ROOSEVELT'S DETERMINATION NOT TO give in to Foraker had the strength of reinforced steel, but his instincts as a politician to make a deal if necessary had not corroded. The surest way to deal with Foraker, though not the easiest, was to persuade him to drop his plans to seek an investigation. The Ohio senator may have been too invested in Brownsville to agree to this; still, it was worth a chance. A story in Julia Foraker's memoirs suggested the outlines of such a deal and, at the same time, what else Roosevelt and Penrose may have spoken about. Mrs. Foraker wrote of an unexpected visit to their home by, of all people, Senator Boies Penrose with a message from Roosevelt. He would like to offer an ambassadorship, perhaps in Paris, if only Foraker agreed to drop the Brownsville matter. Julia recalled that her husband's answer was to throw Penrose out of the house. Julia remembered the visit took place later in the Brownsville business, but this may have been the failing memory of an elderly widow. The visit could have happened earlier, say, around November 28. Something else in Julia's recollection does not sound right. It is hard to imagine Foraker bullying Penrose out the front door. Foraker was too polite a man, and, though physically a big man himself, Penrose had the edge by almost two inches and one hundred pounds. What is easy to accept is that Penrose, having taken on the assignment to introduce his resolution on December 3, would, while he was at it, agree to act as Roosevelt's emissary to make this offer.23
The arrangement to turn Foraker as described by Mrs. Foraker having soured, Roosevelt had one more trick to play. As Roosevelt saw things, Foraker had his own pressures. His position was weak, and Roosevelt felt sure he was unlikely to achieve the reinstatement of the soldiers, if that was what he wanted. Unlike the Senate itself, with its institutional advantages in opposing a president, he would be a lone senator working against not just any president, but Theodore Roosevelt, as determined as any man and as unyielding as a Roman legion.24 Foraker also had to know he had not seen the last of Theodore Burton and the Ohio insurgents, and they very shortly would be coming after his Senate seat. President Roosevelt could put a stop to them if Foraker gave him a reason to. The Roosevelt-Foraker relationship had gone from warm to frosty to deep freeze, but it could be thawed. It might be a good idea to talk to Foraker himself. On Saturday, Roosevelt asked Foraker to come by the White House for a chat that very evening.25
Neither man left a record of their discussion. If third parties were present, they kept mum too. One man probably there, although there is no record of it, was Boies Penrose, because it seems likely the purpose of Foraker's visit that day was to arrange a charade for the Penrose and Foraker resolutions on Monday. Another would have been Vice President Fairbanks, who would learn his lines and be expected to use his powers as the Senate's presiding officer to see that no careless actions or comments by senators would foil things. And just in case, Roosevelt allies, Henry Cabot Lodge, for instance. And perhaps someone else with skin in the game, Senator Francis Warren of Wyoming, for example, happily expecting to be rid of his archenemy Interior Secretary Hitchcock; any slipup might keep his daughter's husband from becoming a brigadier general, so he could be trusted to protect the agreement from Foraker's irresponsible behavior. (Nine days later, when Warren showed Roosevelt he would do his bidding in return for pushing Hitchcock out and promoting Pershing, he would gleefully announce agreement with Roosevelt to his people back in Wyoming.26) It is highly likely Roosevelt's secretary William Loeb was present. Roosevelt would expect him to coordinate things.
Roosevelt may have asked Foraker what he knew of Gilchrist Stewart's investigation at Fort Reno, and Foraker probably said he knew all about it. In fact, he even had copies of the same affidavits and other statements the White House had finally received from Stewart that day. Taft, a caller at the White House that day, may have told Foraker that they were preparing to deal with whatever Stewart collected, and he had already ordered Major Blocksom to send him “any affidavit or other papers…bearing upon the case.”27 He also alerted the military secretary to find precedents for Roosevelt's summary discharge of three entire companies and discharges without honor.28 (On Sunday Taft also would have his secretary send “four galleys of proof concerning the Brownsville incident” for printing with instructions to return “clean galleys” to him before noon on Monday.29) At some point, this preliminary pawing at the ground led to a discussion of what Foraker planned to do. Nothing, he probably responded, until after he had a chance to discuss his plans with other senators, many not yet back in Washington. But then he planned to move ahead with his demand for an investigation. Roosevelt told him he was going to fight back hammer and tong. Now they were ready to talk.
