The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  41. Put.252; Mor.1470.

  42. Albany Press-Knickerbocker, qu. PRI.n. See TR.Wks.XIV.3 for text of this speech.

  43. Ib.

  44. New York Herald, Feb. 11, 1883.

  45. HUN.5.

  46. Gilman, Warrior, 10.

  47. Mor.1470.

  48. TR.Pri.Di. Jan. 24, 1882.

  49. Facsimile in Lor.193. For another reaction, see The Criterion, Jan. 28, 1882: “Mr. Roosevelt made in that brief speech a record for honesty, judgment, and conception of statesmanship that ranks him at once among the leading legislators of his time.”

  50. Put.257. It may be of interest to note here that six days after TR’s maiden speech, his old friend Sara Delano, now married to James Roosevelt of Hyde Park, gave birth to a son, Franklin Delano.

  51. TR.Pri.Di. Feb. 14, 1882; Mor. 1471–2.

  52. Put.258.

  53. TR.Auto.72.

  54. HUN.16–26.

  55. Put.254–5; Pri.66; John Walsh in PRI.n.

  56. Mor.1472.

  57. Ib.

  58. TR.Auto.72.

  59. Ib., 71.

  60. Ib., 75.

  61. Ib., 75–6.

  62. TR.Auto.77.

  63. HUN.6–7; Put.261.

  64. HUN.8; Put.261.

  65. Henry Lowenthal, N.Y.T. City Editor, int. FRE; TR.Wks.XIV.7–11; Put.261–70.

  66. Hunt, supplementary statement, 1.

  67. John Walsh in PRI.n.

  68. New York World, Mar. 30, 1882.

  69. Put.263.

  70. TR.Auto.79.

  71. Spinney, qu. Put.264.

  72. Full text of TR’s speech is in TR.Wks.XIV.7 ff.

  73. Spinney in Hunt, supplementary statement, 4.

  74. Put.265; TR.Wks.XIV.11.

  75. HUN.2–4.

  76. Spinney, qu. Put.265; Sun, Apr. 6, 1882; Trib, N.Y.T., same date.

  77. Sun, Apr. 6, 1882.

  78. Hunt, supplementary statement, 34. (Here, in typed transcript, “balls” is changed to “chickens.”)

  79. Sun, n.d., in TR.Scr.; N.Y.T., n.d., in ib.; World, Apr. 7, 1882.

  80. N.Y.T., Apr. 6, 7, 1882.

  81. Spinney, qu. Put.266.

  82. Ib.

  83. An associate in the Assembly later estimated that TR “could have made a million dollars if he had wanted to.” HUN.75.

  84. Pri.73; Put.269.

  85. Bigelow, Poultney, Seventy Summers (London, 1925) 269.

  86. N.Y.T., Apr. 13, 1882.

  87. HUN.49. In an interview with Ethel Armes, Sept. 19, 1924, Hunt recalled TR yelling with delight one day, “I have been sued for slander! I am getting on amazingly politically.” TRB.

  88. Hudson, William C., Recollections of an Old Political Reporter (N.Y., 1911) 144–9.

  89. Hunt, supplementary statement, 22.

  90. Mrs. Joseph Alsop Sr. (Corinne’s daughter) int. in TRB mss.

  91. Anna Bulloch Gracie’s diary, 1882, makes mysterious references to an “illness” of Elliott’s (probably a recurrence of his teenage epilepsy attacks), which she first heard about on Mar. 30. “Went to church Holy Communion prayed to God to cure him.”

  92. Joseph Murray in FRE.; Morning Journal, Apr. 29, 1884.

  93. Trib., Mar. 22, 1882.

  94. Ib., June 3, 1882.

  95. Qu. Har.22.

  96. Trib., Apr. 28, 1882; Put.300.

  97. TR.Auto.69; Put.300.

  98. See Hurwitz, Howard L., TR and Labor in New York State (NY, 1943) for a negative assessment of TR’s labor record in the Assembly, Put.299–305 for a positive. The cigar-bill episode is usually viewed as a turning-point in Roosevelt biographies, largely because TR himself placed so much emphasis on it in his own Autobiography (81–3). However the rest of his youthful labor record, not to mention countless contemptuous references to the labor movement in his private letters, indicates that he “matured” in this respect very slowly. It should not be forgotten that TR was an ardent Progressive when he dictated his memoirs in 1913.

