Colonel Roosevelt (152 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
89
“There was no other place”
Crozier, “Incidents in the Political Life of Theodore Roosevelt.”
90
His breathing hurt
TR,
Letters
, 7.705; Philip Roosevelt, “Politics of the Year 1912,” 58–59.
91
He was asleep
Davis,
Released for Publication
, 390, 393; Davis to George Perkins, 15 Oct. 1912 (AC); Gores, “The Attempted Assassination.”
92
Even at that
Chicago Tribune
, 16 Oct. 1912; Remey et al.,
The Attempted Assassination
, 71; photograph in Milwaukee County Historical Society collection.
93
At 10:30
Remey et al.,
The Attempted Assassination
, 66–67.
94
X-ray reproductions
One of these can be seen in ibid., 32.
95
The surgeon was closemouthed
Davis,
Murphy
, 267. Murphy privately told TR that a few splinters of rib bone had penetrated his pleura, and that his speech after the attack had aggravated the laceration. The surgeons were afraid that if they extracted the bullet immediately, “there might be either a collapse of the pleura or an infection of the pleural cavity.” Bishop,
TR
, 2.345.
96
The records show
Davis,
Murphy
, 268. One of the examining doctors remarked that TR’s musculature had much to do with the stopping of Schrank’s bullet. “Colonel Roosevelt has a phenomenal development of the chest.… He is one of the most powerful men I have ever seen laid on an operating table.” (Bishop,
TR
, 2.338–39.) A score for the 12-year-old Teedie Roosevelt in 1870–1871, “widening his chest by regular, monotonous motion.” Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 50.
97
Perhaps the best
Sylvia Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 387ff.
98
Dr. Murphy’s pointed reference
Davis,
Murphy
, 273, notes that the reference was “out of place” in a medical bulletin. “But in the light of the Colonel’s [libel] suit it grows evident that the patient had asked that some such allusion to liquor should be made.”
99
It was from
Davis,
Released for Publication
, 395.
100
Among the other
The New York Times
, 15, 16 Oct. 1912; Link,
Papers of Woodrow Wilson
, 25.421–22, 425. WW privately joked about the effect his courteous gesture would have on TR. “Teddy will have apoplexy when he hears of this.” Cooper,
Woodrow Wilson
, 170.
101
Similar messages
Davis,
Released for Publication
, 396;
The New York Times
, 16–18 Oct. 1912;
Chicago Tribune
, 21 Oct. 1912. The crowned heads included George V of England, Wilhelm II of Germany, Franz Joseph of Austria, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and the Emperor of Japan. For editorial reactions, domestic and international, to the attack on TR, see
The Outlook
and
Literary Digest
, 26 Oct. 1912.
102
He informed the judge
Remey et al.,
The Attempted Assassination
, 94–96; Gores, “The Attempted Assassination.”
103
After a week
TR,
Letters
, 7.632;
The New York Times
, 27, 28 Oct. 1912.
104
“I am in fine”
TR,
Letters
, 7.631–32.
105
Hiram Johnson was
The following description of TR’s appearance in the Garden is based on illustrated articles in
The New York Times
and
Syracuse Herald
, 31 Oct. 1912.
106
“Quiet, down there!”
Hagedorn,
The Roosevelt Family
, 325.
107
“—Perhaps not so”
The complete text of TR’s speech, entitled “The Purpose of the Progressive Party,” is in Gould,
Bull Moose
, 187–92.
108
This was
Gable, “The Bull Moose Years” (diss.), 270; Gould,
Bull Moose
, 188. TR’s appearance, at the Garden—stigmatized, suffering, elevated high above the
faithful—marked the climax of the quasi-Christian symbolism of his campaign. See, e.g., Robinson,
My Brother TR
, 275.
Chronological Note:
WW addressed a Democratic rally the following night, 31 Oct., and Tammany Hall timekeepers made sure that the ovation for him lasted half an hour longer than the one for TR. Ignoring medical advice, TR returned to the Garden on 2 Nov., still manifestly in pain, to speak on behalf of Oscar Straus’s gubernatorial candidacy. He then made a couple of election-eve appearances on Long Island. The last speech he made, at the Oyster Bay Opera House, was a furious reply to some minor criticisms leveled against him by Elihu Root. Heckscher,
Woodrow Wilson
, 262;
The New York Times
, 2, 5 Nov. 1912.
