Colonel Roosevelt (138 page)

5
“He was smiling”
EKR quoted in Looker,
Colonel Roosevelt
, 143.

6
“Will you kindly”
Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 396.

7
“Think—for the first”
Ibid., 399.

8
Roosevelt embraced his sisters
Anna “Bamie” Roosevelt Cowles (1855–1931); Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (1861–1933).

9
Ted presented
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 339–40; Eleanor B. Roosevelt,
Day Before Yesterday
, 13–14.

10
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Franklin ought to go into politics,” TR wrote, after FDR’s campaign as a Democrat for the New York State Senate was announced. “…  He is a fine fellow.” (To Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 10 Aug. 1910 [ARC].) For the intertwined history of the Oyster Bay (Republican) and Hyde Park (Democratic) branches of the Roosevelt family, see Stephen Hess,
America’s Political Dynasties
(New York, 1966, 1996), 167ff.

11
“my original discoverer!”
The New York Times
, 19 June 1910. See Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 131–33.

12
latest issue of
The Outlook
TR, “Our Colonial Policy,”
The Outlook
, June 1910.

13
He had to turn
New York
World
, 19 June 1910.

14
“I am ready”
The New York Times
, 19 June 1910.

15
[We] figured it
Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 396.

16
Just above Franklin
The New York Times
, 19 June 1910.

17
“about five years ago”
Ibid.

18
That evening
The wording of this paragraph closely follows that of TR’s own account in TR,
Works
, 22.369.

19
He and his first wife
For TR’s marriage (1880–1884) to Alice Hathaway Lee, see Putnam,
TR;
Morris,
The Rise of TR;
and Michael Teague, “Theodore Roosevelt and Alice Hathaway Lee: A New Perspective,”
Harvard Library Bulletin
, 32.3 (Summer 1985).

20
Being a young widower
For a short account of TR’s tenure as squire of Sagamore Hill, 1880–1919, see Natalie Naylor, “Understanding the Place: Theodore Roosevelt’s Hometown of Oyster Bay and His Sagamore Hill Home,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
, 30.1–2 (Winter–Spring 2009). The most extended study is Hermann Hagedorn,
The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill
(New York, 1954).

21
“One thing”
The New York Times
, 19 June 1910.

22
a vow of political silence
TR’s vow was transmitted to WHT twice on 18 June, verbally by Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson and in a note delivered by Archie Butt. (Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 404; Pringle,
TR
, 534.) For TR’s literary ambitions at this time, see Henry L. Stoddard,
As I Knew Them: Presidents and Politics from Grant to Coolidge
(New York, 1927), 327.

23
During the next
TR,
Works
, 22.370–71.

24
Birds of Oyster Bay
A copy of this extremely rare paper, printed in Mar. 1879, is in TRC.

25
Over the weekend
New York
World
, 19 June 1910;
New York Evening Post
and
Literary Digest
, 18 June 1910. A veteran journalist rated TR’s current candle-power as higher than that of Jack Johnson. Charles Willis Thompson,
Presidents I’ve Known and Two Near Presidents
(Indianapolis, 1929), 27.

26
the right to doze
For Taft’s somnolence, see Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 18, 504 (“I have never seen a man with such capacity for sleep”), and Irwin H. Hoover,
Forty-two Years in the White House
(Boston, 1934), 269.

27
were convinced
Morris,
Theodore Rex
, 508.

28
The letters Archie Butt
For the diplomatic role played by Archibald Butt in the writing of these letters, see Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 388–92. WHT made a show of reluctance over them (“I do not want to say anything at first which might mislead Roosevelt into thinking that I expect of desire advice”), but the querulous tone of the first letter speaks for itself. WHT declined to address TR as “Colonel” in his second communication, saying that plain “Mr.” was good enough.

29
“I do not know”
WHT to TR, 26 May 1910 (TRP).

30
Taft took credit for
Ibid.

31
“[They] have done”
Ibid. Henry Cabot Lodge was of the same angry opinion. Lodge to TR, 30 Apr. 1910 (TRP).

32
He mentioned
WHT to TR, 14 June 1910 (WHTP).

33
Now, my dear
TR,
Letters
, 7.89.

34
Two days later
Joseph H. Choate (eyewitness) to Carrie Choate, ca. 1910 (HKB); Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 262–63.

35
“I am like Peary”
Charles G. Washburn,
Theodore Roosevelt: The Logic of His Career
(Boston, 1916), 166. A copy of the exquisite dinner program is preserved in SUL.

36
“I am very much pleased”
Thomas Dreier,
Heroes of Insurgency
(Boston, 1910), 30. Quoted in Pringle,
TR
, 535. Actually, La Follette was far from being pleased. Ambitious to run for the presidency on a progressive platform, he got the feeling, during this visit, that TR had similar designs. For the political
pas de deux
now embarked on by both men—full of courtly gestures, solo variations, and teetering
levées
(with La Follette constantly afraid that he would be dropped), see Herbert F. Margulies, “La Follette, Roosevelt and the Republican Presidential Nomination of 1912,”
Mid-America
, 58.1 (1976).

37
Most of the pilgrims
In private, the progressives were not so circumspect. “Glorious to have him back and ready to lead the great fight against special interest and for the common weal,” Garfield wrote in his diary. TR was reportedly “in absolute agreement” with the aims of Garfield and Pinchot, and asked them to work out for him a declaration of principles that he could publicly espouse. This would appear to be the nucleus of TR’s “New Nationalism” speech. James Garfield diary, 23 June 1910 (JRGP).

