2. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 27, 1906, SD-1, p. 59.
3. Affray at Brownsville, Tex.: Hearings Before the Comm. on Military Affairs…, S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 4 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-1), pp. 314, 330 (testimony of 1st Sgt. Mingo Sanders).
4. Originally First Sergeant Frazier thought the townspeople were attacking the fort. But when Captain Lyon told him government-issued Springfield rifle ammunition was used in the raid, he changed his mind and figured it had to be soldiers attacking Brownsville. Then he changed it again: “I do believe that if the soldiers had done it I would have heard them speak of it.” SMAC-1, pp. 89–90 (testimony of 1st Sgt. Jacob Frazier).
5. Capt. Samuel Lyon, letter, December 20, 1906, SMAC-1, p. 90. Major Penrose did the same thing.
6. SMAC-1, p. 406 (testimony of Sgt. George McMurray).
7. “Sergeant Harley Tells of Brownsville Riot,” New York Times, December 10, 1906.
8. SMAC-1, p. 130 (testimony of Pvt. Len Reeves).
9. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), 1:306.
10. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 5, The Big Stick: 1905–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 408–409. Bacon, Roosevelt's Harvard classmate and lifelong friend, had been a partner of the most influential banker and financier of the day, J. P. Morgan. Although this made him a wealthy man, it was stressful, nerve-wracking, and killing him. In 1900 a concerned Theodore Roosevelt, as New York governor, urged him to give up banking for politics. (Roosevelt's counsel to Bacon had a fictional parallel in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Governor Roosevelt gave the same advice to the novel's protagonist, Newland Archer.) In 1905 President Roosevelt appointed Bacon assistant secretary of state under Elihu Root. Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 443.
11. Quoted in Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 1:307.
12. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, written report to the commanding general, Southwestern Division, September 19, 1906, SD-1, p. 99.
13. While Taft was in Canada, the presumptuous General Ainsworth patronizingly encouraged Taft to stay detached. “I have been in close consultation with President,” he wired Taft the day before the soldiers left for Fort Reno, without mentioning the impending move. “Believe no occasion for any anxiety on your part.” The amiable Taft calmly disregarded this “jump” over his head by a subordinate and, by his quick answer the next day, made clear he expected more. “I think you might send me the papers and telegrams by mail…. I should like to keep up with the current information on the subject, as I presume some phase of the question may arise after I return.” Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to William Howard Taft, August 24, 1906, SD-1, p. 53; William Howard Taft, letter to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 25, 1906, SD-1, p. 53.
14. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 1:258.
15. Ibid., 1:288.
16. Weaver claims the use of “discharge without honor” in Brownsville was “new and little-known.” John Weaver, The Brownsville Raid (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), p. 133. The army's judge advocate general found that the discharge, with another name, had been used since the Civil War and was formally designated “discharge without honor” in 1893. “Report of the Judge-Advocate-General of the Army upon the Subject of Discharges without Honor,” SD-1, p. 280.
17. “Report of the Judge-Advocate-General,” SD-1, p. 280.
18. William Howard Taft, memorandum to Theodore Roosevelt, December 18, 1906, SD-1, p. 17.
19. Reel 343, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress.
20. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to his son Kermit Roosevelt, “On Board the U.S.S. Louisiana,” November 11, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:495.
21. See Henry Fowler Pringle, Research Notes for Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, 7th year, p. 2, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
22. “Negroes Ask Roosevelt to Act in Race Fight,” New York Times, October 11, 1906. See also John E. Milholland, Diary, October 9, 1906, John E. Milholland Papers (1887–1924), Ticonderoga (NY) Historical Society. (Milholland crammed a lot of his thoughts, some entered after October 9, onto this page.)
23. See Percy E. Murray, “Harry C. Smith-Joseph B. Foraker Alliance: Coalition Politics in Ohio,” Journal of Negro History 68, no. 2 (1983): 177.
