Theodore Rex
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143 Purged by his John Hay diary, 6–7 Nov. 1904 (JH); Washington Evening Star, 11 Nov. 1904; Longworth, Crowded Hours, 64. Several observers noted TR’s strange calm on this evening. He confided to his sister Corinne “that he had never wanted anything in his life quite as much as the outward and visible sign of his country’s approval,” and for the first time she understood how painful it had been for him to function as McKinley’s “accidental” heir (Douglas, Many-Sided Roosevelt, 268–69; Robinson, My Brother, 217–18). According to Douglas, TR’s disclaimer of another run was, like many of his apparently impulsive decisions, premeditated. He had discussed it several weeks before with Attorney General Moody.
144 “On the fourth” Washington Evening Star, 9 Nov. 1904. TR’s final popular vote was 7,628,461, exceeding McKinley’s total in 1900 by 409,970. He carried every northern and western state as well as Delaware, West Virginia, and Missouri. Parker’s total of 5,084,223 fell short of Bryan’s in 1900 by 1,272,511. In the Electoral College, TR scored a record 336 to Parker’s 140. Republicans strengthened their domination of Congress, with a 57 to 33 division of seats with Democrats in the Senate, and 250 to 136 in the House. Altogether it was, in the words of Charles Dawes, “the greatest Republican victory on record,” and, as Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World magnanimously conceded, “the greatest personal triumph ever won by any President” (Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 387; Heaton, Story of a Page, 211). For a comprehensive analysis of voting patterns, broken down in virtually every category save hairstyle, see Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” chap. 13. His figures reveal some interesting negatives. For example, Democratic disillusionment with Parker (doubtless influenced by TR’s pre-election tirade) had more to do with the end result than Republican enchantment with the President. Both parties lost voter support in the South, mainly because of black disfranchisement. TR personally—and surprisingly, in view of his habitual identification with the American farmer—lost votes in most rural counties across the Corn Belt. Wherever soil was poor, he gained; wherever it was rich, his support declined. His best strength was in big cities (Jews voted for him almost solidly in New York) and in areas of thriving industry. The coal-strike conference notwithstanding, TR did not do well in depressed or strike-torn counties. Wheaton concludes that the prime causes of his plurality were economic prosperity and Republican loyalty.
INTERLUDE
1 ON THE DAY Except where otherwise indicated, the following two paragraphs are based on James J. Horgan, “Aeronautics at the World’s Fair of 1904,” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 24.3 (1968).
2 “quite drunk” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 588.
3 “One asked oneself” Education of Henry Adams, 467.
4 He had tried See ibid., chap. 25, “The Dynamo and the Virgin.”
5 The settled life Education of Henry Adams, passim and 500.
6 the very personification Ernest Samuels, Henry Adams: The Major Phase (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), 324.
7 “The devil is” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 537.
8 ROOSEVELT GOT TO Education of Henry Adams, 468. TR was in St. Louis on 26 and 27 Nov. 1904. It was not technically his first visit to the fairgrounds, since he had stopped by and spoken there in the early planning stage, during his Western tour.
9 He came at Education of Henry Adams, 468.
10 “We really had” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 1047–48.
11 He stomped Alice was convulsed when her father paused to peer shortsightedly at a statue, and pronounced it a “particularly fine Diana.” As she could well see, it had all the attributes of an Apollo. Longworth, Crowded Hours, 65.
12 He was impressed TR, Letters, vol. 3, 1048.
13 The presidential train The Washington Post, 28 Nov. 1904; Robinson, My Brother, 220–22; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 1049–51. Mrs. Robinson, writing some sixteen years later, misremembers some of the details of this postmidnight session, and also, puzzlingly, recalls TR dictating another mammoth “review” of Finley Peter Dunne’s views on the Irish Question. This letter was actually written previously, on 23 Nov. 1904. See TR, Letters, vol. 3, 1040–42. However, she may be accurate in stating that TR continued his dictation in her presence, until a porter arrived with coffee at 7:00 A.M. “Shortly after that I was assisted to my berth in a more or less asphyxiated condition, from which I never roused again until the train reached the station in Washington.”
14 Nearly nineteen million Horgan, “Aeronautics at the World’s Fair”; David R. Francis, The Universal Exposition of 1904 (St. Louis, 1913), xviii–xix.
15 As if in earnest Horgan, “Aeronautics at the World’s Fair.”
16 MARGUERITE CASSINI HAD Cassini, Never a Dull Moment, 215.
17 The Ambassador’s choler John Hay diary, 2 Jan. 1905 (JH); Griscom, Diplomatically Speaking, 252. Because New Year’s Day was a Sunday in 1905, official receptions were postponed by twenty-four hours.
