Theodore Rex (180 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
107
He could not wait
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 496; Panama
Star and Herald
, 18 Nov. 1906. The precipitation accompanying TR’s visit was the heaviest in fifteen years.
108
“STEVENS AND HIS”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 497.
109
“a big fellow”
Ibid., 495, 497.
110
“so hardy, so efficient”
Ibid., 497. See also TR’s
Special Message of the President of the United States Concerning the Panama Canal
(Washington, D.C., 1906).
111
NEW YORK
William H. Taft to TR, 17 Nov. 1906 (TRP). This cable, sent to Colón, missed TR’s departure for Ponce and had to be relayed there.
112
If press reports
The reports were accurate. But on 20 November, Taft, worried at TR’s unexplained failure to reply to his cable of three days before, ordered the discharges to proceed. Taft to Mrs. Taft (“The President is worked up on the subject”), 21 Nov. 1906 (WHT); Weaver,
Senator, 11
8; TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 498.
113
While he continued
Weaver,
Senator
, 118–19. The last man discharged was also the longest to live. See
passim
, for the story of Dorsie Willis.
114
BY NOW, A
Ibid.; Lane,
Brownsville Affair
, 226–28.
115
This case was
Constitution League pressure had been the indirect cause of Taft’s suspension order. See Lane,
Brownsville Affair
, chap. 2.
116
At the end
Charles [illegible] of IRS, New York, to William Loeb, Jr., 30 Nov. 1907, warning that Stewart was likely to be “impertinent” to the President (TRP). The “communication” of Stewart to TR cited in Lane,
Brownsville Affair
, 28 and 32, is not in TRP.
117
Beyond ambition
Joseph Benson Foraker,
Notes of a Busy Life
(Cincinnati, 1916), vol. 1, 178. See also Weaver,
Senator
, 32 and
passim
.
118
He was so
Foraker,
I Would Live It Again
, 277.
119
“The members of”
TR,
Works
, vol. 17, 414–15.
Historical Note:
At thirty thousand words (printed “thruout” in simplified-spelling style), the Message was his longest yet. The progressive themes he had sounded a year before emerged more insistently, in calls for extended employers’ liability, stronger regulation of corporations, a mandatory eight-hour day, and a drastic law against child labor. He condemned the uncontrolled killing of seals in Alaska in language of great zoological precision, and added an income tax as well as an inheritance tax to his suggested (but not requested) revise of internal-revenue law. Elsewhere, invocations of family values and naval might represented the old Theodore Roosevelt, as did an eccentric final suggestion that rifle clubs should be established across the country, in emulation of “the little republic of Switzerland.” TR,
Works
, vol. 17, 401–80.
120
Unfortunately for
Weaver,
Senator
, 121. It was extraordinary, indeed discourteous,
for such a proposal to be made before the traditional reading of the President’s Message. But Foraker’s hand had been forced when Senator Boies Penrose offered a weaker resolution immediately after the convening of Congress on 3 Dec. Both resolutions were approved, forcing both Taft and TR to document their actions. Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 240.
121
The resolution
Weaver,
Senator
, 121; Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 240.
122
Roosevelt remained
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 521.
123
ALL IN ALL
Ibid., 524. TR was the first American to win a Nobel Prize. The award was announced on 10 Dec. 1906, but he appears to have been informed at least five days earlier (521).
124
He added
Ibid.
Historical Note:
This project never materialized. The foundation, constituted by an act of Congress in 1907, let TR’s prize money lie unused for ten years. In July 1917, TR asked Congress to return it to him, and distributed it to various charities offering relief to victims of the Great War. By then, the sum had grown to more than $45,482, or $818, 676 in contemporary dollars. Straus,
Under Four Administrations
, 240–42.
125
To Kermit, he
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 520–21.
126
laughter seemed strained
Sir Mortimer Durand to Sir Edward Grey, 14 Dec. 1906 (HMD). TR could hardly be expected to find funny a blackface skit in which an old Negro from Tuskegee allowed, “I had a boy in dem colored troops down at Brownsville, but I ’spect he’s on his way home now.” Weaver,
Senator
, 125.
127
“Now don’t”
The author takes the liberty of inferring
damn
from the four hyphens in Sir Mortimer’s above-cited report.
128
“It is not”
Durand diary, 10 Dec. 1906 (HMD).
Chronological Note:
Another probable reason for TR’s strain this evening was a current sensation in the press over his dismissal, earlier in the year, of the United States Ambassador to Austria, Bellamy Storer. Mrs. Storer, an aunt of Nicholas Longworth, had for years been monomaniacally lobbying every person of influence in the Northern Hemisphere in behalf of a red hat for her favorite archbishop, John Ireland of St. Paul. Her willingness to use TR’s name, and even private letters from him, in efforts to cow the Pope, ended her husband’s somewhat somnolent diplomatic career. The “ ‘Dear Maria’ Affair,” as it came to be known, reached its climax on 8 Dec. 1906, after Bellamy Storer’s own self-pitying account of his dismissal, quoting other Roosevelt letters, was leaked to the
Boston Herald
. TR, more amused than annoyed, issued a devastating public response on 10 Dec. He would have been less amused if he had known that the paper’s informant was Joseph B. Foraker. For full accounts, see Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 3, 128, and Gatewood,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy
, chap. 6.
129
A good motto
Sir Mortimer Durand, “Report on the United States of America for the Year 1906,” in
British Documents on Foreign Affairs
, 159. The noun
rem
in Horace’s epigram is often inaccurately given as “money.”
130
a special message
The quotations from TR’s first Brownsville message are taken from Richardson,
Compilation
, vol. 10, 7710–11.
131
As to the
Ibid., 7712.
