Theodore Rex (171 page)

129
“I congratulate you”
Elihu Root to TR, 28 Oct. 1904 (ER).

130
IN THE LAST DAYS
Wheaton, “The Genius and the Jurist,” 513.

131
“Has my request”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 1004.

132
There was no
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 530.

133
“Although this may”
Ibid., 531; Alton Parker speech script, 31 Oct. 1904 (ABP). See also New York
World
, 1 Nov. 1904.

134
“I have never”
EKR to Henry Cabot Lodge, ca. 1 Nov. 1904 (HCL). On this same day, Alice Roosevelt wrote in her diary, “I am positive he won’t be elected.… I can’t bear it” (ARL).

135
The question
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 1013. See the whole of this strategic letter for further examples of TR’s exquisite sense of press timing.

136
Parker was tempted
Pringle,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 355.

137
This was going
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 143.

138
Old-time journalists
Heaton,
Story of a Page
, 210.

139
“Mr. Parker’s accusations”
White House press statement, 4 Nov. 1904 (TRP).

140
Roosevelt asked
Ibid.

141
“The statements made”
Ibid. For TR’s even stronger draft statement (which aides apparently toned down), see TRP.

142
“VICTORY. TRIUMPH.”
Alice Roosevelt diary, 8 Nov. 1904 (ARL). According to Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 519, Parker’s telegram was prompted by the collapse of his hopes in New York, and was sent to RNC headquarters at 8:30
P.M.
By the time the landslide reached Chicago, most Democratic officials headed for home.

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.

  
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).

40
Heart pain
Ibid., 28 Jan. 1905.

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).

  
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.