CHAPTER XIV

DRINKING AND PROHIBITION

"I have never claimed to be a total abstainer, but I drink as little as most total abstainers, for I really doubt whether on an average, year in and year out, I drink more than is given for medicinal purposes to many people."-Theodore Roosevelt.

Blessed art thou, O Land, when . . . thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!Eccl. 10. 17.

T

HE problems presented by intoxicating drink are vital, and Christians must face and answer them. They can never be completely settled by law. Much depends upon the attitude of the citizenship. It will be interesting, therefore, to find Mr. Roosevelt's position toward it.

He graphically described the origin of the rumor that he drank to excess and the subsequent libel suit:

"Did you ever smoke?" someone asked.

"There is where that story of my drinking started," Mr. Roosevelt continued, not hearing the question or ignoring it. "You see, when I would decline a cigar, saying I did not smoke, folks would often ask, in a joking way, 'What are your bad habits?' In the same spirit, I would reply, 'Prize fighting and strong drink.' . . .

"I am very fond of that story of Sidney Smith's, who, playing with his children, stopped suddenly, saying, 'Children, we must now be serious-here comes a fool.' You

know the kind he meant-those poor unfortunates who must take everything said to them literally.

'Roose

"One of these to whom I made that remark said: velt, I hear, drinks hard.' The other fool replied, 'Yes, that's true. He told me so himself,' and so it went.

"That is all there ever was to the talk of my drinking. From that start it spread and spread until, in self-defense, I was compelled to take action to stop it. Some folks said I went out of my way to find a little editor who could not well defend himself. The fact is, he was the one editor I could hold to account. There were, and are, editors nearer New York I gladly would have sued in like circumstances, but they knew better than to print what they knew was untrue. Had any of them done so, I would have hauled them up short, and with much more glee than I did the Michigan man, for the men I have in mind have real malice toward me and he, I am satisfied, had none."

George A. Newett published a weekly paper called The Iron Ore at Ishpeming, Michigan, which had a local circulation of twenty-five hundred. He had been appointed postmaster in 1905 by President Roosevelt but had resigned. He claimed in his testimony to have supported Mr. Roosevelt's candidacies even as far as to back him as his second choice for the nomination in 1912, when Mr. Taft was his first choice. He, however, turned against Mr. Roosevelt very vigorously when he ran as third party or Progressive candidate and after a speech by Mr. Roosevelt attacking the local candidate for Congress, a personal friend of Mr. Newett's, The Iron Ore assailed him viciously. Among other things it said: According to Roosevelt, he is the only man who can call

'Talks With T. R., Leary, p. 22f. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

others liars, rascals, and thieves, . . . but if anyone calls Roosevelt a liar, he raves and roars and takes on in an awful way. Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way; he gets drunk too, and that not infrequently.

In his testimony Mr. Newett declared that in far Western trips and in other sections he had heard continued rumors that Mr. Roosevelt was drunk, but when he tried to get evidence no one had actually seen him drunk nor was anyone willing to testify that he drank to excess. Because at banquets and other social occasions he was exuberant and apparently overboisterous, his enemies and thoughtless critics announced that alcoholic spirits created his spirited actions. But the evidence proved that his own words were true, "I drink about as much as Lyman Abbott, and I say this with his permission."

Mr. Roosevelt brought thirty-five witnesses, among whom were the most noted men in America. There were newspaper men, detectives, house servants, political associates, Cabinet compeers, relatives, doctors, travel companions, secretaries, and intimate friends. They had lived with him in his home, played with him in recreations, been his traveling companions across the country and in foreign lands, acted as his confidants, enjoyed his intimate hospitality and had seen him at all hours of the day and night. With their evidence he traced his career from college days up to that minute and in every detail of his activities in the purpose to disprove the charges made by Newett. Some of these men were Jacob A. Riis, Albert Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews; Lyman Abbott, Dr. Lambert, his long-time physician;

Dr. Rixey, his medical adviser while President; William F. Loeb, his private secretary; W. Emlen Roosevelt, his cousin; James Sloan, his secret service guard; Gilson Gardner, Gifford Pinchot, James R. Garfield, Robert Bacon, George B. Cortelyou, Admiral Dewey, and General Leonard Wood.

After going over all the evidence given at the trial, I am convinced that he never drank brandy except a very few times, and then by order of a physician. He consumed a dozen or so mint juleps in the course of his entire life. He infrequently drank light wine which was put on his home table only when there was company at a meal, and this because it was the continuation of a Dutch custom as old as his family. He had never "drunk liquor or porter." He affirmed: "I have never taken a high ball or a cocktail in my life." He disliked beer and said, "I do not drink beer." On the African trip he affirmed, "I never touched one drop of either the champagne or whisky," which was taken along. At big banquets and at state dinners he drank in a formal way and never more than two glasses of champagne, usually in responding to toasts. During the Cuban campaign, "I drank nothing-I had no whisky or brandy with me." He had never been in a saloon barroom but twice, and that in the cowboy days when it was the hotel office, and then he never once drank over the bar.

C. W. Thompson, who as the correspondent of a great city paper opposed to him was paid to travel with and report diligently any disparaging actions or conditions, testified:

He could not possibly have taken liquor to affect him in the least degree without my knowing it. I was there to watch him and take note of every single action he performed.

William Loeb testified that during his ten years as secretary he had offered him whisky a few times when he felt it was needed, but Mr. Roosevelt invariably refused it. James R. Garfield said that even after the long, hard rides he took with Mr. Roosevelt, and they came in "cold and wet and tired, there was nothing taken but tea." Few men in any walk of life could excel that record, especially if active in politics during the period covered by Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. Newett closed his testimony with a long statement, concluding as follows:

In the face of the unqualified testimony of so many distinguished men who have been in a position for years to know the truth, I am forced to the conclusion that I was mistaken.

Mr. Roosevelt followed Mr. Newett's statement to the court by suggesting that very small damages be assessed and that only because the charge against him must be refuted.

Said Mr. Roosevelt :

Your Honor, in view of the statement of the defendant, I ask the Court to instruct the jury that I desire only nominal damages. I did not go into this suit for money, I did not go into it for any vindictive purpose. I went into it, and as the court has said, I made my reputation an issue, because I wished, once for all during my lifetime, thoroughly and comprehensively to deal with these slanders, so that