109
At seven the Colonel
EKR to KR, 6 Nov. 1912 (KRP); Cordery,
Alice
, 234.
110
The phone call
TR actually knew as early as 7:30
P.M
. that a landslide for WW impended, but the Democratic National Committee did not claim victory until 10:30. WW acknowledged his triumph at 10:45.
Atlanta Constitution
and
The New York Times
, 6 Nov. 1912.
111
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
The New York Times
, 6 Nov. 1912.
112
“Like all other”
New York Evening Post
, 6 Nov. 1912.
13: A P
OSSIBLE
A
UTOBIOGRAPHY
1
Epigraph
Robinson,
Collected Poems
, 16.
2
“Well, we have”
TR to KR, 5 Nov. 1912, ts. (TRC).
3
In his still-fragile
Ibid. After the last line, TR characteristically added, “I am absolutely happy and contented.” See also his posterity letter sent on the same date to Arthur Lee, in TR,
Letters
, 7.634–35.
4
“You know him”
EKR to KR, 6 Nov. 1912 (KRP).
5
Gradually, Roosevelt realized
In further analysis, TR ran second in 23 states, seven of them in the South, where his “lily-white” Party policy proved effective in weakening WHT’s machine support. He swept Pennsylvania with a 50,000-vote margin over WW, plus California with 11 out of 13 electoral votes, and Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Washington besides. He was only 1,000 votes behind WHT in Vermont, and 3,000 behind WW in Maine. The governor’s winning margins in North Dakota and Montana were not much greater, at 4,000 and 6,000. New York City rejected its native son by a plurality of 122,777 votes, but TR racked up convincing wins in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He performed strongly in the Midwest and West, and secured a majority of the nation’s normal GOP vote by a margin of more than half a million. (Gould,
Bull Moose
, 176–77;
Literary Digest
, 16 Nov. 1912; Gable,
The Bull Moose Years
, 131–32.) Gould points out that TR did not technically defeat WHT in either California or South Dakota, since the President was not on the ballot in those states.
6
stomped and burned
The New York Times
, 10 Nov. 1912.
7
Even if he
A progressive Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota received almost four times as many votes as the Progressive Party candidate. TR himself did best in states where the GOP vote was traditionally high. Potts, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party”; Gable,
The Bull Moose Years
, 132.
8
He would now
John Milton Cooper, in Naylor et al.,
TR
, 505, expresses a contrary view, suggesting that WW would have been nominated as the only possible foil to TR, and during the campaign would have attracted away from him much of WHT’s conservative/corporate support.
9
There remained
James E. Amos,
Theodore Roosevelt: Hero to His Valet
(New York, 1927), 147–48. “To me and to some of the others who were near him it always seemed that after the shooting things began to break against him. Up to that moment his life had been a rising scale of successes. People talked about his star and his destiny. Things broke for him. After that they broke the other way.”
10
poor Nick
Representative Longworth was defeated by only 97 votes—which ARL guiltily blamed on herself, for attending a Progressive rally in Columbus earlier in the year. He took solace in alcohol, breaking down completely on 13 Nov., to her “infinite sorrow and pity.” Cordery,
Alice
, 235–36.
11
Roosevelt admitted
TR to KR, 24 May 1913, ts. (TRC); Willard Straight to Henry P. Fletcher, 3 Oct. 1912 (STR). Apparently TR did not know that
The Outlook
had taken out a $25,000 accident insurance policy on him, and made a claim after he was incapacitated in Milwaukee. The insurance company argued that only TR could have claimed, and tried to have the policy voided. TR then mystifyingly announced that TR would not file any claim himself.
The New York Times
, 8, 9 Nov. 1912.
12
And he suspected
Encouraged by timid signals from Ethel, Dr. Derby had begun to press his suit again in October. Their ultimately fruitful, two-and-a-half-year romance is touchingly documented in WFP.
13
Roosevelt was willing
TR to KR, 11 Nov. 1912, ts. (TRC).
