Chapter XXIV Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party
In October of the year 1910, as the first decade of the Twentieth Century was drawing to a close, my mother passed from the world where for nearly ninety-two years she had lived and labored. It seemed to us that for a moment the restless throng paused to note the passing. A long succession of meetings of commemoration were held by her church, her clubs, the many associations she had founded and worked for. So great was the outpouring of love and reverence that it seemed as if her beloved name were writ in fire across the firmament. The largest of the memorial meetings was held in Symphony Hall, Boston, and was given by the city.
At the request of the committee of arrangements I had written,—asking Mr. Roosevelt to address the meeting. His answer has been preserved:
The Outlook,
287 Fourth Avenue, New York City
January 6th, 1911.
My dear Mrs. Elliott:
It would give me the utmost pleasure were I able to be present on the 8th, to speak of your dear mother. You know that I felt for her not merely the highest regard, and indeed I may say reverence, because of her work, but a very warm personal affection. Unfortunately my engagements are such that it is physically impossible for me to get to Boston before the 10th. There was not a man or woman in America for whom I felt the same kind of devotion that I felt for your mother. I am more sorry than I can say that I cannot be present.
Sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.
It may well be that I inherited my devotion to Roosevelt from my mother, but I rather think that it was her spirit in me that recognized in him the leader of those causes dear as life itself.
January 11, 1911. J. went to see Henry James, whom he found in bed, very poorly. He is nervously ill and looks badly. Before the visit was over he jumped up and went about the house in his pyjamas and slippers, showing J. some pictures by his nephew, William James, son of the elder William. He brightened up wonderfully during the visit and seemed almost himself, J. says, before he left.
January 12, 1911. This morning I had a “bust of feeling” and wrote a note to Theodore Roosevelt, sending with it a volume of Mother’s poems and my “Sicily in Shadow and in Sun.” J. took them and found “Rosy” at Judge Lowell’s. He was most cordial and said he would try and look in on me that afternoon. He came, bringing Kermit, at four o’clock. Bridget the cook opened the door and said I was “out”! I heard a roar; “I am Theodore Roosevelt,” and flying to the head of the stairs I begged him to come up. He came roaring and magnificent into the room, looking, J. says, twenty years younger than the day he last saw him at Messina.
March 24, 1911. To-day, at long last was produced “Hippolytus”, the play Mama wrote for Edwin Booth, and that he and Charlotte Cushman were rehearsing when the jealousy of the stage manager’s wife, who had a part she did not like, prevented the production. This was a lifelong disappointment to Mother! The play, thanks to Margaret Anglin, was given at the Tremont Theatre with Walter Hampden in Booth’s part of Hippolytus and Margaret Anglin in Charlotte Cushman’s part of Phedra. The play was splendidly produced; Miss Anglin’s rendering of Phedra was admirable and Hampden was a perfect Hippolytus. The audience was deeply moved. The beauty of the lines is consummate. The play has pulse, passion, and dramatic climax. The youth and romance of it all impressed everybody. It has been a long hard struggle to have this play produced but I am rewarded. Miss Anglin is an angel, and Isabel Anderson and Betty Wiggins archangels, for having worked like Trojans for this. Miss Anglin is one of the serious and inspired actresses of the day, with temperament, beauty, charm, and that steadiness of character without which dramatic talent is so ineffectual.
The Box, Contoocook, New Hampshire. March 1, 1911. Being rather run down, came up with Isabel Anderson to breathe the elixir of this New Hampshire air instead of going, as some friends advised, to the South. Davos cannot be more exhilarating than Contoocook. Went for a four-mile tramp. The walking good, the snow crisp and hard enough to bear. Saw hardly a person moving. The loneliness is appalling. No children, no young people coasting or frolicking! Farm after farm silent and lifeless; had it not been for the smoke from the chimneys they might be abandoned, like those farms I saw in Maine a few years ago. These eight days have built me up wonderfully. The wide waste of the snow world outside, lonely and wild as the Russian steppes, with the contrast of the cozy interior of the Box where not a crumpled rose-leaf hurts, is piquant enough. Isabel is in her loveliest mood. We went over a story of hers and she sketched in a children’s play that seems to have real possibilities for a merry Christmas frolic. Some of the pictures of this visit will remain with me long: Isabel with her white fox furs leading me for a tramp through the snow. J. and Isabel warming the butterflies to life before the mammoth fireplace up at the bungalow, where the fire of white birch logs roared on the hearth bringing out the perfume of the green balsam branches that covered the roof. Outside the wide circle of hills topped by distant Mt. Kearsarge seen through the thick veil of a violent snowstorm—the bare brown and purple hills with the frozen lake at their feet—what a panorama! Why, O why, do we have to go to Switzerland when we have New Hampshire?