18 While Europe John Hay diary, 3 Jan. 1905 (JH).
19 Rheumatic, perpetually Ibid., 15 and 25 Jan. 1905; Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 629.
20 More and more Jusserand, What Me Befell, 276.
21 All that remained Hay was suffering from a prostate condition and heart disease (angina pectoris).
22 The Russian Baltic The fleet, commanded by Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski, had sailed from Rigal Harbor in Oct. 1904.
23 “dealing with” Clymer, John Hay, 152.
24 Politely disapproving John Hay diary, 4 Jan. 1905 (JH).
25 the other his EKR to Kermit Roosevelt, 30 Jan. 1905 (KR).
26 “With him wielding” Education of Henry Adams, 417.
27 Roosevelt’s Energetik Education of Henry Adams, 441. Energetik: in German natural science, the fundamental energy of matter. In a sarcastic editorial headlined FIRMNESS — IN ROTATION, the New York Evening Post, 1 Feb. 1905, inquired: “Why is he never simultaneously firm on all his pet measures, but generally decided only on one at a time, in a somewhat periodic rotation?”
28 “the darkening prairie” Education of Henry Adams, 396.
29 “always and everywhere” Ibid., 455.
30 “Truth was the” Ibid., 456.
31 another henry Henry James to William James, 14 Jan. 1903 (HJ). James had not been in Washington since the days of President Arthur. See Leon Edel, Henry James: The Master, 1901–1916 (London, 1972), 274–76.
32 “The President is” Henry James to William James, 14 Jan. 1905, and to Mary Cadwalader Jones, 13 Jan. 1905 (HJ). For another account of this evening, see Lawrence, Memories of a Happy Life, 177.
33 “Theodore Rex” Henry James to Mary Cadwalader Jones, 13 Jan. 1905 (HJ). For the earlier, mutually contemptuous relations of TR and James, see Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 467–68.
34 THE IMAGINATION MUST Bacon’s aphorism 104, from his Magna Instauratio (1620), is given here as paraphrased by Adams (Letters, vol. 5, 606). The original reads, “The understanding must not therefore be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights to keep it from leaping and flying.”
35 Here was Arthur Education of Henry Adams, 437; Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 561; Arthur Balfour, “Reflections Suggested by the New Theory of Matter,” The Times (London), 18 Aug. 1904.
36 “I foresee something” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 552.
37 Nearer home Samuels, Henry Adams, 321.
38 BOTH KANEKO John Hay diary, 30 Jan. and 15 Feb. 1905 (JH). Kaneko, a cosmopolitan Tokyo aristocrat, had opened a discreet war public-relations bureau in New York, whence he lobbied more energetically than effectively to keep American opinion pro-Japanese through the summer of 1905. James Kanda and William A. Gifford, “The Kaneko Correspondence,” Monumenta Nipponica 37.1 (1982); Eugene P. Trani, The Treaty of Portsmouth: An Adventure in American Diplomacy (Lexington, Ky., 1969), 19. For the early relationship of TR and Kaneko, see Julian Street, “A Japanese Statesman’s Recollections of Roosevelt,” The New York Times Book Review, 31 July 1921.
39 “The weather remains” John Hay diary, 1 Feb. 1905 (JH).
41 Cassini waved Ibid., 23 Feb. 1905.
42 “destined to be” Qu. in Edel, Henry James, 276.
43 “Roosevelt has the” Henry Watterson to Poultney Bigelow, 22 Feb. 1905 (PB).
CHAPTER 23: MANY BUDDING THINGS
1 Onaisy lies th’ “Mr. Dooley” in Collier’s, Feb. 1903.
2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT The following description is based on “TR’s Inaugural Ceremony, 1905” and “TR’s Inauguration, 1905,” newsreel films in TRAF; the diary-letter of Matthew Hale, 4 Mar. 1905, in TRP; Lorant, Life and Times, 422; Washington Evening Star, 4 Mar. 1905; The New York Times, 5 Mar. 1905. Additional touches from Robinson, My Brother, 223–24, and Longworth, Crowded Hours, 67.
3 “My fellow citizens” TR, Works, vol. 17, 311–12.
