Theodore Rex (158 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
83
The President was
TR,
Autobiography
, 333–34; William Wordsworth, “Lucy,” no. 5; Cutright,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 117; “I stuffed him pretty well regarding the timber thieves … and other spoilers of the forest,” Muir said afterward. John L. Eliot, “TR’s Wilderness Legacy,”
National Geographic
, Sept. 1982.
84
“The ‘greatest number’ ”
Fox,
John Muir and His Legacy
, 113. See ibid. for the gradual hardening of battle lines between conservation and preservation during the Roosevelt Era.
85
Whatever resonance
Cutright,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 117; Muir admitted afterward, “I stuffed him pretty well regarding … spoilers of the forest.” John L. Eliot, “TR’s Wilderness Legacy,”
National Geographic
, Sept. 1982.
86
For the next
James M. Clarke,
The Life and Adventures of John Muir
(San Diego,
1979), 292–93
.
87
On 17 May
“Comment” scrapbook; Muir qu. in William F. Bade,
The Life and Letters of John Muir
(Boston, 1924), vol. 2, 412.
88
some philosophical
Fox,
John Muir and His Legacy
, 109–15; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 475. TR’s order, which created an almost unbroken chain of mountain reserves from Mexico to British Columbia, was hailed by
Century
, Aug. 1903: “If his trip had resulted in no other public benefit, this alone would have justified it.” Three years later, TR incorporated both the valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove into Yosemite National Park.
89
Roosevelt’s next
TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 2, 414–18 (Carson City, Nev.);
California Addresses
, 40. Later, in Oregon, TR asked his new Commissioner of Public Lands, William A. Richards, to investigate that state’s famously corrupt disposition of forest property to mining and lumbering interests. “The extent of the Oregon land scandal would grow over the next several years as a kind of background theme to the larger story of conservation” (Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 112). For TR’s creation of the Public Lands Commission, see D. Jerome Tweton, “Theodore Roosevelt and Land Law Reform,”
Mid-America
49.1 (1967)
.
90
“Well, thank”
Lodge,
Selections
, vol. 2, 17.
91
Seattle neither
“The Day Teddy Roosevelt Arrived,
1903,”
Puget Sound
Enetai
, 18 Mar. 1983; Lodge,
Selections
, vol. 2, 20.
92
the issue which
Mark Hanna to TR, 23 May 1903 (TRP).
93
“a knockdown”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 482.
94
Fate—or Joseph B
. Mowry,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 172.
95
Roosevelt saw
James Garfield interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 14 Feb. 1906 (MHM). Hanna wanted TR to recognize that opposition to the endorsement did not signify opposition to the nomination. As Chairman of the GOP, Hanna could not favor any candidate against any other, present or future. However, as John M. Blum points out, “He had not been so patient in McKinley’s behalf in 1895 or 1896.” Blum,
Republican Roosevelt
, 41.
96
YOUR TELEGRAM
TR to Hanna, 25 May 1903 (TRP). He adroitly refrained from giving out the text of Hanna’s telegram, thus giving the impression that it had been less than respectful. Beer,
Hanna
, 613–14.
97
Hanna had no
Mark Hanna to TR, 26 May 1903. The question remains, Did Hanna have any lingering presidential ambition in the spring of 1903? There is no evidence that he did, and plenty that he did not. On 20 Mar., he had sent TR a published interview in which Ohio Congressman Charles H. Grosvenor emphatically stated that the President’s nomination was certain, and that anyone opposing him was committing political suicide. “That settles
me,”
Hanna joked. Just two days before TR’s annihilating telegram, he had stated publicly, “I am not, and I will not be, a candidate for the presidential nomination.” Croly,
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
, 424. See also John S. McCook to TR, 22 May 1903 (TRP).
