Theodore Rex (172 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
7
Hay could not
Putnam,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 42. The Secretary had previously observed that TR “thought more and talked more” about Lincoln “than any one I ever met in public life” (John Hay to Norman Hapgood, 8 Aug. 1904 [TD]). TR himself admitted to “seeing” Lincoln often in the White House. “For some reason or other he is to me infinitely the most real of the dead Presidents.” See also TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 392.
8
“a document which”
TR,
Autobiography
, 400.
9
(which had expressed)
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1131.
10
“Much has been”
TR,
Works
, vol. 17, 311.
11
He spoke for
Ibid. Remarkably, aside from in his opening “My fellow Americans,” TR did not use the personal pronoun in his address. This remains a record in inaugural oratory.
12
with a new
“The Senate is determined to be ‘ugly.’ Their openly expressed opinion is that ‘Teddy’ … wants taking down a peg.” Sir Mortimer Durand to Lord Lansdowne, 7 Mar. 1905 (HMD).
13
Afterward, Roosevelt
Butt,
Letters
, 282. TR described Bacon privately as “a voluble, pinheaded creature … a horrid instance of the mischief that can be done by a man of very slender capacity, if only he possesses great loquacity, effrontery, and an entire indifference to the national welfare.” TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1133.
14
So impregnable
John Hay diary, 25 Feb. 1905 (JH).
15
floated an enormous
Fakirs and spielers along the avenue did brisk business selling miniature replicas of this new American icon. “Take home a Roosevelt ‘big stick.’ ” Washington
Evening Star
, 4 Mar. 1905.
16
Whatever tomorrow’s
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 491; TR to Pierre de Coubertin, 21 Nov. 1904 (TRP); Jay G. Hayden to Hermann Hagedorn, 10 Dec. 1948 (TRB); Leary,
Talks with TR
, 20.
17
“The President will”
John Hay diary, 22 Oct. 1904 (JH).
18
ON 10 MARCH
Ibid., 10–11 Mar. 1905.
19
He cautioned Hay
Ibid., 10 Mar. 1903; Griscom,
Diplomatically Speaking
, 253.
20
Even Count Cassini
John Hay diary, 16 Mar. 1905 (JH).
21
“We are condemned”
Ibid.
22
Hay left Washington
The New York Times
, 18 Mar. 1905; John Hay diary, 17 Mar. 1905 (JH).
23
Roosevelt was in
“Well, Franklin,” TR said to the groom at the reception, “there’s nothing like keeping the name in the family.” Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 288–89. Some years before, as a Harvard undergraduate, Franklin had heard TR speak and “was so impressed … that he vowed he, too, would someday find a way to become active in the political affairs of his country.” Elliott Roosevelt to John A. Gable, 7 July 1989, in
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
, summer 1989.
24
Nor did he
“Uncle Ted … stole the show and the bridegroom and bridal party sank into an obnoxious oblivion.” Corinne Robinson Alsop, unpublished autobiography, Alsop Papers (TRC), 55. See Blanche Wiesen Cook,
Eleanor Roosevelt
(New York, 1992), vol. 1, 166–67.
25
To that end
EKR diary, 21 Jan. 1905 (TRC); Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 288.
26
THE PRESIDENT TOOK
Washington
Evening Star
, 17 Mar. 1905; John Hay diary, 18 Mar. 1905 (JH).
27
Morocco had suddenly
For the immediate background to the Moroccan crisis of spring 1905, see Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 355–59, and Larsen, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Moroccan Crisis,” 95–107.
28
Kaiser Wilhelm II
John Hay diary, 7 Mar. 1905 (JH).
29
(as Mr. Perdicaris)
See above, p. 324.
30
If the President
Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 275.
31
and gain immensely
Ibid., 356; John Keiger,
France and the Origins of the First World War
(New York, 1981), 21.
Germany’s sense of exclusion in North Africa derived from the Anglo-French treaty of 8 Apr. 1904, which gave the French control of Morocco in exchange for British control of Egypt.
