The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  54. Twe.106–7; Dakota clip, n.d., in TRB.

  55. Put.538.

  56. TR.Wks.I.29. Here TR was perhaps being unduly modest. One Badlands veteran told Herman Hagedorn: “Fer a crittur with a squint he were plumb handy with a gun.” HAG.Bln.

  57. Put.537.

  58. Ib.

  59. Wannegan had been hired as a “gofer” in the summer of 1884, and was now night-herder at Maltese Cross. “He was a genial soul, and Roosevelt liked him.” Hag.RBL.169, 338.

  60. Qu. ib., 348. See also Sew.27.

  61. Photostat in TRB.

  62. The actual letter TR sent de Morès has disappeared, along with almost all of the Marquis’s personal papers. It is said to have stipulated “rifles at twelve paces, the adversaries to shoot until one or the other dropped.” (Hag.RBL.348.)

  63. According to Hagedorn the Marquis also invited TR to dine with him at Chateau de Morès after the trial. (Ib., 349.)

  64. See Put.538–542 for a different interpretation.

  65. See TR.Wks.I.269–72 on the aridity of the Badlands.

  66. See TR.Auto.110-11 for an account of firefighting on the prairie.

  67. Put.542; Hag.RBL.350–2.

  68. TR.Wks.I.16. In a New York lecture delivered in January 1886, he was openly contemptuous of the red man. “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.” (Qu. Hag.RBL.355.) In later years this harsh attitude mellowed considerably. See Wag.229–30 and below, Ch. 17.

  69. Text here follows Putnam’s assumption “based on circumstantial evidence” that the trip took place during the first two weeks of Sep. 1885. Put.543.

  70. TR.Wks.I.371–3.

  71. See TR.Auto.54 for TR’s own analysis of courage as something that can be acquired “by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness.”

  72. Qu. Twe.96–7. Also standing trial were the Marquis’s aides and ambush partners, Richard Moore, Frank Miller, and E. G. Paddock. All received the same verdict. See Twe.92 ff.

  73. Put.542. The exact date of TR’s visit to the Marquis (Hag.RBL.344 and Twe.93) is unknown, but Sep. 16 seems almost certain. He was busy with fire-fighting, hunting, and the LMSA before that. He definitely left Medora on Sep. 16, and would have passed through Bismarck that same evening.

  74. See Put.544 ff. for details.

  75. Only once, in Brooklyn on Oct. 17, did he allow himself to make a major speech. Text, which contains a slashing indictment of Democratic race discrimination in the South, is in TR.Wks.XIV. 58–67.

  76. Hag.RF.11; Put.555.

  77. Both descriptions based on contemporary photographs as well as the general portrait of the young Edith in Morr.EKR.

  78. Merrifield to Hagedorn, June 1919, TRB memo; Hag.RF.11; Put.557.

  79. Hag.RF.426.

  80. Sylvia Jukes Morris; see also below, Ch. 13.

  81. “A buffalo is nobler game than an anise-seed bag, the Anglomaniacs to the contrary notwithstanding.” TR to Lodge, Mor.77.

  82. See TR in Century, Jan. 1886, qu. World, Oct. 17, 1886; Mor.90.

  83. Lod.1.34–5.

  84. TR.Wks.II.294–6; N.Y.T., Oct. 27, 1885.

  85. TR.Wks.II.296.

  86. Ib.; TR.Auto.32; Lod.I.34.

  87. Longworth, Alice Roosevelt, Crowded Hours (Scribner’s, 1933) 4.

  88. Edith’s presence at the Ball is confirmed by a letter to her from B, Oct. 23, 1886. Derby mss.

  89. Lod.I.35.

  13: THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW

  1. TR.1886.Di. passim; Put.558.

  2. Par. 65.

  3. Put. 557–8 discusses the reaction of TR’s sisters to his growing intimacy with Edith.

  4. See, e.g., his long letter to B summing up the Chicago Convention of 1884 (Mor.70–72). On such occasions he signs himself formally THEODORE ROOSEVELT instead of his more usual “Thee” or “T.R.”

