The first time Colonel Roosevelt ever came to Hull-House was when he was acting as Vice-President. He was taken to the kindergarten and after all the children had shouted the name of the President of the United States in response to the teacher’s query, they were further asked who helped take care of the country. The little Jewish voices alone shouted Teddy Rosenfeld, which very much delighted the guest.
I recall Colonel Roosevelt at Hull-House when he reviewed the Boy Scouts of the entire west side of Chicago in our largest hall. Our Boy’s Club Band, the fifty members of which crowded the platform, played lustily throughout the ceremony. But never once did their distinguished visitor wince and indeed went the length of asking for one more tune before he tore himself away. It was also during this visit to Chicago that he spoke in the Armory before such immigrants as had received their second papers and had thereby been entitled to the first vote during the year. After the meeting, at which I had also spoken, my hat could not be found. It had most likely been trampled into an indistinguishable mass by the dense crowd of men. As we came back in an open motor Colonel Roosevelt insisted upon riding without a hat in order to make me more comfortable in my hatless state and was very much entertained by the incident which followed:
The Union League Club under whose auspices the meeting had been held, knowing of my loss, sent me $50.00 to buy a new hat. I returned it, stating the hat had cost me $10.00 when it was new and was already two years old. The newspapers jocosely took up the incident as an example of admirable economy, stressing the fact that a hat which had cost so little had lasted so long; when the milliners in alarm also used the incident as a warning that one who had been so careless in securing a hat had never been able to secure a husband.
I also recall his being in Chicago at one time when the Hull-House Players were giving Galsworthy’s “Justice”. He was much impressed with the play and most generous in his praise of the young man who took the part of the “criminal at the bar”. He had at that time never heard of Galsworthy, but left Chicago with all the Galsworthy books obtainable in order that he might read them between Chicago and New York.
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