  99. Clips, TR.Scr.; Hunt, supplementary statement, 2 ff.; HUN.14–20.

  100. Clips, TR.Scr.; Trib., June 1, 1882.

  101. World, June 1.

  102. Qu. Put.271.

  103. World, June 1.

  104. Put.272.

  105. N.Y.T., June 3, 1882. See comments of individual legislators returning to New York in Trib., June 3.

  106. Trib., June 3, 1882; TR.Scr.

  107. Mor.56.

  108. TR.Scr.

  109. Spinney in HUN.41.

  7: THE FIGHTING COCK

  Important sources not in Bibliography: 1. Hudson, William C., Random Recollections of an Old Political Reporter (NY, 1911).

  1. Albany Argus, Jan. 2, 1883.

  2. Pr.74; Put.278–9.

  3. TR to TR Jr. in Mor.634–5.

  4. See Put.277–9 for an account of TR’s re-election campaign. His vote was 4,225 against 2,016, with 67 percent of the ballot—an improvement of 4 percent over his 1882 vote.

  5. Shaw, Albert, “TR as Political Leader” in TR.Wks.XIV.xvii; Hudson, Recollections, 145; Franklin Matthews in Harper’s Magazine, Sep. 28, 1901, 984. See also Andrew D. White to Willard Fiske, May 26, 1884: “When you remember that this prodigious series of successes of his have been achieved by a man of … college standing … you will realize what a striking case it is. In my judgment, nothing has been seen like it in this State since the early days of Seward” (Cornell U. Libraries).

  6. TR.Pri.Di. Jan. 1, 1883.

  7. Albany Argus, Jan. 3, 1883; Put. 278 fn.

  8. Hudson, Recollections, 251. See Nev. for Cleveland’s rise to power.

  9. Tugwell, Rexford G., Grover Cleveland (NY, 1968) 72. “He is a mass of solid hog,” Henry Adams wrote (to C. F. Adams, Jan. 23, 1894). The following physical description of Cleveland is taken from Nev. 57–8 and passim; Carpenter, Frank G., Carp’s Washington (McGraw Hill, 1960) 39–41; Wise, John S., Recollections of Thirteen Presidents (NY, 1906); pors.

  10. Nev. 109; Stoddard memo, TRB mss.

  11. Hud.143.

  12. Nev.57–8; see below, Ch. 11, for details of Cleveland’s paternity case.

  13. HUN.39.

  14. It will be remembered that TR, then touring Europe with Alice, had exclaimed, “This [the assassination] means work in the future for those who wish their country well.” Upon returning to New York he began attending meetings of the N.Y. Civil Service Reform Association, and was elected its vice-president just before his departure to Albany. “I am heartily in accord with any movement tending toward the improvement of the ‘spoils’ system,” he wrote in his letter of acceptance, “—or, I should say, its destruction.” (TRB mss.)

  15. Put.280–1; Nev.123.

  16. New York Times, Jan. 25, 1883; Ellis, David M. et al., A History of New York State (Cornell U. Press, 1967) 369; Nev.123; HUN.40.

  17. HUN.40. See also N.Y. Evening Post, Jan. 10, 1883: “Mr. Roosevelt … has secured to a remarkable degree the confidence of public-spirited citizens of either party.”

  18. Mor.59. There is some doubt over the date of this letter, which TR marks simply “Albany, Monday evening.”: See ib., fn., and Put.274, fn. The latter believes it to be mid-January 1882. But Henry James, whom TR specifically mentions meeting, was not in Boston that January: he had left town on Dec. 26, 1881. James was there through New Year’s 1883, however; so if TR and Alice had gone to Boston for Christmas, the meeting probably took place sometime during the festive season. Jan. 1, 1883, was a Monday, which would explain TR’s advance presence in Albany for the opening of the Legislature. Alice, presumably, joined him on Tuesday or Wednesday, helped him choose rooms, then accompanied him to New York on Thursday, as promised in his letter to Mittie. Note that the letter also mentions his first known reference to meeting with Henry Cabot Lodge.

