The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  89. Storer, Child, 8; Wis.94; Booth Tarkington (see note 91).

  90. Robert E. Livingstone int. FRE. (TRB).

  91. Hale, A Week, 115–6; see also Wis.47.

  92. Straus qu. Wag.107.

  93. N.Y. Trib., Jan. 1, 1907; W. Post, Jan. 2; Mrs. Longworth, int. Jan. 2, 1956, TRB: “He loved cologne. He’d give us all a sniff of his handkerchief, which was practically saturated with cologne, when he met us in the hall.” Apparently TR also liked verbena leaves, “which he would crumple and smell with exquisite pleasure” whenever he found them in fingerbowls. (Ib.)

  94. Hale, A Week, 16; Donovan, qu. Edna M. Colman, White House Gossip: From Johnson to Coolidge (Doubleday, 1927), 287–8: “A plumbline could be dropped from the back of his head to his waist”; Eve. Star, Jan. 2, 1906; HUN.70 (“He like to have crushed my hand”) and Clark, Chester M., in St. Nicholas, Jan. 1908 (“a cordial vise”); un. clip, Nov. 13, 1898, in TRB.

  95. Wis.110; Hale, A Week, 48, 111; Thwing, Eugene, The Life and Meaning of Theodore Roosevelt (NY, 1919) 129, 130.

  96. Robert E. Livingstone int. FRE.; Burroughs, John, in The Life and Letters, ed. Clara Barrus (Russell & Russell, 1968) 2.146: “He is a sort of electric bombshell, if there can be such a thing.” Lewis, E. B., Edith Wharton (Harper & Row, 1975) 113, and Mrs. Wharton qu. Wag.109.

  97. Amy Belle (Cheney) Clinton to Hermann Hagedorn, Jan. 27, 1949 (TRB).

  98. Henry Watterson, un. clip, TRB mss.

  99. Spooner qu. Wag. 109; White House appointments diary, TRP; Edel, James, 275.

  100. Gar.86–7; Muir qu. Wag.109; Rii.131.

  101. Phil. Independent, June 30, 1904.

  102. But.5; Robert E. Livingstone int. FRE.

  103. Nicholas Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: The Man as I Knew Him (Dodd, Mead, 1967), 56. “It was never safe to contest with him on any question of fact or figures.” (HCL in New York State Memorial, 1919).

  104. Nicholas Roosevelt, TR, 56; Wag.74.

  105. Ib.; Stanley Isaacs int. May 1, 1956 (TRB). For other examples of TR’s memory, see Wis.114; Stoker, Irving, 237; Bishop, Joseph B., Notes and Anecdotes of Many Years (Scribner’s, 1925) 136.

  106. Eve. Star, Jan. 1, 1907.

  107. Moore, Old Guard, 178; Fenwick, 1907 has a floor diagram showing crowd movement through the White House.

  108. Child qu. Wag.108.

  109. W. Post, Jan. 2, 1907; W. Her., same date.

  110. W. Post, Jan. 2, 1907; see Whi.404–5 for TR’s post-reception ablutions.

  111. Fenwick, 1908; Guinness Book of World Records (1978 ed.). Some contemporary sources, e.g. N.Y. Sun, Jan. 2, 1907, put the figure as high as 10,000; others, e.g., Eve. Star, put it as low as 5,063. Guinness’s figure of 8,150 is borne out, in fact slightly exceeded, by W. Her., Jan. 2 (8,513) and the respected N.Y. Tribune (8,500) and may be accepted as a fair estimate.

  112. The personal details in the following section are too numerous, and too ephemeral, for individual citation. Basic sources: Diary (1907) of Kermit Roosevelt in Library of Congress; Longworth, Derby, and Roosevelt interviews listed above. Other sources as cited below.

  113. Naval War is still considered definitive. See Herr. 196; also Gable, John A., Theodore Roosevelt as Historian and Man of Letters, intro. to TR’s Gouverneur Morris, Bicentennial Ed. (Oyster Bay, 1975) vii.

  114. Eve. Star, Jan. 1, 1907; TRP. The subjects covered by these letters range from Choctaw and Chickasaw legislation through The Song of Roland to white goats’ heads.

