CHAPTER V

A POSTGRADUATE COURSE

In October, 1880, Roosevelt was united in marriage to Miss Alice Hathaway Lee, of Brookline, Massachusetts. She was a lovely and charming girl, and Roosevelt gave to her that romantic passion which would have been expected from a man of his ardent idealistic nature.

Soon after their marriage, the two went on a trip over Europe. In Switzerland he made the ascent of the Matterhorn. One of my classmates writes me, "I met Roosevelt at Zermatt, and his wife asked me to remonstrate with him about climbing the Matterhorn. At this time he had had no experience in mountain climbing. I did urge him not to attempt the ascent. But his only reply was, 'I shall climb the mountain.' And he did it, with

The mountain climbing was not quite what the physician, who had given him a careful physical examination as he was ending his Senior year, would have prescribed for him. Said that physician to him, "You have some trouble with your

heart. You must choose a profession which will not demand of you violent exertion." Roosevelt

listened to him— and a few months later was toiling up the Matterhorn. But he was right and the physician was wrong, or at least was overcautious. It is well to note that.

A biographer or a historian is tempted to build his narrative in periods, as a nautilus builds its shell, in sections, perhaps condensing and crowding too much into one part and subordinating or ignoring some other part. But a biography or a history is like a vine, enlarging or shrinking, but always continuous.

Yet the years 1881 to 1884 do comprise such radical experiences in my classmate's life that I look upon them as forming a rounded and quite crucial period, which more shaped his future than did any other three years of his life.

took

On his return from Europe with his wife, they up their abode in New York City. And three possible vocations invited him. His old-time predilection for natural history was now laid aside. He was already well along in his writing of his "History of the Naval War of 1812"; that work unquestionably had direct bearing upon his official duties at Washington later in life. There was now the attractive possibility of his giving his whole attention to historical or biographical work.

Again, there was the field of political life, with reform aims, as he had intimated to friends in college. And last but nearest lay the law office of his uncle, with a cordial welcome.

This office he now entered and began the study of law. But he did not long continue it. Like James Russell Lowell in a similar situation, he found the ends sought and the means used distasteful to him. In Lowell's case there was little except a general lack of interest in the subject. But in Roosevelt there recurred the same extreme ethical sensitiveness which had led him to protest at Harvard, in his theme and forensic courses, against taking either side of a question, irrespective of his personal convictions. He tells us in his Autobiography that if he had come under the broad influence of Professor Thayer, of the Harvard Law School, he might have looked at the matter differently. But as he faced the profession of the law in his uncle's office, it revolted his intense love of truth and sincerity. And he would have none of it. Although in later life he modified his extreme antipathy to legal methods, I believe that he never quite lost it. He was almost fanatical on questions of morals. And although he afterward numbered dear friends among members of the legal profession, I think he never quite acquiesced in the legal doctrinaire convention that every ac

cused person has a right to the best possible presentation of his case.

This subconscious bias I believe was a factor in his later advocacy of the recall of judicial decisions. Not only did he hold to the will and sovereignty of the People, as the foundation of our democracy, but he never lost his ethical distrust of the infallibility of a group of men trained in the legal schools. Apropos of his "recall of judicial decisions" - advocated by him at Columbus, Ohio, in 1912- - I wrote him him a letter in which I pointed out that although the people were the ultimate power, they were often hasty and fitful, as a whole, and should be checked in any sudden outburst of feeling, — in short, should be "protected from themselves." In reply came this letter, dated April 9, 1912:

My dear Gilman

I thank you for your letter and I appreciate it. I agree with you that the voters should be "protected from themselves," but that means only that they should be protected to the extent of giving themselves full time to form a deliberate judgment. My proposal gives them a minimum time of two years. Surely that is enough.

With many thanks,

Sincerely yours,

T. Roosevelt,

This letter brings out a breadth as well as penetration of view which, at the time of the "recall"

incident, was generally overlooked. More than that, I believe that Roosevelt's action in this matter, his daring to raise even the slightest shade of doubt regarding the infallibility of our courts, brought upon him that opposition of the legal fraternity which continued throughout his life. Judges and lawyers, like the members of any class or profession, resent criticism from a layman.

Another recrudescence of this deep-down and perhaps morbid antagonism toward legal procedure came out in his address before Harvard graduates, in Memorial Hall, on Commencement Day, 1905. The hall was full to overflowing. The Honorable Joseph H. Choate presided. Many of the nation's most eminent citizens were present, and a large proportion of them were lawyers. At a certain points in his address - which he had written out and was reading, as he often did on important occasions, where he was fearful about saying excited and regrettable things - he uttered these words: "Is it not lamentable that so large a number of our ablest young men, having finished their undergraduate course, go on through the law schools and thence into the world, there to steer individuals and corporations as near the edge of illegality as they can go without allowing them to get over the edge?"

This was uttered in the hearing of hundreds of