Page:Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star.djvu/40

xxx Colonel Roosevelt said he never pretended to be much of a business man, but a formal contract was the usual thing; he had one with The Metropolitan. Anyhow he would gladly sign it. He was asked if he desired a contract and answered he did not.

"You understand and we do—" said Mr. Kirkwood.

Without waiting for the sentence to be finished, Colonel Roosevelt said quickly, "That's all I want to know. Let's don't bother with a contract."

And on that basis the Colonel wrote for The Star until his death.

Early in September I was delegated to go to New York, as Managing Editor of The Star, to discuss with the Colonel the details of his work for the paper. I met him at a hotel in Fifty-Seventh Street where he went on the days he came in from Oyster Bay. Mrs. Roosevelt was with him. Roosevelt was in high spirits, which was no uncommon thing. I recall vividly my introduction to Mrs. Roosevelt.

"Edith," he said, leading me into the room where Mrs. Roosevelt was, "here is my new boss!"

I didn't say it, but the thought came to me that I would prefer the task of "bossing" a tornado.

The talk that followed was that The Star had no desire to guide what he wrote; that it desired him to write whatever was in him, and it would print it. The Colonel said that was exactly what he wanted; he could do nothing else. We discussed the distribution over the country of his writings, which he left entirely to The Star, with the request that they