60. Telegram, Nov. 3, 1886.
61. GEO. clip, un., Nov. 3, 1886.
62. Her., 3.
63. Nevins, Hewitt, 468.
64. This was TR’s first defeat at the polls. He would not suffer another such until 1912.
65. Sun, Nov. 3, 1886; Lod.150.
66. Sun, Nov. 4, 1886; World, same date.
67. Alex.82. Nevins’s figures differ slightly at 90,466, 67,930, and 60,477. Historically, the average Republican Mayoral vote was 98,715 (Eve. Post, Nov. 3, 1886).
68. Alex.82–3; Eve. Post, Nov. 3, 1886.
69. Trib., Nov. 4, 1886.
70. “I do not disguise from myself that this is the end of my political career,” TR told Robert Underwood Johnson. The poet wrote many years later: “I cannot remember to have seen a man so cast down by political defeat.” Johnson in TR.Wks.X.342.
71. Luther B. Little int. FRE. See also Alex.83, and Abbot, Lawrence F., Impressions of TR, 6: “I never heard him talk about it—as he was glad to do about his other political experiences.”
72. Daily Graphic, Nov. 3, 1886. For sample range of other comments, see Comm. Adv., Nov. 3; letter to Eve. Post, Nov. 5; F. B. House int. FRE. Other recommended reading: Hurwitz, Howard L., TR and Labor in New York State, 1880–1900, and Condon, “Election of 1886.”
73. N.Y.T., Nov. 7, 1886; COW; see also Mor. 115. The Times erroneously reported next day that Corinne and her husband, Douglas Robinson, sailed with them too. Why TR was at such pains to conceal his departure, now that the campaign was over, is a mystery. Perhaps he merely felt weary of crowds and fuss. The formal news of his engagement certainly caused a sensation. Elliott, who saw TR off, went on to a society wedding afterward and found the congregation buzzing with conversation, not about the bride and groom, but about Edith and Theodore. (E to B, Nov. 10, 1886, FDR.)
74. N.Y.T., Nov. 7 and 8, 1886.
75. All from COW.
76. Portrait of CSR from Gwy. passim; Roosevelt family letters; COW.; Cha.
77. N.Y.T., Nov. 14, 1886; TR.Auto. 33; COW.
78. TR.Auto.33.
79. COW.
80. Gwy.48. “Roosevelt was surprised to find that Henry George’s campaign for the Mayoralty had been widely publicized in Britain, and that he in consequence was something of a celebrity.” Her., Mar. 28, 1887. Mor. 116–7. George Joachim Goschen, Liberal Cabinet minister, just about to become Lord Randolph Churchill’s successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer. John Morley, Liberal statesman and distinguished literary biographer (for his later opinion of TR, see Prologue). James Bryce, statesman, scholar, and one of the most brilliant conversationalists in England. He was then engaged on his classic The American Commonwealth. (See Ch. 15.) Morley and Bryce were to become TR’s lifelong friends.
81. COW.
82. Ib. TR’s and Edith’s addresses are on their marriage certificate, reproduced in Lor.240. Under “Rank or Profession” TR wrote: “Ranchman.”
83. Mor.117.
84. COW; Gwy.48. Both men were nearly late for the ceremony, having been “intensely occupied in a discussion of the population of an island in the Southern Pacific.” (Bamie, qu. Gwy.48).
85. TR to William Sewall, TRB memo. Apparently, TR’s quietude did not last. For an amusing anecdote about his too-exuberant Americanism in London, see Harris, Frank, Contemporary Portraits (New York, 1915), 266–68.
INTERLUDE
Important sources not listed in Bibliography: 1. Mattison, Ray H., “The Hard Winter and the Range Cattle Business,” Montana Magazine of History, Vol. 1.4 (Winter, 1950). This is authority for all the chronological details in the following account, supplemented by Dickinson Press and Mandan Pioneer coverage, October 1886–March 1887. Files in North Dakota State Historical Society.