4 The wind snatched Sir Mortimer Durand diary, 4 Apr. 1905 (HMD).
5 Nobody, with the On or about 11 Dec. 1904, TR had been sparring in the White House with a Navy aide, Lieutenant Dan Tyler Moore, and took “a hot one” to the side of the head. It ruptured a blood vessel in the left eye, and his vision immediately began to blur, degenerating into spotted half-blindness. The disability remained a secret, even from Moore, throughout TR’s presidency. TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1065; Leary, Talks with TR, 20–21; Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 18–19.
6 Close observers The New York Times, 5 Mar. 1903; TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1133; Hay, Letters, vol. 3, 328. The ring is now in Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.
7 Hay could not Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, 42. The Secretary had previously observed that TR “thought more and talked more” about Lincoln “than any one I ever met in public life” (John Hay to Norman Hapgood, 8 Aug. 1904 [TD]). TR himself admitted to “seeing” Lincoln often in the White House. “For some reason or other he is to me infinitely the most real of the dead Presidents.” See also TR, Letters, vol. 3, 392.
8 “a document which” TR, Autobiography, 400.
9 (which had expressed) TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1131.
10 “Much has been” TR, Works, vol. 17, 311.
11 He spoke for Ibid. Remarkably, aside from in his opening “My fellow Americans,” TR did not use the personal pronoun in his address. This remains a record in inaugural oratory.
12 with a new “The Senate is determined to be ‘ugly.’ Their openly expressed opinion is that ‘Teddy’ … wants taking down a peg.” Sir Mortimer Durand to Lord Lansdowne, 7 Mar. 1905 (HMD).
13 Afterward, Roosevelt Butt, Letters, 282. TR described Bacon privately as “a voluble, pinheaded creature … a horrid instance of the mischief that can be done by a man of very slender capacity, if only he possesses great loquacity, effrontery, and an entire indifference to the national welfare.” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1133.
14 So impregnable John Hay diary, 25 Feb. 1905 (JH).
15 floated an enormous Fakirs and spielers along the avenue did brisk business selling miniature replicas of this new American icon. “Take home a Roosevelt ‘big stick.’ ” Washington Evening Star, 4 Mar. 1905.
16 Whatever tomorrow’s TR, Letters, vol. 4, 491; TR to Pierre de Coubertin, 21 Nov. 1904 (TRP); Jay G. Hayden to Hermann Hagedorn, 10 Dec. 1948 (TRB); Leary, Talks with TR, 20.
17 “The President will” John Hay diary, 22 Oct. 1904 (JH).
18 ON 10 MARCH Ibid., 10–11 Mar. 1905.
19 He cautioned Hay Ibid., 10 Mar. 1903; Griscom, Diplomatically Speaking, 253.
20 Even Count Cassini John Hay diary, 16 Mar. 1905 (JH).
21 “We are condemned” Ibid.
22 Hay left Washington The New York Times, 18 Mar. 1905; John Hay diary, 17 Mar. 1905 (JH).
23 Roosevelt was in “Well, Franklin,” TR said to the groom at the reception, “there’s nothing like keeping the name in the family.” Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 288–89. Some years before, as a Harvard undergraduate, Franklin had heard TR speak and “was so impressed … that he vowed he, too, would someday find a way to become active in the political affairs of his country.” Elliott Roosevelt to John A. Gable, 7 July 1989, in Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, summer 1989.
24 Nor did he “Uncle Ted … stole the show and the bridegroom and bridal party sank into an obnoxious oblivion.” Corinne Robinson Alsop, unpublished autobiography, Alsop Papers (TRC), 55. See Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt (New York, 1992), vol. 1, 166–67.
25 To that end EKR diary, 21 Jan. 1905 (TRC); Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 288.
26 THE PRESIDENT TOOK Washington Evening Star, 17 Mar. 1905; John Hay diary, 18 Mar. 1905 (JH).
27 Morocco had suddenly For the immediate background to the Moroccan crisis of spring 1905, see Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 355–59, and Larsen, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Moroccan Crisis,” 95–107.
28 Kaiser Wilhelm II John Hay diary, 7 Mar. 1905 (JH).
29 (as Mr. Perdicaris) See above, p. 324.
30 If the President Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 275.
31 and gain immensely Ibid., 356; John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (New York, 1981), 21.
Germany’s sense of exclusion in North Africa derived from the Anglo-French treaty of 8 Apr. 1904, which gave the French control of Morocco in exchange for British control of Egypt.
32 Great Britain, in turn TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1162.
33 “The Kaiser has” Ibid., 1150.
34 Von Sternburg was Ibid., 1155.
35 April came with Tyler Dennett, Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War (New York, 1925), 172–75.
36 a “worthy creature” TR, Letters, vol. 5, 242. Spring Rice was adjudged by his superiors to be too junior, and too likely to be manipulated by TR.
