Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

  5 the emotional drain EKR was taken seriously ill at a reception on 12 Feb. 1903, and miscarried. Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 265.

  6 and the stress See above, chap. 14; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 422; Washington Times, 20 Feb. 1903. Although TR’s chronic respiratory problem was more or less cured by his mid-twenties, he did have occasional later attacks, usually associated with extreme fatigue or fibrous inhalation. He admitted to “asthma—occasional attacks—not severe” when applying for life insurance early in his Presidency. McCullough, Mornings on Horseback; Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 164; TR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles (TRB); New York Life policy statement, 14 Nov. 1901, New York Life Archives, New York.

  7 At Seward, he Pittsburgh Gazette and New York Sun, 2 Apr. 1903.

  8 First, a baggage The Washington Post, 3 Apr. 1903; “Comment” scrapbook. There were no women aboard the Pacific Coast Special.

  9 Last came Ibid.

  10 AT 8:50 The following account is based on Chicago Tribune, 3 May 1903, and “Comment” scrapbook.

  11 “There is a homely” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1,265–66.

  12 Actually, Roosevelt Marks, Velvet on Iron, 58–59. As a recent case in point, TR had instructed Senator George Turner to keep a cool negotiating head at the Alaska Border Tribunal, but to be confident that, in the event of “specious and captious objections on the part of the English, I [will] send a brigade of American regulars up to Skagway and take possession of the disputed territory and hold it by the power and force of the United States.” Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 115.

  13 He reiterated his TR, Works, vol. 13, 465, 467–68.

  14 Roosevelt continued Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 343–44.

  15 “His hearty greetings” Ibid.

  16 The Chicago Tribune’s “Comment” scrapbook.

  17 In Milwaukee’s New York Sun, 21 and 25 Apr. 1903; TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 272–78.

  18 Further roars Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 10; Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel, 4, 3 Apr. 1903; “Comment” scrapbook.

  19 TARIFF POLICY IN TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 294–320; Leslie’s Weekly, 30 Apr. 1903; New York Sun, 8 Apr. 1903; The Washington Post, 8 Apr. 1903.

  20 He ate a TR, Letters, vol. 3, 550; Bismarck Tribune, 8 Apr. 1903.

  21 For the next Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 12–13; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 551.

  22 When the train Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 15–16; Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 201, 337; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 551–52.

  23 Joe Ferris was New York Sun, 8 Apr. 1903; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 552.

  24 Shortly after noon For TR’s own account of his visit to Yellowstone, see TR, Works, vol. 3, chap. 9.

  25 “Oom John” Oom (Dutch diminutive for “old man”) was TR’s affectionate name for Burroughs. See also TR, Letters, vol. 3, 429–30.

  26 They were greeted Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt, 105; Paul Schullery, “A Partnership in Conservation: Theodore Roosevelt and Yellowstone,” Montana 28.3 (1978); New York Sun, 9 Apr. 1903; Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 24–25.

  27 “By the way” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 552–53.

  28 Hell-Roaring Bill Herman Hagedorn, Roosevelt in the Bad Lands (Boston, 1921), 113–17. 219 “I will try” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 553.

  29 A FEW HOURS New York Sun and Baltimore American, 11 Apr. 1903; Thorelli, Federal Antitrust Policy, 561; Martin, James J. Hill, 517; Lamoreaux, Great Merger Movement, 166–67.

  30 “If this decision” Boston Record, 11 Apr. 1903; Satterlee, J. Pierpont Morgan, 401. Northern Securities stock dropped twelve points in three days after the St. Paul decision, reaching a low twenty-five points below its initial high. The Washington Post, 19 Apr. 1903.

  31 William Loeb asked New York Sun, 10 Apr. 1903. For a popular reaction to the Circuit Court decision, see Eitler, “Philander Chase Knox,” 71–73.

  32 He had also Healy, United States in Cuba, 203–6; Anthracite Coal Commission, Report to the President, 80–87; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 211–14.

