37 “There is therefore” Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson, 474. On 8 Mar. 1918, Clemenceau reminded the French Chamber of Deputies “that we are at war, that it is necessary to wage war, to think only of war.… So let us wage war.” Strachan, The First World War, 259–60.
38 still unsteady John Leary compared TR’s gait at this time to that of “a landlubber on a pitching deck at sea—with his legs wide apart as though to brace himself.” Leary, notebook 8 (JJL).
39 Cove Neck exuded ERD to Richard Derby, 24 Feb. 1918 (ERDP); TR to QR, 5 Mar. 1918 (TRC). QR had not known about his father’s near-death experience until he picked up a French newspaper and read, five days after the event, “La condition de M. Roosevelt est sérieuse, et les médicins ont conseillés une nouvelle opération.” He had had to wait three more days for a reassuring telegram from Flora. QR to Flora Whitney, 13 Feb. 1918 (FWM).
40 “I wish you” TR to QR, 5 Mar. 1918 (TRC).
41 On 13 March EKR to KR, 17 Mar. 1918 (KRP); TR, Letters, 8.1300–301. ABR, fighting in the Twenty-sixth Infantry’s first line engagement of the war, had been wounded in the Toul sector. ABR, “Lest We Forget.”
42 just given birth On 18 Feb. 1918. In the author’s opinion, “Archie Junior” was, of all TR’s direct descendants, the one who inherited the most of the Colonel’s personal and intellectual characteristics. See Archibald Roosevelt, Jr., For Lust of Knowing: Memoirs of an Intelligence Officer (Boston, 1988).
43 “At lunch Mother” TR, Letters, 8.1301; ERD to Richard Derby, 12 Mar. 1918 (ERDP). TR wrote Clemenceau to say that ABR had won a French medal, and added, “I am prouder of his having received it than of my having been President!” TR, Letters, 8.1303.
44 A few days TR, Letters, 8.1301; Richard Derby to TR, 13 Mar. 1918 (ERDP).
45 now wished to fight TR, Letters, 8.1310.
46 “Father had 2” ERD to Richard Derby n.d., ca. Mar. 1918 (ERDP). The Sagamore Hill farm raised cows, hogs, and chickens, and was therefore self-supporting in milk and eggs. Crops included standard vegetables and fruits, plus hay, corn, and apples for sale. TR, Letters, 8.1352.
47 It was intended TR, Letters, 8.1299.
48 poisonous phosgene fumes Strachan, The First World War, 295.
49 Under the circumstances The New York Times, 28 Mar. 1918.
50 He returned home On his way back, TR stopped in Boston to admire Archie, Jr. TR, Letters, 8.1494.
Biographical Note: TR flattered himself that his mammoth Portland speech, which took three hours to deliver, “amounted to the acceptance, by the Republicans of Maine, of the Progressive platform of 1912 developed and brought up to date.” (TR, Letters, 8.1307.) But its title (“Speed Up the War and Take Thought for After the War”) made clear what his current priorities were. He berated the administration for its unpreparedness and consequent slow pace of mobilization, recommended the creation of a five-million-man army (on the assumption the war would last another three years), demanded that Congress revoke the charter of the German-American Alliance, and called for a declaration of war against Turkey. Although he did, in fact, lay out a domestic policy plan far more detailed and progressive than that of the Democrats in 1918, his bellicose rhetoric naturally got most coverage in the national press. The speech was printed and widely circulated. See The New York Times, 29 Mar. 1918.
51 A terrified Jules Jusserand Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson, 474.
52 “Wilson always follows” ERD to Richard Derby, quoting an attendee at the dinner, 27 Mar. 1918 (ERDP); Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson, 475. McAdoo’s remark was particularly striking because he happened to be WW’s son-in-law.
53 a place for Kermit TR, Letters, 8.1316.
54 He calculated QR to Flora Whitney, 24 Mar. 1918 (FWM).
55 As for your getting killed (handwritten) TR to QR, 17 Mar. 1918 (TRC).
56 Quentin foresaw QR to Flora Whitney, 27 Mar. 1918 (FWM).
57 When Quentin next heard TR, Letters, 8.1311.
58 What information reached Richard Derby to TR, 13 Mar. 1918 (ERDP); medical report, 12 Mar. 1918 (ERDP); Eleanor B. Roosevelt, Day Before Yesterday, 95; QR to Flora Whitney, 30 Apr. 1918 (FWM).
