ROOSEVELT
[_]
(Written for the Illinois State Teachers' Association, printed as a broadside, and read, and distributed the same day: April 4, 1924.)
When the stuffed prophets quarrel, when the sawdust comes out, I think of Roosevelt's genuine sins.
Once more my rash love for that cinnamon bear, Begins!
His sins were better than their sweetest goodness.
His blows were cleaner than their plainest kindness.
He saw more than they all, in his hours of black blindness.
The hour of his pitiful spiritual fall
He was more of an angel than all of this host,
When with Lucifer's pride his soul was burnt out,
When, still in the game, he gave up the ghost.
His yarns were nearer the sky than their truth.
His wildest tales, in his fish-story hour,
Nearer true than their truth.
When with art and with laughter he held supreme power,
He was white as the moon, and as honest as youth.
And now their sworn word is but barnyard mud.
And their highest pride is to hide in a hole.
They talk of “dollars,” and “dollars” and “dollars”
And “dollars” and “dollars,” and hate his clean soul.
(Oh money, money—that never can think,
Money, money, that never can rule,
Always an anarchist, always an idiot,
Always King Log—never King Stork,
Always rotting, reeking:—always a fool.)
Roosevelt was proud like a singer.
Roosevelt's pride was that of a scribe,
Or the pride of a father, the pride of a ruler,
The pride of the thoroughbred chief of a tribe,
The pride of Confucius, the pride of a student!
He hated a coward, he hated a fool,
He knew that money is always a fool.
When they tear each others' newspaper-hearts
I think of Theodore's genuine code.
He hated the paste-board, the smeary, the fake.
He hated the snake, the frog and the toad.
Oh a moose with sharp antlers!
Oh a panther of panthers—Oh a fox of foxes
Often caught in tight boxes!
Yet we know he would always bark out the truth.
He loved the curious political game:—
But we know he loved better:—truth, God, and youth.
A peacock of peacocks! An eagle of eagles!
Defeating, within himself, the quick fox.
A buffalo roaring—a world-lion roaring!
Defeating within himself the bright fox,—
Then ranging out through the wilderness trail,
Killing the jackal—felling the ox.
Megalomaniac, envious, glorious,
Envying only the splendors of worth.
Emulating the cleanest on earth,
(Those who were, therefore, the strongest on earth.)
Emulating thoroughbreds—always.
Peacock! Lion! Cinnamon bear!
Skyscrapers—steeples and plains for abode!
He was mostly the world's fine cinnamon bear,
He was mostly our glittering cinnamon bear,
Sitting there in an old rocking chair,
In the White House yard, taking the air.
He told us Aesop's new fables, each day—
President seven big glorious years!
Seven years of wonder. Must they all fade away,
In the quarrels of the rat with the loud-voiced cootie
Told by the zinc-throated, varnished “loud-speaker,”
Told by wireless, while the world sits breathless,
Or by megaphone,
By line-o'-type, or by letter ripe:—
The quarrels of the angle-worm with the toad?
Who elected these pole-cats rulers of men?
Let us start a gay nation over again!
Let us start a circus as honest as Barnum's,
With three clean rings, and plenty to see,
Athletes, not snakes, on the trapeze tree.
Let us start our nation over again,
In the names of legitimate rulers of men,
In the names of the great, and the famous dead:—
Yes, the name of the glittering cinnamon bear,
Never so wicked or sore in the head,
But he fed the children honey and bread.
He taught them the names of the great and the dead,
From the Irish Sagas, to Carson and Boone.
He loved the villages, Deadwood, Medora,
Tuskeegee and Tuscarora,
Mexicali and Farmington,
Calexico and Bennington,
Arlington and Lexington,
Oyster Bay, Mount Vernon.
He loved the cities Denver, Manhattan,
And the wide great spaces
From the Amazon to Saskatoon—
He loved the heroes, Columbus, Whitman, Lincoln,
He loved the heroes! He loved George Washington!—
Who was honest as youth and white as the moon.
“Great-heart!” Roosevelt! Father of men!
He fed the children honey and bread.
He taught them the Ten Commandments and prayer,
Rocking there in his old rocking chair,
Or riding the storms of dream that he rode.
Join hands, poets, friends, companions!
Let us start a new world on the Roosevelt Code!
Let us start our nation over again
In the name of the honest, proud cinnamon bear,
Rocking there in his old rocking chair
Or riding the terrible storms that he rode!
The most-quoted phrase from the first edition of this book is on page 2—“That this whole book is a weapon in a strenuous battlefield.” So this section starts with two broadsides, carrying out that idea, one on Roosevelt, one on Sandburg. “Roosevelt” was written, printed and issued in one day, after reading of the behavior of two middle western governors, that morning. I read the poem that night in East St. Louis for the Illinois State Teachers' Association, three thousand strong. It was distributed by the Doubleday Page Book Shop, St. Louis. I read it in the loudest voice I could muster, holding the broadside up before the convention like a banner. It was an occasion of some humor, but of even more seriousness, and the New Republic telegraphed for a copy of the broadside at once, and reissued it in abbreviated form. In this form it was quoted with apparent approval by the Philadelphia North American, and sent for by the Roosevelt Memorial Association to be fastened on their walls. And the same day it was politically attacked by the earnest Providence (Rhode Island) Journal.
