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Show M A MODEST MAN ON HIS TRAVELS. M ? r- The press reports which are appearing daily, K' detailing to the smallest ine'dents the attention H I Mr. Roosevelt is receiving in Europe and which H j now and then carry the Colonel's protest against H the publicity given his movements, and which H declare his desire to be recognized and accorded M the privileges and attention of a private citizen H j only, are provocative of no little amusement H F among newspaper editors and politicians who are Kt" inclined to view the ex-President's protest over M the attention he is attracting with considerable H a scepticism. B Under the head given above A Modest Man m On His Travels the Argonaut has a little fun mk with the Colonel somethingafter this fashion: '" Mr. Roosevelt's shrinking nature vas noted M by Mr. Dooley at the Philadelphia convention, H where the New Yorker was put on the ticket for B Vice-President. It had been suspected before, Hf but there was a delicacy in Mr. Roosevelt's shy- H ness which had been overlooked by all but the B philosopher of Archey Road. Of the more or V ' less high company at the national convention, Mr. Hr Roosevelt was among the few who had not made ri themselves conspicuous In silk tiles, but had just M' put on his simple, unobtrusive old Rough Rider M hat. "He done it," Mr. Dooley explained, "so m nobody wouldn't take no notice of him." That H.. everybody did take notice of him was one of c fate's mean tricks at which the victim protested L in at least fifty interviews and through the As- - sociated Press. H-' When Mr. Roosevelt was "heard to cease" his H,- duties of President, his first thought was, of H course, to shield himself from public, view. Edi- ML torial relations with the Outlook seemed a prom- 7 islng way, but even in the privacy of Dr. Ab- L bott's leaded brevier there was not that hope of H: complete personal effacement which a Hon and Hj elephant hunt in darkest Africa offered. Taking H every care to divert the popular eye by identlfy- Hij ing the Smithsonian Institute with his anony- Hk' mous journey and taking along stenographers, He, typewriters, a moving picture man, and various I savants with special Associated Press billets, Mr. fti- Roosevelt modestly slipped off to Europe and ; took another steamer at Naples, the royal suite of Hlf which had been reserved for him and filled with H l floral gifts of the Kaiser, and so In due time he l reached a romantic port of East Africa. Wo may HI) imagine the relief it must have been to plunge HE into the country of big game and what a fateful HI disappointment came to the hunter when he HPt learned that his faithless savants and typewriters Hal had kept his fellow-citizens apprized of every in- Iff cident of hie journey until he emerged, on the in- l&l conspicuous back of a bishareen camel, with a In scarlet escort of Khedlval horsemen, into the hL! shadow of the pyramids where forty centuries looked down upon him stonily unmindful of his wish to be regarded as an unassuming American engaged in sightseeing. Fate has never seemed more capricious than in the story of what followed. At Cairo Mr. Roosevelt made some toiitative oral ventures, merely out of the kindness of his nature, to remind re-mind the bonded Egyptians, as any self-respecting American might, that it was better for them to let the British rule them than to commit the political solecism of trying to ru'e themselves whereupon, to the horror of his mild and hesitating hesitat-ing soul, there came near being a riot. After this shock to a nature which was growing more and more sensitive to advertising methods, Mr. Roosevelt hastened across the Mediterranean to Italy. On landing there he again emphasized the fact that he was traveling as a plain American without the slightest pretense of political authority au-thority or prestige; and he was warmly supported support-ed in this claim by the United States ambassador to Turkey, whom he had summoned to join him in Egypt, and by Ambassador Leishman, who brut been called to Genoa to quiet any untoward rumor there might be that Roosevelt was aping the pomp and circumstance of royalty. As an unofficial gentleman on a private tour, Mr. Roosevelt was still sorely tried by public curiosity; and in Rome he meant to put an end to it. To be sure, he had an idea of mixing a bit, sub rosa, with the Pope, the Methodists, Cardinal Merry del Val, and the King of Ita'y, but all this could be done in a way not to cause remark. The group would have a corking good time all together and not even the Vatican detectives would hear about it. But alas! the quips and wiles of fate. Nothing went right and the Rooseveltian name was soon on every lip; and to make things worse for such a retiring man, the Cardinal Secretary of State accused him of trying, ostentatiously, to -follow hi onquests in Africa by adding the Holy Father himself and -various "more or less royal personages" to the contents of his gamebag. Did ever a violet by the wayside find itself turned into a gaudy sunflower by the act of a designing fairy? If it did, the modest Mr. Roosevelt then knew how it felt. Another device to get complete privacy was tried, -but once more the shy intent of the harassed ha-rassed visitor was foiled. Thero s a road which runs for sixty miles along the blight Italian coast ,where Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt, long years before, had made a part of their honeymoon journey. Surely they might repeat this sentimental pro-'gress pro-'gress and no one would be the wiser. With infinite in-finite pains the plan was worked out. Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt first notified the police of his chosen route. Then the itinerary was made up and printed and suites of rooms were cautiously engaged along the way. Relays of horses were secured. The government, anxious to please, did its guarded guard-ed part in notifying the mayors of towns and the commanders of garrisons. Then the blushing little game of hide and seek began. At the hour of early forenoon, while all the Riviera folk are out of doors, the honeymoon pair, hidden away in the t white silken solitude of an open victoria, preceded by secret service men mounted and followed by jfc police and correspondents in jaunting cars, began their sixty miles. At every village the bands, the firemen, and the military were out, and little .girls in white dresses scattered flowers along the way and sang "The Star Spangled Banner" or something that sounded just as well. . Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt was hopeless then. In three typewritten replies re-plies to municipal addresses he expressed his regret re-gret that a natural desire to conceal his tenderest emotions from the rude gaze of the pulHic could not have been respected; after which there was a salvo of artillery and great enthusiasm on the part of fellow-Americans and the populace as the shrinking traveler left in a special car for other fields. To those who hoped that the worried ex-president might have better luck in Paris we can give but cold comfort. It was plain that he meant to take every precaution there against becoming j a spectacle. He had had enought of notoriety. ;iTry as he might to disappear in the unmarked '.'throng, his name was being continually sounded from the housetops. He hid on the dais of the Sarbonne, whither he had gone to have a heart-to heart-to heart talk with the students, and the demon of publicity followed him there. He dined with the president of the republic and felt that he might escape the wiles of the reporter by speaking in French; but the reporter was not dismayed even by that deadly ruse, and Mr. Roosevelt's after-dinner discovery that France, as he had previously pre-viously said of Egypt and Rome, was the cradle of our civilization, was neatly rendered as an appeal against race suicide. It was plain that the Elyseo was no place for an unassuming tourist, so Mr. Roosevelt thought to mingle his vague personality per-sonality with the obscure memories of Napoleon. To think was to act, and so we leave him in his disappointment, standing "strangely silent" but yet brutally observed by all Paris, besides the red catafalque of the greatest soldier of a'l time, surrounded by the tattered emblems of imperial conquest. Unhappy Roosevelt! He had done his durndest to keep far from the spotlight, but wherever he had gone on his modest rambles It lj had turned his way. I- |
