Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

  CHAPTER 17: NO COLOR OF RIGHT

  1 I’ll tell ye Dunne, Observations by Mr. Dooley, 167.

  2 Roosevelt, child of Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 30 June 1903 (JJ).

  3 He poured out Ibid.

  4 The Delaware affair The Washington Post, 23–24 June 1903; 135 Americans had been lynched in 1901, 97 in 1902, but only 20 so far in 1903. The encouraging last figure, however, proved illusory. In the first week after the Delaware riot, six more lynchings occurred in the South. By year’s end, the total had risen to 104. And, as Walter F. White points out, the sadism of lynchings grew steadily worse during TR’s Presidency. The New York Times, 24 June 1903; Public Opinion, 2 July 1903; White, Rope and Faggot (New York, 1929, 1969), 19–35.

  5 On 24 June Jusserand, What Me Befell, 241–43. The Savoy volumes, Feldsüge des Prinzen Eugen von Savoyen (Vienna, 1876–1891), had been presented to TR by the Italian Ambassador (Washington Evening Star, 15 June 1903). TR appears to have read, or at least browsed, a French translation of these volumes (now preserved at Sagamore Hill). He also read, in French, Arneth’s three-volume biography of the Prince.

  6 “Where will it begin” Jusserand, What Me Befell, 243.

  7 The next morning Foreign Relations 1903, 154; Charles W. Bergquist, Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886–1910 (Durham, N.C., 1978), 216.

  8 “Out of consideration” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 508. 251 CANNONS CRASHED The New York Times, 28 June 1903.

  9 Only Alice Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 271–74; New York World, 24 May and 13 June 1903; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 484.

  10 “Father doesn’t care” Alice Roosevelt diary, 27 Jan. 1903 (ARL). In extended conversations with Michael Teague toward the end of her life, Alice Roosevelt Longworth spoke often of the ghost of Alice Hathaway Lee. Far from fading, “it became a problem” between them as she grew up. She knew that he felt her resentment of his silence about her mother, but knew also that he “could not or would not” break it. Michael Teague interview, 13 Aug. 1984. Teague’s Mrs. L., consisting largely of transcriptions of Alice’s tea-table monologues, remains the best biographical study of this brilliant, wounded woman.

  11 “I wish she” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 408.

  12 Ted, now fifteen Endicott Peabody to TR, 1 Oct. 1903 (TRP); TR, Letters, vol. 3, 490.

  13 Kermit, thirteen Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 298; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 490.

  14 Ethel, nearly Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 331; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 408.

  15 The two smallest Face, badger, and extremities may be viewed in Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 269.

  16 “WASHINGTON IS NOW” Speck von Sternburg to John C. O’Laughlin, 30 June 1903 (JCOL); Francis B. Loomis to TR, 1 July 1903 (TRP).

  17 Roosevelt was mystified Wolf, Presidents I Have Known, 199. Stults, “Roosevelt,” notes Hay’s “major reversal of policy” on Russian Jews after TR interested himself in their cause. Jules Jusserand expressed the views of much of Washington’s diplomatic corps when he accused TR of currying the favor of “the influential Jewish coterie,” and creating “a most vexatious precedent … a very dangerous policy.” He wondered how the Administration would like it if France forwarded a petition of black Martinicans decrying lynchings in the United States. Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 30 June 1903 (JJ).

  18 A peremptory telegram TR to Francis B. Loomis, 1 July 1903 (TRP).

  19 Throwing all semblance Wolf, Presidents I Have Known, 200–202; Oscar S. Straus, Under Four Administrations: From Cleveland to Taft (Boston, 1922), 173. Cassini sailed on 8 July. New York World, 9 July 1903.

  20 John Hay, unaware John Hay to TR, 1 July 1903 (TD).

  21 His letter came New York World, 3 July 1903; Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, 387.

  22 A DAY OR TWO Washington Times, 8 July 1903; John Hay to TR, 9 and 11 July 1903 (TD); Clymer, John Hay, 195.

  23 “I always find” John Hay to Mrs. Hay, 4 July 1903 (TD).

  24 Sure enough, Ibid.; New York Sun, 30 Aug. 1903. TR’s other guests were Mark Hanna, Thomas Kearns, Charles Fairbanks, Clement Griscom, Guy Wetman Caryl, and Winthrop Chanler.

  25 When they did John Hay to Mrs. Hay, 4 July 1903 (TD); Foreign Relations 1903, 155–58. The extent of Marroquín’s influence on the Colombian Congress remains a matter of historical debate. In 1903, American foreign-policy experts considered him to be a strongman, but Minister Herrán complained that he was languid in comparison with TR (Herrán to Lilian H. Andrews, 8 July 1903 [TH]). Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, chap. 6, and Bergquist, Coffee and Conflict, 216, present him as essentially powerless; but see the contrary reassessment in Marks, Velvet on Iron, 101.

