Colonel Roosevelt (169 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
57
“I don’t care a continental”
Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 239.
58
Kermit was at Plattsburg
TR,
Letters
, 8.1194.
59
“My dear General”
Ibid., 8.1193.
60
Pershing replied
TR,
Letters
, 8.1193. The general did not add that he agreed with Baker and Wilson about the unwisdom of sending a TR-headed division to Europe. Cowley,
The Great War
, 417.
61
“army of the air”
Cowley,
The Great War
, 294.
62
“Colonel Roosevelt is”
Quoted in a memo by Parker, ca. 1928, transcribed and edited by Gary L. Lavergne in “John M. Parker’s Confrontation with Woodrow Wilson,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
, 10.2. During his interview with WW on the afternoon of 18 May 1917, Parker enraged the President by calling him an “autocrat” and “hired man of the people.”
63
“Never, except”
Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 115. TR’s only ally in the Wilson administration wrote years later, “The only fault I ever had to find in him was that he took defeat too hard.” Anne W. Lane and Louise H. Wall, eds.,
The Letters of Franklin K. Lane
(New York, 1922), 306.
64
“as good American”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1195–97.
65
“It is possible”
The New York Times
, 28 May 1917.
66
“I told Wilson”
Pringle,
TR
, 599.
67
secretly become engaged
QR recalls their betrothal this month in a letter to Flora Whitney, ca. Nov. 1917 (FWM).
68
Edith Roosevelt had taken
QR to Flora Whitney, 15 Nov. 1917 (FWM); EKR to QR, quoted in QR to Flora Whitney, 18 May 1918 (FWM). EKR was a woman whose affection had to be earned by prospective daughters-in-law. Eleanor qualified by virtue of shared Mayflower ancestors. Belle, regrettably, was a Democrat. Grace was too independent and pushy. Flora was a touch
nouveau
, but she had been received by British royalty, and there was much to be said for her expectations. Moreover, the girl spoke French as well as QR, and might pass for a Parisienne with her darkness and smallness and balletic way of posing for photographs.
69
“Ah, Fouf”
QR to Flora Whitney, 28 May 1917 (FWM).
70
He was a year
Palmer,
Newton D. Baker
, 1.287; McGerr,
A Fierce Discontent
, 289; Palmer,
Newton D. Baker
, 1.287;
The New York Times
, 9 Apr. 1917.
71
The war had so
QR to KR, 19 June 1917.
72
Flora was as sure
For a full account by Thomas Fleming of the love affair of QR and Flora Whitney, see Cowley,
The Great War
, 286–303.
73
Ted and Archie
EKR diary, 20 June 1917 (TRC); TR to Lloyd George, 20 June 1917 (TRC). See also TR,
Letters
, 8.1201–3; Longworth,
Crowded Hours
, 256–57; EKR diary, 14 July 1917 (TRC).
74
Quentin simultaneously
The New York Times
, 15 July 1917; Parsons,
Perchance Some Day
, 265.
75
He told Edith
EKR diary, 21 July 1917 (TRC); TR,
Letters
, 8.1356.
76
Dearest
… Flora to QR, 19 July 1917 (FWM).
77
On Monday morning
EKR diary, 23 July 1917 (TRC); EKR to ERD, 23 July 1917 (TRC).
78
She murmured
Flora to ERD, 24 July 1917 (FWM); Longworth,
Crowded Hours
, 257–58.
26: T
HE
H
OUSE ON THE
H
ILL
1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 81.
2
“I have always believed”
TR to H. C. Stokes, 5 Aug. 1914 (TRC).
