The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (165 page)

26.
Robinson,
History of N.D.
, 190–6.

27.
TR.Wks.I.17.

28.
TR.Auto.111–2; Dantz, qu. HAG. Bln.; Merrifield, qu. ib. (“Roosevelt had a great weakness for bad men.”); Erskine, Gladys S.,
Bronco Charlie: A Saga of the Saddle
(NY, 1934) 231–2; Hag.RBL.116. “I can’t tell why in the world I like you,” TR told Hell-Roaring Bill Jones, “for you’re the nastiest-talking man I ever heard.”

29.
On Apr. 15, 1897, TR was re-elected as chairman of the Little Missouri Stockmen’s Association.
Dickinson Press
, Apr. 16. See also Put.528.

30.
As early as August 1886, at the time of the Mexican war scare, the cowboys were anxious to follow TR into battle. See TR.Wks.I.378.

31.
See, e.g., TR’s famous letter of Aug. 9, 1903, to John Hay, in Mor.3.547 ff.

32.
Vollweiler, Albert T., “Roosevelt’s Ranch Life in North Dakota,”
U. North Dakota Quarterly Journal
9.1 (Oct. 1918).

33.
See Alex. 102–4.

34.
Fourth-Class Postmasters were fired by the thousands, effecting a complete purge in two years; all 85 IRS inspectors were replaced, as were 100 of the nation’s 111 Customs Collectors. (Alex. 102.)

35.
GC vetoed 413 bills in his first Administration. (Ib. 114.)

36.
The wedding took place on June 2, 1886. See Nev.

37.
N.Y.T.
, May 11, 1887.

38.
Ib.;
World
, May 12, 1887.

39.
N.Y.T.
, May 12, 1887;
Sun
, May 15. For a list of notables attending, see
Trib.
, May 12.

40.
The following account of TR’s speech is collated from
N.Y.T., Trib., World, Sun, Her., Eve. Post
, and
Daily Graphic
, May 12–16, 1887.

41.
TR grudgingly allowed that GC had made some good appointments to the U.S. Treasury, and was taken aback by an unexpected burst of applause. Nev.367.

42.
Trib.
, May 12, 1887.

43.
Interestingly, Depew himself was a Presidential candidate at that time, and his remarks were interpreted by some as a put-down of the youthful TR.

44.
Qu.
Sun
, May 16, 1887.

45.
Ib.

46.
Ib.

47.
N.Y.T.
, May 13, 1887.

48.
Un. clip, TRB;
N.Y.T.
, May 13, 1887.

49.
Ib.

50.
Eve. Post
, May 13, 1887.

51.
N.Y.T.
, May 15, 1887; TR.Auto. 329–30; TR to B, May 21, 1887.

52.
Lod.55; Hag.RF.15.

53.
TR to B, Feb. 12, 1887.

54.
TR.Wks.VII.241; Mor.131.

55.
N.Y.T.
, May 6, 1888. See Gar.56 for an alternate explanation of editorin-chief Morse’s decision to commission the book.
Morris
is reprinted in TR.Wks.VII.235–470, and in a recent special edition by the Theodore Roosevelt Association of Oyster Bay, N.Y. (1975). This edition carries an introduction by John A. Gable, “Theodore Roosevelt as Historian and Man of Letters,” vii–xxiv.

56.
Lod.57. See also Mor.7.175.

57.
Lod.55. See also Gable, “Historian,” x.

58.
Ib.

59.
Mor.131.

60.
TR.Wks.VII.306.

61.
Ib., 324.

62.
Ib., 328.

63.
Ib., 329, 456, 336.

64.
Ib., 459, 421.

65.
Ib., 464, 459, 469

66.
The Book Buyer
, May 1888;
N.Y.T.
, May 6;
Dial
, May 1888. For a more positive review, see
The Critic
, July 21: “We are struck with the author’s wide, if not profound reading of purely European political and general literature … crisp and even classic English … freely strung pearls of thought … sparkling on every page.” The
Boston Advertiser
came up with a telling line in its review of Apr. 4: “He [TR] seems to have been born with his mind made up.” The line may have been contributed, tongue-in-cheek, by the paper’s owner, Henry Cabot Lodge.

67.
Mor. 119.

68.
TR to C, June 8, 1887 (TRB photostat).

69.
Rob.130; TR to B, Sep. 9, 1887; TR to C, June 8, Lod.57; TR to B, Aug. 20; Rob.130.

70.
Gwy.67. This remark echoes one made privately by HCL, two years before in his diary: “The more I see him, as the fellow says in the play, the more and more I love him.” Qu. Put.506.