37 who to his Sir Michael Herbert had died prematurely on 30 Sept. 1904.
38 “I wish the Japs” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1150.
39 Rather than leave Ibid.; The New York Times, 4 Apr. 1905.
40 “I am not” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1156.
41 Rumors proliferated Dunn, From Harrison to Harding, vol. 1, 415; TR, Letters, vol. 4, 717.
42 The President stayed
Chronological Note: TR’s five-week hunting vacation in Oklahoma (wolves) and Colorado (bears) was preceded by a week’s political tour of Kentucky, the Indian Territory, and Texas, where he attended a Rough Riders reunion. He published accounts of both his hunts in Scribner’s Magazine, Oct. and Nov. 1905, and subsequently included them in Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter (“Wolf-Coursing” and “A Colorado Bear Hunt”). See TR, Works, vol. 3.
43 THE FIRST IMPORTANT Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 283; Dennett, Roosevelt, 176.
44 Tokyo did not Dennett, Roosevelt, 176.
45 Roosevelt wired back Ibid., 178.
46 While awaiting TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1161–62.
47 France certainly was Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War, 21.
48 and Britain, in TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1162.
49 “I do not care” Ibid.
50 One little dog TR, Works, vol. 3, 67.
51 (“One run was”) Kerr, Bully Father, 168. John “Jack” Abernathy was the sort of man TR admired. “A really wonderful fellow, catching the wolves alive by thrusting his gloved hands down between their jaws so that they cannot bite. He caught one wolf alive, tied up this wolf, and then held it on the saddle, followed his dogs in a seven-mile run and helped kill another wolf. He has a pretty wife and five cunning children.”
52 Going without lunch TR, Works, vol. 3, 65. As a testament to TR’s overpowering physicality, ranging from his desire to kill to his palpable love of nature in all its forms, “A Colorado Bear Hunt” makes for enlightening reading.
53 On 24 April TR, Works, vol. 3, 82–83; Denver News, 25 Apr. 1905; Washington Evening Star, 26 May 1905; TR to Philip B. Stewart, 26 Apr. 1905 (TRP). “I notice the President has got two bears,” Ambassador Takahira remarked. “We would be satisfied with one!” Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 55.
54 Then he began TR to Philip B. Stewart, 26 Apr. 1905 (TRP).
55
Late that evening Benjamin J. Barnes to William Loeb, Jr., 25 Apr. 1905 (TRP).
56 “You are hereby” Dennett, Roosevelt, 179–80.
57 Taft added, in Ibid., 180. Henry W. Denison was Baron Komura’s official American adviser in Tokyo.
58 Loeb felt unable The following account is taken from an interview given by Loeb to the columnist “Bob Davis,” published in the New York Sun, 28 Mar. 1929, and later reprinted in Roosevelt House Bulletin, spring 1943. Loeb’s movements are confirmed by the Denver News, 27 Apr. 1905.
59 Before going to bed TR to Philip B. Stewart, 26 Apr. 1905 (TRP).
60 They treated Alexander Lambert to TR, 18 June 1905 (TRP).
61 “Am a good deal” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1167–68.
62 Roosevelt spent Pierre de La Gorce, Histoire du Second Empire (Paris, 1899–1905); TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1179; Jusserand, What Me Befell, 277.
63 Roosevelt read TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1174.
64 “struck by certain” Ibid., 1269.
65 At least, though Ieronim Pavlovich Taburno, The Truth about the War (Kansas City, Mo., 1905).
66 WHAT NONE OF Jusserand, What Me Befell, 276; TR on 7 Jan. 1905, qu. in Murakata, “Theodore Roosevelt and William Sturgis Bigelow.” Bigelow, a wealthy Buddhist and connoisseur of Japanese art, was yet another member of TR’s secret du roi. It was he who interested the President in jujitsu.
67 Although Roosevelt had Tyler Dennett believed that had TR been in Washington on 25 April, he could have “hastened the peace by a month or six weeks.” Roosevelt, 182.
68 “in her stomach” TR, Works, vol. 3, 83.
69 his new ambassador “Few Ambassadors have gone to their posts with a letter so full of the mind of their ruler.” John Hay diary, 5 Jan. 1905 (JH). See also TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1134, for the President’s earlier attempts to influence the Russian government “privately and unofficially.” The adroit Meyer was to become the most valuable of all his diplomatic appointments. See Howe, George von Lengerke Meyer.