  5. The period 1884–1886 is a noticeable lacuna in all Roosevelt collections, including those of his two sisters. What letters survive are usually truncated.

  6. Mor.94.

  7. Put.558; Mor.94.

  8. See Gar. 56–8 on HCL’s relationship with John T. Morse Jr., editor-in-chief of this highly successful publishing venture.

  9. See Put. 560 for a quote illustrating the bleak mood of Sewall and Dow. Elsewhere he surmises that TR’s engagement was open-ended, and that the lovers parted with “considerable uncertainty.” There is no evidence of this. Putnam also errs in saying that TR’s sisters “knew the situation.” As will be seen, they were kept as much in the dark as anybody that spring.

  10. Put.559.

  11. TRB.

  12. TR.Auto.98.

  13. Sew.59; TR.Wks.I.381–2.

  14. Ib.

  15. Ib., 383; Sew.60.

  16. Ib., 67.

  17. Put. 564.

  18. Ib., 569 fn.; TR.Wks.I.383.

  19. Ib., 384; Hag.RBL.368.

  20. Mor.95; TR.Wks.I.385.

  21. TR.1886.Di. Mar. 29; Mor.95. The Arnold volume was probably Discourses in America (1885).

  22. As indeed it did in May 1888. Reprinted in TR.Wks.I.381–98, it forms the basis of the following narrative.

  23. TR. 1886.Di.; Hag.RBL.373.

  24. TR.Wks.I.386–7.

  25. Photographs by TR in TRB; TR.Wks.I.387. Unlike most reporters, TR did not need a notebook. Three or four jotted words in his diary, such as “Hung up by ice,” were enough for him to write up a whole day with apparently total recall. His account of the boat chase runs to 7,000 words, based on a few dozen words of diary. See extracts from latter in Hag.RBL.371–9.

  26. TR.Wks.I.386.

  27. TR.1886.Di.; TR.Wks.I.388.

  28. Ib., 388–9; Sew.62–3.

  29. TR.Wks.I.389–90. Sewall, writing 33 years later (Sew.64–68), is at pains to give the impression that he, not TR, masterminded the capture of the thieves. Put.565–6 contrasts the two accounts.

  30. TR.Wks.I.391.

  31. There had recently been a big Indian hunt in the lower Little Missouri Valley, and the country was virtually stripped of wildlife. TR.Wks.I.394.

  32. TR.1886.Di. Apr. 1–8; TR.Wks.I. 391–3. “If I’d had any show at all, you’d have sure had to fight, Mr. Roosevelt,” said Finnegan after his capture, flushing dark with anger. Ib., 395.

  33. Ib., 393–5.

  34. Ib., 396.

  35. Mor.96. TR’s opinions of War and Peace, which he read (during the round-up!) later that spring, may be quoted here. Predictably he liked the battle scenes, but was irked by Tolstoy’s criticisms of the iniquities of war, while failing “to criticize the various other immoralities he portrays … he certainly in so far acts as the apologist for the latter, and the general tone of the book does not seem to me to be in the least conducive to morality.” (Interestingly, Tolstoy came to feel the same, albeit by more majestic reasoning.) TR fell in love, as all readers do, with Natasha: “her fickleness as portrayed is truly marvellous; how Pierre could ever have ventured to leave her alone for six weeks after he was married I cannot imagine.” See Mor.103.

  36. TR.1886.Di.; Sew.72–3; TR.Wks.I. 396–7.

  37. Ib., 397–8.

  38. Dr. Stickney in un. clip, HAG.Bln.

  39. Mor.96.

  40. Edith was scheduled to leave for Europe on April 24, 1886 (C to B, Mar. 29, 1886).

  41. Put.570; Hag.RBL.388–9; TR.Auto. 119. A simple collation of these three sources establishes the election date as Tuesday, Apr. 12, 1886. Edict qu. Hag.RBL.392.