59 Quentin was lucky QR to Flora Whitney, 30 Apr., 2 May 1918 (FWM); Eleanor Roosevelt to mother, 19 Apr. 1918 (TRJP); Richard Derby to TR, 13 Mar. 1918 (ERDP).
60 Roosevelt chafed TR, Letters, 8.1311; ERD to Richard Derby, 22 Apr. 1918 (ERDP); TR, Letters, 8.1312. Shipments of men and matériel, Stout wrote, were in fact accelerating at a compound rate. By June, the flood should be overwhelming. “Neither a newspaper or a public man,” he cautioned TR, “can afford to be too far ahead of the people.” Quoted in ERD to Richard Derby, 22 Apr. 1918 (ERDP).
61 Ethel wrote Dick, 17 May 1918 (ERDP).
62 Two days later Edith Normant scrapbook (ERDP).
63 Roosevelt had the Leary, notebook 8 (JJL).
64 Roosevelt took his Ibid.
65 “Theodore!” Ibid.; Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 435 (eyewitness account).
66 “He feels” Leary, notebook 8 (JJL). See also TR’s follow-up letter to WHT: “What a dreadful creature he [WW] is!… In this really very evil crisis, we need a leader and not a weathercock.” (TR, Letters, 8.1336–37.) WHT, evidently no longer a pacifist, believed that WW was more interested in talking than fighting, and was a Bolshevik sympathizer to boot.
67 If present trends Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 496.
68 like summer lightning The image is Eleanor’s, in Day Before Yesterday, 97.
69 Just as disturbing EBR to mother, 4 June 1918 (TRJP); Eleanor B. Roosevelt, Day Before Yesterday, 97; official citation for “conspicuous gallantry” published in Harvard Club Bulletin, Aug. 1918 (KRP).
70 With this and TR, Letters, 8.1338; QR to Flora Whitney, 2 June 1918 (FWM). QR to Flora Whitney, 2 June 1918 (FWM).
71 “La guerre est finie” Cowley, The Great War, 424.
72 General Pershing tried Strachan, The First World War, 298; Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, 499.
73 On 7 June EKR to KR, 9 June 1918 (KRP); Leary, notebook 9 (JJL); EKR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 16 June 1918 (CRR).
74 When they got back EKR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 16 June 1918 (CRR).
75 “My joy for you” TR to QR, 19 June 1918.
76 “He evidently felt” QR to Flora Whitney, 17 June 1918 (FWM).
77 “It is really” QR to ERD, 17 June 1918 (FWM); QR to Flora Whitney, 17 June 1918 (FWM).
78 “Colonel, one of” TR to KR, 25 June 1918 (KRP).
79 a pile of books One item on TR’s reading pile reflected his understandable new interest in combat flying. It was Henry Bordeaux’s Le Chevalier de l’air: Vie héroïque de Guynemer (Paris, 1918). TR appears to have read it in French, but he wrote an introduction to the American edition, translated by Louise M. Sill and published as Georges Guynemer, Knight of the Air (New Haven, Conn., 1918). With palpable concern for Quentin, he wrote that “the air service in particular is one of such peril that membership in it is of itself a high distinction.”
80 “I have finished” TR to QR, 19 June 1918 (TRC).
81 a macabre souvenir QR to Flora Whitney, 20 June 1918 (FWM).
82 “There’s no better” QR to Flora Whitney, 23 Feb. 1918 (FWM).
83 “The real thing” QR to EKR, 25 June 1918 (TRC); QR to Flora Whitney, 29 June 1918 (FWM). This posting was to Touquin, a patrol center for the area between Château-Thierry and Reims. QR was billeted in the adjacent village of Mauperthuis.
84 On the Fourth Parsons, Perchance to Dream, 274.
85 Little tricolors Ibid.
86 Six days later QR to Flora Whitney, 11 July 1918 (FWM). A later letter from Hamilton Coolidge to Flora revealed that inexperience had something to do with this encounter: at first QR had “joined [the] Boche formation by mistake,” thinking it was his own. 16 July 1918 (FWM).
