The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
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51. Mor.367; Wag.304; TR to B, Nov. 6, 1893; Mor.391, 409. TR accepted no fees for lectures on Civil Service Reform. These he considered part of his job.
52. Pri.157.
53. Mor.342–3; see also n. 56, below.
54. Mor.343. The land was sold to his uncle James A. Roosevelt. It reduced to 30 acres the original estate he bought during his first marriage. TR to B, Jan. 28, 1893; EKR to Emily Carow, May 19, 1894; Mor.306.
55. Ib., 343, 376; see also TR to B, Apr. 15, 1894, and EKR to B, Jan. 10 and June 6, 1894 (TRC). The extent of TR’s embarrassments may be gathered from his suggestion to Bamie, who had a habit of understamping her letters, that she buy “a pair of scales and a copy of the postal regulations,” so as to save him the 20-cent collect charge. TR to B, April 1, 1894.
56. Mor.345.
57. Ib., 340; TR to HCL, July 4, 1893 (LOD.).
58. Mor.389, 323, 335; TR to B, June 20, 1893. A memo sent to Secretary Smith suggests that the hostility may have been mutual. See Mor.328.
59. Cecil Spring Rice to Elizabeth Cameron, July 2, 1891 (ADA.).
60. Foulke, William D., Fighting the Spoilsmen (Putnam, 1919) 40.
61. On Nov. 28, 1893. Foulke, Spoilsmen, 38–40; Mor.317. See also ib., 341; Foulke, William D., Lucius Burrie Swift (Bobbs-Merrill, 1930) 69.
62. Halloran, Matthew F., The Romance of the Merit System (Washington, D.C., 1929) 77; TR to HCL, June 8, 1893 (LOD.).
63. Mor.343; see also ib., 396.
64. Mor.393. See Woo. 19 for an earlier example of TR’s reaction to suggestions that he again run for Mayor.
65. TR to HCL, Oct. 11, 1894 (LOD.); EKR to Emily Carow, 1894 passim (Derby mss.).
66. Sto.223.
67. TR to B, qu. Bea.47.
68. Mor.379, 409. See also Bea.46–7. This is not the first mention of the Canal by TR. He had been interested in France’s attempt to build a waterway at Panama since his Dakota days. Among his papers in TRP there is a copy of a U.S. Government Special Intelligence Report on the Progress of the Work on the Panama Canal During the Year 1885. The document contains much technical prose, thoughtfully penciled by TR.
69. Mor.384; TR to B, Feb. 25, 1894.
70. Ib., Aug. 18, 1894.
71. Ib.; also July 29, 1894. Elliott had, for example, severely burned himself that February by accidentally tipping an oil lamp over his naked body. In May he had spent the night in a police cell, being too incoherent to say where he lived. In July he had driven into a lamppost while blind drunk and been catapulted onto his head, incapacitating himself.
72. C to B, Aug. 15, 1895 (TRC); TR to HCL, Aug. 18, 1894 (LOD.).
73. TR wrote to HCL afterward: “I confess I felt more broken than I had thought possible.” Aug. 18, 1894, LOD. To B in England he wrote that Elliott “would have been in a straight jacket had he lived forty-eight hours longer.… he had been drinking whole bottles of anisette and green mint, besides whole bottles of raw brandy and champagne, sometimes half a dozen a morning … He was like some stricken, hunted creature; and indeed he was hunted by the most terrible demons that ever entered a man’s body and soul.” Aug. 18, 1894, TRB.
74. Ib. Elliott’s companions at Greenwood were Alice Lee and Mittie Roosevelt. See also Las.56–7. Elliott had been living with Mrs. Evans at 313 West 102 Street under the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Eliot.” TR to B, n.d., 1894; World, Aug. 16, 1894. According to Lash (who does not identify the woman), she had a house in New England, and was not with him when he died. This is puzzling, in view of TR’s remark to B (Aug. 18) that E “would not part with the woman” in his last days. Either Lash is mistaken, or E had two mistresses, which seems unlikely. At any rate the winding up of his affairs produced circumstances of some absurdity. Katy Mann made an appearance, bastard in arm, to claim further damages; then Mr. Evans arrived, while the lawyer was negotiating with his wife, and threatened both parties with a loaded revolver. Mrs. Evans eventually received a settlement of $1,250. TR to B, Aug. 18 and 25.
75. Ib., Aug. 24, 1894; Lod.134; Mor.399. For a further description of this hunting trip, see Mor.410–11. TR to HCL, Oct. 11, 1894 (LOD.).