38
“He says he will”
Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 416.

39
Colonel Roosevelt is now
New York
World
, 20 June 1910.

40
“democracy of the heart”
Mowry,
TR
, 52.

41
a fifth of the general populace
The population of the United States in 1910 was 91,972,266, or 93,402,000 if Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico were included
(Encyclopaedia Britannica
, 11th ed. [1911]).

42
Roosevelt had been wary
Morris,
Theodore Rex
, 144–45 and
passim;
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.351.

43
“hideous human swine”
TR,
Letters
, 5.264. TR complained to Owen Wister, who as a young writer showed Zolaesque inclinations, “I think that
conscientious descriptions of the unspeakable
do not constitute an interpretation of life.… There’s nothing masculine in being revolting.” Wister,
Roosevelt
, 34.

44
From infancy, he had
Leary,
Talks with T.R.
, 208–9. “I have never known that wonderful experience of being ‘flat broke,’ ” TR told his old Rough Rider friend Jack Greenaway. Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 341.

45
His radicalism
In June 1910, TR was offered the presidency of the National Trades and Workers Association at the enormous salary of $100,000. He turned the job down.

46
Booker T. Washington
Ten years after their famous dinner, TR concluded that Washington was “the highest type of all-round man I have ever met.” Louis R. Harlan, ed.,
The Booker T. Washington Papers
(Urbana, Ill., 1972–1989), 1.439.

47
If he was less motivated
“Roosevelt,” WW sagely remarked, “never works the heart out of himself.” Arthur S. Link, ed.,
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson
(Princeton, N.J., 1966–1990), 56.

48
During Roosevelt’s absence
Herbert Croly,
The Promise of American Life
(New York, 1909). TR had ordered a copy of the English edition to be held for him in London. (TR,
Letters
, 7.76.) Gary Murphy, “Mr. Roosevelt Is Guilty: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for Constitutionalism, 1910–1912,”
Journal of American
Studies
, 36.3 (Dec. 2002) notes, “There is scarcely a theme or a recommendation of the New Nationalism which Roosevelt had not already enunciated before Croly’s work.”

49
“An individuality such”
Croly,
The Promise of American Life
, 174. An odd feature of this book, published nine months after TR’s departure from the White House, was that it consistently spoke of him as if he were still in power. On 4 Oct. 1910, Ray Stannard Baker noticed the book lying on TR’s desk at Sagamore Hill, “with passages heavily scored and pages on the fly-leaf with references.” Notebook K, 153 (RSB).

50
Roosevelt’s Special Message
Morris,
Theodore Rex
, 506–8. Mowry,
TR
, 34, dates the “rebirth” of progressive reform (after its earlier trial run as populism) to 1902, the
annus mirabilis
of TR’s first term. Except for Robert M. La Follette, then in his own first term as governor of Wisconsin, “Roosevelt stood virtually alone as a nationally known progressive Republican.”

51
The issues he raised then
The complete text of TR’s Special Message of 31 Jan. 1908 is reprinted in TR,
Letters
, 6.1572–91.

52
The opponents
TR,
Letters
, 6.1587.

53
converging at state and local levels
The phrase is taken from John Allen Gable,
The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party
(Port Washington, N.Y., 1978), 9.

54
“Is this not”
Literary Digest
, 25 June 1910, quoted in Gable,
The Bull Moose Years
, 9. This was a commentary on a widely publicized prediction, by the chairman of the Roosevelt Club of St. Paul, Minn., that TR, Gifford Pinchot, and James Garfield were destined to lead a new party with a progressive agenda.

55
The fact that
Hechler,
Insurgency
, 217; Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
, 300–301. For a full account of this purge, and WHT’s role in it, see Mowry,
TR
, chap. 4.

56
“I might be able”
TR,
Letters
, 7.74.

57
On 29 June
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.447. Sullivan was an eyewitness to this encounter.

58
Cannily, he emphasized
Davis,
Released for Publication
, 192.

59
Many times
See, e.g., Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 756.

60
He did not like
The satirist Finley Peter Dunne stated flatly, “Nobody liked Hughes—nobody at all.” Philip Dunne, ed.,
Mr. Dooley Remembers: The Informal Memoirs of Finley Peter Dunne
(Boston, 1963), 142.

61
Even Taft supported
Pringle,
Taft
, 560.

62
“Our governor”
The New York Times
, 30 June 1910.

63
After coffee
William N. Chadbourne interview, Apr.–May 1955 (TRB). A modern historian points out that TR had spent so many years in Washington that he had few close contacts in the state GOP. John Allen Gable, “The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, 1912–1916” (Ph.D. diss., Kenyon College, 1965), 16.

64
“What shall I do?”
Chadbourne interview, Apr.–May 1955 (TRB).

65
“I believe”
TR,
Letters
, 7.97. The wording of TR’s telegram allowed for the fact that he did not personally attach much value to the direct primary. He told Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard, that same day that the machine would soon manage to manipulate it. (Lowell to Owen Wister, 8 Aug. 1930 [OW].) Wister writes of TR’s commitment to help Hughes: “In all his life, I see no decision more crucial than this one.” Trifling in itself, it largely determined the future course of his life. Wister,
Roosevelt
, 280–82.