302 My Brother Theodore Roosevelt
each other with distrust. The spirit of your old sagas had gone from us.
Now we must face it alone, unless you help us. Do not forsake us to sulk in your tent. Make the sacrifice they demand, not for their sake but for ours. Help them win with the cold, good man they've chosen. Help that man to hold his courage and fight worthily for the things which you have taught us-tho the real right to fight for them was yours, not his. Don't let our councils be divided. Don't let hotheaded friends force their personal claims upon you.
But whatever you do or whatever you don't do, be sure of one thing-we shall never hold it against you. For all that is gone, you can do no wrong in our sight. The memory of you shall never fade from our hearts.
Ah, Teddy dear-we love you now and always.*
* From the Chicago Evening Post, June, 1916. The article was written by Julian Mason, the gifted son of one who had been a hospitable host of Theodore Roosevelt when, as a young man, he wrote "The Winning of the West."
XVI
"DO IT NOW"
Sad America
Dreamed in the distance as a charmed thing
Till Roosevelt, like Roland, blew his horn.
-John Jay Chapman.
One who rang true when traitor thoughts were rife,
One who led straight through all the years of strife.
-From Horace Mann School Record.
WENT to Sagamore Hill the very moment that I returned from Chicago after that exciting convention. In fact, I took the first train possible to Oyster Bay. My heart was
aflame, for it seemed to me then, as it has seemed to me frequently in such contests (nor does this refer solely to contests in which my brother took part), that the will of the people had been frustrated.
My brother was seated in the library when I arrived at Sagamore Hill, and when I burst out, "Theodore-the people wanted you. It seems terrible to me that they could not have you," he answered, with a smile that had a subtle meaning in it: "Do not say that; if they had wanted me hard enough, they could have had me." By which he meant that after all, if enough citizens in our great country would take seriously the duties of citizenship, the delegates to our conventions would have to do their will. From that moment, putting himself entirely aside, his whole thought, his whole effort were given to the achievement of what he considered the vital need for his country; namely, the election of the Republican candidate. Waiting until Mr. Hughes had definitely stated his policy, Colonel Roosevelt, upon that statement, immediately sent to the Progressiv::
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