The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (168 page)

114.
Sageser, “Two Decades” (cited in Ch. 16, n. 2) 150 and
passim
confirms that publicity was the CSC’s main weapon during the Harrison Administration.
Sun
, qu. Foulke,
Spoilsmen
, 32. As Har.78 points out, in matters other than Civil Service Reform, Wanamaker’s was the most distinguished Postmaster Generalship since the Civil War. The man was an imaginative innovator, and “a near administration genius.” (Ib.) He has suffered much from TR’s shrewd attacks upon him, even allowing for the fact that right was on the younger man’s side. Today Wanamaker’s handling of the Baltimore affair would be construed as obstruction of justice. It is interesting to note that he, at least in later life, bore TR no ill-will. He tried once to analyze the latter’s “masterful greatness,” and wrote that its secret lay “in the fact that no insincerity lurked behind his ever-welcoming smile.” Qu. Appel, J. H.,
A Business Biography of John Wanamaker
(NY, 1930) 255.

115.
See Mor.293; TR.Wks.XIV.141.

116.
Mor.275–7.

117.
Ib., 277, 290; Lod.122. For a description of TR the polo player, see
Harper’s Weekly
, July 20, 1892.

118.
Mor.289; TR to B, Aug. 11, 1892.

119.
See Mor.3.547–63 for an account of the exquisite dialogue between Jones and Ferris. Their “lunatic story” became one of TR’s favorite after-dinner recitations. John Hay was so charmed by this and other Rooseveltian stories of the Old West that he begged him to commit it to paper. The result was a 9,000-word letter which, along with two other classic examples of TR the raconteur, have been separately published under the title
Cowboys and Kings
(Harvard U. Press, 1954).

120.
Mor.290; ib., 3.553. The sheriff’s name was Seth Bullock. He later
became one of the more exotic members of TR’s “Tennis Cabinet.”

121.
Williams, “TR, CSC,” 51.

122.
Un. clip, Sep. 15, 1892, TR.Scr. See also Herbert Welsh,
Civilization Among the Sioux Indians
(Philadelphia Office of the Indian Rights Association, 1893) 4–7.

123.
USCSC,
11th Report
, 164–5.

124.
The text of this magnificent speech is in TR.Wks.XIV.156–68. See also Hagan, William T., “Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt and the Indian Rights Association,”
Pacific Historical Review
, 44.2 (May 1975) 187 ff. Hagan protests that TR’s contribution to the improvement of the Indian Service as CSC “has been ignored too long.” He shows how TR acted in concert with Herbert Welsh, of the I.R. Association, to root out injustice and corruption on the reservations, and offer more government employment to Indians. Later Welsh recommended TR to President McKinley as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. “His hold upon the public, his knowledge of the subject, would make him, perhaps, the most valuable man in the country.” As a result of his CSC work, TR was “the best-informed man on Indian affairs to occupy the White House since the Civil War.” Ib., 199–200.

125.
Sto.179.

126.
Mor.295.

127.
Gar.129ff.; see, e.g., the
Charleston News & Courier
, qu.
N.Y.T.
, Nov. 27, 1892.

128.
Foulke,
Spoilsmen
, 24.

129.
Ib., 33.

130.
Las.44.

131.
See Foraker, Julia,
I Would Live It Again
(Harpers, 1932) 188.

132.
See Gar.150.

133.
Foraker,
Again
, 188.

134.
Mor.304.

135.
See Carl Schurz to TR, Jan. 4, 1893, qu. Bis.I.52; Pri.131; Har.79; Mrs. Bellamy Storer in
Harper’s Weekly
, June 1, 1912.

1.
Chicago Tribune
, May 2, 1893. The following description of the opening of the World’s Fair is taken largely from this newspaper, supplemented by the
World
and
Sun
of the same date; Northrup, H. D.,
The World’s Fair as Seen in a Hundred Days
(Philadelphia, 1893) and Rand McNally’s
The World’s Columbian Exposition Reproduced
(Chicago, 1894).

2.
Nineteenth-century Americans unhesitatingly accepted the Discoverer as Spanish, just as today he is generally believed to have been an Italian. For what appears to be the last word on the subject, see Morison, Samuel Eliot,
The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages
(NY, 1974) 6–8.

3.
TR to B, Apr. 26, 1893.

4.
Wis.36.

5.
Adams, Henry,
The Education of Henry Adams
(Houghton Mifflin, 1974) 340.

6.
Mor.320.

7.
Adams,
Education
, 343.

8.
Mor.317. TR had recently been retained by Cleveland as Civil Service Commissioner, after handing in his formal resignation at the beginning of the new Administration. Although he explained the act was prompted by his desire “to relieve the President any embarrassment and … to get back to his books,” he did not need much persuading to stay. See
New York Times
, May 4, 1893, and Mor.314.

