Senator Lodge had heard enough to be worried, and he attempted to distract Foraker by asking why then were 352 enlisted men discharged without honor in the past two years without first being court-martialed under Article 62? Foraker asked for his patience: “I am going to take that up separately.” But to avoid the impression this response was simply a dodge to avoid answering, he told Lodge these were men primarily who had to be discharged because they enlisted when they were underage or were otherwise barred from military service, but not because they were accused or found guilty of a crime. The men of the Black Battalion are not seeking a discharge, they want to stay in the army. Lodge sat down, sorry he asked the question.
Foraker was not finished. He disputed Roosevelt's assertion this was no punishment. Even Garlington said that was what it was. In front of the Senate, Foraker consulted a dictionary, and it agreed with him. When he finished, Lodge said to him and the Senate, “I will not interrupt the Senator again.” This was not an act of courtesy; he had learned his lesson.39
Having disposed of Roosevelt's misunderstanding of his constitutional authority, Foraker began to show that Roosevelt misinterpreted the evidence and misdescribed it to the Senate the day before. Roosevelt said there were “scores of witnesses.” Last night at home, Foraker confided to the Senate, he carefully counted them using the reports and investigations Roosevelt said he relied on. There were not scores, only twenty-one, and slowly and distinctly so as not to be misunderstood, he read off every name, in effect daring anyone to disagree with his count, from George W. Rendall, “the first,” on down to G. W. H. Rucker, “the twenty-first.” He paused so this could be absorbed.
Not all twenty-one were eyewitnesses. He read the testimony of each witness that on its face disqualified that person. After the first was eliminated, for the benefit of those not keeping score he said, “The number is down to twenty.” He continued counting backward until, after reading G. W. H. Rucker's statement, he told the Senate, “So he saw nothing. That cuts the number down to eight.” From Roosevelt's “scores” the number was down to only “eight.”40
AND THEN HE COMMITTED what may have been his only mistake that day. He felt he had to respond to something President Roosevelt said the day before. “He has seen to point out…that Major Blocksom…is from Ohio.” Was he saying that Blocksom's report “should be strengthened thereby?”
Foraker had received an unsolicited letter from “a most reputable, a most honored man in the State of Ohio, a man of the highest character who has known Major Blocksom all his life.” Because of what this unidentified correspondent wrote, Foraker believed Major Blocksom was “unfitted” for investigating Brownsville. “He [Major Blocksom] is not aware of it…. Unconsciously he is the victim of early influences” from his father. Foraker read from the man's letter that Blocksom Sr., “an active and radical Democrat politician [was] of the Vallandigham type.” Clement Vallandigham, Ohio governor during the first two years of the Civil War, was what President Lincoln called a “wily agitator.” He disliked Negroes, supported slavery, opposed the war, spoke harshly and disparagingly of Lincoln personally and the Union cause generally, and did so every chance he got. He was eventually convicted of violating a military order against publicly declaring sympathies for the enemy. Vallandigham was to the Civil War what Quisling was to World War II, though his tongue-twister name never entered the English language as a synonym for traitor. Putting the letter down on the desk, Foraker continued with his own thoughts after receiving this letter. “[Major Blocksom] was the son of that kind of a father and in his youth that kind of political affiliation and that kind of political atmosphere. It is natural that he should inherit that prejudice and carry it with him and be insensibly influenced by it in the discharge of this very delicate duty. I think anybody could see, by simply reading his report, that there was some kind of a screw loose with him.”41
Blocksom's report shows nothing of the kind. Nothing in it or his telegrams, letters, and conversations during the Brownsville Incident suggests he was anything like that. Whatever feelings common to that time Blocksom may have carried with him on the train to Brownsville the previous August, to stain him with his father's political passions, with which there was no evidence he agreed, eroded Foraker's otherwise-admirable speech.
