Theodore Rex (169 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
4
There was no
William H. Harbaugh, “Election of 1904,” in Schlesinger and Israel,
History of American Presidential Elections
, vol. 3, 1973–74; Thompson,
Party Leaders
, 365–66; Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 315.
5
Alton Brooks Parker
Washington
Evening Star
, 2 May 1904; Alton Parker scrapbook
(ABP); Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 109. See also Fred C. Shoemaker, “Alton B. Parker: The Image of a Gilded Age Statesman in an Era of Progressive Politics” (M.A. thesis, Ohio State University, 1983).
6
Roosevelt had foreseen
John Hay diary, 20 Mar. 1904 (JH); Brooks Adams to TR, 22 Sept. 1902 (TRP); TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 806.
7
Personally, he liked
On 15 June 1900, Governor Roosevelt expressed “not merely a strong personal liking but a very high regard and admiration” for Parker, and went out of his way to secure patronage for the judge’s brother, also a Democrat. Parker publicly praised TR on his retirement from Albany. There is a photograph of them sitting convivially at the same table at TR’s farewell dinner. TR,
Letters
, vol. 2, 1333, and vol. 3, 1; Alton Parker, Autobiography Notes (ABP).
8
The judge was
James Creelman, “Alton Brooks Parker: A Character Sketch,” Washington
Evening Star
, 24 May 1904; M. G. Cuniff, “Alton Brooks Parker,”
World’s Work
, June 1904. The best assessment of Parker is Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” chap. 3.
9
Eighteen years of
Review of Reviews
, Aug. 1904; Harold F. Gosnell,
Boss Platt and His New York Machine
(Chicago, 1924), 42;
Dictionary of American Biography;
Washington
Evening Star
, 9 May 1904.
10
And so did most
Harbaugh, “Election of 1904,” 1977; Washington
Evening Star
, 6 July 1904.
11
ON FRIDAY
,
a little
The New York Times
, 9 July 1904. Parker’s house, called Rosemount in 1904, is now Lamont Landing in Esopus, N.Y. Elizabeth Burroughs Kelley,
The History of West Park and Esopus
(Hannacroix, N.Y., 1978).
12
Around sunset
The following account is taken from
The New York Times
and New York
Herald
, 10 July 1904.
13
the achievement of his life
Nobody browsing Parker’s papers in LC can doubt that his remaining twenty-two years were anticlimactic to this moment. In old age, the judge began to dictate a memoir of Saharan dryness, but words failed him when he reached 1904. Apart from a few notes, the autobiography lay unfinished.
14
They were full
Alton Parker scrapbook (ABP);
The New York Times
, 9 July 1904.
15
The telegram was
Washington
Evening Star
, 12 July 1904;
The New York Times
, 10 July 1904. See also Harbaugh, “Election of 1904,” 1983.
16
I REGARD THE
Qu. in Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 343–45.
17
An eighty-year-old
For obvious reasons, Democratic campaign literature played down the fact that the
G
. in Davis’s name stood for
Gassaway
.
18
ROOSEVELT WAS FULL
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 852, 858; Lodge,
Selections
, vol. 2, 89.
19
Professionals in both
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 351–52. See, e.g., New York
Evening Post
, 11 July 1904. “For the first time, they [the Republicans] are afraid, and their fear is real.” Des Portes to Théophile Delcassé, 13 July 1904 (JJ).
20
Time would tell
Some strategists were even talking of a delay until October. See, e.g., Albert J. Beveridge to TR, 9 Aug. 1904 (AJB).
21
Roosevelt had scheduled
Washington
Evening Star
, 2 July 1904;
The Washington Post
, 3 July 1904.
22
ON 27 JULY
Except where otherwise indicated, the following account of TR’s notification ceremony is based mainly on reports in
The New York Times
, New York
Sun
, New York
World
, and New York
Herald
, 28 July 1904.
23
“That’s perfectly true”
Cannon had just praised the Roosevelt Administration’s actions in Panama.
24
used the word
power
John Hay diary, 13 July 1904 (JH). “Mr. Knox [also] thought it was touched with demagogy in its original form,” TR cheerfully informed George Cortelyou. “Root agreed with Knox” (8 June 1904 [GBC]). His edited speech appears in
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 3, 36–47.
25
She laughed with
The New York Times
and New York
World
, 28 July 1904. The adjective
phosphorescent
is Marguerite Cassini’s in
Never a Dull Moment
, 166.
26
Something flickered
The New York Times
, 28 July 1904.
27
Roosevelt paid no
New York
World
, 28 July 1904; Alice Roosevelt diary, 21 June, 17 and 27 May (“I pray God to grant unto me a fortune”), and 9 and 13 June, 1903; 27 July 1904 (ARL). Alice called her snake “Emily Spinach.” For TR’s views on this pet, see below, pp. 692–93.
28
“When I come down”
Ibid., 15 June 1903 (ARL).
29
ROOSEVELT’S THOUGHTFUL
Group portrait of the GOP Notification Committee,
Leslie’s Weekly
, 11 Aug. 1904.
30
Odell had proved
Richard L. McCormick,
From Realignment to Reform: Political Change in New York State, 1893–1910
(Ithaca, 1981), 166–89.
31
This brazen mixing
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 475; Gould,
Reform and Regulation
, 47; see also McCormick,
From Realignment to Reform
, 220–22.
32
It was vital
McCormick,
From Realignment to Reform
, 175; Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 1, 423.
33
“The Republicans of”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 677.
34
Root politely declined
Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 1, 425–27.
35
ON THE DAY
The Washington Post
and
Washington Times
, 29 July 1904; John Hay to Henry White, 2 July 1904 (TD).