32
Great Britain, in turn
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1162.
33
“The Kaiser has”
Ibid., 1150.
34
Von Sternburg was
Ibid., 1155.
35
April came with
Tyler Dennett,
Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War
(New York, 1925), 172–75.
36
a “worthy creature”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 242. Spring Rice was adjudged by his superiors to be too junior, and too likely to be manipulated by TR.
37
who to his
Sir Michael Herbert had died prematurely on 30 Sept. 1904.
38
“I wish the Japs”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1150.
39
Rather than leave
Ibid.;
The New York Times
, 4 Apr. 1905.
40
“I am not”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1156.
41
Rumors proliferated
Dunn,
From Harrison to Harding
, vol. 1, 415; TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 717.
42
The President stayed
Chronological Note:
TR’s five-week hunting vacation in Oklahoma (wolves) and Colorado (bears) was preceded by a week’s political tour of Kentucky, the Indian Territory, and Texas, where he attended a Rough Riders reunion. He published accounts of both his hunts in
Scribner’s Magazine
, Oct. and Nov. 1905, and subsequently included them in
Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter
(“Wolf-Coursing” and “A Colorado Bear Hunt”). See TR,
Works
, vol. 3.
43
THE FIRST IMPORTANT
Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 283; Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 176.
44
Tokyo did not
Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 176.
45
Roosevelt wired back
Ibid., 178.
46
While awaiting
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1161–62.
47
France certainly was
Keiger,
France and the Origins of the First World War
, 21.
48
and Britain, in
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1162.
49
“I do not care”
Ibid.
50
One little dog
TR,
Works
, vol. 3, 67.
51
(“One run was”)
Kerr,
Bully Father
, 168. John “Jack” Abernathy was the sort of man TR admired. “A really wonderful fellow, catching the wolves alive by thrusting his gloved hands down between their jaws so that they cannot bite. He caught one wolf alive, tied up this wolf, and then held it on the saddle, followed his dogs in a seven-mile run and helped kill another wolf. He has a pretty wife and five cunning children.”
52
Going without lunch
TR,
Works
, vol. 3, 65. As a testament to TR’s overpowering physicality, ranging from his desire to kill to his palpable love of nature in all its forms, “A Colorado Bear Hunt” makes for enlightening reading.
53
On 24
April
TR,
Works
, vol. 3, 82–83;
Denver News
, 25 Apr. 1905; Washington
Evening Star
, 26 May 1905; TR to Philip B. Stewart, 26 Apr. 1905 (TRP). “I notice the President has got two bears,” Ambassador Takahira remarked. “We would be satisfied with one!” Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 55.
54
Then he began
TR to Philip B. Stewart, 26 Apr. 1905 (TRP).
55
Late that evening
Benjamin J. Barnes to William Loeb, Jr., 25 Apr. 1905 (TRP).
56
“You are hereby”
Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 179–80.
57
Taft added, in
Ibid., 180. Henry W. Denison was Baron Komura’s official American adviser in Tokyo.
58
Loeb felt unable
The following account is taken from an interview given by Loeb to the columnist “Bob Davis,” published in the New York
Sun
, 28 Mar. 1929, and later reprinted in
Roosevelt House Bulletin
, spring 1943. Loeb’s movements are confirmed by the
Denver News
, 27 Apr. 1905.
59
Before going to bed
TR to Philip B. Stewart, 26 Apr. 1905 (TRP).
60
They treated
Alexander Lambert to TR, 18 June 1905 (TRP).
61
“Am a good deal”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1167–68.
62
Roosevelt spent
Pierre de La Gorce,
Histoire du Second Empire
(Paris, 1899–1905); TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1179; Jusserand,
What Me Befell
, 277.
63
Roosevelt read
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1174.
64
“struck by certain”
Ibid., 1269.
65
At least, though
Ieronim Pavlovich Taburno,
The Truth about the War
(Kansas City, Mo., 1905).
