Theodore Rex (79 page)

“
I ASK NOTHING
from you,” Raisuli told Mr. Perdicaris, much to the latter’s relief. However, Raisuli clearly intended to ask a great deal from the Sultan of Morocco before he released so valuable a pair of hostages, and was content to let international pressure build for their release. At his leisure, he sent Abd al-Aziz a list of his demands, and settled down to the life of a village celebrity. He strolled around Tsarradan, accepting the adoration of youths who kissed the hem of his burnoose.

When Mr. Perdicaris asked what he wanted from Fez, Raisuli mentioned five specific concessions: an end to harassment of the Er Riffs by government forces; release of all
kabyle
political prisoners; dismissal of the Pasha who had
chained him; a ransom of seventy thousand Spanish silver dollars; finally, elevation to overlordship of two of Morocco’s richest districts.

Mr. Perdicaris was aghast and depressed at the extravagance of these terms. Raisuli showed him a plait braided under his turban. “This will disappear only when my wrongs are avenged—mine and those of my people!”

A few days later, word came that Sultan Abd al-Aziz was not interested in bargaining for foreign hostages. Raisuli promptly had the imperial messenger’s throat slit.

ROOSEVELT’S REDEFINITION OF
the Monroe Doctrine and his dispatch of warships to the Mediterranean were the gestures of a palpably confident executive. “
I had much rather be a real President for three years and a half,” he told George Otto Trevelyan, “than a figurehead for seven years and a half.”
The odds on renewed “real” power were in his favor: with 708 out of 988 convention delegates pledged to him, his nomination was now a certainty. Democrat campaign planners were in such despair over his popularity that, having failed to persuade Grover Cleveland to run, they seemed likely to settle for Alton B. Parker—a New York State judge who, as Elihu Root remarked, “has never opened his mouth on any national question.”

Reticence and its political cousin, caginess, were in Roosevelt’s opinion weaknesses to be taken advantage of. When a deputation of conservative senators, including Aldrich and Spooner, visited the White House to protest his selection of the “inexperienced” Cortelyou as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, he was unsympathetic. “I held this matter open for months, and allowed plenty of time to make selections, and none of you had a word to say.”

Ironically, he was quite capable of being closemouthed himself, but only when the sensibilities of other people or governments had to be considered, or important announcements delayed. And sometimes—as now—he preferred the quick efficiency of a news leak.
A White House “source” informed reporters that George B. Cortelyou would become Postmaster General after the election, in place of Henry Clay Payne. This was a strategic move aimed at enhancing the former’s authority as party chairman. Campaign workers were sure to obey Cortelyou if they knew he would soon inherit the government’s richest patronage agency.

Roosevelt assembled the rest of his second-term Cabinet at leisure and mostly in secret. “
He wants us all to resign—” John Hay noted in his diary, “but he wants to reappoint me.” Agriculture Secretary James Wilson might be kept on, Hay thought; Treasury Secretary Leslie Shaw, who had presidential ambitions for 1908, probably not. “Taft he wants to keep either where he is, or as Attorney-General if Knox goes.”

This was the first recorded indication that Knox’s astigmatic gaze had
begun to focus beyond the Administr
ation.
Like Taft, his dearest wish was to sit at center bench on the Supreme Court. But Chief Justice Fuller, at seventy-one, remained annoyingly healthy. Meanwhile, the passing of Matthew Quay gave Knox an irresistible chance to represent his home state in the Senate.

In any case, the President’s latest preference for a Supreme Court appointment was William H. Moody. To that end, Roosevelt decided definitely to shift Moody to the Justice Department as soon as Knox resigned. He had other, long-range plans for Taft.

With less than a month to go before the convention in Chicago, he became obsessive about controlling every last detail. He plotted the Coliseum’s seating plan, insisting that “every Republican editor in the country” be accommodated. He selected the speakers and edited the speeches. “For all we know,” the New York
Evening Post
jibed, “he may have designated the men who are to lead the cheering.” Representatives of state committees were amazed at his knowledge of what they were doing and whom they were hiring.

