Colonel Roosevelt (154 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
80
What pleased Roosevelt
Other American works TR singled out for especial praise were Kate T. Cory’s “Arizona Desert,” Mahonri Young’s studies for the Sea Gull Monument in Salt Lake City, Leon Dabo’s “Canadian Night,” Amos Chew’s plaster, “Pelf,” and Émile Bourdelle’s “Heracles.” TR,
Works
, 14.410.
81
European moderns
The Armory Show grouped artists geographically according to their current domicile. Hence Whistler was hung in the British galleries, and Kandinsky in the German.
82
Then came the slap
See Brown,
Story of the Armory Show
, 168ff.
83
obviously mammalian
The phraseology here is TR’s, in
Works
, 14.408.
84
A phrase he
TR,
Letters
, 7.710.
85
Nakedness seemed
Henri’s “Figure in Motion,” clearly influenced by the photography of Eadweard Muybridge, was described by William Zorach as “the “nudest nude I ever saw.” It and Pascin’s “Three Girls” may be seen on the above-cited website of Shelley Staples.
86
As James Bryce
Wagenknecht,
The Seven Worlds of TR
, 22.
87
his subsequent review
TR,
Works
, 14.405. The tone of TR’s review may be contrasted with that of, e.g., Kenyon Cox in
Harper’s Weekly
, 15 Mar. 1913: “This thing [modernism/Cubism] is not amusing: it is heartrending and sickening … nothing less than the total destruction of the art of painting … revolting and defiling … pathological.… As to Matisse … it is not madness that stares at you from his canvasses, but leering effrontery.”
88
What disturbed him
“Something is wrong with the world,” the financier James D. Stillman wrote after touring the Armory Exhibition. “These men know.” McGerr,
A Fierce Discontent
, 241.
89
In this recent
TR,
Works
, 14.407.
Biographical Note:
Joseph Masheck, “Teddy’s Taste: Theodore Roosevelt and the Armory Show,”
Art Forum
, 9.2. (1970), challenges the received opinion of TR’s review as unsubtle and uninformed. He points out that TR’s personal collection of art and
objets d’art
, much of which can still be seen at Sagamore Hill, contains some “very fine items,” including Oriental bronzes and screens, a signed drawing by the Roman Baroque master Pietro Testa, a few “sublime landscapes,” including those of Marcius-Simons, plus French porcelains, a large corpus of statues by Frederic Remington, and “a number of truly superb Indian rugs and blankets.” As for TR’s seeing eye, Masheck notes that he already had demonstrated, in his criticism of the Thayer theory of protective coloration (see above, 141, 623), “a grasp of the total visual field … quite out of Thayer’s reach,” plus an “extremely Post-Impressionistic” ability to identify with both observer and observed. Masheck agrees with several Rooseveltian assessments of individual items on display in the Armory, especially the “very remarkable works” of Chanler. He traces and authenticates all TR’s quotes of pretentious art-writing, and remarks that even a humorous reference to “colored puzzle-pictures” in the Sunday papers was well-chosen, since John Sloan had long earned money doing just that. As for the Navajo rug, “Roosevelt needs no utilitarian apology for formal beauty: in fact, what he seems to be
after
is pure decorative value.” As a postscript, it might be noted that when Walter Pach visited wartime France in 1914 to buy modern art for New York galleries, he went armed with a “To Whom It May Concern” letter from TR. “As a result,” Bennard B. Perlman writes, “Pach was successful in acquiring and transporting back to the United States art by Picasso, Derain, Redon, Rouault, Dufy, and Matisse.”
American Artists, Authors, and Collectors: The Walter Pach Letters, 1906–1958
, Bernard B. Perlman, ed. (New York, 2003), 7.
90
A cartoon by Kemble
Baltimore Evening Sun
, 5 Mar. 1913. The image, preserved by Walt Kuhn in WCF, shows a gift note attached to the portrait of TR, reading: “Dear Woodrow, I leave this to your tender care. I have no use for it. Yours, William.”
91
the “Square Deal”
New York
World
editorial, ca. Mar. 1913 (WCF).