Washington. January 23, 1912. Talked with Count Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador. He said, à propos of Mr. Roosevelt’s possible election:
“Every body seems to want him, but we in Washington are so faithful to the Administration.”
January 27, 1912. Lydia Loudon’s dinner for me. Thomas Nelson Page, Senator Newlands and Edith, Miss Mabel Boardman. The talk was largely political, the general drift, of course, towards the absorbing subject, “Taft or Roosevelt”? Miss Boardman reported that Mr. Taft had said,
“I can never forget what Roosevelt has done for me, but his conduct has seared my soul.”
John Loudon’s summing up is the wisest I have heard:
“Roosevelt is really a great man; it seems a pity not to use him while you have him.”
Page read aloud one of his funny darky dialect stories. I read two of Mother’s poems.
The Loudons sang charmingly and Edith Newlands played beautifully, a feast for which the peerless Dutch coffee and cordial fortified us.
February 1, 1912. A letter from Mr. Roosevelt asking me to come to see him. I found him in the outer office of the Outlook. The place was filled with reporters and others waiting to see him. I caught a glimpse of T. R. talking with a fat blond-bearded German. I asked one of the clerks who he was; he said “an artist”, as if that were an answer. Finally T. R.’s secretary took in my card. T. R. came out and shook hands with me; his first words were:
“I could no more have come to lunch with you than I could have flown”; then told them to take me to his private office, a suite of three rooms all filled with men. I was shown into the outer room where there were the fewest. A gentleman of his own sort was reading a book of poems; I think it was one of the classics. T. R. had given me a copy of the Outlook published that day containing a long article of his on Woman Suffrage with many tributes to Mother. When he came in, I thanked him for the article.
“You know that neither my own mother nor my wife is in favor of suffrage,” he said; “I believe your mother more than any one else converted me to it.”
“To her it was not so much a question of right as of duty,” I reminded him.
“That is just what I am trying to teach them,” was his answer.
Then I cried out, “Come back to us, come back to us!”
“But Massachusetts doesn’t seem to want me back,” he protested; “or, at least, the Back Bay does not.”
“I find that the people who love you best say, Wait till 1916, but the people who love the country best say, Now, now, now!” I said.
“That’s just it,” he flashed out, “the time to set a setting hen is when she wants to set!”
He looks a little older and stouter, but his perfectly tremendous personality impresses one more than ever. He is more like the Corliss engine than anything else!
February 27, 1912. Yesterday Roosevelt announced that he would accept the nomination for President if offered to him. He is staying at the Brandegees’ in Brookline, and spent the day with Robert Grant. Matsu (a highly educated Japanese servant) says he is like Napoleon and is turning from his greater to his lesser self. I do not see it so, but many people do. I feel Loudon was right. When you have a man of genius it seems a pity not to use him.
Newport, March 17, 1912. Worked on my paper, “Artists’ Life in Rome”, for the Current Topics Club. I tried to give three vivid pictures,—Ancient Rome, the Renaissance, Modern Rome.
March 19, 1912. Much telephoning about the pictures for the little show to be held in connection with my lecture.
March 20, 1912. A fine day for our show. To town on the nine o’clock trolley to help hang the pictures. Wm. Sargeant Kendall generous in lending several of his best canvases. The show proves amazingly good and is very well hung. The audience remarkably large for winter Newport. The lecture a little heavy, must lighten it with a few more laughs.