  26 President and Secretary “We agree on all points of foreign policy.” John Hay to George Smalley, 9 July 1903 (TD). See also Hay to TR, 18 July 1903: “Permit me to observe that your planet seems to be in good working order” (TRP).

  27 HAY SAID GOOD-BYE New York Tribune, 9 July 1903; John Hay to TR, 13 July 1903 (TD). In this same thank-you note, Hay repeated his “trembling hope” that he might one day have TR’s promised written account of his cross-country trip. TR complied on 9 Aug. 1903.

  28 On 12 July Story of Panama, 346. For a detailed discussion of the political situation in Bogotá at this time, see Bergquist, Coffee and Conflict, 214–16.

  29 By a coincidence New York World, 13 July 1903; Cromwell’s aide, Roger Farnham, had given this date to the newspaper a month before. McCaleb, Theodore Roosevelt, 157.

  30 a desperate message Foreign Relations 1903, 163.

  31 Hay prepared Ibid., 164; TR to John Hay, 14 July 1903, qu. in Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 311.

  32 THE KISHINEV PETITION Simon Wolf to TR, 3 July 1903 (TRP); Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 197. Wolf’s misgivings were shared by many Americans. A New York World editorial on 10 July declared that TR’s “anonymous” press blast of 1 July “deprives our Kishinev interference of all moral force, degrading it into a mere bargaining trick.”

  33 Oscar Solomon Straus In 1902, TR had appointed Straus as United States Representative at The Hague.

  34 When Roosevelt heard Wolf, Presidents I Have Known, 203 (facsimile of TR’s draft on pp. 206–8); Marks, Velvet on Iron, 151.

  35 Everyone approved Straus, Under Four Administrations, 172–73; John Hay to TR, 11 July 1903 (TD); TR, Letters, vol. 3, 517. Afterward, everybody but Straus took credit for the cable. For its text, see Cyrus Adler, With Firmness in the Right (New York, 1940), 268–70.

  36 Long before he Oscar Straus to TR, 15 July 1903 (TRP); Zabriskie, American-Russian Rivalry, 93. The three ports were Ta-tung-kou, Mukden, and Harbin. Newchwang was already open by treaty. Zabriskie confirms that the decision to open them (made secretly on 6 and 9 July) was prompted by the Tsar’s fear of “a united front of powers against Russia.”

  37 Nicholas II’s rejection John Hay to TR, 14 July 1903 (TD); TR, Letters, vol. 3, 520. Knee, “Diplomacy of Neutrality,” argues that TR’s response to the Kishinev pogrom was more political than humanitarian. His main motive in cooperating with the Wolf committee was to secure New York’s large Jewish vote in 1904.

  38 “If only we were” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 532.

  39 One such vehicle Ray Stannard Baker research notes (RSB). Baker subsequently reworked these notes for publication in American Chronicle, 170–72.

  40 A servant showed Baker research notes (RSB). TR’s study, almost unchanged, is now part of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.

  41 Like a sudden explosion Ray Stannard Baker to James Baker, 16 July 1903, and Baker research notes (RSB).

  42 “My dear Mr. President” Booker T. Washington Papers, vol. 7, 202–3.

  43 “An old Florida” Baltimore Herald, 3 July 1903.

  44 “It was a very” Ray Stannard Baker research notes (RSB). See also Baker, American Chronicle, 172.

  45 Behind his jocularity TR to Brander Matthews, 11 July 1903 (TRP); Review of Reviews, Aug. 1903; Literary Digest, 18 July 1903; Rollo Ogden to TR, 3 and 28 July 1903 (TRP). For sarcasti
c black reaction to the Kishinev petition, see Ziglar, “Decline of Lynching.”

  46 For political reasons Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., “A Republican President and Democratic State Politics: Theodore Roosevelt and the Mississippi Primary of 1903,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, summer 1984.

  47 “This people is” James Wilson to TR, 2 July 1903 (TRP).

  48 So far in 1903 Literary Digest, 23 May 1903; Lodge, Selections, vol. 2, 25; Postal Record, July 1903; Harrison Gray Otis to TR, 28 July 1903 (TRP). Wall Street’s impression of TR as prolabor was inaccurate. His primary instinct was for social order. On 10 June 1903, he had sent federal troops to subdue some striking miners in Morenci, Arizona Territory, acting within twenty minutes of an appeal from Territorial Governor Alex Brodie. Leupp, The Man Roosevelt, 241; Washington Evening Star, 11 June 1903; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 593.

  49 an open shop Frank W. Palmer to TR, 7 July 1903 (TRP).