Biographical Note:
TR’s last major statement on religion, an essay entitled “Shall We Do Away with the Church?” appeared in
Ladies’ Home Journal
, Oct. 1917. It confirmed that faith, for him, was a social rather than spiritual force. Decrying clerical formalism as “the enemy of religion” from the days of the Pharisees to those of modern “ultra-sabbatarians,” he argued that nevertheless, “a churchless community … is a community on the rapid downgrade.” Conversely, communities already depressed by economic or other misfortune, such as the “abandoned-farm” regions of New York and the poor-white South, became revitalized when church activities resumed. The church was a sort of moral gymnasium: to attend Sunday services was to “tone up” one’s system for the rest of the week. Communal worship gave the individual a sense of belonging to a larger whole. It helped resolve the opposing tensions of “envy and arrogance.” There was much to be said, too, for the aesthetic beauty of the litany and religious music. TR acknowledged that charismatic evangelists could arouse “that flame of the spirit which mystics have long known to be real and which scientist now admit to be real,” but he noted that such ardor subsides quickly. He was contemptuous of Calvinism because of its “tendency to confuse pleasure and vice.” The ideal faith was democratic rather than domineering, and valued good works over dogma.
3
He was being punished
In an impotent gesture, TR published his entire correspondence with Newton D. Baker in the Aug. 1917 issue of
Metropolitan
magazine.
4
“I love you, dearest”
QR to Flora Whitney, 23 July 1917 (FWM).
5
“Flora came over”
TR to QR, 28 July 1917 (FWM).
6
It was too early
Flora to QR, 18 Dec. 1917; Flora to ERD, 24 July 1917 (FWM).
7
“I am so sorry”
Flora to ERD, 24 July 1917 (FWM).
8
On 9 August
TR,
Letters
, 8.1221–22. ABR was transferred to the Twenty-sixth Infantry in late July 1917. ABR, “Lest We Forget.”
9
“I had no idea”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1221–22.
10
In a snub
The New York Times
, 8 Aug. 1917; TR to Julian Street, ca. 8 Aug. 1917 (JS). Taft had his own joke during this period of delay-plagued mobilization. “When I see the way things are going in Washington, it makes my blood fairly boil,” he told Albert Beveridge. “But when I think how much madder they must make T.R., I feel a whole lot better.” Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 200.
11
symptoms of extreme stress
Carleton B. Case,
Good Stories About Roosevelt
(Chicago, 1920), 115; TR,
Letters
, 8.1207; EKR to KR, 19 Aug. 1917 (KRP).
12
“an absolutely selfish”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1224. For an example of TR’s paranoia about WW at this time, see his reprimand to William Allen White for a making a complimentary reference to the President in ibid., 8.1197–99.
13
Seven months after
TR to KR, 10 Dec. 1917 (TRC); TR,
Letters
, 8.1225.
14
He was diverted
KR to TR, 12 Aug. 1917 (KRP); TR,
Letters
, 8.1226–27.
15
Another thing
Eleanor B. Roosevelt,
Day Before Yesterday
, 77–78; TR,
Letters
, 8.1207.
16
“One of the”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1229.
17
Dearest Quentin
Original in TRC.
18
“I confess”
QR to Flora Whitney, 19 Aug. 1917 (FWM).
19
“appalling reality”
Ibid.
20
“The thing that”
Ibid.
21
called on to interpret
QR to Flora Whitney, 20 Aug. 1917 (FWM).
22
Flora registered
QR to EBR, 20 Jan. 1918 (TRJP). Flora’s later feelings about Edith Normant are suggested by a large cross drawn over the girl’s image in a photograph QR sent her. Scrapbook, 17 Feb. 1918 (FWM).
23
“Ah, dearest”
QR to Flora Whitney, 31 Aug. 1917 (FWM).
24
Among the lucrative
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 415; H. J. Whigham interviewed by Hermann Hagedorn, 12 May 1949 (TRB).
25
It was therapeutic
EKR to KR, 19 Aug. 1917 (KRP); TR,
Letters
, 8.1347.
