The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (177 page)

140.
The authors of the document, TR included, were carefully vague about how it came into the hands of the Associated Press correspondent. Leonard Wood claimed that he handed the round-robin to Gen. Shafter, who affected a lack of interest in it. The document was ostentatiously left lying on the table between them, whereupon the A.P. man seized it and transmitted it to the U.S. by cable. TR wrote that he also handed his supplementary letter to Shafter, who waved it away in the same fashion. “I, however, insisted on handing it to him, whereupon he shoved it toward the correspondent … who took hold of it, and I released my hold.”
TR.Auto.252; ib., fn.; Hag.LW.I.201; Wes.240; Mil.352.

141.
Full text of both documents: Mor.864–66. See also TR’s letter to HCL on the subject, which is full of genuine passion. Mor. 862–3.

142.
Mil.352; Morg.394. Cosmas,
An Army
, 294, 305 blames McK for the delay.

143.
Mor.859. Secretary Alger also made public his sarcastic reply to TR’s letter: “I suggest that, unless you want to spoil the effects and glory of your victory, you make no invidious comparisons. The Rough Riders are no better than the other volunteers. They had an advantage in their arms, for which they ought to be grateful.” Mor.860 fn. Alger later apologized to TR. See TR.Auto. Ch. VII, Appendix A, “A Manly Letter.”

144.
Clips, n.d., in TRB clips file. For sample sympathetic comment on TR, see
Chicago Tribune
, August 5, 1898.

145.
RR
. 145. It of course seemed, to the general public, that TR’s round-robin was responsible for the pull-out order. Actually Alger had issued the order on Aug. 3, the day
before
all the newspaper publicity. TR was not averse to the accidental glory thus gained. See Freidel,
War
, 296; Cosmas,
An Army
, 258.

146.
Freidel,
War
, 298; Hag.LW.I.183; war picture book collection, TRC.

147.
Mor.852.

148.
Mor.861, 862. John D. Long, who had deplored TR’s decision to resign as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in his Journal, Apr. 25, 1898 (Ch. 23), turned back to that entry many years later and wrote a superscription; “P.S. Roosevelt was right and we his friends were all wrong. His going into the army led through to the Presidency.”

Historical Note:
In 2000, President Clinton, responding to heavy pressure from the Roosevelt family and the Theodore Roosevelt Association, posthumously granted TR his Medal of Honor. TR’s own mature feeling about the medal was expressed in 1907, when he declined honorary membership in the United States Medal of Honor Club: “I was recommended for it by my superior officers in the Santiago campaign, but I was not awarded it; and frankly, looking back at it now, I feel that the board which declined to award it took exactly the right position.” Mor.5.865.

1.
New York Times
and
Evening Post
, Aug. 16, 1898.

2.
New York Herald
, Aug. 16, 1898.

3.
Ib.

4.
Ib.; also above-quoted sources.

5.
Marshall, Edward,
The Story of the Rough Riders
(NY, 1899) 240.

6.
Her.
, Aug. 16, 1898;
N.Y.T., Eve. Post
, same date.

7.
Her.
, Aug. 16, 1898. According to Lovell H. Jerome, one of TR’s gubernatorial backers, he was cautioned not to say anything about politics even before he disembarked. Int. FRE.

8.
N.Y.T.
, Aug. 16, 1898.

9.
Eve. Post
, Aug. 16, 1898; Marshall,
Story
, 240;
Commercial Advertiser
, Aug. 16;
Her.
, same date.

10.
World
, Aug. 28: “Travelling men of all shades and classes declare him more talked about than any man in the country.”

11.
The peace protocol was signed on Aug. 12, 1898. For gubernatorial rumors, see, e.g.,
Her.
, Aug. 17.

12.
The last phrase is taken almost verbatim from Marshall,
Story
, 240.

13.
N.Y.T.
, and
Eve. Post
, Aug. 16, 1898.

14.
Che.7. With this first citation the author wishes to express his debt to the definitive—and only—study of Governor Theodore Roosevelt. Without Chessman’s indispensable work (itself a
condensation of a lengthy dissertation, preserved in TRC) the following three chapters of the present biography could not have been written in their present form. For some afterthoughts by Chessman on the structure and conclusions of his book, see the
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
, Vol. I.1, Winter-Spring 1975.