24. Ralph Tyler, letter to George Myers, August 28, 1906, folder 6, box 13, George A. Myers Papers, Ohio History Connection, Columbus.
25. The entire speech can be found in The Booker T. Washington Papers, ed. Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, vol. 9, 1906–8 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), pp. 62–67.
26. David L. Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), p. 331.
27. “President Expels an Army Battalion,” New York Times, November 7, 1906, cited in Dismissal of the Soldiers, Chronology, The Brownsville Raid, folder 10, box 17, John D. Weaver Papers, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. Historians fudge the date the order was made public, generally by indicating only that it was after the election. Edmund Morris states it was November 7. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 721. If so, how did the New York Times get the story into its morning newspaper of November 7? No one disputes, however, that it was held back because of the election.
28. “President Expels an Army Battalion,” Washington Post, November 7, 1906; New York Sun, November 24, 1906, cited in James A. Tinsley, “Roosevelt, Foraker, and the Brownsville Affray,” Journal of Negro History 41, no. 1 (1956): 46–47.
29. Quoted in “Dishonorably Discharged Honorable Soldiers,” New York Age, November 15, 1906.
30. Quoted in Emma Lou Thornbrough, “The Brownsville Episode and the Negro Vote,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44, no. 3 (December 1947): 470.
31. Richard W. Thompson, letter to Emmett J. Scott, November 21, 1906, Washington Papers, cited in Thornbrough, “Brownsville Episode and the Negro Vote,” p. 472.
32. Booker T. Washington, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1911), p. 181.
33. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The President and the Soldiers,” Voice of the Negro 3 (December 1906): 553, http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/digital/dubois/WarPresident.pdf.
34. “Former Member of Twenty-Fifth Says President Acted Hastily,” Washington Post, November 26, 1906.
35. In his commanding biography of Hearst, David Nasaw thoroughly and astutely discusses the 1906 New York gubernatorial election and emphasizes Roosevelt's fears Hearst could win and his dirty tricks on behalf of Hughes. Late in the campaign, he had Secretary of State Elihu Root say that Roosevelt “considered Hearst complicit…in the assassination of President William McKinley.” David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), pp. 207–13.
36. Quoted in Tinsley, “Roosevelt, Foraker, and the Brownsville Affray,” p. 47.
37. Ibid., p. 165.
38. Washington Bee, November 10, 1906, and November 16, 1906, respectively.
39. Ralph Tyler, letter to Booker T. Washington, November 23, 1906, microfilm reel 17, Booker T. Washington Papers, Library of Congress.
40. “Many Champion Negroes,” New York Times, November 14, 1906.
41. Ibid.
42. Newspaper clipping, box 125, Joseph Foraker Papers, Cincinnati History Library and Archives. See also Weaver, Brownsville Raid, pp. 125–26.
43. “Negroes Meet and Protest,” New York Times, December 7, 1906.
44. “Negro Pastor Doubts Washington's Loyalty,” New York Times, December 18, 1906. See also “A Severe Criticism,” Washington Post, December 18, 1906.
45. “Enemies to Two Races,” Atlanta Constitution, November 27, 1906.
46. “Negro Pastor Doubts Washington's Loyalty,” New Yo
rk Times, December 18, 1906, cited in William H. Ferris, The African Abroad; or, His Evolution in Western Civilization, Tracing His Development under Caucasian Milieu (New York: Johnson Reprint, 1968), p. 379.
47. Booker T. Washington, letter to Oswald Garrison Villard, November 10, 1906, in Washington Papers, 9:122.
48. His biographer Pringle wrote in his notes, “[Brownsville] was a typical example of Roosevelt's inability to change his mind once he had adopted a course of action.” Pringle, Research Notes for Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, 7th year.
49. Booker T. Washington, letter to Charles W. Anderson, November 7, 1906, in Washington Papers, 9:122.
50. Du Bois, “President and the Soldiers,” p. 552.
51. Milholland Diary, November 18, 1906, Milholland Papers.
52. Theodore Roosevelt, telegram to Curtis Guild Jr., November 7, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:489.
