Garland in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

“An Appreciation of Hamlin Garland” (1917)

[102] X “An Appreciation of Hamlin Garland” (1917) Theodore Roosevelt By 1916 Roosevelt had drastically revised his initial 1894 impression of Garland , for they had been exchanging books and working together on many cultural activities for years. When Roosevelt read Garland’s They of the High Trails, published in April 1916, he drafted an appreciation, which Garland transcribed (with Roosevelt’s permission) and sent to Harper for use as promotional material for the serial version of A Son of the Middle Border in Collier’s. That serial resumed on 31 March 1917 after having been interrupted with the fifth installment, entitled “Lincoln Enters Hostile Territory” (8 August 1914), so that the magazine could devote space to war issues. Roosevelt’s appreciation was added to the 1917 reprinting of They of the High Trails. hamlin garland is a man of letters and a man of action, a lover of nature and a lover of the life of men. For thirty years he has done good work; and never better work than he is doing now. The forests and the high peaks, the green prairies and the dry plains, he knows them as the city man knows his streets and he brings them vivid before the eyes of the reader. Moreover, he knows the men and women of the farms, the cattle-ranchers, and the little raw towns; he knew the old-time wilderness wanderers in their day; and their successors, the forest-rangers, the stockmen who own high-grade cattle, the officers of the law, are his friends to-day. His heart is tender with sympathy for those beaten down in the hard struggle for life, and aflame with indignation against every form of evil and oppression. Whether the crime be one of cunning or of brutal violence; whether it be by the rich man against the poor or by the mob against the doer of justice; whether it be by the white against the Indian or by the foul man-beast against the woman—it matters not, against all alike he bears burning testimony. And above all, his people are real men and real women; and those for whom he cares, we, who read of them, grow likewise to love; and we are more just [103] and gentle toward our fellow-men, and toward the women who are our sisters , because of what he has written about them. From Theodore Roosevelt, “An Appreciation of Hamlin Garland,” in Hamlin Garland, They of the High Trails (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1916), viii. Theodore Roosevelt ...