I believe that the offensive remarks will be expunged from the Congressional Record.
June 24, 1912. Much cast down about the result of the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Mr. Taft has the nomination. Roosevelt will try and form a third party. In Massachusetts Arthur Dehon Hill and Matthew Hale are among the young blood who will support him.
August 7, 1912. To Point of Pines with LeRoy Dresser for the first great Progressive rally in Massachusetts. Mr. Roosevelt arrived at half-past three. He shook hands with us and thanked us for coming. Though we had good places, I lost much of his speech made in the open air to ten thousand people. For me the great speech came later at the banquet of five hundred people. There he opened his heart and called upon Massachusetts to take her old place as the leader in every reform. Likened the forming of the new party of the Progressives to the founding of the Republican Party by the abolitionists and the liberals of that time. The Golden Rule and the Decalogue must animate all our legislation.
“Industrial freedom” is one of the battle cries. Mr. Roosevelt spoke an hour and a half in the afternoon and half an hour at the banquet.
The enthusiasm was heartfelt and magnificent. I felt that I had been in good company, the very best.
Newport. August 24, 1912. To the Tennis Tournament. A great spectacle. The girls charming in 1812 dresses. I sat with a group of pretty madcaps who could only talk of the Cornelius Vanderbilt Oriental ball last night, said to have cost fifty thousand dollars. A whole opera troupe was had on from New York to amuse the guests. The young people danced till six o’clock in the morning. None of the girls in my group had been to bed at all. Some had gone for a swim, some for a motor trip after the breakfast of sausages and scrambled eggs. Though none of them had slept, all were dressed in their morning finery for the tennis match at eleven. O tempora, o mores!
August 28, 1912. While at work this morning, I was haled to the telephone by the message, “Providence is calling!”
“Who is there in Providence who can want to speak to me?” I asked, impatiently. It proved to be Mr. Tuttle, the National Committeeman of Rhode Island for the Progressive Party. He asked me to take charge of the woman’s part of the state campaign. I hesitated a moment. As I waited the voice of the telephone operator, passionless as fate, kept on repeating, “Providence is calling!”
“Perhaps Providence is calling,” I exclaimed. “Mr. Tuttle, I will take the job!”
August 31, 1912. To-day founded the Newport County Woman’s Progressive League. A good deal was accomplished at this meeting in the way of rousing interest. I think now to arrange meetings as soon as the Men’s League is started. Winston Churchill has come out for Roosevelt, glory be! I started to raise the fund for the Woman’s League as I had done a few days before for the Men’s League by telling the story of Mrs. Howe’s dollar. At the New England Woman’s Club, whenever a good cause was presented and a subscription asked for, Mother used to take out a dollar and lay it down with the words;
“I can’t do much but I can give a dollar.” Mrs. Howe’s dollar grew to be proverbial, as it was in many cases the nucleus of great and important funds.
September 4, 1912. To Boston with J. to see the Old State House where his portrait of Mother will hang when finished. A wonderful place for it; I like to think of her there in the midst of that hurrying crowd of State Street. To a meeting at Progressive Headquarters. Saw there the New England Progressive women leaders, among others Mrs. Rublee of Cornish, Miss Huntress of Concord, and Mrs. Bird. Charles Sumner Bird, her husband, is the Progressive candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. He is a splendid man. The Massachusetts campaign is well planned and now in full swing. The men and women leaders are of the best caliber. The women will put through their job of raising ten thousand dollars to pay for the campaign expenses.
September 6, 1912. Mr. Tuttle tells me that they have as yet no campaign funds from the National Committee. I see that we must raise the money for our own expenses and fight hard to get it. Miss Cora Mitchell asks me to take the presidency of the Newport County Suffrage League. I delayed decision but suppose I shall in the end accept, unless we can find another person. With the heavy work I have undertaken as secretary of the Art Association and for the Progressive Party, this seems the last straw.
September 9, 1912. A good Bull Moose meeting of women at Mrs. Hughes’. Twenty-five present; all joined the League. We finally got our committee together. Three hundred and fifty dollars were pledged.
