The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (122 page)

R
OOSEVELT DOUBTED THAT
the Court of Inquiry would be able to prove his theory of Spanish guilt. But he waited “on edge” for its initial findings, in the hope that they would at least absolve the Navy of responsibility for the explosion. Notwithstanding his private judgment, he scrupulously used the word “accident” in departmental correspondence.
³⁴

Hearst was not so patient. The
Maine’s
burned-out hulk had scarcely cooled before his artists were rendering pictures and diagrams to show exactly where and how the “Infernal Machine” had struck, in response to the push of a plunger on shore. On 18 February, the day before the official inquiry opened, the
Journal
published no fewer than eight pages of “conclusive” data, some of it so detailed that even Captain Sigsbee wondered if the paper did not have secret contacts with the saboteurs.
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Sales of the paper reached an unprecedented one million that morning. Meanwhile the enterprising Pulitzer bought and dispatched a tugboat to Cuba to learn and report on “the truth.” Within a week, his own paper, the
World
, had sold five million copies—“the largest circulation of any newspaper printed in any language in any country.”
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More responsible newspapers, such as the
Evening Sun
, cautioned readers that the true facts of the disaster were not yet known, and might be slow in coming. The
Maine’s
bow was reported buried so deep in the mud of Havana Harbor that digging would be needed to get at the break. Day after day passed with no announcement by the court, until “Is there anything new about the
Maine?”
became an impatient refrain of everyday conversation. One passenger on a New York electric car was heard to remark that if the Assistant Secretary of the Navy took over the investigation, results would be forthcoming in no time. “Teddy Roosevelt is capable of going down to Havana, and going down in a diving-bell himself to see whether she was stove in or stove out.”
³⁷

A
HELPLESS VICTIM
of the gathering tension was Edith Roosevelt, whose fever heightened to the point that Roosevelt, for the second time in his life, was confronted with the prospect of death in his bedroom. He confessed that he was so “extremely anxious” about her as to be numb to the full consequences of the
Maine
disaster. As for his son, “Hereafter I shall never press Ted either in body or mind. The fact is that the little fellow, who is peculiarly dear to me, has bidden fair to be all the things I would like to have been and wasn’t, and it has been a great temptation to push him.”
³⁸

On the morning of Friday, 25 February, Edith’s weakness finally shocked him into seeking the best medical help available.
³⁹
He sent to Johns Hopkins University for Sir William Osler, the great Canadian physician, and left for work as usual, in what torment posterity can only guess.

It so happened that John D. Long was also feeling the strain that morning. Since his violent awakening on the night of the sixteenth, the Secretary had been plagued with insomnia, along with various aches and pains, which he carefully noted in his diary. He had discovered that relief was to be had in “mechanical massage”—a treatment whereby a Washington osteopath strapped him into an electrical contrivance that soothingly jiggled his stomach and legs.
⁴⁰
Long now felt the need of renewed treatment, so much so that around noon he resolved to take the rest of the day off, leaving Roosevelt in charge of the Department as Acting Secretary.

The “mechanical massage” was most satisfactory, and the Secretary proceeded to visit his corn doctor, after which he “walked about the streets in an aimless way” and finally headed for home,
⁴¹
unaware of the cablegram even then winging halfway around the world:

This momentous message, which Dewey later described as “the first step” toward American conquest of the Philippines,
⁴³
was by no means the only order Roosevelt issued during his three or four hours as Acting Secretary. He sent similar instructions to “Keep full of coal” to squadron commanders all over the world, and to make sure they got it, authorized the Navy’s coal-buying agents to purchase maximum stocks. He alerted European and South Atlantic stations to the possibility of war, and designated strategic points where they were to rendezvous in the event of a declaration.
⁴⁴
He ordered huge supplies of reserve ammunition, requisitioned guns for a project auxiliary fleet, and summoned experts to testify on the firepower of the
Vesuvius
. He even sent demands to both Houses of Congress for legislation authorizing the unlimited recruitment of seamen.
⁴⁵

