Colonel Roosevelt (133 page)

104
he feels that he has advanced
TR,
Letters
, 7.348–49.

105
A letter from Henry Cabot Lodge
Lodge,
Selections
, 2.357. “The country is crazy-mad about Father,” ERD wrote KR. Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 352.

106
“At present it does not”
Lodge,
Selections
, 2.362. After reaching Gondokoro on 17 Feb., TR and KR took a final eight-day hunt for eland on the Belgian Congo side of the river. (TR,
Works
, 5.430–37.) At the end of the month he paid off his Uganda porters and sent them back to Kampala. On 28 Feb., he set sail from Gondokoro with KR and the naturalists aboard the
Dal
.

107
Three members
Chicago Tribune
, 12 Mar. 1910. Another correspondent described the barge as “a crowded cemetery for animals, with the lid off.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, 12 Mar. 1910.

108
They listen frustrated
John C. O’Laughlin in the
Chicago Tribune
, 12 Mar. 1910. See also John C. O’Laughlin,
From the Jungle Through Europe with Roosevelt
(Boston, 1910), 28–36. In letters home to his wife, 15, 20 Mar. 1910 (OL),
O’Laughlin confidentially reported that “Mr. Roosevelt will run again in 1912.” There is no other evidence to suggest that TR admitted such an ambition so early.

109
the Nile birds he pursued
TR,
Works
, 5.448. Three of TR’s youthful specimens, mounted by himself, are preserved in the American Museum of Natural History: an Egyptian spur-winged lapwing, a white-tailed lapwing, and a crocodile bird. For an account of his ornithological researches in Egypt and the Levant in 1872–1873, see Cutright,
TR
, 39–69.

110
“whirls and wakes”
TR,
Works
, 5.448.

111
All that remains
Ibid., 5.450–52; KR diary, 17 Feb. 1910 (KRP). The total bag of the Smithsonian–Theodore Roosevelt African Expedition, as it is now officially known, was 4,900 mammals, 4,000 birds, 500 fish, and 2,000 reptiles—approximately 11,400 items, plus 10,000 plant specimens and a small collection of ethnological objects.

112
“Kermit and I”
TR,
Works
, 5.453. TR told John C. O’Laughlin at Gordon’s Tree, four miles south of Khartoum, that he had just finished the last chapter of his book.
Chicago Tribune
, 15 Mar. 1910.

113
“the twentieth century”
TR,
Letters
, 7.149. The
Dal
can be seen approaching civilization in “TR’s Return from Africa,” a newsreel in
Theodore Roosevelt on Film
, Library of Congress,
http://memory.loc.gov/
.

1
Epigraph
Edwin Arlington Robinson,
Collected Poems
(New York, 1922), 359.

2
He was informed
Chicago Tribune
and AP dispatch, 14 Apr. 1910. The governor of Khartoum was away at the time of TR’s visit.

3
On its boards
Alan Moorehead,
The White Nile
(New York, 1971), 339–41.

4
Rebuilt by Kitchener
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, 11th ed. (1911), 15.773; ERD to Edwin Arlington Robinson, 21 Mar. 1910 (ERDP); TR,
Letters
, 7.349–51.

5
the blood of General Gordon
TR to EKR, quoted in Earle Looker,
Colonel Roosevelt, Private Citizen
(New York, 1932), 106.

6
Khartoum’s North Station
AP report,
Chicago Tribune
, 15 Mar. 1910.

7
That evening, Roosevelt
Ibid.; Walter Wellman, “The Homecoming of Roosevelt,” in
American Review of Reviews
, 41.5 (10 May 1910).

