Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

  30 LaFollette complained LaFollette, “Autobiography,” 247 (LC).

  31 at five hundred pounds Mayer, Republican Party, 303. Progressives could hardly say that Taft had not made gestures in their direction, having tried without success to get Jonathan P. Dolliver and Albert J. Beveridge to run with him. Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 284–85.

  32 “THERE IS A” Qu. in TR, Letters, vol. 6, 184.

  33 “It was absolutely” Ibid., 183–84.

  34 “Well, I’m through” “Roosevelt Tired,” ms., 1908 (RSB). There is another version of this interview (misdated late summer 1908) in Baker, American Chronicle, 204–5.

  35 “No, revolutions” “Roosevelt Tired,” ms., 1908 (RSB). “I have never seen him in a more human mood,” Baker wrote afterward, “nor have I ever been more impressed with his bigness and breadth.”

  36 He stayed Henry L. Stoddard, As I Knew Them: Presidents and Politics from Grant to Coolidge (New York, 1927), 341; Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 285. Wright, a Tennessee Gold Democrat, took over as Secretary of War on 1 July 1908.

  37 “He and I” TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1085.

  38 Taft headed Stoddard, As I Knew Them, 341.

  39 FOUR DAYS LATER Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 3, 536–38.

  40 “A trifle too” EKR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 18 May 1908 (HKB).

  41 Instead of heading New York Tribune, 22 and 24 July 1908; Stoddard, As I Knew Them, 342.

  42 Large, strong, plumpish This description of Captain Butt is taken from references passim in Butt, Letters. See especially Lawrence F. Abbott’s introduction, vii–xxviii.

  43 JULY 25, 1908 Some of Butt’s letters were misdated in publication, including this one, which was begun on the twenty-fourth. Those describing his first days in the White House (pp. 1–6) should be dated May, not April. The following long quotation is from Butt, Letters, 62–65.

  44 smoking on the porch TR never smoked.

  45 Like the President Butt, Letters, 70–71.

  46 “I want ghosts” Ibid., 88.

  47 “You know how” Ibid., 85.

  48 Winthrop asked Ibid.

  49 Roosevelt moved on Ibid., 86–87.

  50 Despite the Ibid., 75–76.

  51 “Archie, when I” Ibid., 78.

  52 Forty little boys Ibid., 79–80.

  53 Asked afterward Ibid., 81. See also TR, Letters, vol. 3, 448.

  54 He indulged Butt, Letters, 77.

  55 He sensed a Ibid., 91.

  56 “And he is” Ibid.

  57 “No one dreads” Ibid., 92.

  58 TAFT’S SPEECH Stoddard, As I Knew Them, 344.

  59 Now began what Ibid., 342. TR was deeply saddened this month by the death, after a long battle with cancer, of his old friend Baron Speck von Sternburg.

  Chronological Note: Although TR’s presidential power was diminishing steadily in mid-1908, he still retained to the full his command of the executive order. On 10 August, he announced the appointment of a Commission on Country Life, a Pinchot-inspired board charged with finding out why the nation’s rural population was advancing more slowly than city dwellers’.

  In his letter to the Commission’s chairman-designate, the agronomist Liberty Hyde Bailey, he observed that the government was subjecting farmers to too many economic coachings and cajolements, in order to increase their productivity, at the expense of consideration for their social and emotional well-being. “The great rural interests are human interests, and good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they open the door to a good kind of life on the farm.”

  He asked the Commission to report to him upon the present condition of country life, and to advise him as to how it could be improved, especially with regard to rural education. The children of farmers should be encouraged to grow up wanting to do what their parents did, rather than join the general querulous drift away from country to town. “There is too much belief among our people that the prizes of life lie away from the farm.”

  The Commission recommended in Feb. 1909 that rural areas be redeveloped using European-style communal/cooperative models. Country life should ideally offer “the four great requirements of man—health, education, occupation, society.” The new doctrine of conservation should be applied so that the ravages visited on the environment by unregulated monopolies could be repaired, and the American countryside regain its beauty. TR submitted these recommendations to Congress before leaving office, but nothing was done about them. TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1169–70; 60 Cong., sess. 2, 1909, S. doc. 703, Special Message from the President of the United States Transmitting the Report of the Country Life Commission. See also George S. Ellsworth, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission,” Agricultural History 34 (Oct. 1960), and Lacey, “Mysteries of Earth-Making,” 393–400.

