Theodore Rex (165 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
13
Afterward, with Hay
Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB); Bunau-Varilla,
From Panama to Verdun
, 154, 157.
14
“I shall send”
Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla”;
Foreign Relations 1903
, 235; DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 379; Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 157. According to Bunau-Varilla, he warned Hay, “After I go, you will have to deal with Panamanian lawyers, who are Colombian lawyers.” Hay’s own simile for negotiating with Latin Americans was “like holding a squirrel in your lap.” Bunau-Varilla, interviewed by Howard K. Beale, July 1936 (HKB); DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 384.
15
What Bunau-Varilla
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 368; DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 379–80, 384. For the proffered text, see Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.”
16
Working through the
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 370–75; Fowler,
John Coit Spooner
, 281; DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 382.
17
The Secretary was
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 376.
18
Conscious that Dr. Amador
Bunau-Varilla,
From Panama to Verdun
, 159.
19
BUNAU-VARILLA WAS
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 378. Although Bunau-Varilla, who was more than slightly paranoiac, believed that the delegation had come to supplant him, he was empowered to act as he did. See the Panamanian dispatches qu. in Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla.” On the other hand, Amador had reason to be shocked and enraged. They had brought with them studies of “important points of the treaty from the viewpoint of Panama,” and felt that they had the right to advise him in negotiating it on their behalf. Bunau-Varilla’s hasty and flawed convention caused permanent damage to United States–Panama relations. See also DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 380–85.
20
Amador reeled
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 378.
21
Congress had convened
On 9 Nov. 1903.
22
The dragging, eighteen-month
For TR’s second (10 Nov. 1903) Special Message to Congress on Cuban reciprocity, see TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 2, 645–48.
Chronological Note:
Due to an aggressive investment and lobbying strategy, the American Sugar Refining Company had managed in 1903 to consolidate all domestic sugar interests behind the treaty. Amid cries that opponents of reciprocity had “sold out” to the “sugar trust,” the House overwhelmingly approved the treaty on 19 Nov., and the Senate followed suit on 16 Dec. Healy,
United States in Cuba
, 205–6.
23
Thanks to the
“Speaker Cannon: A Character Sketch,”
Review of Reviews
, Dec. 1903.
24
On 19
November
Literary Digest
, 21 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1903.
25
Cannon pointed out
Review of Reviews
, Jan. 1904; Walter Wellman in Philadelphia
Press
, 7 Dec. 1903.
26
MARK HANNA
,
who
Hamilton Fish to TR, 21 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
27
His uncharacteristic
Croly,
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
, 440–41; George Cortelyou to John Bassett Moore, 18 Apr. 1906 (JBM); Mrs. Hanna, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 1 Nov. 1905 (MHM); Presidential scrapbook (TRP);
The Washington Post
, 5 Nov. 1903;
Literary Digest
, 5 Dec. 1903; George Cortelyou, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 18 Apr. 1906 (MHM).
28
Morgan, no less
Dawes,
Journal of the McKinley Years
, 362; Hamilton Fish to
TR, 21 Nov. 1903 (TRP); Matthew Quay to TR, 26 Oct. 1903 (TRP); Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 1, 598; E. H. Crowder to TR, 14 Oct. 1903; and W. A. Wadsworth to TR, 10 Dec. 1903 (TRP); New York
Evening Post
, 10 Dec. 1903; Rhodes,
McKinley and Roosevelt
, 281; Mayer,
Republican Party
, 284.
29
When the Senator
Mrs. Hanna, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 1 Nov. 1905 (MHM).
30
“You can say”
New York
World
, ca. 27 Nov. 1903, in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
31
Roosevelt wished
Review of Reviews
, Jan. 1903; Mark Hanna to George Perkins, 7 Dec. 1903 (GWP). Hagedorn,
Leonard Wood
, vol. 2, 378–79.
