304 “pulled together”: TR to B, June 8, 1884, Letters, I, 72.
304 “Many of our men”: ibid.
304 “Chicagoe” a “marvelous city”: TR to B, Sept. 2, 1880.
305 Badges cast in gold: Sullivan, II, 215.
305 “What I liked about him”: Platt, 185.
306 “The leader was Mr. George William Curtis”: Chicago Tribune, June 4, 1884.
306 Platt stroking his beard: N.Y. Times, June 4, 1884.
308 “rather dudish-looking” TR: unidentified newspaper account quoted in Foraker, 167-68.
308 “Up from the midst of the Empire State”: N.Y. Times, June 4, 1884.
308 “It was the first time”: TR to B, June 8, 1884, Letters, I, 72.
308 TR’s speech: Proceedings, 10; also, Works XIV, 37-38.
309 N.Y. Times praise: June 4, 1884.
309 “quick, watchful, rather enjoying”: N.Y. Tribune, June 6, 1884.
310 Andrew White’s scorn of the convention: White, Autobiography, 204.
310 “his voice rang like a trumpet”: TR to B, June 8, 1884, Letters, I, 72.
312 “It is eager, bitter, and peculiar”: Chicago Herald, quoted in Bryce, II. (Bryce thought so highly of the Herald’s coverage of the convention, thought it such a classic bit of political Americana, that he included it in the Appendix of his own classic work.)
313 “It was a tumultuous crowd”: ibid.
313 TR tries to get on stage: N.Y. Times, June 7, 1884.
313 McKinley calms the storm: Chicago Herald, quoted in Bryce, II.
314 “This is the hour”: quoted in Fuess, 286.
314 “I decline to say anything”: N.Y. World, June 7, 1884.
314 “A grave would be garrulous”: Boston Transcript, June 7, 1884.
315 Arthur pledges support, confides he does not have long to live: Reeves, 381.
315 TR’s encounter with Horace White: White, letter to N.Y. Times, Oct. 20, 1884. TR, in answer to the Times (Oct. 21), expressed surprise that any gentleman would so divulge a private conversation. He had been “savagely indignant at our defeat,” TR said, as explanation of his own behavior.
316 Pioneer Press interview and newspaper response: clippings in B’s scrapbook (TRC).
316 “The gallant young man”: N.Y. World, June 27, 1884.
316 Reaction in Boston: Nevins, Cleveland, 157.
317 Letters to the Times: N.Y. Times, June 8, 1884.
317 Putnam response: Nevins, Cleveland, 157.
317 “Mr. Lodge maintains”: William Everett quoted in Garraty, Lodge, 80.
317 Schurz advice: quoted, ibid., 81.
318 Lodge answer: July 14, 1884, Lodge Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
318 Lodge on pre-Chicago pact with TR: Lodge journal, Mar. 20, 1885, Massachusetts Historical Society.
318 “I am absolutely ignorant”: TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, June 17, 1884, Letters, I, 73.
318 “precisely the proper course”: TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, June 18, 1884, ibid., 75.
319 Chicago Tribune tribute: June 7, 1884.
319 Chicago Times tribute: quoted in the N.Y. Evening Post, June 6, 1884.
319 “first revelation of that immense pluck”: White, Autobiography, 205.
319 “You’ll know more, sir, later”: quoted in Riis, 69.
320 “I can’t help writing you”: TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, Oct. 11, 1895, Letters, I, 484.
320 “never been able to work so well”: TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, Aug. 12, 1884, ibid., 77.
321 “It may be that ’the voice of the people’”: TR to B, June 8, 1884, ibid., 71.
321 “the most serious crisis”: Bishop, 35-36.
322 View of Nicholas Roosevelt: N. Roosevelt, Roosevelt, 97.
322 Letter to Josephine Shaw Lowell: Feb. 24, 1882, Letters, VIII, 1425.
323 TR’s statement to the Boston Herald: see also, N.Y. World, July 21, 1884.
323 “We thought of him as a lost leader”: Thayer, Roosevelt, 55.
323 “As for Cabot Lodge”: Wister, 26.
323 “Young men like Mr. Roosevelt”: N.Y. Evening Post, July 21, 1884.
324 “Most of my friends”: TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, July 28,1884, Letters, 1,75.
324 “You would be amused”: TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, Aug. 12, 1884, Letters, I, 77.
