198   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

As we listened to their retreating footsteps, he turned to me with a look of mingled amusement and despair in his eyes, and said: "What can I do with such people? But aren't they good fellows ! "

And so, as is now well known to history, the Kansas delegation and other like delegations had their way. Mr. Platt and Mr. Odell thought they had their way too, and at one of the most exciting conventions at which I have ever been present-dominated in masterful fashion by the unique personality of Mark Hanna-Theodore Roosevelt was made the nominee for the second place on the ticket of the Republican party of i goo. One little incident occurred the next morning which I have always felt had a certain prophetic quality about it. An article appeared in one of the Philadelphia papers, signed by that inimitable humorist, the brilliant philosopher, Peter Dunne, alias "Mr. Dooley." I wish I could find the article-I kept it for a long while-but this is about the way it ran:

"Tiddy Rosenfeldt came to the Convintion in his Rough Rider suit and his sombrero hat and his khaki clothes, trying to look as inconspichuous as possible, and as soon as he got there Platt fill on his chist and Odell sat on his stummick and they tried to crush him and squeeze the life out of him. And they think they have done it, and perhaps they have, but, Hinnessey, they needn't be quite so sure, for Tiddy Rosenfeldt will get somewhere no matter what happens, even though the path lies through the cimitery I "

Whether "Mr. Dooley" simply meant that as vice-presidents had always been supposed to be dead men as far as future preferment was concerned, or whether, with prophetic touch, he visualized the horror that was to come, and the way in which Theodore Roosevelt's path to a higher position actually did lie "through the cemetery," I know not, but those were approximately the very words which appeared in that Philadelphia newspaper the morning after Roosevelt was nominated as candidate for vice-president on the McKinley ticket.

How the Path Led to the White House 199

Later in the autumn he started on one of the most strenuous campaigns of his life, and swung around the country asking for Republican support for William McKinley's second term. Just before Election day he was to return to New York to make his final address at Madison Square Garden. As usual, he was to spend the night before and the night of the meeting at my house. Just before he was to arrive I received a telegram saying that his voice was entirely gone from the strain of weeks of speaking, and would I please have a throat doctor at the house on his arrival to treat his throat. Of course I arranged that this should be done, and he arrived, bright and gay, although distinctly hoarse. The doctor treated him, and he was ordered to keep perfectly still during the evening. We went up to the library after dinner, and I said to him: "Now, Theodore, we must only have a few minutes' talk, and then you must go to bed." "But," he said, "I must tell you a few of the very funny incidents that happened on my trip." And with that he began-my husband and I feeling very consciencestricken, but so fascinated that we had not the strength of mind to stop him. Suddenly, to our perfect surprise, the early morning light crept in through the windows, the milk-wagons began to rattle in the streets, and we realized that the dawn of another day had come, and that the future vice-president had outraged his doctor's orders and had talked all night long ! And such stories as they were, too; I shall never forget them. One after another, he pictured to us the various audiences, the wonderful receptions, the unique chairmen of the different meetings. There was always a "bellowing" chairman, as he expressed it, or else one whose ineffectual voice did not reach even the first circle of the huge audiences that gathered everywhere to hear him. Out in the Far West eight-horse vehicles would meet the trains on which the nominees travelled, and inadvertent bands would blow in the ears of "shotgun" teams that had never been hitched up before, with such astounding results as the complete loss of the whole team at once, which necessitated the drag-