8
He was not unwilling
O’Laughlin,
From the Jungle Through Europe
, 41–42.

9
However, another contender
Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 214–16. TR’s contract with
The Outlook
had been negotiated while he was still President. According to Abbott, he had “half a dozen editorial articles … ready for publication” within five days of quitting the White House. The first, an attack on socialism, ran in the magazine on 20 Mar. 1909. Another, on Tolstoy (15 May 1909), criticized the novelist for “foolish and fantastic” pacifism, not to mention “a dark streak … of moral perversion.” (TR,
Works
, 14.417.) It was reprinted in Russia, and came to the attention of its subject. “An article on me by Roosevelt,” Tolstoy noted on 20 May 1909. “The article is silly, but I was pleased. It aroused my vanity.” (R. F. Christian, trans.,
Tolstoy’s Diaries
[London, 1985], 2.614.) For more of TR’s views on Tolstoy, see Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 188–91.

10
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
See Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 9–10.

11
In the event
Chicago Tribune
, 16 Mar. 1910.

12
They dismounted
Chicago Tribune
, 16 Mar. 1910; AP dispatch, 15 Mar., in ibid.; Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 685. Winston Churchill’s classic account of the Battle of Omdurman in his
The River War: An Historical Account of the Recon-quest of the Soudan
, 2 vols. (London, 1899).

13
Slatin certainly
In a transcendent moment of tit for tat, years later, Slatin permitted
the Mahdi’s skull to be handed over to Kitchener, who had to be persuaded not to use it as a drinking cup. Gordon Bank-Shepherd,
Between Two Flags: The Life of Baron Sir Rudolf von Slatin Pasha, GCVO, KCMG, CB
(New York, 1973);
Chicago Tribune
, 16 Mar. 1910.

14
His soul revolted
TR,
Works
, 5.438; TR,
Letters
, 8.946. To TR’s sardonic amusement, the Marquis de Mores, his youthful rival from Badlands days and a supporter of Arab independence, had been killed in 1896, while attempting to enlist in the Mahdi’s service. A band of Tuaregs had not been “able to appreciate the fine frenzy of his altruism.” Ibid.

15
If that was what
The importation of large quantities of terrorist arms into Egypt, beginning in Dec. 1909, was publicized by S. Verdad in
The New Age
, 5 May 1910.

16
Omdurman fascinated
Chicago Tribune
, 17 Mar. 1910.

17
One long, anguished letter
Pinchot to TR, 31 Dec. 1909 (TRP); TR,
Letters
, 7.45–46; TR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 21 Jan. 1910 (ARC).

18
“We have fallen”
Pinchot to TR, 31 Dec. 1909 (TRP). See also William H. Harbaugh,
The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
(rev. ed., New York, 1975), 361–62, 78. Having already successfully hosted national and North American conservation conferences in May 1908 and Feb. 1909, TR suggested on the eve of his departure from office “that all nations should be invited to join together in conference on the subject of world resources … their inventory, conservation and wise utilization.” His idea was that the forty-five participant powers in the Hague Peace Conference should form the nucleus of a world conservation movement. In the event, he sent out invitations to fifty-eight nations, calling upon them to meet in the fall of 1909. Taft withdrew the invitations, and the world conference was aborted. Michael J. Lacey, “The Mysteries of Earth-Making Dissolve: A Study of Washington’s Intellectual Community and the Origins of American Environmentalism in the Late Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1979), 401–3.

19
illegal coal claims
Alaska’s Chugach National Forest had been expanded by TR on his last day in office. According to Pinchot, J. P. Morgan and the Guggenheim mining syndicate were involved in these fraudulent claims. (Char Miller,
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism
[Washington, D.C., 2001], 209.) But as Pinchot himself made clear in testimony to Congress, the “central item” in his quarrel with Taft and Ballinger was their “reversals of water power policy” nationwide.

20
Taft, consequently, had had no choice
For WHT’s own feeling, early in 1910, that “a complete break within the Republican party” was coming, see Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 272. For detailed accounts of the rivalry between Ballinger and Pinchot, 1909–1910, see Harold T. Pinkett,
Gifford Pinchot: Private and Public Forester
(Urbana, Ill., 1970), 116–29, and Miller,
Gifford Pinchot
, 209–17.