1. Brown, Dee, Trail Driving Days (Scribner’s, 1952) 224–5; Lan.245–6.
2. Mattison, “Winter,” 10 ff.; Lan.24 ff.
3. Put.592; Lan.242 ff.; HAG.Bln.
4. TR.Auto.98.
5. Earl Henderson, pioneer, in Fifty Years in the Saddle Club, Looking Back Down the Trail, Vol. 1 (Watford City, N.D., 1963) 230.
6. Mattison, “Winter,” 11.
7. Ib.
8. Brown, Trail Driving, 225; Lan. 242–3; Mattison, “Winter,” 12; “A Dakota Blizzard,” anonymous article in Atlantic, Dec. 1888.
9. TR.Wks.I.346–7; Mattison, “Winter,” 12.
10. Brown, Trail Driving, 225.
11. “A Dakota Blizzard”; Hag. RBL.435–6; TR.Wks.I.346; Brown, Trail Driving, 225.
12. Bismarck Tribune, Nov. 1886, qu. Hag.RBL.430; TR.Wks.I.347; Mandan Pioneer, Jan. 28, 1887; Hag.RBL.435; Mattison, “Winter,” 12; Lan.259.
13. Ib.; Hag.RBL.436–8; Mattison, “Winter,” 14; HAG.Bln; Lan.594.
14. Qu. HAG.438.
15. Hag.RBL.439; Clay, John, My Life on the Range (NY Antiquarian Press, 1961) 179. See Robinson, Elwyn B., History of North Dakota (U. of Nebraska Press, 1966) 190–6 for the effect of the winter on the economy of the Dakotas. For details of its particular effect on TR’s business, see below.
15: THE LITERARY FELLER
1. This, the fourth of TR’s pre-presidential trips to Europe, was, with a fifth quick visit to Paris in 1892, to make TR the most widely traveled Chief Executive since John Quincy Adams. The Roosevelts’ honeymoon itinerary was as follows. After the wedding they crossed the Channel to begin “an idyllic three weeks trip” south to Provence via Paris and Lyons. They made their “leisurely way” from Hyères along the French and Italian Rivieras by carriage to Pisa, then visited Florence and Rome before moving south to Naples, which they reached on Jan. 16, 1887. After exploring Sorrento and Capri they began to move north again, revisiting Rome early in February before going on to Venice, where they took moonlit gondola rides and witnessed that rarest and most beautiful of phenomena, a Venetian snowstorm. They crossed over to Milan, whose pillared Cathedral reminded TR of Rocky Mountain forests. In Paris he decided he was too poor to order a cellarful of claret for Sagamore Hill, yet splurged on three days of classical riding lessons at an école d’équitation. The Roosevelts returned to London about Feb. 23, 1887, and after three weeks in that city sailed from Liverpool on March 19. TR to B, Dec. 3, 1886-Mar. 12, 1887; also Lod.52–3.
2. New York Times, Herald, Sun, Tribune, all Mar. 28, 1887. See also TR to C re his “daily overeating,” Mor. 118–9.
3. Ib., 123.
4. Ib., 123–6; TR to B, Mar. 12, 1887.
5. Trib., Mar. 28, 1887; Her., N.Y.T., Sun, same date.
6. See TR to B, Jan. 10, 1887.
7. TR to B, Sep. 20, 1886. In fact he insisted. “Theodore has against my will insisted on my keeping Baby,” Bamie wrote Nannie Lodge on Nov. 2, 1886.
8. TR to B, Jan. 10, 1887.
9. TR to B, Apr. 16 and May 16, 1887.
10. Nor, apparently, could Alice. She loved Bamie extravagantly always, while preserving at best an ambiguous relationship with Edith. In old age Alice remarked sadly that “Auntie Bye did talk about my mother to me … none of the others ever mentioned her.” (Int. Nov. 9, 1954, TRB.)
