Colonel Roosevelt (167 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
5
a severe attack of amnesia
Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 62.
6
On 26 June
The New York Times
, 27, 29 June 1916; TR,
Letters
, 8.1082–23; Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 52. It was a matter of some concern to the designers of Republican campaign buttons in 1916 that both Hughes and Fairbanks wore old-fashioned beards, as opposed to the smooth, contemporary-looking jawlines of Wilson and his running mate, Thomas R. Marshall. As a cabbie in Chicago remarked at the time of the GOP convention, “Americans had a right to see a man’s chin before being asked to vote for him.” Julian Street, “The Convention and the Colonel,”
Collier’s Weekly
, 57.5 (1 July 1916).
7
“I don’t believe”
Kenneth C. Kellar,
Seth Bullock: Frontier Marshal
(Aberdeen, S.D., 1872), 177.
8
Kermit could try
KR did so on 5 July, serving in the Sixth Business Man’s Regiment through 8 Aug.
9
“The break seems”
Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 404–5.
10
Coincidentally
David Jones,
In Parenthesis
(London, 1982), ix, cited in Ecksteins,
Rites of Spring
, 211; Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 397–98, 408. The death toll on 1 July 1916 was the highest of World War I. Quite apart from ground fire, the heavy-artillery rate was 60 shells a second.
11
Roosevelt’s drive to raise
The New York Times
, 19, 20 June 1916. Bullock informed TR that South Dakota was good for a whole regiment. Kellar,
Seth Bullock
, 177.
12
His letter to Baker
TR,
Letters
, 8.1087–88.
13
“in the event of”
Ibid., 8.1091.
14
memoirs of Baron Grivel
Georges Lacour-Gayet,
Mémoires du vice-amiral Baron Grivel
(Paris, 1914).
15
“Lafayettes of the Air”
Collier’s Weekly
, 29 July 1916.
16
On 4 August
The New York Times
, 5 Aug.,
The Washington Post
, 6 Aug. 1916; Whitney Museum of American Art,
Flora Whitney Miller: Her Life, Her World
(New York, 1987), 17. Hereafter
Flora
.
17
He admitted
TR,
Letters
, 8.1094; QR to ABR, 28 Dec. 1917 (ABRP). At Plattsburg, QR had been found unfit for rifle service because of defective vision, plus a tendency, when drilling, to toss rather than shoulder arms. John T. McGovern,
Diogenes Discovers Us
(Freeport, N.Y., 1933, 1967), 233.
18
His ironic sense
ABR found KR annoyingly sassy at Harvard. “Perhaps the main trouble is that he is generally funny and knows it, hence, when he cannot think of anything funny to say, he becomes fresh.” ABR to TR, 14 Nov. 1915 (KRP).
19
fast-driving boys
Three weeks after Flora’s ball, QR was ticketed for speeding by a policeman in Hicksville, Long Island.
The New York Times
, 25 Aug. 1916.
20
Flora, who was
Flora, passim
. See also Flora Miller Biddle,
The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made
(New York, 1999).
21
Archie had briefly paid court
QR to Flora Whitney, ca. 25 Oct. 1915 (FWM).
22
“You get a”
QR to KR, 2 Feb. 1916 (KRP).
23
“We are all”
Collier’s Weekly
, 29 July 1916.
24
Secretary Baker was pleased
Frederick Palmer,
Newton D. Baker: America at War
(New York, 1931), 1.283–84.
25
He told Kermit
QR to KR, 2 Feb. 1916 (KRP). A period of hard study was especially desirable for QR, who for reasons best known to himself had devoted his entire Mathematics “A” examination sheet to a poem. (McGovern,
Diogenes Discovers Us
, 232.) It is reproduced in Kermit Roosevelt,
Quentin Roosevelt
, 28ff.
26
“Roosevelt would be”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1110;
The New York Times
, 1 Sept. 1916; Barrus,
John Burroughs
, 2.238.
27
Quentin Roosevelt returned
QR to Flora Whitney, 31 July, 24 Sept. 1917 (FWM).
28
Roosevelt fretted
TR,
Letters
, 8.1099, 1199, 1101.
29
“from the bench”
Congressional Quarterly,
The CQ Guide to American Government
(Washington, D.C. 1969), 93. Ironically, WW’s reputation as a “cold” politician was moderated by Hughes’s own icy public persona. When the latter lost his voice in transit across Illinois, Will H. Hays, a member of the RNC, remarked, “Thank God. We have a chance to carry Indiana.” (Thomas Robins interview, n.d. [TRB].) For an account of Hughes’s boxed-in campaign, See S. D. Lovell,
The Presidential Election of 1916
(Carbondale, Ill., 1980).
30
For the sake of
Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 198;
The New York Times
, 4 Oct. 1917; Irwin,
A History of the Union League Club
, 184–85.
31
Four days later
The New York Times
, 8 Oct. 1916.
32
It cruised into
Syracuse Herald
, 8 Oct. 1916;
The New York Times
, 8 Oct. 1916.
33
He added, smiling
Ibid.;
Logansport
(Ind.)
Tribune
(AP dispatch), 8 Oct. 1916.
34
“The first British ship”
The New York Times
, 8 Oct. 1916.
35
Throughout the day
Newport Mercury
, 14 Oct. 1916;
The New York Times
and
Trenton
(N.J.)
Evening Times
, 9 Oct. 1916.
36
President Wilson remained
Trenton
(N.J.)
Evening Times
, 9 Oct. 1916.
37
“Now the war”
The New York Times
, 11 Oct. 1916.
38
“Old trumps”
Stoddard,
As I Knew Them
, 319. TR had been speaking earlier this night at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn, not, as Stoddard remembers, at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.
