The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (167 page)

Important sources not listed in Bibliography:
1.
Report of Commissioner Roosevelt concerning Political Assessments and the use of Official Influence
to Control Elections in the Federal Offices at Baltimore, Md
. (USCS, Government Printing Office, May 1891). Hereafter cited as
Baltimore Report. 2
. 52nd Congress, 2nd session,
Report of the House Committee on Reform in the Civil Service, June 21, 1892
, Misc. Doc. #289, Report #1669. Hereafter cited as
House Report 2
.

1.
TR to B, May 23, 1891.

2.
See Las.30 ff. for an account of E’s life as a Hempstead “swell.” Wise, John S.,
Recollections of Thirteen Presidents
(NY, 1906) 244.

3.
Las.8. “He became a drunkard because he was an epileptic … in the family we understood that.” Mrs. Longworth int., Nov. 1954, TRB.

4.
See p. 132; also TR to B, May 10, 1890, when he says that E has been drinking for “a dozen years.” TR to B, Apr. 30, 1890.

5.
Sun, World
, Aug. 18, 1891, also Las.30–4.

6.
COW; Las.36; TR to B,
passim
, 1891.

7.
TR to B, Jan. 25, 1891.

8.
TR to B,
passim
, 1891, and below.

9.
TR to B, Jan. 25, 1891; ib., Mar. 1.

10.
See Wag.87–8; TR to B, Mar. 1, 1891.

11.
Ib., Jan. 25, 1891. For other examples of TR’s curious, neo-Christian morality, see Wag.85–92.

12.
Ib., and below.

13.
TR to B, Feb. 22, 1891; ib., Feb. 15.

14.
Ib., Mar. 1, 1891; COW; also Las.34 ff.

15.
The legitimate baby was due in late June 1891. For lack of evidence we can only assume that the illegitimate baby was due in March or April 1891, E having departed for Europe the previous July
(Sun
, Aug. 17, 1891). It may have been due earlier, but as Katy Mann began her legal action only in January 1891, her pregnancy was surely not far advanced.

16.
Mor.237.

17.
Mor.238. BH eventually yielded to TR’s entreaties, and extended the rules to cover a token 626 places in the Bureau. See below for TR’s further efforts on behalf of reservation Indians.

18.
Reed was an advocate of the spoils system, and his campaign for favorable votes during the appropriations crisis surprised many colleagues. “Well, I didn’t know
you
were in love with Civil Service Reform,” said a Tennessee member. “I don’t like it straight,” Reed admitted, “but mixed with a little Theodore Roosevelt, I like it well.”
Columbus
(
O
.)
Press
, May 8, 1892.

19.
New York (“Historic Towns” Series, Longmans, Green & Co., 1891—issued simultaneously in New York and London). Reprinted in TR.Wks.X.339–547.

20.
Spectator
, Sep. 5, 1891. Other reviews in TR.Scr.

21.
The Nation
, May 14, 1891.

22.
TR.Wks.X.512ff., 514, 529.

23.
TR to B, Mar. 22, 1891.

24.
Mor.284, 283.

25.
W. Post
, Mar. 30, 31, and Apr. 3, 1891. These amounts were by no means trivial in the 1890s, when clerks like Hamilton Shidy earned $720 per annum, or $14 a week.

26.
Mor.284.

27.
Ib.; Williams, Cleveland, “TR, Civil Service Commissioner,” U. Chicago dissertation, June 1955, 43.

28.
House Report 2
, 1. TR went down for a preliminary investigation on Mar. 28 but seems to have kept his plans to return a secret. The press was taken completely by surprise—see
W. Post
, Mar. 31 and Apr. 3, 1891.

29.
Baltimore Report
, 7 and
passim
. TR was still rejoicing in the primary’s Dickensian aspects a year later—see
W. Post
, May 26, 1892.

30.
Charles Joseph Bonaparte, president of the Maryland Civil Service Reform League, assisted TR in these interviews, and also took a part in the
drafting of the final report. See Eric F. Goldman’s unfinished “Charles J. Bonaparte, Patrician Reformer: His Earlier Career,”
Johns Hopkins U. Studies in Historical and Political Science
, Series LXI, No. 2 (1943).

