Theodore Rex (179 page)

57
“I am sure”
Ibid., 430–31.

58
The Senator had
Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 264–65; Weaver,
Brownsville Raid
, 24; John D. Weaver,
The Senator and the Sharecropper’s Son: Exoneration of the Brownsville Soldiers
(College Station, 1997), 91. TR told Charles Dawes in Jan. 1904 that he regarded Foraker as “insincere.” Dawes,
Journal of the McKinley Years
, 363.

59
“He is a”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 428–29.

60
“I can only”
Ibid., 409. The allusion is to the court scene in
The Pickwick Papers
, wherein Sam Weller informs the judge that he spells his surname with a
v
. A confirmatory shout comes from the gallery: “Quite right too, Samivel.… Put it down a ‘we,’ my Lord, put it down a ‘we.’ ”

61
“Simplified Spelling”
Except where otherwise indicated, this section is based on Mark Sullivan’s unsurpassed short history of spelling reform in
Our Times
, vol. 3, 162ff. See also Clyde H. Dornbusch, “American Spelling Simplified by Presidential Edict,”
American Speech
36 (1961), and John H. Vivian, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Spelling Reform Initiative: The Newspaper Response,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
, summer 1978.

62
diarrhea
Sullivan himself spells this word with the Greek vowel
œ. Our Times
, vol. 3, 164.

63
u in honor
TR was himself an excellent speller, as his autograph manuscripts attest. He nevertheless had a few quaint foibles, such as writing
Wednsday
for
Wednesday, atall
for
at all
, and inserting, for reasons best known to himself, an extra apostrophe in
did’n’t
.

64
It seemed to
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 390–91.

65
addresst blusht
Office of the Public Printer,
Simplified Spelling: For the Use of Government Documents
(Washington, D.C., 1906), 15–23.

66
Soon, the nation’s
Harper’s Weekly
, Sept. 1906; TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 389.

67
ON 29 SEPTEMBER
Ibid., 424–26; Perkins,
Constraint of Empire
, 18; Minger, “William H. Taft,” 85.

68
In his last
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 435, 438.

69
Color had become
Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 3, 460;
Review of Reviews
, Oct. 1906; Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 239.

70
Only those with
Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, 13 Oct. 1906 (TRP); TR, “Legislative Actions and Judicial Decisions,”
Works
, vol. 18, 83; David H. Burton, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Harrisburg Speech: A Progressive Appeal to James Wilson,”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, Oct. 1969.

71
“If I am”
James Wilson, “On the Law of Nature,” in
The Works of James Wilson
, ed. Robert G. McCloskey (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 132–33. The author is indebted to David H. Burton for relating TR’s speech to this essay. Burton argues that TR, in the fall of 1906, feared that his recent sheaf of progressive legislation might be challenged by the judiciary, which was traditionally biased in favor of property rights. Be that as it may, historians may detect in the Harrisburg speech the first signs of what was to become one of the most controversial demands of Progressivism: popular recall of judicial decisions.

72
Propelled by
Summary Discharge
, 178. TR’s order, transmitted by the War Department, was dated 4 Oct. 1906, the day of his visit to Harrisburg. As the quoted paragraph makes clear (see the complete order for repetitive emphasis), he had already decided that the men of the Twenty-fifth were guilty.

73
His old friend arrived
The following account is taken from Lee,
Good Innings
, vol. 1, 323–27.

74
Lee remembered
Alan Clark, ed.,
“A Good Innings”: The Private Papers of Viscount Lee of Fareham, P.C., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.B.E
. (London, 1974), 69–71. See 1–7 for a biographical sketch of Lee.

75
Lee left
Lee, in
A Good Innings
, glosses over the redundancy of his visit, and is at pains to represent himself as having had to perform a painful duty in getting rid of Sir Mortimer. If he had come when TR had first summoned him, on 27 July, he might indeed have administered the coup de grâce, but illness delayed his departure until 3 October. Grey’s letter recalling Durand was dispatched the following day (Durand diary, 21 Oct. 1906) (HMD). Durand subsequently heard that “the President has been complaining of me through Henry White” (ibid., 12 Nov. 1906). See also Nevins,
Henry White
, 224–25, and, for TR’s “appointment” letter, TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 458. When Lee reprinted this letter, he omitted the names of two alternative ambassadors suggested by TR: Cecil Spring Rice and Munro Ferguson.

76
Sir Mortimer was
Durand to Lord Lansdowne, 6 Dec. 1906, and to Madge Durand, 15 Dec. 1906 (HMD).

77
Edith Roosevelt had
Durand to “Nell,” 9 Aug. 1904, and to Coutts Bank, 16 Dec. 1904 (HMD).

78
“I must try”
Durand diary, 21 Oct. 1906 (HMD). For a full account of Durand’s recall, see Tilchin,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 111–13.

79
BY NOW, TAFT
Magoon, former Governor of the Panama Canal Zone, was sworn in on 13 Oct. 1906. Although TR had told Taft to announce that elections would be held immediately, the corruption of Cuba’s political process was found to be so extreme that representative government was not restored until 1908. Magoon was a popular and gentle executive who issued no death sentences and was even criticized for his leniency. The United States withdrew from Cuba by TR’s outside deadline of 28 Jan. 1909. David A. Lockmiller,
Magoon in Cuba: A History of the Second Intervention
(Chapel Hill, 1938). See also Perkins,
Constraint of Empire
, 18–19; Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 141.

