Colonel Roosevelt
Page 92
6 stomped and burned The New York Times, 10 Nov. 1912.
7 Even if he A progressive Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota received almost four times as many votes as the Progressive Party candidate. TR himself did best in states where the GOP vote was traditionally high. Potts, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party”; Gable, The Bull Moose Years, 132.
8 He would now John Milton Cooper, in Naylor et al., TR, 505, expresses a contrary view, suggesting that WW would have been nominated as the only possible foil to TR, and during the campaign would have attracted away from him much of WHT’s conservative/corporate support.
9 There remained James E. Amos, Theodore Roosevelt: Hero to His Valet (New York, 1927), 147–48. “To me and to some of the others who were near him it always seemed that after the shooting things began to break against him. Up to that moment his life had been a rising scale of successes. People talked about his star and his destiny. Things broke for him. After that they broke the other way.”
10 poor Nick Representative Longworth was defeated by only 97 votes—which ARL guiltily blamed on herself, for attending a Progressive rally in Columbus earlier in the year. He took solace in alcohol, breaking down completely on 13 Nov., to her “infinite sorrow and pity.” Cordery, Alice, 235–36.
11 Roosevelt admitted TR to KR, 24 May 1913, ts. (TRC); Willard Straight to Henry P. Fletcher, 3 Oct. 1912 (STR). Apparently TR did not know that The Outlook had taken out a $25,000 accident insurance policy on him, and made a claim after he was incapacitated in Milwaukee. The insurance company argued that only TR could have claimed, and tried to have the policy voided. TR then mystifyingly announced that TR would not file any claim himself. The New York Times, 8, 9 Nov. 1912.
12 And he suspected Encouraged by timid signals from Ethel, Dr. Derby had begun to press his suit again in October. Their ultimately fruitful, two-and-a-half-year romance is touchingly documented in WFP.
13 Roosevelt was willing TR to KR, 11 Nov. 1912, ts. (TRC).
14 “I get from” Ibid. TR’s Outlook salary was $12,000.
15 There remained African Game Trails sold 36,127 copies in 1910, about 4,700 copies in 1911, and about 1,019 copies in the first half of 1912. (Charles Scribner to TR, 7 Feb. 1911, 21 Feb. and 22 Aug. 1912 [SCR].) Author’s estimates based on payments to TR, where no sales figures are available.
16 Looking back Charles Scribner to TR, 1 Feb. and 22 Aug. 1912 (TRP). TR had, all the same, an impressive total of 15 titles in print at the end of 1912, many of them in multiple editions, and all still earning royalties. This total did not include the “Elkhorn Edition” of his complete works to date (26 vols.), nor any of his foreign editions and translations.
Biographical Note: The information in these paragraphs is based on scattered royalty statements and “stock accounts” sent to TR by his various publishers in 1912, and preserved in TRC. From 1913 through 1919 he appears to have earned a further $58,125 in advance payments and royalties. (TR file, SCR.) Posthumously, he once again became a bestselling author, thanks to the publication of Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children. (See Epilogue.) It is impossible to calculate how many copies of TR’s books were bought during his lifetime and in the decade or so after his death. A memo prepared by his main publisher, Scribners, in 1933, lists 876,375 copies sold by that house to date. Scribners to William H. Bell, 25 Nov 1933 (SCR).
17 The Century Company Hero Tales from American History (New York, 1895), addressed to young readers, was co-authored by Henry Cabot Lodge. Stories of the Great West (New York, 1909), was a selection of chapters and articles previously published by TR.
18 He was not sure TR to KR, 21 Jan. 1913, ts. (TRC); Charles Scribner to William B. Howland, 2 Dec. 1912 (SCR).
19 not that they John Adams’s autobiography was abandoned in mid-sentence, and John Quincy Adams’s was a scissors-and-paste job compiled by his son Charles Francis.
20 “This is the first” Charles Scribner to TR, 2 Dec. 1912 (SCR).
21 “another proposition” Howland to Scribner, 3 Dec. 1912 (SCR).