  42. See Put.570–1 for LMSA meeting; also Mor.98, Bad Lands Cowboy, Apr. 15, 1886.

  43. Clay, John, My Life on the Range (1924, reprinted NY Antiquarian Press, 1961) 351–2; Put.571–2; TR to B, Apr. 29.

  44. HAG.Bln. passim. The last compliment was paid TR by Jack Reuter.

  45. TR to B, Mar. 28, 1886.

  46. HAG.Bln.;
Hag.RBL.91.

  47. Merrifield int. in HAG. Bln.

  48. Ib.

  49. Put.579–80; Mor.91 (TR to HCL, June 23, 1886 misdated 1885—see Putnam’s fn.).

  50. TR to B, June 19, 1886 (TRB); Mor.103.

  51. Ib., 105.

  52. TR to B, Apr. 29, 1886; Put.578.

  53. Hag.RBL.398. According to Sewall in HAG.Bln., TR occasionally suffered from writer’s block, and would read pages of manuscript to his men for their opinion.

  54. Mor.95.

  55. Mor.102 (text slightly amended to conform with original in Mass. Hist. Soc.).

  56. Put.579; Mor.108.

  57. It was superseded only by W. M. Meig’s biography in 1904. Benton is reprinted in TR.Wks.VII.1–233.

  58. The Nation, Mar. 29, 1888. This prestigious journal gave Benton a major, 3-column review. Along with the negative comments quoted in text, it praised TR’s “lively and energetic development of the Western character” and “many acute and sensible verdicts on the great men of that time.” The New York Times (May 15) called Benton “stirring, argumentative, bold … singularly entertaining.” Both papers noted TR’s tendency to over-attack people and policies he disapproved of.

  59. TR.Wks.VII.15.

  60. Ib., 30; 232; 145.

  61. Ib., 79–80.

  62. Ib., 156–7. TR nevertheless agreed that “in any purely American community manhood suffrage works infinitely better than would any other system of government … in spite of the large number of ignorant foreign-born or colored voters.” (Ib.) His views on race and sex discrimination would be labelled “paternalistic” and “chauvinistic” today. Suffice to say they were advanced for his time, and became more so as he grew older.

  63. TR.Wks.VII.27.

  64. Ib., 172.

  65. Ib., 169–70. See Put.574–9 for another review of Benton.

  66. TR.1886.Di.

  67. Hag.RBL.402; HAG.Bln.

  68. Sew.16; Hag.RBL. 16.

  69. Hag.405; Mor.107.

  70. Dickinson Free Press, July 10, 1886 (TRB); Hag.RBL.406.

  71. Press, same date; Hag.RBL.407.

  72. HAG.Bln.

  73. Press, same date. The critical listener was Lispenard Stewart (memo in TRB). But see Stickney and Packard in Hag.RBL.409–11, and Mandan Pioneer, July 9, 1886: “He made a very favorable impression upon all.”

  74. Mandan Pioneer, same date; Mor.107.

  75. Qu. Hag.RBL.583. See also Packard in Sat. Eve. Post, May 14, 1905.

  76. Hag.RBL.411.

  77. As recently as June 28 he had written Bamie: “I cannot tell exactly when I will be home; it will be between the middle of September and the middle of October; make your plans entirely without reference to me.” (TRB.) See also Put.581, 583.

  78. Hag.RBL.412–3; Mor.107.

  79. Ib. 109.

  80. TR to B, Sep. 20, 1886.

  81. Put.586.

  82. TR to B, Aug. 20, 1886.

  83. Ib., Sep. 20, 1886; Put.86; Sew.74.

  84. Bismarck Tribune, Aug. 12, 1886.

  85. Qu. Wag.87–8; see also Put.557 and fn.

  86. The incident involved the imprisonment, by Mexicans, of an American journalist, and the subsequent killing, by Mexicans, of a U.S. Army officer. Put.586; Mor.158.