66
WHAT NONE OF
Jusserand,
What Me Befell
, 276; TR on 7 Jan. 1905, qu. in Murakata, “Theodore Roosevelt and William Sturgis Bigelow.” Bigelow, a wealthy Buddhist and connoisseur of Japanese art, was yet another member of TR’s
secret du roi
. It was he who interested the President in
jujitsu
.
67
Although Roosevelt had
Tyler Dennett believed that had TR been in Washington on 25 April, he could have “hastened the peace by a month or six weeks.”
Roosevelt
, 182.
68
“in her stomach”
TR,
Works
, vol. 3, 83.
69
his new ambassador
“Few Ambassadors have gone to their posts with a letter so full of the mind of their ruler.” John Hay diary, 5 Jan. 1905 (JH). See also TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1134, for the President’s earlier attempts to influence the Russian government “privately and unofficially.” The adroit Meyer was to become the most valuable of all his diplomatic appointments. See Howe,
George von Lengerke Meyer
.
70
Meyer had managed
Howe,
George von Lengerke Meyer
, 145–46.
71
The Tsarina’s problem
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 49–50; Gwynn,
Letters and Friendships
, vol. 1, 455, 465–68.
72
“Did you ever”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1158.
73
“my own belief”
Ibid., 1179.
74
“As we left ever”
TR,
Works
, vol. 3, 91.
: T
HE
B
EST
H
ERDER OF
E
MPERORS
S
INCE
N
APOLEON
1
Thim was th’
“Mr. Dooley” in
The Washington Post
, 12 Apr. 1903.
2
“Come hither”
Wallace Irwin, “The Ballad of Grizzly Gulch,” in
At the Sign of the Dollar
(New York, 1905), 32.
3
But as he
Ibid., 34.
4
(Santo Domingo would)
See Gow, “How Did the Roosevelt Corollary?”
5
the better he could
Note that he does not mention a word of his involvement even to Elihu Root on 13 May. TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1171–72. 387
So backward
Irwin, “Ballad of Grizzly Gulch,” 35.
6
THE BATTLE OF
Tsu
Kenneth Wimmel,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet: American Sea Power Comes of Age
(Dulles, Va., 1998), 192.
7
“a civilized”
See p. 228.
8
Although he confessed
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1178.
9
His cousin Wilhelm
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 47.
10
Ambassador Cassini
Jusserand,
What Me Befell
, 300; TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1232.
11
But France, right
Larsen, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Moroccan Crisis,” 122–24. TR had changed his mind about staying aloof from the Moroccan squabble because he saw in it the possibility of “a world conflagration.”
12
So the diplomatic
Chronological Note:
On 2 June 1905, TR initiated what Oscar Kraines calls “the first comprehensive inquiry” into federal administration (Oscar Kraines, “The President Versus Congress: The Keep Commission, 1905–1909,”
Western Political Quarterly
23.1 [1970]). On his own initiative, and without Congressional direction or confirmation, TR appointed a committee for the purpose of investigating business methods in all federal offices, with an eye toward improving efficiency and cutting costs. Headed by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles H. Keep, and composed of James Garfield, Gifford Pinchot, Lawrence Murray, and Frank Hitchcock, the commission first investigated two government-agency scandals (an area technically outside their mandated province) before getting down to the stated task. Keep and his colleagues uncovered copious examples of waste and ineffective methods, and came up with some truly innovative ideas and solutions (many originated by TR himself). The Keep Commission was the first to recommend the idea of a retirement program for federal employees; to propose a classification system for federal salaries and positions; to suggest uniform regulations for work hours and leaves of absence; and to recommend the centralization of supply purchasing and distribution, as well as the reduction of unnecessary government publications and mailings. Despite the Commission’s hard work, Congress refused to pass any related legislation. Kraines notes that while Congress viewed the increasing cost of government with alarm, it viewed with equal (if not greater) alarm the President’s attempts to investigate and reorganize as threats to both legislative control and patronage. The Keep Commission became just another battleground between TR, who wished to expand his executive powers, and a Congress reluctant to surrender any authority. It took until 1920 for Congress to create a retirement system for federal employees.
