Colonel Roosevelt (130 page)

10
His Nobel
In the opinion of a modern expert on foreign policy, TR “approached the global balance of power with a sophistication matched by no other American president.” Henry Kissinger,
Diplomacy
(New York, 1994), 41.

11
That does not stop him
Theodore Roosevelt,
The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt
, Elting E. Morison, John Blum, et al., eds., 8 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1951–1954), 1.324. Henceforth TR,
Letters
.

12
Such are the intellectual
TR quoted in memorandum, “Curtis at the Conference,” 20 Aug. 1887 (HKB). TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, 15 Feb. 1887; TR,
Letters
, 1.509; TR,
Works
, 5.4. For a typical statement of TR’s philosophy of activism, see TR, “Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers,”
Works
, 15.379.

13
Having spent much
See David H. Burton, “Theodore Roosevelt and His English Correspondents: A Special Relationship of Friends,”
Transactions of the America Philosophical Society
, n.s., 63, pt. 2 (1973). Great Britain and Germany had agreed in 1890 to partition inland East Africa, while allowing the sultanate of Zanzibar to continue in control of the coastal strip. Relations between the two protectorates were testy. Britain scored a strategic coup in 1903, when its 584-mile Mombasa–Kisumu railroad opened for business, with the intent of connecting British East Africa to Lake Victoria and the Nile. But the venture was hugely expensive, and looked unlikely ever to pay for itself unless enough white farmers could be coaxed to develop the countryside it traversed. Hence the eagerness of British imperialists to assist TR’s safari, in the hope he would encourage settlement of the Protectorate in his book—seen as a certain international bestseller.

14
“I am the only”
TR en route to Africa, ca. 28 Mar. 1909, quoted in E. Alexander Powell,
Yonder Lies Adventure
(New York, 1932), 319.

15
Fifty-six eminent
TR,
Works
, 5.24–25. The list of gun donors included the Duke and Duchess of Bedford; the Earls of Lonsdale and Warwick; Lord Curzon, former viceroy of India; Sir Edward Grey, British foreign minister; Sir George Otto Trevelyan, historian; and Col. J. H. Patterson, author of
The Man-Eaters of Tsavo
.

16
Germany’s current arms buildup
Just before TR arrived in Mombasa, Austria-Hungary announced that it, too, would be laying down three new dreadnoughts.
(The Leader of British East Africa
, 10 Apr. 1909.) For a compact account of the British-German “Navy Scare of 1909,” see chap. 33 of Robert Massie,
Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War
(New York, 1991).

17
His safari has generated
TR’s financial arrangement with the Smithsonian was that he would pay all safari expenses incurred by himself and KR (about two-fifths of a total estimated cost of $50,000), leaving museum fund-raisers to cover the rest. This presupposed $20,000 from him ($385,000 in today’s [2010] dollars) and $30,000 ($533,000) from his sponsors, but early on it became clear that the safari was going to cost twice as much as he had planned. He was therefore obliged to solicit further funds, including $27,000 ($480,000) from Carnegie. All monetary equivalents are from Measuring Worth (
http://www.measuringworth.com/
).

18
He wants to show
Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 27; Sylvia Jukes Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady
(New York, 1980), 23–26; TR to EKR, n.d., ca. 7 Aug. 1909 (KRP).

19
“
Jambo Bwana King ya Amerik!
”
“Greetings, Lord King of America!” Quoted in Bartle Bull,
Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure
(New York, 1988), 169.

20
the largest safari yet mounted
For detailed accounts of the expedition, supplementary to TR’s own, see Bull,
Safari
, chap. 5, Wilson,
TR Hunter-Conservationist
, chap. 9, and Tweed Roosevelt, “Theodore Roosevelt’s African Safari,” in Natalie Naylor et al., eds.,
Theodore Roosevelt: Many-Sided American
(Interlaken, N.Y., 1992), 413–32. The size and scope of TR’s safari remains a record in Kenya history.

