Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

  4 “Nations must strike” Albert H. Walker to New York Evening Post, 10 Nov. 1903, copy in PCK. For modern historical comment, supportive of TR’s Panama policy in 1903, see also Collin, “Big Stick,” 302–6, 312; Friedlander, “Reassessment”; and Marks, Velvet on Iron, 97–105.

  5 “Nothing that Alexander” Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

  6 However, 75 Public Opinion, 19 Nov. 1903; Literary Digest, 21 and 14 Nov. 1903; Washington Evening Star, 6 Nov. 1903.

  7 South American reactions “Latin American Views of Panama and the Canal,” Review of Reviews, Mar. 1904. See also John Patterson, “Latin American Reactions to the Panama Revolution of 1903,” Hispanic America Historical Review 24 (1944), and E. Bradford Burns, “The Recognition of Panama by the Major Latin American States,” Americas 26 (1969).

  8 “We have converted” Article by “Santander A. Galofre,” ca. Dec. 1903, sent to Philippe Bunau-Varilla (PBV).

  9 In Europe, as in The Times, undated clipping in John Hay scrapbook (JH); Leipzig Grenzboten, qu. in Literary Digest, 26 Dec. 1903.

  10 A British visitor Henry W. Lucy, Sixty Years in the Wilderness (London, 1924), 214.

  Historical Note: TR’s difficulties with public opinion in the aftermath of the Panama Revolution were complicated by a brief, but intense, war scare on the Isthmus. The concentration of United States warships continued as planned until, by 15 Nov., two walls of American armor effectively denied Colombia sea access to her former department. Panama City was defended by the Boston (7 Nov.), Marblehead (10 Nov.), Concord (10 Nov.), and Wyoming (13 Nov.). Several of these gunboats patrolled the new Republic’s coasts, extending the limits of protection to both eastern and western borders. Colombia, meanwhile, sent a special mission to Panama, under General Rafael Reyes, with a view toward settling differences and reuniting. The junta refused to let Reyes land at Colón, whereupon John Hay asked that he be given “a courteous reception and considerate hearing” offshore. On 19 Nov., Reyes met with junta representatives aboard a French steamer. He offered them many concessions humiliating to his government, but they declared the Panama revolution to be “irrevocable.” Reyes sailed north to plead, equally vainly, for an indemnity from Washington. On 3 Dec., reports that Colombian forces were advancing into Panama reached the White House. Secretary Moody ordered the Prairie from Guantánamo to Colón with a detachment of Marines to complement the Dixie’s. On 15 Dec., another detachment from the Atlanta tracked down a force of two thousand Colombian soldiers in Darien. Moody responded with further deployments. These actions provoked such antiwar and anticanal sentiment on Capitol Hill that TR, alarmed, ordered a radical change in policy on 21 Dec. Overriding both Moody and Root, he confined American and naval activities on the Isthmus to the canal zone only, and insisted on unaggressive behavior. “If there should come a brush with Colombia, I want to be dead sure that Colombia fires first.” (TR to Moody, 21 Dec. 1903 [TRP]). By the new year, Panama’s own defenses were strong enough for further reduction of United States forces. Sporadic threats of Colombian invasion continued through Jan. 1904, but when Commander Hubbard of the Nashville visited Cartagena on the thirty-first, he was received with resigned goodwill. Bogotá, it seemed, had accepted the inevitable. For detailed accounts, see DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, chap. 15, and Nikol and Holbrook, “Naval Operations.” The latter conclude: “The Navy was used by [the] Roosevelt Administration as a defensive weapon, not aggressively, in the ‘taking’ of Panama. The Administration made it clear to the Colombians that the Navy was defending Panama’s coast and the Transit and then left it up to Colombia to force the issue.”

  11 ON 13 NOVEMBER White House diary (TRP); the most scholarly assessment of Bunau-Varilla’s brief ministry is Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.”

  12 “It is necessary” Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 366. For the texts of the formal exchanges, see Foreign Relations 1903, 245–46.

  13 Afterward, with Hay Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB); Bunau-Varilla, From Panama to Verdun, 154, 157.

  14 “I shall send” Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla”; Foreign Relations 1903, 235; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 379; Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 157. According to Bunau-Varilla, he warned Hay, “After I go, you will have to deal with Panamanian lawyers, who are Colombian lawyers.” Hay’s own simile for negotiating with Latin Americans was “like holding a squirrel in your lap.” Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB); DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 384.

  15 What Bunau-Varilla Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 368; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 379–80, 384. For the proffered text, see Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.”

  16 Working through the Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 370–75; Fowler, John Coit Spooner, 281; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 382.

