THEODORE ROOSEVELT
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY
HENRY CABOT LODGE
BEFORE THE CONGRESS OFTHE UNITED STATES
February ninth
Nineteen hundred and
nineteen
Privately printed in Boston
There have been privately printed
by the McGrath-Sherrill Press three hundred
copies of this book of which
this is number
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
THE words of lamentation from the oldMoorish ballad, which in boyhood weused to recite, must, I think, have risento many lips when the world was told thatTheodore Roosevelt was dead. But whatever thephrase the thought was instant and everywhere.Variously expressed, you heard it in the crowdsabout the bulletin boards, from the man in thestreet and the man on the railroads, from thefarmer in the fields, the women in the shops, inthe factories, and in the homes. The pulpitfound in his life a text for sermons. The judgeon the bench, the child at school, alike paused fora moment, conscious of a loss. The cry of sorrowcame from men and women of all conditions, highand low, rich and poor, from the learned and theignorant, from the multitude who had loved andfollowed him, and from those who had opposedand resisted him. The newspapers pushed aside theabsorbing reports of the events of these fateful daysand gave pages to the man who had died. Flashedbeneath the ocean and through the air went the announcementof his death, and back came a world-wideresponse from courts and cabinets, from pressand people, in other and far-distant lands. Throughit all ran a golden thread of personal feeling which[9]gleams so rarely in the somber formalism of publicgrief. Everywhere the people felt in their heartsthat:
To breathless Nature’s dark abyss.
It would seem that here was a man, a private citizen,conspicuous by no office, with no glitter ofpower about him, no ability to reward or punish,gone from the earthly life, who must have been unusualeven among the leaders of men, and who thusdemands our serious consideration.
This is a thought to be borne in mind to-day. Wemeet to render honor to the dead, to the great Americanwhom we mourn. But there is something moreto be done. We must remember that when History,with steady hand