76. TR to B, Oct. 22, 1894; Mor.400.
77. Mor.8.1433.
78. Ib.
79. Ib., 410; HCL to his mother, Dec. 9, 1894 (LOD.); see Mor.418–9 and ff.; ib., 417.
80. Ib.; see p. Ch. 5; also Put.241. TR’s letter of reply has not survived, but its contents can be inferred from his supplementary letters to Carl Shurz and Jacob Riis (Mor.418–20).
81. Ib., 417–20.
82. Ib., 428.
83. Gar.180; see Samuels, Ernest, Henry Adams: The Major Phase (Harvard, 1964) 164 ff.
84. Mor.426.
85. Ib., 433. The date of this first meeting with Kipling has been the subject of some confusion, since Mor.370 puts TR’s letter describing the occasion (a dinner at the Bellamy Storers’) in 1894, and Kipling, in Something of Myself (London, 1936) 131, vaguely remembers it as 1896. The correct date—March 7, 1895—is made obvious by other references in TR’s letters. See, e.g., Mor.433, 436, 439
86. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1970) 13.382.
87. Mor.370.
88. Ib., 448, 439; Kipling, Something, 131–3.
89. Mor.247; TR.Wks.IX contains the text of Hero Tales.
90. Wis.40.
91. Manchester (NH) Telegram, Feb. 11, 1895 (TR.Scr.).
92. Ib.; Storer, Mrs. Bellamy, In Memoriam Bellamy Storer (privately printed, 1923) 22. This was, of course, the era of “red-meat” football—infinitely more bloody than anything seen today. Eye-gouging and multiple fractures, sustained in real on-field fights, were routine. Football grew redder and meatier until TR himself, as President, was revulsed and called for reforms. See “Walter Camp,” American Heritage, XI.6, Oct. 1961.
93. See Mor.437, 9.
94. Ib.
95. Ib., 442.
96. Ib., 444. Sageser, A. Bower, “The First Two Decades of the Pendleton Act,” Nebraska U. Studies, Vols. 34–35 (1934–35) prints a table showing the growth of the classified system under Commissioner TR. Opinions of the latter’s effectiveness in office vary widely. Leonard D. White in The Republican Era, 1869–1901 (Macmillan, 1958) points out that for all TR’s boasts about doubling the classified service, the service as a whole was growing so fast that the number of patronage positions increased steadily through the rest of the century. He allows, however, that the Roosevelt team was “one of the strongest commissions in the whole history” of the CSC. TR’s genius for publicity was, in the opinion of this author, his greatest contribution to the good gray cause. See the Civil Service Chronicle of May 1895, which praises his ability to throw dazzling light on the hitherto shady patronage practices of professional politicians. Through his courage and his flamboyance, he had spread “an educational process … across the country,” resulting in a general desire for reforms in all areas of public business. “He is the only man in the Harrison Administration who has won permanent national fame.” The view of the CSC itself expressed in Letters of TR, Civil Service Commissioner (Washington, 1958) 125, is unequivocal: “Theodore Roosevelt probably contributed more to the development and extension of the civil service than any other person in the history of the United States.”
97. Gardiner, A. G., Pillars of Society (London, 1913), 238.
98. TR to B, June 17, 1895; Cha.204.
99. Theodore Roosevelt Association, Journal, Winter/Spring 1976; Cut.34.
100. Sun, June?, 1889 (TR.Scr.). TR used to joke that the real reason he came to Washington was his “desire to mingle with members of the Cosmos Club and discuss with them congenial topics.” (Ib.)
101. Kipling, Something, 132; Kipling qu. Tha.II.333.
19: THE BIGGEST MAN IN NEW YORK
1. The following description of Mulberry Street is based on pictures and text in Shepp’s New York City Illustrated (Globe, Philadelphia, 1894); King’s Handbook of New York, 1893; Scrapbooks, “Mulberry Street,” in the New York Public Library; Riis, Jacob, Th
e Making of an American (NY, 1902) passim; Ste. 197–265.
2. New York Evening Post, May 6, 1895.
3. Ste.257; see also Eve. Post, May 6, 1895; AND.30–3.
4. Ib.
5. Eve. Post, May 6, 1895. Physical descriptions taken from sketches in World, May 7; group portrait in Review of Reviews, May 20; various other pors. in TRB. Personal details from AND.16, 30–1; AND.Scr. For more on Grant, see Perling, I. J., Presidents’ Sons (New York, 1947), 178–79.
6. Ste.257–8; Brant, Donald Birtley, Jr., “TR as New York City Police Commissioner,” unpublished dissertation (Princeton, 1964) in TRB, 10; AND.32.
7. Andrews quoted Steffens’s story verbatim in his memoirs. One of the Republican members was by courtesy entitled to the presidency, since the appointing Mayor was of that party. According to Steffens in the Post that evening, Grant announced that he wanted the honor to go to TR; this was obviously at Strong’s request.