Most likely Roosevelt first mentioned a settlement. Foraker was unlikely to bring it up and show he realized his position was weak. Better to tough it out. He would have waited for Roosevelt, who was aware Foraker could cause trouble, disrupt the Senate's business, delay consideration of his legislative program, and perhaps imperil some of it. Roosevelt would ask for a resolution that would gain the Senate nothing; Foraker would go for the home run and, possibly to deflect attention away from the president, address his resolution to Secretary of War Taft. Foraker would go to bat first, followed by Roosevelt's man. Let's see who wins.
Except Roosevelt reneged on the deal enough to let Foraker know how deadly serious he was. He instructed Penrose to jump the gun. A resolution that called for just enough disclosure to satisfy the Senate's sense of self-regard and dignity might be enough, and with the help of his vice president's parliamentary rulings, the efforts of his friend Henry Cabot Lodge and some of the other Republican senators joined by Democrats who, with scant care for what happened to the black soldiers, could be counted on to support him, it might work. And that is why the normally slow-moving Senator Penrose was so quick to get the vice president's attention as the curtain rose on John Milholland's “extraordinary week.”
CONDUCTING THIS BUSINESS BEFORE receiving the White House's message was out of order, and according to the New York Times, “an absolutely unprecedented interruption of the regular proceedings.” Fairbanks after momentary hesitation told Penrose his transgression was not the “usual practice,” then quickly added, “there was no rule to that effect.”30 Taking this as a cue to press on, Penrose asked consent from his fellow senators to offer his resolution. Fairbanks could have ruled Penrose was out of order, preventing his resolution from even being heard, but he kept it alive and available for adoption that day by asking the clerk to read it, “for the information of the Senate.” It was polite, short, simple, and it asked President Roosevelt, only “if not incompatible with the public interests,” to present to the Senate “full information bearing upon the recent order dismissing from the military service of the United States” the soldiers of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry.31 Hearing no objections, as presiding officer Fairbanks could rule Penrose's resolution was before the Senate.
But before Fairbanks could make that ruling, Senator Joseph Foraker, taken by surprise, called loudly, “I offer as a substitute the resolution which I send to the desk, and I will ask that both may go over for consideration on a subsequent day.” This was quick thinking. He was asking that his resolution replace Penrose's (“as a substitute”), and if the Senate approved his, Penrose's would be eliminated from consideration. By asking that both resolutions “go over,” he was postponing consideration that day of either one, giving him time to catch his breath and figure out his next move. Immediately Senator John C. Spooner of Wisconsin, an experienced lawyer and sure-handed with the Senate's tangled rules of procedure, tried to bring the Penrose amendment back to its “first in line” place before the Senate. He asked that it be reread. Senator Warren, noting that Foraker's request that both resolutions be postponed had not been acted on and wanting to make sure Foraker's resolution stayed alive, asked that consideration of it be postponed. Warren was playing his own game, and while this may have been helpful to Foraker, he had his own unrevealed personal interests in mind. Senator Lodge immediately piped up an
d asked that Foraker's resolution be read, only as a “courtesy to the Senator from Ohio.” The Washington Post would report anyone who knew Foraker knew how thorough and far-reaching a resolution drawn by him would be.32 Lodge certainly knew Foraker and did not want his colleagues to leave the Senate without hearing just how long and complicated his resolution was compared to Penrose's. They got an earful. Its 276 words (more than the Gettysburg Address) were confusing and hard to follow and seemed straight from a textbook on how to write government jargon. It demanded all information and just about everything else the War Department had about Brownsville. Unlike Penrose's, it was addressed to the secretary of war, not the president, and it demanded, not requested, information.33
Foraker, no doubt sensing his proposal had little chance of approval (much less of being understood) that day, wanted nevertheless to make sure Penrose's did not somehow sneak in, and he echoed Senator Warren and asked that both resolutions be put off. Fairbanks “so ordered.” And the Senate adjourned.