132
“WHEN YOU TURNED”
The following dialogue is taken from Wister,
Roosevelt
, 225–26. Wister does not give the date of this walk, but says that it occurred “just in the middle of the Brownsville disturbance. This, plus TR’s invitation of 5 Nov. 1906, “Do let me see you as soon as possible after I come back from Panama,” suggests a White House visit before the end of the year (264).
133
“And then jump”
According to Isabel Anderson,
Presidents and Pies
(Boston, 1920), 29, a popular riddle in Washington at this time was:
Q: Why is Roosevelt like a grasshopper?
A: Because you never know which way he’ll hop, but when he does, he hops like hell.
: T
HE
C
LOUDS
T
HAT
A
RE
G
ATHERING
1
“We’ve been”
“Mr. Dooley” in Washington
Evening Star
, 30 Dec. 1906.
2
luxuriate in his Nobel
TR’s Nobel Prize now glitters on the mantelpiece in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
3
note of grimness
New York
Sun
, 2 Jan. 1907. For a detailed account of this reception, see the Prologue to Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
. TR’s handshake record still stands in the
Guinness Book of World Records, 2001
.
4
quarter of a century
See Putnam,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 249–51.
5
Then, as ever
Ibid., 255. The dominant note of TR’s Sixth Annual Message,
Literary Digest
(15 Dec. 1906) remarked, had been “a demand for greater centralization of power.”
6
On 14 January
The New York Times
, 15 Jan. 1907. TR also withdrew his order that dischargees be denied civil employment in the government.
7
a full investigation
Authorized by the Senate on 22 Jan. 1907.
8
“this belief in”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 631.
9
Such an opportunity
Ibid.; Wiebe,
Businessmen and Reform
, 46–47.
10
Judge Gary praised
Wiebe,
Businessmen and Reform
, 46–47. See also TR,
Letters
, vol. 5, 563.
11
This was a
Wiebe,
Businessmen and Reform
, 46–47.
12
a giant trust
Strouse,
Morgan
, 469–70.
13
IF MEMBERS OF
Except where otherwise indicated, the following account is based on a reminiscence by Samuel G. Blythe, ca. Jan. 1932, in HBP and a letter of Joseph Foraker, 29 Jan. 1907, qu. in Foraker’s own
Notes of a Busy Life
, vol. 2, 249–57. Other accounts appear in Arthur Wallace Dunn,
Gridiron Nights
(New York, 1915), 182–87; Watson,
As I Knew Them
, 70–73; and Clark,
My Quarter Century
, vol. 2, 443–49.
14
a table perpendicular
The evening’s seating arrangements, confused in all written accounts, are mapped out by the Washington
Herald
, 27 Jan. 1907, in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
15
All coons look
Blythe reminiscence (HBP).
16
“I would like”
Ibid.
17
“the mob”
The Washington Post
, 29 Jan. 1907.
18
Then, picking
Ibid.; Foraker,
Notes of a Busy Life
, vol. 2, 251.
19
Senate debate on
Foraker,
Notes of a Busy Life
, vol. 2, 250–51.
20
Diners from
Blythe reminiscence (HBP). Watson,
As I Knew Them
, 71, says TR’s speech was “very coldly received.” Blythe’s earlier account (“[He] sat down amid much applause”) is supported by a similar statement in
The Washington Post
, 29 Jan. 1907.
21
“The hour for”
Foraker,
Notes of a Busy Life
, vol. 2, 249. [“I take” inferred from Foraker’s “He took.”] Less primary accounts have Blythe saying, “Now is the time to bridge the bloody chasm.” Weaver,
Senator
, 126.
22
(the next course)
All accounts agree that everyone remained hungry through the evening, but memories differ as to which courses did not arrive. According to
The Washington Post
, 29 Jan. 1907, there were four. In that case, diners ate just oysters and clear turtle soup. TR’s speech prevented consumption of the shad, and Foraker forestalled the
filet de boeuf à la Gotham
. The terrapin
à la Maryland
, squab
stuffed with truffles, tomato salad, frozen strawberry bombe, and assorted cakes were enjoyed in menu form only. Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
23
“all
persons”
Foraker,
Notes of a Busy Life
, vol. 2, 251.
24
He noted that
Ibid.
25
The noise subsided
Ibid., 253. Champ Clark, writing thirteen years later, quotes TR as ranting in this rebuttal against the “bloody butchers” of Brownsville, who “ought to be hung” (My
Quarter Century
, vol. 2, 447). But he also recalls TR saying that “all talk on that subject was academic,” a remark that Foraker, in his letter of 29 Jan. 1907, ascribes to the President’s first speech. If TR had, at any point, used the language Clark quotes, Foraker would surely have noted it. Samuel Blythe states that TR’s tone during the latter part of the evening was “neither bellicose nor belligerent.” TR himself wrote on 27 Jan. that he had been “inclined to make a Berserker speech,” but had decided against it.
Letters
, vol. 5, 571.
26
“If the floor”
Blythe reminiscence (HBP). See also Watson,
As I Knew Them
, 72–73.
27
“I call that”
Lawrence,
Memories of a Happy Life
, 157–58.
28
a reluctant party
Lane,
Brownsville Affair
, 141–42. Taft’s doughy receptivity to TR’s sharp-edged impress, mentioned elsewhere in the text, is indicated by a remark to his brother Charles on 1 Jan. 1907: “I am not responsible for the Brownsville order; but I think it entirely justified” (WHT).
29
By the time
Foraker,
I Would Live It Again
, 281–88. Mrs. Foraker’s account of surveillance by the Secret Service, written in 1932, is unsupported by any other evidence, except that regarding Tillman in Dunn,
From Harrison to Harding
, vol. 2, 92. It is, nevertheless, detailed enough to give any reader pause.