9.
Morley in 1903, qu. TRB mss.

10.
TR.Wks.VII.3.

11.
Ib., 3, 7.

12.
Ib., 111.

13.
Mor.440.

14.
TR.Wks.VII.108.

15.
Ib., 380, 403–4, 377–9, 331, 279

16.
Ib., 57.

17.
Ib.

18.
See Cut.36–7 and Bur.14 on TR’s observations of the rule of tooth and claw in nature.

19.
Ib., 58.

20.
Ib., 57–8.

21.
See Bea.31.

22.
For examples of Commissioner Roosevelt’s abhorrence of racial discrimination in hiring practices, see Mor.373, 381, 402; also TR.Wks.XIV. 165. In 1954, Edmund Wilson, reviewing Vols I and II of Mor., remarked: “It is impossible to go through the correspondence of Roosevelt’s early official life without being convinced that he pretty consistently lived up to this principle.” Wilson, “The Pre-presidential TR” in
Eight Essays
(NY, 1954) 211.

23.
TR.Wks.X.479–509.

24.
See Billington, Ray Allen,
Frederick Jackson Turner
(Oxford U. Press, 1973)
passim
for the genesis and presentation of Turner’s great thesis.

25.
The Dial
, August 1889 (see p. 462). See also Jacobs, Wilbur R.,
The Historical World of Frederick Jackson Turner
(Yale, 1968) 4. Jacobs says that Turner wrote an unpublished essay, “The Hunter Type,” in 1890, “based almost entirely upon the early volumes of
The Winning of the West.”
The essay depicted a Rooseveltian warrior-hero of the border, represented as an evolutionary American type. Massive, scholarly reading went into the subsequent preparation of “Significance,” but it may well be, as Jacobs suggests, that
WW
“provided the inspiration for his frontier thesis.” For a full account, see Billington,
Turner
, 83–4, 108–25.

26.
Qu. ib., 127. See also Knee, Stuart E., “Roosevelt and Turner: Awakening in the West,”
Journal of the West
17 (1978) 2.

27.
Lasch, Christopher, ed.,
WW by TR
(NY, 1963) xii; qu. Billington,
Turner
, 128.

28.
Turner, Frederick Jackson,
Frontier and Section: Selected Essays
, ed. Ray Allen Billington (Prentice-Hall, 1961) 61.

29.
Ib., 37.

30.
Ib., 62.

31.
See Billington,
Turner
, 129–30.

32.
Mor.363.

33.
Ib.

34.
See Billington, Turner,
passim
for further details of the TR/Turner relationship.

35.
See Wag.44.

36.
Forum
, Apr. 1894; TR.Wks.XIII. 13–26, 151.

37.
Ib., 13–26.

38.
Qu. Wag.63.

39.
TR.Wks.XIII.20; James, Henry,
The American Essays
, ed. Leon Edel (Vintage Books, 1956).

40.
Edel, Leon,
Henry James: The Master
(London, 1972) 275–76. Overhearing TR characterize an unidentified contemporary novelist, possibly James, as “a malignant pustule,” George Kennan reflected, “If this young Civil Service Commissioner fully develops his capacity for hatred and his natural gift for denunciation, he will be, in the maturity of his powers, an unpleasant man to encounter.” Kennan,
Misrepresentation in Railroad Affairs
(Garden City, NY, 1916), 49.

41.
Reprinted in TR.Wks.XIII.200–222.

42.
Ib., 203.

43.
Ib., 206.

44.
Ib., 208–9.

45.
Ib., 214.

46.
Ib., 216.

47.
Ib. For TR’s enlightened interpretation of Social Darwinism, see his review of Benjamin Kidd’s
Social Evolution
(NY, 1894), published in
North American Review
, 161.94–109 (July 1895) and reprinted in TR.Wks.XIII. John M. Blum exhaustively and brilliantly discusses
this and other aspects of TR’s intellectual development in an essay, “TR: The Years of Decision,” printed as Appendix IV to Mor.2.1484–94.

48.
TR.Wks.XII.219.

49.
Ib., 222.

50.
Space does not permit an extended description of this richly detailed, sweet-natured book. Suffice to say it has all the freshness of observation of
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman
, even less slaughter than
Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail
, and an abundance of original zoological information. The chapter on the life habits of the grizzly bear marked a definite contribution to science: TR was by now recognized as the world authority on this and other large Western species. There are several delicious comic episodes, notably the story of Fowler and the Turk, and the dialogue overheard by TR on the Brophy ranch in 1884, as well as one of his finest lyrical pieces, inspired by the all-night song of a Tennessee mockingbird. See TR.Wks.II.330–4, 327–30, and 52–5. For sample reviews in 1893, see
Nation
, Aug. 14;
St. Paul Press
, Aug. 22;
Edinburgh National Observer
, Dec. 30.