11. Ib.
12. Rixey, Lilian, Bamie: TR’s Remarkable Sister (David McKay, 1963) 68; Gwy.60–1.
13. See Wag.210–16.
14. TR to B, Jan. 3, 1887. The words are Theodore’s, but the thoughts are manifestly Edith’s.
15. Ib. The hunting horse, at least, won a reprieve, for TR became quite maudlin about it. See Mor. 119. EKR, meanwhile, had to operate Sagamore Hill on a budget of something like half of what B had spent there. (Hag.RF. 15.)
16. TR.Wks.I.347; TR to W. Sewall, qu. Hag.RBL.441; Lan.246; Hag.RBL. 438.
17. Ib., 441; TR.Wks.I.347. Over the years he had bought a total of 3,000 head (Put.523 fn.), which reproduction probably raised to around 4,000 in 1886. One authority, Elwyn B. Robinson in History of North Dakota, puts the total as high as 5,000.
18. Lan.259; Mattison, Ray H., “The Hard Winter and the Range Cattle Business,” Montana Magazine of History, Vol. 1.4 (Winter,
1950) 18.
19. Put.594; Lan.246–59; North Dakota History, Vol. 17.3; Mattison, “Winter,” passim.
20. TR.Wks.I.347; author’s estimate; Put.594. TR told a fellow-rancher he was “utterly crushed by the fearful tragedy.” Hoffman, W. Roy, TR: His Adventuring Spirit (unpublished ms. in TRB) qu. Pierre Wibaux, 311.
21. Mor.126. Actually the figure was in excess of $85,000. See Put.523 fn. and 588 fn. TR had himself predicted during the fall of 1886 that an overall loss of 50% would affect the range cattle industry should a harsh winter strike the overgrazed Badlands. See TR.Wks.I.290. Not for twelve years did he finally manage to extricate himself. During that period Merrifield and Ferris succeeded, by judicious management, in reducing his loss to $20,292. Put.595. But in 1887 any such relief seemed inconceivable.
22. Mor.127.
23. Lan.259; Dickinson Press, Jan.–April 1887, passim; Hag.RBL.451–2; Put.595–6; Lan.263; Twe.111–5; HAG. Bln.
24. Dickinson Press, May 7, 1887; Clay, John, My Life on the Range (NY Antiquarian Press, 1961) and Twe. passim.
25. Twe.70; Hag.RBL.450; John Good-all, pioneer, qu. Fifty Years in the Saddle Club, Looking Back Down the Trail, 288. Soon after TR arrived home, he must have read that the Marquis had been arrested in New York for nonpayment of business debts. See, e.g., Sun, May 20, 1887. De Morès bought his way out of this and other American entanglements, escaping to Europe later that summer. He returned to the Badlands only once, but like TR came only to hunt. After visits to India and China he settled in his native country and became an arch-reactionary, fighting on behalf of French royalists to overthrow the Republican government. He was for a while an ardent disciple of Boulanger. Later the Marquis decided that Jews were responsible for France’s economic and social ills. In May 1892 he was seen, immaculate in tails and top hat, throwing spitballs at Juliette de Rothschild’s wedding. Tiring once more of “civilization,” he went in 1896 to Morocco, hoping to promote a Franco-Islamic alliance against the British Empire. While crossing the Sahara en route to Sudan he was ambushed and killed by a band of Tuaregs. Brave to the end, de Morès left a circle of dead tribesmen around him before collapsing into the sand. His funeral in Paris was a public event. In its front-page obituary, Le Figaro commented: “Morès was always marvellously optimistic … everywhere that he went was like a novel of chivalry … he was the classic man of action, officer, agitator, or colonial of old France.” Le Siècle viewed him somewhat differently. “Morès was a dangerous madman.” For a full account of the Marquis’s later years, see Twe.