“
Mr. President, I have come for your final answer,” Albert J. Beveridge said one day, crowding his desk like an earnest schoolboy. “Am I, or am I not, to be temporary chairman of the Chicago convention?”

As tactfully as possible, Roosevelt mentioned the name of somebody taller. Beveridge stiffened. “Root? Elihu Root! What can he say that the country will listen to?”

Unconsoled, the little Hoosier performed one of his imitations of Napoleon retiring to Elba. “Very well, Mr. President, so be it. I am once more alone.… Alone at school, alone at the Bar, alone in the Senate, alone in the party! Good morning, Mr. President.”

Roosevelt’s next visitor found the President convulsed with laughter.

ROOSEVELT DID NOT
read Raisuli’s list of demands until 28 May. He sent for Hay in a hurry, and asked what the State Department thought of them. Hay said they were “preposterous.” The United States could not possibly force their acceptance on the Sultan. Personally, he would like Mr. Perdicaris’s life to be saved. “But a nation cannot degrade itself to prevent ill-treatment of a citizen.”

The President seemed to agree. However, that afternoon a Navy Department cable went out to Admiral Jewell’s European Squadron, east of the Azores, ordering it to proceed to Tangier at once. With the South Atlantic Squadron already dispatched, some thirty thousand tons of American gunmetal should soon persuade the Sultan to start negotiating.

AT 5:30
A.M.
on 30 May the white turrets of the
Brooklyn
appeared off Tangier. Her big guns boomed a long salute. Moroccan cannons politely
boomed back. Admiral Chadwick’s other three ships, the
Atlanta, Castine
, and
Marietta
, glided in at intervals through the day. Each in turn sent its salute, and the cann
ons answered. The prolonged, stately thudding was music to Samuel Gummeré’s ears.

That night, four Marines armed only with pistols slipped ashore to guard the Consul and Mrs. Perdicaris. More thudding on 1 June announced the arrival of Admiral Jewell’s cruisers,
Olympia, Baltimore
, and
Cleveland
. Unnoticed in all the excitement, one of Raisuli’s agents left town and galloped to Tsarradan, in the mountains. He breathlessly reported the arrival of the American warships, “one after the other.” Tangier was
mkloub
, “upside down.”

Mr. Perdicaris listened, his heart surging with patriotic gratitude. His only fear was whether this messenger, too, would have his throat slit. But Raisuli seemed pleased at the pressure building up on Abd al-Aziz.

“The presence of these vessels,” he said, “may result in his acceding to my demands, and then you will be able to return to your friends.”

SEVEN DAYS AFTER
the arrival of the last American warship in Tangier Bay, Gummeré was able to communicate only an unofficial, preliminary hint that the Sultan might deal with Raisuli. Roosevelt’s patience began to run out, and Hay cabled:

Before nightfall, Tangier advised that the Moroccan government had formally accepted Raisuli’s terms, except the huge ransom, which would have to be “reasonably negotiated.”

ON 10 JUNE
, Governor Samuel Pennypacker announced that Philander Chase Knox had been appointed to succeed Matthew Quay as Senator from Pennsylvania.
Roosevelt accepted the Attorney General’s resignation, but no longer with Dickensian emotions. He wrote effusively, carelessly. Knox was replaceable—as Root had proved to be. Even so, the President’s words were sweet enough for Knox to paste them in his scrapbook:

Behind the exchange of courtesies lay some personal disillusionment.
Roosevelt had grown impatient with the Attorney General’s obsessive legalism. Knox was critical of the President’s autocratic tendencies, particularly in the area of executive prerogative.
And he was quick to reject press speculation that he would be an antitrust crusader on Capitol Hill. “President Roosevelt’s policies are his own,” he told reporters. “I have been no more than the exponent of his ideas.”