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334   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

that Theodore Roosevelt had taken up his residence in the Bad Lands of Dakota, where the young married couple had also migrated. Nothing was ever more entertaining than to start the "don't you remember" conversations between my brother and his old friend Mrs. Selmes. Each would cap some wild Western story of the other with one equally wild and amusing, and the tales of their adventures with the Marquis de Mores would have shamed Dumas himself !

Another little note came to me shortly after the above, suggesting that he should spend the night and have one of the oldtime breakfasts that he loved. "Breakfast is really the meal for long and intimate conversation." He writes the postscript which he adds he knew would please my heart, for one of my sons, owing to a slight defect in one eye, had had difficulty in being accepted in the army, but through strong determination had finally achieved a captaincy in the ammunition train of the 77th Division. My brother says in the postscript: "I genuinely admire and respect Monroe." About New Year's eve a letter came to my husband from him in answer to a congratulatory letter on the fine actions of my brother's boys. "Of course, we are very proud of Archie, and Genera Duncan has just written us about Ted in terms that make our hearts glow. Well, there is no telling what the New Year has in store. The hand of Fate may be heavy upon us, but we can all be sure that it will not take away our pride in our boys. [My son Monroe was expecting to be sent soon to France in the 77th Division, and my eldest son, who had broken his leg, was hoping to get into a camp when the leg had recovered its power.] I cannot tell you, my dear Douglas, how much you and Corinne have done for us and have meant to us during the last six months. Ever yours, T. R."

In the "Life and Letters of George Eliot " she dwells upon the fact that so many people lose the great opportunity of giving to others the outward expression of their love and appreciation, and as I re-read my brother's treasured letters, I realize fully

what the authoress meant, and how much the giver of such honest and loving expression wins in return from those to whom the happiness of appreciation has been rendered.

The year 1917 was over; the American people once more could look with level eyes in the faces of their allies in the great world effort for righteousness. In the midst of thoughts of war, in the midst of clamor of all sorts, in the midst of grave anxiety for the sons of his heart, wearing a service pin with five stars upon it-for he regarded his gallant son-in-law Doctor Richard Derby as one of his own flesh and blood-Theodore Roosevelt still had time to speak and write on certain subjects close in another way than war to the hearts and minds of the people. Writing for the Ladies' Home Journal an article called "Shall We Do Away with the Church? " he says certain things of permanent import to the nation.

"In the pioneer days of the West, we found it an unfailing rule that after a community had existed for a certain length of time, either a church was built or else the community began to go downhill. In these old communities of the Eastern States which have gone backward, it is noticeable that the retrogression has been both marked and accentuated by a rapid decline in church membership and work, the two facts being so interrelated that each stands to the other partly as a cause and partly as an effect." After reviewing the self-indulgent Sunday in contradistinction to the church-going Sunday, he says:

" I doubt whether the. frank protest of nothing but amusement has really brought as much happiness as if it had been alloyed with and supplemented by some minimum meeting of obligation toward others. Therefore, on Sunday go to church. Yes, -I know all the excuses; I know that one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees or by a running brook or in one's own house just as well as in a church, but I also know that as a matter of cold fact, the average man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself. If he stays away from church he does not spend his time in good works or in

War

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