  19. Put.280.

  20. Alice’s routine reconstructed from the letters of MBR, C, and E, and Anna Bulloch Gracie’s diaries in TRC.

  21. Anna Bulloch Gracie diary, Oct
. 2, 1882; Put.307; Par.44.

  22. TR.Pri.Di. Jan. 3, 1883.

  23. New York Herald, Feb. 11, 1883.

  24. HUN.88.

  25. Mor.1471.

  26. HUN.86 says, “I think the dinner was in 1884.” But he adds, “We had our pictures taken before or after.” A group portrait of the “quartette” is in TRC, but it manifestly dates from 1883, when TR had lost his side-whiskers, but still retained his center parting. Judging by the solemn expressions of all concerned, the picture was taken “before” the dinner. See p. 171.

  27. Ib.

  28. Qu. Sul.230.

  29. TR.Wks.XIII.48; Ib., XIV.18.

  30. Put.305; Hunt, supplementary statement, 33–4.

  31. Hudson, Recollections, 147. “All the NY dailies gave Roosevelt a good deal of space … and he often got on the front page. The Herald, especially, sent up an extra man, Thomas J. White, to stand behind him and help develop his career as a reform legislator.” (Peter P. McLaughlin, ex-Assemblyman, in FRE.)

  32. Put.288.

  33. TR.Wks.XIV.21; Observer, Mar. 10, 1883 (TR.Scr.).

  34. HUN.53; Put.285–6.

  35. Put.283–5; Nev.116; N.Y.T., Jan. 8, 1883.

  36. Nev.116–7; Put.284; Bis.1.20.

  37. Albany Argus, Mar. 5, 1883; Put.284; TR.Scr.

  38. Albany Argus and N.Y. World, Mar. 3, 1883.

  39. The phrase rated headlines in, e.g., Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1883. The paper published a long editorial on “this startling proposition.” See also Sul.386.

  40. World, March 3, 5, 13, 1883; Put.286. But see also Commercial Advertiser (Mar. 3) praising TR’s “courage and manliness” in this, “the most extraordinary confession that perhaps was ever heard in a deliberative body.”

  41. N.Y. Sun, Mar. 8, 1883; Put.286.

  42. TR.Wks.XIV.16–21 for complete text of this speech. Interestingly, TR considered it, not the mea culpa of Mar. 2, his “main speech” of the session. (Mor.67.)

  43. Sun, Mar. 10. TR petulantly declared that even though his resignation had been refused, he would “not do another stroke of work with the Committee.” (ib.)

  44. See, e.g., Observer, Mar. 10, 1883 (TR.Scr.).

  45. World, Mar. 10, 1883.

  46. HUN.38–40.

  47. Ib.; Hunt, supplementary statement, 8–9.

  48. Nev.112ff.

  49. TR.Wks.XIV.23–4; N.Y.T., Apr. 10, 1883.

  50. Ib.

  51. Nev.123. (But see Put.232. fn.)

  52. HUN.39; Nev.123.

  53. Mor.3.634.

  54. TR to Jacob Riis (Rii.59).

  55. TR.Auto.82; Put.302.

  56. Put.282; N.Y.T., Mar. 26, 1883; Put.283; TR.Wks.XIV.25; Put.290–1; Morning Journal, Feb. 19, 1883.

  57. N.Y.T., Mar. 26, 1883.

  58. Harper’s Weekly, Apr. 21, 1883.

  59. Parker, George F., Recollections of Grover Cleveland (NY, 1911) 250.

  60. N.Y.T., May 29, 1883.

  61. Ib.

  62. Hag.RBL.8–9.

  63. See, e.g., MBR to E, Dec. 7, 1880: “Teddie tho’ he rejoices with you in your prospects for your Hunt longs to be with you—and walks up and down the room like a Caged Lynx. When Alice appeals to him he smothers her with kisses and tells her he is perfectly happy with her but some time he must go off with his gun instead of pouring [sic] over Brown versus Jenkins etc.” (FDR).

  64. Hag.RBL.8–9; Put.308–9.

  65. See Ch. 5; also Hag.RF.6.

  66. TR to Editor, Country Life in America, Oct. 3, 1915 (Sagamore Hill collection).

  67. TR to MBR, Sep. 4, 1883 (TRC).

  68. Mor. 60.

  69. The full text of this letter is in Mor.60–1.

  70. Anna Bulloch Gracie diary, July 1, 1883; memorandum by Gary Roth, curator, Sagamore Hill National Historic Site; see also Hag.RF.6–7.

