Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

  3 Yesterday’s telegrams Facsimile telegrams (TRB). There has been some confusion about the sequence of fifteen telegrams received by TR on Mount Marcy. A comparison of the originals with medical bulletins issued by McKinley’s secretary, George Cortelyou (in GBC), makes it clear that he read the most urgent message—Elihu Root’s—last. It was dispatched at 10:20 P.M. (William Loeb to Root, 13 Sept. 1901 [ER]). EKR, in her diary of 13 Sept. 1901, states that it came “between 11 and 12 when we were in bed [in the vacation cabin at Upper Tahawus].” See Sylvia Jukes Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady (New York, 1980), 212–14. TR’s reply (in ER) is datelined Lower Tahawus, 14 Sept. 1:32 A.M. This helps explain TR’s curious delay in leaving for Buffalo after receiving the first message, from Cortelyou, near the summit at 1:25 P.M. on 13 Sept. TR twice confirms in An Autobiography (New York, 1913), 364, and in the Leary Notebooks that he realized the President was dying when he saw the messenger approach. Yet the telegram stated only that McKinley’s condition caused “the gravest apprehension.” The next few telegrams, awaiting TR at Upper Tahawus at 5:15 or 5:30 P.M. (Murphy, Theodore Roosevelt’s Night Ride, 18–19, indicated some improvement. Hence his remark, about 9:00 P.M., to EKR: “I’m not going unless I’m really needed” (Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 212). Then the telegrams became too urgent to resist.

  Note on timings: An analysis of available data works out thus: dept. Upper Tahawus 11:31 P.M., 13 Sept.; arr. Lower Tahawus (ten miles) 1:31 A.M., 14 Sept.; dept. 1:35 A.M.; arr. Aiden Lair (nine miles) 3:36 A.M.; dept. 3:41 A.M.; arr. North Creek (sixteen miles) 5:22 A.M. Total: thirty-five miles covered in five hours, fifty-one minutes.

  4 the president appears Facsimile telegram (TRB).

  5 He was now A bronze tablet on Route 28N, not far north of Aiden Lair, commemorates TR’s accession to the Presidency.

  6 He sat alone William Allen White, Masks in a Pageant (New York, 1928), 294; “How the President Wears His Hat,” New York Tribune, 29 Nov. 1901; Orin Kellogg in New York World, 29 Sept. 1901.

  7 In his opinion TR, Letters, vol. 3, 141–42; The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, memorial edition (New York, 1923–1926, vol. 17, 96; Orin Kellogg in Murphy, Theodore Roosevelt’s Night Ride, 21. Czolgosz did not “get away”; he was executed within weeks.

  8 meanwhile, in washington New York Press, 4 Sept.; Harper’s Weekly, 21 Sept. 1901; Charles Willis Thompson, Party Leaders of the Time (New York, 1906), 261–62, 281–82; New York World, 17 Sept. 1901.

  9 at about 3:30 A restored version of Aiden Lair Lodge may be seen beside Route 28N. Upper Tahawus is now a ghost town, but the Roosevelts’ cabin survives. Lower Tahawus is maintained by a hunting club. North Creek station has been restored as a state historic site.

  10 “Any news?” Mike Cronin interview, New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901.

  11 The new horses Orin Kellogg interview, New York World, 19 Sept. 1901; Murphy, Theodore Roosevelt’s Night Ride, 23; Mike Cronin interview, New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901.

  12 since puberty In the half-envious words of Henry Adams, “Theodore is one of the brainless cephalopods who is not afraid.” The Letters of Henry Adams, ed. J. C. Levenson, Ernest Samuels, et al. (Cambridge, Mass., 1982–1988, vol. 5, 349.

  13 From that viewpoint For TR’s presidential aspirations, see, e.g., TR, Letters, vol. 3, 104, 114–15, 120. According to William Allen White, Autobiography (New York, 1946), 327, “Even in 1899 we were planning for 1904.” See also William Allen White, Selected Letters, 1899–1943, ed. Walter Johnson (New York, 1947), 126–27, and Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York, 1931), 229–30. TR continued with his plans right through the final illness of McKinley. TR, Letters, vol. 3, 144 (10 Sept. 1901).

  14 He had fought TR, Works, vol. 5, 267.

  15 Yet just when See Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1921), 198. TR was “very depressed” as Vice President, his daughter Alice remembered. “He thought …[it] was the end of his career” (Michael Teague, Mrs. L.: Conversations with Alice Roosevelt Longworth [New York, 1981], 112). Notwithstanding his plans for 1904, TR talked miserably of becoming a lawyer, or of writing further installments of his multivolume history, The Winning of the West (George Haven Putnam, Memories of a Publisher [New York, 1915], 144; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 31, 72). The most comprehensive account of TR’s prepresidential career is Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1979), to which this volume is a sequel. For a detailed study of TR’s first twenty-eight years, see Carleton Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt: The Formative Years (New York, 1958). David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (New York, 1981), covers the same period. TR’s family life and second marriage are fully described in Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt.