In his diary that evening, John Milholland wrote and underlined, “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy heart; wait I say on the Lord.”34
PENROSE'S HASTE AND VICE President Fairbanks's indifference to tradition and precedent, usually as holy to the Senate as scripture itself, were more than an indiscretion by a brash senator and an accommodation of him by the presiding officer. They were part of a plan by President Roosevelt to stop Senator Foraker in his tracks and end the threat of a potentially uncontrollable Senate investigation of the Brownsville Incident. A headline in the next day's New York Sun revealed Roosevelt's hand: “President Roosevelt Said to Be behind the Penrose Resolution.”35 Indeed he was, because for him the ominous-sounding Penrose resolution was an empty threat. It asked for information “not incompatible with the public interests,” and Roosevelt would judge what those might be. He could respond by sending nothing at all to the Senate, if he so wished. It was a resolution he could live with, because it was one he could disregard.
Brownsville historian John Weaver believed Vice President Fairbanks was so surprised by Penrose's action he “hardly had any time to recover,” Foraker was just as surprised and had to go “fumbling through his pockets” searching for his own resolution, and other senators were nothing less than “astonished.”36 The truth of all of this is something else. It was no secret in Washington that Senator Foraker had been preparing a resolution. But Penrose's surprised everyone. Almost everyone. Senator Foraker and Vice President Fairbanks knew about it. That's why when faced with Penrose's disregard of custom, Fairbanks was quick to put on the record “there was no rule” to stop Penrose. And that's why Foraker “just happened” to have his own resolution in his pocket. What the senator from Ohio had no warning of was Penrose's timing. As the New York Times put it, “The Pennsylvanian took no chances on letting anybody get ahead of him.”37 “Anybody” could mean only Senator Foraker. A script worked out two days before had Foraker putting forward his resolution first. “Senator Foraker's resolution, which came into the open…as soon as Mr. Penrose submitted his own, was designed to make its debut later on in the form of an initiatory resolution rather than a ‘trailer’” (author's emphasis).38 Fairbanks hesitated because Penrose changed the order of things. The New York Evening World agreed, “The action of the Senator [Penrose] caused some embarrassment [to Fairbanks], as it was understood that Senator Foraker was to make the opening move.”39 Foraker fumbled in his pockets for his resolution because allowing Penrose to get his on the floor ahead of him might cost him the game.
Weaver's characterization of all of this may have been grandly sensational, and the reaction of the New York Times mildly melodramatic when it reported on December 4, “Grim-visaged War was present and in his seat in the Senate…and with unprecedented promptness he exhibited a wrinkled front,” but the New York Times hit the mark when it added, “The Brownsville resolutions plainly portend trouble.”40 Both of them, however, missed Theodore Roosevelt's preparation for the Senate session, his strong hand shaping it, and his determination to come out the winner at the end of the day. The dominating Speaker of the House, Joseph “Uncle Joe” Cannon, wrote in his memoirs, “Nobody who ever came in contact with [Theodore Roosevelt] when he was President will ever forget that he was first, last, and all the time, a politician, one of the greatest of them all.”41 His preparation for the Senate's session that day shows why.
He realized the hostility over his decision to discharge the soldiers went deeper than anger that he waited until after Election Day to spring it. There was resentment that regardless of its timing, his discharge order rubbed against the grain of America's system of justice and was fundamentally unfair. Men suspected of crimes should not be treated as guilty with no opportunity to dispute the charge in court. Regardless, Roosevelt was positive he did justice and wanted no one to overturn what he did. Only one force on earth could try to do that, and that was Congress, most likely the Senate.
ON MONDAY EVENING, AFTER the Senate session, there was quite a bit of Brownsville business at the White House, and Roosevelt had to cancel dinner plans at Lodges’ home. He told Mrs. Lodge he would be “engaged this evening.”42 He had not won his Penrose gamble in the Senate that day, and he now might face Foraker's more demanding resolution.