  71. COW.

  72. TR to B, Aug. 25, 1883 (TRB); E to B, Aug. 29 (FDR); MBR to E, Aug. 30 (FDR).

  73. TR to MBR, Sep. 4, 1883; Mor.76.

  74. Ib.

  75. TR’s train journey reconstructed from his letters to MBR of Sep. 4 and 8, 1883, and Official Railways Guide, July–September 1883. Description of the Badlands on arrival of a stranger from an 1882 travel article in HAG.Bln., and author’s own experiences of a midnight visit.

  76. TR to MBR, Sep. 8, 1883.

  77. TR.Auto.95.

  8: THE DUDE FROM NEW YORK

  1. TR.Auto.95.

  2. Hag.RBL.10; TR.Auto.95; Lan.52–3.

  3. Ib.

  4. Ib.

  5. Put.320; Lan.53.

  6. Hag.RBL.7–8; Lan.48, 56.

  7. Brown, Dee, Trail Driving Days (Scribner’s, 1952) 185.

  8. Hag.RBL.48; Put.313.

  9. Hag.RBL.10-11.

  10. See Put.313–7 for a more detailed account of the destruction of the northern herd, estimated at 1.5 million animals only a decade before. Other details from Lan.23–25. “Bone merchants” were freelance scavengers employed by the big phosphate companies.

  11. Hag.RBL.11; Lan. passim.

  12. Put.321; Hag.RBL.10; 16, 11.

  13. Ib., 12; Mor.3.551; see also Put.322–3. Putnam is confused by Hagedorn’s mistaken assertion that it was the Winchester that was broken. TR himself confirms, in the letter to John Hay cited above, that the Sharps was faulty.

  14. Hag.RBL.12; Put.324; Mor.3.551; HAG.Bln.

  15. Lan.70; Put.316; Hag.RBL.49–50; HAG.Bln.; Put.325; Lan.69–70.

  16. Hag.RBL.49; Twe.29.

  17. Twe. passim; Hag.RBL.59; Dr. Stickney in HAG.Bln.; O’Donald, qu. Paddock at trial, Twe. 83.

  18. Hag.RBL.61.

  19. Goplen, Arnold O., “The Career of the Marquis de Mores in the Bad Lands of North Dakota,” North Dakota History, Jan.-Apr. 1946, 11; Twe. passim; Put.351; Howard Eaton in HAG.Bln.; Twe.69, 71.

  20. Hag.RBL.336; Twe. passim.

  21. Qu. Put.351; Goplen, 11; Twe. 111–3.

  22. Twe. passim.

  23. The chimney still stands in Medora, N.D., symbolizing exactly the opposite.

  24. Goplen, 17.

  25. Mor.50. The text hereafter closely follows Put.353–60. See also Hag.RBL., Twe., and Lan.71–2.

  26. Lan.71.

  27. Bismarck Daily Tribune, qu. Put.355, 356; Hag.RBL.63.

  28. Put.538.

  29. Ib., 356.

  30. This description of the buckboard’s trip south to the Maltese Cross ranch is based on Hag.RBL.13; Put.325–6; HAG.Bln.; Lan. passim; and personal observations made by the author on a visit to the Badlands in 1974.

  31. Lan.46.

  32. Ib., 44; Put.325; Schoch, Henry A., TR National Memorial Park: The Story Behind the Scenery (National Park Service, 1974) 23.

  33. Ib., 4.

  34. Hag.RBL.13; TRB memo.

  35. Hag.RBL.13–5; HAG.Bln.; Put.321 and passim; TR.Auto.95; Put.334.

  36. TR.Auto.95-6; Hag.RBL.14.

  37. Ib., 16–7. TR, who was no man to hold grudges, forgave their initial distrust of him to the extent of awarding all three men commissions when he became President. Joe Ferris was made Postmaster of Medora; Sylvane Ferris, Land Officer of North Dakota; William Merrifield, Marshal of Montana. (TR.Auto.96).