March 21, 1912. Harrison Morris writes me that he and Mrs. M. are for Roosevelt. I am thankful to find at last some one among my friends who feels as I do. The papers continue to slang him. The great, patient, silent army of men and women at the bottom of the ladder are silent. Will they be allowed to lift their voices and speak at the election? There is no doubt for me that we should elect T. R. unless all our delegates are “inflooenced” by fear, the trusts, and the sacred property-right idiots. Property isn’t sacred—only ideals. Much embarrassed to defend my views, as I am attacked by nearly every friend I possess. This doesn’t change my conviction that he is the man of the hour. He has a mind large enough to cope with the loosened floods of humanity that socialism and practical Christianity have partly freed from their frozen slavery. Taft is the mouthpiece of the rich class, Roosevelt is the tribune of the people.
March 31, 1912. Made a great effort to go to church, it being Palm Sunday. Ill rewarded. The minister made a most unchristian address. He began by analyzing Judas Iscariot, found that wounded pride was the cause of his downfall, and coupled with him Daniel Webster, Aaron Burr, and Theodore Roosevelt. A bitter, burning attack. I wept with anger and was on the point of rising and walking out of church to show my disapproval, when the thought that I was sitting in Mother’s seat and that she might not approve the action restrained me. After church I avoided speaking to the minister as I usually do.
April 17, 1912. To-day came the awful news of the sinking of the White Star Steamer Titanic. Even greater loss of life than when the Ville du Havre sank some forty years ago. Little news yet, but apparently all the great ship’s company, save some six or eight hundred, went down in that icy polar sea. First reports say there are six hundred survivors on the Carpathia. The ominous words, “boats all accounted for”, mean no hope of other rescues. We have more than one acquaintance on board. It is believed that Frank Millet is among the survivors. Poor John Jacob Astor is apparently lost, his wife and her maid saved. The romance of the rescue is soul-stirring. No one thinks of anything else.
April 27, 1912. Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi recited a parody of the Apostles’ Creed in the Senate as an attack upon Roosevelt. The most blasphemous happening that has ever disgraced the Senate in my memory or knowledge. Feel to write a protest and will try to do so.—Did write the protest and sent it to the Boston Herald and Woman’s Journal.
April 29, 1912. J. and I went to a meeting at William Sargeant Kendall’s. J. is asked to be one of the founders of the Newport Art Association. We nominated Mr. Kendall for president. I think we could make a good thing out of this. It is really an outgrowth of the little exhibition that went along with my Current Topics Club lecture on “Artists’ Life in Rome.”
April 30, 1912. Am possessed to arrange a banner with Mother’s name and portrait for the Suffrage Parade in New York on Saturday. With great effort arranged to have it made by Baldwin Coolidge. After the order was given I heard that Mrs. Blatch, leader of the procession, had written Boston headquarters, asking for such a banner. Another case of “wireless.” I get them oftener and oftener.
May 3, 1912. To Boston on early train and to Baldwin Coolidge’s. The banner very successful. On one side a good reproduction of J.’s portrait of Mother, her name above—below “Our God is Marching On.” The reverse shows the legend, “Gens Guilia” at the top—below, “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.” Got Margaret Foley from the Suffrage Association to see the banner and promise to carry it, as Coolidge assured me I was not strong enough to carry it myself.
May 4, 1912. A perfect day for the great parade, which led by fifty young women on horseback marched from Eleventh Street up Fifth Avenue to Carnegie Hall. Marion Lawson and Clara Fuller among the riders. Florence Hall and I marched with the Massachusetts delegation, who were all dressed in white. Miss Foley gallantly carried the banner, little Floss and I walking on either side, holding the gold cords that held it in place. It was greeted with great applause all along the line of march. One very rough-looking man took off his hat to the dear portrait and stood bareheaded until we passed.
May 10, 1912. A good letter from Mr. van Allen of the Church of the Advent, thanking me for the protest in the Herald against Senator Sharp’s profanity. I believe that the offensive remarks will be expunged from the Congressional Record.
June 24, 1912. Much cast down about the result of the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Mr. Taft has the nomination. Roosevelt will try and form a third party. In Massachusetts Arthur Dehon Hill and Matthew Hale are among the young blood who will support him.
