Colonel Roosevelt (171 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
67
If present trends
Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 496.
68
like summer lightning
The image is Eleanor’s, in
Day Before Yesterday
, 97.
69
Just as disturbing
EBR to mother, 4 June 1918 (TRJP); Eleanor B. Roosevelt,
Day Before Yesterday
, 97; official citation for “conspicuous gallantry” published in
Harvard Club Bulletin
, Aug. 1918 (KRP).
70
With this and
TR,
Letters
, 8.1338; QR to Flora Whitney, 2 June 1918 (FWM). QR to Flora Whitney, 2 June 1918 (FWM).
71
“La guerre est finie”
Cowley,
The Great War
, 424.
72
General Pershing tried
Strachan,
The First World War
, 298; Gilbert,
A History of the Twentieth Century
, 499.
73
On 7 June
EKR to KR, 9 June 1918 (KRP); Leary, notebook 9 (JJL); EKR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 16 June 1918 (CRR).
74
When they got back
EKR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 16 June 1918 (CRR).
75
“My joy for you”
TR to QR, 19 June 1918.
76
“He evidently felt”
QR to Flora Whitney, 17 June 1918 (FWM).
77
“It is really”
QR to ERD, 17 June 1918 (FWM); QR to Flora Whitney, 17 June 1918 (FWM).
78
“Colonel, one of”
TR to KR, 25 June 1918 (KRP).
79
a pile of books
One item on TR’s reading pile reflected his understandable new interest in combat flying. It was Henry Bordeaux’s
Le Chevalier de l’air: Vie héroïque de Guynemer
(Paris, 1918). TR appears to have read it in French, but he wrote an introduction to the American edition, translated by Louise M. Sill and published as
Georges Guynemer, Knight of the Air
(New Haven, Conn., 1918). With palpable concern for Quentin, he wrote that “the air service in particular is one of such peril that membership in it is of itself a high distinction.”
80
“I have finished”
TR to QR, 19 June 1918 (TRC).
81
a macabre souvenir
QR to Flora Whitney, 20 June 1918 (FWM).
82
“There’s no better”
QR to Flora Whitney, 23 Feb. 1918 (FWM).
83
“The real thing”
QR to EKR, 25 June 1918 (TRC); QR to Flora Whitney, 29 June 1918 (FWM). This posting was to Touquin, a patrol center for the area between Château-Thierry and Reims. QR was billeted in the adjacent village of Mauperthuis.
84
On the Fourth
Parsons,
Perchance to Dream
, 274.
85
Little tricolors
Ibid.
86
Six days later
QR to Flora Whitney, 11 July 1918 (FWM). A later letter from Hamilton Coolidge to Flora revealed that inexperience had something to do with this encounter: at first QR had “joined [the] Boche formation by mistake,” thinking it was his own. 16 July 1918 (FWM).
87
He and Eleanor
Eleanor B. Roosevelt,
Day Before Yesterday
, 100. During this visit, QR told EBR that if any of his family were to die in the war, he hoped it would be himself, because his other brothers and Dick all had children. “I think he had a very distinct feeling that he might never get home again,” EBR wrote her mother. 28 July 1918 (TRJP).
88
a little French town
Mauperthuis, adjacent to Saints and Touquin.
89
“O ruin!”
QR to Flora Whitney, 11 July 1918 (FWM).
90
“Whatever now befalls”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1351.
91
On the afternoon
TR to KR, 21 July 1918 (KRP);
The New York Times
, 18 July 1918; Philip Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys,”
McClure’s Magazine
, Nov. 1918; Hagedorn,
The Roosevelt Family
, 412.
92
“It seems dreadful”
TR to KR, 16 July 1918 (KRP).
93
Then a cable
John J. Pershing to TR, 17 July 1918 (ERDP). The chronology of events affecting TR and EKR over the next few days is somewhat confused, due to conflicting newspaper reports. It is reconstructed here on the basis of primary accounts. Pershing’s cable was not released to the press until late on 18 July.
94
At sunset
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 423.
95
“But—Mrs. Roosevelt?”
Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys.” By now (7:30
A.M
.), TR had at least informed EKR that QR was missing. Her telegram transmitting this news to ERD in Maine was received “early” on the 17th. ERD to Richard Derby, 17 July 1918 (ERDP).
96
He disappeared
Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys.”
97
“Quentin’s mother”
The New York Times
, 18 July 1918.
98
“I must go”
Bishop,
TR
, 2.452.
99
Telegrams of condolence
Josephine Stricker, “Roosevelt a Hero to His Private Secretary,” New York
Tribune
, 5 Oct. 1919.
100
“We must do”
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 423.
101
Roosevelt had no sooner
Hermann Hagedorn memo, 20 Sept. 1923 (HP).
Biographical Note:
The Harvard-educated Hagedorn (1882–1964) had attracted TR’s attention in 1912 by publishing a poem and contributing the fee ($10) to the Progressive Party. A friend and patron of Edwin Arlington Robinson, he began accumulating biographical materials on TR in 1917. His research materialized in three valuable if saccharine books,
The Boys’ Life of Theodore Roosevelt
(New York, 1918),
Roosevelt in the Bad Lands
(Boston, 1921), and
The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill
(New York, 1954). From 1918 on he dedicated most of his career to memorializing TR, editing the National and Memorial editions of TR’s collected works and serving as director of three successive Theodore Roosevelt associations. A letter TR wrote introducing Hagedorn to William W. Sewell in 1917 should serve as a model to public figures entrusting their lives to a responsible biographer: “I want you to tell him everything, good, bad and indifferent. Don’t spare me the least bit. Give him the very worst side of me you can think of, and the very best side of me that is truthful.… Tell him about our snowshoe trips.… Tell him about the ranch. Tell him how we got Red Finnegan and the two other cattle thieves. Tell him everything.” TR,
Letters
, 8.1244–45.
102
“Now, Colonel”
Hermann Hagedorn memo, 20 Sept. 1923 (HP).
103
Afterward Hagedorn noted
Pringle,
TR
, 601. See also Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 429–30.
104
Edith came
ERD to Richard Derby, 17 July 1918 (ERDP).
105
“Before the Colonel”
The New York Times
, 19 July 1918.
106
“My fellow voters”
Lafayette Gleason, verbatim transcript of TR’s remarks at Saratoga on 17 July 1918, preserved by Elmer R. Koppelmann. Copy in AC.
107
“Surely in this great crisis”
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 5.500.
108
Before he got
TR,
Letters
, 8.1341; WHT to TR, 19 July 1918 (WHTP); Bishop,
TR
, 2.453–54.
109
“I have only one”
Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 346.
110
QUENTIN’S PLANE
The New York Times
, 20 July 1918.
111
EVERY REASON
12:50
P.M
., 19 July 1918 (FWM).
112
Newspapers got
The New York Times
, 20 July 1918.
113
The Colonel, clutching
F. Trubee Davison interviewed by Mary Hagedorn, 30 Mar. 1955 (HH).
114
speech exquisitely calligraphed
One of these copies is preserved in the Pratt Collection (TRB). Included is an introduction by J. B. Millet, who collaborated on the speech, noting that after the first report of QR’s disappearance, he had suggested to TR that they postpone their work (presumably on the afternoon of 16 July). TR insisted on finishing it. “I saw by his manner, and by his kindly words to me, that it was a relief to have a subject before him to which he could give his whole heart.” Ibid.
115
“What hope”
Ibid. “It was one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of control and courage that I have ever seen.”
116
The telegram confirmed
WW to TR, 20 July 1918 (TRP).
117
On Saturday
Original in ERDP. Chamery is misspelled “Chambry.” According to an American POW who witnessed the ceremony on 15 July 1918, QR was buried in the presence of a detachment of approximately 1,000 German soldiers, with officers standing at attention before the ranks. “I was told afterward … that they paid Lieut. Roosevelt such honor not only because he was a gallant aviator, who died fighting bravely against odds, but because he was the son of Colonel Roosevelt, whom they esteemed as one of the great Americans.” Kermit Roosevelt,
Quentin Roosevelt
, 175–76.