  115. Mrs. Longworth int. Nov. 1954; Amos, Valet, 11; Kermit Roosevelt Diary, Jan. 1, 1907; Day Allen Willey clip, n.d., TRB; Nicholas Roosevelt, TR, 55. For TR’s half-blindness, which was kept a secret during his term as President, see Morr.355, 653.

  116. TR to S. American expedition companion, 1913, memo in TRB mss.

  117. Rii.311–2; memo of TR’s vice-presidential campaign, TRB mss. (see Ch. 28); Wag.45–6; But.88; Whi.501.

  118. Wis.89.

  119. W. M. Sims in TR.Wks.VI.xi. In TR Medals file, TRB, Sims recalls TR telling him, after a reprieve from a theatre performance granted by Mrs. Roosevelt, “I have three books, and I am going to read them all tonight.”

  120. Mor.5, passim; TR, Letters to Kermit (Scribner’s, 1946) passim; Rob. 239. Author’s guess at 500 other volumes is based on TR’s average of one and often two books a day. Those who consider it an inflated estimate should refer to Wag.56, and Mor. 3.642–4 for TR’s own stupendous reading list for 1902 and 1903, compiled for Nicholas Murray Butler on Nov. 4, 1903. (“Of course I have forgotten a great many, especially ephemeral novels … and I have also read much in the magazines.”) See also The Critic, June 1903: “The President is known as one of the most extensive patrons of the Library of Congress … no previous President has ever sent to this institution lists of books so lengthy … The President is constantly consulting not only the latest authorities upon subjects which interest him, but also original editions and manuscripts.” See also TR to George Haven Putnam, Oct. 6, 1902: “That man Lindsay who wrote about prehistoric Greece has not put out a second volume, has he? Has a second volume of Oman’s Art of War appeared? If so, send me either or both; if not, then a good modern translation of Niebhur and Momsen or the best modern history of Mesopotamia. Is there a good history of Poland?” (Mor. 3.343–5).

  121. Mor.5.502; ib.3.557; TR to Mrs. Cadwallader Jones, Oct. 23, 1906 (Derby mss.).

  122. Mor.5.549.

  123. Ib., 537; Century, Jan. 1907. “The Ancient Irish Sagas,” which TR wrote to take his mind off Brownsville, is reprinted in TR. Wks.XII.141 ff. See DeeGee Lester, “Theodore Roosevelt, the Ancient Irish Sagas and Celtic Studies in the United States,” Eire-Ireland 24 (1989) 1.

  124. Wag.69.

  125. Amos, Valet, 151.

  1: THE VERY SMALL PERSON

  Important sources not in Bibliography: 1. Alsop collection of early Roosevelt family letters (now in TRC). 2. Union League Club of New York, Theodore Roosevelt Senior: A Tribute (privately printed, 1878, 1902).

  1. The following account of TR’s birth is taken from a very detailed letter from Mrs. Martha Bulloch (Mittie Roosevelt’s mother) to Mrs. Hillborn West, Oct. 28, 1858 (Alsop).

  2. Ib.

  3. Ib.; also Morris K. Jesup, qu. Pri.4.

  4. Mrs. Bulloch to Mrs. West, July 16, 1859; Put.23.

  5. Put.23; TR.Auto.15.

  6. Hag.Boy.21.

  7. Put.33; Las.4.

  8. Rob.4; Put.42–3; TR.Auto.12; News clip, n.d., in TRB, qu. TR “to a friend”: see also Rii.445.

  9. Louisa Lee Schuyler, qu. Pri.10.

  10. Emlen Roosevelt, int. FRE. (TRB mss.); Rob.5; see also Rii.447.

  11. McClure’s, Nov. 1898; Rob.4.

  12. TR.Auto.7–8.

  13. Ib., 11.

  14. Rob.18; Mrs. Joseph Alsop Sr. int., Nov. 22, 1954 (TRB). Lock of MBR’s hair in Alsop.

  15. Elliott Roosevelt, qu. a Mr. James of North Road, L.I., in Eleanor Roosevelt, ed., Hunting Big Game in the Eighties (Scribner’s, 1933) 46. See also Par.26.