  60 testimony to his TR’s Messages to Congress advocating inheritance and income taxes and stringent corporation control had deprived Bryan of much traditionally Democratic ammunition.

  61 “For reasons which” TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1207.

  62 “You should put” Ibid., 1209–10.

  63 “I never” Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 504.

  64 “Let the audience” TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1230.

  65 William Randolph Hearst Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 2, 223; Weaver, Senator, 140.

  66 Foraker, devastated Weaver, Senator, 141.

  67 These qualifications Ibid.; TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1244.

  68 “That a man” British Documents on Foreign Affairs, vol. 13, 147.

  69 ROOSEVELT RETURNED Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 288–89.

  70 Taft came to TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1304; Butt, Letters, 137. For a discussion of Taft’s Unitarian problem, see Harbaugh, Life and Times, 340–41. See also TR’s impassioned plea for religious tolerance in American public life in Letters, vol. 6, 1333–34. Of this letter, the Jewish leader Simon Wolf wrote to TR, “I know of no state paper in the archive of our Government, that surpasses it.” Qu. in Wolf, Presidents I Have Known, 284–85.

  71 The nearest thing Harbaugh, Life and Times, 337–39.

  72 THE FOLLOWING DAY TR to Jules Jusserand, 27 Oct. 1908 (JJ).

  73 “I told him” Butt, Letters, 143–44.

  74 Changing the subject Ibid., 144. The De Camp portrait of TR went to Harvard University.

  75 “Was there ever?” Butt seems to have been unable to answer. He had recently been treated to another Roosevelt effusion, on the subject of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in the middle of a tennis game. Ibid.

  CHAPTER 32: ONE LONG LOVELY CRACKLING ROW

  1 “Well, I see” Dunne, Observations by Mr. Dooley, 49.

  2 The fake telegram Butt, Letters, 153–54. When TR’s use of the word frazzle leaked out, to the mystification of White House correspondents, he explained, not very helpfully, “The meaning is contained in the election returns of last night.” Brooklyn Eagle, 4 Nov. 1908. Nunc Dimittis—“Lord, now let us thy servants depart in peace.”

  3 Taft’s Electoral College This election analysis closely follows that in Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 506.

  4 “the Bearded Lady” Wagenknecht, Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt, 126.

  5 the legendary Texan Anecdote in memo, Nov. 1908 (JBM).

  6 “I really did” Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft: An Intimate History (New York, 1981), 114.

  7 “Of course, if” TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1329.

  8 He was not short Charles G. Washburn, Address, 9 Feb. 1919, reprint in Pratt Collection (TRB); Davis, Released for Publication, 135ff.; Heaton, Story of a Page, 329–30; TR, qu. in Norman Hapgood, The Changing Years (New York, 1930), 42; TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1105–6.

  9 He had long Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, 12–14; TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1105–6, 1115, 1123.

  Note: Most of these negotiations were carried on during the summer of 1908. The amount of TR’s annual retainer from Outlook has not been confirmed, but neither he nor the Abbotts denied that it was thirty thousan
d dollars. Indianapolis Star, 22 Oct. 1908.

  10 The Abbotts proudly Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, 14.

  11 She thought Mr. Butt, Letters, 322–23.

  12 MID-NOVEMBER TR to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., 16 Nov. 1908 (TRB).

  13 French Revolutionary shouts “Honor to the unlucky brave!” and “To the lantern!” were mob calls, usually accompanying the stringing up of an aristocrat. Jusserand, What Me Befell, 337.

  14 became oddly silent Butt, Letters, 175.

  15 “Concentrated power” TR, Works, vol. 17, 586.

  16 The only really new Ibid., 601.

  Historical Note: The phrase deep and brilliant is that of Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, who in 1931 stated that this section of TR’s 1908 Message “vindicates the title of Theodore Roosevelt to a place in the history of the jurisprudence of this country.” Quoting from his own book The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven, 1921), Cardozo commended TR’s profound “intuitions and perceptions,” and held that contemporary critics who accused the President of “ignorance … of the nature of the judicial process” were themselves ignorant of the way judges thought. “Pascal’s spirit of self-search and self-reproach” was not incompatible with self-doubt, but no honest judge could deny the role of self in every decision. “All these inward questionings are born of the hope and desire to transcend the limitations which hedge our human nature. Roosevelt, who knew men, had no illusions on this score.” Roosevelt Medal Acceptance Speech, 1931, transcript in TRB.