8. TR qu. Ber.47. Berman observes that such a statement at such a time, coming from so prominent a public figure, “clearly marked a radical departure” from old-style Police Headquarters policies. The hopes that it raised among reformers, however, were dashed by passage of the Bi-Partisan Police Act. (See below.)
9. Richardson, James F., The New York Police: Colonial Times to 1901 (Oxford U. Press, 1970) 244. See ib. 214 ff., and the more recent scholarship of Ber. 35–41, for background to this bill.
10. TR was, by virtue of his sweeping investigation of the city government in 1884, intimately familiar with all phases of police operation. See, e.g., his “Machine Politics in New York City,” (1886) in TR.Wks.XII.30. “Polish” quote from ib., 123.
11. Ber.35–36; TR.wks.XII.123. TR and his three colleagues and the Chief all earned the same salary: $5,000 (New York Times, May 7, 1895). Richardson, Police, 212; AND.35; New York Herald and World, May 28.
12. Ber.51; Ste.221.
13. Richardson, Police, 210; Ber.51.
14. AND.7.
15. Ib., 19; 8; Ste.254; King’s Handbook; Shepp’s NYC, 410 ff; New York State, Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the Police Department of the City of New York (Albany, 1895, reprinted Arno/N.Y.T., 1971) 28 ff.
16. Sun, May 12, 1895; Shepp’s NYC, 413; Report, 49; AND.7; TR.Wks.XIII. 119; TR.Auto. 178.
17. Report, 29; AND.7.
18. Report, 1–76; Ber.23–29; Brant, “TR, PC,” 5; Shepp’s NYC, 410–3.
19. AND.11.
20. TR.Wks.XIII. 119.
21. Report, 16; Shepp’s NYC, 413; AND.11.
22. Ste.256.
23. AND.18–9, 141 ff; see also Trib., May 23, 1895, on former election corruption.
24. Richardson, Police, 231; AND.13; Report, 16–19.
25. The Lexow Committee asserted that “honest elections had no existence, in fact, in the city of New York.” Qu. Richardson, Police, 233. Myers, Gustavus, The History of Tammany Hall (NY, 1901) 333; Connable, Alfred, and Silverfarb, Edward, Tigers of Tammany (NY, 1967) 197–214; Report, 15–61; AND.10.
26. Steffens, Autobiography, 258.
27. Ib.
28. Riis, Making, 70–3.
29. Rii.131; Riis, Making, 328; TR.Auto.174. “How the Other Half Lives had been to me both an enlightenment and an inspiration,” TR wrote in ib. “… I wished to help him in any practical way to try to make things a little better. I have always had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds, of speech that does not result in action.”
30. Riis, Making, 328.
31. See Kaplan, Justin, Lincoln Steffens (Simon & Schuster, 1974) 57; Steffens, Autobiography, 223.
32. See Stein, Harry H., “Theodore Roosevelt and the Press: Lincoln Steffens,” Mid-America, 54.2 (Apr. 1972). This essay convincingly demonstrates TR’s mastery of the media by providing a documented case history of his dealings with one reporter over a long period. After TR became President, he ignored Steffens for two years, until the journalist became nationally famous; he then took him up again, manipulating him with consummate skill and no little hypocrisy. Stein’s essay should be read as an antidote to the Steffens Autobiography, which suggests that the author had a powerful influence on TR.
33. Ste.258; Eve. Post, May 6, 1895.
34. Ib.; Richardson, Police, 249; New York City Police Department, Minutes of the Board, 1895–7 (TRB) 1–2.
35. World, May 10, 1895; Evening World, same date; World, May 11; Journal, May 17; World, May 17.
36. World, May 22, 1895. The Journal, May 21, noted “the constant splurge made over what Mr. Roosevelt does or says.” Also AND.67–9.
37. See, e.g., Ste.261–2. N.Y.T., July 21, 1895.
38. World, May 17, 1895. No other explanation of TR’s scar has ever been offered. It shows up clearly in numerous photographs.
39. Eve. Sun, May 8, 1895.
40. Ib.; Sun, June 27, 1896, quoting TR.
41. TR to HCL, May 18, 1895 (LOD.).
42. Mor.457.
43. N.Y.T., July 23, 1895.
44. Miss Minnie Gertrude Kelly is insinuatingly described in the World, May 10, 1895, as “young, small, and comely, with raven-black hair and … a close-fitting gown.” TR’s motives in hiring her were of the highest, however. She was to “take the place of two men employed by the previous President, at a saving of $1,200 a year.” Apparently the arrival of Miss Kelly, a family friend of the Roosevelts and a protégée of Joe Murray, “quite took the breath out of the old stagers in the Mulberry Street barracks.” Hitherto headquarters staff had been exclusively male. (Ib.)
