The Bear Hunters’ Dinner — From Roosevelt’s Autobiography
When wolf-hunting in Texas, and when bear-hunting in Louisiana and Mississippi, I was not only enthralled by the sport but also by the strange new birds and other creatures, and the trees and flowers I had not known before.
By the way, there was one feast at the White House, which stands above all others in my memory, this was “The Bear Hunters’ Dinner.”
I had been treated so kindly by my friends on these hunts, and they were such fine fellows, men whom I was so proud to think of as Americans, that I set my heart on having them at a hunters’ dinner at the White House.
One December, I succeeded. There were twenty or thirty of them, all told, as good hunters, as daring riders, as first class citizens as could be found anywhere. No finer set of guests ever sat at meat in the White House.
And among other game on the table, was a black bear, itself contributed by one of these same guests.
Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed)