Part 2 (1/2)
Of course during the years when I was , and evenwas of a decorous kind But a et soood physical trim as his brethren who do manual labor When I worked on a ranch, I needed no form of exercise except my work, but when I worked in an office the case was different
A couple of suhbors I shall always believe we played polo in just the right way for eneral utility order Of course it was polo which was chiefly of interest to ourselves, the only onlookers being the members of our faithful families My two ponies were the only occupants of my stable except a cart-horse My wife and I rode and drove them, and they were used for household errands and for the children, and for two afternoons a week they served aolf or anything of that kind There is all the fun of football, with the horse thrown in; and if only people would be willing to play it in simple fashi+on it would be alolf But at Oyster Bay our great and per; I do not care for the latter, and am fond of the for that the people with reat deal If they would only keep to rowboats or canoes, and use oar or paddle the their work done for theasoline But I rarely took exercise merely as exercise Primarily I took it because I liked it
Play should never be allowed to interfere ork; and a life devoted merely to play is, of all forms of existence, the , and while work is the essential in it, play also has its place
When obliged to live in cities, I for a long tiood deal of exercise in condensed and attractive forrew older I dropped the wrestling earliest When I becaht wrestler of Aot him to come round three or four afternoons a week Incidentally I may mention that his presence caused me a difficulty with the Comptroller, who refused to audit a bill I put in for a wrestling- that I could have a billiard-table, billiards being recognized as a proper Gubernatorial a unusual and unheard of and could not be perht champion was of course so much better than I was that he could not only take care of hi is a
But after a couple of ood-humored, stalwart professional oarsman The oars He could not even take care of himself, not to speak ofribs had been caved in and two of ed, and my left shoulder-blade so nearly shoved out of place that it creaked He was nearly as pleased as I hen I told hiht ould ”vote the war a failure” and abandon wrestling After that I took up boxing again While President I used to box with sole-stick with General Wood After a few years I had to abandon boxing as well as wrestling, for in one bout a young captain of artillery cross-countered me on the eye, and the blow smashed the little blood-vessels Fortunately it was ht has been diht eye I should have been entirely unable to shoot Accordingly I thought it better to acknowledge that I had beco I then took up jiu-jitsu for a year or two
When I was in the Legislature and orking very hard, with little chance of getting out of doors, all the exercise I got was boxing and wrestling A young fellow turned up as a second-rate prize-fighter, the son of one ofteachers For several weeks I had hiloves with me for half an hour Then he suddenly stopped, and some days later I received a letter of woe frolar, and hterfond of boxing, I grew to know a good enuinely attached
I have never been able to syhters The only objection I have to the prize ring is the crookedness that has attended its co, whether professional or aard it as brutalizing Of course matches can be conducted under conditions that aorous sports Most certainly prize-fighting is not half as brutalizing or deal work carried on in connection with big business Powerful, vigorousanimal development must have some way in which their animal spirits can find vent When I was Police Commissioner I found (and Jacob Riis will backclub in a tough neighborhood always tended to do aith knifing and gun-fighting a felloould otherwise have been infelloere not naturally criminals at all, but they had to have some outlet for their activities In the sa as a first-class sport to encourage in the Young Men's Christian association I do not like to see young Christians with shoulders that slope like a chaed in the army and navy I was first drawn to two naval chaplains, Fathers Chidwick and Rainey, by finding that each of theed their crews in boxing
When I was Police Co clubs started in New York on a clean basis Later I was reluctantly obliged to co had become hopelessly debased and dened the bill putting a stop to professional boxing for hters theers-on who attended and made up and profited by the matches had placed the whole business on a basis of commercialism and brutality that was intolerable I shall always ood, healthy sport It is idle to co; the torture and death of the wretched horses in bull-fighting is enough of itself to blast the sport, no hters
Any sport in which the death and torture of ani There should always be the opportunity provided in a glove fight or bare-fist fight to stop it when one competitor is hopelessly outclassed or too badly hahts are hard as nails, and it is not worth while to feel senti punishment which as a matter of fact they do not ht to be able to stand up with the gloves, or without them, themselves; I have scant use for the type of sports on at the feats of soood citizens as I know are or were prize-fighters Take Mike Donovan, of New York He and his family represent a type of Aht to be proud Mike is a devoted temperance man, and can be relied upon for every ood citizenshi+p I was first intimately throith hi he and I--both in dress suits--attended a te of Catholic societies It culminated in a lively set-to between ood fellow, but whose ideas of temperance differed radically from mine, and, as the event proved, froarded hi on the platform beside me--and I think felt as pleased and interested as if the set-to had been physical instead of rew to know him well both while I was Governor and while I was President, andNelson was another stanch friend, and he and I think alike on h he once expressed to et anything like thethe saood friend of otten his early skill as a blackss that I value and always keep in use is a penholderthat it is ”Made for and presented to President Theodore Roosevelt by his friend and ad time had the friendshi+p of John L Sullivan, than who He is now a Massachusetts farmer John used occasionally to visita distinct flutter aressold-h ood luck
