Theodore Rex (162 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
11
“I thank you”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 607.
12
“I ask you”
Ibid.
13
Miller’s habits
Ibid.;
The Washington Post
, 30 Sept. 1903.
14
The delegation trooped
The New York Times, The Washington Post
, and New York
Sun
, 30 Sept. 1903.
15
Editorial opinion
Literary Digest
, 10 Oct. 1903;
The Washington Post
, 30 Sept. 1903.
The New York Times
, same date, complained only that Roosevelt had not been tough enough with labor.
16
Radical unions
New York
Sun
, 30 Sept. 1903; Gatewood,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy
, 164, 174; Ray Stannard Baker to TR, 15 Oct. 1903 (TRP). Baker had just begun a serialized exposé of union bossism in
McClure’s
.
17
“YOU MAY HAVE
noticed”
TR to Mark Hanna, 5 Oct. 1903 (TRP). Senate tinkerings with the treaty, before ratifying it in the spring, had necessitated reratification by Cuba and full consent of the new Congress. Healy,
United States in Cuba
, 205.
18
With no paved highways
Federico Boyd,
Exposición histórica acerca de los motivos que causaron la separación de Panamá de la Rep. de Colombia
[Panama, 1911?], 37; Miner,
Fight for the Panama Route
, 336.
19
The President could
Boyd,
Exposición
, 37; John Barrett to Caroline S. Barrett, 20 Nov. 1905 (JB); Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 97–98. According to the New York
Sun
, 5 Nov. 1903, Panamanians paid higher per-capita taxes than any other Colombian citizens, yet received nothing of Bogotá’s annual levy on the railroad.
20
Panama’s political
Philander Knox, “Sovereignty over the Isthmus, as Affecting the Canal,” 1903 memorandum (PCK); Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 97–98; Richard H. Collin, “The Big Stick as Weltpolitik: Europe and Latin America in Theodore Roosevelt’s Foreign Policy,” in Naylor et al.,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 296–316; TR,
Works
, vol. 17, 241–43; Parks,
Colombia and the United States
, 219–34, 397; Friedlander, “Reassessment.” For a revolutionary precedent in 1885, almost identical with that of 1903, see DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 124–30.
21
“This does not”
TR to Mark Hanna, 5 Oct. 1903 (TRP). The words
therefore
and
must
do not appear in the published version of this letter. TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 625.
22
It did not amuse
At the time TR sought to discuss Panama policy with him, Hanna was desperately trying to raise campaign money on Wall Street. Mark Hanna to John Hay, 15 Sept. 1903 (JH), and to George Perkins, ca. early Oct. 1903 (GWP); Mark Hanna to TR, 4 Oct. 1903 (TRP).
23
This advice contrasted
Review of Reviews
, Oct. 1903. See also Lloyd J. Graybar,
Albert Shaw of the
Review of Reviews:
An Intellectual Biography
(Louisville, 1974), 124–25.
24
Roosevelt tried
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 625–26.
25
“It is out of”
TR,
Autobiography
, appendix to chap. 14. Weeks later, TR quoted these words to show how considerate he had been of Congress, if not Colombia, in October 1903. Friedlander, “Reassessment.”
26
“misconduct”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 626; Washington
Evening Star
, 7 Oct. 1903; William Nelson Cromwell to TR, 14 Oct. 1903 (TRP); TR qu. in Thomas Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum on the U.S. Role in the Panamanian Revolution of 1903,”
Diplomatic History
, fall 1988.
27
Philippe Bunau-Varilla
White House appointment book, 10 Oct. 1903, and Francis B. Loomis to TR, 5 Jan. 1904 (TRP). Loomis is often described as an old and close friend (and hence, wily collaborationist) of Bunau-Varilla. They had met a few times previously, but their correspondence in FBL makes plain that they did not strike up any intimacy until
after
1904. Till then, their relations were stiffly formal. Note that Loomis’s above-cited letter is a “posterity document,” clearly demanded after the fact by TR.