  17 “did not themselves” TR, Works, vol. 17, 621.

  18 PRESIDENT-ELECT TAFT Anderson, William Howard Taft, 114–15. If the reporters could have read some of Taft’s private mail at this time, they might have been more concerned about his readiness for office. He confessed to a friend that questions of appointments and tariff policy left him feeling “just a bit like a fish out of water.” But “my wife is the politician and she will be able to meet all these issues.” Qu. in Harbaugh, Life and Times, 432.

  19 “He is going” Butt, Letters, 232–33.

  20 Butt certainly could Ibid., 233.

  21 The lights were Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

  22 Roosevelt and Taft Ibid. The “articles” in question were dispatched, respectively, to magazines named Scribbler’s and Lookout.

  23 As so often Butt, Letters, 205–7, 245–46; Watson, As I Knew Them, 128; Longworth, Crowded Hours, 158.

  24 The President’s annual Butt, Letters, 251.

  25 To the President Ibid., 253.

  26 “I don’t feel” Ibid.

  27 ALL THE ROOSEVELTS The following description is taken from ibid., 254–56, with minor details from Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

  28 No sooner had Butt, Letters, 257–59; The Washington Post, 29 Dec. 1908.

  29 Time was when Longworth, Crowded Hours, 137–38; Butt, Letters, 258.

  30 “MR. SPEAKER” Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., “The Secret Service Controversy,” in his Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy, 237, misdated this call as occurring on 8 Jan. See Congressional Record, 60 Cong., Sess. 2, 1909, vol. 43, 458–62; also TR, Works, vol. 17, 620; The New York Times, 17 Dec. 1908.

  31 So far, the Longworth, Crowded Hours, 160; Harbaugh, Life and Times, 344.

  Historical Note: Harbaugh notes that this confrontation “served mightily to hasten” the basic swap of political philosophy between the Republican and Democratic parties in the twentieth century. TR himself accused the congressional GOP leadership of hiding behind states’ rights in order to protect interstate corporations, while the Democrats, who had formerly made a shibboleth of states’ rights, began to align themselves behind the President. “By the middle of the century the reversal would be relatively complete: the majority of Democrats in Congress would be wedded to the centralized welfare state; all but a small minority of Republicans would be opposed or unsympathetic to it.”

  32 Cannon sat now Gatewood, Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy, 237; Harbaugh, Life and Times, 344–45.

  33 There was some The Atlanta Constitution, 11 Jan. 1909, qu. in Gatewood, “Secret Service,” 238.

  34 Its chief, John Ibid., 240–42.

  35 The Secret Service’s Ibid., 243–45, 237. When the House had first limited its Secret Service appropriation, TR and Attorney General Bonaparte transferred nine investigative agents to the Justice Department, thus forming (on 26 July 1908) the nucleus of the FBI. Ibid., 252–55.

  36 “Nobody likes him” Butt, Letters, 336. See this book, passim, for copious anecdotes of the last days of TR’s Presidency.

  37 ARCHIE BUTT was Ibid., 278, 297, 281.

  38 One legislative request TR, Letters, vol. 6, 1248; Beach, United States Navy, 423–26; White, Autobiography, 404; Sprout, Rise of American Naval Power, 272–73.

  39 “I do not believe” Butt, Letters, 314.

  40 “They little realize” Ibid.

  41 “Why, Mother” Ibid., 327–28.

  42 At Hampton Roads Washington Evening Star, 22 Feb. 1909; TR to Archibald B. Roosevelt, 23 Feb. 1909 (TRP); Butt, Letters, 353–54.

  43 “That is the answer” Butt, Letters, 354.

  EPILOGUE: 4 MARCH 1909

  1 “It will be” The New York Times, 5 Mar. 1909. Davis, Released for Publication, 150–57.

