Colonel Roosevelt (162 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
61
Sir Edward Grey asked
In his letter, dated 10 Sept. 1914, the foreign minister included a fair amount of anti-German propaganda of his own. See Grey,
Twenty-five Years
, 2.143–44. The author of
Peter Pan
lunched with the Roosevelts on 3 Oct. He did not like TR, whom he found oppressively talkative, and EKR did not like him. “A mousy, moody little man.” EKR to ERD, 5 Oct. 1914 (ERDP).
62
Rudyard Kipling reported
Kipling to TR, 15 Sept. 1914 (TRP).
63
“It is no good”
Cecil Spring Rice to TR, 10 Sept. 1914 (CSR). The ambassador’s conspiracists, “toiling in a solid phalanx to compass our destruction,” also included Adolph Ochs and “the arch-Jew,” Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. (Spring Rice to Valentine Chirol, 13 Nov. 1914 [CSR].) For a brief account of Straus’s negotiations, which were concerned not with commerce but with his plan to launch a new mediatory effort by the Wilson administration, see Straus,
Under Four Administrations
, 378–85, and Grey,
Twenty-five Years
, 2.119–21. The plan was rejected by both Germany and Great Britain.
64
“An ex-President”
TR to Rudyard Kipling, 3 Oct. 1914 (TRC).
65
Roosevelt did not blame
See also TR,
Letters
, 7.794.
66
Even in the Far East
Kiaochow surrendered on 7 Nov. 1914. For a modern endorsement of the view that all the belligerents in World War I were right as well as wrong, see Joachim Remak in Lee,
Outbreak of the First World War
, 147–49.
67
“It seems to me”
TR in
The Outlook
, 23 Sept. 1914.
68
He had read
Friedrich von Bernhardi,
Germany and the Next War
(U.S. edition, New York, 1914).
69
“somewhat as my own”
TR in
The Outlook
, 23 Sept. 1914.
70
“living softly”
Ibid.
71
butchered some hundreds of thousands
Not to be confused with the Turkish-Armenian massacre of 1915.
72
The last two
“For this error of judgment … I am afraid Roosevelt never forgave me.” (Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 250–51.) TR restored the deleted language when he republished the essay in Jan. 1915.
73
“Surely the time”
TR in
The Outlook
, 23 Sept. 1914. TR’s essay is reprinted in TR,
Works
, 20.14–35.
Historiographical Note:
TR herewith revived his earlier call for “a League of Peace” at Christiania, Norway, in May 1910. Just eight days after the beginning of the war, he had tried the idea out privately on Hugo Münsterberg, envisaging “the kind of caprice among the great powers which will minimize the armaments of all and will solemnly bind all the rest to take joint action against any offender.” (TR,
Letters
, 7.795–96.) He spelled out this vision in more detail on 18 Oct. in
The New York Times
, by which time it had become “a great World League for the Peace of Righteousness.” Six weeks later in
The Atlantic Monthly
, the Cambridge classicist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson published the first of two influential articles advocating the organization of a “League of Nations.” TR rejected his concept as excessively theoretical and lacking in the vital dimension of “international force.” (TR,
Letters
, 852–55.) Nevertheless, Lowes Dickinson later helped frame the official League of Nations Covenant of 1919. For a detailed history of TR’s proposal, 1910–1917, see Stephen A. Wertheim, “The League That Wasn’t: Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, William Howard Taft and a Legalist League of Nations” (AB diss., Harvard, 2007).
74
Rumors began
The New York Times
, 14 Sept. 1914.
75
“It would reflect”
John N. Wheeler,
I’ve Got News for You
(New York, 1961), 43–44. TR nursed ancient grudges against the
World
, going back to its opposition
to his candidacy in the presidential election of 1904. For his subsequent persecution of the paper and its publisher, see James McGrath Morris,
Joseph Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power
(New York, 2010), chaps. 29, 30. By 1914, Pulitzer was dead.
76
“One moment”
The New York Times
, 27 Sept. 1914.