  87. Put.585–6; Mor.108; TR.Wks.378; Mor. 109.

  88. Mor.101;Hag.RBL.415–6; TR. Wks.I. 289–90.

  89. Mor.109.

  90. For an account of this trip, see TR.Wks.I.444–59 and Put.586–8. TR to B, Aug. 20, 1886.

  91. See N.Y.T., Aug. 29, for the initial rumor; also a strong denial, evidently inspired by TR, in ib., Sep. 5. TR to B, Sep. 20, 1886. The original of this very important letter appears to have been suppressed. Fortunately the typed transcript survives at TRB. Apparently TR never overcame his dread of the dead Alice Lee’s censure. Many years later, “Baby Lee” mused regarding her father’s marriages, “He was always so full of guilt.” Washington Post int., Feb. 12, 1974.

  92. TR to B, Sep. 20, 1886; Sew.92; see financial analysis in Put.588–90.

  93. Hag.RBL.424–5; Sew.93.

  94. Brown, Dee, Trail Driving Days (Scribner’s, 1952) 224–5.

  95. Ib.; Hag.RBL.431.

  96. Lan.239–42; Hag.RBL.431; Brown, Trail Driving, 225.

  97. Put.590; Sew.95.

  14: THE NEXT MAYOR OF NEW YORK

  Important sources not listed in Bibliography: 1. Nevins, Allan, Abram S. Hewitt, with Some Account of Peter Cooper (Harpers, 1935).

  1. New York Times, Oct. 14, 15, 1886; Leslie’s Illustrated, Oct. TR had reached Oyster Bay from Dakota on October 8.

  2. Alex.144; see Ch. 7. George had been nominated on Sep. 23, 1886.

  3. Nevins, Hewitt, 467; TR.Wks.VII. 136.

  4. Alex.76; Nevins, Hewitt, 461–4.

  5. Bailey, Thomas A., The American Pageant (Boston, 1956) 555; see Barker, C., Henry George (1955).

  6. Nevins, Hewitt, 461; Condon, Thomas J., “Politics, Reform, and the Election of 1886,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 44.4 (Oct. 1960) 367. 1886 was a year of great unrest in the labor movement. In all, about 1,500 strikes occurred across the country, crippling at least 10,000 establishments. Chicago was chosen by the half-million strong Knights of Labor as a focal point of a number of May Day strikes. That city was also, unfortunately, home to several hundred anarchists, who used the strikes to further their own violent aims. The Knights therefore became associated, in the public mind, with communist subversives. Tensions built up rapidly in Chicago, and on May 4, at a labor meeting in Haymarket Square, somebody threw a dynamite bomb which killed seven policemen and wounded seventy bystanders. TR’s reaction to this incident was typical. “My men here in Dakota are hardworking, laboring men, who work longer hours for no greater wages than the strikers; but they are Americans through and through; I believe nothing would give them greater pleasure than a chance with their rifles at one of the mobs … In relation to the dynamite business they become more furiously angry and excited than I do. I wish I had them with me, and a fair show at ten times our number of rioters; my men shoot well and fear very little.” Nevins, Hewitt, 463–1; Alex.74 ff.; Bailey, Pageant, 537–9; Put.603; Mor. 100.

  7. GEO., un. clip, Oct. 6, 1886.

  8. World, Sep. 26, 1886; Alex.112; see Ch. 9.

  9. New York Journal, Oct. 16, 1886.

  10. Mor.111; New York Tribune, Oct. 16, 1886.

  11. Mor.111.

  12. World, Oct. 17, 1886; Mor.111. The local Republican party was somewhat embarrassed for funds in 1886. Before turning to TR, the bosses had considered nominating such millionaires as William H. Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt. (GEO., un. clip.)