26
No less a bandmaster
EKR to KR, 22 Sept. 1917 (KRP);
Oakland Tribune
, 23 Sept. 1917; Kenneth S. Lynn,
Hemingway
(New York, 1987), 68. TR’s contributions to the paper were posthumously collected and published as
Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials
(Boston, 1921).
27
The Roosevelts moved
The New York Times
, 27 Sept. 1917; TR,
Letters
, 8.1243.
28
Edith became concerned
EKR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 26 Sept. 1917 (TRC); Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 553; unidentified news photographs, Sept. 1917, Pratt Collection scrapbook (TRB).
29
Other women
EKR to Ruth Lee, 26 Sept. 1917 (AL); Mary Roberts Rinehart,
My Story
(New York, 1931), 241; Ida Tarbell in Baker, notebook XIV.74–75 (RSB); EKR to ERD, mid-Oct. 1917 (ERDP).
30
“The household enthralls”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1246.
31
“What’s the matter”
Jack Cooper interviewed by J. F. French, ca. 1922 (TRB).
32
Cooper said that
Ibid.
33
The Reducycle, a machine
Ibid.
34
“Cooper’s not”
EKR diary, 22 Oct. 1917 (TRC). TR had, nevertheless, reduced his waist measurement by “three or four inches,” according to EKR’s count, “and he is just
hard
muscle.” EKR to KR, 27 Oct. 1917 (KRP).
35
Flora received
QR to Flora Whitney, 9, 13 Sept. 1917 (FWM).
36
“I don’t see”
QR to Flora Whitney, 15, 25 Sept. 5 Dec., Oct. 1917 (FWM).
37
She felt the same
Flora Whitney to QR, 1 Nov. 1917 (EDRP).
38
He confessed to her
QR to Flora Whitney, 15 Nov., 11 Oct. 1917 (FWM).
39
Belle had allowed
The New York Times
, 27 Sept. 1917.
40
For Theodore Roosevelt
Boston Evening Transcript
photograph, ca. 4 Oct. 1917 (KRP); TR,
Letters
, 8.1245.
41
At the beginning of November
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 474–77.
42
The Willy-Nicky Correspondence
New York, 1918.
43
“the folly of”
Ibid., iii.
44
The Foes of Our Own Household
New York, 1917. Reprinted in TR,
Works
, 21.
45
He argued that
The Nation
, 15 Nov. 1917.
46
The critic was
Ibid.
47
“I have never”
To TR, 8 Oct. 1917, Georges Clemenceau,
Correspondance, 1858–1928
(Paris, 2008), 523.
48
Flora no longer
In an effort to cheer Flora (and himself) up, TR took her with him on a short speaking trip to Toronto at the end of November. His rapturous reception in that city, where he spoke in favor of Canada’s Victory Loan, served only to intimidate Flora.
The New York Times
, 27 Nov. 1917.
49
There is ruin
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 82.
27: T
HE
D
EAD
A
RE
W
HIRLING WITH THE
D
EAD
1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 355.
2
partying with the Ned McLeans
Longworth,
Crowded Hours
, 266.
3
The Colonel agreed
Wallace,
Sagamore Hill
, 1.30.
4
“If you wish to”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1266–67.
5
Ted and Dick Derby
Eleanor B. Roosevelt,
Day Before Yesterday
, 77–78; TR,
Letters
, 8.1266–67.
6
This imbalance
The United States had declared war on Austria-Hungary on 7 Dec. 1917.
7
mud and
Scheisse
The latter was real. Torrential rains, combined with British bombardment of the clay fields around Passchendaele, destroyed the area’s intricate sewage system and turned the mud into a slough of human and animal waste.
8
On Saturday, 5 January
Cooper,
Woodrow Wilson
, 321; Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.446; Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 482–83; Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 470–71.
9
Wilson presented
Lloyd Morris,
Not So Long Ago
(New York, 1949), 414; Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 471. For a newsman’s take on the hyperactive Creel, who may have been an inspiration to Joseph Goebbels, see Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5, chap. 21.