340   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

sea lay a poignant sadness for our sons who were in a distant land, for the moment had come when the American troops were to show their valor in a great cause.

The day after the Carnegie Hall speech for the Red Cross, one of his most flaming addresses, in which he pictured the young men of America as Galahads of modern days, I wrote to him of my gratitude and emotion, and he answers at once (how did he ever find the time to answer so immediately so many letters which came to him)

"Darling Corinne :-That is a very dear letter of yours; your sons and my sons were before my eyes as I spoke. I am leaving tomorrow for the West until May 31st. I leave again on June 6th, returning on the 13th, and on Saturday, the 15th, must go to a Trinity College function and stay with Bye. [Referring to my sister, Mrs. Cowles.] Will you take me out in your motor to Oyster Bay for dinner when I return?" Already he had plunged into what he considered his active duty and was overtaxing his strength-that strength only so lately restored, and not entirely restored-in the service of his country.

It was at Indiana University in June of that year that he made one of his most significant pronouncements, a pronouncement especially significant in the light of the so-called Sinn Fein activities during the last two years in this country. He was very fond of the Irish, and fond of many of the Irish-born citizens of America, and always loved to refer to his own Irish blood, but he had no sympathy whatsoever with certain attitudes taken by certain Irish-born or naturalized Americans under the name, falsely used, of patriotism, and he speaks his mind courageously and clearly at Indiana University.

"Friends, it is unpatriotic and un-American to damage America because you love another country, but there is one thing worse and that is to damage America because you hate another country. The Sinn Feiner who acts against America because he hates England is a worse creature than the member of the German-American Alliance who has acted against

America because he loves Germany. I want to point out this bit of etymological information: Sinn Fein means `Us, Ourselves.' It means that those who adopt that name are fighting for themselves, for a certain division of people across the sea. What right have they to come to America? Their very name shows that they are not American; that they are for themselves against America."

In July, when I had been threatened with rather serious trouble in my eyes, he again writes with his usual unfailing sympathy: "I think of you all the time. I so hate to have you threatened by trouble with your eyes or any other trouble. Edgar Lee Masters spent a couple of hours here yesterday. Ethel and her two blessed bunnies have gone. I miss Pitty Pat and Tippy Toe frightfully." Little "Edie," his youngest granddaughter, was a special pet, and rarely did one visit Sagamore at that time without finding the lovely rosy baby in his arms. He could hardly pass her baby-carriage when she slept without stopping to look at her, for which nefarious action he was sometimes severely chastised by the stern young mother. But the burning heart of Theodore Roosevelt could hardly ever be assuaged even by the sweet unconsciousness of the little children who knew not of the dangers faced so gallantly by their father and their mother's brothers.

America had been over fourteen months in the Great War when an editorial appeared in one of the important newspapers called "The Impatience of Theodore Roosevelt." It ran as follows:

"There is a certain disposition to criticise Theodore Roosevelt for what is termed his ultra views regarding the war. It is not all captious criticism. Some people honestly feel that he has been impatient and fault-finding. Much of the picture is true. He has been impatient; he has taken what may be called an ultra position; he has found fault, but we should like to point out one very distinct fact. Theodore Roosevelt from the first day we entered the war has stood unswervingly and whole-heart-

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War

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