August 7, 1912. To Point of Pines with LeRoy Dresser for the first great Progressive rally in Massachusetts. Mr. Roosevelt arrived at half-past three. He shook hands with us and thanked us for coming. Though we had good places, I lost much of his speech made in the open air to ten thousand people. For me the great speech came later at the banquet of five hundred people. There he opened his heart and called upon Massachusetts to take her old place as the leader in every reform. Likened the forming of the new party of the Progressives to the founding of the Republican Party by the abolitionists and the liberals of that time. The Golden Rule and the Decalogue must animate all our legislation.
“Industrial freedom” is one of the battle cries. Mr. Roosevelt spoke an hour and a half in the afternoon and half an hour at the banquet.
The enthusiasm was heartfelt and magnificent. I felt that I had been in good company, the very best.
Newport. August 24, 1912. To the Tennis Tournament. A great spectacle. The girls charming in 1812 dresses. I sat with a group of pretty madcaps who could only talk of the Cornelius Vanderbilt Oriental ball last night, said to have cost fifty thousand dollars. A whole opera troupe was had on from New York to amuse the guests. The young people danced till six o’clock in the morning. None of the girls in my group had been to bed at all. Some had gone for a swim, some for a motor trip after the breakfast of sausages and scrambled eggs. Though none of them had slept, all were dressed in their morning finery for the tennis match at eleven. O tempora, o mores!
August 28, 1912. While at work this morning, I was haled to the telephone by the message, “Providence is calling!”
“Who is there in Providence who can want to speak to me?” I asked, impatiently. It proved to be Mr. Tuttle, the National Committeeman of Rhode Island for the Progressive Party. He asked me to take charge of the woman’s part of the state campaign. I hesitated a moment. As I waited the voice of the telephone operator, passionless as fate, kept on repeating, “Providence is calling!”
“Perhaps Providence is calling,” I exclaimed. “Mr. Tuttle, I will take the job!”
August 31, 1912. To-day founded the Newport County Woman’s Progressive League. A good deal was accomplished at this meeting in the way of rousing interest. I think now to arrange meetings as soon as the Men’s League is started. Winston Churchill has come out for Roosevelt, glory be! I started to raise the fund for the Woman’s League as I had done a few days before for the Men’s League by telling the story of Mrs. Howe’s dollar. At the New England Woman’s Club, whenever a good cause was presented and a subscription asked for, Mother used to take out a dollar and lay it down with the words;
“I can’t do much but I can give a dollar.” Mrs. Howe’s dollar grew to be proverbial, as it was in many cases the nucleus of great and important funds.
September 4, 1912. To Boston with J. to see the Old State House where his portrait of Mother will hang when finished. A wonderful place for it; I like to think of her there in the midst of that hurrying crowd of State Street. To a meeting at Progressive Headquarters. Saw there the New England Progressive women leaders, among others Mrs. Rublee of Cornish, Miss Huntress of Concord, and Mrs. Bird. Charles Sumner Bird, her husband, is the Progressive candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. He is a splendid man. The Massachusetts campaign is well planned and now in full swing. The men and women leaders are of the best caliber. The women will put through their job of raising ten thousand dollars to pay for the campaign expenses.
September 6, 1912. Mr. Tuttle tells me that they have as yet no campaign funds from the National Committee. I see that we must raise the money for our own expenses and fight hard to get it. Miss Cora Mitchell asks me to take the presidency of the Newport County Suffrage League. I delayed decision but suppose I shall in the end accept, unless we can find another person. With the heavy work I have undertaken as secretary of the Art Association and for the Progressive Party, this seems the last straw.
September 9, 1912. A good Bull Moose meeting of women at Mrs. Hughes’. Twenty-five present; all joined the League. We finally got our committee together. Three hundred and fifty dollars were pledged.
September 21, 1912. To Providence for the State Convention; the Executive Committee plus a committee of delegates elected by the enrolled members of the Progressive Party throughout the State. There were twenty-five men, I was the only woman present. The Reverend Boley Greene opened the meeting with prayer. We sat from 7.30 to 11.30, working on the state platform.
