Part 17 (1/2)
I reorganized the Co Austin Wadsworth at its head
APPENDIX B
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN 1900
My general scheiven in a letter I wrote one of anization leaders, Norton Goddard, on April 16, 1900 It runs in part as follows: ”nobody can tell, and least of all the machine itself, whether the machine intends to renominate me next fall or not If for some reason I should be weak, whether on account of faults or virtues, doubtless the machine will throw me over, and I think I arief at so doing It would be very strange if they did feel such grief If, for instance, we had strikes which led to riots, I would of course be obliged to preserve order and stop the riots Decent citizens would demand that I should do it, and in any event I should do it wholly without regard to their deet all about it, while a great norant and prejudiced, would bear a grudge againstas a candidate
Again, the big corporations undoubtedly want to beatblackmailed to the certainty that they will not be allowed any more than their due Of course they will try to beat me on some entirely different issue, and, as they are very able and very unscrupulous, nobody can tell that they won't succeedI have been trying to stay in with the organization I did not do it with the idea that they would renos done, and in that I have been absolutely successful Whether Senator Platt and Mr Odell endeavor to beat me, or do beat me, for the renomination next fall, is of very small importance compared to the fact that for my two years I have been able to ood and decent work and have prevented any split within the party The task was one of great difficulty, because, on the one hand, I had to keep clearly before me the fact that it was better to have a split than to permit bad work to be done, and, on the other hand, the fact that to have that split would absolutely prevent all _good_ work The result has been that I have avoided a split and that as a net result of islature, there has been an enormous improvement in the adreat advance in legislation”
To showof the situation at the time I quote from a letter of mine to Joseph B Bishop, then editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_, horown into very close relations, and who, together with two other old friends, Albert Shaw, of the _Review of Reviews_, and Silas McBee, now editor of the _Constructive Quarterly_, knew the inside of every movement, so far as I knew it myself The letter, which is dated April 11, 1900, runs in part as follows: ”The dangerous element as far as I a certain reatly exasperated by the franchise tax They would like to get ood, but at theto do is to put me into the Vice-Presidency Naturally I will not be opposed openly on the ground of the corporations' grievance; but every kind of false state the editors of certain newspapers] will attack me, not as the enemy of corporations, but as their tool! There is no question whatever that if the leaders can they will upset me”
One position which as Governor (and as President) I consistently took, seeht to be a fundaislative work I steadfastly refused to advocate any law, no ood reason to believe that in practice it would not be executed I have always sympathized with the view set forth by Pelatiah Webster in 1783--quoted by Hannis Taylor in his _Genesis of the Supreust bodies of high dignity and consequence) which fail of execution, are overnment, expose it to conteners, in it, and expose both aggregate bodies and individuals who have placed confidence in it to many ruinous disappointments which they would have escaped had no such law or ordinance been made” This principle, by the way, not only applies to an internal lahich cannot be executed; it applies even more to international action, such as a universal arbitration treaty which cannot and will not be kept; and most of all it applies to proposals to make such universal arbitration treaties at the very ti our solemn promise to execute lieneral arbitration treaty is merely a proation; and nothing is more discreditable, for a nation or an individual, than to cover up the repudiation of a debt which can be and ought to be paid, by recklessly pro to incur a new and insecure debt which no wise man for one moment supposes ever will be paid
CHAPTER IX
OUTDOORS AND INDOORS
There are men who love out-of-doors who yet never open a book; and other reat book of nature is a sealed voluible
Nevertheless a those men whom I have known the love of books and the love of outdoors, in their highest expressions, have usually gone hand in hand It is an affectation for theoutdoors to sneer at books Usually the keenest appreciation of what is seen in nature is to be found in those who have also profited by the hoarded and recorded wisdom of their fellow-men Love of outdoor life, love of siratified by e ood books--not of good bindings and of first editions, excellent enough in their way but sheer luxuries--Ithe theaaned away his rights to the land two centuries and a half ago The house stands right on the top of the hill, separated by fields and belts of woodland from all other houses, and looks out over the bay and the Sound We see the sun go down beyond long reaches of land and of water Many birds dwell in the trees round the house or in the pastures and the woods near by, and of course in winter gulls, loons, and wild fowl frequent the waters of the bay and the Sound We love all the seasons; the snows and bare woods of winter; the rush of growing things and the blosso fruits and tasseled corn, and the deep, leafy shades that are heralded by ”the green dance of summer”; and the sharp fall winds that tear the brilliant banners hich the trees greet the dying year
The Sound is always lovely In the suhts of the tall Fall River boats as they steam steadily by Now and then we spend a day on it, the two of us together in the light rowing skiff, or perhaps with one of the boys to pull an extra pair of oars; we land for lunch at noon under wind-beaten oaks on the edge of a low bluff, or a the wild plum bushes on a spit of white sand, while the sails of the coasting schooners glea of the bell-buoy co Island is not as rich in flowers as the valley of the Hudson Yet there are lows like a tender flame with the white of the bloodroot About the sa arbutus; and although we rarely pick wild flowers, one member of the household always plucks a little bunch ofin Pana Then there are shadblow and delicate anelory of the apple orchards follows; and then the thronging dogwoods fill the forests with their radiance; and so flowers folloers until the springtime splendor closes with the laurel and the evanescent, honey-sweet locust bloo lilies, and cardinal flowers, and oldenrod and the asters when the afternoons shorten and we again begin to think of fires in the wide fireplaces