28:
SIXTY
1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 97.
2
When American forces
A friend [“Bill”] to Flora Whitney, 10 Aug. 1918 (FWM). This description, reporting a personal visit to QR’s grave shortly after his burial, is cited as more primary than that given in Kermit Roosevelt,
Quentin Roosevelt
, 176.
3
The autopsy
Official German press announcement, relayed to the Roosevelts from the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, quoted in ERD to Flora Whitney, “Thursday,” July 1918 (FWM). See also Kermit Roosevelt,
Quentin Roosevelt
, 172–74.
4
Woodrow Wilson’s telegram
The New York Times
, 21 July 1918. See also EBR to mother, 19 July 1918 (TJRP).
5
“Ex-Tsar of Russia”
The official Russian wireless announcement quoted by
The Times
reported only Nicholas’s death on 16 July. His wife and son were said to be “in a place of security.” No mention was made of the four Romanov daughters.
6
That Sunday happened
ERD to Richard Derby, 21 July 1918 (ERDP).
7
They returned home
Ibid.; Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 346.
8
“Why not come”
ERD to Richard Derby, 22 July 1918 (ERDP).
9
brown-shingled “cottages”
Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.,
The Summer Cottages of Islesboro, 1890–1930
(Islesboro, Maine, 1989), 28 and
passim;
Belfast (Maine)
Republican Journal
, 1 Aug. 1918. Ethel’s summer home is now known as the Edward Adams Cottage. Other visual and atmospheric details in this section derive from a tour arranged for the author by the Islesboro Historical Society in Sept. 2006.
10
He and Edith arrived
EKR to KR, 28 July 1918 (KRP); Belfast (Maine)
Republican Journal
, 1 Aug. 1918.
11
“In time”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1360.
12
That was even
ERD to KR, 28 July 1918 (KRP); TR to ABR, 21 July 1918 (ABRP); ERD to Richard Derby, 21 July 1918 (ERDP).
13
“I can see”
TR to KR, 28 July 1918 (KRP).
14
Nevertheless, the place
TR,
Letters
, 8.1358; Belfast (Maine)
Republican Journal
, 1 Aug. 1918; Flora Whitney to ERD, 28 Aug. 1918 (ERDP).
15
“It is no use”
TR,
Letters
, 8.1360.
16
Even his poems
QR, untitled poem about star-gazing, 1915, preserved in FWM.
17
explosive rather than propulsive
“I
do
lack push, and I haven’t any idea why.” QR to Flora Whitney, ca. early May 1918 (FWM).
18
“black gloom”
Hamilton Coolidge memorial to QR, unfinished ms., copied in ERD to Flora Whitney, 4 June 1919 (FWM); Coolidge to Flora, 16 July 1918 (FWM).
19
As Edith had
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 397; EKR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 5 May 1912 (ARC).
20
Only in two
As far as one can tell, QR’s affair with Flora was unconsummated. His letters to her are devoid of any hint of sexual intimacy. One (6 Oct. 1917 [FWM]) loftily invokes the virtue of coming to marriage “clean and pure.” As such, it reads like an outtake from his father’s college diary of 38 years before. See Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 63.
21
Test-piloting
QR to ERD, 22 Dec. 1917 (ERDP); QR to Flora Whitney, 27 Jan. 1918 (FWM).
22
“The months that”
QR to Flora Whitney, 21 Feb. 1918 (FWM).
23
“His back will”
Quoted in ERD to KR, 25 Aug. 1918 (KRP).
24
“form succeeds form”
TR,
Works
, 14.70.
25
ptomaine poisoning
TR injudiciously ate lobster salad at an inland restaurant on 1 May, and the following evening, addressing a Liberty Loan rally in Boston, was overcome with violent abdominal pain and nausea. “He came near to having to leave the platform,” his host for the night recalled, “and only finished by one of those incredible acts of will, recalling the Hatha Yoga of India, by which he habitually … ignored physical pain and disability.” Before going to bed, TR dosed himself with one of his favorite medicines, ammonia. William Sturgis Bigelow to Hermann Hagedorn, 23 May 1919 (HH).