HAVING REFUTED PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S claim of authority and weakened his explanation of the evidence from the shooting, there remained only the conspiracy of silence to deal with. General Garlington said the denials themselves were proof of the conspiracy. Foraker showed this was absurd: “In Heaven's name, if a man is absolutely innocent, as these men claim to be, what else could he say?”42
Then, because he probably saved it for the end to make a stronger impression, he recalled Roosevelt said “there were plenty of precedents” for discharging an entire battalion without honor. But he showed none to the Senate. Because there was none. His military secretary had reported a “protracted examination of the official records [failed] to discover a precedent.” Foraker agreed, “Senators will study in vain to find any precedent with the United States Army.”43 Certainly not the case of the Sixtieth Ohio cited by Roosevelt, because it was “disorganized, mutinous and worthless.”44 Foraker knew the Sixtieth Ohio well; he and it both came from Highland County. Its colonel, “I knew as intimately as a boy could know a man of full age and full of the affairs of the world.”45
At this point the vice president, perhaps afraid Foraker was about to retrieve his handkerchief to wipe his tears and suggest his colleagues do the same with their own, stepped in to halt, even if only temporarily, the Foraker onslaught. He asked the Senate if it could turn its attention to the unfinished business of railroad employees’ working hours. Senator Robert La Follette objected, saying they should keep to the topic at hand.46
Foraker returned to the slandered Sixtieth. Its parallel with Brownsville was an illusion. Those Ohioans were guilty of nothing and had not been discharged for anything questionable; “almost every man of them immediately enlisted in other regiments and went to the front, and every one of them made a good record as a soldier.” Senator Nathan B. Scott, Republican from West Virginia, who had yet to speak a word, could not restrain himself and leaped up to echo Foraker. Some soldiers from the Sixtieth Ohio became members of his company in the war, and they would not have been allowed in had they been given a tainted discharge.47 At last, a senator standing with Foraker before the Senate.
Foraker ended by mentioning how valiantly and heroically black soldiers had fought for their country. They deserved nothing less than what President Roosevelt said he wanted for all Americans: “a square deal.”48
Senator Lodge realized how well-argued and powerful Foraker's appeal was, and he could not let senators go home for the holidays with it as the last words ringing in their ears. He wanted to change the soldiers’ choirboy image Foraker had drawn. Lodge began, “If this regiment or these companies were entirely innocent of this shooting with which they are charged, as the Senator from Ohio alleges—” The senator from Ohio stopped him cold: “I do not allege that. Only that their guilt has not been conclusively challenged. I think there is testimony to show that they are free from guilt, but I do not know what the facts are, and I want to find out.”49 Lodge could not have been a bigger shill for Foraker if he had auditioned for the part. If Lodge thought he would get in the last licks, Senator Scott surprised him. Having found his courage defending the Sixtieth Ohio, he now stood up for the men of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry. He was aware one of its former commanding officers would vouch for their reliability, and he hoped the Military Affairs Committee would take his and others’ testimony. Then he took a swipe at President Roosevelt. Were it not for the bravery of the Tenth Cavalry (a colored regiment, he made sure to point out), “we might not now have the privilege of having in the White House that brave soldier and…patriotic President of ours.”50 That was the last thing the senators heard about Brownsville before the Senate adjourned for the year.
WHO WON T
HIS DAY? Foraker. Except for the Vallandigham-Blocksom mistake, he spoke without resort to subterfuge, misstatement, or bombast. As the Washington Post put it the next day, he did it with “his own picturesque style of oratory.”51 And he was scoring points outside the Senate. The New York Evening Post called for a full Senate inquiry.52 Other newspapers already had, and still others would join them. Roosevelt was in for a battle.
FORAKER'S EFFECTIVE COUNTERATTACK WOUNDED any satisfaction President Roosevelt may have felt after his special message. Roosevelt energized his fight. He tried to intimidate the Senate by promising a hard and unending fight. He said he would veto any legislation to give any relief at all to the soldiers; if Congress overrode his veto, he would ignore it; if this brought about his impeachment, he would welcome it.53 And he took out his frustration on discharged Brownsville soldiers who claimed they were innocent and wanted to reenlist under the arrangement he had Taft set up. He added a new condition that they help discover the shooters.54 To get back in, soldiers had to be innocent and be detectives for the army.