32
In a last-minute
White House diary, 4 Dec. 1903 (TRP); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 664; Mark Hanna to TR, 5 Dec. 1903 (TRP); Washington
Evening Star
, 5 Dec. 1903;
Washington Times
, 6 Dec. 1903; Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
33
Hoar began to
Shelby M. Cullom,
Fifty Years of Public Service
(Chicago, 1911), 213. Senator Cullom was an eyewitness to this interview.
34
“I think,” Philander
Knox qu. by TR in Schoonover, “Max Farrand’s Memorandum.” See also Lawrence F. Abbott,
Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt
(New York, 1919), 139; Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 1, 414. In a speech draft ca. May 1914, Senator Knox expressed mature misgivings about TR’s action in Panama. He agreed with Root that the United States was treaty-bound to be “passive” in any domestic revolution in Colombia, and “active” in maintaining Isthmian transit. But the fact remained that by behaving so in 1903, “serious damage resulted to Colombia, and corresponding benefits accrued to us.” Quite apart from financial gains, the United States got “sovereignty and jurisdiction over a 10-mile zone in a dependent country as against a qualified right to occupy a 6-mile zone in an arrogant, if not unfriendly country.” The American government therefore had a “moral” right to compensate Colombia “not for what she lost but what we gained.” Acknowledging TR’s famous bluster of 23 Mar. 1911, Knox agreed that “The fact is we
practically [sic]
took Panama. We did not take it from Colombia, we took it from the Panamans, and this is the only sense in which that statement is true” (PCK).
35
Both men rallied
Opinion
copy, 1903 (PCK); Elihu Root interviewed by Philadelphia
Press
, 2 Dec. 1903; New York
Herald
, 6 Dec. 1903;
Washington Times
, 7 Dec. 1903; Kelly Miller, “Roosevelt and the Negro” (pamphlet, ca. 1907, in Pratt Collection [TRB]), 8.
36
“Whenever I see”
See Charles Dickens,
The Pickwick Papers
, chap. 30.
37
I AM ENABLED
TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 235. See DuVal,
Cadiz to Cathay
, 386–95, and Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, 387–408, for an account of the treaty’s rapid, if reluctant, ratification by the Panamanian
junta
.
38
He reviewed United States
TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 241–43.
39
For more than half
Ibid., vol. 13, 697.
40
“Yes, and the”
Ibid., 698.
41
The President proceeded
TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 2, 700–704.
42
“Under such circumstances”
Ibid., 706–7.
43
“I don’t know”
The New York Times
, 8 Dec. 1903.
44
“For the first time”
Ibid., 10 Dec. 1903.
45
It is the hour
See TR to Benjamin I. Wheeler, 8 Dec. 1903 (TRP). “When the chance does come,” TR had said of opportunity in 1899, “only the great man can see it instantly and use it aright.” TR,
Works
, vol. 13, 420.
46
“In this Panama”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 652, 662–63.
47
He kept such
Charles W. Dick, interviewed by J. B. Morrow, 10 Feb. 1906 (MHM); Croly,
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
, 435. For an example of the sort of alarming advisories
TR was getting at this time, see W. A. Wadsworth’s letter to him of 1 Dec. 1903: “Things do not look just right.… Some of your political ‘friends’ in New York … are working like beavers [to ensure] that no mistake you have made or are making is lost.… There seems to be a systematic attempt to work up a public opinion that you … are liable to go off at half cock and endanger business interests” (TRP).
48
Washington, Dec. 9
Philadelphia
Press
, 10 Dec. 1903 (italics added).
49
Wellman said
Ibid.
50
“He might wreck”
Ibid.
51
“Mr. President, I”
The Washington Post
, 12 Dec. 1903.
52
He and Roosevelt stood
Washington
Evening Star
, 11 Dec. 1903;
The Washington Post
, 12 Dec. 1903. The following dialogue is taken from the latter source. See also Moore,
Roosevelt and the Old Guard
, 87.
53
“I have sat”
Gamaliel: in the New Testament, a legendary leader of the Sanhedrin and teacher.