98
Thus the President
Washington
Evening Star
, 27 May 1903; Blum,
Republican Roosevelt
, 51; G. Thomas Edwards, “The College, the Town, and Teddy Roosevelt,”
Whitman Alumnus
, Nov. 1977; Lodge,
Selections
, vol. 2, 20, 23. Having humbled Hanna, TR made an elaborate and not very convincing attempt on 29 May to explain himself. See Croly,
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
, 427, and also Beer,
Hanna
, 609–16; Blum,
Republican Roosevelt
, 50–53; and Gould,
Reform and Regulation
, 40–42.
99
ROOSEVELT ARRIVED
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 558–59. See also Charles Dickens,
The Pickwick Papers
, chap. 13. (Mr. Pickwick: “It’s always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.” Mr. Snodgrass: “But suppose there are two mobs?” Mr. Pickwick: “Shout with the largest.”)
100
He waited until
Eyewitness account, by the Australian, in unidentified news clip, “Comment” scrapbook. See also TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 558–59.
101
“a square deal”
Ibid., TR’s famous political image, although hinted at in Jamestown, N.D., on 7 Apr., had first been articulated during his Grand Canyon speech of 6 May. In that case, he applied it to American Indians, but
square deal
quickly became a metaphor for his whole domestic political program of mediation between forces. It was the rhetorical inspiration of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and Harry Truman’s “Fair Deal.” John Allen Gable, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Square Deal,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
17.3 (1991).
102
“My address was”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 559–60.
103
Roosevelt left
Ibid., 561.
104
the concept of equilibrium
See Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 151–52, for TR’s search for a fulcrum on his very first night in politics.
105
Justice separating good
Kerr,
Bully Father
, 126; TR,
Letters to Kermit
, 61; New York
Sun
, 5 June 1903. The phrase, translated into Latin, was engraved on TR’s inaugural medal in 1905.
106
“Envy and arrogance”
New York
Sun
, 4 June 1903. “Evidently the new [twentieth-century] American would need to think in contradictions, and in spite of Kant’s famous four antinomies, the new universe would know no law that could not be proved by its anti-law”
(Education of Henry Adams
, 497–98). TR’s ability to “think in contradictions” both fascinated and infuriated Adams. See below, Interlude.
107
Roosevelt was sitting
The following account comes from
Editor & Publishers
, 13 June 1903.
108
“Guests who find”
Ibid. Beveridge and Fairbanks were arch-rivals for control of Indiana’s state Republican organization in 1903, and for TR’s favor as possible Vice Presidential candidates in 1904.
: W
HITE
M
AN
B
LACK AND
B
LACK
M
AN
W
HITE
1
Th’ black has
“Mr. Dooley” in Salt Lake City
Daily Tribune
, 10 Nov. 1901.
2
SENATOR BEVERIDGE AND
Washington
Evening Star
, 5 June 1903; Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 16 June 1903 (JJ); Cleveland
Plain Dealer
, 28 May 1903. On 10 June 1903, Mark Hanna privately promised TR that he would “support him for renomination.” Both men apparently regarded this pledge as “a contract.” Dawes,
Journal of the McKinley Years
, 363.
3
Roosevelt now enjoyed
The Washington Post
, 6 June 1903. His current pledges gave him 496 committed, and possibly 730, convention votes. He needed only 493 votes to clinch the nomination.
4
“I thank you again”
The Washington Post
, 6 June 1903.
5
Although the President
EKR to William Loeb, 21 Apr. 1903 (TRB); EKR to Kermit Roosevelt, 29 Apr. and 10 May 1903 (KR);
Washington Times
, 3 May 1903.
6
Perhaps Edith had
The following catalog of calories is drawn from “Comment” scrapbook.
7
There would be
The New York
World
, which for some reason was perennially interested in TR’s weight, reported it at two hundred pounds on 14 June 1903, seventeen pounds more than at the start of his tour. The newspaper suggested that he should weigh no more than 195 pounds for his height (five feet nine inches) and frame. Modern medical opinion would put his ideal weight at about 145 pounds, and define his actual weight as obese.
