Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

  By terms of treaty and act, he could exercise as much military, civil, and judicial authority as he liked in the Zone. But he immediately delegated this authority to his Secretary of War. Taft was a proven, brilliant colonial administrator, sensitive to native pride. The Panamanians, who showed early signs of being temperamental neighbors, would be soothed by him. “A more high-minded and disinterested man does not live,” Roosevelt wrote fondly.

  He sent Taft an official letter, stipulating a government and constitution for the Zone in precise, peremptory language. Power was to be invested in a new, seven-man Isthmian Canal Commission, already appointed. This would be chaired, as the old commission had been, by Admiral John G. Walker. Major General George W. Davis, USMC, was appointed Governor of the Zone. All but one of the other Commission members were engineers.

  Roosevelt ordered Taft to “supervise and direct” this body, as he had the Philippines Commission. On the plainly administrative level, it could be trusted to regulate, recruit, survey, purchase, and disburse. The basic privileges of the Bill of Rights were guaranteed to all inhabitants of the Zone, except—as he robustly specified—“idiots, the insane, epileptics, paupers, criminals, professional beggars [and] persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases.” For good measure, he threw in felons, anarchists, and insurrectos.

  Sanitary reform along the lines of General Wood’s pioneering work in Havana was “a matter of first importance,” the President wrote. “I desire that every possible effort be made to protect our officers and workmen from the dangers of tropical and other diseases, which in the past have been so prevalent and destructive in Panama.”

  ON 10 MAY, Cornelius Bliss formally declined the party chairmanship. A few days later, J. Hampton Moore, leader of the youth-oriented National Republican League, hurried to Washington to press the name of Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania. Roosevelt could not see Moore until the late afternoon.

  “You might as well know,” the President said, “that I shall recommend George B. Cortelyou.”

  Shadows stole across the lawn outside, darkening the Executive Office windows. Moore stared at Roosevelt, trying to gauge his expression. Was that a smile, or a grin? Perhaps he was baring his teeth in anticipation of a fight, because this appointment was sure to upset the Republican Old Guard. They would want to know how an impoverished ex-stenographer, not quite forty-two, could possibly raise millions of dollars from the likes of J. P. Morgan, let alone manage the immense complexity of a national campaign.

  Roosevelt seemed to have no such doubts. He rambled on about how young Republicans might help him win in November. Both he and Moore were aware that, even as they talked, an Old Guard stalwart lay near death in the reddening hills of western Pennsylvania. Senator Matthew Quay, master manipulator of so many national conventions, had bought his last delegate. So had Mark Hanna, already nothing more than a name set in stone in Cleveland.

  Farther west still, in Wisconsin, the political careers of John Coit Spooner and Henry Clay Payne were in decline. Governor LaFollette had completed his takeover of that state’s organization, and was threatening to send a radical delegation to Chicago. “The last consignment of Great Captains of the Republican Party are passing into the twilight,” the New York Sun mourned. Even that venerable newspaper, expositor of corporate conservatism for so many years, had had its day. Its famous symbol—an orb half hidden behind a black mountain—looked more like dusk than dawn.

  The President beamed at his visitor, showing no regret for temps perdu. Few people realized it, but Roosevelt loved Quay, probably the most despised politician of the last twenty years. He had made a secret pilgrimage to say good-bye, and been moved by Quay’s lament, “I do wish it were possible for me to get off into the great north woods and crawl out on a rock in the sun and die like a wolf!” Public men of the future must face a brighter, more businesslike light, the shadow-free light of Cooper-Hewitt lamps and popping press bulbs and Luxfer office windows. George Cortelyou—stenographer, scheduler, filer, colorless as onionskin, the quintessential modern bureaucrat—did not blink at this kind of light. Neither did Moore’s young Republicans.

  “Go see Cortelyou as soon as you can,” the President said. “And tell him,” he added ingratiatingly, “I want him to work with you.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The Wire That Ran Around the World

  “I hope ye’re satisfied,” he says. “I am,” says Jawn Hay.