September 26, 1912. To Providence for the great Progressive meeting at Infantry Hall. I spoke briefly between the two famous and popular speakers, Mr. Foulke, the old war horse of Indiana, and Jacob Riis. I was greeted with the “Battle Hymn”, the audience rising and singing the Glory Halleluiah with a will. It was very moving and I felt it deeply. It is all for Mother—and I stand and take her honors, while she—
September 30, 1912. To Providence for meeting of Executive Committee where we hammered away at the platform. I introduced two planks that were accepted,—on infant mortality and domestic education.
October 8, 1912. Started from Market Square, Providence, with the Flying Squadron, consisting of two automobiles, the good ships “Theodore Roosevelt” and the “Equal Rights.” A fine send-off. The motors decorated with banners bearing the legends, “Pass Prosperity around”, “Let the People Rule”, “Protect the Laborer.” Our party, Mrs. Algeo, Doctor Garvin, Mr. Tuttle, Reuben Peckham, and Mr. Thompson. The men all wore bandanas, the campaign badge, around their heads. A crack cornetist played the “Battle Hymn” on a silver trumpet beautifully. We all made brief addresses and started off to great applause, with our own drummer beating his drum. I very poorly with a cold, full of alarms and expecting to die of pneumonia. First stop outside one of the great mills at Lonsdale. The hands came out at twelve o’clock when the whistle blew. We handed them “literature” as the campaign documents are incorrectly called, and told them to hurry back for the meeting at twelve-thirty. They came back sharp on time, and we alternately made speeches and dealt out “literature.” Arrived at Woonsocket in the afternoon. Held a good meeting in the square, then to the Bleachery, where we spoke to the mill hands as they came from work. I think it was at this place that I spoke to a group of Italians in their own language. The Italians are all solid for Roosevelt.
October 9, 1912. Charles Sumner Bird’s motor came for me and I drove to East Walpole, where I stayed at Endean, the house of dear old Frank Bird, papa’s college chum and lifelong friend. Had not seen the place in forty years, found it much enlarged and greatly embellished. In the upper corridor hang the portraits of Sumner, Andrew, Wilson, my parents, and many other leaders of the old time. Hurried from the meeting to the train to rejoin the Flying Squadron in Rhode Island.
October 10, 1912. To-day the way led through darkest Rhode Island. First stop, East Greenwich, where my correspondent, old Mr. Vars, greeted us. An aged and infirm man but staunch and true. Mr. Hill, the Progressive leader, very helpful. Got together with the local committee who reported a good meeting last night, and then on to Appanaug, where we saw Mrs. Richmond, the woman leader. Such a beautiful creature! Wherever we go we find that the leading clergymen are with us. At noon and at five o’clock, spoke at the gates of some of the great mills in the Valley. Talked with the manager of a large textile manufactory and remarked upon the apathy of the operatives.
“Three generations in the mill is what does it,” he said, “and no wonder!”
Made headquarters at six. Took the Fall River boat for New York.
October 11, 1912. Arrived late in New York, delayed by the rain. To headquarters, where was detailed to go out and speak from a motor. My speech was printed in the New York Tribune and World. Meeting of the Progressive Women at three o’clock. We all told what we had done in our States for the cause. Maryland was finely represented, and so was Georgia, by two brilliant women. These Southern ladies are splendid creatures once they get started, showing such fire and devotion. We were only allowed three-minute speeches. I said what I could for Rhode Island. In the evening to a banquet of the Equal Suffrage League where all three parties were represented. A horrid, heckling woman spoke for Taft, and another, hardly any better, for Wilson. Jane Addams, all in white, for Roosevelt, towered above them all like the Jungfrau. Her expressive, grave face was an inspiration to us all. Her speech, her very presence made the trip worth while. Miss Carpenter spoke well and Frances Keller was superb; she is like a black diamond, full of fire and power.
October 12, 1912. To Providence, made the journey with Mr. and Mrs. Bird and her nephew, Richard Washburn Child, the writer, who gave me many good hints. He is one of the able men among the younger Progressives.
October 15, 1912. At Weld. The maid brought in my breakfast with the announcement, “Roosevelt’s been shot.”
I sent a wire:
“Theodore of the Lion’s Heart, the women of Rhode Island are praying for you.”
