(from Theodore Roosevelt,
Theodore Roosevelt—An Autobiography, 1913)
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, the human cyclone, seemed to be always on the move: hunter, explorer, traveler, governor, speaker, intellectual, and an avid reader (often a book a night), a man with a photographic memory who was equally at ease arranging a box of dinosaur bones into their correct order and shape as analyzing the relative firepower and tactics of man-of-war ships. He authored an estimated eighteen million words during his lifetime, including the Naval History of the War of 1812 at age twenty, and some 150,000 letters while serving as governor of New York and president of the United States. Whoever he was with, he “quickened the tempo of life.” Henry Cabot Lodge said: “Theodore is one of the most lovable souls, as well as one of the cleverest and most daring men I have ever known.”
Roosevelt expanded our national parks, broke up corporate trusts, created the federal departments of Labor and Commerce, modernized the United States Navy, and sent the Great White Fleet to ports of call around the world—underscoring his phrase “Walk softly, but carry a big stick.” He supported the construction of the Panama Canal and won the Noble Peace Prize for negotiating the peace treaty that settled the Russo-Japanese war.
A child of the Civil War, he was often sick from asthma attacks and sought to build up his strength. When he entered Harvard, his father advised him to take care of his morals, health, and grades in that order. He took up boxing. After his father’s death he bought a ranch in the Dakotas, raised cattle, and once joined a successful manhunt for horse thieves. When six armed Indians charged him on horseback, he dismounted and coolly stood them off with his rifle.
Born with weak vision, he always wore thick glasses. Out west this initially earned him the jocular sobriquet “Four Eyes.” Over time he befriended and earned the respect of settlers and ranch hands. But not everyone was won over by charm alone; from his 1913 autobiography, here is Teddy Roosevelt’s tale of an ornery gunslinger who was bent on “makin’ the town smoky.” Roosevelt prefaces this six-shooter story with a short vignette of western life.
OF COURSE amusing incidents occur now and then. Usually these took place when I was hunting lost horses, for in hunting lost horses I was ordinarily alone, and occasionally had to travel a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles away from my own country. On one such occasion I reached a little cow town long after dark, stabled my horse in an empty outbuilding, and when I reached the hotel was informed in response to my request for a bed that I could have the last one left, as there was only one other man in it. The room to which I was shown contained two double beds; one contained two men fast asleep, and the other only one man, also asleep. This man proved to be a friend, one of the Bill Joneses whom I have previously mentioned. I undressed according to the fashion of the day and place, that is, I put my trousers, boots, chaps, and gun down beside the bed and turned in. A couple of hours later I was awakened by the door being thrown open and a lantern flashed in my face, the light gleaming on the muzzle of a cocked .45. Another man said to the lantern-bearer: “It ain’t him.” The next moment my bedfellow was covered with two guns, and addressed: Now, Bill, don’t make a fuss, but come along quiet.” “I’m not thinking of making a fuss,” said Bill. “That’s right,” was the answer; “we’re your friends; we don’t want to hurt you; we just want you to come along, you know why.” And Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked out with them.
Up to this time there had not been a sound from the other bed. Now a match was scratched, a candle lit, and one of the men in the other bed looked around the room. At this point I committed the breach of etiquette of asking questions. “I wonder why they took Bill,” I said. There was no answer, and I repeated, “I wonder why they took Bill.” “Well,” said the man with the candle, dryly, “I reckon they wanted him,” and with that he blew out the candle and conversation ceased.
I later discovered that Bill in a fit of playfulness had held up the Northern Pacific train at a nearby station by shooting at the feet of the conductor to make him dance. This was purely a joke on Bill’s part, but the Northern Pacific people possessed a less robust sense of humor, and in their complaint the United States Marshall was sent after Bill, on the ground that by delaying the train he had interfered with the mails.
The only time I ever had serious trouble was at an even more primitive little hotel than the one in question. It was also on an occasion when I was out after lost horses. Below the hotel had merely a bar room, a dining room, and a lean-to kitchen; above was a loft with fifteen to twenty beds in it. It was late in the evening when I reached the place. I heard one or two shots in the bar room as I came up, and I disliked going in. But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night. Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don’t like. A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or three holes in its face.
He was not a “bad man” of the really dangerous type, the true man killer type, but he was an objectionable creature, a would-be bad man, a bully who for the moment was having things all his own way. As soon as he saw me, he hailed me as “Four Eyes,” in reference to my spectacles, and said, “Four Eyes is going to treat.” I joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice.
He followed me, however, and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this made him more offensive, and he stood leaning over me with a gun in each hand, using very foul language.
He was foolish to stand so near, and, moreover, his heels were close together, so that his position was unstable. Accordingly, in response to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, I said, “Well, if I’ve got to, I’ve got to,” and rose, looking past him.
As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired his guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head. It was not a case in which one could afford to take chances, and if he had moved I was about to drop on his ribs with my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in a shed. I got dinner as soon as possible, sitting in a corner of the dining room away from the windows, and then went upstairs to bed where it was dark so that there would be no chance of anyone shooting at me from the outside. However, nothing happened. When my assailant came to, he went down to the station and left on a freight.