22 The proposition had come Macmillan statement, 30 Apr. 1914 (TRP). TR’s advance was not payable until publication day, 19 Nov. 1913. There is no of record what, if anything, he was paid by The Outlook for first serial rights.
23 reputation for promptness See Abbott, Impressions of TR, 173–74.
24 His third book project Charles Scribner to TR, 17 June and 16 Sept. 1913 (SCR).
25 John F. Schrank, meanwhile Remey et al., The Attempted Assassination, 98, 101–2.
26 he insisted that TR was inclined to agree with Schrank. “I very gravely question if he has a more unsound mind than Eugene Debs.” Bishop, TR, 2.344.
27 He bequeathed Gores, “The Attempted Assassination”; Chicago Tribune, 15 Oct. 1912; The New York Times, 19 Nov. 1912; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, 15 Oct. 1912.
28 incarceration for life The lunacy commission’s euphemism, “until cured” was understood in 1912 to mean a life sentence. The New York Times, 23 Nov. 1912.
29 “Only Bull Moose” Chicago Tribune, 23 Nov. 1912. TR told St. Loe Strachey on 16 Dec. that he did not consider Schrank to be any more insane than Senator La Follette or Eugene Debs. He blamed his own journalistic enemies for having excited the little man to action. “I have not the slightest feeling against him.” (TR, Letters, 7.676–77.) Schrank was shortly transferred to Wisconsin’s Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and remained there until his death on 15 Sept. 1943—the anniversary of his first vision of the ghost of McKinley. He was a model prisoner and exhibited no further evidence of aberrant behavior until Franklin D. Roosevelt sought a third term as President in 1940. Schrank then became agitated, and was heard to say that “if he was free he would take a hand in the matter.” During his 31-year incarceration, he was visited by no one and received no letters. (Gores, “The Attempted Assassination.”) See also Remey et al., The Attempted Assassination, 117ff. for Schrank’s complete testimony in 1912.
30 Much as Roosevelt Gable, The Bull Moose Years 149–55. For TR’s years as a self-described “literary feller,” see Morris, The Rise of TR, chap. 15.
31 George Perkins, seeking Garland, Companions on the Trail, 505–6.
32 an excellent life Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character (1898). Garland (1860–1940) was to achieve fame in 1917 with his autobiographical Son of the Middle Border. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a sequel, Daughter of the Middle Border, in 1921. His three volumes of literary reminiscences, Roadside Meetings (1930), Companions on the Trail (1931), and My Friendly Contemporaries (1932), are richly anecdotal.
33 “I’ll begin it immediately” Garland, Companions on the Trail, 507.
34 Abbott’s idea Abbott, Impressions of TR, 176–78.
35 On October 27, 1858 TR, An Autobiography, 256.
36 Ever since the election “Minutes of the National Committee of the Progressive Party, 1912–1916,” bound ts., 5–20 (TRC); Mowry, TR, 289. In an editorial dated 8 Jan. 1913, Munsey proposed a merger between the Progressive and Republican parties. For a detailed account of the intraparty battle against Perkins, see Mowry, TR, chap. 11.
37 Showing as much Chicago Tribune, 9 Dec. 1912; Mowry, TR, 285.
38 convinced by his support TR, Letters, 7.665.
39 “The doctrine of” Gable, The Bull Moose Years, 154. A case in point soon materialized in Idaho, where the state supreme court, on 2 Jan. 1913, jailed and fined the editor and publisher of the Boise Capital News on contempt charges for criticizing its decision to deny local candidates the right to run as Progressives on the national ballot. The result was outrage in all sections of the American press, and wide circulation of TR’s triumphant reaction: “There could be no better proof that we need in many states at least the power to recall judges from the bench when they act badly.” TR, Letters, 7.687.
40 “I have had” TR to KR, 27 Dec. 1912 and 21 Jan. 1913. The manuscript of TR’s autobiography, bound in two vols., is in MLM. Except for c
hap. 1, which seems to be a copy of Lawrence Abbott’s redaction of his first “interview” session with TR, and a few late pages on conservation written by Gifford Pinchot at the author’s request, all the other chapters are original typescripts dictated and heavily edited by TR. Some pages are so dense with handwritten “inserts” that the four margins are filled to capacity. It is clear that he regarded the book as an important document.