  13. See below, Ch. 15.

  14. See, e.g., New York Star, Oct. 17, 1886; Alex.79; Sun, Oct. 21.

  15. Nevins, Hewitt, is the standard biography.

  16. Nevins, Hewitt, 465; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1970 ed., 11.467.

  17. E. L. Godkin in The Nation, Oct. 14, 1886. “Der’s no use tryin’,” TR’s old backer Joe Murray said of a youthful Roosevelt supporter. “Yer can nominate him, but yer can’t elect him.” Asked why not, Murray explained, “Why, if he were elected mayor, der boys [Hess, Biglin, et al.] wouldn’t have peace day or night—and dey knows it.” A. W. Callisen to TR, May 14, 1916 (TRP).

  18. Mor.111-2, 115.

  19. Star, Oct. 16, 1886; Trib., same date; N.Y.T., Oct. 17.

  20. Ib.; Trib., Oct. 16. See Mor.110-11 for TR’s acceptance letter.

  21. Sun, Oct. 21, 1886; Eve. Post, same date.

  22. Ib., Oct. 27, 1886.

  23. Mor. 112–3.

  24. See TR.Wks.XIV.70–1.

  25. Mor.114.

  26. Star, Oct. 28, 1886.

  27. N.Y.T., Oct. 28, 1886; Journal, Mail and Express, same date.

  28. N.Y.T., Oct. 28, 1886; Star, same date.

  29. Telegram, Mail and Express, Trib., N.Y.T., Journal.

  30. GEO. passim. TR’s double-dictation technique was as follows. While reporters scri
bbled down his answer to a question, he would dictate some rapid sentences to his stenographer; while she scribbled those, he turned his attention to the next press question, apparently with no loss of continuity on either side. (Mail and Express, Oct. 18, 1886.)

  31. Ib.

  32. Sun, Oct. 26, 1886.

  33. The following account of the Cooper Hall meeting is based on N.Y.T., Oct. 28, 1886; supplementary details from Trib., Star, World, same date.

  34. N.Y.T., Oct. 28, 1886.

  35. Commercial Advertiser, Oct. 27, 1886.

  36. World, Oct. 28.

  37. Daily News, Trib., Oct. 29, 1886.

  38. See TR’s own Oct. 28 analysis in Mor.8.1426. See also Trib., Nov. 4, 1886, for his confession that there was a mid-campaign moment when victory seemed possible.

  39. Alex.71.

  40. Ib., 71; Nev.460–2; GEO. clip., un., Oct. 5, 1886; Nev.464.

  41. Daily Graphic, Oct. 22, 1886. This slogan was repeatedly bandied by Democratic newspapers as the campaign progressed.

  42. Trib., Oct. 29.

  43. B to Edith in Europe, Oct. 23, 1886. (Derby mss.)

  44. The following narrative based on N.Y.T., Oct. 29, 1886; Trib., same date.

  45. See ib.: “Mr. Roosevelt has given much attention to the colored men, among whom he is a favorite.”

  46. Ib.

  47. Ib.; N.Y.T., Oct. 29, 1886.

  48. Bamie had relocated earlier in the year to 689 Madison Avenue.

  49. Mail and Express, Oct. 30, 1886.

  50. World, Oct. 31, 1886. Hewitt, in appealing for Republican votes, suavely played on TR’s fears. “I trust that at some future time he will receive the reward due to his energy, his ability, and his character, but he has made a mistake. He has allowed himself to be the tool of designing men.” Qu. Nevins, Hewitt, 468.

  51. Sun, Oct. 31, 1886.

  52. Her., Oct. 31, 1886.

  53. GEO. passim.

  54. Journal, Oct. 26, 1886; Daily Graphic, Nov. 1.

  55. Lincoln, Charles T., ed., Messages from the Governors, VII, 1072, qu. Nevins, Hewitt, 142.

  56. Her., Oct. 31, 1886; Trib., Oct. 29.

  57. Her., Oct. 31, 1886.

  58. Mail and Express, Oct. 30, 1896; Nevins, Hewitt, 463; Condon, “Election of 1886,” 363.

  59. For a more optimistic election-eve forecast, see Trib., Nov. 1, 1886.