Books: The Roosevelts

ALL IN THE FAMILY—Theodore Roosevelt—Putnam’s ($2.50).

Memorable to the author is this tale: The President has allowed the children to go swimming with their clothes on. Mrs. Roosevelt, afraid that they might catch cold, bustled off for a homely medicine. ” ‘Father, won’t you ask her not to give us ginger?’ He looked at us quizzically. ‘Children!’ he said, ‘I don’t dare interfere. I shall be fortunate if she does not give me ginger too.'”

With such intimate revelations, Col. Theodore Roosevelt III (the late great Roosevelt was II) has come to the defense of the U. S. home, the U. S. family. His method is that of personal intramural reminiscence. Detecting a certain lack of home consciousness in his country, he finds that “It has become fashionable among certain silly people to rail at this greatest of civilized institutions—the family. This is merely a method of attracting attention to themselves. . . .”

Not wishing to attract undue attention to himself, Author Roosevelt assures readers that “Our family is certainly no different in any material way from hundreds of thousands of others from Walla Walla to New York.” He weaves a fabric of enchanted mediocrity about the venerable Roosevelt freehold, “Sagamore” (Oyster Bay, L. I.), in a book that is a medley of anecdotage about his clan’s everyday affairs, many of which have been set down in his father’s letters or elsewhere. The burial of pets, camping, meals, games, sports are all dealt with in a fair approximation of the traditionally wholesome Rooseveltian manner.