The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-03-14
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"ROoSEvELTS LETTERS TO HIS
 fvIITT TaI3I,Nr


 "RooSEvELTS LETTERS TO HIS
 CHILDREN"
 Edited by Joseph Bucklin Bishop. Charles Scribners Sons, Publishers, New York City.
 It isn't often that man is able to reach a. critical discernment of his own literary work, but Theodore Roosevelt as usual has proved the exception. Only short time before his death, when he was going over his letters to his children and planning to make volume of them with Joseph Bucklin Bishop, he said, T would rather thave this book pub lished than anything that has ever been written about me-
 Already these letters illustrated by his little pensketches and full of touches of irresistible humor have passed through their seventh large printing, and the demand for them is greater than ever.
 To discover them is to be compiete1y charmed. Whatever else the world may think of Roosevelt this book will place him as one of the most delightful fathers who ever lived, and these letters will he prized and read with joy by every man and woman who is worthy to bring chIi- dren into the world
 According to some, letter writing is dead and buried. gone out of style with crfnolines and hoop skirts, "goatees' and beaver hats" but there is an especial branch of it that lives and breathes and has it's entity as is verified in the case of "Roosevelts Letters To His Chil- dren' this most interesting and illustra- tive and entertaining of documents.
 These letters of Theodore Roosevelt have been collected into a sympathetical- 1y edited volume. Surely, MT. Bishop must have had some of the love foI children, the twinkle of humor with which the great man viewed them, an- the all l-comprehending understanding oi them and their queer little mental pro cesses; in other words, though Theodore Roosevelt had a great deal Of santa Claus in him, Mir Bishop must have had some of the adopted German saint in himself, or how could he have got SC near to the heart of childhood? The colonel, at any rate, had that love of ani- mals without which no man can under stand children. We have never had more cunning kitten than Tom quartz he informs Darling Kernic.' Neverthe- less, justice compels him to add;
 q have just had to descend with SC verify upon Quenlin because he put the unfortunate Tom into the bathtub anc turned on the water. He didn't really mean any harm
 Quentin. in fact. seems to have beer the erring member of the Roosevelt lam ily. Once he shied a stone at his moth CTS mead, anu dALHouSii tiiS NSfC'~A ognized that the thing was done without evil intent, he felt obliged to explain tt quentin the enormity of his crime, unti 0uentin, bowling, fell in "a yellow-haireo abandon of grief" into his fathers arms r'he grass has been growing on Quen' tins grave in France now more thaf A year. and his father has gone to 1oli him. Poor little enfant terrible! Hs never lived to reach his majority. The rest of them. perhaps. were little more serious To one and all the father heart went out; but in these letters on' can discern a special twinkle in the eye a special softening of the lines of tn' fact. for scapegrace Quentin. though t' Ted who was most like himself went ou the fullest measure of the fathers heart.
 But after all that is a little unfair Whether 1t is Blessed Ted or 'Ipriins Little Ethel" or Dear Quentyquac,' ol any of the rest of the breed to whom these letters go it Is impossible to ac cuse him of playing favorites. Ant through them all what love and adorat'oi of the mother showsl To him she is al ways beautiful. She looked so pretr, today when we were out riding: she look so much younger and SC lovely this morn ing: she is r5clt.er thar ever as I VII