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When Theodore ("The Great") Roosevelt left the presidency in 1909 the U. S. was well aware that many years would elapse before the White House would again be so boisterous a home. The six Roosevelt children had become national characters. In 1902 Alice Roosevelt, just under 18, made her debut in the White House. From then on her life was a busy social whirl. Older than the other children (she was the daughter of the President's first wife) she often enraged the President by such actions as smoking, driving high-powered cars. In 1906 she was married in the White House to Nicholas Longworth.
By that time Theodore Jr. was a sturdy lad of 19 who liked to collect butterflies and beetles and to frequent the Smithsonian Institution. He was a sophomore at Harvard, traditional Roosevelt college. Two years younger was tall, lanky Kermit, then at Groton. Archibald ("Archie") was 12, not too old to romp with Quentin, 9, mischievous leader of his "White House Gang." Quieter than her half-sister was amiable Ethel.
From the White House, Mr. Roosevelt went momentously into the heart of Africa. Kermit, fond of cameras, went along as official photographer. Three years ago Kermit again went on an expedition, this time with Theodore Jr. In Asia they bagged many a rare beast for Chicago's Field Museum (No. 1 Quarry: a giant panda ). Last week Kermit headed a New York Zoological Society Committee to measure North American game captures, to authenticate "biggest" records.
Theodore Jr., more than the others, deliberately patterned his life on his father's. Like his father, he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Unlike his father, he ran for Governor of New York and lost. In 1929 he was appointed Governor of Porto Rico, a small job but better than none. Imitating his father's smile he twirled his top hat above his head when he landed at San Juan in a gesture so typically Rooseveltian that the crowd yelled with delight.
Too busy to ahunting go was Archibald. In 1924 as a minor employe of Sinclair Oil Co. he gave the Senate evidence against his employer which was the first big break in the oil scandals. He transferred to Roosevelt & Sons, bankers, was made a partner in 1926, representing the fifth Roosevelt generation in the firm.
Of the two daughters, "Princess Alice," as Mrs. Longworth, is more prominent, occupies a strategic position in Washington. Ethel, now Mrs. Richard Derby, lives quietly in Oyster Bay. Except for Alice, whose daughter Paulina is now 6, each of the Roosevelt children has obeyed his father's command for large families to combat "race suicide." Ethel has three living children, a son having died in 1922; her brothers each have four.
In Oyster Bay lives Mrs. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. In secluded dignity she is quietly proud of Roosevelts past & present. She recalls that black day in July 1918 when word came that Quentin had been killed in the Air Service in France while Theodore Jr., a major, was wounded and Archibald was recovering from wounds. She knew that if her husband were alive he would say: "Bully! Bully!" at Kermit's acquisition of one of the biggest U. S. shipping groups.