Theodore Rex (145 page)

54
The President’s behavior
Henry James,
Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1909
(Boston, 1930), vol. 2, 159; Wood,
Roosevelt
, 100–101. Supplementary details in the following paragraphs come from the Boston
Evening Record
and
The Washington Post
, 26 June 1902.

55
At the Alumni
Hoar qu. in Fiske Warren diary, 2 Dec. 1903 (MST). The phrase
like an impulsive boy
is Senator Hoar’s own. For evidence of TR’s sincere veneration of Hoar, see TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 276–77.

56
Dr. Eliot began
Boston
Evening Record
, 25 June 1902; unidentified news clips in Presidential scrapbook (TRP). For TR’s incomprehension of financial matters, see, e.g., TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 691.

57
Harvard, to Theodore
Alfonso,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Philippines
, 56–57; Boston
Evening Record
and
The Washington Post
, 26 June 1902.

58
Hay, listening
John Hay to TR, 26 June 1902 (TRP);
The Washington Post
, 26 June 1902.

59
He dropped back
Boston Herald
, 26 June 1902; Rhodes,
McKinley and Roosevelt
, 232–33; Douglas,
Many-Sided Roosevelt
, 136. More than two weeks later, John Hay was still marveling. “Theodore made one of the most striking speeches I ever heard,” he wrote Henry Adams on 11 July. Hay,
Letters
, vol. 3, 253.

60
Roosevelt had to
Boston
Evening Record
, 26 June 1902, in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

61
WASHINGTON WAS
Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 238–39; William Seale,
The President’s House
(Washington, D.C., 1986), vol. 2, 669–84.

62
He took up
James Garfield diary, 27 June 1902 (JRG). Of the fourteen specific requests TR had made in his First Message to Congress, only three had been granted: the National Reclamation Act, the Canal Act, and the Census Act. TR’s eleven failures were to get government supervision of trusts; publicity as a remedy for trust abuses; an anti-anarchism measure; stronger immigration laws; modified reciprocity; aid to American shipping; a militia law; a General Staff of the Army; a revised merit system; a Department of Commerce; and reorganizaton of the consular service.

63
Invitations were
New York
Herald
, 15 June 1902;
Washington Times
, 30 Mar. 1902.

64
Congress adjourned
John Hay to Henry Adams, 11 July 1902 (JH); Barry,
Forty Years
, 274–75;
The Washington Post
, 4 July 1902;
Review of Reviews
, Aug. 1902.

  
1
Th’ capital iv
Dunne,
Observations by Mr. Dooley
, 186–87.

  
2
SUMMER RAIN WAS
Except where otherwise indicated, the following account of TR’s arrival home on 5 July 1902 is based on the
New York American
, 6 July 1902; “Oyster Bay: The Summer Capital,”
Washington Times
, 13 July 1902 (text and illustrations); unidentified news clips in Presidential scrapbook (TRP); and pictures in Albert Loren Cheney,
Personal Memoirs of the Home Life of the Late Theodore Roosevelt
(Washington, D.C., 1919),
passim
. Today, the rail approach is much the same, and the “new” station of 1902 still stands, minus only its platform awnings.

  
3
“There are many”
Boston Herald
, 3 Aug. 1902. The standard village history is Frances Irvin,
Oyster Bay: A Sketch
, rev. Jane Soames Knickerson (Oyster Bay, N.Y., 1987).

  
4
The little community
New York
World
, 6 July 1902;
New York Tribune
, 7 July 1902;
Washington Times
, 5 and 9 July 1902.

  
5
The surrey splashed
Washington Times
, 16 July 1902; New York
Herald
, 11 Aug. 1902; New York
Evening Sun
, 7 July 1902; P. James Roosevelt to author, 4, 5, 19, 20 Apr. 1983 (AC);
Boston Herald
, 3 Aug. 1902; map preserved by Mrs. Philip Roosevelt, privately held.

  
6
Turning north, the
Boston Herald
, 3 Aug. 1902.

  
7
A private driveway
Washington Times
, 17 June 1902; New York
Evening Sun
, 3 July 1902; New York
Herald
, 8 July 1902.

  
8
RAIN GAVE WAY
TR,
Works
, vol. 3, 314.

  
9
“Among Long Island”
Ibid., 316–17.

10
Ovenbirds fluted
Ibid., 318.

11
“They come up”
Ibid.

12
To the west
Boston Herald
, 3 Aug. 1902; Kermit Roosevelt,
The Happy Hunting-Grounds
(New York, 1920), 22–23.

13
No matter how
New York
Sun
, 8 July 1902; New York
World
, 13 July 1902
(CORDON OF GUARDS ABOUT PRESIDENT);
The Washington Post
, 11 July 1902. The President’s security detail consisted of five Secret Service men and two policemen (New York
World
, 6 July 1902). Other agents were stationed twenty-four hours a day in a hotel in the village and at the station. Any given visitor was scrutinized at least three times en route to Sagamore Hill. See Walter S. Bowen and Harry E. Neal,
The United States Secret Service
(Philadelphia, 1960).

14
a gun butt protruding
Edna M. Colman,
White House Gossip
(New York, 1927), 284.

15
Instead, he used
Washington Times
, 8 July 1902; New York
World
and New York
Sun
, 9 July 1902. Poultney Bigelow describes the sensation of one of these Cooper’s Bluff plunges in
Contemporary Review
clip, ca. 1901, in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

16
Yet had it
Boston Herald
, 3 Aug. 1902;
Washington Times
, 8 July 1902; Chicago
Record-Herald
, 12 July 1902.

17
“Cousin Theodore”
Qu. by William E. Curtis in Chicago
Record-Herald
, 12 July 1902.