31.
Baltimore Report
, 2, 4.

32.
Boston Post
, Apr. 1, 1891;
W. Post
, qu.
Sun
, Apr. 14;
Civil Service Chronicle
, May 1891.

33.
Goldman,
Bonaparte
, 25. See TR. Scr. for nationwide reaction.

34.
W. Post
, Apr. 3, 1891.

35.
Metaphor taken from
C. S. Chronicle
, May 1891.

36.
During the session of Apr. 6, TR sent out for some sandwiches, and was puzzled when the office boy delivered them without a bill. “But I want to pay for them,” said the Commissioner, holding out a dollar. “You can keep the change.” The boy backed off in terror. “No, sir, I am not receiving any money on Government property.”
W. Post
, Apr. 7, 1891.

37.
Baltimore Report
, 3.

38.
Ib., 4–5.

39.
Ib., 126, 3, 139;
C. S. Chronicle
, Apr. 1891;
Baltimore Report
, 16.

40.
Not to be confused with TR’s earlier report on the Baltimore Post Office (Aug. 1, 1889) reprinted in Mor. 177 ff.

41.
See n. 69 below for sample reactions when it did appear. Har.78 implies, incorrectly, that it was President Harrison who pigeon-holed the report—no doubt because TR himself (Mor.242) was at pains to give that impression. Actually the document, dated May 1, was not even sent to Harrison until early in August (
C. S. Chronicle
, May 1892). BH approved its release in mid-August.
N.Y. Tribune
, Aug. 17, 1891.

42.
TR to B, May 5, 1891.

43.
Ib.,
passim
, and Apr. 26, 1891.

44.
Mor. 243.

45.
TR to B, n.d., 1891.

46.
Ib., May 10.

47.
Undated, mutilated letter from TR to B, probably early May 1891; another, probably late June.

48.
TR to B, June 7, 1891; Las.36–7.

49.
TR to B, June 14, 1891.

50.
TR to E, June 24, 1891.

51.
The letter has not survived, but its contents can be inferred from references in subsequent letters from TR to B and E.

52.
TR to B, n.d., probably late June 1891.

53.
See TR to B, June 17, 1891; also July 12.

54.
Ib., June 20, 1891; June 17; later letters,
passim
.

55.
Ib., June 17, 1891.

56.
He was currently spending at the rate of $1,500 a month, or $18,000 a year, against an estimated $15,000 in income. Las.34 and 21.

57.
TR to E, June 14, 1891. The uncle was James K. Gracie, husband of Aunt Annie.

58.
TR to B, June 20 and July 2, 1891.

59.
Ib., July 12 and 2, 1891. Hall Roosevelt drank himself to death in 1941 at the age of fifty.

60.
Ib., July 2, 1891.

61.
Goldman,
Bonaparte
, 25; Mor.255. HCL was now in his third term at Congress, and was one of the most influential members of the House. Sto.183 and Gar.
passim
.

62.
TR to HCL, July 1, 1891 (edited version in Mor.256).

63.
TR to B, July 8, 1891.

64.
Ib.

65.
TR to B, July 8, 21, 12, 1891. Apparently TR also went to look at the baby, with Douglas Robinson, on July 13.

66.
Ib., July 12, 1891. How B managed to get E shut up is unclear. He seems to have consented at first (ib.), but afterwards claimed he had been “kidnapped.” (Las.37.)

67.
TRB mss.

Postscript:
In a letter prompted by the first edition of this biography, Katy Mann’s granddaughter reported that Katy never married. She took no pains to conceal the parentage of her son, who was named Elliott Roosevelt Mann. Money left in trust for the child by Elliott Senior apparently never reached the family, which has remained bitter for generations. Eleanor Mann Biles to author, July 6, 1981.

68.
C.S. Chronicle
, May 1892;
W. Post
, Sep. 2, 1891 (Wanamaker was on vacation).

69.
See, e.g.,
N.Y. Tribune
and
Times
, Aug. 17, 1891. Sample editorial quote, from
N.Y. Evening Post
, same date: “All that he says is true, and furnishes the most startling picture yet presented to the President of the fruits of his policy in violating his Civil Service Reform pledges.”

70.
W. Post
, Sep. 1, 1891; Mor.259.

71.
Sun
, Aug. 17, 1891; see also
N.Y.T., World, Trib.
, same date.

72.
TR to Douglas Robinson, Aug. 6, 1891; TR to B, Aug. 22.

73.
At the time of writing, December 1977, Ethel Roosevelt Derby has just died at Oyster Bay.

74.
TR to B, Sep. 1, 1891.

75.
Mor.261. Cut.58 says that the excessive butchery of this trip was to prove an embarrassment to TR in later years. It was, nevertheless, the only recorded instance of the mature TR breaking his own controlled-hunting rules. “The horror about poor Elliott” may have had something to do with it. As can be seen in a passage deleted from his letter to HCL of Oct. 10, 1891 (LOD.), the worry was still very much with him when he returned to Washington.