21
Taft had endorsed
George E. Mowry,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement
(New York, 1946, 1960), 52, 63–64. For a detailed account of the 1909 tariff battle in Congress, see Kenneth W. Hechler,
Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era
(New York, 1964), 92–145.

22
“Honored Sir”
J. Corry Baker to TR, 6 Jan. 1910 (TRP).

23
“I flatter myself”
Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 179.

24
“My political career”
Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 53. “
Don’t lay down,
” one GOP politician begged TR. “The people will fall over one another in due time to follow your leadership.” William Bradford Jones to TR, 7 Jan. 1910 (TRP).

25
one delicate encounter
The Washington Post
, 18 Mar. 1910. See also
The Times
, 18 Mar. 1910, and TR,
Letters
, 7.350–51.

26
He had not hesitated
Morris,
Theodore Rex
, 323–38, 347–51, 440–42; Michael
B. Oren,
Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present
(New York, 2007), 309–16. Oren notes (316) that TR’s affirmation at the 1906 Algericas Conference of three key principles—minority rights, free U.S. trade, and support for the Anglo-French alliance—“would remain cornerstones of American diplomacy in the region for the next fifty years.”

27
On the morning
KR diary, 18 Feb. 1910 (KRP); Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 206–7. Frank Harper joined Abbott in Rome.

28
an ever-expanding grand tour
See Wallace Irwin’s Homeric parody,
The Teddysee
(New York, 1910). This poem appeared first as a serial in
The Saturday Evening Post
.

29
Even the Calvinist Academy
TR,
Letters
, 7.364–65.

30
I searched
Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 185. The work cited is W. E. H. Lecky,
History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe
, 2 vols. (New York, 1879). During this 22-hour journey, TR was also seen reading an account of Britain’s campaign against the Sudanese caliphate, and working on the text of his address to the University of Berlin. According to O’Laughlin, he toyed with the idea of delivering it in German.
Chicago Tribune
, 19 Mar. 1910.

31
Roosevelt was not new
TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, 24 Aug. 1884, in Lodge,
Selections
, 1.9. “It was Lecky’s history of the Eighteenth Century that made me a Home Ruler,” he wrote John Morley in 1908. (TR,
Letters
, 7.) Lecky was an Irish Protestant, M.P. for Trinity College, Dublin, and one of the most distinguished scholars of the Victorian age. He merits rereading as the last great practitioner in English of history as literature. His
Rationalism in Europe
is available at Positive Atheism (
http://www.positiveatheism.org
).

32
two clerical provocations
TR,
Letters
, 7.57; Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 213–14.

33
“Moi-même, je suis libre-penseur”
TR to Jules Cambon, quoted in Geneviève Tabouis,
Jules Cambon par l’un des siens
(Paris, 1938), 105.

34
He scoffed at theories
For an extensive discussion of TR’s religious beliefs, see chap. 5, “The World of Spiritual Values” in Wagenknecht,
The Seven Worlds of TR
.

35
As President, he
TR,
Letters
, 5.842–43. TR’s two main objections to “In God We Trust,” neither of which convinced Congress, were that “no legal warrant” justified engraving the pietism on American coins, and that doing so “cheapened” it by associating religion with commerce. For a detailed account, see Willard B. Gatewood, Jr.,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy: Episodes of the White House Years
(Baton Rouge, La., 1970), 213–35.

36
the gospel he preached
Owen Wister,
Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship
(New York, 1930), 230; Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, chap. 3, “The Moral Quotient.”

37
Public works, for example
Garstin and TR “exhaustively” discussed irrigation and Aswán on the last leg of the journey to Wadi Halfa.
(Chicago Tribune
, 19 Mar. 1910.) TR’s remark about the strategic value of Kitchener’s railroad is quoted in the same article.

38
There, on 21 March
O’Laughlin,
From the Jungle Through Europe
, 55–56. It is not clear how this warning was transmitted to TR. The Egyptian nationalists may have heard of a remark he had made about Boutros Pasha’s assassin, at a dinner in Khartoum attended by hundreds of tarbooshed servants: “I would sentence him to be taken out and shot.” Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 155.