77
“Under such circumstances”
Ibid.
78
Although he did not
Wheeler,
I’ve Got News
, 44–45; John N. Wheeler to TR, 14 Oct. 1914 (TRP).
79
He obliged with
The New York Times
, 4, 11, 18 Oct., and 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 Nov. 1914. Reprinted with variations in TR,
Works
, 20.36–216.
80
“the one certain way”
TR,
Works
, 20.107.
81
When he encountered
Parsons,
Perchance to Dream
, 253.
82
Word that Germany
TR,
Works
, 20.4.227. For an eloquent private statement of TR’s war views in the early fall of 1914, see his letter to Hugo Münsterberg, 3 Oct. 1914, TR,
Letters
, 8.822–25.
83
“You cannot imagine”
ERD to EKR, 6 Oct. 1914 (ERDP).
84
Roosevelt had received
Rudyard Kipling to TR, 15 Sept. and 20 Oct. 1914 (TRP).
85
“My experience in”
TR to Kipling, 3 Oct. 1914 (TRC). Kipling had complained that the tone of TR’s war articles was too mild.
86
He granted that
Ibid. Five days before a campaigning TR wrote this letter, he was waylaid in Cleveland by members of a Belgian government commission charged with alerting key American figures to the suffering inflicted on their country. They found the Colonel sympathetic but unwilling to criticize WW’s silence on the issue. “If you were President, what would you do?” “Exactly what Mr. Wilson is doing.” The commissioners said they were going on to meet with former President Taft. “You’ll like him awfully,” TR replied, “he’ll agree with everything you say.” Lalla Vandervelde, relief lobbyist, in
Monarchs and Millionaires
(New York, 1925), 71–73.
87
an impassioned speech
Parsons,
Perchance Some Day
, 255. See also Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 282–83: “Unless I am very much mistaken, [that was] the first speech on that subject in the United States during the Great War.” Both women were eyewitnesses to the occasion. For an example of TR’s formidable aggression on this issue, see his letter to the pacifist Andrew Dickson White in TR,
Letters
, 8.827–28.
88
In a post-election poll
The New York Times
, 20 Dec. 1914.
89
“utter and hopeless”
TR,
Letters
, 8.831.
90
We, here in America
See 180. In a letter to Lyman Abbott, forecasting the death of the Progressive Party, TR made plain that he felt progressivism as a “movement” would go on. “I honestly feel that none of us have any cause to be ashamed of what we did in 1912.” 7 Nov. 1914 (TRP).
Historical Note:
The narrative of this book will not deal with the Progressive Party’s prolonged death throes through the spring of 1916. TR dutifully fulfilled his duties as Party chief until then, but his heart was elsewhere. For a detailed account, see Gable,
The Bull Moose Years
, chaps. 9 and 10, and the relevant correspondence in TR,
Letters
, 8.843–1085.
91
“I wish I could stroke”
TR,
Letters
, 8.832.
92
And Edith too
Kipling reported that he had seen KR and Belle just before they sailed from Liverpool. “Happiness wasn’t the word to describe ‘em!” To TR, 15 Sept. 1915 (TRP).
93
Roosevelt persuaded himself
TR to KR, 11 Nov. 14 (TRC).
Biographical Note:
With TR’s approval, John C. O’Laughlin, who had once served as assistant secretary of state and was a capable private envoy, went to London in Nov. 1914 to ask if Sir Edward Grey would be interested in TR as a peace broker between the Powers. The foreign minister, reluctant to go behind WW’s back, was courteously discouraging. He praised TR’s recent war articles, but said that he did not agree with him about the apathy of the Wilson administration. “The President has been strictly correct, as has Ambassador Page.” O’Laughlin to TR, 29 Nov. 1914 (OL).