80
“It is important”
Weaver,
Senator
, 113.

81
Ignoring him
The extraordinary care with which TR prepared for Moody’s appointment belies his reputation for hasty decision making. See Heffron, “Mr. Justice Moody,” and, for a parallel example at the lower federal level, Elting E. Morison, “Theodore Roosevelt Appoints a Judge,”
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historial Society
72 (1963). Moody proved to be a distinguished but sadly short-tenured Justice, of mostly conservative opinions, whose lucid powers of expression earned the praise of both Oliver Wendell Holmes and Felix Frankfurter. A collapse of the central nervous system forced his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1910. He died, after years of torment, in 1917.

82
General Garlington’s Brownsville
See
Summary Discharge
, 178–83.

83
He stated
Ibid., 179.

84
Garlington had then
Ibid., 180–82.

85
On 30
October
Harlan,
Booker T. Washington
, 309; Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 232–35;
Review of Reviews
, Dec. 1906.

86
Charles Evans Hughes
Hughes, forty-four in the summer of 1906, had come to national attention the previous fall, when he acted as counsel to a state committee investigating the major life-insurance companies of New York. In the course of fifty-seven public hearings, he proved himself a “mental colossus,” investigating fairly but with such mastery of detail that many potential witnesses left town in order to avoid his examination. His success in winning the indictments or resignations of some of New York’s most powerful top executives won the admiration of TR, and propelled Hughes into public life. Even as he ran for governor, he was already being spoken of as a potential Supreme Court Justice or President. See also
Robert F. Wesser, “Theodore Roosevelt: Reform and Reorganization of the Republican Party in New York, 1901–1909,”
New York History
46.3 (1965).

87
Washington listened
Booker T. Washington Papers
, vol. 9, 118–19.

88
“There is some”
Harlan,
Booker T. Washington
, 309–10.

89
one syllable
Root, speaking in Utica, had quoted the passage in TR’s First Annual Message to do with journalistic rabble-rousers who “sowed the wind” of anarchy. “I say by the President’s authority that in penning these words, with the horror of President McKinley’s murder fresh before him, he had Mr. Hearst specifically in mind.”
Outlook
, 10 Nov. 1906.

90
Root’s statement had
As Mark Sullivan notes, the speech destroyed any chance Root had of being nominated for the presidency himself. He had incurred the enmity of Hearst in his own home state.
Our Times
, vol. 3, 280.

91
“You can not”
Booker T. Washington Papers
, vol. 9, 118.

92
With that, he
Emma Lou Thornbrough, “The Brownsville Episode and the Negro Vote,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
44 (Dec. 1957);
Summary Discharge
, 183; Weaver,
Senator
, 116;
The New York Times
, 21 Nov. 1906. Among the few empirical certainties in American history is that “Princess Alice” would not long have tolerated life in Cincinnati, Ohio.

93
Across the nation
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 236; TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 488–89.

94
“Well, we have”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 488. Optimistic as always, TR did not choose to see a conservative backlash against progressivism developing in the Republican Party, as evinced by the antilabor vote and increased majorities for Foraker and Cannon (499).

95
“By direction of”
Summary Discharge
, 183. See Lewis N. Wynne, “Brownsville: The Reaction of the Negro Press,”
Phylon
33 (1972).

96
There followed
Weaver,
Senator
, 68–72;
Summary Discharge
, 183–84.

97
For the last
Booker T. Washington Papers
, vol. 1, 446.

98
arrogance of tone and language
This phrase was used by Sir Mortimer Durand in a dispatch of 19 Oct. 1906. The Ambassador also quoted one of TR’s friends: “He feels his time is short.”
British Documents on Foreign Affairs
, vol. 12, 128.

99
“The order in”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 490. TR’s addressee was Governor Curtis Guild, Jr., of Massachusetts.

100
Roosevelt’s name
For black reaction to TR’s order, see Thornbrough, “The Brownsville Episode,” passim; Booker T. Washington Papers, vol. 1, 446; Weaver,
Brownsville Raid
, 98–102.

101
HE HAD SEEN
Ibid., 496;
Harper’s Weekly
, 8 Dec. 1906.

102
Imaginations less vivid
For the intensely stimulative effect of Panama on TR’s fancy, see his two letters to Kermit in ibid., 495–98. See also his extraordinary, illustrated
Special Message of the President of the United States Concerning the
Panama Canal
, 17 Dec. 1906 (Washington, D.C., 1906), which shows a concern for human welfare (“I inspected between twenty and thirty water closets”) never before seen in presidential documents.

103
Roosevelt heard
Panama
Star and Herald
, 17 Nov. 1906; Palmer,
With My Own Eyes
, 266–67. For comprehensive accounts of TR’s three days in Panama, see
Panama Canal Review
, Roosevelt Centennial supplement, 7 Nov. 1958, and McCullough,
Path Between the Seas
, 492–99.

104
Food was
The author is indebted to Palmer,
With My Own Eyes
, 267–68, for the following story. Palmer accompanied TR through Culebra Cut. Extra details (including TR’s “rapid-fire volley” interrogation style) come from
The New York Times
, 17 Nov. 1906, and Panama
Star and Herald
, 17 and 18 Nov. 1906.

105
Taking the hint
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 498.

106
Much of it
Ibid., 499, 504;
Panama Canal Review
, 7 Nov. 1958; McCullough,
Path Between the Seas
, 501.