  2 His Inauguration was Except where otherwise indicated, this account of TR’s departure from Washington is based on reporting in the Washington Times and Washington Evening Star, 4 Mar. 1909, plus The New York Times and The Washington Post, 5 Mar. 1909. See also Davis, Released for Publication, 150–55.

  3 “I knew” The New York Times, 5 Mar. 1909.

  4 “It isn’t” Butt, Letters, 381. Butt wrote afterward that he felt “about as depressed as I have ever felt in parting from any one in my life, save only my own mother.” Ibid.

  5 OBSERVERS WERE Moore, Roosevelt and the Old Guard, 222; Anna Roosevelt Cowles to Corinne Robinson, 6 Mar. 1909 (TRC).

  6 “There was not” Anna Roosevelt Cowles to Corrine Robinson, 6 Mar. 1909 (TRC).

  7 did not show Baltimore Sun, 5 Mar. 1909.

  8 constantly bubbling Gifford Pinchot called TR “on the whole, the happiest man I ever knew.” Roosevelt House Bulletin 1 (1924): 3.

  9 Acton’s famous dictum “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 5 Apr. 1887.

  10 “a very symbol” Harper’s Weekly, 6 Oct. 1906.

  11 “Roosevelt, more than” Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 417.

  12 Uncounted men For the recollection of one such child, see W. Preble Jones, memo, 24 Nov. 1924 (TRB).

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Unless otherwise credited, all images are from the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass.

  Frontispiece Theodore Roosevelt by Edward S. Curtis, 1904. The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

  prl.1 Roosevelt’s journey to the Presidency, 14–16 September. Map by the author.

  prl.2 The Wilcox Mansion, Buffalo [now Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site], September 1901. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.

  1.1 Theodore Roosevelt walks to work, 20 September 1901.

  2.1 Booker T. Washington, 1901. The Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library.

  3.1 Philander Chase Knox, ca. 1901.

  5.1 Father and daughter at the launching of the Kaiser’s yacht, 25 February 1902.

  6.1 Independent Cuba raises her flag, 20 May 1902. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York.

  7.1 Graduation ceremony at United States Naval Academy, 1902. The Library of Congress.

  7.2 Theodore Roosevelt’s White House in summer. Collection of Alice Sturm.

  8.1 Quentin Roosevelt in the daisy field at Sagamore Hill. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.

  8.2 Elihu Root as Secretary of War. The Library of Congress.

  9.1 Roosevelt during his New England tour, 1902.

 
10.1 John Mitchell as president of United Mine Workers, ca. 1902.

  11.1 The temporary White House, no. 22 Jackson Place, 1902.

  13.1 Theodore Roosevelt’s White House in winter.

  14.1 Jules Jusserand, anonymous sketch. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York.

  15.1 The President on his cross-country tour, 1903.

  15.2 Roosevelt at Glacier Point, Yosemite, May 1903. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.

  16.1 View of the renovated White House, ca. 1903. Author’s Collection.

  16.2 Secretary of State John Hay, 1904. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York.

  17.1 The President and his family, summer 1903.

  18.1 Sagamore Hill in winter.

  19.1 Mark Hanna and members of the Republican National Committee, 11 December 1903.

  20.1 Theodore and Edith Roosevelt receiving at a White House garden party.

  21.1 The Republican National Convention, Chicago, June 1904.

  22.1 Roosevelt being notified of his nomination, 27 July 1904.

  22.2 Alice Roosevelt, 1904. Collection of Alice Sturm.

  23.1 Roosevelt’s Inauguration, 4 March 1905.

  23.2 TR reading with Skip in Colorado, May 1905.

  24.1 Alice Roosevelt and William Howard Taft en route to Japan, 1905. Collection of Alice Sturm.

  24.2 Extracts from TR’s “picture letter” to Alice, 21 July 1905. Collection of Alice Sturm.

  24.3 Sergei Witte, Baron Rosen, the President, Baron Komura, and Ambassador Takahira, 5 August 1905.

  25.1 Alice in the Far East, late summer 1905. Collection of Alice Sturm.

  25.2 Roosevelt in his Sagamore Hill study, September 1905.

  26.1 Theodore Roosevelt in mid-sentence.

  27.1 The President’s favorite photograph of Edith Kermit Roosevelt. Author’s Collection.

  27.2 Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, ca. 1906. Collection of Alice Sturm.