Theodore Rex (160 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
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 sarcastic 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.