8
A younger, slimmer
Homer Davenport in
San Francisco Examiner
, 3 May 1903; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 391. The Encke portrait now hangs at the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, Oyster Bay, N.Y. The famous Sargent, painted between 14 and 18 Feb. 1903, is still at the White House.
9
He never failed
Maria Longworth Storer,
Theodore Roosevelt the Child
(privately printed, 1921), 24; TR to John Hay, John Hay diary, 8 May 1904 (JH); see, e.g., TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 422. (“The Sewalls were here.… They came to the Congressional reception, and altogether they showed to great advantage. I was very proud of them.”) See also chap. 9 notes, above.
10
Although political
Wagenknecht,
Seven Worlds
, 151–52; TR,
Works
, vol. 17, 39.
11
Yet his wife
EKR to Nannie Lodge, 14 June 1903 (HCL); Speck von Sternburg to John C. O’Laughlin, 30 June 1903 (JCOL);
The Wall Street Journal
, 8 July 1903.
12
He would receive
Jusserand,
What Me Befell
, 240.
Chronological Note:
The Post Office investigation, quietly ordered by Postmaster General Henry C. Payne six months before, had become a press sensation during TR’s Western trip, in part because of rumors that its conclusions would embarrass certain high-placed veterans of the McKinley Administration. TR was confident that his own Administration would escape unscathed (the charges were more than three years old), but he was annoyed by editorial suggestions that Payne was trying to delay and downplay the investigation. The Postmaster General had, in fact, been overeager to cooperate with reporters at twice-daily briefings. Even TR complained that Payne “talked too much,” and was inviting “a newspaper trial” before all the evidence was in (James Garfield diary, 17 June 1903 [JRG]).
To that end, the President prevailed upon Payne’s chief investigator, Assistant Postmaster General Joseph L. Bristow, to release at least some preliminary findings. He said he “wished nothing but the truth,” and “cared not a rap who was hit.” Bristow hesitated, having turned up proof that Senator Mark Hanna’s closest aide at the Republican National Committee, Perry C. Heath, had used the District of Columbia Post Office as a clearinghouse for political favors.
TR promised to “protect” Bristow, and an interim report was released on 18 June. It gave Payne enough ammunition to dismiss four bureau heads, and accept many subordinate resignations. Hanna remained silent, and Heath left for a long vacation in Japan.
TR resisted renewed Democratic calls for Payne’s resignation, praising him as “a singularly sweet-tempered and upright man.” (He might have added that Payne had influenced his selection as McKinley’s running mate in 1900.) On 22 June, he announced the appointment of two respected special counsels, Holmes Conrad and Charles Joseph Bonaparte, to assist Bristow in his probe. Bonaparte was later to become an important figure in the Roosevelt Administration.
For more details of the Post Office scandal, see Dorothy Canfield Fowler,
The Cabinet Politicians: The Postmasters General, 1829–1909
(New York, 1943), 273–77; James Garfield diary, 1903,
passim
(JRG); William W. Wight,
Henry Clay Payne: A Life
(Milwaukee, 1907), 123–41; A. Bower Sageser,
Joseph L. Bristow: Kansas Progressive
(Lawrence, Kans., 1968); Washington
Evening Star
, 18 June 1903; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 494–99 and
passim
.
13
John Hay cautioned
John Hay to William Loeb, 7 June 1903 (TRP); DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 222. The Colombian Congress had not actually convened since 1898, Marroquín having seized power in 1900 by deposing another dictator, M. A. Sanclemente. TR therefore never believed that he was dealing with a republic. “[Marroquín] embodied in his own person the entire government of Colombia.” TR,
Autobiography
, 532–34.
14
There was no
Story of Panama
, 339;
Foreign Relations 1903
, 143. See also Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 100–101. Not one of the letters Hay sent TR on tour mentions Colombia or the treaty, although he covers lesser matters conscientiously (TRP). Hay did, however, confide his forebodings to Mark Hanna. 14 May 1903 (TD).