71.
TR to B, Sep. 11, 1887; ib., Sep. 13, 1888.

72.
As
persona non grata
in political circles, TR had taken no part in the New York State fall campaign, and his departure West was obviously timed to spare him the agony of witnessing another Democratic landslide in the election on Nov. 8. “The Republican party seems moribund,” he despairingly wrote afterward. (To B, Nov. 20, 1887.)

73.
TR to B, Nov. 13, 1888. The cousin was West Roosevelt, and the friend Frank Underhill.

74.
TR.Wks.I.409.

75.
Ib., 79; Lan.223–4.

76.
Ib., 222–4. Lincoln Lang was an early and passionate conservationist, far ahead of his time. It was his considered opinion that TR was so sickened by the environmental damage suffered by the Badlands in 1886
(before
the Great Blizzard) that he had decided to give up the cattle business “several months before he actually did.” (Ib., 225.)

77.
See Clay,
Life on the Range
, 43.

78.
TR to MBR, Apr. 28, 1868 (see Ch. 1).

79.
TR.Wks.II.160.

80.
See Cut.
passim
for TR’s early conservationist instincts.

81.
Lan.223–4.

82.
TR to B, Nov. 20, 1887; Grinnell in TR.Wks.I.xiv–xvii.

83.
Rules qu. in TR’s own description of the Club,
Harper’s Weekly
, Mar. 1893.

84.
Ib.; Grinnell in TR.Wks.I.xvii; TR in
Harper’s Weekly
, Mar. 1893.

85.
Cut.70; TR.Wks.I.xvii–i.

86.
Cut.70–3; TR in
Harper’s Weekly
, Mar. 1893.

87.
Cut.78; TR.Wks.I.xviii.

88.
Eugene Swope, curator Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary at Oyster Bay, to Helen Elizabeth Reed (TRC).

89.
Cut.79.

90.
See TR to B, Feb. 12, 1887.

91.
The eminent historian David Seville Muzzey, writing in 1927, called the act “one of the most noteworthy measures ever passed in the history of this nation.” Qu. Cut.72.

92.
See Nev.383 ff.

93.
$55 million on Dec. 1, 1887. By the end of the fiscal year 1888 it was expected to grow to $140 million. Nev.375.

94.
See Sto.152.

95.
Ib., 153.

96.
Nev.395.

97.
Mor.136; Lod.62; Har.73.

98.
Mor. 136. TR had made a similar confession to HCL about a year earlier (Lod.51), but had failed to act upon it. Mor.705.

99.
Although once, when writing the first chapter of
Benton
, he described it as “an outline I intend to fill up.” Mor.94.

100.
E.g., Mor.141.

101.
Ib., 134–5; also 133.
Commonwealth
was duly proclaimed a masterpiece when it appeared in December 1888, and is regarded as such to this day.

102.
Bryce, James,
The American Commonwealth
(N.Y., 1888) I.540–2, II.103, 119, 173, has extensive quotes from TR’s essays on legislative and municipal corruption.

103.
Later the theme was extended still further, to include the more recent settlements of New Mexico and Arizona, covering two full centuries of American history.

104.
Mor.140.

105.
See Gable, “TR as Historian,” xi–xxiv for a modern historiographical assessment of TR.
The Winning of the West
is extensively discussed below, in Ch. 18.

106.
Mor.140; also see below.

107.
TR’s trip to the South lasted from Mar. 21 to about Apr. 3, 1888; he visited Washington at least twice, in late January and early March.

108.
Mor.197.

109.
The manuscript of
The Winning of the West
is now in the New York Public Library.

110.
TR to B, July 1, 1888.

111.
TR to Brander Matthews, Oct. 5, 1888.

112.
See TR to B, Oct. 13, 1889, when he complains that his new income of $3,500 will be “700/800 dollars” less than his income as a writer in 1888.

113.
Norton, Charles Eliot,
Walt Whitman as Man, Poet, and Friend
(Boston, 1919), 216.

114.
Lod.56; See
N.Y.T.
, Nov. 30, 1888: “Cleverly told, very handsome and interesting.” Also
The Book Buyer
, Dec. 1888: “To a most readable style of writing Mr. Roosevelt adds a thorough familiarity with his subject, happily combining accuracy with entertainment.”