87 He and Eleanor Eleanor B. Roosevelt, Day Before Yesterday, 100. During this visit, QR told EBR that if any of his family were to die in the w
ar, he hoped it would be himself, because his other brothers and Dick all had children. “I think he had a very distinct feeling that he might never get home again,” EBR wrote her mother. 28 July 1918 (TRJP).
88 a little French town Mauperthuis, adjacent to Saints and Touquin.
89 “O ruin!” QR to Flora Whitney, 11 July 1918 (FWM).
90 “Whatever now befalls” TR, Letters, 8.1351.
91 On the afternoon TR to KR, 21 July 1918 (KRP); The New York Times, 18 July 1918; Philip Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys,” McClure’s Magazine, Nov. 1918; Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family, 412.
92 “It seems dreadful” TR to KR, 16 July 1918 (KRP).
93 Then a cable John J. Pershing to TR, 17 July 1918 (ERDP). The chronology of events affecting TR and EKR over the next few days is somewhat confused, due to conflicting newspaper reports. It is reconstructed here on the basis of primary accounts. Pershing’s cable was not released to the press until late on 18 July.
94 At sunset Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 423.
95 “But—Mrs. Roosevelt?” Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys.” By now (7:30 A.M.), TR had at least informed EKR that QR was missing. Her telegram transmitting this news to ERD in Maine was received “early” on the 17th. ERD to Richard Derby, 17 July 1918 (ERDP).
96 He disappeared Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys.”
97 “Quentin’s mother” The New York Times, 18 July 1918.
98 “I must go” Bishop, TR, 2.452.
99 Telegrams of condolence Josephine Stricker, “Roosevelt a Hero to His Private Secretary,” New York Tribune, 5 Oct. 1919.
100 “We must do” Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 423.
101 Roosevelt had no sooner Hermann Hagedorn memo, 20 Sept. 1923 (HP).
Biographical Note: The Harvard-educated Hagedorn (1882–1964) had attracted TR’s attention in 1912 by publishing a poem and contributing the fee ($10) to the Progressive Party. A friend and patron of Edwin Arlington Robinson, he began accumulating biographical materials on TR in 1917. His research materialized in three valuable if saccharine books, The Boys’ Life of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1918), Roosevelt in the Bad Lands (Boston, 1921), and The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill (New York, 1954). From 1918 on he dedicated most of his career to memorializing TR, editing the National and Memorial editions of TR’s collected works and serving as director of three successive Theodore Roosevelt associations. A letter TR wrote introducing Hagedorn to William W. Sewell in 1917 should serve as a model to public figures entrusting their lives to a responsible biographer: “I want you to tell him everything, good, bad and indifferent. Don’t spare me the least bit. Give him the very worst side of me you can think of, and the very best side of me that is truthful.… Tell him about our snowshoe trips.… Tell him about the ranch. Tell him how we got Red Finnegan and the two other cattle thieves. Tell him everything.” TR, Letters, 8.1244–45.
102 “Now, Colonel” Hermann Hagedorn memo, 20 Sept. 1923 (HP).
103 Afterward Hagedorn noted Pringle, TR, 601. See also Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 429–30.
104 Edith came ERD to Richard Derby, 17 July 1918 (ERDP).
105 “Before the Colonel” The New York Times, 19 July 1918.
106 “My fellow voters” Lafayette Gleason, verbatim transcript of TR’s remarks at Saratoga on 17 July 1918, preserved by Elmer R. Koppelmann. Copy in AC.
107 “Surely in this great crisis” Sullivan, Our Times, 5.500.
108 Before he got TR, Letters, 8.1341; WHT to TR, 19 July 1918 (WHTP); Bishop, TR, 2.453–54.
109 “I have only one” Robinson, My Brother TR, 346.
110 QUENTIN’S PLANE The New York Times, 20 July 1918.
111 EVERY REASON 12:50 P.M., 19 July 1918 (FWM).
112 Newspapers got The New York Times, 20 July 1918.
113 The Colonel, clutching F. Trubee Davison interviewed by Mary Hagedorn, 30 Mar. 1955 (HH).
114 speech exquisitely calligraphed One of these copies is preserved in the Pratt Collection (TRB). Included is an introduction by J. B. Millet, who collaborated on the speech, noting that after the first report of QR’s disappearance, he had suggested to TR that they postpone their work (presumably on the afternoon of 16 July). TR insisted on finishing it. “I saw by his manner, and by his kindly words to me, that it was a relief to have a subject before him to which he could give his whole heart.” Ibid.