Called up Newport and Providence and asked for prayers. They were held at Trinity Church in Newport by the Reverend Stanley Hughes.
To-day the presentation of J.’s portrait of Mother to the Bostonian Society took place at the Old State House. The speakers were Governor Long, Mr. Mead, the president of the society and Mr. Wendte, the prime mover in the whole matter. Mr. Wendte played on a little ancient organ while a girl with a lovely voice sang the verses and we all sang the chorus of the “Battle Hymn.” Mr. Finlayson had sent in a beautiful votive wreath from Weld and there were other flowers. Rosalind Richards unveiled the portrait that had been draped with a flag. Mr. Downs delighted with the portrait. All agreed it is perfect as a late likeness. This interlude in the campaign has been most refreshing. Words are only hot air; art is more lasting and far more worth while.
October 16, 1912. Early to Providence where I spoke at the Congregational Church on the Missions in Europe and the East I have visited, the school at Assiout, Robert College at Beirut, the Gulick School in Madrid, the Gould Home in Rome and the Methodist Mission there. The meeting began, at my request, with silent prayer for Roosevelt.
October 18, 1912. Spoke for the Y. M. C. A. who are just completing a whirlwind campaign for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I was kindly received and showed the precious little gold purse with the gold pieces in it given to Mother on her eighty-fifth birthday. I gave one of them to the cause. I decided that we must take the splendid headquarters, which the Y. M. C. A. are just giving up, for the Progressive state headquarters till the end of the campaign. I consulted Mr. Ballou, who fell in with my views, and together we tackled Smith, the owner of the building, in his office. He was rather horrid. At first he set the rent at $400 for the remaining two weeks of the campaign and then raised it to $500. I called the League together and proposed to them our taking the headquarters. They all agreed. I got Newport on the ’phone and explained the financial situation to them. They reported one hundred and fifty dollars in the League treasury and agreed to mail a check to me to-night. With the advice of Mr. Ballou and Doctor Harris, the president of the League, decided to take the step I should have taken long ago,—make the Progressive League, the home of the Progressive Party, attractive and comfortable. At noon Mr. Ballou got the deal through. We had not been sure that Smith, even at that unholy rent, would give us the building. The men, all good Bull Moosers, worked like maniacs half the night, getting the place in order. At eight o’clock to speak at the Zion Baptist Church with Julius Mitchell, the colored member of our State Committee.
October 22, 1912. This day Winston Churchill came to speak for our Rhode Island League. We took “Churchill House”, a very elegant sort of a Club, and sold tickets at one dollar. A good audience about one half hostile to the cause, and interested only in hearing Churchill, the famous novelist. Professor Courtney Langdon of Brown University introduced Mr. Churchill who spoke for more than an hour, sanely, lucidly, and temperately. He told of his fight with the Boston and Maine Railroad in New Hampshire. We had worked very hard for this meeting and were thankful we came out of it so well. All expenses were paid and one hundred dollars clear profit. In the evening there came to our headquarters William Gillette, who made one of the great addresses of the campaign. The actor’s art, the reformer’s faith, and the Progressive’s fire made a combination not often met. This was a red-letter day full of high words and higher thoughts. The headquarters are grand and in full swing, with constant meetings and great enthusiasm. No time has been lost.
To dine with Dr. and Mrs. Terry. Large dinner, talk chiefly political. I had rather a disagreeable set-to with Professor —— who spoke insultingly of “Roosevelt and the rabble that follows him”, knowing quite well that I was one of the “rabble.”
A few days since I dictated to a reporter an article giving the reasons why we all owe a debt to Greece, and how we are morally bound to work for the Greeks in their efforts for complete national independence. Never saw the article but fancy it was not bad, for I get letters from Greeks every day, thanking me for what I said.