  17 The Secretary was Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 376.

  18 Conscious that Dr. Amador Bunau-Varilla, From Panama to Verdun, 159.

  19 BUNAU-VARILLA WAS Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 378. Although Bunau-Varilla, who was more than slightly paranoiac, believed that the delegation had come to supplant him, he was empowered to act as he did. See the Panamanian dispatches qu. in Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.” On the other hand, Amador had reason to be shocked and enraged. They had brought with them studies of “important points of the treaty from the viewpoint of Panama,” and felt that they had the right to advise him in negotiating it on their behalf. Bunau-Varilla’s hasty and flawed convention caused permanent damage to United States–Panama relations. See also DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 380–85.

  20 Amador reeled Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 378.

  21 Congress had convened On 9 Nov. 1903.

  22 The dragging, eighteen-month For TR’s second (10 Nov. 1903) Special Message to Congress on Cuban reciprocity, see TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 2, 645–48.

  Chronological Note: Due to an aggressive investment and lobbying strategy, the American Sugar Refining Company had managed in 1903 to consolidate all domestic sugar interests behind the treaty. Amid cries that opponents of reciprocity had “sold out” to the “sugar trust,” the House overwhelmingly approved the treaty on 19 Nov., and the Senate followed suit on 16 Dec. Healy, United States in Cuba, 205–6.

  23 Thanks to the “Speaker Cannon: A Character Sketch,” Review of Reviews, Dec. 1903.

  24 On 19 November Literary Digest, 21 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1903.

  25 Cannon pointed out Review of Reviews, Jan. 1904; Walter Wellman in Philadelphia Press, 7 Dec. 1903.

  26 MARK HANNA, who Hamilton Fish to TR, 21 Nov. 1903 (TRP).

  27 His uncharacteristic Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, 440–41; George Cortelyou to John Bassett Moore, 18 Apr. 1906 (JBM); Mrs. Hanna, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 1 Nov. 1905 (MHM); Presidential scrapbook (TRP); The Washington Post, 5 Nov. 1903; Literary Digest, 5 Dec. 1903; George Cortelyou, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 18 Apr. 1906 (MHM).

  28 Morgan, no less Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 362; Hamilton Fish to TR, 21 Nov. 1903 (TRP); Matthew Quay to TR, 26 Oct. 1903 (TRP); Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 1, 598; E. H. Crowder to TR, 14 Oct. 1903; and W. A. Wadsworth to TR, 10 Dec. 1903 (TRP); New York Evening Post, 10 Dec. 1903; Rhodes, McKinley and Roosevelt, 281; Mayer, Republican Party, 284.

  29 When the Senator Mrs. Hanna, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 1 Nov. 1905 (MHM).

  30 “You can say” New York World, ca. 27 Nov. 1903, in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

  31 Roosevelt wished Review of Reviews, Jan. 1903; Mark Hanna to George Perkins, 7 Dec. 1903 (GWP). Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, vol. 2, 378–79.

  32 In a last-minute White House diary, 4 Dec. 1903 (TRP); TR, Letters, vol. 3, 664; Mark Hanna to TR, 5 Dec. 1903 (TRP); Washington Evening Star, 5 Dec. 1903; Washington Times, 6 Dec. 1903; Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

  33 Hoar began to Shelby M. Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service (Chicago, 1911), 213. Senator Cullom was an eyewitness to this interview.

  34 “I think,” Philander Knox qu. by TR in Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum.” See also Lawrence F. Abbott, Impress
ions of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1919), 139; Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1, 414. In a speech draft ca. May 1914, Senator Knox expressed mature misgivings about TR’s action in Panama. He agreed with Root that the United States was treaty-bound to be “passive” in any domestic revolution in Colombia, and “active” in maintaining Isthmian transit. But the fact remained that by behaving so in 1903, “serious damage resulted to Colombia, and corresponding benefits accrued to us.” Quite apart from financial gains, the United States got “sovereignty and jurisdiction over a 10-mile zone in a dependent country as against a qualified right to occupy a 6-mile zone in an arrogant, if not unfriendly country.” The American government therefore had a “moral” right to compensate Colombia “not for what she lost but what we gained.” Acknowledging TR’s famous bluster of 23 Mar. 1911, Knox agreed that “The fact is we practically [sic] took Panama. We did not take it from Colombia, we took it from the Panamans, and this is the only sense in which that statement is true” (PCK).

  35 Both men rallied Opinion copy, 1903 (PCK); Elihu Root interviewed by Philadelphia Press, 2 Dec. 1903; New York Herald, 6 Dec. 1903; Washington Times, 7 Dec. 1903; Kelly Miller, “Roosevelt and the Negro” (pamphlet, ca. 1907, in Pratt Collection [TRB]), 8.