28
a shrewd and aggressive personality
TR to William R. Thayer, 1 Mar. 1917 (TRP); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 691; McCullough,
Path Between the Seas
, 162.
29
He knew that
Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum”; Francis B. Loomis to TR, 5 Jan. 1904 (TRP); Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 311. TR remarked years later, “There might have been a dictograph in the room.” Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum.”
30
“Mr. President”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 310–12. Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB), rephrased TR’s question as, “What will this do to our preparations?” See also Bunau-Varilla to John Hay, 15 Oct. 1903, qu. in Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 318: “I [told him] the whole thing would end in a revolution” (JH).
31
Loomis remained
Philippe Bunau-Varilla,
From Panama to Verdun: My Fight for France
(Philadelphia, 1940), 332. Bunau-Varilla (probably tipped off by Loomis) seems to have known about the professor’s advisory role.
32
“General and special”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 311.
Historiographical Note:
David McCullough’s inference from a thirdhand source (the diary of John Bigelow) that Bunau-Varilla fully informed TR of his revolutionary plans at this meeting contradicts the testimony, on repeated occasions, of all three primary participants. It seems much more probable that Bunau-Varilla, a model of Gallic scrupulosity, gave the specifics to Loomis, to pass on to the President in executive session. This is what TR himself recalled ten years later, and does not conflict with Bigelow’s contemporary diary entry, “Bunau-Varilla … has seen the President and the Ass’t Secretary of State; unfolded to them his scheme [etc.].” Bigelow could quite well be describing separate meetings with each man. McCullough,
Path Between the Seas
, 352; Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum”; Margaret Clapp,
Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow
(Boston, 1947), 313.
33
All that the President
Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum.” Collin, “Big Stick,” 302–3, argues that by seeking a part of the Compagnie Nouvelle’s forty million dollars, Colombia—a police state corruptly ill-disposed toward both the United States and Panama—sought to reinvolve France in Latin American affairs, whereas TR wanted to take Europe out of Latin America once and for all.
34
tremendous little foreigner
“That man would instruct Cosmos,” TR told Mark Hanna. The Senator became nervous. “Never mind Cosmos. Cromwell’s the man for you to listen to.” John J. Leary,
Talks with TR
(Boston, 1920), 256.
35
Bunau-Varilla, in
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 310–12. See also Bunau-Varilla,
From Panama to Verdun
, 131–33. TR joked afterward, “He would have been a very dull man had he been unable to make such a guess.” TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 689.
Historiographical
Note: Bunau-Varilla’s interview with TR on 10 Oct. 1903 has become one of the most widely debated episodes in the Roosevelt presidency. Anglo-Saxon historians tend to dismiss Bunau-Varilla as an unreliable chronicler, given to exaggerations. However, William Glover Fletcher interviewed and corresponded with Bunau-Varilla at length in the course of researching his exhaustive dissertation, and came to the conclusion that he was an honest man (Fletcher, “Canal Site Diplomacy,” 176–78).
On the day of the interview, TR wrote another letter to Albert Shaw confirming in every detail the impression that Bunau-Varilla took away (See TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 628). TR’s own accounts of the meeting (to John Bigelow in TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 689; and to Archibald C. Coolidge in Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum”) are supplemented by details provided by two mutual acquaintances. Elihu Root recalled years later: “Bunau-Varilla told me about [it]. He said that he … got from Roosevelt such violent expressions of opinion unfriendly to the Colombians that … he told his people in Panama to go ahead.… Roosevelt did not say a single word to him about what he intended to do, but B-V found out just what he thought from his explosive comments” (Root to Philip Jessup, 16 July 1931 [ES]).
The other item is an entry dated 16 Oct. 1903 in the journal of Bunau-Varilla’s close friend John Bigelow: “Bunau-Varilla was up over Sunday
[11
Oct.], has seen the President and the Ass’t Secretary of State; unfolded to them his scheme for proceeding with the Isthmian Canal without much more delay.… It is in brief to have the Isthmians revolt from the Colombian govt. declare their independence … have the U.S. send vessels to protect the Railway as it did during the uprising four years ago and forbid any fighting on the Canal territory which would protect the new state from any hostility that could do it any harm, etc. &c.” (qu. in Clapp,
Forgotten First Citizen
, 313).