26. Robinson, History of N.D., 190–6.
27. TR.Wks.I.17.
28. TR.Auto.111–2; Dantz, qu. HAG. Bln.; Merrifield, qu. ib. (“Roosevelt had a great weakness for bad men.”); Erskine, Gladys S., Bronco Charlie: A Saga of the Saddle (NY, 1934) 231–2; Hag.RBL.116. “I can’t tell why in the world I like you,” TR told Hell-Roaring Bill Jones, “for you’re the nastiest-talking man I ever heard.”
29. On Apr. 15, 1897, TR was re-elected as chairman of the Little Missouri Stockmen’s Association. Dickinson Press, Apr. 16. See also Put.528.
30. As early as August 1886, at the time of the Mexican war scare, the cowboys were anxious to follow TR into battle. See TR.Wks.I.378.
31. See, e.g., TR’s famous letter of Aug. 9, 1903, to John Hay, in Mor.3.547 ff.
32. Vollweiler, Albert T., “Roosevelt’s Ranch Life in North Dakota,” U. North Dakota Quarterly Journal 9.1 (Oct. 1918).
33. See Alex. 102–4.
34. Fourth-Class Postmasters were fired by the thousands, effecting a complete purge in two years; all 85 IRS inspectors were replaced, as were 100 of the nation’s 111 Customs Collectors. (Alex. 102.)
35. GC vetoed 413 bills in his first Administration. (Ib. 114.)
36. The wedding took place on June 2, 1886. See Nev.
37. N.Y.T., May 11, 1887.
38. Ib.; World, May 12, 1887.
39. N.Y.T., May 12, 1887; Sun, May 15. For a list of notables attending, see Trib., May 12.
40. The following account of TR’s speech is collated from N.Y.T., Trib., World, Sun, Her., Eve. Post, and Daily Graphic, May 12–16, 1887.
41. TR grudgingly allowed that GC had made some good appointments to the U.S. Treasury, and was taken aback by an unexpected burst of applause. Nev.367.
42. Trib., May 12, 1887.
43. Interestingly, Depew himself was a Presidential candidate at that time, and his remarks were interpreted by some as a put-down of the youthful TR.
44. Qu. Sun, May 16, 1887.
45. Ib.
46. Ib.
47. N.Y.T., May 13, 1887.
48. Un. clip, TRB; N.Y.T., May 13, 1887.
49. Ib.
50. Eve. Post, May 13, 1887.
51. N.Y.T., May 15, 1887; TR.Auto. 329–30; TR to B, May 21, 1887.
52. Lod.55; Hag.RF.15.
53. TR to B, Feb. 12, 1887.
54. TR.Wks.VII.241; Mor.131.
55. N.Y.T., May 6, 1888. See Gar.56 for an alternate explanation of editorin-chief Morse’s decision to commission the book. Morris is reprinted in TR.Wks.VII.235–470, and in a recent special edition by the Theodore Roosevelt Association of Oyster Bay, N.Y. (1975). This edition carries an introduction by John A. Gable, “Theodore Roosevelt as Historian and Man of Letters,” vii–xxiv.
56. Lod.57. See also Mor.7.175.
57. Lod.55. See also Gable, “Historian,” x.
58. Ib.
59. Mor.131.
60. TR.Wks.VII.306.
61. Ib., 324.
62. Ib., 328.
63. Ib., 329, 456, 336.
64. Ib., 459, 421.
65. Ib., 464, 459, 469
66. The Book Buyer, May 1888; N.Y.T., May 6; Dial, May 1888. For a more positive review, see The Critic, July 21: “We are struck with the author’s wide, if not profound reading of purely European political and general literature … crisp and even classic English … freely strung pearls of thought … sparkling on every page.” The Boston Advertiser came up with a telling line in its review of Apr. 4: “He [TR] seems to have been born with his mind made up.” The line may have been contributed, tongue-in-cheek, by the paper’s owner, Henry Cabot Lodge.
67. Mor. 119.
68. TR to C, June 8, 1887 (TRB photostat).
69. Rob.130; TR to B, Sep. 9, 1887; TR to C, June 8, Lod.57; TR to B, Aug. 20; Rob.130.
70. Gwy.67. This remark echoes one made privately by HCL, two years before in his diary: “The more I see him, as the fellow says in the play, the more and more I love him.” Qu. Put.506.
