The death of Theodore Roosevelt was a terrible shock to us, occurring at a time when his presence was so necessary to counteract the influence of the narrow-minded people who, unfortunately, dictate the future of America and Europe.

He was the first to discuss the futility of Wilson's fourteen points, and severely denounced them, saying that they were for the benefit of a few capitalists, Anglo, French, and Slav.

Death took him, and the consequences will be disastrous for Italy, which had in him a true champion, and for America which runs a government ruled by one who presumes to know everything, one who governs more despotically than a Romanoff.

We saw Roosevelt for the last time, when at the La Salle Station we greeted the heroic "Alpini" and the band of the "Granatieri" passing through Chicago during the war, on their way to Italy. The Colonel, seeing our heroic soldiers, faced the train, removed his hat and waving it cried: "Hurrah for Italy," and continued doing so until the train was out of sight.

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He loved Italy and the Italians and at one time proudly boasted that he had Italian blood in his veins, and in the Senate publicly said when Messina was destroyed by an earthquake: "We are grateful to Italy which has given us this continent and our present civilization." He has also sent large sums of money to the stricken Sicilian city, and expressed the hope that it would rise from its ruins more prosperous than before.

How different, and in the same measure greater than he (Woodrow Wilson in his History of the American People) who classified the Italians of America as lower than the Chinese. The debt of gratitude that he said America owes Italy, we Italians owe him. Unhappy is the individuals of Latin blood who is not a great admirer of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Italians of America should whole-heartedly support the campaign promoted throughout the United States for a fund of ten-million dollars, with which to buy and maintain as a historical monument the Oyster Bay home of Theodore Roosevelt, and to erect monuments in several cities to his memory.

They may send their donations to the Italian Chamber of Commerce, 1613 Masonic Temple.