15.
Che.18–19; ib., 20; HUN.55.

16.
Che.18.

17.
Ib., 11–12, 16.

18.
Ib., 16–17.

19.
See TR.Auto.279; also Che.7–24 for an extended treatment of Platt’s meeting with Quigg.
Her.
, Aug. 17, 1898; Quigg to TR, Mar. 19, 1913, qu. Mor.1475.

20.
Che.26.

21.
Howe, M. A. de Wolfe,
John Jay Chapman and His Letters
(Houghton Mifflin, 1937) 1–8; Cha.248–9; Che.26.

22.
See Edel, Leon, ed.,
American Essays of Henry James
(NY, 1956) 240–1.

23.
Howe,
Chapman
, 469.

24.
Cha.248; Chapman to Mrs. Chapman, Sep. 14, 1898, qu. Mor.1475.

25.
Che.32; Howe,
Chapman
, 142–3; Che.27; Mor.1474–5.

26.
Chapman qu. Che.29.

27.
Quigg came either in response to TR’s telegram of Aug. 17, 1898, or as a result of his own previous suggestion, which the telegram confirmed. Whatever the case, TR “particularly wanted” to talk over matters with Platt’s lieutenant.

28.
TR.Auto.280–1.

29.
Ib.; Che.29–30.

30.
Her.
, Aug. 17, 1898; Hag.RF.58; Che.26. TR had received an advance discharge from quarantine on Aug. 17.

31.
Her.
, Aug. 17, 18.

32.
N.Y.T.
, Aug. 20, 1898.

33.
See juxtaposition of Rooseveltian and Republican news in, e.g.,
N.Y.T.
, Aug. 21, 1898. Che.34;
Her.
, Aug. 21.

34.
Ib.; Hag.RF.58–9.

35.
EKR’s emotions are inferred from a letter to Emily Carow, c. Aug. 25, 1898, excerpted in TRB mss.
Her.
, Aug. 21; Hagedorn memo, TRB.

36.
See
Her.
, Aug. 22, 1898;
World
, Aug. 24.

37.
See Mor.852.

38.
Robert Bridges in
Eve. Post
, Jan. 1919 (n.d.), TRB.

39.
Mor.1475. Che.27 fn. points out that both Mor. and Howe,
Chapman
, are wrong in describing this as the first TR/Chapman meeting. See
New York Tribune
, Aug. 19, 1898, for confirmation. How.465; Che.33.

40.
Howe,
Chapman
, 142.

41.
See, e.g.,
World
, Aug. 28, 1898;
Her.
, Aug. 22, 23, 24;
World
, Aug. 24.

42.
There is a photostat of this envelope in TRB.

43.
World, Sun
, Aug. 27, 1898;
Her.
, Oct. 6.

44.
Ib., Aug. 25, 1898.

45.
HUN.55.

46.
Che.35;
Eve. Post
, Sep. 1, 1898.

47.
Howe,
Chapman
, 143; Mor.1476; Chapman qu. ib.

48.
Un. clip
(Her.?)
, Sep. 5, 1898, TRB.

49.
Her.
, Sep. 10, 1898;
Eve. Post
, same date; Che.38.

50.
See Mor.874 fn;
N.Y.T.
, Sep. 26, 1898; Mor.875.

51.
Jones, Virgil Carrington,
Roosevelt’s Rough Riders
(Doubleday, 1971) 276. The following account is based on
Her.
, Sep. 14, Marshall,
Story
, 247–51, and random clip files in TRB.

52.
Marshall,
Story
, 247–251.

53.
Ib.,
Her.
, Sep. 14, 1898.

54.
Ib.

55.
TR’s entire speech is reprinted in
RR
. 157–8 fn.

56.
Her.
, Sep. 14, 1898; TRB clips.

57.
Private Bill Bell, un. clip, c. Nov. 1, 1898, TRB.

58.
World
, June 26, 1898.

59.
Characterizations from
RR. passim
.

60.
Her.
, Sep. 14, 1898; Rii.200.

61.
N.Y.T.
, Sep. 18, 1898; Che.42.

62.
See, e.g.,
Her., N.Y.T.
, Sep. 16, 1898.
Eve. Post
, Sep. 17.

63.
See, e.g.,
Her.
, Sep. 14, 1898.
N.Y.T.
, Sep. 16.

64.
Eve. Post
, Sep. 18, 1898;
Her.
, same date. Quigg was also present. During this conversation with the press, TR evoked for the first time an image he would one day make famous: “I feel like a bull moose.” Williams, Talcott, in
Century Memorial to TR
, 73.

