Teddy Roosevelt with His Children

ERNEST RUSE

Even those who observed Roosevelt’s life from the outside couldn’t help but notice his love and care for his children. Here the writer Ernest Ruse describes Roosevelt wrestling and playing with his children behind closed doors during his presidency.

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When Mr. Roosevelt has closed the door of his home behind him, says one of his personal friends; the soldier, the statesman, the reformer, the writer, are all shut out, and only the husband and the father enter. His devotion to his wife and children is ideal. To the latter he is not only a father, but also a big, over-grown brother. One of his chief delights is to get down on all-fours in the nursery and play bear with the younger ones. When the little bears tire he sometimes sings old Dutch folksongs for them. Though his voice was never intended for singing, there is a certain quaintness and rough charm about these memories of Holland that greatly delight the children.

Nor is it only his own children who command his devotion. He is emphatically a friend of children. During his campaign he has been known to—catch the eye of a poor little crippled girl in a patched frock, who was making frantic but hopeless efforts to reach him in the outskirts of the crowd, and, pushing aside all the rest, make a way for her, to the great amazement of the curled darlings in the front row.