The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (155 page)

73.
Put.62.

74.
Qu. Put.63–4.

75.
Ib., 63.

76.
One wonders if TR Sr. ever mentioned this incident to Mrs. Sattery at her Night School for Little Italians. Teedie innocently describes at least two other incidents which indicate that his father’s charity was not unmixed with contempt. At Pompeii, he tossed pennies at beggars, until one of them “transgressed a rule made by Papa who whiped him till he cried then gave him a sou.” And at Sorrento, TR Sr. joined Mr. Stevens in washing the faces of two grimy street urchins with champagne. TR.DBY.156; Rob.49.

77.
Contemporary parents might be interested to know what gifts a small boy of good family received a hundred years ago. “I had a beautiful hunt [picture] with all kinds of things in it … 2 lamps and an inkstand on the ancient pompeien style and a silver sabre, slippers, a gold helmet and cannon besides the ivory chammois. I have beautiful writing paper, a candle stick on the Antiuke stile. A mosaic 1,500 years old and 3 books, 2 watch cases, 9 big photographs and an ornament and a pair of studs.” TR.DBY. 141–2.

78.
Rob.47. The Pope was Pius IX.

79.
Put.68.

80.
COW.

1.
TR.DBY.235–6.

2.
Rob.8–9.

3.
TR Sr. to B, Sep. 6, 1870 (TRC).

4.
Rockwell, A.D.,
Rambling Recollections
(NY, 1920) 261.

5.
Rob.50.

6.
John Wood in
N.Y. World
, Jan. 24, 1904; COW; Put.72–3.

7.
COW;
N.Y. World
, Sep. 4, 1895 (states that Mrs. Gerry, matriarch of the Goelet house, kept cattle there until 1880); also see the Strong, George Templeton,
Diary
(N.Y., 1952) Sep. 26, 1863: “Everybody that passes [Goelet’s] courtyard stops to look … at his superb peacocks, golden pheasants, silver pheasants, California quail, and so on.” Rob.50.

8.
Contrast his diary entries of Aug. 1, 1870, with, e.g., Aug. 2, 1871 (TR.DBY.237, 241–2).

9.
TR.DBY.247, 254.

10.
J. van Vechten Olcott, childhood companion, qu. FRE.

11.
Mor.6; Rob.55.

12.
TR.Auto. 19–20.

13.
Ib., 19. See also TR.Wks.5.385.

14.
For TR’s auditory sensitivity as a teenager, see, e.g., his
Field Notes on Natural History, 1874–75
(TRC). The entire 60-page document is alive with “harsh twitters, wheezy notes, trills and quavers, shrill twitters, chirps, pipings, loud rattling notes, wierd, sad calls, hisses, tap-taps, gushing, ringing songs, rich bubling tones, lisping chirps,
guttural qua, qua’s, hissing whistles” etc., etc.

15.
TR.Auto.29–30.

16.
Hag.Boy.39–40; Put.76; TR.Auto.30. For another boy’s recollections of this summer, see Igl.44–8.

17.
Put.79–80; Rob.55; TR.Auto.21; TR.DBY. 341, 302.

18.
TR.Auto.20; Put.78.

19.
TR.DBY.264. From now on, self-evident quotes from this source will not be cited individually.

20.
COW; Rob.56.

21.
Elliott to TR Sr., Sep. 19, 1873 (FDR).

22.
TR.DBY.
passim;
Put.87.

23.
Rob.56; COW; Put.88 ff.

24.
Put.92.

25.
Qu. Rob.56–7.

26.
COW; Rob.57.

27.
TR.DBY.304.

28.
Mor.6.

29.
Put.90.

30.
Ib., 84, 93.

31.
Rob.63; TR.DBY.311–2; Put.93.

32.
TR.DBY.313.

33.
Ib., 322.

34.
Put.102–104; Rob.69.

35.
Encyclopaedia Britannica;
Put.102.

36.
Put.103, 108 fn; Rob.70, 80; TR.Auto.22.

37.
Mor.10–11.

38.
TR.Auto.21; Mor.8.

39.
See TR.Auto.23.

40.
Rob.72, 84.

41.
Mor.9.

42.
TR.Auto.22.

43.
Put.105.

44.
Children of the widow of Mittie’s half-brother Stuart Elliott (Put.102 fn.)

45.
One anonymous item in this book is worth quoting:
There was an old fellow named Teedie,/Whose clothes at the best looked so seedy/ That his friends in dismay/ Called out “Oh! I say”/ At this dirty old fellow named Teedie
. (Orig. in TRC).

46.
Qu. Put.107.

47.
Qu. Put.108.

48.
Mor.10-11.

49.
Put.108.

50.
Vierick, Louise,
Success Magazine
, October 1905.

51.
Rob.88.

52.
TR Sr. to Mittie, July 11, 1873 (TRC). Cutler was a brilliant young Harvard graduate who had left the wool business in order to prepare the children of wealthy families for college. Other Cutler pupils included J. P. Morgan, Harry Payne Whitney, and John D. Rockefeller (Igl.59–60).