  16. Mrs. Burton Harrison, Recollections Grave and Gay (NY, 1911), 278.

  17. Mrs. Alsop int.; Rob.18.

  18. See, e.g., Rob.18.

  19. Roosevelt, Mrs. Theodore, Jr., Day Before Yesterday (Doubleday, 1959) 39.

  20. The best Roosevelt genealogy in brief is Howard K. Beale, “TR’s Ancestry: A Study in Heredity” in N.Y. Genealogical and Biographical Record, Oct. 1954. In the fourth generation the family changed the spelling of its name (literally “field of roses”) and divided, one line leading down by way of New York City and the Republican Party to President Theodore Roosevelt, the other by way of the Hudson Valley and the Democratic Party to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mittie Roosevelt introduced FDR’s parents to each other; FDR was TR’s fifth cousin. The two branches, usually referred to as the Oyster Bay and Hyde Park Roosevelts, became politically and socially estranged in the early 1920s, despite the marriage of Eleanor of the former and Franklin of the latter. After half
a century of family strife, which only Iris Murdoch could do full justice to, the two branches are now, in 1978, attempting reconciliation, and co-sponsoring the publication of a new Roosevelt genealogy.

  21. Put.3–6; TR.Auto.1; Rii.435.

  22. TR.Auto.1; words and music of Trippel, trippel toontjes in TRB.

  23. Put.8–9. According to N.Y. World, Sep. 22, 1901 (?1907) clip in TRB, Mittie could trace her ancestry back to Edward III of England.

  24. Put.8.

  25. Emlen Roosevelt, int. FRE.

  26. Put.7–9.

  27. COW.

  28. Bamie (pronounced “Bammie”) was also called “Bysie” and “Bye.” Corinne was sometimes “Pussie.” Elliott later became “Nell.” Theodore remained “Teedie” well into his teens, and then became “Thee” (his father’s own youthful nickname). For his love-hate relationship with the name “Teddy,” see text passim.

  29. Mrs. Alsop int.; Put.51. Strictly speaking, Mrs. Bulloch and her daughters no longer owned slaves, since they had sold their Roswell, Ga., plantation before moving North in 1856 (Put.21). But, as TR (Auto.5) makes clear, at least two slaves at Roswell remained sentimentally attached to them long after the conclusion of the Civil War. “The only demand they made upon us was enough money annually to get a new ‘crittur,’ that is, a mule. With a certain lack of ingenuity the mule was reported each Christmas as having passed away, or at least as having become so infirm as to necessitate a successor—a solemn fiction which neither deceived nor was intended to deceive, but which furnished a gauge for the size of the Christmas gift.”

  30. TR Sr. to MBR, Mar. 1, 1862, qu. Rob.29.

  31. William E. Dodge in A Tribute to TR Sr., 17–18. See also TR Sr.’s “Journal” letters to MBR, 1861–2 (microfilm in TRB). It shows him leaving New York on Nov. 7, 1861, and being introduced to President Lincoln by John Hay the following morning. By November 14 he is working “from six in the morning to one at night.”

  32. TR Sr. to MBR, Nov. 8, 1861, HAY.BR.

  33. Mor.6.966.

  34. Annie Bulloch to MBR, Sep. 9, 1861 (Alsop). White House tailors were to have the same problem four decades later. Note: this letter is misquoted in Rob.33.

  35. MBR qu. Put.24. “I fancy I can see little Tedie [sic] climbing out of his crib at an incredibly early hour of the morning,” TR Sr. replied (Dec. 17, “Journal”).

  36. Mrs. Bulloch to Mrs. West, July 16, 1859; Put.25–6, 199.

  37. On Jan. 8, 1862, qu. Rob.23; ib., 36; Put.26; TR at Bull Run, qu. N.Y. World, Nov. 16, 1902: “When the Union and Confederate forces were fighting over these fields I was a little bit of a chap, and nobody seemed to think that I would live.”

  38. TR Sr.’s “Journal,” Dec. 15, 1861, and Jan. 12, 1862. Bamie’s spinal ailment was Pott’s disease (letter from Anna Roosevelt Cowles to Dr. Russell Hibbs of N.Y. Orthopaedic Hospital, 1928, qu. news clip, no date, in Alsop). She was to remain crippled for life.