21
a third term in 1908
TR’s
first
term must be understood to have been the three and a half executive years he inherited from William McKinley, and his
second
the four years he won in the election of 1904. In his lifetime, there was no constitutional limit to the number of terms a president could serve.

22
Mount Kenya
In 1909, Kenya was spelled
Kenia
, and denoted only the highlands of British East Africa. Ten years later, the entire region down to the coast was renamed “Kenya Colony and Protectorate.”

23
“If I am where”
Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 251.

24
He has, besides
Bull,
Safari
, 160–63; Paul Russell Cutright,
Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist
(Urbana, Ill., 1985), 26–37, 169–82. TR’s youthful 622-item “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History,” featuring an impressive collection of Nile bird skins, was accepted by the Smithsonian in 1882. For TR’s conservation record as President, see Douglas Brinkley,
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
(New York, 2009). The classic work on the hunter-conservationist paradox is John F. Reiger,
American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation
, 3rd ed. (Corvallis, Ore., 2001).

25
this highly professional expedition
TR,
Works
, 5.5–6; Kermit Roosevelt,
The Long Trail
(New York, 1921), 44–45.

26
His son may not qualify
KR to EKR, 10 Aug. 1909 (KRP); Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 298. In the early days of the expedition, KR’s title of
Bwana Mdogo
became
Bwana Maridadi
(“Master Dandy”), a change not entirely to TR’s liking. However, the mandolin-strumming youth soon won general respect.

27
How Edith Roosevelt feels
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 347–49; EKR to Mrs. William D. Foulke, 7 Apr. 1909, Foulke Papers, Library of Congress.

28
By now she should
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 348; Archibald W.
Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide
, 2 vols. (New York, 1930), 25.

29
My dear Theodore
TR,
Letters
, 7.3–4.

30
“I am no hanger-on”
Ibid., 6.1230.

31
there is one title
TR to J. Alden Loring et al. on board SS
Hamburg
, quoted in Frederick S. Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him: The Personal Recollections of One Hundred and Fifty of His Friends and Associates
(Philadelphia, 1927), 221–22. See also Henry F. Pringle,
Theodore Roosevelt, A Biography
(New York, 1931), 510. On the very day TR quit the White House, he had pleasedly patted the shoulder of a reporter addressing him as “Colonel.” “This man knows how to flatter me.”
The New York Times
, 6 Mar. 1909.

32
If war ever comes
TR’s safari luggage contained a military greatcoat with gold braid round the sleeves. When preparing for his trip, he had to be dissuaded from ordering the elaborate dress uniform of a colonel of cavalry, to wear at formal events on his emergence from the jungle. EKR clinched the matter by threatening to match his outfit with that of a camp follower. (Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 333.) See Whitelaw Reid to TR (“My earnest advice would be not to wear it, since it would certainly attract enormous attention”), 23 Sept. 1908 (WR); Archibald Butt,
The Letters of Archie Butt: Personal Aide to President Roosevelt
, Lawrence F. Abbott, ed. (New York, 1924); Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 419.

33
“an outrage and an indecency”
TR to Roy W. Howard of United Press, 16 Mar. 1909 (TRP). See also TR,
Letters
, 6.1403–5; Gary Rice, “Trailing a Celebrity: Press Coverage of Theodore Roosevelt’s African Safari, 1909–1910,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
, 22.3 (Fall 1996).

34
A touch
bon marché
EKR to KR, 19 Oct. 1917 (KRP). TR’s $50,000 contract in 1909 would be worth $888,000 in 2010. (Measuring Worth) “I think there is such a thing as making too much money out of a given feat,” TR rather embarrassedly wrote Henry Cabot Lodge. (Lodge,
Selections
, 2.305.) He was also earning $12,000 ($213,000) a year as contributing editor of
The Outlook
.

35
He rides out to hunt
This excursion (24 Apr. 1909) is misdated in TR,
Works
, 5.27.