September 21, 1912. To Providence for the State Convention; the Executive Committee plus a committee of delegates elected by the enrolled members of the Progressive Party throughout the State. There were twenty-five men, I was the only woman present. The Reverend Boley Greene opened the meeting with prayer. We sat from 7.30 to 11.30, working on the state platform.
September 26, 1912. To Providence for the great Progressive meeting at Infantry Hall. I spoke briefly between the two famous and popular speakers, Mr. Foulke, the old war horse of Indiana, and Jacob Riis. I was greeted with the “Battle Hymn”, the audience rising and singing the Glory Halleluiah with a will. It was very moving and I felt it deeply. It is all for Mother—and I stand and take her honors, while she—
September 30, 1912. To Providence for meeting of Executive Committee where we hammered away at the platform. I introduced two planks that were accepted,—on infant mortality and domestic education.
October 8, 1912. Started from Market Square, Providence, with the Flying Squadron, consisting of two automobiles, the good ships “Theodore Roosevelt” and the “Equal Rights.” A fine send-off. The motors decorated with banners bearing the legends, “Pass Prosperity around”, “Let the People Rule”, “Protect the Laborer.” Our party, Mrs. Algeo, Doctor Garvin, Mr. Tuttle, Reuben Peckham, and Mr. Thompson. The men all wore bandanas, the campaign badge, around their heads. A crack cornetist played the “Battle Hymn” on a silver trumpet beautifully. We all made brief addresses and started off to great applause, with our own drummer beating his drum. I very poorly with a cold, full of alarms and expecting to die of pneumonia. First stop outside one of the great mills at Lonsdale. The hands came out at twelve o’clock when the whistle blew. We handed them “literature” as the campaign documents are incorrectly called, and told them to hurry back for the meeting at twelve-thirty. They came back sharp on time, and we alternately made speeches and dealt out “literature.” Arrived at Woonsocket in the afternoon. Held a good meeting in the square, then to the Bleachery, where we spoke to the mill hands as they came from work. I think it was at this place that I spoke to a group of Italians in their own language. The Italians are all solid for Roosevelt.
October 9, 1912. Charles Sumner Bird’s motor came for me and I drove to East Walpole, where I stayed at Endean, the house of dear old Frank Bird, papa’s college chum and lifelong friend. Had not seen the place in forty years, found it much enlarged and greatly embellished. In the upper corridor hang the portraits of Sumner, Andrew, Wilson, my parents, and many other leaders of the old time. Hurried from the meeting to the train to rejoin the Flying Squadron in Rhode Island.
October 10, 1912. To-day the way led through darkest Rhode Island. First stop, East Greenwich, where my correspondent, old Mr. Vars, greeted us. An aged and infirm man but staunch and true. Mr. Hill, the Progressive leader, very helpful. Got together with the local committee who reported a good meeting last night, and then on to Appanaug, where we saw Mrs. Richmond, the woman leader. Such a beautiful creature! Wherever we go we find that the leading clergymen are with us. At noon and at five o’clock, spoke at the gates of some of the great mills in the Valley. Talked with the manager of a large textile manufactory and remarked upon the apathy of the operatives.
“Three generations in the mill is what does it,” he said, “and no wonder!”
Made headquarters at six. Took the Fall River boat for New York.
October 11, 1912. Arrived late in New York, delayed by the rain. To headquarters, where was detailed to go out and speak from a motor. My speech was printed in the New York Tribune and World. Meeting of the Progressive Women at three o’clock. We all told what we had done in our States for the cause. Maryland was finely represented, and so was Georgia, by two brilliant women. These Southern ladies are splendid creatures once they get started, showing such fire and devotion. We were only allowed three-minute speeches. I said what I could for Rhode Island. In the evening to a banquet of the Equal Suffrage League where all three parties were represented. A horrid, heckling woman spoke for Taft, and another, hardly any better, for Wilson. Jane Addams, all in white, for Roosevelt, towered above them all like the Jungfrau. Her expressive, grave face was an inspiration to us all. Her speech, her very presence made the trip worth while. Miss Carpenter spoke well and Frances Keller was superb; she is like a black diamond, full of fire and power.
October 12, 1912. To Providence, made the journey with Mr. and Mrs. Bird and her nephew, Richard Washburn Child, the writer, who gave me many good hints. He is one of the able men among the younger Progressives.