To Boston and to Mrs. Kehew’s to speak for the Progressives. A fine old house on Chestnut Street that used to be called the Bayley house and later belonged to Edwin Booth. Full of tender childhood memories for me of our own Chestnut Street days when I was discovered one morning with the largest nail brush in the family, scrubbing the white marble statue of a nymph in the garden that I greatly admired and thought in need of a spring cleaning. I had a splendid audience and was supposed to try and break the solid front of the Back Bay Roosevelt had warned me of. Fear I didn’t succeed. The audience was about half and half, for and against us; the “fors” applauded furiously, the faces of the “againsts” were grim and set! After the meeting, to Walpole with Mrs. Bird and then to Watertown, where I spoke for an hour, holding the rally till Arthur Hill and the other speakers should arrive. I find it hard to give two first-rate speeches of over an hour in one day, but they all say I am learning fast.
October 27, 1912. After dinner to the Teatro Verdi in Little Italy, where I gave the Italian speech I have been preparing. They asked me to read from the daily paper Wilson’s insulting remarks about the Italians, taken from a book of his. When I had finished I tore the paper in two and threw it on the ground. This coup de théâtre was much applauded and reminded me that I had once studied for the stage with Tommaso Salvini, that he had offered me a place in his company and drilled me in the part of Desdemona. The Italians gave me lovely yellow chrysanthemums tied with the national colors, red, white and green.
October 28, 1912. Early meeting of the Executive Committee to plan the work for this, the last week of the campaign. At eleven started for a noon rally at the Corliss Engine works. In the evening Burke Cochran was the drawing card at headquarters. I held the rally till he arrived and then faded away while he spoke like a demigod. Such superb oratory I have rarely heard. He spoke for two hours and at the end we all begged him not to stop! Very tired at night, to bed at eleven-thirty. Holding out pretty well; I think few are putting in as many hours a day.
October 29, 1912. Started for the office at nine; finding it not yet swept, went to Mr. Shehadi, our treasurer, for counsel. He reported $112 in the League’s treasury. Decided we must draw on Newport for enough at least to pay the expenses at headquarters. Shehadi gave me delicious Egyptian coffee and such Turkish delight! Did some work at headquarters and started at eleven-thirty for a long “Flying Squadron” day with Mr. Dresser, Mrs. Algeo, Mr. Humes, and Mr. Tuttle. Esmond the first stop. Next to Chepachet, where we found darkest Rhode Island, indeed. No one welcomed us until at last Abe Hawkins, the blacksmith, a tiny man with nothing but the color of his hands to mark his strenuous trade, invited us to speak in the space or common before his forge.
“I am the sheriff of this town, and I guess you folks will be given a show!” he said, gallantly. Boniface, the innkeeper, most hospitable, but very discouraging in his views. One citizen who asked me not to quote him said:
“There’s nothing doing here. Every vote in this town is controlled—well, bought, if you like the word better—by two or three men in the pay of the machine.”
The machine in Rhode Island is a pretty nearly perfect one. We owe it in part to Senator Aldrich, in part to the blind Boss Brayton and some others whose names I do not know. The machine does not represent either party but an unholy alliance between Republicans and Democrats which parcels out the offices of the State as per agreement. At present the order seems to be that the national offices go to the Republicans and the city offices to the Democrats. So complete is the harmony between the powers that a group of innocent and enthusiastic reformers, who tried to oust from his office a Democratic mayor of Newport who was a disgrace to the city and the State, found that it was impossible for them to elect their candidate because their own party was working against them and even financing the opposition. Rhode Island politics are still in the “rotten borough” stage of development.
Slipped over to Maplewood, and there held a little rally. Came upon a man who had been in a Rhode Island regiment at San Juan and carried despatches for Teddy. He had his horse shot under him. The way he told us the story showed him to be a natural orator. He is a teamster and took charge of a mountain of literature in English, French and Italian, which he promised to deliver for us at the three mills they were destined for.
Dined at Pascoag, where we held a meeting at the street corner. Reached home at eleven-thirty. It was a wonderful day, I loved being in the open air and meeting the Progressives right in the heart of the enemy’s country. Wherever we go we are impressed with the character of the people who welcome us. The heart and conscience of the country is with Roosevelt.
October 30, 1912. After a morning with the Flying Squadron, took the train for New York that brought me there in time for the Great Progressive Rally at Madison Square Garden. The whole top of the arena a vast American flag so arranged that the blue was in the middle, and it seemed that we were looking up into a starry bunting firmament. An enormous sheet in front of the grand stand showed a series of moving pictures, etc.
