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182 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

some of the Republican leaders that this same colonel should be the Republican nominee for governor that autumn of 1898. The dash of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill was not more strenuous than Theodore Roosevelt's sudden and unexpected storming of the Albany Capitol. What an autumn it was ! Every imaginable obstacle was put in the way of his success. He was accused of not having paid his taxes; he was bitterly impugned by a certain number of his former friends and adherents-Independents-who did not believe that he should accept the "regular" nomination, and many and varied were the battles fought about and around his personality.

The whole campaign had to be arranged so suddenly and hurriedly that all kinds of amusing, although sometimes unpleasant, contretemps occurred. One remains clearly in my mind. There was to be held near Troy a country fair. Its date had apparently not been determined upon before my brother had agreed to speak at what promised to be a large colored meeting the evening of the same day on which the fair was to be held. My brother had not expected to have to go to the fair, but a sudden summons came, saying that it was very important that he should appear and make an out-of-door speech to a large concourse of up-state farmers. He was torn from Oyster Bay at an abnormally early hour and dashed up to Troy. Meanwhile, the newspapers of Albany and Troy had announced that he could not be present owing to his engagement for the evening in New York. The consequence was that the attendance at the fair at the time he was supposed to speak was almost nil, and he returned to New York much depressed at the apparent lack of interest. I came in from my country home to dine with him and go to the colored meeting. The colored people were especially enthusiastic about my brother's candidacy, because the Tenth Regiment of regulars, a colored regiment, had stormed San Juan Hill side by side with the Rough Riders. The meeting scheduled had been widely heralded, and we started for the hall with the conviction that although the day had been a failure

The Rough Rider Storms the Capitol 183

the night was going to justify our highest expectations. Arriv

ing at the hall, one old man with a long gray beard, sitting in

the front seat, was apparently the total of the great audience

that had been promised. My brother and I waited in the little room near the platform, anxiously peering out every now and then, hoping that the hall would soon be filled to overflowing, but no one came, and after an hour and a half of disheartening disappointment, we shook hands warmly with the faithful elderly adherent-who had remained silently in his seat during this period of waiting-and left the hall. My brother, in spite of distinct distress of mind, turned laughingly to me as we walked rapidly away and said, quoting from Maria Edgeworth's immortal pages: "Little Rosamund's day of misfortunes!" The next day the morning newspapers announced that the evening newspapers had given the misinformation that the Republican candidate for governor would not be able to return from the Troy fair in time for the colored meeting, an announcement which had so discouraged the colored folk that only one old man had been true to his colors !

From that day on, through the strenuous campaign, my brother was known by the family entirely as "Little Rosamund."

Another evening comes back to my mind. My husband and my brother had left me in my country home on the hill at Orange, and they were supposed. to return at eleven o'clock that night. The last train arrived and my carriage returned from it empty. I was worried, for they were so thoughtful that I felt they would surely have telephoned to relieve my possible anxiety, and when at twelve o'clock the telephone-bell rang, I ran to the instrument expecting to hear a familiar voice, instead of which "I am a World reporter" was what I heard, "and I would like to know where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson are." "I cannot give you any information," I replied discreetly, and more truthfully than usual, I confess. "It is very strange," said the voice-a distant unknown voice at twelve o'clock at night, when you are the sole occupant of a remote country