54
Two days later
New York
Herald
, 13 Dec. 1903; Moore,
Roosevelt and the Old Guard
, 85. See also
The New York Times
, 12 Dec. 1903,
Public Opinion
, 17 Dec. 1903, and “The Passing of the Hanna Boom,”
Review of Reviews
, Jan. 1904.
55
ON 14
DECEMBER
The Washington Post
, 16 Dec. 1903; New York
Press
, 17 Dec. 1903; Eitler, “Philander Chase Knox,” 76–80. A veteran court reporter called it “the strongest address made before the Supreme Court for years.” W. W. Jermane in Minneapolis
Journal
, 16 Dec. 1903. See also Barry,
Forty Years
, 250, for the reactions of Court members.
56
All the world’s
Britain announced on 24 Dec., Japan on 28 Dec. 1903. By the end of Feb. 1904, Panama was universally recognized except by Colombia.
57
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
TR to George Haven Putnam, 26 Nov. and 21 Dec. 1903 (TRP). According to the Economic History Services website (
www.eh.net/hmit
), thirty thousand dollars in 1903 was the equivalent of about $580,000 today. TR’s two windfalls therefore netted him the modern equivalent of well over one million dollars. He remained, however, the least avaricious of men. On 5 Dec., he wrote Douglas Robinson that he thought James K. Gracie had been too generous to him, and volunteered to turn over one third of his legacy to a female relative with four children (TRP).
58
The Works of Theodore Roosevelt
This edition, known as the “Executive Edition,” was not the first, and by no means the last. It superseded no fewer than six collections, beginning with the “Sagamore Series” in 1900. Other editions published in 1901, 1902, and 1903 varied in length and quality. The Executive Edition, which grew by two additional volumes every two years, eventually totaled twenty volumes. It was itself superseded by the “Elkhorn Edition” of 1906, which grew, by 1920, to twenty-eight volumes. Other editions continued to appear throughout TR’s lifetime.
The Works of Theodore Roosevelt
achieved definitive, if rather confusing, form in 1926, when two differently arranged collections appeared: the utilitarian “National Edition” (twenty volumes) and the luxury “Memorial Edition” (twenty-four volumes). The latter set is cited in this book. For a complete
Works
bibliography, see the Memorial Edition, vol. 2, 559–63.
59
Better than money
New York
Herald
, 13 Dec. 1903; Robinson,
My Brother
, 217.
60
THE SEVENTEENTH OF
December
Washington
Evening Star
, 17 Dec. 1903.
: I
NTRIGUE AND
S
TRIVING AND
C
HANGE
1
Whin he does
Dunne,
Observations by Mr. Dooley
, 225.
2
“I was stuffed”
Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 538–39. The following day Adams was invited to another White House party. He sent his regrets, and stayed in bed “with a pound or two of sufonal.” Ibid.
Note:
Adams’s letters are often written in a tone of mock suffering, for humorous effect. Nor was he beyond duplicity. He frequently caricatured men like TR and Henry Cabot Lodge in private, while praising them in public. See his contrasting account of this evening in
The Education of Henry Adams
, 464.
3
“I am glad”
Dawes,
Journal of the McKinley Years
, 364.
4
ON THE AFTERNOON
Except where otherwise indicated, the following paragraphs are based on the William H. Taft scrapbooks in WHT; William H. Taft to Mrs. Taft, 1 Feb. 1904 (WHT); Taft interviewed by Kate Carew in New York
World
, 28 Feb. 1904. Physical descriptions are from the Carew interview, and also from White,
Masks in a Pageant
, 329–30, and Lowry,
Washington Close-Ups
, 190. (“One pair of Mr. Taft’s trousers would make two suits and a short spring overcoat for Mr. Philander Chase Knox.”) Donald F. Anderson,
William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency
(Ithaca, 1968, 1973), serves as an antidote to the more reverent two-volume biography by Henry Pringle,
The Life and Times of William H. Taft
(New York, 1939).