Theodore Rex (170 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
62
The “speaking”
Harbaugh, “Election of 1904,” 2024–27.
63
A quieter voice
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 396; Nicholas Murray Butler to TR, 6 May 1904 (TRP); Thompson,
Party Leaders
, 81; New York
Sun
, 24 June 1904; New York
Evening Post
, 21 June 1904.
64
At six foot
Champ Clark,
My Quarter Century in American Politics
(New York, 1920), vol. 2, 281; Thompson,
Party Leaders
, 33, 81–82; Fleming,
Around the Capitol
, 228; Dunn,
From Harrison to Harding
, vol. 1, 219; Thomas R. Shipp, “Charles W. Fairbanks,”
Review of Reviews
, Aug. 1904.
65
This awkwardness
New York
Sun
, 24 June 1902; Republican speaking schedule in Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 599.
66
The first tests
M. Des Portes to Théophile Delcassé, 7 Sept. 1904 (JJ).
67
Both states were
Public Opinion
, 15 Sept. 1904;
Review of Reviews
, Oct. 1904; Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 373–74.
68
“Unless we throw”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 919.
69
“The people need”
Joseph Pulitzer, open letter to Josephus Daniels, New York
World
, 8 Sept. 1904.
70
THE PRESIDENT CHOSE
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 921–43.
71
At least twelve
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 601.
72
“Our opponents”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 921, 930, 939.
73
“There is not”
Ibid., 923–42.
74
“We have striven”
Ibid., 942.
75
The President’s letter
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 409–10;
Public Opinion
, 22 Sept. 1904; John Hay to TR, 13 Sept. 1904 (TRP).
76
“WELL, MY PART”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 945.
77
Cortelyou’s first
The Wall Street Journal
, 12 June 1903; Thorelli,
Federal Antitrust Policy
, 592–93; Merrill,
Republican Command
, 168–70.
78
When one did
George Cortelyou, interviewed by Louis Wiley, 29 June 1906, transcript in GBC.
79
“Now, Mr. Bliss”
Campaign Contributions
, 123.
80
“You need have”
Ibid., 128. According to Archbold’s testimony, this interview took place in mid-Sept. In 1912, TR vehemently denied that it took place “with my consent or knowledge” (TR,
Letters
, vol. 7, 603). “I cannot of course say whether or not it is true that Mr. Bliss asked for or received such a contribution.”
81
AT
10:00
A.M.
The New York Times
, 23 Sept. 1904.
82
The bedlam continued
Ibid.
83
Parker’s next
Ibid.
84
The judge spent
Ibid., 23–25 Sept. 1904; Alton Parker scrapbook (ABP).
85
“War grows more”
John Hay to Joseph H. Choate, 1 Sept. 1904 (JHC).
86
Roosevelt, younger
Japan’s special interest in Korea had been sanctioned by the Anglo-Japanese agreement of 1902. On 26 Feb. 1904, Korea agreed without protest to become a virtual protectorate of Japan.
87
“I would like”
Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 18 Oct. 1904 (JJ).
88
“Look how long”
Ibid.
89
Jusserand, whose
Ibid.
Chronological Note:
The role of international arbiter, so different from that of Rough Rider, appealed to TR, and he was flattered to play it in preview on 24 Sept. 1904, when two hundred delegates from the Interparliamentary Union visited him at the White House. They read a resolution from their recent convention in St. Louis, where legislative officials from Europe, the British Empire, and South America had called for a peacekeeping “congress of nations” (New
York Tribune
, 25 Sept. 1904). They
begged Roosevelt to call a second Hague Conference, along the lines of the one that had established the International Court of Justice in 1899. One delegate reminded him that the first conference had postponed the vital question of arms limitation. “In applying to you we address ourselves to an earnest defender of international justice, and we bear in mind that you were the first head of state who turned governments toward the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague.” TR agreed to their plea, telling them, “At an early date I shall issue the call for the conference you request.” Republican officials did not doubt he would choose a date “early” enough for the election. See also
Literary Digest
, 8 Oct. 1904.
90
Joseph Pulitzer complained
New York
World, 1
Oct. 1904.
91
The aggregate
George Cortelyou, interviewed by Louis Wiley, 29 June 1906, transcript in GBC.
92
Cortelyou’s friends
Cortelyou’s difficulties, which are amply documented in GBC, arose out of the deaths of three investors in a preparatory school he founded and headed in 1887. When the venture failed, he refused insolvency and entered the Postal Service, determined to reimburse their estates. By 1905, he was clear of all debt.
93
Soon Democratic campaign
Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 473–80.
94
All Cortelyou said
Presidential scrapbook (TRP). “My determination to keep quiet,” Cortelyou wrote the President on 2 Oct. 1904, “has been largely with the hope of drawing their fire far enough ahead of the election” (TRP).
95
The fighter in
TR to George Cortelyou, 2 Oct. 1904 (GBC); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 963. Perhaps coincidentally, he wrote a few days later to praise the hunter Stewart White’s prowess in killing “105 pigs in two weeks” with a knife. He doubted that he could pull off such a feat himself, although “I have a bully knife … with a fourteen-inch blade, and I firmly believe that one thrust would do the business … even against a boar.” TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 978.
96
“Mr. Cortelyou is”
Cornelius Bliss to TR, 3 Oct. 1904 (TRP). Another professional impressed by Cortelyou’s quiet, yet effortlessly thorough, performance was James S. Clarkson. “The red light is no longer a color in politics and the brass band has departed. Instead of trying to capture men in the mass, [his] system is to go to them in detail and reach them along the lines of effective influence.” Clarkson to Leigh Hunt, 1 Oct. 1904 (JSC).