Biographical Note:
Around this time, TR was asked by Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, to endorse Madison Grant’s
The Passing of the Great Race
(New York, 1916), a pro-Nordic racist diatribe with little foundation in science. “I hope … you may find an opportunity of saying something about it,” Osborn wrote on 16 Oct., “for at this time when the melting pot theory is so popular we cannot dwell too strongly on the value to this country of the finer elements.” TR received and read the book, with his usual speed, on the last day of the month, and responded to Osborn with some uncertainty. “It is suggestive and stimulating, as is true of Gobineau’s and Chamberlain’s books [see above, 647]; it shares their faults, and absolutely lacks the very qualities which Huxley and Darwin so eminently showed.” He said he needed to discuss the question of an endorsement over lunch. Osborn (to whom TR owed many Brazil-related favors) appears to have been a persuasive advocate. TR then allowed his name to be used in publicizing
The Passing of the Great Race
, doing lasting damage to his reputation.
He immediately regretted what he had done. On 15 Nov., Worral F. Mountain, the mayor of East Orange, N.J., visited TR and listened while “he tore
paragraph after paragraph of Grant’s book to pieces of pure facts, and quoted not only American, but German and French historians as his authority.… He pathetically regretted that the book had been dedicated to him.” Osborn / TR correspondence (AMNH); Worrall Mountain diary, 15 Nov. 1916, photocopy provided to author by Thomas R. Mountain (AC). See also Dyer,
TR and the Idea of Race
, 17, and John P. Jackson, Jr., and Nadine M. Weidman,
Race, Racism and Science
(Santa Barbara, Calif., 2004), 110ff.
39
a pair of British steamers
The New York Times
, 31 Oct. 1916.
40
“Just what”
Leary, notebook 3, 3 Nov. 1916 (JJL).
41
eleven of the nineteen
The New York Times
, 1, 2 Nov. 1916. Five more Progressives, including William Allen White, publicly approved the pro-Democrat statement, but declined to endorse WW.
42
“Sir, when I”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1122.
43
During the last
Speech transcript from
The New York Times
, 4 Nov. 1916.
44
Roosevelt threw
Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 332–33.
45
Mr. Wilson now dwells
The New York Times
, 4 Nov. 1916. Leary makes clear that these last two paragraphs were delivered extempore. At TR’s final, disgusted gesture, “the house was on its feet … storming the platform.” Leary, notebook 3, 3 Nov. 1916 (JJL).
46
“The old man’s”
Leary, notebook 5, 5 Nov. 1916 (JJL); see also Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 3.
47
Wilson took the news
Tumulty,
Woodrow Wilson
, 218.
48
“I hope you are”
Alice Hooper to Frederick Jackson Turner in Turner,
Dear Lady
, 221.
49
Roosevelt began to pack
TR,
Letters
, 8.1133. By executive order in 1903, TR had transferred to the Library of Congress the papers of Presidents Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe as well as those of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. He now offered his own, asking only that they be held confidential until his death. The papers, forming the nucleus of TRP, arrived at the library in the new year of 1917 in six enormous locked trunks. “The Lord only knows where the key is,” TR advised. “Break the cases open, and start to work on them!” Today, TRP consists of approximately a quarter of a million items. For the full story of its acquisition, see the introduction by Paul T. Heffron to the TRP Index at
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem.heffron
.
50
“I am of no use”
Garland,
My Friendly Contemporaries
, 128–29.
51
leadership changes
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 423. Zimmermann was the political ally of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, who by late 1916 had replaced Falkenhayn as the virtual dictators of Reich war policy.
52
The German ambassador
Fort Wayne News
, 9 Oct. 1916; Grey to Balfour, pencil draft inscribed “about end of Nov / 16” (AJB).
53
The document Bernstorff
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.245–46.
54
“The President’s”
Spring Rice to Balfour, 15 Dec. 1916 (AJB).
55
Four days later
The New York Times
, 21 Dec. 1916.
56
“If the contest”
Ibid., 21 Dec. 1916.
57
Secretary Lansing felt
Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 422.
58
Roosevelt, massively attired
Leary, notebook 5 (JJL).
59
a sample list
The New York Times
, 11 Jan. 1917.
60
certain phrases glinted
Edgar E. Robinson and Victor J. West,
The Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson, 1913–1917
(New York, 1918), 126–28.
61
On 22 January
Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 424–25.
62
It was inconceivable
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.250–52.
63
only moderate applause
Florence Spring Rice (eyewitness) to unnamed aunt, 9 Feb. 1917 (CSR).
64
the German foreign minister was
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.256–58.
65
“as if the world”
House,
Intimate Papers
, 1.439.
66
House knew what
Ibid., 2.84.
67
Captain Rose of the U
-53
Trenton
(N.J.)
Evening Times
, 3 Feb. 1917.
68
“If American ships”
The Washington Post
, 4 Feb. 1917 (italics added). The
Housatonic
, a freighter loaded with wheat, was sunk at noon GMT, i.e., 7
A.M
. Washington time, so WW undoubtedly knew about the disaster when he went before Congress at 2
P.M
. However, there was no confirmation that any of the 26 Americans aboard had been killed, and whether Rose had broken international law. In fact he had not.
69
The water cocks
Trenton
(N.J.)
Evening Times
, 3 Feb.,
The Washington Post
, 4 Feb.,
Mansfield
(Ohio)
News
, 17 Feb. 1917.
70
Sir: I have
TR,
Letters
, 8.1149–50.
71
“No situation”
Ibid.
72
“In view of”
TR to Baker (facsimile), 3 Feb. 1917; Palmer,
Newton D. Baker
, 1.194.
73
Over the past
Palmer,
Newton D. Baker
, 1.116–17. See Baker’s reminiscence of the transformative effect of World War I, quoted in ibid., for the lucidity of expression that used to be the norm among American public figures.