71. TR to B, Sep. 11, 1887; ib., Sep. 13, 1888.
72. As persona non grata in political circles, TR had taken no part in the New York State fall campaign, and his departure West was obviously timed to spare him the agony of witnessing another Democratic landslide in the election on Nov. 8. “The Republican party seems moribund,” he despairingly wrote afterward. (To B, Nov. 20, 1887.)
73. TR to B, Nov. 13, 1888. The cousin was West Roosevelt, and the friend Frank Underhill.
74. TR.Wks.I.409.
75. Ib., 79; Lan.223–4.
76. Ib., 222–4. Lincoln Lang was an early and passionate conservationist, far ahead of his time. It was his considered opinion that TR was so sickened by the environmental damage suffered by the Badlands in 1886 (before the Great Blizzard) that he had decided to give up the cattle business “several months before he actually did.” (Ib., 225.)
77. See Clay, Life on the Range, 43.
78. TR to MBR, Apr. 28, 1868 (see Ch. 1).
79. TR.Wks.II.160.
80. See Cut. passim for TR’s early conservationist instincts.
81. Lan.223–4.
82. TR to B, Nov. 20, 1887; Grinnell in TR.Wks.I.xiv–xvii.
83. Rules qu. in TR’s own description of the Club, Harper’s Weekly, Mar. 1893.
84. Ib.; Grinnell in TR.Wks.I.xvii; TR in Harper’s Weekly, Mar. 1893.
85. Cut.70; TR.Wks.I.xvii–i.
86. Cut.70–3; TR i
n Harper’s Weekly, Mar. 1893.
87. Cut.78; TR.Wks.I.xviii.
88. Eugene Swope, curator Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary at Oyster Bay, to Helen Elizabeth Reed (TRC).
89. Cut.79.
90. See TR to B, Feb. 12, 1887.
91. The eminent historian David Seville Muzzey, writing in 1927, called the act “one of the most noteworthy measures ever passed in the history of this nation.” Qu. Cut.72.
92. See Nev.383 ff.
93. $55 million on Dec. 1, 1887. By the end of the fiscal year 1888 it was expected to grow to $140 million. Nev.375.
94. See Sto.152.
95. Ib., 153.
96. Nev.395.
97. Mor.136; Lod.62; Har.73.
98. Mor. 136. TR had made a similar confession to HCL about a year earlier (Lod.51), but had failed to act upon it. Mor.705.
99. Although once, when writing the first chapter of Benton, he described it as “an outline I intend to fill up.” Mor.94.
100. E.g., Mor.141.
101. Ib., 134–5; also 133. Commonwealth was duly proclaimed a masterpiece when it appeared in December 1888, and is regarded as such to this day.
102. Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth (N.Y., 1888) I.540–2, II.103, 119, 173, has extensive quotes from TR’s essays on legislative and municipal corruption.
103. Later the theme was extended still further, to include the more recent settlements of New Mexico and Arizona, covering two full centuries of American history.
104. Mor.140.
105. See Gable, “TR as Historian,” xi–xxiv for a modern historiographical assessment of TR. The Winning of the West is extensively discussed below, in Ch. 18.
106. Mor.140; also see below.
107. TR’s trip to the South lasted from Mar. 21 to about Apr. 3, 1888; he visited Washington at least twice, in late January and early March.
108. Mor.197.
109. The manuscript of The Winning of the West is now in the New York Public Library.
110. TR to B, July 1, 1888.
111. TR to Brander Matthews, Oct. 5, 1888.
112. See TR to B, Oct. 13, 1889, when he complains that his new income of $3,500 will be “700/800 dollars” less than his income as a writer in 1888.
113. Norton, Charles Eliot, Walt Whitman as Man, Poet, and Friend (Boston, 1919), 216.
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