October 15, 1912. At Weld. The maid brought in my breakfast with the announcement, “Roosevelt’s been shot.”
I sent a wire:
“Theodore of the Lion’s Heart, the women of Rhode Island are praying for you.”
Called up Newport and Providence and asked for prayers. They were held at Trinity Church in Newport by the Reverend Stanley Hughes.
To-day the presentation of J.’s portrait of Mother to the Bostonian Society took place at the Old State House. The speakers were Governor Long, Mr. Mead, the president of the society and Mr. Wendte, the prime mover in the whole matter. Mr. Wendte played on a little ancient organ while a girl with a lovely voice sang the verses and we all sang the chorus of the “Battle Hymn.” Mr. Finlayson had sent in a beautiful votive wreath from Weld and there were other flowers. Rosalind Richards unveiled the portrait that had been draped with a flag. Mr. Downs delighted with the portrait. All agreed it is perfect as a late likeness. This interlude in the campaign has been most refreshing. Words are only hot air; art is more lasting and far more worth while.
October 16, 1912. Early to Providence where I spoke at the Congregational Church on the Missions in Europe and the East I have visited, the school at Assiout, Robert College at Beirut, the Gulick School in Madrid, the Gould Home in Rome and the Methodist Mission there. The meeting began, at my request, with silent prayer for Roosevelt.
October 18, 1912. Spoke for the Y. M. C. A. who are just completing a whirlwind campaign for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I was kindly received and showed the precious little gold purse with the gold pieces in it given to Mother on her eighty-fifth birthday. I gave one of them to the cause. I decided that we must take the splendid headquarters, which the Y. M. C. A. are just giving up, for the Progressive state headquarters till the end of the campaign. I consulted Mr. Ballou, who fell in with my views, and together we tackled Smith, the owner of the building, in his office. He was rather horrid. At first he set the rent at $400 for the remaining two weeks of the campaign and then raised it to $500. I called the League together and proposed to them our taking the headquarters. They all agreed. I got Newport on the ’phone and explained the financial situation to them. They reported one hundred and fifty dollars in the League treasury and agreed to mail a check to me to-night. With the advice of Mr. Ballou and Doctor Harris, the president of the League, decided to take the step I should have taken long ago,—make the Progressive League, the home of the Progressive Party, attractive and comfortable. At noon Mr. Ballou got the deal through. We had not been sure that Smith, even at that unholy rent, would give us the building. The men, all good Bull Moosers, worked like maniacs half the night, getting the place in order. At eight o’clock to speak at the Zion Baptist Church with Julius Mitchell, the colored member of our State Committee.
October 22, 1912. This day Winston Churchill came to speak for our Rhode Island League. We took “Churchill House”, a very elegant sort of a Club, and sold tickets at one dollar. A good audience about one half hostile to the cause, and interested only in hearing Churchill, the famous novelist. Professor Courtney Langdon of Brown University introduced Mr. Churchill who spoke for more than an hour, sanely, lucidly, and temperately. He told of his fight with the Boston and Maine Railroad in New Hampshire. We had worked very hard for this meeting and were thankful we came out of it so well. All expenses were paid and one hundred dollars clear profit. In the evening there came to our headquarters William Gillette, who made one of the great addresses of the campaign. The actor’s art, the reformer’s faith, and the Progressive’s fire made a combination not often met. This was a red-letter day full of high words and higher thoughts. The headquarters are grand and in full swing, with constant meetings and great enthusiasm. No time has been lost.
To dine with Dr. and Mrs. Terry. Large dinner, talk chiefly political. I had rather a disagreeable set-to with Professor —— who spoke insultingly of “Roosevelt and the rabble that follows him”, knowing quite well that I was one of the “rabble.”
A few days since I dictated to a reporter an article giving the reasons why we all owe a debt to Greece, and how we are morally bound to work for the Greeks in their efforts for complete national independence. Never saw the article but fancy it was not bad, for I get letters from Greeks every day, thanking me for what I said.