65.
N.Y.T.
, Sep. 20, 1898; Mor.876.

66.
Howe,
Chapman
, 469.

67.
Mor.877.

68.
Che.45.

69.
For a different interpretation, see Mor.1476–1478.

70.
Howe,
Chapman
, 143; Chapman, qu. ib., 139–141.

71.
Cha.248, Chapman qu. Howe,
Chapman
, 143. Further sidelights into the early relationship of TR and Chapman are available in the Chapman Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard (letters to Mrs. Chapman, Aug. 1898 ff.). TR, significantly, did not mention his negotiations with the Independents in his
Autobiography
, except to say there was “a lunatic fringe” in the party that attempted to “force” him upon Platt, and campaigned against him afterwards. (TR.Auto.282.)

72.
Her.
, Sep. 24, 1898; see
Sun
, same date, for full statement of facts. Chessman, G. Wallace, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Personal Tax Difficulty,”
New York History
, 34.54–63 explores this complicated matter in great detail. See also Pri.203–4, and n. 75 below.

73.
The date of TR’s Washington affidavit was Mar. 21, 1898.
Sun
, Sep. 26.

74.
Che.4
6
.

75.
On Aug. 24, 1897. Mor.878. The facts of TR’s tax embarrassment are briefly these: From 1880 to 1894 inclusive he voted and paid taxes on personal and real property in Oyster Bay, except during his three terms as a New York City Assemblyman, 1882–84. After being made Police Commissioner in 1895 he rented Bamie Roosevelt’s house at 689 Madison Avenue, and declared it his legal residence. While thenceforth voting and paying taxes in New York City, he maintained Sagamore Hill as a country home, and for two years paid extra taxes in Oyster Bay, although there was no need for him to do so. In 1897, however, his personalty assessment in Oyster Bay was increased from $2,000 to $12,000, causing the first of his two affidavits in order to avoid that “perfectly absurd” liability. He was then, of course, already living in bachelor digs in Washington as Assistant Secretary. Not until October 1, 1897, did his lease on Bamie’s Manhattan house expire; and the following month, when his family at last joined him in Washington, he moved into the house opposite the German Embassy. It then became a question of deciding whether to declare yet another legal residence, or revert to his old status in Oyster Bay. There was not time between Oct. 1 and the November elections for him to qualify as a voter in Oyster Bay, and TR was so preoccupied with Navy matters during the next critical months that he seems to have forgotten about the whole residence question. Only in January 1898, when he was notified that he had been assessed a hefty $50,000 as an absentee resident of New York City, did he hastily issue his second affidavit, declaring himself a resident of Washington. All this was done on the advice of family advisers, notably Douglas Robinson, John E., and James Roosevelt. However the understanding was, when he left for Cuba, that steps would be taken to restore him permanently to the rolls of Oyster Bay—even if that meant paying taxes in two places at once. But the person responsible for this step, his uncle James, died before undertaking it, and TR again forgot about his residence
problems in the excitement of the war. Here matters rested until Tammany Hall delivered the “bomb” affidavit of March 21 to Governor Black’s supporters.
Sun
, Sep. 26, 1898; TR to Root, Platt, and Nicholas M. Butler, Mor.878–9; Che.46–7.

76.
Che.48.

77.
Ib.; Gos.192.

78.
Ib.

79.
Ib.; Pla.370–3;
Sun
, Sep. 29, 1898;
Trib.
, Sep. 28.

80.
See Mor.878–9;
Trib.
, Sep. 28, 1898. Che.46–8.

81.
Pla.367; HUN.59. TR paid his taxes—$995.28—on Oct. 3, 1898.
Trib.
, Oct. 4.

82.
Sun
, Sep. 26, 1898; Mor.880.

83.
Trib.
, Sep. 28, 1898;
Her.
, same date.

84.
Sun
, Sep. 28, 1898. See
Trib.
, Sep. 28 for verbatim report of what Root did say.
Her.
, Sep. 28. The nominating speech was made by Chauncey Depew. “I have done that a great many times in conventions,” he wrote in his
Memories of Eighty Years
, “but have never had such a response.” (162).

85.
Trib.
, Sep. 28, 1898; Mor.881.

86.
Her.
, Oct. 5, 1898.