  33 That did not Medill McCormick to his parents, ca. Feb. 1903 (MHM); Topeka, Kans., Herald, 21 Mar. 1903; The New York Times, 22 Mar. 1903; Pittsburgh Press, 15 Mar. 1903; Boston Herald, 16 Mar. 1903.

  34 “Such a bosom” Literary Digest, Apr.–June 1903, 219.

  35 ROOSEVELT WAS NO George Bird Grinnell, “Theodore Roosevelt as a Sportsman,” The Country Calendar, Nov. 1905; Robert Underwood Johnson, Remembered Yesterdays (Boston, 1923), 309; Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt, 70–73; Jeremy Johnston, “Preserving the Beasts of Waste and Desolation: Theodore Roosevelt and Predator Control in Yellowstone National Park,” George White Forum 15.4 (1988).

  36 Or near solitude The following account of TR’s sixteen days in Yellowstone is based on Major Pitcher’s diary, published in The Washington Post, 24 Apr. 1903; TR’s own account, “Wilderness Reserves: The Yellowstone Park,” Works, vol. 3, 266–93; Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 23–75; Fred M. Davenport, “President Roosevelt in the Yellowstone,” Outlook 142 (1926); Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt, 104–11; and “Comment” scrapbook.

  37 Each day, he TR, Letters, vol. 3, 461–64. He made a detailed list of his natural observations to send to C. Hart Merriam of the United States Biological Survey.

  38 On 12 April Pitcher diary, 12 Apr. 1903; TR, Works, vol. 3, 282–84; Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 32–33.

  39 Burroughs, who Lindsay Denison in New York Sun, 24 Apr. 1903; Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 33; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 429–30.

  40 “Every man who” TR, Works, vol. 3, 267–68. See also TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 324–28.

  41 Roosevelt expressed Ibid.

  42 Only once did he TR, Letters, vol. 3, 463.

  43 BACK IN GARDINER New York Sun and New York World, 19 Apr. 1903.

  44 Finally, on 24 April Lindsay Denison in New York Sun, 29 Apr. 1903. “It was rather a sad interview,” Roosevelt wrote afterward. “The old fellow had gone to pieces, and soon after I left he got lost in a blizzard and was dead when they found him.” TR, Autobiography, 117.

  45 Before leaving TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 324. The Washington Post, 25 Apr. 1903, remarked that TR’s Yellowstone speech showed a new governmental attitude, “after more than thirty years of passive attention to the park.”

  46 Then, with a Except where otherwise cited, the following four paragraphs are based on stereopticon photographs by Underwood & Underwood preserved at SH; Lindsay Denison reports in “Comment” scrapbook; Addison C. Thomas, Roosevelt Among the People: Being an Account of the 14,000 Mile Journey from Ocean to Ocean of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (Chicago, 1910), copy in NYPL; and William Allen White’s account of a Kansas whistle-stop in Saturday Evening Post, 27 June 1903.

  47 On the flatland Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 12.

  48 At whistle-stops “Comment” scrapbook.

  49 (“If I might”) TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 333; TR qu. in Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Notes and Anecdotes of Many Years (New York, 1925), 117.

  50 Indistinguishable as TR, Letters, vol. 3, 554.

  51 THE “ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 328; TR, Works, vol. 4, 228–29. For TR’s formal visit to the site of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis, see, e.g., Collier’s Weekly, 16 May 1903, and Jusserand, What Me Befell, 231ff.

  52 (“Three cheers for”) TR, Letters, vol. 3, 425; Robbins, Our Landed Heritage, 333.

  53 In Iowa’s fecund New York Sun, 29 Apr. 1903; Des Moines Register and Leader, 29 Apr. 1903.

  54 “There were two” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 554–55. In exchange for the badger, TR gave the little girls a silver-and-gold medal he had been presented in Chicago. Lindsay Denison in New York Sun, 4 May 1903; Des Moines Register and Leader, 8 June 1903.