18
Rough Riders
The Washington Post
, 11 July 1902. Sagamore Hill is now invisible
from Oyster Bay, but a contemporary photograph in Cheney,
Personal Memoirs
, 6, shows Sagamore Hill clearly visible across the water.

19
About once a week
Chicago
Record-Herald
, 12 July 1902.

20
One day, he reined
The Washington Post
, 20 July 1902, Presidential scrapbook (TRP).

21
Unamused, the reporters
New York
Sun
and New York
Journal
, 19 July 1902.

22
“It seems to me”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 303.

23
Dana withdrew his
Paul Dana to TR, 1 Aug. 1902 (TRP).

24
For the younger Roosevelts
Waldon Fawcett, “The President’s Summer Home at Oyster Bay,”
Twentieth Century Review
clip, n.d., Presidential scrapbook (TRP). When Archibald B. Roosevelt lay dying in Florida in the summer of 1979, after a long life and much world travel, he mumbled repeatedly, “Take me home.” “But you
are
home, Father.” “No, no—home to Sagamore.” Mrs. Archibald B. Roosevelt, Jr., interview, 20 Sept. 1981. See also Kerr,
Bully Father
, 151.

25
The estate, with
Mrs. Philip Roosevelt interview, 24 Oct. 1982. See also Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,
All in the Family
(New York, 1929); Herman Hagedorn and Gary Roth,
Sagamore Hill: An Historical Guide
(Oyster Bay, N.Y., 1977); David H. Wallace, “Sagamore Hill: An Interior History,” in Natalie A. Naylor, Douglas Brinkley, and John Allen Gable,
Theodore Roosevelt: Many-Sided American
(Interlaken, N.Y., 1992), 527–46.

26
These haunts
Parsons,
Perchance Some Day
, 234. “He was the enchanting Pied Piper of our childhood.”

27
From early morning
Longworth,
Crowded Hours
, 6–8; Roosevelt,
Happy Hunting-Grounds
, 4–5; Nicholas Roosevelt,
Theodore Roosevelt: The Man As I Knew Him
(New York, 1967), 21–27. “My children,” TR robustly told a female interviewer, “are not brought up to be cowards. They are not taught to turn the other cheek if they are struck; they are told to hit back and hit hard. I won’t have any weaklings in my household. I want my boys to grow up manly and gently.” He seemed to want the same for girls, encouraging them to participate in the roughest play, and saying that he liked them to be “tomboys when they are small.” Boston
Sunday Record
, 3 Aug. 1902.

28
Only when he
Archibald Roosevelt interview, 7 June 1977; research memorandum, n.d. (HH). TR’s own children were supplemented, that summer, by eleven Roosevelt nieces and nephews from neighboring estates. Chicago
Record-Herald
, 12 July 1902.

29
NO MATTER WHERE
New York
Evening Sun
, 8 July 1902; Chicago
Record-Herald
, 12 July 1902.

30
A new magazine
“The People at Play,”
World’s Work
, Aug. 1902.

31
In the good old
Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 3, 347; “In the Good Old Summertime” was the biggest popular hit of the early twentieth century.

32
THE ONLY MEMBER
Alice Roosevelt diary, 21 June 1903 (ARL).

33
Heedless on the
William E. Curtis in Chicago
Record-Herald
, 12 July 1902. It took TR just eighteen days, from 5 to 22 July, to read this mammoth work. See his report to John Hay in TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 300.

34
ON 14 JULY
Schirmer,
Republic or Empire
, 439.

35
The general’s fellow
TR to Albert Shaw, 1 Sept. 1902 (TRP).

36
For a moment
TR had signed the Act into law on 1 July 1902. It was Taft’s overoptimistic hope that the Philippine legislature could begin functioning as early as 1 Jan. 1904, well in advance of the next presidential election. William H. Taft to Elihu Root, 26 Mar. 1902 (ER).

37
“I thoroughly believe”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 298.

38
Smith, however
Ibid.; Bishop,
Theodore Roosevelt
, vol. 1, 194.

39
After dinner
Washington Times
and New York
Sun
, 14 July 1902; TR,
Letters
,
vol. 3, 189n, 303–6. For a discussion of the Vatican holdings, see Harbaugh,
Life and Times;
182–83.

40
Both of them
New York
Sun
, 14 July 1902.

41
Friends again
Ibid.; “President’s Official Yacht Rivals Those of Royalty,” unidentified clip, 15 July 1902 (HH); Edwin A. Falk, “USS
Mayflower,”
pamphlet in TRC.

42
“Bully! Bully!”
New York
Sun
, 15 July 1902.

43
ROOSEVELT’S DECISION
Literary Digest
, 26 July 1902. The dismissal was announced on the sixteenth. It made TR highly unpopular with the Army, and was seen even by anti-imperialists as a stern and cathartic punishment. See, e.g., Charles Francis Adams to Carl Schurz, 31 July 1902 (CS).

44
Even the Anti-Imperialist
League leaders protested that Roosevelt had dramatically sacrificed General Smith in order to protect hundreds of other American war criminals. On 22 July, Charles Francis Adams, Carl Schurz, Edwin Burritt Smith, and Herbert Welsh published an open letter to TR (in TRP), alleging abuses “far more general” than any he had admitted. For negative public reactions to it, see
Literary Digest
, 9 Aug. 1902.

45
“I think he”
Charles Francis Adams to Carl Schurz, 4 and 21 Aug. 1902 (CS).

46
ALMOST UNNOTICED
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 302; William H. Taft to TR, 27 Oct. 1902 (TRP).

47
He dreamily informed
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3,288.

48
“Now … in the”
Ibid., 289.