  39. Put.25.

  40. Ste.349–50.

  41. TR Sr.’s “Journal,” Apr. 1862; Rob. 26.

  42. Mrs. Longworth Int., Nov. 1954.

  43. TR.Auto.12; Mrs. Longworth int.; COW; TR.Auto.8.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Ib., 7; Put.46.

  46. TR.Auto.7.

  47. Ib., 11; But.279.

  48. Mrs. Alsop int.; COW. TR Sr. left home in early October (“Journal”). Mrs. Bulloch had not sold Roswell willingly; her intention was to buy it back but she could never do so, owing to her dead husband’s crippling debts. During the war Roswell was looted, but not destroyed, by Sherman’s marchers, and its maintenance during Reconstruction was impeccable. President Theodore Roosevelt made a sentimental pilgrimage there in 1905. Two decades later the young Atlanta journalist Margaret Mitchell visited the plantation on assignment, and is said to have received certain inspirations there. “Bulloch Hall” is now on the register of National Historic Places, and is considered to be one of the most beautiful antebellum houses in the South. In Sep. 1978 it was opened to the public. See Seale, William, “Bulloch Hall in Roswell, Georgia,” in Antiques Magazine at Bulloch Hall.

  49. TR.Auto.11; Rob.17.

  50. Ib.; characterization of Aunt Annie based on her diaries and letters in TRC; Rob.17–18; Historic Roswell Inc. release, qu. Bulloch family stories (Dec. 1973); TR.Auto.12.

  51. Mor.3.706–8.

  52. TR.Auto. 5–6; Lor.37, 48; TR. Auto. 6.

  53. TR.Auto.5.

  54. Bamie in Women’s Roosevelt Association Bulletin, 1.3 (Apr. 1920); copy of 1858 edition of Livingstone’s book in N.Y. Public Library.

  55. TR.Auto.18.

  56. Ib., 16.

  57. Ib., 18, 29.

  58. Rob.34; Put.31; TR.Auto.7; Corinne, qu. un. clip, Feb. 16, 1920 (TRB).

  59. Rob.36.

  60. TR.Auto.14–15.

  61. Rob.2.

  62. Qu. Hag.Boy.28–29.

  63. Qu. Put.30; Par.28; Hag.Boy.45; Gustavus Town Kirby to Corinne, Feb. 26, 1921, Alsop; TR, “My Life as a Naturalist,” in TR.Wks.V.385; WRMA Bulletin clip, n.d., in TRB.

  64. TR.Auto.14–15; memo. n.d., in TRB mss.

  65. Mor.1.3.

  66. Reprinted in TR.DBY.

  67. TR.DBY.4, 3; Hag.Boy.37; Put.57. James and Irvine Bulloch had been refused amnesty because of their personal role in financing, building, and operating the Confederate battleship Alabama, which caused an estimated $20 million damage to Union shipping. Although this sanction was later withdrawn, they continued to live in England by choice. Rob.37; Put.57 fn.

  68. Put.52–4; Lash, Eleanor, 4. In a letter to TR Sr., June 6, 1873, she signs herself “one of your babies.”

  69. Rob.42; TR.DBY.

  70. TR.DBY, 13; Hag.Boy.18; COW; Rob.44; Put.60.

  71. Hag.Boy.30.

  72. Put.60–1; TR.DBY 15 ff. for the rest of this chapter. Other citations follow.

  73. Put.62.

  74. Qu. Put.63–4.

  75. Ib., 63.

  76. One wonders if TR Sr. ever mentioned this incident to Mrs. Sattery at her Night School for Little Italians. Teedie innocently describes at least two other incidents which indicate that his father’s charity was not unmixed with contempt. At Pompeii, he tossed pennies at beggars, until one of them “transgressed a rule made by Papa who whiped him till he cried then gave him a sou.” And at Sorrento, TR Sr. joined Mr. Stevens in washing the faces of two grimy street urchins with champagne. TR.DBY.156; Rob.49.