  Chronological Note: Conditions of “intolerable tyranny” had been reported to exist in the GPO. Public Printer Palmer was accused of letting typographic and other unions create a closed and notoriously inefficient shop there, in exchange for labor peace. TR was sympathetic to an affidavit filed by a fired GPO foreman, William A. Miller, who claimed to have been penalized for raising the productivity of the bindery division by 40 percent.

  TR directed that Miller be reinstated, over Palmer’s protests that such a gesture would cause the bookbinders to go on strike. He ordered George Cortelyou to investigate the situation and take whatever steps were necessary to ensure that no government union “be permitted to override the laws of the United States, which it is my sworn duty to enforce.” For a full account, see Gatewood, Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy, 134–74.

  50 James S. Clarkson James S. Clarkson to Benjamin F. Barnes (TR’s assistant secretary), 15 July 1903 (TRP); The Wall Street Journal news clip, ca. 15 July 1903 (TRP).

  Biographical Note: Clarkson, a notorious spoilsmaster who had fired thirty thousand Post Office appointees in a single year under Benjamin Harrison (to the extreme displeasure of Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt), was surveyor of the Port of New York. His appointment by TR in May 1902 had, in the words of Life magazine, “sent cold chills down the necks of all civil service reformers.” When the reformers came to the White House for an explanation, TR merely threw up his hands with a smile. “Well, the truth is, as you know, in politics we have to do a great many things that we ought not to do.” To professional politicians, the appointment was both shrewd and successful: Clarkson had old scores to settle with Mark Hanna, and, grateful for his appointment, he worked energetically to elect TR in 1904. Life, 8 May 1902; Barry, Forty Years, 278–79; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 256–57, 262–63. See also David Crosson, “James S. Clarkson and Theodore Roosevelt, 1901–1904: A Study in Contrasting Political Traditions,” Annals of Iowa 42.5 (1974).

  51 “Of course I will not” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 519.

  52 The sun beat Review of Reviews, Aug. and Sept. 1903. TR’s field acreage (out of a ninety-seven-acre total) included pasture. The Sagamore Hill farm, run by a full-time superintendent and several assistants, supported five horses, six Jersey cows, eight pigs, several turkeys, and a flock of chickens. It was self-sufficient in hay, straw, milk, fruit, vegetables, and flowers. There was a windmill, an icehouse, and a machine that made gas. The President, a prodigious axman, ensured a steady supply of firewood. “Theodore Roosevelt as Farmer,” Farm Journal, Dec. 1906.

  53 On 22 July TR, Letters, vol. 3, 526.

  54 “Every morning Edie” TR in New York Sun, 11 Aug. 1903; Kolko, Triumph of Conservatism, 69; Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 139. For an attempt to interest the President in the currency question, see Leslie M. Shaw to TR, 28 July 1903 (TRP), and TR, Letters, vol. 3, 691.

  55 The problem, apparently John M. Mason to author, 2 Feb. 1965. Greenbacks were limited to their 1878 circulation, silver coins set at only one hundred million dollars’ worth, and the volume of gold remained stable. This supply was inadequate to feed the growing prosperity of 1903.

  56 Toward the end “Wall Street and the President,” New York Tribune, 29 Aug. 1903; Henry Clews, Fifty Years on Wall Street (New York, 1908, 1973), 771–73; The New York Times, 31 Mar. 1903. James J. Hill suggested that indigestible securities might be a better phrase. Alexander D. Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance (New York, 1909), 309.

  57 Roosevelt referred TR, Letters, vol. 3, 526; Leslie M. Shaw to TR, 24 July 1903 (TRP); Lucius Littauer to TR, 27 July 1903 (TRP). For a reassessment of Shaw’s “imaginative, pragmatic, and courageous” record under TR, see Richard H. Timberlake, Jr., “Mr. Shaw and His Critics: Monetary Policy in the Golden Age Reviewed,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 77.1 (1963).

  58 “Uncle Joe wants” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 524.

  59 When the Speaker The Washington Post, 23 July 1903; New York Sun, 30 Aug. 1903.

  60 CANNON’S RUMPLED APPEARANCE The profile of Joseph Cannon is based on Review of Reviews, Dec. 1903; Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois, 6–7, 46; Thompson, Party Leaders, 174–79; Watson, As I Knew Them, 92–93; and Kate Carew interview in New York World, 1 May 1904; TR warned Alice Roosevelt never to stand between Cannon and a cuspidor. Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois, 5.

  61 “a hard, narrow” TR qu. in Moore, Roosevelt and the Old Guard, 219.

  62 “I could not” Lucius Littauer to TR, 27 July 1903 (TRP).

  63 No sooner had Noyes, Forty Years, 309; Literary Digest, 8 Aug. 1903. In retrospect, the slump of 1903 was seen as a reaction to excessive stock purchases in 1901–1902. Clews, Fifty Years, 771–73.