  AT SIXTY-FOUR years of age, Ion Perdicaris—“Jon” to boyhood friends in New Jersey—felt that he had found his final home in Tangier, Morocco. His dividends from United States cotton and gas stocks financed a palatial villa outside of town, on the slopes of Djebal Kebir.

  This did not mean that Mr. Perdicaris had severed all American ties. Cultured and suave, he made a point of entertaining visiting compatriots, and enjoyed his role as dean of Tangier’s little English-speaking colony. When the mood struck him, he was capable of crossing to New York, renting the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and putting on a show scripted by himself, with sets by “I. Perdicaris,” and his own stepdaughter as star. Such shows might open on Monday and close the following Thursday; but Mr. Perdicaris was wealthy enough to be philosophical, returning always to the peace of his Moroccan retreat.

  He sat there now on the cool evening of 18 May 1904, relaxed in dinner jacket and pumps, surrounded by his family and the luxurious jumble of a cosmopolitan life. Tiny amphorae on the mantel testified to his birth in Athens, where his father had been United States Consul General. Oriental rugs and American skins bestrewed the floor; Moorish tables and shelves displayed a collection of objets d’art from three continents; William Morris wallpaper hinted that the lady of the house was an Englishwoman. Mrs. Perdicaris, however, was as happily expatriate as her husband. She liked to cuddle two Brazilian monkeys, who ate orange blossoms out of a pouch slung round her waist.

  The other male member of the party was her son, Cromwell Varley. He was younger than his stepfather by some twenty years. But when sudden screams came from down the hallway, the old man lithely beat him to the door.

  Mr. Perdicaris supposed, as he ran, that his French chef was quarreling with the German housekeeper as usual. Not until he reached the servants’ quarters, with Varley following, did he realize that bandits had invaded his property. Armed Moors approached him, pausing only to club his butler to the floor with rifle butts. Mr. Perdicaris tried to intervene. He was instantly beaten and bound with palmetto cords. Varley leaped forward, enraged, whereupon his hand was slashed and he, too, taken prisoner. The rifles prodded both men toward the guardhouse, where a handsome, short, pale, turbaned Berber intoduced himself.

  “I am the Raisuli.”

  Mr. Perdicaris was not encouraged. Ahmed ben Mohammed el Raisuli was a notorious insurgent, ruling three of the most violent hill tribes in Morocco—the Er Riff Mountain kabyles, whom Sultan Mulay Abd al-Aziz IV had never been able to subdue. Captured once by the Pasha of Tangier, Raisuli had spent four years chained to a wall. Since then, his hatred of the French-dominated sultanate had become compulsive. Yet his voice tonight was low and unthreatening.

  “I swear by all we hold sacred,” Raisuli said, indicating Mr. Perdicaris’s other servants, “that if there is no attempt to escape or rescue, no harm shall come to these people. But they must mount and ride with us!”

  Mr. Perdicaris saw his own horses being saddled for travel. He had no idea why he was being abducted. “I accept your assurance, Raisuli,” he replied in Arabic. He and Varley were made to mount, too. A small caravan formed, and trotted out into the darkness.

  Helpless and hysterical, Mrs. Perdicaris remained behind. Then she discovered that Raisuli had neglected to cut the villa’s telephone cord. Just before eleven o’clock, Samuel Gummeré, the American Consul General in Tangier, rode up through the cork trees to comfort her.

  THE FIRST CABLE from Gummeré did not reach the State Department until early afternoon of the next day, 19 May.

 
MR. PERDICARIS, MOST PROMINENT AMERICAN CITIZEN HERE, AND HIS STEPSON MR. VARLEY, BRITISH SUBJECT, WERE CARRIED OFF LAST NIGHT FROM THEIR COUNTRY HOUSE, THREE MILES FROM TANGIER, BY A NUMEROUS BAND OF NATIVES HEADED BY RAISULY [sic].… I EARNESTLY REQUEST THAT A MAN-OF-WAR BE SENT AT ONCE.… SITUATION MOST SERIOUS.

  John Hay was out of town, so once again Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Loomis had to handle a foreign crisis with the President.

  Conveniently, Roosevelt had just dispatched sixteen white warships on a “goodwill cruise” of the Mediterranean. His response was quick, and more forceful than Gummeré could have hoped. Loomis cabled back that several of these ships would be sent to Tangier, as soon as possible. “May be three or four days before one can arrive.”