115 “What hope” Ibid. “It was one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of control and courage that I have ever seen.”
116 The telegram confirmed WW to TR, 20 July 1918 (TRP).
117 On Saturday Original in ERDP. Chamery is misspelled “Chambry.” According to an American POW who witnessed the ceremony on 15 July 1918, QR was buried in the presence of a detachment of approximately 1,000 German soldiers, with officers standing at attention before the ranks. “I was told afterward … that they paid Lieut. Roosevelt such honor not only because he was a gallant aviator, who died fighting bravely against odds, but because he was the son of Colonel Roosevelt, whom they esteemed as one of the great Americans.” Kermit Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 175–76.
CHAPTER 28: SIXTY
1 Epigraph Robinson, Collected Poems, 97.
2 When American forces A friend [“Bill”] to Flora Whitney, 10 Aug. 1918 (FWM). This description, reporting a personal visit to QR’s grave shortly after his burial, is cited as more primary than that given in Kermit Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 176.
3 The autopsy Official German press announcement, relayed to the Roosevelts from the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, quoted in ERD to Flora Whitney, “Thursday,” July 1918 (FWM). See also Kermit Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 172–74.
4 Woodrow Wilson’s telegram The New York Times, 21 July 1918. See also EBR to mother, 19 July 1918 (TJRP).
5 “Ex-Tsar of Russia” The official Russian wireless announcement quoted by The Times reported only Nicholas’s death on 16 July. His wife and son were said to be “in a place of security.” No mention was made of the four Romanov daughters.
6 That Sunday happened ERD to Richard Derby, 21 July 1918 (ERDP).
7 They returned home Ibid.; Robinson, My Brother TR, 346.
8 “Why not come” ERD to Richard Derby, 22 July 1918 (ERDP).
9 brown-shingled “cottages” Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., The Summer Cottages of Islesboro, 1890–1930 (Islesboro, Maine, 1989), 28 and passim; Belfast (Maine) Republican Journal, 1 Aug. 1918. Ethel’s summer home is now known as the Edward Adams Cottage. Other visual and atmospheric details in this section derive from a tour arranged for the author by the Islesboro Historical Society in Sept. 2006.
10 He and Edith arrived EKR to KR, 28 July 1918 (KRP); Belfast (Maine) Republican Journal, 1 Aug. 1918.
11 “In time” TR, Letters, 8.1360.
12 That was even ERD to KR, 28 July 1918 (KRP); TR to ABR, 21 July 1918 (ABRP); ERD to Richard Derby, 21 July 1918 (ERDP).
13 “I can see” TR to KR, 28 July 1918 (KRP).
14 Nevertheless, the place TR, Letters, 8.1358; Belfast (Maine) Republican Journal, 1 Aug. 1918; Flora Whitney to ERD, 28 Aug. 1918 (ERDP).
15 “It is no use” TR, Letters, 8.1360.
16 Even his poems QR, untitled poem about star-gazing, 1915, preserved in FWM.
17 explosive rather than propulsive “I do lack push, and I haven’t any idea why.” QR to Flora Whitney, ca. early May 1918 (FWM).
18 “black gloom” Hamilton Coolidge memorial to QR, unfinished ms., copied in ERD to Flora Whitney, 4 June 1919 (FWM); Coolidge to Flora, 16 July 1918 (FWM).
19 As Edith had Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 397; EKR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 5 May 1912 (ARC).
20 Only in two As far as one can tell, QR’s affair with Flora was unconsummated. His letters to her are devoid of any hint of sexual intimacy. One (6 Oct. 1917 [FWM]) loftily invokes the virtue of coming to marriage “clean and pure.” As such, it reads like an outtake from his father’s college diary of 38 years before. See Morris,
The Rise of TR, 63.
21 Test-piloting QR to ERD, 22 Dec. 1917 (ERDP); QR to Flora Whitney, 27 Jan. 1918 (FWM).
22 “The months that” QR to Flora Whitney, 21 Feb. 1918 (FWM).
23 “His back will” Quoted in ERD to KR, 25 Aug. 1918 (KRP).
24 “form succeeds form” TR, Works, 14.70.
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