314   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

ever he shows his familiar face, they do not understand,-they are not in down-right serious accord with, the doctrine he preaches. The Republicans are up against a hopeless situation. . . . The Roosevelt plan for compulsory military service, and preparedness are not practical this year because they have not wide-spread public support. The crowds come to hear Roosevelt. . . . The crowds in this country are too busy making money and planning how to make that money make some more, to realize the deep-rooted appeal of Theodore Roosevelt to their Americanism. Perhaps, through this hasty review of my impressions in Arizona, you dear folks at home can enter into this opportunity with me. I will have an interesting yarn to spin when I return to vote."

October 25, leaving Denver for Chicago:

"We are swinging down from the lofty Denver plateau surrounded with white-topped mountain peaks, through the sugarbeet and cattle farms to Nebraska. We shall wake up in Chicago tomorrow morning on the last leg of our tour. Colonel Roosevelt makes two or three speeches in Chicago and then pulls out for New York. Everything was rush-rush-rush in Denver. . . . We came by Colorado Springs and Pike's Peak at night but were all up, dressed and shaved when the enthusiastic Denverites descended on the Colonel with bands, bombs, bandannas, and general noise. Here was an old-fashioned, wild demonstration for the ex-President. He had not been in Denver for nearly six years. At one big meeting of 8ooo women he showed them the fallacy of Mr. Wilson's argument, `I have kept you out of war.' He told them why he was for suffrage. He had them with him from the start. All of this stuff was extemporaneous and I had to write iooo words on it. The night meeting was a near-riot. We had a stiff fight to get the Colonel out of the auditorium which is one of the largest halls in the country. They have an excellent arrangement for getting the speakers in-wide doors open like a circus and the automobile with the Colonel and ourselves was driven close to the speaker's

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platform. Such a bedlam of noise I never heard. On the platform were the women speakers from the women's special train. When they tried to speak, however, the crowd hooted them down with cries of `We want Teddy-Give us Teddy and Sit down,' etc. Then as soon as he began to speak, the Wilson hecklers started shouting, `Hurrah for Wilson'-it was all very exciting. ... `Let me shake hands with the greatest President since Lincoln,' one old chap bawled, while I kept my fist under his chin as we formed a ring around the Colonel, and half-shoved and half-carried him to his automobile. The Colonel reached his hand around back of his neck and grasped the old man's finger-tips, whereupon he subsided and fell back to tell his children that this had been the greatest moment in his life.

"There is no antagonism to the Colonel out here. Even the Wilson supporters love Roosevelt. We have to protect him against his friends, however. . . . There is a chap on the train now, an old friend of the Colonel who has been collecting pictures along the Mexican border. Some of the atrocities, particularly the burning of bodies and the execution of soldiers are the most gruesome sights I have ever seen. The Colonel mentions them when he ridicules the cry that `Wilson has kept peace in Mexico.' He told me today that some day next week he will entertain the four of us fellows at Oyster Bay at luncheon in his home. He wants to show us the trophies room, filled with relics from his African explorations and his early western life. That will be a compliment to us as newspaper men on this trip."

Friday, October 27, Pullman private car leaving Buffalo.

"We have just turned our watches ahead an hour, making it ro:r5, and signifying that we are back in the home zone of eastern time. The trip is almost over. The rush and hustle of the trip, and the speed with which we have had to write and file our stories, make it seem a moving picture hodge-podge, now that it is over. Take yesterday, for instance,-we pulled into Chicago at 2 P. M. and were greeted by one of the wildest street demonstrations I have ever seen. The Colonel never

,,Do It Now

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