94
Through the Brazilian
See. e.g.,
The New York Times
, 15 Nov. 1914 (“Colonel Roosevelt … is blessed with a power for minute and careful observation.… One more excellent volume [added] to a list which is already a praiseworthy record”);
The Spectator
, 19 Dec. 1914 (“The art of the narrator is invariably swift and keen. A better record of adventure … it would be difficult to find”);
Geographical Journal
, Feb. 1915. On 6 Nov., TR sent a copy of
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
to Cândido Rondon, with apologies for it being in English. “Malheureusement, cette terrible guerre européene a empeché toute traduction allemande et française, aussi ne puis-je vous en envoyer qu’un exception en anglais.” For the full text of his letter, see Vivieros,
Rondon
, 424–25.
95
For as long as
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.199.
96
Next February
H. J. Whigham, editor of
Metropolitan
magazine, recalled in old age that TR at first rebuffed his approaches because he felt that the salary offered ($25,000) was too much for the work required: “I would not feel that if I were writing an article once a month that I was really earning the money properly.” He would prefer, he said, to write many more articles for the Wheeler syndicate for the same sum. It took the combined efforts of Whigham and Harry Whitney, the magazine’s owner, to persuade him to sign on. Whigham interiewed by Hermann Hagedorn, 12 May 1949 (TRB).
97
brilliant young men
Soon after the election, TR invited Croly, Lippmann, and another co-founder of
The New Republic
, Walter Weyl, to dine with him—“just you three and I.” He clearly wanted to pass on his Progressive-ideological torch. Lippmann, who impressed TR as “on the whole, the most brilliant young man of his age in all the United States,” had just brought out a new book of political essays. Entitled
Drift and Mastery
, it won Lippmann early fame as an astute analyst of American domestic unrest. TR reviewed it favorably, along with Croly’s
Progressive Democracy
, in
The Outlook
. Although he later split with
The New Republic
on its attitude to the war, Lippmann continued to revere him. TR to Croly et al., 11 Nov. 1914; TR,
Letters
, 8.872; TR
Works
, 14, 214–22.
98
“It is perfectly obvious”
TR,
Letters
, 8.835–39.
99
“Heartily know”
Ibid. TR appears to be slightly misquoting an unidentified verse he had read in Charles Henry Parkhurst’s
Portraits and Principles of the World’s Great Men and Women
(Springfield, Mass., 1898), 177.
20: T
WO
M
ELANCHOLY
M
EN
1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 27.
2
The winter of 1914
Ecksteins,
Rites of Spring
, 100; Robert Cowley, ed.,
The Great War: Perspectives on the First World War
(New York, 2004), 37.
3
“a war with which”
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.88.
4
White House aides
Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 340–42.
5
Roosevelt appeared
TR,
Letters
, 8.849; TR to KR, 11 Nov. 1914 (TRC); TR,
Letters
, 8.903.
6
“Father is”
Gordon Johnston interviewed by Ethel Armes, ca. 1920 (TRB).
Johnston was shocked by TR’s appearance. “I had never seen him so low.” For other depictions of TR at this time, see Charles Washburn in Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 394; Nicholas Roosevelt,
TR
, 155; Looker,
Colonel Roosevelt
, 11, 56.
Biographical Note:
A contributing cause to TR’s depression may have been his reading at this time of Adolf Fischer’s
Menschen und Tiere in Deutsch-Südwest Afrika
. Reviewing it for
The Outlook
on 20 Jan. 1915, he noted that responsible conservationists had only recently saved the big-game fauna of Southwest Africa (now Namibia) from “almost complete annihilation” by trophy hunters, white and black. “This is one of the many, many reasons why the present dreadful war fills me with sadness. The men, many of whom I have known—Germans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Belgians—who have been opening the Dark Continent to civilization, are now destroying one another and ruining the work that has been done.” (TR,
Works
, 14.574.) For a brief account of the war in Africa, see Strachan,
The First World War
, 80–95.
7
“Both you men”
Quoted by Knox in Looker,
Colonel Roosevelt
, 164.
8
“Weaklings who raise”
TR,
Works
, 20.77–78 (not included in the original
New York Times
article of 1 Nov. 1914, but added for republication in Jan. 1915).