53. Curtis Guild Jr., telegram to Theodore Roosevelt, November 7/8, 1906, Henry Cabot Lodge Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
54. “Plea for Colored Soldiers,” New York Times, November 16, 1906.
55. Ibid. Stewart went back to the well a year later with a similar resolution, but this time the committee would not adopt it. Taking this losing effort very badly, he wrote Foraker, “The battle is over. In a moral sense it was a victory.” Gilchrist Stewart, letter to Joseph Foraker, box 71, Foraker Papers.
56. “President Will Reconsider,” New York Times, November 21, 1906.
57. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to Gen. W. S. McCaskey, November 9, 1906, SD-1, pp. 185–86.
58. CI-2, p. 1389 (testimony of Pvt. Boyd Conyers).
59. Affray at Brownsville, Tex…. Proceedings of a General Court-Martial…in the Case of Maj. Charles W. Penrose (hereafter cited as Penrose Court-Martial), S. Doc. No. 60-402 (1908), p. 1141 (testimony of Maj. C. J. T. Clarke).
60. “Not Surprised at Fort Reno,” New York Sun, November 21, 1906.
61. Penrose Court-Martial, pp. 1141–43 (testimony of Maj. Charles Penrose).
62. Ann J. Lane, The Brownsville Affair: National Crisis and Black Reaction (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 23. After Roosevelt's death, his valet, James Amos, a black man, wrote that Roosevelt once told him he made sure to discharge the soldiers outside Texas. Otherwise, Texas authorities would have seized and jailed them, and he feared they would have been dragged from their cells and lynched. James E. Amos, Theodore Roosevelt: Hero to His Valet (New York: John Day, 1927), p. 65.
63. “President's Critics Called,” Washington Herald, November 29, 1906.
64. “Mustering Out,” Washington Herald, November 27, 1906.
65. Joseph B. Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life (Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd, 1917), 2:249.
CHAPTER EIGHT: FRIENDS OF THE ADMINISTRATION
1. Booker T. Washington, letter to Charles W. Anderson, November 7, 1906, in The Booker T. Washington Papers, eds. Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, vol. 9, 1906–8 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), pp. 118–19.
2. Booker T. Washington, letter to Theodore Roosevelt, November 2, 1906, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:113.
3. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Booker T. Washington, November 5, 1906, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 5, The Big Stick: 1905–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 118.
4. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 467.
5. Booker T. Washington, letter to Oswald Garrison Villard, November 10, 1906, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:122.
6. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Kermit Roosevelt, November 20, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:496.
7. Booker T. Washington, letter to William Howard Taft, November 20, 1906, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:141.
8. Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World (Salem, NH: Ayer, 1998), p. 270.
9. Ibid., p. 205.
10. Ibid., pp. 211–12.
11. Ibid., p. 99.
12. Charles B. Flood, Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year (Boston: Da Capo, 2012), p. 86.
13. “Roosevelt and Taft Said to Have Clashed,” New York Times, November 21, 1906.
14. William Howard Taft, letter to Helen H. Taft, November 21, 1906, cited in The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography, by Henry F. Pringle (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), 1:324–25.
15. “Roosevelt and Taft Said to Have Clashed.”
16. “President Crosses Isthmus,” New York Sun, November 16, 1906.
17. Terrell, Colored Woman in a White World, p. 270.
18. John D. Weaver is not the only one who credits Mrs. Terrell with getting Taft to act. So did the Washington Post, the Washington Evening Star, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. See ibid., pp. 271–72. And so did Milholland. “She did good work; she really does & deserves much credit.” Milholland Diary, November 18, 1906, John E. Milholland Papers (1887–1924), Ticonderoga (NY) Historical Society.
19. William Howard Taft, telegram to Theodore Roosevelt, November 20, 1906, reel 320, William Howard Taft Papers, Ohio History Connection, Columbus. In the diary kept by Taft's secretary Fred W. Carpenter, the entry for that day describes the meeting, reel 603, p. 664, Taft Papers.
