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“Then Father was not governor of New York,” his mother told him. “Now he has a responsibility to the people of this state.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said her husband. “Kiss me good night, all you youngsters. I’d better see what those people want. After all, this is Christmas Eve and a cold night. Likely they want to get home to their families.”
The three men waiting below had a mission they considered important and praiseworthy. They wanted Colonel Roosevelt when he took office as governor to do something about getting better roads for the county.
“They’re a bog in winter and a fog of dust in summer. They’re a hardship to the folks who live here and they discourage summer people. Every time some people pay their taxes they harangue us about the bad roads.”
“But, gentlemen,” Roosevelt protested, “the county roads are the county’s affair, except for a few miles of state and post roads. Your county officials are the people for you to see about this matter.”
“The county officials, Colonel, are us three and there’s nobody for us to appeal to. We’re the ones who are getting all the knocks and got no answer unless we raise taxes, and Lord, what a howl there would be about that! Trouble is, people want a lot of things till it comes time to pay for them and then they want somebody else to take on the load.”
“That’s the trouble with the whole country,” said Roosevelt. “In Albany there are probably people already waiting, wanting something but wanting no part of the financial responsibility of paying for it. The President and Congress 13are bombarded constantly with requests to give benefits to certain areas and groups of people but all those things cost money and the money has to come from the people, the ordinary people like you and me, gentlemen.”
How many times, he wondered, as the delegation left reluctantly, grumbling among themselves, would he hear the same arguments in the next two years? All at once, standing in his own doorway looking out at the dark night sky which was already beginning to lower and spit a few more flakes of snow, he felt a dread of the new task that till this moment had stimulated and exhilarated him.
The peace and quiet of Sagamore Hill suddenly was doubly dear. The fields and hills over which he had roamed with his children, the fringe of wood where he had chopped down trees, exulting in every blow of the ax, at seeing white chips fly wide. Here, he was thinking, he could have lived, writing his books, watching over the growth and education of his children, getting fatter with the years perhaps, less able to swim and dive and wield an ax, or flash down a snowy slope on new skis.
He knew, however, a life like that was not for him. Action was essential to him, positive and vigorous, and he could no more keep out of public affairs than he could resign himself to sitting by a fireside all the rest of his days. He could never sit still there. He was always jumping up to discipline the blazing logs with firm jabs of the poker, or hurl on more wood with a heave and a grunt.
He went to the fire now and found Edith sitting there with her usual piece of sewing in her lap.