15. GLORY DAYS
The standard work on TR’s time in the West is Hermann Hagedorn’s Roosevelt in the Bad Lands (here referred to as Hagedorn, RBL), which was based on interviews with a number of the principals in the story and appeared in 1921. And though it is plainly flawed by Hagedorn’s almost blind adulation of TR and by the use of fictitious names for any characters presented in a bad light, it remains the single most valuable source for what was one of the most important periods in TR’s life. Hagedorn’s Bad Lands notes for the book are also part of the great Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard.
Material in this chapter concerning the influence of Remington, Wister, and TR on the overall aura of the cowboy West has been drawn chiefly from G. Edward Whites The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience (1968); background for eastern investment in the cattle empire comes from Gene M. Gressley’s excellent Bankers and Cattlemen (1966). Of the several articles from North Dakota History relied upon, the most useful have been “Ranching in the Dakota Badlands,” by Ray H. Mattison, referred to here as Mattison, and “The Career of the Marquis de Mores in the Badlands of North Dakota,” by Arnold O. Goplen, referred to as Goplen.
Of TR’s own voluminous published accounts, the best is Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, which is included with Hunting Trips of a Ranchman in Volume I of the collected Works (page numbers below refer to that edition).
page
325 Clarence Day on cowboys: Day, 12.
326 TR’s recommended reading: TR, Hunting Trips, 11.
326 Warns of financial disaster: ibid., 17; also TR, Ranch Life, 290.
326 Gorringe interests: Hagedorn, RBL, 8-10.
327 Teschemacher and the Paris paper: Clay, 76.
327 Trimble and his poodle: Forbis, 216.
327 Bacon, Agassiz, the Seligmans, et al.: Gressley, Bankers.
328 “little in common with the humdrum”: TR, Ranch Life, 274.
328 “nor are the mechanics”: ibid., 278.
328 “Of course every ranchman carries”: TR, Hunting Trips, 27-28.
328 “In the hot noontide hours”: TR, Ranch Life, 309.
329 “perfect picture”: Wister, “The Young Roosevelt,” in Works, I, 260.
329 “This life has a psychological effect”: quoted in White, Eastern Establishment, 123.
329 “wonder if there is such a place as Philadelphia”: ibid.
329 “a queer episode”: ibid., 132.
329 TR’s costly regalia: see Wilson, 44.
329 “having a glorious time”: TR to B, June 17, 1884, Letters, I, 73.
330 Sewall’s observations: Mattison, “Life at Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch.”
330 Bad Lands terrain: TR’s own descriptions in both Hunting Trips and Ranch Life; also, Winser, The Great Northwest, the Northern Pacific Railroad’s 1883 guidebook, and Clark, The Badlands.
330 Hell with the fires out: remark attributed to General Alfred Sully, 1864.
331 “a place for stratagem”: quoted in White, Eastern Establishment, 104.
331 “What a wondrous country”: Clay, 90.
331 Large and small ranchers: Mattison.
332 “All the security he had”: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 43.
332 “By Godfrey”: ibid., 36.
332 Ferris recollection: Ferris, “When Roosevelt Came to Dakota.”
332 Champagne over a tent peg: N.Y. Times, Sept. 21, 1884.
332 “It takes me only a few seconds”: Hagedorn, RBL, 61.
333 Marquis had already killed two men: Dresden, 20.
333 Wife’s income $90,000: Goplen.
333 Twenty-one thousand acres, twelve thousand sheep, salmon shipments: ibid.<
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334 “I like this country”: Hagedorn, RBL, 335.
334 “Why, shoot”: Dresden, 60.
334 Pleasure and vice synonymous: TR, Hunting Trips, 7.
334 “preach King Cattle”: Bad Lands Cow Boy, Feb. 7, 1884.
335 “Again and again is the fitness”: ibid., Feb. 21, 1884.
335 “There are now in the Bad Lands”: ibid., Mar. 13, 1884.
335 N.Y. Times reports on Medora and the Marquis: Sept. 21, 1884.
335 Marquis quoted in N.Y. World: Dresden, 90.
335 The château: Except for a big box elder beside the back door, the house looks today no different from what it does in old photographs and is furnished throughout just as it was. The Marquis and Madame de Mores left everything behind—trunks, children’s clothes, his books, rifles, the lead-filled walking stick, her china and watercolors. The property now belongs to the State Historical Society of North Dakota.
336 “most dignified, stately, and aristocratic”: C. O. Armstrong quoted in Goplen.
336 Madame kills bears: Bismarck Weekly Tribune, Sept. 4, 1885.
336 Langs bury Luffsey: Lang, 75.
336 TR and Marquis turned down as vigilantes: Putnam, 461.
337 “Theodore did not care for the Marquis”: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 338.
337 “lost about 25 head from wolves”: TR to B, June 17,1884, Letters, I, 73.