  16 His path ran Murphy, Theodore Roosevelt’s Night Ride, 25.

  17 The final dash The New York Times, New York Press, and New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901. Cronin’s time of 1:41 from Aiden Lair to North Creek beat his own previous record by a quarter of an hour. Later that month, a reporter attempted the same drive, at night and under similar conditions; it took him four hours (New York World, 29 Sept. 1901). The record still stands. Murphy, Theodore Roosevelt’s Night Ride, 29.

  18 the president died Facsimile telegram, 14 Sept. 1901 (TRB).

  19 Looking suddenly worn The New York Times and New York World, 15 Sept. 1901; Murphy, Theodore Roosevelt’s Night Ride, 26–27.

  20 roosevelt’s first words New York World, 15 Sept., and New York Herald, 14 Sept. 1901; William Loeb, Jr., to author, 28 Feb. 1975 (AC).

  21 Mount Marcy’s cloud banks New York Herald and New York World, 15 Sept. 1901; Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 214–21.

  22 At about seven o’clock New York Sun, 15 Sept. 1901.

  23 Roosevelt did not need Ibid., 15 and 10 Sept. 1901. For an account of the anarchist phenomenon in Europe and America, 1890–1914, see Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower (New York, 1966), 63–113.

  24 Personally, Roosevelt TR, Letters, vol. 3, 2. Later in the year, he dreamed of doing the same with even bigger game. “We could kill a big grizzly or silver tip with our knives, which would be great sport” (ibid., 91). See also Lloyd C. Griscom, Diplomatically Speaking (Boston, 1940), 221–22.

  25 His larger concern TR specifically cited such social bacteria as William Randolph Hearst, John P. Altgeld, “and to an only less degree, Tolstoy and the feeble apostles of Tolstoy, like Ernest Howard Crosby and William Dean Howells.” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 142.

  26 When, accepting Ibid.; TR, Works, vol. 1, 43–45.

  27 Youth, size TR was forty-two years and nearly eleven months old on acceding to the Presidency. He remains the youngest President in U.S. history, John F. Kennedy being the youngest President elected. For a classic statement of his views on “the essential manliness of the American character,” as well as his attitudes toward some of the problems confronting the United States at the turn of the century, see “National Duties,” the speech he delivered at the Minnesota State Fair on 2 Sept. 1901, four days before the attack on McKinley. It is a source of the ideology set forth here. TR, Works, vol. 15, 328–41.

  28 He refused to Ibid., vol. 14, 235; vol. 15, 316.

  29 Roosevelt, sucking The following survey of press reportage on 14 Sept. 1901 is taken from newspaper clippings preserved in TR scrapbooks (TRP). These volumes, assembled by William Loeb, Jr., and often contributed to by the President himself, form a reliable guide to TR’s own perception of public opinion, 1901–1909.

  30 A remarkable consensus New York Sun, New York World, New York Herald, The New York Times, and New York Press, 14–15 Sept. 1901 (originals at TRB). A typical reaction of one Wall Street executive, on hearing that TR was about to become President: “When Teddy’s done with America it’ll require another Christopher Columbus to find what’s left of it” (New York dispatch to The Times [London], 15 Sept. 1901). See White, Masks in a Pageant, 295, and Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 237ff., for the “terror” that gripped the financial community that we
ekend.

  31 as the news Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 73, 337.

  32 In Albany, an old Frances Theodora (Smith) Parsons, Perchance Some Day (privately printed, New York, 1951; copy in TRC), 120, 135–36; also Mrs. Parsons to TR, 14 Sept. 1901 (TRB); Russell B. Harrison to TR, 8 Nov. 1901 (TRP); Arthur Lee, Viscount of Fareham, A Good Innings (privately printed, London, 1939), vol. 1, 254; Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 295.

  33 Yet there was All these achievements are described in Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. The best overall survey of TR’s superhuman variety remains Edward Wagenknecht, The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1958).

  34 thousands of people The following account of TR’s arrival and inauguration in Buffalo is based on an October 1902 memorandum by Ansley Wilcox, preserved in the Wilcox scrapbook, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, N.Y.; “Story of the Wilcox House,” recollections of Judge John R. Hazel in Buffalo Evening News, 15 Nov. 1963; and dozens of local and national news clips, 14–16 Sept. 1901, in the Wilcox scrapbook and TRB files. Incidental sources are cited below.

