Theodore Rex (175 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
140
His news today
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 137–39.
141
Later that evening
George Meyer to TR, 18 Aug. 1905 (TRP); Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 139.
142
Roosevelt detected
See, e.g., TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1222–23.
143
A fantasy began
Lee,
Good Innings
, vol. 1, 306.
144
He told Kaneko
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 140.
145
That night, Roosevelt
Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 296–97.
146
It was galvanizing
The telegram, addressed to Witte, read: “I earnestly request that you send either Baron Rosen or some other gentleman who is in your confidence to see me immediately, so that I may through him send you a strictly confidential message.” Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 251–52.
147
Roosevelt was playing
Korostovetz,
Diary
, 92.
148
He said that three
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 141.
149
“We Americans”
Qu. in ibid., 142.
150
Roosevelt seemed to know
TR was receiving regular briefs from the reporter John Callan O’Laughlin, a member of his
secret du roi
with good connections in Portsmouth. See Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 252n.
151
He asked Rosen
Korostovetz,
Diary
, 91–92; Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 252. TR was unaware, as he talked, that Nicholas II had that day summoned the Duma (national assembly)—the first truly democratic step taken by any Russian monarch.
152
Rosen, politely masking
The ambassador kept his anger for later (Rosen,
Forty Years
, vol. 1, 104; Korostovetz,
Diary
, 99).
153
“If it is our”
Qu. in Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 299. TR’s proposal was rejected outright by Nicholas II (Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 142). Throughout the conference, the Russians felt they were being leaned on by TR, because the Japanese were rigidly silent about his equal pressure on them. He compared his own attitude
as being that of “a very polite but also very insistent Dutch uncle.” TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 1.
154
On Monday, the President
Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 253.
155
“I earnestly ask”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1307–8.
156
“not an inch”
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 138.
157
The cable went
TR,
Letters
, vol. 4, 1306–8.
158
“I think I ought”
Ibid., 1308–9.
159
Then, putting
TR to Jules Jusserand, 21 Aug. 1905 (JJ). In a handwritten postscript, TR adds: “I have received a couple of brand-new pipe dreams from my constant correpondent [Wilhelm II].”
160
“I cannot”
Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 707.
161
THE SIGHT OF
Sergei
Trani,
Treaty of Portsmouth
, 145.
162
“Russia is not”
George Meyer to TR, 23 Aug. 1905, qu. in TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 5–6. See ibid., 6–9, for more cables to and from TR during the crisis period.
163
On the same day
For an indication of TR’s frenzied activity in this period (“I am having my hair turned gray”), see Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 298–302.
164
Another year of war
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 1312–13.
165
The letter was wired
Beale,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 301–2.
166
ON FRIDAY
, 25
August
For more on TR’s famous dive, see Douglas,
The Many-Sided Roosevelt
, 104–5; Hagedorn,
Roosevelt Family
, 226–29.
167
cigarette after cigarette
Smalley,
Anglo-American Memories
, 399. This dramatic story was told by Witte after the conference. Witte wrote later that he had spent the previous night “sobbing and praying.” Witte,
Memoirs
, vol. 2, 440.
168
Rumors spread over the weekend
Korostovetz,
Diary
, 102; Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 260.
169
On Tuesday, 29
August
Korostovetz,
Diary
, 107–8.
170
Komura sat
Dennett,
Roosevelt
, 261.
171
HENRY J. FORMAN
This incident occurred on 10 Aug. 1905. Forman, “So Brief a Time,” 29–31.
172
Then Roosevelt was
Ibid., 30.
173
“the best herder”
Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 719.
174
“It’s a mighty”
Harold Phelps Stokes, “Yale, the Portsmouth Treaty, and Japan,” privately printed memoir, 1948 (TRC).
: M
ERE
F
ORCE OF
E
VENTS
1
Ye see, th’ fact
Dunne,
Mr. Dooley’s Observations
, 97.
2
“Accept my congratulations”
Qu. by TR in
Letters
, vol. 5, 9. For the plaudits of other foreign government officials, see Benson J. Lossing,
Our Country
(New York, 1908), vol. 8, 2084–87.
Chronological Note:
On 13 Sept. 1905, in a development that greatly amused TR, Nicholas II called for a second Hague Peace Conference. TR asked the Russian Ambassador if this meant that His Majesty wished to have it appear that he (not TR in 1904) had conceived of calling a second conference. When Baron Rosen answered yes, TR told him that he was delighted to have the Tsar take the initiative in the matter, and that he would heartily back him up. While relieved that it would not fall to him, once again, to “appear as a professional peace advocate,” the President did find a “rather grim irony” in the fact that the man who had so prolonged the Russo-Japanese War was now taking the lead in a “proposition toward world peace” (TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 25–26, 30–31). The Second Hague Conference met on 15 June 1907.
3
The Mikado’s enigmatic
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 8–9. After the Portsmouth Peace Treaty was signed, TR sent Mutsuhito the largest of his Colorado bearskins. According to Kaneko, “His Majesty was greatly pleased with the skin, because of the emblematic nature of the gift.” Street, “Japanese Statesman’s Recollections.”
4
“It is enough”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 1–2. Taft had, meanwhile, returned home with most of his official party.
5
Alice had returned
Longworth,
Crowded Hours
, 106–7; TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 15;
Review of Reviews
, Oct. 1904.