To Boston and to Mrs. Kehew’s to speak for the Progressives. A fine old house on Chestnut Street that used to be called the Bayley house and later belonged to Edwin Booth. Full of tender childhood memories for me of our own Chestnut Street days when I was discovered one morning with the largest nail brush in the family, scrubbing the white marble statue of a nymph in the garden that I greatly admired and thought in need of a spring cleaning. I had a splendid audience and was supposed to try and break the solid front of the Back Bay Roosevelt had warned me of. Fear I didn’t succeed. The audience was about half and half, for and against us; the “fors” applauded furiously, the faces of the “againsts” were grim and set! After the meeting, to Walpole with Mrs. Bird and then to Watertown, where I spoke for an hour, holding the rally till Arthur Hill and the other speakers should arrive. I find it hard to give two first-rate speeches of over an hour in one day, but they all say I am learning fast.
October 27, 1912. After dinner to the Teatro Verdi in Little Italy, where I gave the Italian speech I have been preparing. They asked me to read from the daily paper Wilson’s insulting remarks about the Italians, taken from a book of his. When I had finished I tore the paper in two and threw it on the ground. This coup de théâtre was much applauded and reminded me that I had once studied for the stage with Tommaso Salvini, that he had offered me a place in his company and drilled me in the part of Desdemona. The Italians gave me lovely yellow chrysanthemums tied with the national colors, red, white and green.
October 28, 1912. Early meeting of the Executive Committee to plan the work for this, the last week of the campaign. At eleven started for a noon rally at the Corliss Engine works. In the evening Burke Cochran was the drawing card at headquarters. I held the rally till he arrived and then faded away while he spoke like a demigod. Such superb oratory I have rarely heard. He spoke for two hours and at the end we all begged him not to stop! Very tired at night, to bed at eleven-thirty. Holding out pretty well; I think few are putting in as many hours a day.
October 29, 1912. Started for the office at nine; finding it not yet swept, went to Mr. Shehadi, our treasurer, for counsel. He reported $112 in the League’s treasury. Decided we must draw on Newport for enough at least to pay the expenses at headquarters. Shehadi gave me delicious Egyptian coffee and such Turkish delight! Did some work at headquarters and started at eleven-thirty for a long “Flying Squadron” day with Mr. Dresser, Mrs. Algeo, Mr. Humes, and Mr. Tuttle. Esmond the first stop. Next to Chepachet, where we found darkest Rhode Island, indeed. No one welcomed us until at last Abe Hawkins, the blacksmith, a tiny man with nothing but the color of his hands to mark his strenuous trade, invited us to speak in the space or common before his forge.
“I am the sheriff of this town, and I guess you folks will be given a show!” he said, gallantly. Boniface, the innkeeper, most hospitable, but very discouraging in his views. One citizen who asked me not to quote him said:
“There’s nothing doing here. Every vote in this town is controlled—well, bought, if you like the word better—by two or three men in the pay of the machine.”
The machine in Rhode Island is a pretty nearly perfect one. We owe it in part to Senator Aldrich, in part to the blind Boss Brayton and some others whose names I do not know. The machine does not represent either party but an unholy alliance between Republicans and Democrats which parcels out the offices of the State as per agreement. At present the order seems to be that the national offices go to the Republicans and the city offices to the Democrats. So complete is the harmony between the powers that a group of innocent and enthusiastic reformers, who tried to oust from his office a Democratic mayor of Newport who was a disgrace to the city and the State, found that it was impossible for them to elect their candidate because their own party was working against them and even financing the opposition. Rhode Island politics are still in the “rotten borough” stage of development.
Slipped over to Maplewood, and there held a little rally. Came upon a man who had been in a Rhode Island regiment at San Juan and carried despatches for Teddy. He had his horse shot under him. The way he told us the story showed him to be a natural orator. He is a teamster and took charge of a mountain of literature in English, French and Italian, which he promised to deliver for us at the three mills they were destined for.
Dined at Pascoag, where we held a meeting at the street corner. Reached home at eleven-thirty. It was a wonderful day, I loved being in the open air and meeting the Progressives right in the heart of the enemy’s country. Wherever we go we are impressed with the character of the people who welcome us. The heart and conscience of the country is with Roosevelt.