  35 Roosevelt’s companion Wilcox memorandum, Wilcox scrapbook.

  36 The cavalcade moved Photographs in ibid. Julia Bundy Foraker was in Buffalo that day. “A pall hung over life. The universe lowered its voice.” I Would Live It Again: Memories of a Vivid Life (New York, 1932), 267.

  37 Over lunch, he said Wilcox scrapbook; The New York Times and New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901.

  38 He would go there Wilcox scrapbook; Mrs. Nathaniel K. B. Patch interviews, 19 Sept. 1935 and 30 Apr. 1969, t.s. in Wilcox Mansion. Mrs. Patch was the teenage girl outside the house (below).

  39 Even now Mrs. Patch interviews, Wilcox Mansion. The New York Times and New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901, confirm TR’s burst of temper.

  40 To swelling cries Buffalo Courier and Buffalo Express, 15 Sept. 1901; Pittsburgh Press, n.d., Wilcox scrapbook. Many years later, Elihu Root recalled that Hanna had snarled to him: “Now, don’t you wish you had taken that Vice-Presidency?” (interview, 2 Sept. 1902, 1935 [PCJ]).

  41 A voice called out TR to John J. Leary, Leary Notebooks (TRC).

  42 How often had Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root (New York, 1938), vol. 1, 423; Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 677–79; Wallace G. Chessman, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Personal Tax Difficulty,” New York History 34 (1953): 54–63. See also Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1, chap. 10.

  43 Returning to his carriage Buffalo Courier, 15 Sept. 1901; Wilcox scrapbook.

  44 a strange hothouse glow This library is now the centerpiece of the restored Wilcox Mansion, officially known as the Theodore Roosevelt National Inaugural Site, a public museum.

  45 The luminescence came Wilcox scrapbook; TR, Letters, vol. 1, 582; Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 376.

  46 They proceeded to report For a typical reminiscence of the ceremony, see Joseph I. C. Clarke, My Life and Memories (New York, 1925), 373.

  47 The library clock Buffalo Courier, Buffalo Express, and New York Sun, 15 Sept. 1901; Hazel, “Story.” The Secretary of War’s emotional struggle might have been more comprehensible to people in the room had they realized that exactly twenty years before, Root had organized another emergency inauguration—that of Chester Arthur, succeeding the assassinated James A. Garfield (Root interview, 23 Jan. 1934 [PCJ]).

  48 Roosevelt bowed Wilcox scrapbook; The New York Times and New York Sun, 15 Sept. 1901.

  49 This speech The New York Times, 15 Sept. 1901; New York World, 17 Sept. 1901.

  50 Roosevelt spoke with Pittsburgh Press, n.d., Wilcox scrapbook. Milburn was a director of the American Express Company and Chase National Bank. Depew, in addition to being Senator, was chairman of the New York Central Railroad.

  51 Elihu Root had Root interview, 23 Jan. 1934 (PCJ); Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1, 238. In his Autobiography, TR failed to mention this debt to Root. Root’s advice had been preceded, earlier in the day, by similar instructions from TR’s brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, in a letter hand-delivered to the Wilcox Mansion (13 Sept. 1901 [TRP]).

  52 Judge Hazel clutched Wilcox scrapbook; Depew in New York Sun, 16 Sept. 1901.

  53 Two minutes ticked by New York World and New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901. During these mute moments, wrote William Allen White, “youth, which he has clung to so fondly, left him, and maturity came.” White, “Theodore Roosevelt,” McClure’s, Nov. 1901.

  54 “Mr. President,” Buffalo Courier, The New York Times, and Chicago Tribune, 15 Sept. 1901.

  55 “I have witnessed” New York Sun, 16 Sept. 1901.

  56 ROOSEVELT REMAINED Wilcox scrapbook.

  57 A reporter was struck Clarke, My Life, 373.

  58 The Cabinet meeting Buffalo Courier, 15 Sept. 1901.

  59 Business completed New York Sun, New York Herald, and Buffalo Courier, 15 Sept. 1901. For a detailed study of TR’s security from this day on, see Richard B. Sherman, “Presidential Protection During the Progressive Era: The Aftermath of the McKinley Assassination,” Historian, Nov. 1983.

  60 Refuge was The following passage refers to the manuscript of TR’s draft proclamation, preserved in the Wilcox scrapbook.

  61 It had always been thus Owen Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship (New York, 1930), 68.

  62 AT FOUR O’CLOCK Buffalo Courier, The New York Times, and New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901; Elmer Dover, Hanna’s secretary, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, Sept. 1905 (MHM).

  63 Seated inside Years later, TR still marveled at Hanna’s toughness that afternoon. “Not a particle of subserviency … no worship of the rising sun!” TR interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 17 Apr. 1906 (MHM).