  36 “Whenever I see” See Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, chap. 30.

  37 I AM ENABLED TR, Works, vol. 15, 235. See DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 386–95, and Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 387–408, for an account of the treaty’s rapid, if reluctant, ratification by the Panamanian junta.

  38 He reviewed United States TR, Works, vol. 15, 241–43.

  39 For more than half Ibid., vol. 13, 697.

  40 “Yes, and the” Ibid., 698.

  41 The President proceeded TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 2, 700–704.

  42 “Under such circumstances” Ibid., 706–7.

  43 “I don’t know” The New York Times, 8 Dec. 1903.

  44 “For the first time” Ibid., 10 Dec. 1903.

  45 It is the hour See TR to Benjamin I. Wheeler, 8 Dec. 1903 (TRP). “When the chance does come,” TR had said of opportunity in 1899, “only the great man can see it instantly and use it aright.” TR, Works, vol. 13, 420.

  46 “In this Panama” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 652, 662–63.

  47 He kept such Charles W. Dick, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 10 Feb. 1906 (MHM); Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, 435. For an example of the sort of alarming advisories TR was getting at this time, see W. A. Wadsworth’s letter to him of 1 Dec. 1903: “Things do not look just right.… Some of your political ‘friends’ in New York … are working like beavers [to ensure] that no mistake you have made or are making is lost.… There seems to be a systematic attempt to work up a public opinion that you … are liable to go off at half cock and endanger business interests” (TRP).

  48 Washington, Dec. 9 Philadelphia Press, 10 Dec. 1903 (italics added).

  49 Wellman said Ibid.

  50 “He might wreck” Ibid.

  51 “Mr. President, I” The Washington Post, 12 Dec. 1903.

  52 He and Roosevelt stood Washington Evening Star, 11 Dec. 1903; The Washington Post, 12 Dec. 1903. The following dialogue is taken from the latter source. See also Moore, Roosevelt and the Old Guard, 87.

  53 “I have sat” Gamaliel: in the New Testament, a legendary leader of the Sanhedrin and teacher.

  54 Two days later New York Herald, 13 Dec. 1903; Moore, Roosevelt and the Old Guard, 85. See also The New York Times, 12 Dec. 1903, Public Opinion, 17 Dec. 1903, and “The Passing of the Hanna Boom,” Review of Reviews, Jan. 1904.

  55 ON 14 DECEMBER The Washington Post, 16 Dec. 1903; New York Press, 17 Dec. 1903; Eitler, “Philander Chase Knox,” 76–80. A veteran court reporter called it “the strongest address made before the Supreme Court for years.” W. W. Jermane in Minneapolis Journal, 16 Dec. 1903. See also Barry, Forty Years, 250, for the reactions of Court members.

  56 All the world’s Britain announced on 24 Dec., Japan on 28 Dec. 1903. By the end of Feb. 1904, Panama was universally recognized except by Colombia.

  57 G. P. Putnam’s Sons TR to George Haven Putnam, 26 Nov. and 21 Dec. 1903 (TRP). According to the Economic History Services website (www.eh.net/hmit), thirty thousand dollars in 1903 was the equivalent of about $580,000 today. TR’s two windfalls therefore netted him the modern equivalent of well over one million dollars. He remained, however, the least avaricious of men. On 5 Dec., he wrote Douglas Robinson that he thought James K. Gracie had been too generous to him, and volunteered to turn over one third of his legacy to a female relative with four children (TRP).

  58 The Works of Theodore Roosevelt This edition, known as the “Executive Edition,” was not the first, and by no means the last. It superseded no fewer than six collections, beginning with the “Sagamore Series” in 1900. Other editions published in 1901, 1902, and 1903 varied in length and quality. The Executive Edition, which grew by two additional volumes every two years, eventually totaled twenty volumes. It was itself superseded by the “Elkhorn Edition” of 1906, which grew, by 1920, to twenty-eight volumes. Other editions continued to appear throughout TR’s lifetime. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt achieved definitive, if rather confusing, form in 1926, when two differently arranged collections appeared: the utilitarian “National Edition” (twenty volumes) and the luxury “Memorial Edition” (twenty-four volumes). The latter set is cited in this book. For a complete Works bibliography, see the Memorial Edition, vol. 2, 559–63.