Having thus, in a single afternoon, placed the Navy in a state of such readiness it had not known since the Civil War, Roosevelt wrote a “strictly confidential” letter to warn Adjutant-General Tillinghast of the New York National Guard that the world situation was “sufficiently threatening” to warrant plans for statewide mobilization. “Pray remember that in some shape I want to go.”
⁴⁶

After work he paid a courtesy call to Secretary Long. If he gave any report on his actions during the last four or five hours, it was of such masterly vagueness that no memorandum of the conversation appears in Long’s diary. Yet something about Roosevelt’s “enthusiastic and loyal” manner made the Secretary uneasy. “If I have a good night tonight, I shall rather feel that I ought to be back in the Department …”
⁴⁷

Refreshed by “splendid” slumbers, the Secretary hurried back to work next morning, Saturday, 26 February. He would have gone whether he felt better or not, “because during my short absence I find that Roosevelt, in his precipitate way, has come very near causing more of an explosion than happened to the
Maine …
the very devil seemed to possess him yesterday afternoon.”
⁴⁸

War preparations in the Navy Department were now moving at such a pace that it would take Long days to slow the momentum, let alone stop it. The evidence is that the Secretary did not even try. For all his anger and embarrassment over “action most discourteous to me, because it suggests that there had been lack of attention,” Long was forced to defer to the workings of an intellect larger and a political instinct sharper than his own. None of Roosevelt’s letters and cables was countermanded. Even the historic order to Dewey was allowed to stand.
⁴⁹
But Long resolved never to leave Roosevelt in sole charge of the department again. The times were too “trying,” and the Assistant Secretary had severe family problems, which could only aggravate “his natural nervousness.”
⁵⁰

Long did not understand that extreme crisis, whether of an intimate or public nature, had precisely the reverse effect on Theodore Roosevelt. The man’s personality was cyclonic, in that he tended to become unstable in times of low pressure. The slightest rise in the barometer outside, and his turbulence smoothed into a whirl of
coordinated activity, while a core of stillness developed within. Under maximum pressure Roosevelt was sunny, calm, and unnaturally clear. History was to show that his behavior as Acting Secretary of the Navy on 25 February 1898, was neither nervous nor spontaneous. It was the logical result of ten months of strategic planning, at the Navy Department and at the Metropolitan Club, in his correspondence with Captain Mahan, and on his walks with Captain Wood. “Someday,” Roosevelt told the latter confidently, “they will understand.”
⁵¹

S
IR
W
ILLIAM
O
SLER
examined Edith over the weekend and confirmed that she was “critically ill.” There was an abdominal swelling which should be operated on at once.
⁵²
For some unexplained reason Roosevelt ignored this warning and relied instead on more cautious advice. Edith lay wasting with fever for another week, too frail even to stand the sound of his voice reading to her. On 7 March, all opinions concurred that she must undergo surgery or die. He sat holding her hand until ether removed her from him.
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The operation revealed an abscess near the hip, and was completely successful.

R
OOSEVELT’S CONTEMPT FOR
“peace at any price men” rose to new heights as he watched William McKinley trying to avoid war in the weeks following the
Maine
disaster. Certainly the President showed a touching faith in the benign effects of gold currency. His first proposal was that the United States end the Cuban problem once and for all by buying the island outright for $300 million. But Congress showed reluctance to put such funds at his disposal, and the plan was dropped.
⁵⁴
Then, on 25 February, the same day Roosevelt alerted Dewey to the imminence of war, McKinley reportedly suggested that if the Court of Inquiry found Spain responsible for the loss of the
Maine
, a large cash indemnity would assuage America’s grief. Congress did not like this idea either.
⁵⁵

“An honest man, but weak,” the French Ambassador, Jules
Cambon, remarked of McKinley.
⁵⁶
By early March, when preliminary divers’ reports indicated that a mine might have caused the explosion, the President was desperate enough to use scare tactics. He flabbergasted Joseph Cannon of the House Appropriations Committee with a request for $50 million, saying, “I must have money to get ready for war. I am doing everything possible to prevent war, but it must come, and we are not prepared for war.”
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