  64 Like ripples round Faulkner, Decline of Laissez-Faire, 163; Leslie Shaw to TR, 24 July 1903, and James S. Clarkson to TR, 29 July 1903 (TRP). The panic moderated in Aug. TR picked the important support of The Wall Street Journal, which praised his “courageous advocacy of the publicity principle” in trust control, and said that if he had gotten his legislative way earlier, “the gross over-capitalization of companies” would have been restrained to the overall benefit of the economy (The Wall Street Journal, 12 Aug. 1903). Financial quarters remained uneasy through the beginning of November. Not until Aug. 1904 did the economy begin to expand again.

  65 So while stockbrokers The Wall Street Journal, 12 Aug. 1903; New York World, 26 July 1903.

  66 A THOUSAND MILES SOUTH Gatewood, “Republican President”; The Washington Post, 10 Aug. 1903.

  67 “My dear Governor” The New York Times, 10 Aug. 1903; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 540–41.

  68 In a minority TR, Letters, vol. 3, 541. This document was the first antilynching statement ever issued by an American President. Schlesinger and Israel, History of American Presidential Elections, vol. 2, 2013.

  69 “There are certain” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 542.

  70 Rollo Odgen Rollo Ogden to TR, 10 Aug. 1903 (TRP); Gatewood, “Republican President.” Both Harper’s Weekly and The Atlanta Constitution blamed TR for Vardaman’s triumph, and the President unhappily admitted that “his foul-mouthed abuse of me” had drawn votes (TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1069). But Gatewood notes that the quiet restructuring and strengthening of the Mississippi GOP went on regardless under Governor Vardaman.

  71 Roosevelt concluded Scheiner, “President Roosevelt and the Negro”; Vardaman editorial in Greenwood, Miss., Commonwealth, 10 Jan. 1903, copy in TRP. The country’s largest organized black body, the National Negro Baptist Convention, commended TR for his “fearless stand” for justice at a time of high social danger. Ziglar, “Decline of Lynching.”

  72 BY NOW, THE State Foreign Relations 1903, 179, 158, 172–73.

  73 He had sent The official explanation was that Marroquín’s cable contractor was boycotting transmissions in a franchise dispute. If so, the boycott was well-timed to make Beaupré helpless, just when he was needed to lobby for the treaty. Lilian Andrews to Tomás Herrán, 21 July 1903 (TH); The New York Times, 7 Sept. 1903; Marks, Velvet on Iron, 101–2.

  74 Now there arrived F. F. Whittekin to
John T. Morgan, 20 July 1903, forwarded to TR (JTM).

  75 “I am totally” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 565.

  76 “How can the” New York Herald, 15 Aug. 1903.

  77 Whatever “action” DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 264.

  78 That weekend The New York Times, 18 Aug. 1903.

  79 Roosevelt came down New York Tribune and New York Sun, 18 Aug. 1903; unidentified news clip, John Hay scrapbook (JH).

  80 BOGOTÁ, AUGUST 12 Foreign Relations 1903, 179. See also DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 240–41, and Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, 323–26. Due to the vagaries of Colombian cabling, Beaupré’s wire did not reach the White House until 5:30 P.M. on Saturday, 15 Aug. It was telegraphed to John Hay on Sunday, and to TR’s Oyster Bay office early the next morning.

  81 ROOSEVELT WAS STILL TR to John Hay, 17 Aug. 1903, and Hay to TR, 16 Aug. 1903 (TRP). In another memorable image, written eleven years later, TR wrote of the Colombian leaders: “You could no more make an agreement with them than you could nail currant jelly to a wall—and the failure to nail currant jelly to the wall is not due to the nail; it is due to the currant jelly.” Ibid., vol. 8, 945.

  82 Before replying Francis B. Loomis to TR, 15 Aug. 1903. Moore (1860–1947) was a professor of international law and diplomacy at Columbia University. A former Assistant Secretary of State, he taught from 1891 to 1924, and wrote many scholarly works, including History and Digest of the International Arbitrations … (6 vols., Washington, D.C., 1898). At the time of his consultancy to the Roosevelt Administration, he was editing an eight-volume Digest of International Law.

  83 Professor Moore’s Moore’s memorandum, dated 2 Aug. 1903, is reproduced in its entirety in DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 508–13.

  84 For almost six Ibid., 510–11.

  85 Throughout the long Ibid., 512–13.

  86 The effect upon Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, 350; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 566–67. On 5 Sept., TR invited Moore to dine and spend the night at Sagamore Hill. He startled the professor by confiding that he would recognize Panama if it declared independence from Colombia. “Of course,” he added hastily, “under proper circumstances.” John Bassett Moore, “Autobiography,” ms. fragment in JBM, Panama file.