20. Taft's secretary got it backward. He told Taft his wire did not get to Roosevelt in Panama because of “atmospheric conditions,” which makes no sense, since it was sent by undersea cable and not wireless. Carpenter, to William Howard Taft, November 19, 1906, reel 489, Taft Papers. Responding to the author's question about wireless ship-to-shore communication, Professor Emeritus James Reckner of Texas Tech University, an authority on the navy of that era, answered, “Clearly the Navy had wireless on board most, if not all, ships of the fleet. I would be very surprised if the President would go to sea—a precedent-setting trip—without the latest means of communication.” The author expresses his thanks to Professor Reckner.
21. Theodore Roosevelt, three separate cables to William Howard Taft, November 21, 1906, reel 320, Taft Papers. Roosevelt would soon be forced to walk back, characterizing what he did as “punishment.”
22. “Roosevelt Is Firm, and Taft Gives Way,” New York Times, November 22, 1906.
23. William Howard Taft, to Helen H. Taft, November 21, 1906, cited in Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 1:325.
24. Ibid.
25. William Howard Taft, letter to Richard Harding Davis, November 24, 1906, reel 603, Taft Papers.
26. Milholland Diary, November 22, 1906, Milholland Papers.
27. Terrell, Colored Woman in a White World, p. 271.
28. William Howard Taft, letter to Booker T. Washington, November 22, 1906, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:146.
29. Report of Maj. Penrose, November 26, 1906, box 11, Records of United States Army Continental Commands, 1821–1920, National Archives.
30. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Charles Joseph Bonaparte (on board USS Louisiana), November 12, 1906; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Kermit Roosevelt (on board USS Louisiana), November 20, 1906; all found in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:496–98.
31. Roosevelt “knew very little about the law.” “[He] had sampled a legal education, himself, many years before and had turned away from it in distaste. He never had much respect for the law or lawyers, particularly when they got in his path.” Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 1:256, 387.
32. The New York Times characterized this as “the fatal defect in the President's action” and predicted “the men of the negro regiments…will be likely to assume that [discharge from the army may be] the worst punishment which may overtake them.” Untitled, New York Times, December 28, 1906.
33. The above text is an amalgamation of his arguments throughout Brownsville and gives an idea of why Roosevelt was so angry and vindictive.
34. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Theodo
re Roosevelt Sr., June 22, 1873, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 1, The Years of Preparation, 1868–1898 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), p. 10, cited in Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness, by Joshua D. Hawley (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 14.
35. Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1984), p. 314.
36. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Clark Howell, dated February 24, 1903, Henry Fowler Pringle, Research Notes for Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
37. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Richard Watson Gilder, February 7, 1903, Pringle Research Notes; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Richard Watson Gilder, November 16, 1908, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 6, The Big Stick: 1907–1909 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 1364.
38. Indianola was a higher-level post office requiring presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. Roosevelt himself confirmed those who supported her in a letter to John Graham Brooks. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to John Graham Brooks, November 13, 1908, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 6:1343–48. This marvelous letter, in which Roosevelt discusses how he went about selecting people for federal appointments, considers the way a man with “none-too-abundant leisure” should decide which books to read in the limited time available to him, and dismisses Jack London's writing skills, is one of the reasons historians and others find Roosevelt so fascinating and why so many of his era found him irresistible. Brooks was a former Unitarian minister who studied the labor problem and become one of the Progressive Era's reformers. He studied labor-employer conflict, became a federal investigator of strikes, and organized consumer groups. He was thought to be a Socialist, and to the extent he was, his feelings could be understood by scanning the titles of some of his books: The Social Unrest, The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship, and Labor's Challenge to the Social Order. He was just the sort of man Roosevelt would seek out, enthrall, make his acolyte, and occasionally listen to.
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt Page 49