76.
N.Y. T.
, Nov. 29, 1891;
W. Post
, Sep. 2, 1891.

77.
N.Y. T.
, Nov. 29, 1891.

78.
W. Post
, Sep. 2, 1891.

79.
Foulke, William D.,
Fighting the Spoilsmen
(Putnam, 1919) 25–6.

80.
TR to B, Oct. 28, 1891; Goldman,
Bonaparte
, 26; Mor.265–6 (the reports turned out to be false); ib., 258; Williams, “TR, CSC,” 85.

81.
EKR to TR,
passim
(Derby mss.); Hay to Adams, Jan. 6, 1892, ADA.

82.
Las.38; TR to B,
passim; N.Y. Herald
, Aug. 22, 1891.

83.
TR to B, Sep. 1, 1891.

84.
TR to B, Nov. 27 and Dec. 13, 1891.

85.
Ib., Dec. 22, Jan. 3, 1892.

86.
E (age 15) to TR Sr., Mar. 6, 1875, qu. Las.7.

87.
E’s sporting notes (1873), TRC.

88.
TR to B, Jan. 21, 1892.

89.
Las.38–39; TR to B, Feb. 13, 1892.

90.
Author’s surmise, based on TR’s letter announcing departure plans, Jan. 21, 1892.

91.
Fragment in Anna Hall Roosevelt papers, FDR.

92.
The exact dates of TR’s trip to Paris have long been uncertain, due to an extraordinary combination of misdatings in the surviving correspondence. For example, his letter to B announcing the trip is dated “January 3, 1891” in the TRB typed transcripts, and his next letter to her from Paris, quoted above, is dated “June 21st 1891.” To make matters more complicated, his letter to Spring-Rice, beginning “When I was in Paris,” is dated in Mor.270 as “Jan. 25, 1892.” The correct dates should be, consecutively, Jan. 3, Jan. 21, and Feb. 25, 1892. Recently discovered letters of EKR to her mother, Gertrude Tyler Carow, confirm that TR left New York on Jan. 9, and arrived back home on Feb. 7, 1892. TRC.

93.
See Mor.270.

94.
House Report 2
, 1–3. See also TR to Bonaparte, Jan. 4, 1892: “My devoted friend, Mr. Wanamaker, has not dared to have published the report of his inspectors.”

95.
Before giving vent to this imprecation, he checked to see there were no reporters in the room.

96.
George Haven Putnam in Century Association,
TR Memorial Addresses
, (NY, 1919) 40–3; also in Putnam,
Memories of a Publisher
(NY, 1915) 141–2. Putnam does not give the date, but since the incident obviously occurred in the period preceding the House Investigation, March 8 seems most likely. TR paid a visit to NY on that date, arriving in the evening, as Putnam remembers. He remained in NY on Mar. 9 and 10, but was otherwise engaged on those nights. (TR to B,
passim.)

97.
Las.39; TR to B, Feb. 13, 1892.

98.
See “A Peccary-Hunt on the Nueces,” TR.Wks. 275–84. One of TR’s best pieces, full of visual and auditory details. Note how few lines are devoted to the actual chase, the rest being taken up with zoological observations and some beautiful nature-writing.

99.
House Report 2
, 1; Putnam in
Memorial Addresses
, 43.

100.
House Report 2
, 12.

101.
Ib., 2.

102.
Ib., 5, 7, 9

103.
Ib., 25;
W. Post
, May 3, 1892.

104.
House Report 2
, 25–6.

105.
See ib., 25–36, 27, 36

106.
W. Post
, May 3, 1892.

107.
House Report 2, 60; N.Y.T.
, May 26, 1892; Mor.281–2;
Sun
, May 13.

108.
See Mor.281–2 for complete text. TR sent a copy of this letter to BH, “with the utmost confidence that you will recognize the propriety of my action.”

109.
House Report 2
, 59;
W. Post
, May 26, 1892.

110.
House Report 2
, 60, 63.

111.
N.Y.T.
, May 26, 1892. See TR.Scr. for more reactions, and Bis.II.48–9;
House Report 2
, iii–v.

112.
W. Post
Extra Edition, June 23, 1892.

113.
BH won on the first ballot, due largely to the support of thousands of his own appointees. Foulke,
Spoilsmen
, 31–2.