53.
TR Sr. to Mittie, Oct. 5, 1873. Cornelius van Schaak Roosevelt, who died in 1871, left his four sons, including TR Sr., $10 million in equal shares. (Las. 4.) TR Sr.’s glass business continued to prosper until he sold it in January 1876 (PRI. n.). See Rob.5 for TR Sr.’s founding of the Orthopaedic Hospital.

54.
COW; photographs in TRB; fragmentary letter from TR Sr. to Mittie, c. August 1873; another dated Sep. 21.

55.
COW; memorandum by Arthur H. Cutler in TRC.

56.
TR. Sr. to MBR, Oct. 2, 1874 (TRC).

57.
Put.117; Rob.89.
Harper’s Weekly
, Sep. 1907, describes Tranquillity as “a fine old house under great trees close to the village.” Now demolished.

58.
COW; Par.
passim;
Put.119; Rob.95.

59.
Qu. Las.3. For TR’s bookishness, see Fanny Smith to C, July 1876: “If I were writing to Theodore I would have to say something of this kind, ‘I have enjoyed Plutarch’s last essay on the philosophy of Diogenes excessively.’ ” (qu.Rob.96.) Fanny’s
Perchance Some Day
(see Par. in Bibl.) is the most charming and the least cloying of Roosevelt family memoirs. Copy in TRC.

60.
Par. 31 ff.

61.
Cutler memorandum. Walt McDougall, in
This Is the Life
(Knopf, 1926,
129–30), remembers TR as the village boys saw him, “undersized, nervous, studious … and somewhat supercilious besides.” Inevitably known as “Four Eyes,” he was game to fight but was forbidden to, on account of his spectacles.

62.
Mor.13; Cutler memo.

63.
TR to M, Aug. 6, 1896, TRC.

64.
TR.DBY.356.

65.
Donald Wilhelm, qu. Put. 125.

66.
Par.28, 140, 29.

67.
Ibid.

68.
TR to B, Sep. 20, 1886; Cutler memo. TR passed his second round of Harvard entrance exams in the spring of 1876.

69.
Rob.90.

70.
The phrase is Putnam’s, reflecting a conversation he had with Mrs. Joseph Alsop Sr. (Put.170 fn.)

Important sources not in Bibliography:
1. Wilhelm, Donald,
TR as an Undergraduate
(Boston, 1910). Copy in New York Public Library has the added value of irascible marginalia by another classmate, Richard W. Welling.

1.
Boston Daily Advertiser
, Oct. 27, 1876; Pri.31.

2.
Wilhelm,
Undergraduate
, 19. Hag. Boy.51–2 confirms this anecdote. See also Woo.1–2.

3.
Hag.Boy.15; Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart, TR’s classmate, at final Harvard History Lecture (un. clip, 1926, TRB).

4.
King, Moses,
Harvard and its Surroundings
(Cambridge, 1880)
passim;
Put. 129.

5.
Put. 131; Grant, Robert, “Harvard College in the Seventies,”
Scribner’s
May 1897; Thayer, William Roscoe,
TR: An Intimate Biography
(Houghton Mifflin, 1919) 16; Wis.19; Put.130. The majority of the students were Republicans (note in TRB).

6.
Qu. Pri.32.

7.
Pri.33–4. Put.135–6.

8.
Put.136.

9.
Mor.42; TR to B, Oct. 15, 1876.

10.
Pri.32; qu. Put.131.

11.
Wis.12: “he stood out.” Montage from Wilhelm,
Undergraduate
, 31, 35, 41, 54, 63; Pri.33; Welling, Richard, “My Classmate TR,”
American Legion Monthly
, Jan. 1929; Richard Saltonstall, qu. Put.138; Gilman, Bradley,
Roosevelt the Happy Warrior
(Little, Brown, 1921) 1–2.

12.
Welling, “Classmate,” 9.

13.
Anonymous reminiscence of TR Sr. in Philadelphia
Press
, April 7, 1903. The conversation took place at Moon’s Lake, N.Y., in Sept. 1876.

14.
Reminiscences of classmates William Hooper and Henry Jackson in HKB.

15.
Thomas Perry, qu. Put.140; Hag.Boy.54; Rii.27; Tha.21; PRI.n.

16.
Wilhelm,
Undergraduate
, 9.

17.
Mor. 16; Laughlin, J. Laurence, “Roosevelt at Harvard,”
Review of Reviews
, LXX (1924) 393 illus.; diagram by TR in letter to B, Oct. 6, 1876; TR to B, Sep. 30.