  77. Contemporary parents might be interested to know what gifts a small boy of good family received a hundred years ago. “I had a beautiful hunt [picture] with all kinds of things in it … 2 lamps and an inkstand on the ancient pompeien style and a silver sabre, slippers, a gold helmet and cannon besides the ivory chammois. I have beautiful writing paper, a candle stick on the Antiuke stile. A mosaic 1,500 years old and 3 books, 2 watch cases, 9 big photographs and an ornament and a pair of studs.” TR.DBY. 141–2.

  78. Rob.47. The Pope was Pius IX.

  79. Put.68.

  80. COW.

  2: THE MIND, BUT NOT THE BODY

  1. TR.DBY.235–6.

  2. Rob.8–9.

  3. TR Sr. to B, Sep. 6, 1870 (TRC).

  4. Rockwell, A.D., Rambling Recollections (NY, 1920) 261.

  5. Rob.50.

  6. John Wood in N.Y. World, Jan. 24, 1904; COW; Put.72–3.

  7. COW; N.Y. World, Sep. 4, 1895 (states that Mrs. Gerry, matriarch of the Goelet house, kept cattle there until 1880); also see the Strong, George Templeton, Diary (N.Y., 1952) Sep. 26, 1863: “Everybody that passes [Goelet’s] courtyard stops to look … at his superb peacocks, golden pheasants, silver pheasants, California quail, and so on.” Rob.50.

  8. Contrast his diary entries of Aug. 1, 1870, with, e.g., Aug. 2, 1871 (TR.DBY.237, 241–2).

  9. TR.DBY.247, 254.

  10. J. van Vechten Olcott, childhood companion, qu. FRE.

  11. Mor.6; Rob.55.

  12. TR.Auto. 19–20.

  13. Ib., 19. See also TR.Wks.5.385.

>   14. For TR’s auditory sensitivity as a teenager, see, e.g., his Field Notes on Natural History, 1874–75 (TRC). The entire 60-page document is alive with “harsh twitters, wheezy notes, trills and quavers, shrill twitters, chirps, pipings, loud rattling notes, wierd, sad calls, hisses, tap-taps, gushing, ringing songs, rich bubling tones, lisping chirps, guttural qua, qua’s, hissing whistles” etc., etc.

  15. TR.Auto.29–30.

  16. Hag.Boy.39–40; Put.76; TR.Auto.30. For another boy’s recollections of this summer, see Igl.44–8.

  17. Put.79–80; Rob.55; TR.Auto.21; TR.DBY. 341, 302.

  18. TR.Auto.20; Put.78.

  19. TR.DBY.264. From now on, self-evident quotes from this source will not be cited individually.

  20. COW; Rob.56.

  21. Elliott to TR Sr., Sep. 19, 1873 (FDR).

  22. TR.DBY. passim; Put.87.

  23. Rob.56; COW; Put.88 ff.

  24. Put.92.

  25. Qu. Rob.56–7.

  26. COW; Rob.57.

  27. TR.DBY.304.

  28. Mor.6.

  29. Put.90.

  30. Ib., 84, 93.

  31. Rob.63; TR.DBY.311–2; Put.93.

  32. TR.DBY.313.

  33. Ib., 322.

  34. Put.102–104; Rob.69.

  35. Encyclopaedia Britannica; Put.102.

  36. Put.103, 108 fn; Rob.70, 80; TR.Auto.22.

  37. Mor.10–11.

  38. TR.Auto.21; Mor.8.

  39. See TR.Auto.23.

  40. Rob.72, 84.

  41. Mor.9.

  42. TR.Auto.22.

  43. Put.105.

  44. Children of the widow of Mittie’s half-brother Stuart Elliott (Put.102 fn.)

  45. One anonymous item in this book is worth quoting: There was an old fellow named Teedie,/Whose clothes at the best looked so seedy/ That his friends in dismay/ Called out “Oh! I say”/ At this dirty old fellow named Teedie. (Orig. in TRC).

  46. Qu. Put.107.

  47. Qu. Put.108.

  48. Mor.10-11.

  49. Put.108.

  50. Vierick, Louise, Success Magazine, October 1905.

  51. Rob.88.