  55 The baby badger TR, Works, vol. 3, 325–6; as the journey pr
oceeded, Josiah was joined by two bears, a lizard, a horned toad, and a horse. TR, Letters, vol. 3, 555.

  56 NEW MEXICO TERRITORY Lindsay Denison in New York Sun, 6 May 1903.

  57 “Why don’t the” New York World, 7 May 1903; Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 16 June 1903 (JJ).

  58 “his ancestors” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 557.

  59 In the plaza TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 366; “Comment” scrapbook; photographs in Leslie’s Weekly, 28 May 1903.

  Chronological Note: TR had touched on the subject of conservation before, as Governor of New York and in his First Annual Message as President. Just before leaving Washington on 1 Apr., he had made a private speech to the Society of American Foresters at Gifford Pinchot’s house (TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 249–57). But his post-Yellowstone utterances at Grand Canyon on 5 May 1903 marked the first time he pronounced the gospel in plain language to the people. As will be seen, TR became increasingly obsessed with the theme of conservation as he traveled through the Southwest and California.

  60 “I don’t exactly” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 557. The Grand Canyon was not yet a national park in 1903. Technically a “forest reserve,” it was threatened by mining and real-estate interests.

  61 “Leave it as” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 370. For the aesthetic reaction of a later President to the Grand Canyon, see Franklin D. Roosevelt: “It looks dead. I like my green trees at Hyde Park better.” Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, 199.

  62 “I felt as” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 557–58; TR, Letters to Kermit, 38.

  63 Fifteen hundred children Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 16 June 1903 (JJ); Thomas, “Roosevelt Among the People,” 212–13. All TR’s speeches in California have been published in California Addresses by President Roosevelt (San Francisco, 1903).

  64 “this plain tilled” California Addresses, 24. Later, at Santa Barbara, TR exclaimed, “I do not know that I ever before so thoroughly understood the phrase, ‘A garden of the Lord.’ ” Ibid., 36.

  65 Amid all the TR wrote that he liked to see California girls and women riding unself-consciously astride (Kerr, Bully Father, 116). Every speech he made through 12 May exulted in irrigation, fertility, and beauty.

  66 For four hours Ironically, for all this hydrological and horticultural display, Los Angeles was just beginning to realize that its swelling population and falling aquifer were incompatible. See Reisner, Cadillac Desert, 65ff., for how this realization led to the construction of the Owens River Aqueduct, endorsed by TR.

  67 THE SIGHT OF California Addresses, 54; New York Sun, 12 May 1903.

  68 “There is nothing” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 384. For the popular “California-as-Mediterranean” conceit of TR and his generation, see Kevin Starr, Americans and the Californian Dream (New York, 1973), chap. 12.

  69 In a major TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 383–90; Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, 124; The Washington Post, 9 Mar. 1903. For a case study of the largest (and most legally audacious) of TR’s 1902 executive orders, see David E. Conrad, “Creating the Nation’s Largest Forest Reserve: Roosevelt, Emmons, and the Tongass National Forest,” Pacific History Review, Feb. 1977. In 1902, TR also enacted the first game laws of Alaska Territory, preventing the commercialization of deer hunting, and got an appropriation to preserve and maintain the first federal buffalo herd in Yosemite National Park. TR, Autobiography, 435.

  70 CONCERN MOUNTED H. W. Taft to William H. Taft, 2 Mar. 1903 (WHT); TR’s arrival in San Francisco after his Stanford address coincided with a guilty plea by the Federal Salt Company in another antitrust suit filed by Knox. San Francisco Chronicle, 13 May 1903; Thorelli, Federal Antitrust Policy, 427–28.

  71 A group of financiers Chicago Record-Herald, 31 May 1903; speech transcript (TRB).

  72 “Before I came” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 390–91. Elsewhere in San Francisco, he noted that the city stood “in the exact center” of the United States sphere of influence.

  73 “In the South Seas” Ibid., 391–93.