18.
TR to MBR, Oct. 29, 1876.

19.
Mor.23–4.

20.
Cut.10; Hag.Boy.54.

21.
Mor.26; ib., 23. TR also caused another disturbance this winter, according to Richard Welling: “Part of his initiation into a Harvard secret society was to sit in the gallery of a Boston theatre and applaud loudly during all the quiet moments throughout a performance of
Medea
, a task which he performed with such characteristic zeal that he was speedily invited to decamp.” Memo in PRI.n. See also Gilman,
Warrior
, 74.

22.
Not to mention a certain Annie Murray. See TR to B, Jan. 22, 1877.

23.
Memo by Martha Waldron Cowdin, future wife of Bob Bacon, in TRC. Elsewhere in PRI.n. Mrs. Bacon
remembers TR as “a campus freak, with stuffed snakes and lizards in his room, with a peculiar, violent vehemence of speech and manner, and an overwhelming interest in every thing.” 24. TR.Pri.Di. Feb. 8, 1880; ib., Oct.

24.
1878.

25.
See Wag.86–88.

26.
Put.141; TR.Pri.Di. Apr. 18, 1878.

27.
Mor.39; TR to B, Feb. 5, 1877; TR to MBR, Oct. 6, 1876; TR to B, Nov. 12, 1876.

28.
Wilhelm,
Undergraduate
, 31; Thayer,
TR
, Mor.25.

29.
Gov. Curtis Guild Jr., qu. Wilhelm,
Undergraduate
, 31; John Woodbury, qu. ib., 41.

30.
Mor.27.

31.
Laughlin, “Harvard,” 395–8.

32.
Put.139; Thomas Perry, qu. ib.

33.
German, 92; Physics, 78; Classical Literature, 77; Chemistry, 75; Advanced Mathematics, 75. His other grades were Latin, 73, and Greek, 58 (Mor.25).

34.
Put.169; Mor.28.

35.
Ib., 26.

36.
Extract from TR’s notebook qu. Cut.16-17 (see also Ch. 2, Note 14); TR.Auto.24.

37.
“By far the best of the recent lists,” wrote the great biologist C. Hart Merriam in
Nuttall Ornithological Society Bulletin
. “It bears prima facie evidence of … exact and thoroughly reliable information.” See Paul Russell Cutright, “Twin Literary Rarities of TR,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
12 (1985) 2.

38.
Cut.3, 7, 8

39.
TR.Auto.25-6.

40.
TR.Pri.Di. May 20, 1878; Mor. 25–6; qu. Put.139.

41.
Rob.103.

42.
Put.135.

43.
Mor.29.

44.
Arthur was of course the future President of the United States. This account of the Collectorship crisis is based on Put.146–7 fn., supplemented by Mor.29, and family letters and diaries in TRC.

45.
Mor.31.

46.
Anna Bulloch Gracie, Diary 1877, TRC.

47.
TR.Pri.Di. Jan. 2, Dec. 11, 1878.

48.
Ib., Jan. 2, 1878; Put.148.

49.
Telegram of TR to A. S. Roosevelt, Feb. 9, 1878 (TRB);
N.Y. World
, Feb. 11, 1878; C to EKR, qu. Put.148; Elliott Roosevelt memorandum in TRC.

50.
Igl.39; Anna Bulloch Gracie, Diary Feb. 9, 1878. For tributes to TR Sr., see
N.Y. Telegraph
, Feb. 11;
Nation
, Feb. 14;
Tribune
, Feb. 18;
Harper’s Weekly
, Mar. 2, 1878.

51.
TR.Pri.Di. Feb. 12, 1878; qu. Put.149; TR.Pri.Di. Mar. 6, Apr. 25, Apr. 30, May 1.

52.
Ib., June 9, 1878.

53.
Ib., June 19, 1878.

54.
Rob.104; TR.Pri.Di. July 11, 14, 1878.

55.
Qu. Put.151.

56.
Rob.106.

57.
TR.Pri.Di. Feb. 23, 1878 (No student, according to Grant, “Seventies,” spent more than $2,000 a year in the 70s; most got by on $1,000 or $1,300); TR.Pri.Di. Feb. 28, May 15, 1878; TR to MBR, Mar. 24.

58.
TR.Pri.Di. May 23, June 17, 1878.

59.
Rob.106.

60.
Qu. Put.145; TR.Pri.Di. June 28, 1878.

61.
Rob.102; TR.Pri.Di. Aug. 10, 1878.

62.
Ib., Aug. 9, 22, 1878.

63.
Ib., Aug. 24, 1878. TR justified his cruelty, not very convincingly, by saying that the dog’s owner had been warned.

64.
Ib., Aug. 26, 1878.

65.
Ib., Sep. 1, 1878.

66.
Hag.Boy.59; “Bill Sewall Remembers TR” (interview with Alfred Gordon Munro, TRB—un. clip, c.
1901). Sewall told this story rather more confusingly in Sew.2–3 (1919). Putnam accepts the later version, while admitting it to be inconsistent. The earlier tallies with all available supporting evidence, and may be accepted as more reliable.