6
This did not
“I confess that we came out from [the] Navy Yard in Portsmouth with all the booties as we could carry and cast a discreet smile on our ‘wily Oriental faces.’ ” Kentaro Kaneko to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 7 Sept. 1905, in Kanda and Gifford, “Kaneko Correspondence,” 2.
7
After Tsu Shima
TR qu. in Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 168; Ferguson, “John Barrett” (JB); Grenville and Young,
Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy
, 313ff. Many years later, when Philip C. Jessup asked about TR’s conduct of Far Eastern affairs from 1905 to 1909, Root replied dryly, “He kept them in his hands.” Interview, 13 Sept. 1932 (ER).
8
a new recruit
See James Brown Scott,
Robert Bacon: Life and Letters
(New York, 1923), 105; Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 2, 455–56.
9
Socialism was spreading
British Documents on Foreign Affairs
, vol. 1
A
, 3, 162–63; Jusserand,
What Me Befell
, 322.
10
The “odd year”
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 26–27, points out that, by statute, the second and fourth congressional sessions of the four-year cycle had to end on 4 March. That made each a mere three months long.
11
One issue above
Ibid.; Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, 198. It is not known if TR saw Baker’s earlier conspiracistic articles about J. P. Morgan and “The Great Northern Pacific Deal” in
Collier’s
, Oct.-Nov. 1901. If so, he would have been able to trace the progressivist neurosis to the first weeks of his own presidency.
12
“law-abidingness”
S. S. McClure to TR, 18 July 1905 (TRP). See also Philip Loring Allen,
America’s Awakening: The Triumph of Righteousness in High Places
(New York, 1906), chap. 1.
13
Doubtless somebody
“Somebody” by the name of Herbert Croly had indeed just begun work on what was to become the basic text of Progressivism:
The Promise of American Life
(New York, 1909). See Croly, “Why I Wrote My Latest Book,”
World’s Work
, May 1910, and “The Memoirs of Herbert Croly: An Unpublished Document,” ed. Charles Hirschfeld,
New York History
58.3 (1977).
14
What particularly
S. S. McClure to TR, 18 July 1905 (TRP). The first five chapters of Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, remain the best survey of the rise of Progressivism in early twentieth-century America.
15
Now here, in the
Ray Stannard Baker to TR, 9 Sept. 1905 (TRP). The page proofs are wrongly identified in TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 25, as coming from Baker’s first (Nov. 1905) article in the series. See text, below.
16
Let Baker, Steffens
See Eugene L. Huddleston, “The Generals up in Wall Street,”
Railroad History
145 (1981), for an alternative look at Ray Stannard Baker and his work. While history has viewed Baker as one of its greatest muckrakers and a wholly impartial analyst of runaway corporate power, Huddleston maintains that Baker was neither as objective nor as well-informed as Progressives then and since have made him out to be. He claims that Baker oversimplified complex issues, fell short in command of technical data governing railroad rates, operations, and regulation, and used as his most trusted background source an outdated, fifteen-year-old book, A. B. Stickney’s
The Railway Problem
. Huddleston also feels that Baker often relied on moralistic rhetoric designed to stir up emotion in an effort to disguise the fact that he had little solid evidence of wrongdoing. In Huddleston’s judgment,
Baker’s solid reputation today is based partly on the esteem accorded him by TR, who consulted with the journalist in drafting railroad-reform legislation, even including a paragraph almost exactly in Baker’s words in his Message to Congress seeking such legislation. Time would demonstrate that TR used Baker to help accomplish his goal of rallying popular support for the new legislation—Baker’s six-part series appeared at just the right time, November 1905–June 1906, to help the Hepburn Act through Congress—only to dismiss his brand of journalism as less than honorable. Baker’s disillusionment with TR led him to ardent support of Woodrow Wilson, and he later became Wilson’s official biographer.
17
“I haven’t”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 25.
18
Just how “far”
Pringle,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 359–65, shows that TR gave advance notice of his legislative intentions to the “short” Congress of 1904–1905, both in his Fourth Annual Message and in a remarkable speech to the Union Club of Philadelphia on 30 January 1905. Neither utterance had any lasting effect, due to the distraction of the Inauguration and the quick death of the Fifty-eighth Congress.
19
On 30
September
Cheney,
Personal Memoirs
, 122–23.
20
The President approached
New York
Sun, 1
Oct. 1905.
21
Two articles of his
Scribner’s
, Oct. and Nov. 1905.
22
It supplemented
TR,
Works
, vol. 24, 559–62. TR’s income from his writings in 1905 was $18,487, about $341,000 in modern dollars. Checks came from five different publishers (TRP,
passim)
.
23
livre broché
A small, sewn paperback. Léon Bazalgette,
Théodore Roosevelt
(Paris, 1905). Copy in TRB.
24
Bazalgette admitted
Ibid., 25–26. All translations are by the author, who has occasionally repunctuated Bazalgette’s ornate sentences for contemporary clarity.
25
Perhaps the most
Ibid., 39, citing in particular the famous passage about the moonlit mockingbird in chap. 4 of
The Wilderness Hunter
. See TR,
Works
, vol. 2, 62–63.
26
“He was able”
Bazalgette,
Théodore Roosevelt
, 29.
27
“the supreme political”
Ibid., 5.
28
“that most dangerous”
Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 193.