XXVI. LINDSAY ON ROOSEVELT

IF YOU’RE MY FRIEND YOU’RE GREATXXVI. LINDSAY ON ROOSEVELT

IF YOU’RE MY FRIEND YOU’RE GREAT

Wedecided to change our direction and make for the camp at the head of Lake McDermot. This we could hope to reach by nightfall, as it was downhill all the way. It was moreover a right-hand descent and suited me well. In an hour of diving and plunging downward we got out of the clouds and saw that there was fine weather away to the East. We had moreover found a foot-trail, and, “Bless de Lo’d I’se found de way,” cried Vachel.

Downward, downward to the low pines, to the large pines, to the giant pines—how easy it was to go down. I thought we should have little difficulty in getting to the little log-cabins of the camp, and sleep dry for once. It wasnow ten days since we had last had a roof over our heads. The prospect was pleasant; we thought of the hot supper awaiting us. We thought of the drying of our clothes and our blankets, and of a gentle sweet repose of our tumbled and jolted bodies between white sheets.

The descent, however, suited Vachel as badly as the ascent had suited me. As a short-legged man he had to take three steps to my one, and he constantly serenaded me through the evening air—“Steeven ... wait a minute! Little Vachel’s lonesome!”

I would stop, he would draw level. “Now wait a minute,” he would say. “Let’s look back! What a wonderful view! Isn’t it a wonderful view? Let’s sit here awhile and take it in—awonderfulview!”

Or he would let me go on a bit and then stop me. “Stee-ven, look at the pine-tree, look at the giant tree, giant of the forest, look what agreatgiant! Let’s sit down and take it all in!”

In the twilight we got to talking of oratory, which is one of the poet’s pet themes. He holds that pure oratory is natural poetry. Bryan is a poet; Patrick Henry was a poet;Daniel Webster was a poet. He enunciated various famous lines to me, trying to rouse the mountains with a sort of voice-of-God tone or air-bursting boom which the poet commands—

Lib-er-tyandUn-i-on ...One ... and in-sep-ar-able ...Now ... and ... for-everrr!

Lib-er-tyandUn-i-on ...

One ... and in-sep-ar-able ...

Now ... and ... for-everrr!

and he imitated Andrew Jackson saying—“The Federal Union! It must and will be preserved!”

I found in the poet a curious creed, and that is, that oratory is better than logic. He preferred the warm glowing orator to the cold clear logician. He preferred Antony to Brutus, and put friendship above merit. He justified the “Solid South” in being solid. He justified Wilson for appointing his friends to power. He considered politics a matter not of theories but of friendships and family ties. He justified the spoils system to me. “When a man comes to power—he brings his clan to power, his friends, the people of the village, and that is much better than a collection of high-browed experts,” said he. He loathed detraction and personal attacks of any kind. The commonest laudatory adjective which he used to me inhis conversations about his friends was the adjective “loyal.” I could not persuade him to talk critically of any of the literary work of his friends.

“Any poet who is a friend of mine is a good poet!” cried Vachel more than once. “I’mforhim.”

Wecame into view once more of fair Lake Josephine, but we could not make much headway. We were held by conversational webs. The poet was tired, and at every halting-place he started on some engrossing theme which beguiled us into spending half an hour sitting on dead trees. He was in the rôle of Scheherezade talking to her sultan. We ought to have plunged down to the lake-shore, built a big fire and dried off, but I was foolishly persistent in the idea of getting to the Many Glacier camp that night. Presently we started talking of Roosevelt, and the poet held me by the coat for a whole hour while he explained how he had been carried off his feet by a Republican, and had defied his family and voted for Roosevelt and had been struck out of the family Bible, so to speak.

“I was for him until the end of his Presidency,” said Vachel. “He refused to give business and high finance the first place, he would not talk the holy gospel of tariff, he made the White House a national centre of culture, he gave a great progressive lead, and rallied to his banner the bright spirits of America; he hit the shams and the frauds and the trusts; he stood by the Negro; he was not afraid to express what he thought on any subject under the sun; he did not halt between yes and no, and he was the very opposite of the Adams type of politician.”

“But it burned him out,” Vachel went on. “He had a third and last period when he was not himself, when he acted the young man, and stage-managed the delusion of endless energy.”

And he told the story of Roosevelt’s last visit to Springfield with great gusto, imitating Teddie’s mighty stride down through the people to the platform, the war-cries and yells of the audience, the clash of the brass-bands.

“And he was not an orator, and he did not believe in the spoils system,” I interruptedmaliciously. “And he did not believe in the families ruling America——”

No wonder we got lost in the willows.

A’m ti-erd, yes a’m ti-erd,A got th’ bloo-ooes aw-fool ba-ad.Ma feet is sore;You’s awful so-ore,Ain’t ye, feet?That fellah over the-ere’S legs is just too lo-ong.Now where’s he gwine to now?Where’s he gwine to now?I’se skeered he’ll leave me here a-lone,All a-lo-one.Say, Cap, doan go on so fa-ar,Say, boss, you sure didn’t see that tree,You cahn have no feelin’s for the viewHuhhyin’ on so fass—(Tired Feet Blues)

A’m ti-erd, yes a’m ti-erd,

A got th’ bloo-ooes aw-fool ba-ad.

Ma feet is sore;

You’s awful so-ore,

Ain’t ye, feet?

That fellah over the-ere

’S legs is just too lo-ong.

Now where’s he gwine to now?

Where’s he gwine to now?

I’se skeered he’ll leave me here a-lone,

All a-lo-one.

Say, Cap, doan go on so fa-ar,

Say, boss, you sure didn’t see that tree,

You cahn have no feelin’s for the view

Huhhyin’ on so fass—

(Tired Feet Blues)

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