97
After Elihu Root’s
McCormick,
From Realignment to Reform
, 189; TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 962.
98
The Democratic National
James S. Clarkson to Leigh Hunt, 1 Oct. 1903 (JSC).
99
“Pray get out”
McCormick,
From Realignment to Reform
, 191; TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 961.
100
“The drift here”
William D. Foulke to TR, 6 Oct. 1904 (TRP). TR had privately used the same metaphor himself. TR to George Cortelyou, 2 Oct. 1904 (GBC).
101
At 1 Madison
Campaign Contributions
, 685.
102
“Who is this?”
Ibid., 685–86.
103
“I would rather”
Long afterward, when this telephone conversation was put on the record, Scott hedged his memory of it, saying the President might have said, “Mr. Harriman is coming to see me.” Whoever made the first move, each man had cause to seek the interview.
104
Harriman was a
Harriman had also served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention (Klein,
Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman
, 363). Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 494ff., suggests that Harriman’s new interest in politics was an extension of his business rivalry with J. P. Morgan. TR was aware of this rivalry, and encouraged it by sedulously consulting “now the one [man], now the other” (495).
105
“In view of”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 979.
106
“Now, my dear”
Ibid., 983.
107
Harriman was thus
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 983; vol. 5, 448. Klein,
Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman
, 364, notes that this addendum also served as “evidence” that if Harriman came south to see the President, it was on his own initiative. Eight years later, TR cited it to that exact purpose. See TR,
Letters
, vol. 7, 609.
108
When Harriman called
John Hay diary, 15 Oct. 1903 (JH); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 985; vol. 5, 448.
109
Twelve thousand
New York
World
and
The New York Times
, 20 Oct. 1904. According to a survey conducted by the Odell organization, TR could expect a 96,000-vote plurality in New York State, while Higgins was trailing his Democratic opponent. Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,” 498.
110
Roosevelt received
E. H. Harriman to TR (telegram), 20 Oct. 1904; William Loeb to TR, 21 Sept. 1912 (TRP); EKR diary, 20 Oct. 1904 (TRC).
111
Roosevelt spent
TR in
Letters
, vol. 7, 608; William Loeb in
Campaign Contributions
, 529; E. H. Harriman in ibid., 693; Benjamin B. Odell in ibid., 112. TR appears to have conveniently forgotten to raise the subject of railroad regulation. Another subject of great interest to Harriman that TR wished to avoid was Governor Odell’s desire to have Chauncey Depew appointed United States Ambassador to France, thus making Depew’s Senate seat available to himself.
112
Whatever else
John L. Heaton,
The Story of a Page: Thirty Years of Public Service and Public Discussion in the Editorial Columns of the New York
World (New York, 1913), 317.
113
He had a pleased
Merrill,
Republican Command
, 166;
Campaign Contributions
, 693.
114
HARRIMAN PROVED
Campaign Contributions
, 440–41.
115
Millionaires virtually
Corey,
House of Morgan
, 370–71; Don C. Seitz,
Joseph Pulitzer: His Life and Times
(New York, 1924), 305. Gould’s donation alone was worth nearly two million dollars in contemporary [2001] valuation.
116
Other donations
Pringle,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 357–58. Heaton,
Story of a Page
, 320. TR’s final fund total was $2,195,000, more than 70 percent of it from corporations. For an exhaustive, if often speculative, analysis of the corporate-financing issue, and Harriman’s relations with TR, see Wheaton, “Genius and the Jurist,”
passim
. Wheaton estimates that “between one-fourth and one-third [of the GOP fund] was put into the treasury in the last two weeks of the campaign” (606).
117
“Corporate cunning”
Qu. in Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 2, 249–50.
118
“It tires me”
TR qu. in
The New York Times
, 12 Jan. 1919.
119
As one workingman
Review of Reviews
, Nov. 1904. An oft-reproduced cartoon by Homer Davenport portrayed Parker as a sphinx in judicial robes (ABP).
120
“Well, you are”
Alton Parker, Autobiography Notes (ABP). For another version of this anecdote, see
Campaign Contributions
, vol. 1, 899–900.
121
The judge returned
Alton Parker, Autobiography Notes (ABP).
122
As luck would
New York
World
and
The New York Times
, 24 Oct. 1903; Heaton,
Story of a Page
, 209.
123
His remarks made
The New York Times
, 24 Oct. 1903.
124
“We are at”
Hay,
Letters
, vol. 3, 319–20.
125
ALICE LIKED TO
One “posterity letter” survives in which TR, afraid that his eccentric elder daughter might cause a scandal in the waning days of the campaign, lectures her sternly over his full signature.
Dear Alice, Do you know how much talk there has been recently in the newspapers about your betting—matching quarters at the races & c.—and courting notoriety with that unfortunate snake? … Do try to remember that to court notoriety by bizarre actions is underbred and unladylike. You
should not bet at all, and never in public.… When you do foolish things, you make it certain that worse than foolish things will be ascribed to you. To run into debt and be extravagant as to your clothes—such pointless extravagance, too—is not only foolish but wicked. Your father, Theodore Roosevelt. (28 Aug. 1904, copy in AC)
126
Some instinct
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 996–97.
127
He did not
Ibid., 995–96.
128
By telegram, he
Ibid., 996–98. These documents, plus others written in the weeks ahead, were absorbed by TR into the longest and most vehement of all his “posterity letters,” to the Senate Committee investigating campaign contributions in Aug. 1912. It is printed in ibid., vol. 7, 602–25.