Many newspaper stories were after-the-fact explanations of Roosevelt's hand behind Penrose. The New York Tribune wrote that Penrose had “submitted [his resolution] to the Executive before introducing it to the Senate,” and Roosevelt “cordially approved it.”43 The New York Sun reported, “It was really President Roosevelt who was behind [the Penrose resolution].44 The Dayton Evening News agreed Roosevelt was the inspiration because he knew Foraker had his resolution ready to go, and he acted “to forestall him by having Penrose introduce [his] resolution first.”45
Other newspaper articles questioned Foraker's motives. The New York Sun wrote, “Everybody takes the Foraker resolution as an undisguised attack on the President.” The Brooklyn Daily Times interpreted it the same way and questioned Foraker's sincerity because it thought he was working in league with the unscrupulous Boss Penrose. “Neither…is inspired by any zeal for the negro troops. They and the interests they especially represent…have a grudge against the President for reasons which they dare not avow.”46 But the next day, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World was satisfied that with his resolution Foraker would bring out the facts in the case.47 After all, that is just what Foraker said he wanted to do.48
Other business was put off on Tuesday as Congress heard President Roosevelt's annual message. In 1906, it was not yet delivered in person before a joint session of the House and Senate. The clerk in each house read it aloud. Roosevelt's that year, one of the longest in American history at almost twenty-four thousand words, tested the patience of members of Congress and the stamina of the clerks reading it. Those who dozed off while it was read to them may not have been aware of something curious about it. There was not one word about Brownsville.49
BOTH THE SENATE AND the War Department got down to the business of dealing with Brownsville on Wednesday. Releasing an extract from his annual report, Secretary of War Taft discussed under the heading of “Discipline” what he called “The Brownsville Affray.”50 Taft acted forcefully as defense counsel for President Roosevelt (after the way Roosevelt brought him up short for suspending the discharges the previous month, he was “once bitten, twice careful”) and was “very severe in his condemnation of the enlisted men.”51 Among other things, he took the “facts” as Major Blocksom found them and ignored Lieutenant Colonel Lovering's investigation completely (permitting him to overlook the soldiers’ claimed indifference to the mistreatment of their comrades by Brownsville residents; instead Taft could misstate these were “the cause of much discussion in the barracks of the three companies”). Without any foundation, he also said the shooting began when “shots were fired in the fort toward the town.”52
Taft carefully distinguished the soldiers’ “disc
harge without honor” from a “dishonorable discharge” given only by sentence of a court-martial. That would have been a punishment, and he went to great pains to make it very clear Special Orders No. 266 was not “in itself a punishment either of the innocent or the guilty.” (Which Taft must have realized got neatly to the nub of Senator Foraker's initial concerns: there had been no trials.) He acknowledged the word penalty had been used “in the proceedings” but this was a mere misnomer and unfortunate. The headline writer for the New York Times, heedless of Taft's splitting hairs, saw the discharges the same way as the public: “Taft Defends Penalty on Negro Battalion” (author's emphasis).53 This “chop logic” clarification would be an essential part of Roosevelt's defense thereafter.
Taft denied the soldiers were treated more harshly because of their race. Such an argument “hardly merits notice.” And he held out hope that if future evidence turned up showing the innocence of certain men, this would “render such persons eligible for reenlistment.”
Taft certainly was entitled to an A for his efforts and, for releasing this part of his annual report while the Senate was still considering the two Brownsville resolutions, an A+ for his timing. It is doubtful, though, if even he believed it would turn Foraker aside. A consensus already was gelling that some sort of investigation might be acceptable to the Senate. Roosevelt's ploy may have been responsible for this. Had he left well enough alone, Foraker's resolution standing by itself may have been too much for the Senate to approve. Penrose's offered a lifeline to senators who wanted to do something for the soldiers while not antagonizing Roosevelt. Because Roosevelt saw and approved Penrose's, it suggested he welcomed an inquiry, albeit one he thought would be worthless.
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt Page 22