337 TR’s share of Mittie’s trust fund: Putnam, 337.
337 Additional $26,000 in cattle: Hagedorn, RBL, 94.
337 “I designed the house myself”: Sewall, 19. (The house is gone, but the site today looks as it did in TR’s time. One can sit among the cottonwoods and look over the river to the distant plateaus and understand perfectly why he so adored the place.)
338 “Hasten forward”: Hagedorn, RBL, 101.
338 Fight in the Mingusville bar: TR, Autobiography, 125-26.
338 “gained him some reputation”: Sewall, 43.
338 “He worked like the rest of us”: ibid., 39.
338 “A man who will steal for me”: Hagedorn, RBL, 256.
338 Exchange between TR and Sewall: Sewall, 47-48.
338 “Must have a depraved idea”: Mattison, “Life at Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch.”
339 “The country is growing on me”: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 105.
339 Bad Lands looked the way Poe sounds: TR, Hunting Trips, 11.
339 “Nowhere . . . does a man feel more lonely”: ibid., 151-52.
339 Parkman and TR on sea of grass and being far afield from civilization: Parkman, 34; TR, Ranch Life, 274, 307.
339 Sound of the mourning dove: TR, ibid., 309-10.
339 “When the days have dwindled”: ibid., 341.
340 Edith Wharton on New York: Age of Innocence, 30-31.
340 Voice of the meadowlark: TR, Hunting Trips, 12.
341 Praise for Manitou: ibid., 28-29.
341 “and the rapid motion”: TR, Ranch Life, 329.
341 “fulfilling a boyish ambition”: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 105.
341 “in our ideal ‘hero land’”: quoted in Robinson, 138.
341 “What with the wild gallops”: Reid, Scalp Hunters, 19.
342 “the best weapon I ever had”: TR, Hunting Trips, 27.
342 Lebo and TR: Hagedorn BL notes, Merrifield interview (TRC).
342 Letter to Bamie: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 179-80.
343 “I went back and paced off the distance”: TR, Diary, 1884 (LC).
343 Describes blacktail buck: TR, Hunting Trips, 116-17.
344 Bear hunt and kill: TR, Diary, 1884 (LC).
344 Remarks on Elliott’s tiger: ibid., 231.
345 “I found myself face to face with the great bear”: TR to B, Sept. 20, 1884, Letters, I, 82.
345 “So I have had good sport”: ibid.
345 “all kinds of things of which I was afraid”: TR, Autobiography, 55-56.
345 Sewall on Bad Lands winter: Mattison, “Life at Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch.”
347 An additional $12,500: Hagedorn, RBL, 255.
347 TR lunches at the château: TR to Lodge, May 15, 1885, Letters, I, 90.
347 Two fine accounts of a Bad Lands roundup, besides what TR wrote, are to be found in Huidekoper, 29-36, and Lang, 176-200.
347 “Invariably he was right on the job”: Lang, 185.
347 “all strangeness . . . passed off”: TR, Autobiography, 105.
347 “a very vivid affair”: Huidekoper, 29.
347 “gave us all an exhibition”: Lang, 183-84.
348 “I rode him all the way”: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, fn. 289.
348 Broke something in his shoulder: TR, Ranch Life, 320.
348 “very thorough in whatever work”: Burdick, 12.
348 “He could rassle”: Hagedorn BL notes, Merrifield interview (TRC); also quoted in Putnam, 524-25.
348 TR’s account of the night stampede: TR, Autobiography, 107-08.
349 “can now do cowboy work”: TR to Lodge, June 5, 1885, quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 299.
349 “Meanness, cowardice, and dishonesty”: TR, Ranch Life, 325.
349 “He would not tolerate”: TR, Autobiography, 9-10.
350 “I have seen him when”: unidentified clipping, Hagedorn BL notes (TRC); also quoted in Putnam, 527.
350 Asthma and stomach trouble: Sewall, 41.
350 “ate heart medicine”: Hagedorn BL notes, Merrifield interview (TRC).
350 “Rugged, bronzed”; quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 308.
350 “a very powerful man”: Thayer, Roosevelt, 57.
350 “But what a change”: Pittsburgh Dispatch, Aug. 23, 1885, quoted in Putnam, 530.
351 Marquis’s Sept. 3 letter to TR: (TRC); also quoted in full (postscript included) in Putnam, 537-38.
352 Marquis “backed off”: TR to Bill Sewall, Dec. 28, 1893, quoted in Sewall, 102.
352 Lang on the Marquis: Lang, 75. Huidekoper, too, took the same view as Lang, except that Huidekoper also greatly admired the Marquis as a person: “The Marquis was a fine man and game as a pebble; when they tell the story of Roosevelt backing him down, they are sure guessing wrong.” (Huidekoper, 27.)
