272   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

I have always voted the Republican ticket, but I consider that true Republican principles at this time rest with the Progressive Party, and I shall vote for that party this Fall, and for Teddy, win or lose."

In October that year my volume of poems called by the title of its first poem, "The Call of Brotherhood," was published, and my brother writes me at once, though in the midst of pressing duties: "I love `The Call of Brotherhood'; somehow it seems to express just what we are now battling for in the political arena. Well, the feeling, the longing, the desire, the determination you have made throb in these poems, also make it impossible for us to sit in fat content and not strive for better things in actual life. When we felt rather inarticulately just what you have written, we simply couldn't refrain from the effort [he refers to the Progressive Party] as a practical means to realize high ideals. That is what we must do with high ideals,-apply them and try to live up to them, and to make them work.-Joe and Teddy have done wonderful work; and so has Douglas. .. . I seem to have cost my friends much in all kinds of ways in this campaign; that was one of the reasons why I so hated to go into it." Many people misjudged his motives and thought that he went into it for selfish purposes; never was there a more mistaken conception of the actions of a patriot.

In a letter written September i, he says: "I am just leaving for the West. It has been a very interesting fight, and never was there a fight better worth making, but the exertion is tremendous, and I look forward to Election Day as the end of a battle."

During that Western trip, he had one of his greatest personal ovations. One of the Western newspapers says:

"In Portland, Oregon, the city practically stopped business and turned out to receive its guest. In each city, the personal element of the greeting was remarkable. No one was thinking of Colonel Roosevelt in connection with his past office as Presi

The Great Denial   273

dent. He was `Roosevelt.' It was `Hello Teddy' and `Hurrah for Teddy' everywhere along the densely packed streets where he appeared. His speeches to these multitudes were neither original nor new, but the people understood them. The enthusiasm of these western cities for the ex-President seems almost fabulous. At Portland, hundreds of school children escorted the automobile. Women brought their children, cripples were wheeled to horse blocks, men climbed on cornices and pediments, mothers of twins pressed to the side of the car, people literally blackened sidewalks, residence verandas, windows of houses, even the trees. At Tacoma a woman was heard to remark, `If this ex-President has lost his popularity, I would hate to be in a crowd that had gathered to see an ex-President who had not lost his popularity,'-and everywhere he preached the commonsense doctrine:

"Now friends, what I have said to you is pretty elementary,-so elementary that it comes mighty near being commonplace, but I will tell you that the truths that really count are the elementary truths. The individual whom we respect is not merely the brilliant individual. The man whom we wish our sons to resemble is the man who has the ordinary virtues developed to more than the ordinary degree."

He himself believed that he was not a man of genius but only a man with average talents, talents which by sheer determination and will-power he had developed to a more than ordinary degree.

Shortly after the ovation in Oregon, he writes on September 15 from San Francisco: "Of course this trip is inconceivably wearing, but what a fine fight it is, anyhow!" To him it was a great crusade for the right, and his soul was at white heat in the cause of righteousness.

Later came the dramatic moment in Milwaukee when he received in his breast the bullet of a would-be assassin. He protected the man, believing him to be insane, from the angry crowd who would have gladly torn him limb from limb; and then