51.
Mor.367; Wag.304; TR to B, Nov. 6, 1893; Mor.391, 409. TR accepted no fees for lectures on Civil Service Reform. These he considered part of his job.

52.
Pri.157.

53.
Mor.342–3; see also n. 56, below.

54.
Mor.343. The land was sold to his uncle James A. Roosevelt. It reduced to 30 acres the original estate he bought during his first marriage. TR to B, Jan. 28, 1893; EKR to Emily Carow, May 19, 1894; Mor.306.

55.
Ib., 343, 376; see also TR to B, Apr. 15, 1894, and EKR to B, Jan. 10 and June 6, 1894 (TRC). The extent of TR’s embarrassments may be gathered from his suggestion to Bamie, who had a habit of understamping her letters, that she buy “a pair of scales and a copy of the postal regulations,” so as to save him the 20-cent collect charge. TR to B, April 1, 1894.

56.
Mor.345.

57.
Ib., 340; TR to HCL, July 4, 1893 (LOD.).

58.
Mor.389, 323, 335; TR to B, June 20, 1893. A memo sent to Secretary Smith suggests that the hostility may have been mutual. See Mor.328.

59.
Cecil Spring Rice to Elizabeth Cameron, July 2, 1891 (ADA.).

60.
Foulke, William D.,
Fighting the Spoilsmen
(Putnam, 1919) 40.

61.
On Nov. 28, 1893. Foulke,
Spoilsmen
, 38–40; Mor.317. See also ib., 341; Foulke, William D.,
Lucius Burrie Swift
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1930) 69.

62.
Halloran, Matthew F.,
The Romance of the Merit System
(Washington, D.C., 1929) 77; TR to HCL, June 8, 1893 (LOD.).

63.
Mor.343; see also ib., 396.

64.
Mor.393. See Woo. 19 for an earlier example of TR’s reaction to suggestions that he again run for Mayor.

65.
TR to HCL, Oct. 11, 1894 (LOD.); EKR to Emily Carow, 1894
passim
(Derby mss.).

66.
Sto.223.

67.
TR to B, qu. Bea.47.

68.
Mor.379, 409. See also Bea.46–7. This is not the first mention of the Canal by TR. He had been interested in France’s attempt to build a waterway at Panama since his Dakota days. Among his papers in TRP there is a copy of a U.S. Government
Special Intelligence Report on the Progress of the Work on the Panama Canal During the Year 1885
. The document contains much technical prose, thoughtfully penciled by TR.

69.
Mor.384; TR to B, Feb. 25, 1894.

70.
Ib., Aug. 18, 1894.

71.
Ib.; also July 29, 1894. Elliott had, for example, severely burned himself that February by accidentally tipping
an oil lamp over his naked body. In May he had spent the night in a police cell, being too incoherent to say where he lived. In July he had driven into a lamppost while blind drunk and been catapulted onto his head, incapacitating himself.

72.
C to B, Aug. 15, 1895 (TRC); TR to HCL, Aug. 18, 1894 (LOD.).

73.
TR wrote to HCL afterward: “I confess I felt more broken than I had thought possible.” Aug. 18, 1894, LOD. To B in England he wrote that Elliott “would have been in a straight jacket had he lived forty-eight hours longer.… he had been drinking whole bottles of anisette and green mint, besides whole bottles of raw brandy and champagne, sometimes half a dozen a morning … He was like some stricken, hunted creature; and indeed he was hunted by the most terrible demons that ever entered a man’s body and soul.” Aug. 18, 1894, TRB.

74.
Ib. Elliott’s companions at Greenwood were Alice Lee and Mittie Roosevelt. See also Las.56–7. Elliott had been living with Mrs. Evans at 313 West 102 Street under the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Eliot.” TR to B, n.d., 1894;
World
, Aug. 16, 1894. According to Lash (who does not identify the woman), she had a house in New England, and was not with him when he died. This is puzzling, in view of TR’s remark to B (Aug. 18) that E “would not part with the woman” in his last days. Either Lash is mistaken, or E had
two
mistresses, which seems unlikely. At any rate the winding up of his affairs produced circumstances of some absurdity. Katy Mann made an appearance, bastard in arm, to claim further damages; then Mr. Evans arrived, while the lawyer was negotiating with his wife, and threatened both parties with a loaded revolver. Mrs. Evans eventually received a settlement of $1,250. TR to B, Aug. 18 and 25.