October 30, 1912. After a morning with the Flying Squadron, took the train for New York that brought me there in time for the Great Progressive Rally at Madison Square Garden. The whole top of the arena a vast American flag so arranged that the blue was in the middle, and it seemed that we were looking up into a starry bunting firmament. An enormous sheet in front of the grand stand showed a series of moving pictures, etc.
The picture of Jane Addams drew much applause. At last we saw T. R. on his grand tour in many different parts of the Union. Now he glided into the arena in an automobile, bowing and smiling, and now he was seen speaking from a platform of a train, now reaching down to shake hands with a man in the crowd. Everywhere the people stretched out eager yearning hands towards their leader as plants reach up towards the sun for help to grow! At last he appeared before us in the flesh! Senator Dixon who presided was earnest and eloquent, and Oscar Strauss made a powerful address. He is the brother of the Mr. and Mrs. Strauss who went down on the Titanic, the wife refusing a seat in the lifeboat because she preferred to die with her husband rather than to live without him. Hiram Johnson made a very excellent speech, but everything paled before T. R. He stood for forty-three minutes, while the people sang the campaign songs, waved the flags, and applauded. He looked a trifle pale and hardly used his right arm. If I had not heard him at the Point of Pines, I should hardly have realized that he was not yet in full vigor. A wonderful speech.
November 2, 1912. By first train to Providence; at work for our fair at the League’s headquarters for campaign expenses, i.e. hire of hall, cost of printing campaign literature, and salary of our stenographer. All the other workers are volunteers. The spirit of sacrifice shown by these people, nearly all of very modest means, is very heartening. I spoke at length at Central Falls, and later had the pleasure of introducing Jacob Riis and Doctor Woods Hutchinson. We got Professor Courtney Langdon and Professor Theodore Collier of Brown University to speak for us.
November 3, 1912. Speaking most of the day. In the afternoon to the Italians at the Teatro Verdi. I wore all J.’s Messina medals, my best dress and jewels. After my speech, one of the Italian managers said to me, “When I saw your rings I knew that you were a true lady!”
Pleased to find that while at the earlier Italian rallies there were only a handful of Italian women present, at the later ones there was a large representation of them. Our women are being educated politically at a great rate, but they still have much to learn. Who has not? During my reading of Mr. Wilson’s derogatory remarks about the Italians, a man in the audience called out:
“Porco lui!”(A pig he!)
After the sins of the Republicans had been described, a stout Italian woman summed the matter up with the words:
“Sono majaille!” (They are swine!)
In the evening to the First Baptist African Church. Impressed with the quality of the audience. They were fine-looking, well-dressed, prosperous looking people. Julius Mitchell, the colored member of our committee, made one of the best speeches of the day.
November 2, 1912. Governor Hiram Johnson arrived at Providence on a special train. I met him at the station with a car. At the head of a long procession of motors, we drove about the city and finally to the Opera House. I had voted for a free show and had opposed the rest of the committee who were for charging an admission, well as I knew our need of funds. Governor Johnson was very angry when he heard that an admission fee had been asked. Both the men and women workers sat on the platform. The house was only fairly filled in the beginning.
I heard Governor Johnson’s secretary say to him, “It looks like a frost!”
It wasn’t, for Mrs. Algeo, Miss Hanscom, and some of the others went out and brought in people enough to crowd the Opera House. The advertisement in the Providence morning papers had been forgotten, which accounted for the slim house in the beginning. Johnson was very fine and his address noble and uplifting. For me, both Gillette and Burke Cochran had been more convincing. Hurried to Boston for a meeting to raise money for the Greeks. Gave one of Mother’s precious gold pieces to start the Greek fund. Bishop Lawrence presided.
November 5, 1912. Yesterday, election day, was very busy. From morning till night in a motor speaking at the mill gates and street corners. Dear J. roared himself hoarse calling through the megaphone, “Vote for Roosevelt!”
We distributed hundreds of campaign buttons both of silver and bronze. The silver ones were the most popular. In the Jewish quarter J. offered a bronze bull-moose pin to a man in the crowd.
“No,” he said, “I want a white one. These were made for the colored people!”
“There are no more white ones,” he was told.
“Then I don’t want any, but I will vote for Teddy all the same.”
Remained till midnight at the headquarters for the election returns that were confusing enough, but prepared us for the news of Mr. Wilson’s election the next morning.