  That estimate was somewhat optimistic. The nearest ships to Morocco were those of Rear Admiral French E. Chadwick’s South Atlantic Squadron, comprising the fast cruiser Brooklyn, a protected cruiser, and two gunboats. About one day behind steamed four big battleships of the North Atlantic Fleet, under Rear Admiral Albert S. Barker. Bringing up the rear was Rear Admiral Theodore F. Jewell’s European Squadron of three protected cruisers.

  The last seven units were scheduled to rendezvous in the Azores before proceeding to Portugal and the Rivieras. Chadwick’s four were due to visit Gibraltar, and then tour the North African coast. These were the vessels Roosevelt chose to divert to Tangier. But he overestimated the speed at which even the Brooklyn could move. The Navy Department advised that Chadwick would not reach Tangier much before the end of May.

  RAISULI’S CARAVAN JOGGED inland all day, under the staring sun. Mr. Perdicaris and his stepson stifled under Moorish haiks, wrapped around them for disguise. Toward evening, they ascended into the Riff Mountains—tribal country, forbidden to Christians and coastal Arabs alike. Mr. Perdicaris’s horse slipped on some rocks. The old man, still bound, was thrown off, dislocating a thighbone. He lay quivering until Varley and Raisuli lifted him back onto the saddle. For hours, the climb continued up a wet, dark gorge. Shortly before midnight, Raisuli called a halt at the village of Tsarradan, on the spur of Mount Nazul. Mr. Perdicaris was escorted to a hut that reeked of stagnant water. Unable to stand on his throbbing leg, he lay down on the clay floor, and someone threw a blanket over him. He could not sleep. The hut’s thatch was half open to the sky. Rain began to fall, softening the clay to paste.

  In all his wandering life, Mr. Perdicaris had never felt so remote from help or hope.

  ROOSEVELT’S ARMADA STEAMED on across the Atlantic, leaving the Caribbean basin unguarded. As if to remind its citizens that out of sight was not out of mind, the President chose 20 May—the second anniversary of Cuba libre—to make an official statement of his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Once again Elihu Root served as his spokesman. Addressing the Cuba Society of New York that evening, Root asked permission to read a letter from the President of the United States.

  Its first two paragraphs were blandly congratulatory, but there was a passing clause that caught attention: “It is not true that the United States has any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards other nations, save such as are for their welfare.”

  The third paragraph moved quickly from reassurance to threat.

  If a nation shows that it knows how to act with decency in industrial and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, then it need fear no interference from the United States. Brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of a civilized society, may finally require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore this duty; but it remains true that our interests, and those of our southern neighbors, are in reality identical.

  The letter ended as it began, with polite clichés, but its message was clear: Caribbean and Latin American countries must in future match their “interests” to those of the Colossus of the North. If not, they would be policed.

  In sending such a message at such a time—little more than four weeks before the Republican National Convention—Roosevelt took a calculated risk. Better, with mere rhetoric, to arouse a chorus of criticism from anti-imperialists than to court much wider outrage by actually implementing the Corollary, if things got any worse in Santo Domingo. His statement should at least reduce the latter possibility through November.

  Congressman David DeArmond of Missouri accused him in the New York World of “jingoism run mad.” The same newspaper also used the words patronizing, menace, knight-errantry, and bumptiousness. Yet most commentators north and south of the border praised the President’s good intentions. Memories of German and British gunboats bombarding Venezuela still rankled. For better or worse, the Roosevelt Corollary was now a permanent feature of hemispheric policy.

  “I ASK NOTHING from you,” Raisuli told Mr. Perdicaris, much to the latter’s relief. However, Raisuli clearly intended to ask a great deal from the Sultan of Morocco before he released so valuable a pair of hostages, and was content to let international pressure build for their release. At his leisure, he sent Abd al-Aziz a list of his demands, and settled down to the life of a village celebrity. He strolled around Tsarradan, accepting the adoration of youths who kissed the hem of his burnoose.