352 TR wanted Winchester rifles at twelve paces: Sewall, 27.
352 TR sees Marquis in jail: Hagedorn, RBL, 344.
352 “all a very happy family”: ibid., 38-39.
352 TR to Bamie: May 15, 1886, Letters, I, 101.
353 Marquis launches retail stores: Goplen.
353 Marquis done in by the beef trust: Dresden, 140-46.
353 Loss estimates: Goplen.
353 TR on “overstocking”: TR, Ranch Life, 290.
354 Sewall’s diary entry: Mattison, “Life at Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch.”
354 Seventy-five percent losses: Mattison.
354 TR’s losses: Hagedorn, RBL, Appendix, 482.
355 Stickney recollection: undated article by Stickney, Hagedorn BL notes (TRC); see also Hagedorn, RBL, 382-83; Putnam, 568-69.
356 Chase after the thieves: TR’s own account is in Ranch Life, 383-98; see also, Sewall, 58-83.
356 “To submit tamely”: TR, Ranch Life, 384-85.
356 TR to Corinne on Tolstoy: Apr. 12, 1886, Letters, I, 96.
357 “He impressed me”: undated article by Stickney, Hagedorn BL notes (TRC); also quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 383.
358 TR’s July 4 speech: quoted in Hagedorn, RBL, 407-10.
360 Packard predicts presidency: ibid., 411.
360 “We were glad to get back”: Sewall, 94-95.
360 “When he got back”: ibid., 41.
16. RETURN
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361 “She has no looks”: quoted in Longworth, 19.
361 “hers was the best mind”: N. Roosevelt, Front Row Seat, 33.
362 “intensely on-the-ball”: Mrs. W. Sheffield Cowles, Jr., to the author.
362 “Bamie’s telegram at 11:30”: quoted in Lash, 52.
362 “Always Auntie Bye meant more”: ARL, Hagedorn interview (TRB).
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363 “She used to tell me stories”: Longworth, 20.
363 “She was the only one”: ARL, Hagedorn interview (TRB).
363 Eleanor on Bamie: E. Roosevelt, This Is My Story, 57-58.
363 Auntie Bye would have been President: ARL, Hagedorn interview (TRB).
363 “to stick the knife in”: W. Sheffield Cowles, Jr., to the author.
363 “She was such a tremendous personality”: Mrs. J. Alsop, Oral History Collection, Columbia University.
364 Trip to Mexico with the James Roosevelts: B reminiscences.
364 “queer, little dumpy figure”: Mrs. J. Alsop, Oral History Collection, Columbia University.
364 “She grasped everything”: Helen Roosevelt quoted in N. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, 32.
364 TR wants Bamie to organize a salon: TR to B, Apr. 22, 1886, Letters, I, 98.
365 “insisted that we did not live together”: B reminiscences.
365 “Theodore would not be happy”: quoted in Rixey, 56.
365 TR promises to forgo the pronoun “I”: TR to B, June 28, 1886, Letters, I, 104.
365 “Can you send me at once”: Nov. 3, 1884, Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 70.
366 Remarks on the “singularly attractive” Mrs. Selmes: Aug. 11,1886, ibid., 88-89.
366 TR laments he has no “constancy”: Putnam, 557 (Putnam heard the story from Mrs. Selmes’s daughter, the Arizona congresswoman Isabella Greenway).
367 TR’s letter to Bamie of Sept. 20, 1886: (TRB); also quoted in Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 90-91.
367 Bamie could keep Baby Lee: ibid.
368 “makes me quite blue”: C to B, Mar. 29, 1886.
368 “They didn’t want it”: ARL, Hagedorn interview (TRB).
368 Chance meeting in Bamie’s front hall: Fanny Smith (Parsons) to Putnam; see Putnam, 556-57.
368 TR and Edith: see Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 79-83.
368 “What day does Edith go abroad”: TR to C, Apr. 12,1886, Letters, 1,96.
369 “We haven’t had campaign headquarters”: undated N.Y. Times clipping, scrapbook (TRC).
369 “It almost broke my heart”: B reminiscences.
369 Bamie’s letter to Edith, Oct. 23, 1886: Sarah Alden Gannett collection (private).
370 Bamie’s letter to Nannie Lodge: quoted in Rixey, 62.
371 “At least I have a better party standing”: ibid.
371 Addressing the engagement announcements: B reminiscences.
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