92
drew a caricature
Preserved in WCF.
93
It turned out
Baltimore Evening Sun
, 3, 5 Mar. 1913;
Atlanta Constitution
, 6 Mar. 1913. WHT’s chair, if left behind at all, was presumably too large for WW.
94
“Don’t you suppose”
Thompson,
Presidents I’ve Known
, 274.
95
The great government
The New York Times
, 5 Mar. 1913.
96
an armed attack
The Washington Post
, 5 Mar. 1913. Wilson had been more or less forced to appoint Bryan, who had swung the Baltimore convention for him the year before, and who still commanded the loyalty of the Democratic Party’s populist majority. Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 269.
97
found themselves barred
The New York Times
, 6 Mar. 1913.
98
On Friday, 4 April
The following account of ERD’s wedding is based on newspaper reports, chiefly
The New York Times
, 6 Apr. 1913, and Wister,
Roosevelt
, 319–20.
99
“I feel very strongly”
TR,
Letters
, 7.718.
100
This had been
EKR to Emily Carow, 10 Feb. 1913 (TRC). A conspicuous Harvard no-show at the wedding, to ARL’s considerable anger, was Nick Longworth. He remained depressed over the loss of his Congressional seat through most of 1913. Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 394–95.
101
He seemed near
Syracuse Herald
, 6 Apr. 1913.
102
such a concourse
Wister,
Roosevelt
, 319. For an extended survey of TR’s “familiars,” see ibid., 45ff.
103
“I am working”
TR to ERD, 1 Apr. 1913 (ERDP).
104
heroism at San Juan
An Autobiography
, 512–24.
105
write more “picturesquely”
Abbott’s adverb is barely legible in a note penciled on a page of chap. 3 of TR’s manuscript in MLM. It may be “pictorially,” but phrases in the note that can be read (“I wish Mr. T. R. could and would [illegible]”) convey his editorial unhappiness. EKR, too, expressed misgivings about the quality of the ms., which she blamed on the pressure of having to publish serially. “I hope he will get the opportunity to polish it up.” EKR to ERD, ca. June 1913 (ERDP).
106
Roosevelt revised some
TR manuscript of
An Autobiography
(MLM).
107
asking Gifford Pinchot
See TR,
Letters
, 7.716–17. TR actually pasted Pinchot’s draft into his text, with minimal alterations.
An Autobiography
ms., chap. 11 (MLM).
14: A V
ANISHED
E
LDER
W
ORLD
1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 99. TR chose a stanza from this poem (“The Wilderness”) as an epigraph to his book of travel essays,
A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open
(New York, 1916).
2
The county courthouse
See
Roosevelt v. Newett
for the full cast of characters participating in TR’s libel suit. The following account of the proceedings is based on this source, and newspaper reports, mainly those of
The New York Times
, 28 May–1 June 1913.
Roosevelt v. Newett
, privately published by TR’s cousin Emlen Roosevelt, is marred by the exclusion of depositions for the defense. For a summary of these, see Charles A. Palmer, “Teddy Roosevelt’s Libel Trial,”
Litigation
, 19.3 (Spring 1993).
3
A jury of
Sheboygan Press
, 27 May 1913.
4
Newett was due
Ibid.;
Atlanta Constitution
, 1 June 1913.
5
“All that Roosevelt”
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 12.
6
Newett was a stalwart
Melvin Holli and C. David Tompkins, “Roosevelt v. Newett: The Politics of Libel,”
Michigan History
, 47.4 (Dec. 1963);
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 12. TR’s other attorneys were W. S. Hill of Marquette and William Van Benschoten of New York. Newett was represented by William Belden, a prominent local corporate lawyer, and Horace Andrews, head counsel for the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company of Ohio.
7
I have never
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 13–14.
8
“about seven tablespoons”
“Brandy”
sic
. See above, 588.
9
“Because of my”
TR quoted by Jay G. Hayden, correspondent for the
Detroit News
, in an interview with Hermann Hagedorn, 10 Dec. 1948 (TRB).
10
Doctors Lambert
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 45–70.
11
“He is about”
Ibid., 58–61.