This would appear to be damaging evidence that TR was dissembling when he stated in his Special Message of 4 Jan. 1904, “No one connected with this Government had any previous knowledge of the revolution [in Panama] except such as was accessible to any person of ordinary intelligence who read the newspapers and kept up a current acquaintance with public affairs” (TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 2, 743). But Bunau-Varilla, when shown the diary entry in 1913, remarked that “a few points … seem to have been confused in Mr. Bigelow’s memory.” He specifically disputed the allegation that Loomis and TR were fully informed of his revolutionary plans, and said that he had “strictly abstained” from giving any details that might implicate either himself or his listeners (Clapp,
Forgotten First Citizen
, 312).
As with the Venezuela episode, there seems to have been a concerted effort after the fact to create archival lacunae. Loomis’s normally copious correspondence with John Hay is purged between 17 Aug. 1903 and 31 Jan. 1904 in FBL. The papers of TR, Hay, and Moody are mysteriously quiet on all matters to do with the revolution. Amador’s unpublished memoir is remarkable for its deletions of what the author described as “political secrets” about the role played by the Roosevelt Administration (
Story of Panama
, 643). Fletcher saw many more documents than Bunau-Varilla was willing to deposit in his Library of Congress collection.
Cromwell’s papers have vanished entirely; a small collection of his letters, once filed in the Miles P. DuVal papers at Georgetown University, have also disappeared.
TR’s own comments on the meeting suggest more self-control than Bunau-Varilla remembered, but confirm that a tacit message was sent and received.
36
“under proper circumstances”
TR on 15 Sept. 1903, qu. in Moore, “Autobiography.”
37
In the same spirit
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 628. TR also told Shaw that he had rejected as “underhand” a proposal in early September “to foment the secession of Panama.” He did not elaborate.
38
John D. Long could
Quoted in
Literary Digest
, 24 Oct. 1903; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 628–29, 631–32.
39
Another article
Literary Digest
, 3 Oct. 1903. See also Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 298–301.
40
demolished Watterson’s
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 299–301.
41
Watterson was reduced
New York
Sun
, 28 Sept. 1903; Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 301.
42
MANUEL AMADOR GUERRERO
Story of Panama
, 29–30; Parks,
Colombia and the United States
, 135; Philippe Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB).
43
A more realistic
Bunau-Varilla had been warned by Herbert G. Squire, an intimate of Mark Hanna, not to count on the President unless there was a revolution in Panama. “TR cannot go to the electorate with a record of having broken the law.” Philippe Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB). See also Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 312.
44
Amador said that
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 313.
45
“I can provide”
Miner,
Fight for the Panama Route
, 357; Bunau-Varilla,
From Panama to Verdun
, 135.
46
Downtown, as the
Story of Panama
, 282; Fletcher, “Canal Site Diplomacy,” 158.
47
YOUR VIRILE
William Nelson Cromwell to TR, 14 Oct. 1903 (TRP).
48
BUNAU-VARILLA
,
having
This section is based on Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 318–22. See also McCullough,
Path Between the Seas
, 354–55, and DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 310–11.
49
THAT NIGHT
,
two
White House appointment book, 16 Oct. 1903 (TRP).
Story of Panama
, 367–68. See TR to Elihu Root, 14 Mar. 1903, and Samuel M. B. Young to Elihu Root, 24 Dec. 1903 (ER). The following account is based on Chauncey B. Humphrey, “History of the Revolution of Panama,” unpublished ms., 5 Jan. 1923, copy in the files of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, Oyster Bay, N.Y. Supplementary details from
Story of Panama
, 367–68, and Miner,
Fight for the Panama Route
, 353–54. According to Humphrey, TR read an early draft of his ms. while still in the White House, and praised his vital role in the revolution.