  74 The audience “The Manchurian War Scare,” Harper’s Weekly, 23 May 1903; A. Lincoln, “Theodore Roosevelt and the First Russian-American Crisis,” Southern California Quarterly, Dec. 1963; Zabriskie, American-Russian Rivalry, 87; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 193; “Comment” scrapbook.

  75 In other disturbing Kishinev is modern Chişinau, Moldavia. There were to be three hundred more pogroms over the next three years. Stuart E. Knee, “The Diplomacy of Neutrality: Theodore Roosevelt and the Russian Pogroms of 1903–1906,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, winter 1989.

  76 Casualty figures Harper’s Weekly, 6 June 1903; Foreign Relations 1903, 712–15. Although Nicholas II disciplined the Governor of Bessarabia for permitting the massacre, he privately remarked, “Jews themselves … are to blame.” Knee, “Diplomacy of Neutrality.”

  77 For the first Taylor Stults, “Roosevelt, Russian Persecution of Jews, and American Public Opinion,” Jewish Social Studies 33.1 (1971); Philip E. Schoenberg, “The American Reaction to the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, Mar. 1974; John Hay to TR, 28 Apr. and 12 May 1903 (TRP); Raymond A. Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries (Waltham, Mass., 1970), 26.

  78 Roosevelt was constrained TR, Letters, vol. 3, 474. In April alone, TR had received nearly five hundred communications, endorsed with many thousands of signatures, calling upon the Tsar to stop the persecution of Jews in Russia. Knee, “Diplomacy of Neutrality.”

  79 “The inevitable march” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 394. For an analysis of the formation of TR’s Far Eastern thinking, see Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 253–63.

  80 “Our place as” Ibid., 396. Russia, preoccupied with her own problems, took little notice of TR’s speech. But considerable nervousness about it was expressed in Europe, particularly in Germany (Public Opinion, 21 May 1903).

  81 two evenings later New York Tribune, 16 May 1903; TR, Works, vol. 3, 291–92.

  82 His companion was William F. Kimes, “With Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir in Yosemite,” in Westerners Los Angeles Corral, Brand Book Fourteen (Los Angeles, 1974), 192. This is the most detailed account of TR’s visit to Yosemite. See also Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, 3–26.

  83 The President was TR, Autobiography, 333–34; William Wordsworth, “Lucy,” no. 5; Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt, 117; “I stuffed him pretty well regarding the timber thieves … and other spoilers of the forest,” Muir said afterward. John L. Eliot, “TR’s Wilderness Legacy,” National Geographic, Sept. 1982.

  84 “The ‘greatest number’ ” Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, 113. See ibid. for the gradual hardening of battle lines between conservation and preservation during the Roosevelt Era.

  85 Whatever resonance Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt, 117; Muir admitted afterward, “I stuffed him pretty well regarding … spoilers of the forest.” John L. Eliot, “TR’s Wilderness Legacy,” National Geographic, Sept. 1982.

  86 For the next James M. Clarke, The Life and Adventures of John Muir (San Diego, 1979), 292–93.

  87 On 17 May “Comment” scrapbook; Muir qu. in William F. Bade, The Life and Letters of John Muir (Boston, 1924), vol. 2, 412.

  88 some philosophical Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, 109–15; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 475. TR’s order, which created an almost unbroken chain of mountain reserves from Mexico to British Columbia, was hailed by Century, Aug. 1903: “If his trip had resulted in no other public benefit, this alone would have justified it.” Three years later, TR incorporated both the valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove into Yosemite National Park.

  89 Roosevelt’s next TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 2, 414–18 (Carson City, Nev.); California Addresses, 40. Later, in Oregon, TR asked his new Commissioner of Public Lands, William A. Richards, to investigate that state’s famously corrupt disposition of forest property to
mining and lumbering interests. “The extent of the Oregon land scandal would grow over the next several years as a kind of background theme to the larger story of conservation” (Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 112). For TR’s creation of the Public Lands Commission, see D. Jerome Tweton, “Theodore Roosevelt and Land Law Reform,” Mid-America 49.1 (1967).