On one occasion one offriends called on me at the White House on business He explained that he wished to see ar on the desk, saying, ”Have a cigar” I thanked him and said I did not smoke, to which he responded, ”Put it in your pocket” He then added, ”Take another; put both in your pocket” This I accordingly did Having thus shown at the outset the necessary formal courtesy, my visitor, an old and valued friend, proceeded to explain that a nephew of his had enlisted in the Marine Corps, but had been absent without leave, and was threatened with dishonorable discharge on the ground of desertion My visitor, a good citizen and a patriotic Aht of such an incident occurring in his family, and he explained to race to the fahted to have the offender ”handled rough” to teach him a needed lesson; he added that he wished I would take him and handle hiot all that was co to him” Then a look of pathos came into his eyes, and he explained: ”That boy I just cannot understand He was my sister's favorite son, and I always took a special interest in hio But there was just nothing to be done with him His tastes were naturally low He took totaste for rant my friend's wish
While in the White House I always tried to get a couple of hours'
exercise in the afternoons--soh cross-country walk, perhaps down Rock Creek, which was then as wild as a strea the Potoradually grew to style the Tennis Cabinet; and then we extended the term to take in many of my old-time Western friends such as Ben Daniels, Seth Bullock, Luther Kelly, and others who had taken part withfor pleasure
Most of the men ere oftenest with me on these trips--men like Major-General Leonard Wood; or Major-General Thoeon-General of the Navy; or Robert Bacon, as afterwards Secretary of State; or James Garfield, as Secretary of the Interior; or Gifford Pinchot, as chief of the Forest Service--were better men physically than I was; but I could ride and ell enough for us all thoroughly to enjoy it Often, especially in the winters and early springs, ould arrange for a point to point walk, not turning aside for anything--for instance, swi Rock Creek or even the Potomac if it came in our way Of course under such circuton should be when it was dark, so that our appearance ht scandalize no one On several occasions we thus swa thick upon it If am the Potomac, we usually took off our clothes I remember one such occasion when the French Ambassador, Jusserand, as a , and, just as ere about to get in to swim, somebody said, ”Mr
Aloves,” to which he proht meet ladies!”
We liked Rock Creek for these walks because we could do sothe cliffs; there was al alked down the Potoe I would occasionally take soe Littledale or Captain Radclyffe or Paul Niedicke, on these walks Once I invited an entire class of officers ere attending lectures at the War College to coave us the hardest clis of the creek; and ht sort, to athe Presidency, various members of the Tennis Cabinet lunched with me at the White House
”Tennis Cabinet” was an elastic terht to have been at the lunch were, for one reason or another, away frooodly number of out-of-town honorary members, so to speak, were present--for instance, Seth Bullock; Luther Kelly, better known as Yellowstone Kelly in the days when he was an arainst the Sioux; and Abernathy, the wolf-hunter At the end of the lunch Seth Bullock suddenly reached forward, swept aside a mass of flohich ar by Proctor, which was a parting gift to raphed on the lawn
Soer officers ere my constant companions on these walks and rides pointed out to me the condition of utter physical worthlessness into which certain of the elder ones had permitted themselves to lapse, and the very bad effect this would certainly have if ever the army were called into service I then looked into the matter for myself, and was really shocked at what I found Many of the older officers were so unfit physically that their condition would have excited laughter, had it not been so serious, to think that they belonged to the military arm of the Government A cavalry colonel proved unable to keep his horse at a smart trot for even half a mile, when I visited his post; a Major-General proved afraid even to let his horse canter, when he went on a ride with us; and certain otherwise good men proved as unable to walk as if they had been sedentary brokers
I consulted with men like Major-Generals Wood and Bell, ere themselves of fine physique, with bodies fit to meet any demand It was late in inning--experience teaches the et a totally non-military nation to accept seriously any ly, I merely issued directions that each officer should prove his ability to walk fifty miles, or ride one hundred, in three days
This is, of course, a test which ed woe portion of the press adopted the view that it was a bit of capricious tyranny on my part; and a considerable number of elderly officers, with desk rather than field experience, intrigued with their friends in Congress to have the order annulled So one day I took a ride of a little over one hundred eon-General Rixey and two other officers The Virginia roads were frozen and in ruts, and in the afternoon and evening there was a storm of snow and sleet; and when it had been thus experimentally shown, under unfavorable conditions, how easy it was to do in one day the task for which the army officers were allowed three days, all open objection ceased But soainst the order as they dared, and it was often difficult to reach them In the Marine Corps Captain Leonard, who had lost an arm at Tientsin, with two of his lieutenants did the fifty hed at the idea of treating a fifty- Well, the Navy Department officials rebuked theain in three days, on the ground that taking it in one day did not coulations! This seems unbelievable; but Leonard assuresafraid to ”get in wrong” with his permanent superiors If I had known of the order, short ould have been made of the bureaucrat who issued it[]
[] One of our best naval officers sentletter, after the above had appeared:--
”I note in your Autobiography now being published in the Outlook that you refer to the reasons which led you to establish a physical test for the Army, and to the action you took (your 100- abolished Doubtless you did not know the following facts:
”1 The first annual navy test of 50 miles in three days was subsequently reduced to 25 miles in two days in each quarter
”2 This was further reduced to 10 miles each er lest even this utterly insufficient test be abolished
”I enclose a copy of a recent letter to the Surgeon General which will show our present deplorable condition and the worse condition into which we are slipping back