But more was needed to rehabilitate the evidence Foraker had fractured so effectively. Roosevelt met with the two lawyers he had the most faith in, his secretaries of state and war, Elihu Root and William Taft. According to John Weaver, these two men suggested he refute Foraker with sworn testimony.55 Roosevelt saw the merit in the idea, and on December 22 he ordered Assistant Attorney General Milton D. Purdy to leave for Brownsville, and to meet Major Blocksom, and “to conduct a thorough, careful, and impartial examination of the witnesses as to the issue who were the perpetrators of the crime.”56 To General Garlington, Taft wrote, “The President wishes me to say that Major Blocksom does not go as a prosecuting officer in the trial of an indictment, but only as an examiner, to elicit the truth and to put the evidence in respect to the matter in convenient and permanent form. The President has reached a conclusion as to what the facts are, but this should not influence Major Blocksom in his examination, for if the President's conclusion in the matter is wrong he earnestly desires that it be put right.”57 If indeed this is what Roosevelt told Taft to pass on, this was a “posterity letter,” a communication designed to purify what he was doing for history. The Washington Post saw through it; Purdy and Blocksom were headed for Brownsville to “secure legal evidence tending to prove that the shooting was done by members of the battalion.”58 The New York Times agreed. Roosevelt wanted them to “bring back the absolute proof that the rioting at Brownsville was the work of the men of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry and not of residents of the town.”59 In a letter to Democratic senator W. A. Clark of Montana a few days later, Foraker said the new investigation was because of his response to the president's special message.60 Roosevelt biographer Henry Pringle said the same thing but in a different way: “Roosevelt must have agreed the evidence was insufficient.”61
IT WAS CLEAR TO Booker T. Washington as early as November 5, when President Roosevelt coldly refused a plea to reconsider the discharges, that his mind was set and could not be changed.62 Washington's fight now was as much for himself as for the Twenty-Fifth Infantry. He continued to tell others of his disappointment but, sure this would sour Roosevelt's attitude toward blacks and further damage his own now-wobbling relationship with the White House, did not publicly condemn Roosevelt. When a mass meeting was held in Washington on November 18 “to discuss the matter,” he refused to attend, “as I do not believe in abusing the President; but I think all of the colored people should go slow on him hereafter.”63 In a letter to Ralph Tyler, he advised others to control themselves. “If our people make the mistake of going too far, there will be a reaction in the North among the people and newspapers who have stood by us.”64
Meanwhile, Washington was working to shore up his position of influence for the future. After urging Secretary Taft to refill the Twenty-Fifth Infantry with black soldiers, he had Emmett Scott suggest black musicians be appointed as chief musicians in “colored army bands.” Taft accepted the idea and issued the necessary order. This was a good start; black newspapers such as the Indianapolis Freeman praised the idea.65 Those Washington most wanted to impress, of course, were other blacks. He was increasingly dealing with whispers he had lost his touch. Du Bois was the main concern. Brownsville, assisted by the Atlanta rioting, “gave [him] additional justification for attacking Washington.”66 The new year would see Washington increasingly under siege and increasingly fighting back.
FORAKER WAS ON A surge and used the Senate's holiday recess to build on it. It now seemed only a matter of time before a resolution all could agree to would be approved. He and Milholland met in New York on Christmas Eve to come to an understanding to work together on the Brownsville matter. Milholland noted in his diary, “Saw Foraker…. Cordial cooperation agreed upon all around.”67 An alliance was formed.
ON HIS WAY UP from Washington, Foraker may have stopped in Philadelphia to see his brother James, hospitalized there with what would shortly be diagnosed as terminal cancer. At one time the brothers were law partners in Cincinnati, but it does not appear they were especially close. Foraker's niece Ethel Marie was with her father, and news of his illness came regularly in letters to her “Uncle Ben” (short for Benson, his middle name).