The picture of Jane Addams drew much applause. At last we saw T. R. on his grand tour in many different parts of the Union. Now he glided into the arena in an automobile, bowing and smiling, and now he was seen speaking from a platform of a train, now reaching down to shake hands with a man in the crowd. Everywhere the people stretched out eager yearning hands towards their leader as plants reach up towards the sun for help to grow! At last he appeared before us in the flesh! Senator Dixon who presided was earnest and eloquent, and Oscar Strauss made a powerful address. He is the brother of the Mr. and Mrs. Strauss who went down on the Titanic, the wife refusing a seat in the lifeboat because she preferred to die with her husband rather than to live without him. Hiram Johnson made a very excellent speech, but everything paled before T. R. He stood for forty-three minutes, while the people sang the campaign songs, waved the flags, and applauded. He looked a trifle pale and hardly used his right arm. If I had not heard him at the Point of Pines, I should hardly have realized that he was not yet in full vigor. A wonderful speech.
November 2, 1912. By first train to Providence; at work for our fair at the League’s headquarters for campaign expenses, i.e. hire of hall, cost of printing campaign literature, and salary of our stenographer. All the other workers are volunteers. The spirit of sacrifice shown by these people, nearly all of very modest means, is very heartening. I spoke at length at Central Falls, and later had the pleasure of introducing Jacob Riis and Doctor Woods Hutchinson. We got Professor Courtney Langdon and Professor Theodore Collier of Brown University to speak for us.
November 3, 1912. Speaking most of the day. In the afternoon to the Italians at the Teatro Verdi. I wore all J.’s Messina medals, my best dress and jewels. After my speech, one of the Italian managers said to me, “When I saw your rings I knew that you were a true lady!”
Pleased to find that while at the earlier Italian rallies there were only a handful of Italian women present, at the later ones there was a large representation of them. Our women are being educated politically at a great rate, but they still have much to learn. Who has not? During my reading of Mr. Wilson’s derogatory remarks about the Italians, a man in the audience called out:
“Porco lui!”(A pig he!)
After the sins of the Republicans had been described, a stout Italian woman summed the matter up with the words:
“Sono majaille!” (They are swine!)
In the evening to the First Baptist African Church. Impressed with the quality of the audience. They were fine-looking, well-dressed, prosperous looking people. Julius Mitchell, the colored member of our committee, made one of the best speeches of the day.
November 2, 1912. Governor Hiram Johnson arrived at Providence on a special train. I met him at the station with a car. At the head of a long procession of motors, we drove about the city and finally to the Opera House. I had voted for a free show and had opposed the rest of the committee who were for charging an admission, well as I knew our need of funds. Governor Johnson was very angry when he heard that an admission fee had been asked. Both the men and women workers sat on the platform. The house was only fairly filled in the beginning.
I heard Governor Johnson’s secretary say to him, “It looks like a frost!”
It wasn’t, for Mrs. Algeo, Miss Hanscom, and some of the others went out and brought in people enough to crowd the Opera House. The advertisement in the Providence morning papers had been forgotten, which accounted for the slim house in the beginning. Johnson was very fine and his address noble and uplifting. For me, both Gillette and Burke Cochran had been more convincing. Hurried to Boston for a meeting to raise money for the Greeks. Gave one of Mother’s precious gold pieces to start the Greek fund. Bishop Lawrence presided.
November 5, 1912. Yesterday, election day, was very busy. From morning till night in a motor speaking at the mill gates and street corners. Dear J. roared himself hoarse calling through the megaphone, “Vote for Roosevelt!”
We distributed hundreds of campaign buttons both of silver and bronze. The silver ones were the most popular. In the Jewish quarter J. offered a bronze bull-moose pin to a man in the crowd.
“No,” he said, “I want a white one. These were made for the colored people!”
“There are no more white ones,” he was told.
“Then I don’t want any, but I will vote for Teddy all the same.”
Remained till midnight at the headquarters for the election returns that were confusing enough, but prepared us for the news of Mr. Wilson’s election the next morning.