  When Mr. Perdicaris asked what he wanted from Fez, Raisuli mentioned five specific concessions: an end to harassment of the Er Riffs by government forces; release of all kabyle political prisoners; dismissal of the Pasha who had chained him; a ransom of seventy thousand Spanish silver dollars; finally, elevation to overlordship of two of Morocco’s richest districts.

  Mr. Perdicaris was aghast and depressed at the extravagance of these terms. Raisuli showed him a plait braided under his turban. “This will disappear only when my wrongs are avenged—mine and those of my people!”

  A few days later, word came that Sultan Abd al-Aziz was not interested in bargaining for foreign hostages. Raisuli promptly had the imperial messenger’s throat slit.

  ROOSEVELT’S REDEFINITION OF the Monroe Doctrine and his dispatch of warships to the Mediterranean were the gestures of a palpably confident executive. “I had much rather be a real President for three years and a half,” he told George Otto Trevelyan, “than a figurehead for seven years and a half.” The odds on renewed “real” power were in his favor: with 708 out of 988 convention delegates pledged to him, his nomination was now a certainty. Democrat campaign planners were in such despair over his popularity that, having failed to persuade Grover Cleveland to run, they seemed likely to settle for Alton B. Parker—a New York State judge who, as Elihu Root remarked, “has never opened his mouth on any national question.”

  Reticence and its political cousin, caginess, were in Roosevelt’s opinion weaknesses to be taken advantage of. When a deputation of conservative senators, including Aldrich and Spooner, visited the White House to protest his selection of the “inexperienced” Cortelyou as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, he was unsympathetic. “I held this matter open for months, and allowed plenty of time to make selections, and none of you had a word to say.”

  Ironically, he was quite capable of being closemouthed himself, but only when the sensibilities of other people or governments had to be considered, or important announcements delayed. And sometimes—as now—he preferred the quick efficiency of a news leak. A White House “source” informed reporters that George B. Cortelyou would become Postmaster General after the election, in place of Henry Clay Payne. This was a strategic move aimed at enhancing the former’s authority as party chairman. Campaign workers were sure to obey Cortelyou if they knew he would soon inherit the government’s richest patronage agency.

  Roosevelt assembled the rest of his second-term Cabinet at leisure and mostly in secret. “He wants us all to resign—” John Hay noted in his diary, “but he wants to reappoint me.” Agriculture Secretary James Wilson might be kept on, Hay thought; Treasury Secretary Leslie Shaw, who had presidential ambitions for 1908, probably not. “Taft he wants to keep eithe
r where he is, or as Attorney-General if Knox goes.”

  This was the first recorded indication that Knox’s astigmatic gaze had begun to focus beyond the Administration. Like Taft, his dearest wish was to sit at center bench on the Supreme Court. But Chief Justice Fuller, at seventy-one, remained annoyingly healthy. Meanwhile, the passing of Matthew Quay gave Knox an irresistible chance to represent his home state in the Senate.

  In any case, the President’s latest preference for a Supreme Court appointment was William H. Moody. To that end, Roosevelt decided definitely to shift Moody to the Justice Department as soon as Knox resigned. He had other, long-range plans for Taft.

  With less than a month to go before the convention in Chicago, he became obsessive about controlling every last detail. He plotted the Coliseum’s seating plan, insisting that “every Republican editor in the country” be accommodated. He selected the speakers and edited the speeches. “For all we know,” the New York Evening Post jibed, “he may have designated the men who are to lead the cheering.” Representatives of state committees were amazed at his knowledge of what they were doing and whom they were hiring.

  “Mr. President, I have come for your final answer,” Albert J. Beveridge said one day, crowding his desk like an earnest schoolboy. “Am I, or am I not, to be temporary chairman of the Chicago convention?”

  As tactfully as possible, Roosevelt mentioned the name of somebody taller. Beveridge stiffened. “Root? Elihu Root! What can he say that the country will listen to?”

  Unconsoled, the little Hoosier performed one of his imitations of Napoleon retiring to Elba. “Very well, Mr. President, so be it. I am once more alone.… Alone at school, alone at the Bar, alone in the Senate, alone in the party! Good morning, Mr. President.”