14
“I get from”
Ibid. TR’s
Outlook
salary was $12,000.
15
There remained
African Game Trails
sold 36,127 copies in 1910, about 4,700 copies in 1911, and about 1,019 copies in the first half of 1912. (Charles Scribner to TR, 7 Feb. 1911, 21 Feb. and 22 Aug. 1912 [SCR].) Author’s estimates based on payments to TR, where no sales figures are available.
16
Looking back
Charles Scribner to TR, 1 Feb. and 22 Aug. 1912 (TRP). TR had, all the same, an impressive total of 15 titles in print at the end of 1912, many of them in multiple editions, and all still earning royalties. This total did not include the “Elkhorn Edition” of his complete works to date (26 vols.), nor any of his foreign editions and translations.
Biographical Note:
The information in these paragraphs is based on scattered royalty statements and “stock accounts” sent to TR by his various publishers in 1912, and preserved in TRC. From 1913 through 1919 he appears to have earned a further $58,125 in advance payments and royalties. (TR file, SCR.) Posthumously, he once again became a bestselling author, thanks to the publication of
Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children
. (See Epilogue.) It is impossible to calculate how many copies of TR’s books were bought during his lifetime and in the decade or so after his death. A memo prepared by his main publisher, Scribners, in 1933, lists 876,375 copies sold by that house to date. Scribners to William H. Bell, 25 Nov 1933 (SCR).
17
The Century Company
Hero Tales from American History
(New York, 1895), addressed to young readers, was co-authored by Henry Cabot Lodge.
Stories of the Great West
(New York, 1909), was a selection of chapters and articles previously published by TR.
18
He was not sure
TR to KR, 21 Jan. 1913, ts. (TRC); Charles Scribner to William B. Howland, 2 Dec. 1912 (SCR).
19
not that
they
John Adams’s autobiography was abandoned in mid-sentence, and John Quincy Adams’s was a scissors-and-paste job compiled by his son Charles Francis.
20
“This is the first”
Charles Scribner to TR, 2 Dec. 1912 (SCR).
21
“another proposition”
Howland to Scribner, 3 Dec. 1912 (SCR).
22
The proposition had come
Macmillan statement, 30 Apr. 1914 (TRP). TR’s advance was not payable until publication day, 19 Nov. 1913. There is no of record what, if anything, he was paid by
The Outlook
for first serial rights.
23
reputation for promptness
See Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 173–74.
24
His third book project
Charles Scribner to TR, 17 June and 16 Sept. 1913 (SCR).
25
John F. Schrank, meanwhile
Remey et al.,
The Attempted Assassination
, 98, 101–2.
26
he insisted that
TR was inclined to agree with Schrank. “I very gravely question if he has a more unsound mind than Eugene Debs.” Bishop,
TR
, 2.344.
27
He bequeathed
Gores, “The Attempted Assassination”;
Chicago Tribune
, 15 Oct. 1912;
The New York Times
, 19 Nov. 1912; Oshkosh
Daily Northwestern
, 15 Oct. 1912.
28
incarceration for life
The lunacy commission’s euphemism, “until cured” was understood in 1912 to mean a life sentence.
The New York Times
, 23 Nov. 1912.
29
“Only Bull Moose”
Chicago Tribune
, 23 Nov. 1912. TR told St. Loe Strachey on 16 Dec. that he did not consider Schrank to be any more insane than Senator La Follette or Eugene Debs. He blamed his own journalistic enemies for having excited the little man to action. “I have not the slightest feeling against him.” (TR,
Letters
, 7.676–77.) Schrank was shortly transferred to Wisconsin’s Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and remained there until his death on 15 Sept. 1943—the anniversary of his first vision of the ghost of McKinley. He was a model prisoner and exhibited no further evidence of aberrant behavior until Franklin D. Roosevelt sought a third term as President in 1940. Schrank then became agitated, and was heard to say that “if he was free he would take a hand in the matter.” During his 31-year incarceration, he was visited by no one and received no letters. (Gores, “The Attempted Assassination.”) See also Remey et al.,
The Attempted Assassination
, 117ff. for Schrank’s complete testimony in 1912.