36
Washington sweltered
Washington
Evening Star
, 10 Aug. and
passim
1904; Hay,
Letters
, vol. 3, 305; John Hay to Henry White, 2 July 1904 (TD); contemporary photographs in LC.
37
Roosevelt decided
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 880.
38
“sweetest of all”
Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 351.
39
“Edith and I”
Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles
, 260–61.
40
In New York
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 357–58; Crosson, “James S. Clarkson.”
41
A female reporter
Kate Carew, New York
World
, 12 Aug. 1904.
42
Also unlike Hanna
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 358; Dawes,
Journal of the McKinley Years
, 383. By the end of Aug., Dawes already noted “great savings” in all contract matters. “At last we have a Committee whose work is untainted by fraud of any kind.”
43
The Senator softened
Dawes,
Journal of the McKinley Years
, 378.
44
Roosevelt tried once
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 886–87; Bishop,
Theodore Roosevelt
, vol. 1, 325.
45
ROOSEVELT HAD LONG
See Anne Venzon, “Gunboat Diplomacy in the Mediterranean,”
Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute
, supplement, Mar. 1985.
Chronological Note:
On 27 Aug. 1903, John G. Leishman, United States Minister in Constantinople, had cabled the State Department with news of the assassination of an American diplomat in Beirut. The local government’s response was inadequate and unsatisfactory. TR immediately ordered three warships to Beirut. No sooner had he done so than another cable arrived, stating that the first telegram had contained an error; the diplomat had been “shot at” rather than “shot.”
TR saw the incident as a perfect opportunity to settle several longstanding issues between the United States and the Ottoman Empire, including indifference of local officials toward the security of Christian diplomats, and discrimination and harassment suffered by American missionaries. The warships would therefore stay in Turkish waters for as long as it took to clear up such issues. On 3 Sept., Hay reported that he had told the Turkish minister “that if he does not want our ships in Turkish waters,
it is very easy to cause them to depart.” The Sultan had only to settle “two or three matters which have dragged too long.” However, Hay’s prediction that this would take only “a few days” was not quite accurate. While satisfactory action regarding the shooting incident was taken by mid-Sept. (thanks to the appointment of a new governor in Beirut), the Ottoman government frustratingly refused to recognize that the Squadron’s presence was anything other than a “friendly visit.” However, TR, Hay, and Leishman continued to hope that the United States naval presence in Turkish waters would eventually persuade the Sublime Porte to deal with the relevant issues. While some minor claims were settled in Oct., nothing more substantive came about, and finally, on 1 Feb. 1904, the Squadron left Beirut
(Foreign Relations 1904
, 774; Still,
American Sea Power
, 157–64; Venzon, “Gunboat Diplomacy,” 27, 30–31). For an exhaustive treatment of both the Turkish and Moroccan crises of 1903–1904, see also Hourihan, “Roosevelt and the Sultans.”
46
the Sublime Porte
The phrase
Sublime Porte
was used in 1904 much as
the Kremlin
is used today. It derived from the gate that gave access to Ottoman departments of state in Constantinople.
47
He demanded
Foreign Relations 1904
, 749. There is a sketch of Leishman in Lewis Einstein’s memoir,
A Diplomat Looks Back
(New Haven, 1968), 30; see also Hourihan, “Roosevelt and the Sultans,”
passim
.
48
Their high hopes
Except where otherwise indicated, the following account of Parker’s notification ceremony is based on news clips that the judge himself pasted into his scrapbook, and on photographs in the
Evening Mail Illustrated Sunday Magazine
, 20 Aug. 1904 (ABP).
49
Parker received
Excerpts from Parker’s speech are printed in Harbaugh, “Election of 1904,” 2022–23. Ironically, the cameraman was working for a moving-pictures company.
50
AFTERWARD, LOYAL
Public Opinion
, 18 Aug. 1904; Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 393–94; Washington
Evening Star, 11
Aug. 1904.
51
Cortelyou’s textbook
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 397–400, 487–89;
Republican Campaign Textbook
(New York, 1904),
passim
.
52
The Democratic textbook
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 395, 397–400; Schlesinger and Israel,
History of American Presidential Elections
, vol. 3, 1986.
53
Neither party
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 399. The best that could be said about lynchings in 1904 was that the year’s total of eighty-six was down from 104 in 1903. Ziglar, “Decline of Lynching in America.”
54
the most eagerly awaited
Merrill,
Republican Command
, 168. See, e.g., the
Sun
’s 3 Aug. 1904 comment on TR’s labor policies: “He is on the side of the men who are every day seeking to overthrow the Constitution.” TR was greatly annoyed by this accusation. TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 876–77.
55
WITHIN DAYS OF
Foreign Relations 1904
, 826; Dennis,
Adventures in American Diplomacy
, 464; Still,
American Sea Power
, 158–64. See also William J. Hourihan, “The Big Stick in Turkey: American Diplomacy and Naval Operations Against the Ottoman Empire, 1903–1904,”
Naval War College Review
34.5 (Sept.–Oct. 1981).
56
Roosevelt hastened
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 885, 891; “I am well aware that I have no right to make war,” he wrote on 8 Aug., “and have not the dimmest or remotest intention of doing so.”
57
Thanks to Hay’s
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 890;
Literary Digest
, 20 Aug. 1904.
58
For almost a month
Review of Reviews
, Oct. 1904;
The Cambridge Modern History
(New York, 1934), vol. 12, 590–91.
59
Farther inland
Review of Reviews
, Oct. 1904;
Cambridge Modern History
, vol. 12, 591–92.
60
“The Russians think”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 913.
61
“Unless I am”
Albert J. Beveridge to TR, 26 Aug. 1904 (AJB).