  64 That evening, George Wilcox scrapbook.

  65 SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT The New York Times, 15 Oct. 1912. See also Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 505–6, 824n119.

  66 Now, as he Schrank memorandum, 15 Sept. 1912, qu. in Robert Donovan, The Assassins (New York, 1955), 137.

  67 “This is my murderer” See ibid., 137–45, for an account of what happened in 1912.

  68 ROOSEVELT AWOKE REFRESHED Chicago Tribune and New York World, 16 Sept. 1901.

  69 VIVE LE ROI William Sturgis Bigelow and George Cabot Lodge to TR, 14 Sept. 1901 (TRP).

  70 Kohlsaat followed him Herman H. Kohlsaat, From McKinley to Harding: Personal Recollections of Our Presidents (New York, 1923), 96–97; Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding (New York, 1922), vol. 1, 135. Wilson, Professor of Jurisprudence and Politics at Princeton, was on his way home from Rosseau Falls, Ont.

  Biographical Note: According to one of TR’s classmates, Wilson was an “ardent” admirer of TR as early as 1883. Albert Shaw, “Reminiscences of Theodore Roosevelt,” ms. (AS). Scattered references in Wilson’s early papers indicate that the two men first crossed paths on the academic lecture circuit on 20 Nov. 1890. By the middle of the decade they were corresponding; they appeared on the same platform at a Reform Rally in Baltimore, 3 Mar. 1896 (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link [Princeton, N.J., 1966], vol. 9, 483–85; The Baltimore Sun, 4 Mar. 1896). Surviving correspondence dates from April 1897 (Wilson, Papers, vol. 10, 238). Wilson expressed public admiration for TR (“This popular, this gifted man”) at Harvard on 13 Oct. 1899. TR was equally complimentary about Wilson. As Governor, he hoped the professor would visit him in Albany. “There is much I should like to talk over with you.” In 1900, Wilson consulted TR about his appointment to the chair of politics at Princeton. He valued TR’s advice “as showing … a very sane, academic side of him, not known by everybody … but constituting his hope of real and lasting eminence.” On 18 July 1901, TR invited Wilson, as a man of “constructive scholarship and administrative ability” (TR, Letters, vol. 3, 277), to stay at Oyster Bay. He wished advice “on how to arouse our young college students … to take an active interest in politics.” TR was musing on an academic career himself at this point, and had a scheme to establish student reform committees at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Wilson came, saw, and was conquered by TR’s ebullience
. Afterward, he praised the visit as “most delightful and refreshing” (Wilson, Papers, vol. 11, 253, 277, 352, 513–16; vol. 12, 164, 172).

  71 “I am going to make” Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 97–98, 63; New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901.

  72 “John Hay is” New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901; Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 97–98.

  73 Compounding the flattery Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 99. The ultraconservative Gage was indeed nervous about having to serve under TR. Hay to Henry Adams, 19 Sept. 1901 (TD).

  74 My dear Roosevelt Hay to TR, 19 Sept. 1901 (TRP). During the course of the day, TR also received a letter from Henry Cabot Lodge, the controlling power of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, beseeching him, “Above all, do nothing which could cause the retirement of Secretary Hay.” Francis E. Leupp, The Man Roosevelt: A Portrait Sketch (New York, 1904), 54.

  75 16 SEPTEMBER DAWNED The New York Times and New York Sun, 17 Sept. 1901; film, “President McKinley’s Funeral Cortege at Buffalo,” Library of Congress; Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 100.

  76 THE FUNERAL TRAIN Catalogs illustrating these beautiful vehicles can be seen in GBC.

  77 Reporters were assigned The New York Times and New York Sun, 17 Sept. 1901; Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 100ff.; TR scrapbooks (TRP). Loeb was subsequently appointed assistant secretary to the President. TR’s decision to retain Cortelyou over him struck many Rooseveltians as opportunistic and unfeeling. McKinleyites, however, were delighted. The well-connected Cortelyou helped smooth out many transition problems between the two camps, and Loeb eventually got his delayed preferment. For a biographical sketch of Loeb, see “The Perfect Stenographer” in Louis W. Koening, The Invisible Presidency (New York, 1960).

  78 At 8:57 The following narrative of TR’s twelve-hour, 420-mile journey to Washington is based on the firsthand observations of newspapermen who rode on the funeral train, principally Joseph I. C. Clarke (New York Herald) and H. H. Kohlsaat (Chicago Times-Herald). Other accounts appeared in The New York Times, New York Sun, New York World, Chicago Tribune, Buffalo Express, and local newspapers—e.g., Harrisburg Patriot, 17 Sept. 1901. Some descriptions of the route traveled come from reconnaissances made by the author. Other sources cited below.