  59 Better than money New York Herald, 13 Dec. 1903; Robinson, My Brother, 217.

  60 THE SEVENTEENTH OF December Washington Evening Star, 17 Dec. 1903.

  CHAPTER 20: INTRIGUE AND STRIVING AND CHANGE

  1 Whin he does Dunne, Observations by Mr. Dooley, 225.

  2 “I was stuffed” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 538–39. The following day Adams was invited to another White House party. He sent his regrets, and stayed in bed “with a pound or two of sufonal.” Ibid.

  Note: Adams’s letters are often written in a tone of mock suffering, for humorous effect. Nor was he beyond duplicity. He frequently caricatured men like TR and Henry Cabot Lodge in private, while praising them in public. See his contrasting account of this evening in The Education of Henry Adams, 464.

  3 “I am glad” Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 364.

  4 ON THE AFTERNOON Except where otherwise indicated, the following paragraphs are based on the William H. Taft scrapbooks in WHT; William H. Taft to Mrs. Taft, 1 Feb. 1904 (WHT); Taft interviewed by Kate Carew in New York World, 28 Feb. 1904. Physical descriptions are from the Carew interview, and also from White, Masks in a Pageant, 329–30, and Lowry, Washington Close-Ups, 190. (“One pair of Mr. Taft’s trousers would make two suits and a short spring overcoat for Mr. Philander Chase Knox.”) Donald F. Anderson, William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency (Ithaca, 1968, 1973), serves as an antidote to the more reverent two-volume biography by Henry Pringle, The Life and Times of William H. Taft (New York, 1939).

  5 Merely to look Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 3, 315–16; Wister, Roosevelt, 146. Taft’s weight in early 1904 is given at 330 pounds by Horace D. Taft in Memories and Opinions (New York, 1942), 114. Taft was six feet two inches tall.

  6 he was periodically Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House, 269. Taft’s scrapbooks in WHT consist largely of souvenir menus.

  7 Yet he was not Taft, Memories and Opinions, 107–8; Thompson, Party Leaders, 308.

  8 The Supreme Court Taft to TR, 27 Oct. 1902 (TRP); Helen H. Taft, Recollections of Full Years (New York, 1914), 269.

  9 “Who do you suppose” The story of Taft’s two refusals of the Supreme Court in 1902 and 1903 is told in TR, Letters, vol. 3, 358–59, 368, 382–83, 407, and 413. Donald Anderson, William Howard Taft, 10–12, advances the theory that TR wanted to eliminate Taft as a potential rival in 1904. But Taft was surely almost as far out of the way in the Philippines as he would have been on the bench. A more plausible theory is that Elihu Root (who personally recomme
nded the Governor as his successor) was planning for a Taft presidency in 1908, as both the logical consequence of, and conservative correction to, TR’s reform-minded administration. Henry W. Taft to Taft, 10 Jan. 1903 (WHT).

  10 TWO DAYS LATER George Cortelyou memorandum of meeting, 29 Jan. 1904 (ER); Albert Shaw, “Reminiscences” (ALS); Charles Willis Thompson in New York Sun, 3 Nov. 1938; Wister, Roosevelt, 162; Elihu Root to William H. Taft, 16 Apr. 1903 (ER).

  11 Roosevelt rambled on George Cortelyou memorandum of meeting, 29 Jan. 1904 (ER).

  12 “I thank you” Ibid.

  13 The following evening Montage by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post, 31 Jan. 1904; Washington Evening Star, 1 Feb. 1904.

  14 “How is your health” The Washington Post, 16 Feb. 1904; Beer, Hanna, 621. “I have had quite a pull with this infernal ‘grip,’ ” Hanna had written Myron Herrick earlier in the day. “I think it [the Gridiron dinner] will brace me up.” He complained that Roosevelt had been “poisoned” against him by Senator Foraker. But he added significantly, “We must organize our full strength [in Ohio] and choose the Roosevelt delegates from among our friends” (copy in TRP).

  15 The jingling cavalrymen Hanna occupied the entire second floor of the Arlington Hotel, on Lafayette Square. The Washington Post, 2 Feb. 1904; Philadelphia Press, 27 Mar. 1905.

  16 Day followed upon Sir Mortimer Durand to A. S. Hardy, 4 Jan. 1904 (HMD); Cassini, Never a Dull Moment, 190–92, 200; Alice Roosevelt diary, 22 Jan. 1904 (ARL).

  17 Something about Alice’s Cassini, Never a Dull Moment, 200.

  18 Roosevelt took a William Sturgis Bigelow to TR, 2 Feb. 1904 (TRP); Kerr, Bully Father, 147; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 706–9; The Washington Post, 28 Jan. 1904; Gatewood, Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy, 87. The white man had been recommended by Mrs. Cox.