  38. Text follows Putnam’s assumption that TR here, as in the nights following, refused to occupy the bunks of his hosts.

  39. Hag.RBL.17–8. The following description of the Badlands is based on a personal visit by the author, with touches borrowed from Lan., Hag.RBL., Put., and Schoch passim. Note: The Badlands of the Little Missouri (not to be confused with the better-known Badlands of South Dakota) straddle the common border of North Dakota and Montana with an average width of 50 miles. North to south the area measures approximately 225 miles.

  40. TR.Pri.Di. Jan. 3, 1883; qu. Put.312.

  41. Put.326–8; Hag.RBL.18–9; Lan.83, 101–2.

  42. The following section is based on Lan. 100 ff.

  43. Ib., 101–2.

  44. Put.317–29; Hag.RBL.19; Lan. passim. (Gregor Lang bought the cabin
, actually an old hunting shack, from Frank O’Donald.)

  45. Lan.86, 100 ff.

  46. Lan.113. The following account of TR’s buffalo hunt is taken primarily from his own narrative in “The Lordly Buffalo” (TR.Wks.I.185–206). Hereafter this source will be abbreviated as “Buffalo.” Secondary sources: Hag. RBL.23–46; Put.329–345; HAG.Bln.; Lan.

  47. Hag.RBL.24.

  48. Lan.113.

  49. Ib., 104, 111; Lang, qu. HAG.Bln.

  50. Lan.104, 111. Lang states that TR’s views on “the race suicide question” were essentially the same in 1883 as those he made famous as President. “I admire the men who are not afraid to propagate their kind as far as they may,” he told Gregor Lang—conscious, no doubt, of his own seed swelling in the body of Alice Lee.

  51. Lan.109.

  52. Lang, qu. Hag.RBL.28.

  53. Ib.

  54. See Put.339.

  55. Lang qu. Hag.RBL.27.

  56. From now on text follows TR’s own account in “Buffalo.”

  57. Joe Ferris stated that TR “bled like a stuck pig.” (HAG.Bln.) He was, by all accounts, a prodigious bleeder all his life.

  58. “Buffalo,” 202; Hag.RBL.34 fn.

  59. “Buffalo,” 202; Hag.RBL.36.

  60. “Buffalo,” 204–5.

  61. Qu. Hag.RBL.37.

  62. Lan. 116–7.

  63. Hag.RBL.41.

  64. Ib., 28, 38–9.

  65. Qu. Hag.RBL.42–43. (Hagedorn, reconstructing this conversation in 1919, relied on the memories of Sylvane, Merrifield, and Lang.) The deal was later sealed with a contract worked out by Gregor Lang and agreed to by all parties before TR’s departure from Dakota. TR signed it on Sep. 27, 1883, in St. Paul, Put.343; see Appendix to Hag.RBL. (original edition) for text.

  66. Hag.RBL.39.

  67. Following details from Put.337.

  68. TR to E, Nov. 28, 1880 (FDR). James A. Roosevelt, elder brother, executor, and trustee of TR Sr., also acted as the family banker.

  69. Pri.54.

  70. Author’s calculation, based on accounts in TR.Pri.Di., 1883.

  71. Lan.105.

  72. Hag.RBL.44.

  73. “Buffalo,” 205–6.

  74. Hag.RBL.45. Many of TR’s guides mention his near-pathological exuberance after killing large game.

  75. “Buffalo,” 206; Lan. 119.

  76. “Buffalo,” 206. Putnam (p. 338 fn.) points out the problem of reconciling Hagedorn’s account with TR’s, and both with the few dates that can be confirmed. These are Sep. 8 (TR’s letter announcing his arrival to MBR); Sep. 16, confirmed as a Sunday by Joe Ferris in interview; and Sep. 27, confirmed by contract date in St. Paul. Putnam’s attempt to straighten out the chronology errs in giving TR five days of rain after arriving at Lang’s. It could only have been four. Both he and Hagedorn have TR returning to the kill the day after, i.e., Sep. 21, to behead the carcass; but TR clearly says that the beheading took place on the same day as the kill. All sources agree that the kill took place in the mid-morning, and Lincoln Lang recalls TR and Ferris returning with their “paens of victory” in the evening; so they probably did their work on the carcass in between. This would mean that TR left for Little Missouri on Sep. 21, not 22, and allow him at least five nights there, making Hagedorn’s “week” seem a little more plausible.