115.
TR to B, July 13, 1888.

116.
Mor.145–9; TR to B, Sep. 18, 1888.

117.
Ib.; Mor.147.

118.
Mor.142.

119.
Pla.252: “… he was as glacial as a Siberian stripped of his furs.”

120.
Mor.148; Tha.84.

121.
Mor.149.

122.
Manuscript in New York Public Library.

123.
TR to B, n.d., 1888.

124.
COW.

125.
George Haven Putnam in TR.Wks.IX.xv; see also Mor.197.

126.
Mor.163.

127.
Ib., 156.

128.
Ib.

129.
Lod.74.

130.
Gar.104; Har.74.

131.
Mor.154.

132.
Lod.76; HCL to W. R. Thayer, Oct. 7, 1919.

133.
There is a good account of these celebrations in the
Sun
, May 1, 1889.

134.
Ib.; Foraker, Mrs. Julia,
I Would Live It Again
(Harpers, 1932) 167–8.

Important sources not listed in Bibliography:
1. 51st Congress, 1st session,
Report of the House Committee on Civil Service Reform
, Serial #2823, Document #2445 (1890). Hereafter cited as
House Report 1. 2
. Foulke, William D.,
Fighting the Spoilsmen: Reminiscences of the Civil Service Reform Movement
(Putnam, 1919).

1.
The following description is based on the unexcelled reporting of “Carp” (Frank G. Carpenter, Washington correspondent of the
Cleveland Daily Leader)
excerpted in
Carp’s Washington
(McGraw-Hill, 1960). Other details from Green, Constance McLaughlin,
Washington—Capital City, 1879–1950
(Princeton U. Press, 1962) Vol. 2
passim;
contemporary guidebooks.

2.
G. W. Steevens, qu. Green,
Washington
, 77.

3.
Ib., 77–8.

4.
Green,
Washington
, 12.

5.
Carpenter, 102.

6.
Ib., 8, 296–7.

7.
Ib., 110, 306, 329, 80 ff.

8.
See, e.g., Gar.104.

9.
Washington Post
, May 12, 19, 1889

10.
Green,
Washington
, 13.

11.
Figures projected from those qu. ib., 80.

12.
See Lod.77.

13.
Washington
Star
, May 13, 1889; ib., May 19. The appointment was made official on May 7, 1889.

14.
W.
Star
, May 13, 1889.

15.
The author may be forgiven this surmise. If anything was at all times predictable about TR, it was his habit of taking stairs two—or even three—at a time. William Loeb, Jr., his godson, remembers him in gouty old age, thundering
upstairs with boyish energy. “I didn’t know any other adults that
ran
upstairs. The ones I knew generally walked.” (To author, Feb. 28, 1975.) The location of the Civil Service Commission (henceforth CSC) is given in Halloran, Matthew F.,
The Romance of the Merit System
(Washington, 1929) 51–2 and 166–7. Note that Pringle’s location (Pri.121) is incorrect. The CSC did not move to Eighth and E until later.

16.
Halloran,
Romance
, 56.

17.
W. Star
, May 13, 1891.

18.
Bis.I.46. Within ten months of becoming Commissioner, TR’s effective power in the agency was estimated as “two-thirds” by the
Chicago Morning News
(Mar. 28, 1890) and “seven-eighths” by another paper (TR.Scr.).

19.
Mor.192. At various points in the TR/Lodge correspondence Lyman is “dreary,” “mushy,” and “a chump.” (Oct. 27, 1889; Aug. 23, Sep. 23, 1890.)

20.
TR to B, n.d., 1889 (TRB).

21.
See Halloran, n. 15 above.

22.
Thayer, William Roscoe,
TR: An Intimate Biography
(Houghton Mifflin, 1919) 88.

23.
For the early history of Civil Service Reform up to and including TR’s Commissionership, see Sageser, A. Bower, “The First Two Decades of the Pendleton Act,”
Nebraska University Studies
, Vols. 34–35 (1934–35); White, D.,
The Republican Era, 1869–1901
(Macmillans, 1958); van Riper, Paul,
History of the USCSC
(Evanston, Ill., 1958); Hoogenboom, Ari, “The Pendleton Act and the Civil Service,”
American Historical Review
, 64.2 (Jan. 1959).

24.
Mor.57, 154, 153 Foulke,
Spoilsmen
, 12.

25.
W.
Star
, May 14, 1889; Wise, John S.,
Recollections of Thirteen Presidents
(NY, 1906) 200.