12
He sat tilted
Cedar Rapids Republican
, 29 May 1913.
13
By mid-morning
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 109. In pretrial depositions, the defense had relied on the testimony of distant witnesses who had found TR’s behavior strange on four occasions: during campaign appearances in Ohio and Michigan on 17 May and 8–9 Oct. 1912; at an air show in St. Louis on 11 Oct. 1910; and at a dinner for Speaker Joseph Cannon in Washington on 7 May 1906. The first three of these allegations were easily rebuffed with primary evidence, and just before the trial began, a former reporter prepared to swear to the fourth skipped across the Canadian border to escape an unrelated charge of grand larceny. Palmer, “Teddy Roosevelt’s Libel Trial.”
14
James Pound said
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 111–12.
15
Pound returned triumphant
Ibid., 325, 92, 178. There were no trial proceedings on Friday, Decoration Day.
16
By Saturday morning
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 355–56.
17
“a tool of the steel trust”
During TR’s speech on 9 Oct. 1912, a man in the audience had objected to this characterization of Young, calling TR a “liar.” The exchange prompted Newett’s editorial. TR subsequently carried Marquette County. Holli, “Roosevelt v. Newett.”
18
The trial was won
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 358.
19
Throughout, Roosevelt had
Atlanta Constitution
, 1 June 1913;
Roosevelt v. Newett
, 358.
20
After it was all over
The jury foreman significantly forgot to use the word
plaintiff
in announcing, “We find for Theodore Roosevelt.”
The New York Times
, 1 June 1913.
21
“Are you and Newett”
The wording of this anecdote closely follows that of Thompson,
Presidents I’ve Known
, 125. See also ibid., 194–95.
22
Roosevelt v. Newett
was
The New York Times
, 2 and 3 June,
Fort Wayne News
, 28 May 1913.
23
“I am very glad”
TR to KR, 2 June 1913, ts. (TRC). According to Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 284–85, Bowers & Sands, TR’s New York law firm, waived its fee on the ground that he had been unjustly libeled.
24
It occurred to him
EKR to ERD and Richard Derby, 11, 28 May 1913 (ERDP); TR to KR, 1 May and 2 June 1913, ts. (TRC). KR’s new employer was the Anglo-Brazilian Forging, Steel Structural & Importing Company, a start-up venture promising high future rewards. KR to ERD, 30 Apr. 1913 (ERDP).
25
“Sometime I must”
Kermit Roosevelt,
The Long Trail
, 65.
26
Roosevelt had in fact
TR to ERD, 1 June 1913 (ERDP); TR,
Letters
, 7.731;
Chicago Tribune
, 8 Dec. 1912.
27
“Great risks and hazards”
The Outlook
, 1 Mar. 1913.
28
For a variety of reasons
EKR ascribed TR’s need for physical adventure in the spring of 1913 to political frustration. “Father needs more scope,” she wrote ERD, “and since he can’t be President must go away from home to have it.” Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 397.
29
In Paris, on the
See Ecksteins,
Rites of Spring
, chap. 1, for the famous premiere of
Le Sacre du Printemps
at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, and the portents it held for a world about to slip into war.
30
He found his
TR to KR, 24 May 1913. ts. (TRC). TR’s current reading included Vladimir Simkhovitch’s
Marxism versus Socialism
. (TR,
Letters
, 7.742.) Although the book confirmed his prejudices about the equalization of wealth, he was hardly less approving of free-market capitalism.
31
“It is rather”
TR,
Letters
, 7.741.
32
“I shall be glad”
TR,
Works
, 6.4; TR,
Letters
, 7.741.
33
The pious doctrines
The New York Times
, 23 Apr. 1913. The Hobson-Sheppard Resolution of 1913, calling for a prohibition amendment to the Constitution, was the seed of the Eighteenth Amendment of 1919. It passed the House in 1914, but failed to achieve a two-thirds vote in the Senate. For Bryan’s role as a prohibitionist, see Mark Edward Lerner,
Dictionary of American Temperance Biography
(Westport, Conn. 1984), 69–70, 442.