A month earlier Foraker had written their brother in Albuquerque, “Dear Creighton: I saw brother James at the University Hospital in Philadelphia yesterday. I had seen him also Tuesday and Wednesday, last. I was surprised to find him yesterday apparently much worse. I would have remained with him, but some matters here require me to return to Washington. The doctors think it will be necessary to operate on him again, and they have concluded to do so at 1:30 today. I fear the result, or rather I fear the operation will do no good. His present affliction is of a cancerous character, and it gives him constant and intense suffering and pain. I write this to prepare you for the unwelcome announcement which I fear I will have to send you soon. Hoping you are well, I am, Affectionately &c.”68 The operation was postponed, but the news from Philadelphia remained grim. Ethel wrote Foraker, “I know how you suffer when others are suffering.”
On November 25 she gave him reason for further agony. “Papa has been suffering so intensely that the Doctor says he must be operated on immediately.” After the surgery the doctor wrote Foraker, “I regret to say that we found much more extensive disease [and] some brain symptoms developed which appear to be secondary to a [newly discovered] growth in the base of the brain…. This has been a disappointment.”
On Saturday, December 1, while planning for the Senate's opening session and meeting with President Roosevelt at the White House, Foraker wrote to cheer up his brother, “My dear brother: I would have written sooner, but I was hoping I might return to Philadelphia and have a chance to talk with you, but each day has brought me some new demand, and in consequence I have been kept here…. I am so glad you underwent the last operation, and that you are recovering from it so nicely. We gave more thanks here on [Thanksgiving] on that account than any other.”
On December 5 Ethel wrote, “[Papa] is very interested in your interest in the dismissing of the Negro troops. I have read to him about it.” But Jim's condition worsened. On December 7, the day after the Senate approved the Penrose and Foraker resolutions, Foraker wrote his niece, “I feel a little disturbed by your last letter saying your father now has some kind of bad feeling in his head. Kindly keep me fully advised.” On December 10 Creighton arrived in Philadelphia from New Mexico and wrote his brother Ben, “I arrived here this morn and I went to see Jim…. He seemed delighted to think that I had come to see him. This has been a bad day for him, he has been suffering with pain in the head and side of face…. He likes to joke a little yet. He told the nurse that I would be here to see him to day and that I was very tall & slim and was a Conservative so when I presented myself she did not know whether to let me in or not…. If you could come over during this time I believe it would do him good to see you as well as myself.”
Brownsville kept Foraker from joini
ng Creighton in Philadelphia. He was torn between the obligation he had taken on for the Twenty-Fifth Infantry and the one he owed Jim. Creighton came through Washington on his way back to New Mexico and “was in the Senate when I was speaking on the discharge of the Negro troops, but I did not get to see him afterward. He had to leave, as I was informed, on account of his train.” The three brothers would never be together again.
MILHOLLAND ALSO NOTED IN his diary after their meeting in New York, “Foraker had said Roosevelt had sent 5 or 6 Secret Service men to Texas on advice of Dept. of Justice.”69 Right after the holiday, the story broke in the newspapers. The Secret Service was in Brownsville probing for evidence Roosevelt could use against Foraker and to “forestall an investigation.”70
The idea originally was not Roosevelt's. Right after the shooting, General Fred Ainsworth wired William Loeb that it would be a good idea for the president to “suggest” to the secretary of the treasury that the Secret Service get involved. Loeb passed this on to Roosevelt, who agreed.71 Ainsworth met with John E. Wilkie, the Secret Service's chief, to discuss the shooting and later sent him a copy of Blocksom's report and said he stood ready to discuss it so they could “discover the guilty parties.”72 Roosevelt was merely continuing the practices of previous presidents. “Like other presidents, TR relied on the Secret Service for investigations,” including those by Attorney General Bonaparte into land, postal, and timber fraud, and ominously, congressional misbehaviors.73 One member of Congress he looked into was South Carolina's Ben Tillman. Roosevelt went too far with this one. Members of Congress shuddered at what the Secret Service might know about them and prohibited its agents from any tasks other than “physically protecting the President and hunting down counterfeiters.”
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt Page 27