Most of the birds in our neighborhood are the ordinary home friends of the house and the barn, the wood lot and the pasture; but now and then the species make queer shi+fts The cheery quail, alas! are rarely found near us now; and we no longer hear the whip-poor-wills at night But some birds visit us nohich forreen warbler nor the purple finch nested around us, nor were bobolinks found in our fields The black-throated green warbler is now one of our commonest summer warblers; there are plenty of purple finches; and, best of all, the bobolinks are far from infrequent I had written about these new visitors to John Burroughs, and once when he came out to see me I was able to show them to him
When I was President, ned a little house in western Virginia; a delightful house, to us at least, although only a shell of rough boards
We used so, and on these occasions ould have quail and rabbits of our own shooting, and once in a while a wild turkey We also went there in the spring Of courseIsland friends
There were rosbeaks, and cardinals and suers, and those wonderful singers the Bewick's wrens, and Carolina wrens All these I was able to show John Burroughs when he cah, by the way, he did not appreciate assquirrels We loved having the flying squirrels, father andthe rafters; and at night we slept so soundly that we did not in the least h the rooms, even when, as sometimes happened, they would swoop down to the bed and scuttle across it
One April I went to Yellowstone Park, when the snoas still very deep, and I took John Burroughs with ame of the Park, the wild creatures that have becoly tame and tolerant of human presence In the Yellowstone the animals seem always to behave as one wishes them to! It is always possible to see the sheep and deer and antelope, and also the great herds of elk, which are shyer than the smaller beasts In April we found the elk weak after the short co of winter Once withoutband of thehs could look at them I do not think, however, that he cared to see them as much as I did The birds interested him more, especially a tiny owl the size of a robin whichperched on the top of a tree ina queer noise like a cork being pulled from a bottle I was rather asha the birds and grasping their differences
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--even above the tiht, a deed in which to triumph, as all who knew that inveterately shy recluse will testify
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 A them at a hunters' dinner at the White House One December I succeeded; there were twenty or thirty of the riders, as first-class citizens as could be found anywhere; no finer set of guests ever sat at ame on the table was a black bear, itself contributed by one of these saood fortune to see the ”big trees,” the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite, with John Muir Of course of all people in the world he was the one hom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite He told et him to come out and camp with him, for that was the only way in which to see at their best the majesty and char old and could not go John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two , and food for a three days' trip The first night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great Sequoia grove The majestic trunks, beautiful in color and in syhtier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages Herain, with a burst of wonderful music, at dawn I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew little about the to hi The only birds he noticed or cared for were some that were very conspicuous, such as the water-ousels--always particular favorites of ht we cae of the canyon walls, under the spreading lihty silver fir; and next day ent down into the wonderland of the valley itself I shall always be glad that I was in the Yosehs
Like ood deal about English birds as they appear in books I know the lark of Shakespeare and Shelley and the Ettrick Shepherd; I know the nightingale of Milton and Keats; I know Wordsworth's cuckoo; I know reen wood of the old ballads; I know Jenny Wren and cock Robin of the nursery books Therefore I had always much desired to hear the birds in real life; and the opportunity offered in June, 1910, when I spent two or three weeks in England As I could snatch but a few hours fro round of pleasures and duties, it was necessary forand singer In Sir Edward Grey, a keen lover of outdoor life in all its phases, and a delightful colish birds as very few do know theuide
We left London on theof June 9, twenty-four hours before I sailed frostoke, we drove to the pretty, s valley of the Itchen Here we traain drove, this tie of the New Forest, where we first took tea at an inn, and then trah the forest to an inn on its other side, at Brockenhurst At the conclusion of our walkan asterisk () opposite those which we had heard sing There were forty-one of the former and twenty-three of the latter, as follows:
Thrush,blackbird,lark,yellowhaoldfinch,chaffinch,
greenfinch, pied wagtail, sparrow,dunnock (hedge, accentor), arden warbler,arbler,chiffchaff,arbler, tree-creeper,reed bunting,sedge warbler, coot, water hen, little grebe (dabchick), tufted duck, wood pigeon, stock dove,turtle dove, peewit, tit (?
coal-tit),cuckoo,nightjar,s, e
The valley of the Itchen is typically the England that we know from novel and story and essay It is very beautiful in every ith a rich, civilized, fertile beauty--the rapid brook twisting arass, the stately woods, the gardens and fields, the exceedingly picturesque cottages, the great handso in their parks Birds were plentiful; I know but few places in America where one would see such an abundance of individuals, and I was struck by seeing such large birds as coots, water hens, grebes, tufted ducks, pigeons, and peewits In places in America as thickly settled as the valley of the Itchen, I should not expect to see any like number of birds of this size; but I hope that the efforts of the Audubon societies and kindred organizations will gradually make themselves felt until it becomes a point of honor not only with the American man, but with the American small boy, to shi+eld and protect all forms of harmless wild life True sportsmen should take the lead in such athereto shoot; the prime necessity is to keep, and not kill out, even the birds which in legitimate numbers may be shot
The New Forest is a wild, uninhabited stretch of heath and woodland, ed, and its very wildness, the lack of cultivation, the ruggedness, ested my own country The birds of course were much less plentiful than beside the Itchen