41 a lock of honey-colored hair This memento of Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt is preserved at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.
42 The company of TR, Letters, 7.688.
43 He was intrigued TR to KR, 11 Nov. 1912, ts. (TRC); TR, Letters, 8.829; Endicott Peabody in Boston Transcript, 22 July 1918. TR was particularly impressed with QR’s story, “From a Train Window,” Grotonian, Oct. 1914.
44 Kermit claimed KR to ERD, 12, 26 Nov. 1913 (ERDP); EKR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 15 Oct. 1913 (ARC); KR to ERD, 12 May 1913 (ERDP).
45 “As president of” TR, Letters, 7.660.
46 More excitingly Ibid.
47 At Symphony Hall Lowell (Mass.) Sun, The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1912.
48 And the great Parkman Morris, The Rise of TR, 120, 393, 412.
49 None of the members Pringle, TR, 572.
50 He proceeded to say TR’s lecture, “History as Literature,” has been widely reprinted. The version cited here, taken from the American Historical Review, Apr. 1913, appears in TR, Works, 14.3–28. It is the source of the following quotations.
51 Literature may TR, Works, 14.7.
52 “the preacher militant” Wister, Roosevelt, 232.
53 He must ever remember TR, Works, 14.23.
54 “He is so” Turner, Dear Lady, 139.
55 “T.R. came and went” Akiko Murakata, “Theodore Roosevelt and William Sturgis Bigelow: The Story of a Friendship,” Harvard Library Bulletin, 23.1 (1975).
56 With some awkwardness Lodge, Selections, 2.426–34. Lodge’s Early Memories, published in the fall of 1913, stopped short of his political career and said nothing about his relationship with TR.
57 A much frostier The New York Times, 5 Jan. 1913.
58 “No, dear, no” Eleanor B. Roosevelt, Day Before Yesterday, 65.
59 His wisecrack The New York Times, 5 Jan. 1913.
60 In a bizarre speech Logansport (Ind.) Journal-Tribune, 5 Jan. 1913.
61 For the rest The first chapter of TR’s autobiography, “Boyhood and Youth,” appeared in The Outlook on 22 Feb. 1913. Eleven further chapters followed fortnightly. The McClure Newspaper Syndicate began reprinting them on 13 April.
62 “It is very difficult” TR, Letters, 7.689.
63 He was shy TR, An Autobiography, 258, 263–64. TR did permit himself one reference to “my son Kermit” in describing a lion hunt in Africa, presumably because KR had been mentioned often in African Game Trails. Elsewhere in his manuscript, he deleted some accidental references to Ted before sending it to the printer. See chap. 9, 24 (MLM).
64 Adult traumas Morris, The Rise of TR, passim.
65 “an optimist” Wister, Roosevelt, 331–32.
66 That land of the West TR, An Autobiography, 346. His quotation “gone with lost Atlantis” is from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Philadelphia” in Rewards and Fairies (1910).
67 On Tuesday The New York Times, 5 Mar. 1913.
68 the Colonel went that morning Ibid. To New Yorkers in 1913, the term Futurism was not necessarily associated with the movement of that name in Italy.
69 a bedlam of aesthetic debate See Milton W. Brown, The Story of the Armory Show (New York, 1988), chap. 9.
70 some Valhallan landscapes Pinckney Marcius-Simons (1867–1909) is often misnamed in TR studies as “Marcus Symonds” or “Bruseius Simons.” A skilled, New York–born genre painter in the 1880s, he later developed a vaguer, more mystical style, apparently influenced by Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen and Parsifal. He died in Bayreuth. For TR’s emotional reaction to three Simons works (which still hang in Sagamore Hill), see TR, Letters, 4.757–78. “I wish ‘the light that never was on land or sea’ in the pictures I am to live with—and this light your paintings have.” See also TR, An Autobiography, 586.
71 As for sculpture Longworth, Crowded Hours, 65.
72 “Art,” Roosevelt admitted TR quoted in Butt, Letters, 355–56.