45. Photographs of TR working survive as evidence of this curious habit. See, e.g., Bis.I.60.
46. Wise, John S., Recollections of Thirteen Presidents, 246.
47. TR to B, May 19, 1895; ib., June 2.
48. Mor.456, 458.
49. Ib.; World, May 17, 1895.
50. Rii.130; AND.36.
51. AND.78–9; Ber.51–53; Ste.261. See also N.Y.T., May 29, 1895.
52. Ste.206–14, 263; AND.79–80.
53. Ib.; N.Y.T., May 25, 1895.
54. World, June 3, 1895.
55. Jacob Riis, in Outlook, June 22, 1895, confirms that what follows was TR’s own idea.
56. Account of the night walk based on Riis, Making, 330–2; Trib., June 8, 1895; World, same date; AND.Scr.; TR.Scr.
57. World, Trib., June 8, 1895; AND.57.
58. Trib., June 8, 1895.
59. World, Trib., June 8, 1895.
60. Eve. Sun, June 8; Philadelphia Times, n.d., AND.Scr.
61. Brooklyn Times, Washington Star, June 8, 1895.
62. Davis (31) and TR had met in Washington on Dec. 6, 1892. They did not get on too well at first. TR’s insistence that Americans should approve of all things American prompted Davis to ask if that included “chewing tobacco and spitting all over the floor.” TR replied sarcastically that it did, and what was more, he always made a point of sitting with his feet on the table when dining at the British Legation. (Mor.299.) After that their relationship improved. Davis later contributed much to the Roosevelt legend.
63. Trib., June 15, 1895; Recorder, Commercial Advertiser, same date; AND.54.
64. Press, June 15, 1895.
65. Ib.
66. Excise Herald, June 29, 1895; AND. confirms the report by quoting it.
67. Sun, World, N.Y.T., June 15, 1895.
68. Press, N.Y.T., Commercial Advertiser, June 15, 1895.
69. AND.Scr.; TRB clips, 1895; Sun, Mar. 24, 1896.
70. Ib. For another, very funny anecdote about “Teddy’s Teeth,” see Edward Marshall, “The Truth about Roosevelt,” The Columbian Magazine, June 1910.
71. Ib.
72. Pri.138.
73. AND.62. See World, Aug. 22, for an account of a daytime prowl.
74. EKR to Emily Carow, n.d., TRB mss.; Mor.462; TR.Auto.205.
75. Rii.145.
76. Mor.463.
77. Bernard McCann int. FRE.; James Burke, ex–Lyon’s waiter, ib.
78. Mor.4
64; Brant, “TR, PC,” 33.
79. Ib., 34.
80. N.Y.T., Jan. 16, 1895.
81. TR.Wks.XIV.27; Mor.466.
82. Ib.; also 464.
83. Evening Telegraph, June 11, 1895.
84. TR.Wks.XIV.181.
85. Mor.463.
86. Ib.
87. TR.Auto.197–9; Advertiser, June 25, 1895; Ste.264; AND.113–8; N.Y.T., June 24, 1895.
88. N.Y.T., June 25, 1895; TR.Auto. 199; P.D. Minutes, 3; Ste.264.
89. AND.115.
90. Journal, July 12, 1895.
91. TR.Auto.197.
92. TR.Auto.196; Richardson, Police, 251; John R. Voorhis, former Police Commissioner, int. FRE.
93. Brant, “TR, PC,” 35; New York Police Department, Annual Report, Dec. 31, 1897, 38; TR.Wks.XII.129.
94. TR.Auto.194; AND.105–7.
95. N.Y.T., Jan. 15, 1895; TR.Auto. 194–6; see also AND.137.
96. World, July 1, 1895.
97. N.Y.T., July 1, 1895; Journal, July 26. AND. 137 says that “fully half the force” was employed to administer the Sunday law. Her., July 2.
98. Ib.
99. Comm. Adv., July 8, 1895.
100. N.Y.T., July 18, 1895.
101. Qu. Journal (ed.), July 26, 1895.
102. N.Y.T., July 12, 1895; Her., July 13; see also Mor.466.
103. Her., July 13, 1895.
104. AND.123.
105. Un. clip, TRB; Her., July 17, 1895.
106. Chicago Times-Herald, July 22, 1895.
107. Her., July 17. Author’s italics.
108. Ib.; un. clip, TRB.
109. Her., July 17, 1895.
110. Chicago Times-Herald, July 22, 1895.
111. Mor.469.
112. Ib.
113. Her., July 24, 1895.
114. Comm. Adv., July 25, 1895.
115. Sun, July 25, 1895; N.Y.T., July 27.
116. World, July 29, 1895.