73 His executive dining room Morris, Theodore Rex, passim; Albert Bigelow Paine, Thomas Nast: His Period and His Pictures (New York, 1904), 556ff.; Garland in Roosevelt House Bulletin, 2.2 (Fall 1923).
Historiographical Note: A comprehensive study of TR’s patronage of artists and the arts as President remains to be written. His activism included the classical restoration and renaming of the White House; dynamic backing for the McMillan Commission’s 1902 plan to de-clutter and beautify Washington, along the lines of Pierre L’Enfant’s original design; relocating the proposed Lincoln Memorial on Capitol Hill to its present site; ordering the removal of the former Pennsylvania Railroad Station on the Mall at Sixth Street, N.W.; campaigning for a National Art Gallery; and pressuring his fellow regents on the Smithsonian Institution board to acquire major collections of Oriental, British, and contemporary American art. Shortly before leaving the White House he appointed and empowered a Fine Arts Council, under the advisement of the American Institute of Architects. But the gesture was quixotic, since neither Congress nor President Taft showed any interest in continuing the cultural policies of the Roosevelt administration. See TR, Letters, 4.817; Glenn Brown, “Roosevelt and the Fine Arts,” American Architect, 116 (1919); “Roosevelt and Our Coin Designs: The Letters Between Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint Gaudens,” The Century Magazine, Apr. 1920; reminiscences of Christopher LaFarge and Glenn Brown in Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 169–72; Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., “Theodore Roosevelt, Champion of Governmental Aesthetics,” Georgia Review, 67.21 (Summer 1967); Richard H. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt, Culture, Diplomacy, and Expansion (Baton Rouge, La., 1985); Steven L. Levine, “Race, Culture, and Art: Theodore Roosevelt and the Nationalist Aesthetic” (Ph.D. thesis, Kent State University, 2001). Aviva F. Taubenfeld’s Rough Writing: Ethnic Authorship in Theodore Roosevelt’s America (New York, 2008) is an important study of TR’s literary patronage related to the immigrant experience.
74 Unlike most The British novelist Arnold Bennett visited New York 15 months before the Armory Show and was dismayed at the low esteem in which Europhile Americans held their own culture. “They associate art with Florentine frames, matinée hats, distant museums, and clever talk full of allusions to the dead.” Bennett, Your United States (New York, 1912), 163–64.
75 He felt that TR, “A Layman’s View of an Art Exhibition,” TR, Works, 14.405ff. Originally published in The Outlook, 29 Mar. 1913.
76 Roosevelt was in Journalistic glimpses of TR at the Armory Show describe his pace as leisurely and his mood one of calm enjoyment. He was escorted by Arthur B. Davies, president of the exhibition, Walt Kuhn, and Robert W. Chanler. The following account of what he saw is based on TR’s above-cited article, and on a virtual, though partial, tour of the exhibition compiled by Shelley Staples for the University of Virginia at http://xroads.virginia.edu/. Extra visual details, and identification of the artworks that caught TR’s eye, come from the scrapbooks, photographs, and clippings collected by Walt Kuhn in WCF. The Kuhn archive also includes a complete typed list of all the exhibits.
77 He was predisposed TR, Works, 14.410. Chanler (1872–1930) was a French-trained muralist whose intricately woven style was inspired by the polyphony of J. S. Bach. (Chanler, Roman Spring, 188–89.) For TR’s “American ideal” in the creative arts, see Taubenfeld, Rough Writers, 2–12, and Wagenknecht, The Seven Worlds of TR, 65–79.
78 It was clear that Davies (1862–1928) was, despite his romantic style, a member of “The Eight.” Considered by many in his day to be the greatest living American artist, he was an enthusiastic promoter of the European avant-garde. It was largely due to him that the Armory Show, originally intended as a sur
vey of American art, became international. Davies selected most of the foreign works on display, leaving the American galleries to his colleague William Glackens.
79 Roosevelt was taken TR, Works, 14.410. Ms. Myers’s satiric sculpture is illustrated in The Century Magazine, 85.4 (Aug. 1913).