Theodore Rex (183 page)

18
Roosevelt proudly
Ibid., 1574–77.

19
Referring to himself
Ibid., 1577–86.

20
“These new conditions”
Ibid., 1588.

21
SUBSCRIBERS TO
All the public comments on TR’s Special Message in the following paragraphs are taken from
Current Literature
, Mar. 1907.

22
“the President is”
Mark De Wolfe Howe,
James Ford Rhodes: An American Historian
(New York, 1929), 195. See also Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, 19 Sept. 1907, and TR to Lodge, 21 Sept. 1907 (TRP).

23
“Of all your”
Nicholas Murray Butler to TR, 4 Feb. 1908 (TRP).

24
“You regret”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 925.

25
ON 7
FEBRUARY
William James in
The American Magazine
, Nov. 1907; Samuel Carter III,
The Incredible Great White Fleet
(New York, 1971), 54–55.

26
For twenty-two
Wimmel,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet
, 228; Carter,
Incredible Great White Fleet
, 51–52.

27
Throughout
1907 Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 2, 27–29; “Memorandum Respecting Japanese Immigration into Canada and the United States,”
British Documents on Foreign Affairs
, vol. 13, 160.

28
By 29
February
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 262; Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 2, 30. In May 1908, the Japanese monthly inflow was down to 900 from nearly 2,000 in May 1907. Bailey,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 279.

29
He also won
Weaver,
Senator
, 131. Foraker observed that the five Democrats were prepared to find the soldiers guilty without even looking at the testimony.

30
The dissenting members
Ibid.

31
So did the
Ibid., 130.

32
Roosevelt’s other
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 263–66.

33
Sounding rather
TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1017–18.

34
“But, Mr. President”
Jusserand,
What Me Befell
, 332. The following section is adapted from 332–36.

35
“Washington and Rochambeau”
The midriver island is now Theodore Roosevelt Island, a national memorial to TR. Deep in its forested interior stands a statue modeled on the illustration on p. 141. Nan Netherton, “Delicate Beauty and Burly Majesty: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt Island,” t.s. (1984), 11 (TRB).

36
“We might meet”
For TR’s version of this story, see Butt,
Letters
, 228–29.

37
On 12
May
Wister,
Roosevelt
, 147; table plan in “Executive Mansion Social Functions,” RG 42, vol. 11 (NA). This beautifully compiled scrapbook series is a monument to the social and entertainment activities of the Roosevelt White House, 1901–1909 (hereafter “Social Functions”).

38
The President sat
Some physical descriptions taken from the famous group photograph of the Governors’ Conference, 13 May 1908.

39
(in a severe sulk)
Uncle Joe’s pique is mentioned in Butt,
Letters
, 45.

40
Bryan’s presence
“Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources at the White House, May 13–15, 1908,” memorandum account in “Social Functions.”

41
When wood and water
Michael Lacey notes that the Governors’ Conference was not only the first but the last occasion in American history when representatives of all branches of government “gathered together to discuss a set of common issues” (“Mysteries of Earth-Making,” 111). Cleveland died on 24 June.

42
Roosevelt, wanting
“Social Functions.”

43
The dinner seating
Ibid.; Edith Kermit Roosevelt Catering Agreement, 12 May 1908, in “Letters Received” file, in ibid.

44
“I confess to you”
Butt,
Letters
, 7.

45
“A wonderful man”
Ibid., 91.

46
AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK
Governors’ Conference Proceedings
, xix–xxxi.

47
The “Syllabus”
Ibid., xiii–xvi.

48
“The Lord thy God”
Ibid., 1 (Deuteronomy 8:7–9).

49
Roosevelt delivered
The following quotations from TR’s address are taken from ibid., 3–13.

50
Conservation as a
Copy in AC. TR’s speech is reprinted in TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 7, 1738–53.

51
“the State as quasi sovereign”
See
Hudson County Water Co. v. McCarter
, 209 U.S. 349 (1908).

52
HE STAYED WITH
Governors’ Conference Proceedings
, 14.

53
The conference broke
The Washington Post
, 16 May 1908;
Governors’ Conference Proceedings
, 192–94.

54
THUS EMPOWERED
Lacey, “Mysteries of Earth-Making,” 391–92; TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1065ff.

55
Americans began to be
The following survey of TR’s conservation accomplishments through May 1908 is based on John Allen Gable, comp., “President Theodore Roosevelt’s Record on Conservation,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
10.3 (fall 1983). See also Cutright,
Theodore Roosevelt, passim
.

56
now that “Conservation”
Michael J. Lacey flatly states, “The language and aims of Conservation were invented in the spring of 1908.” Lacey, “Mysteries of Earth-Making,” 440.

57
(“Is there any?”)
Pringle,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 469.

58
And Roosevelt had
By the time TR left office in 1909, his conservation record had indeed expanded to include 18 national monuments, 51 federal bird reservations and 4 national game preserves, and 150 national forests (increasing the total acreage he inherited by more than 400 percent). The last-mentioned area was equal to that of all the Atlantic states from Maine to Virginia combined, with the addition of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Gable, “President Theodore Roosevelt’s Record.”

59
“Any man who”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1041.

60
Two West Virginia
Ibid., 1039, 1045; Henry Adams to Mrs. Frederick Tams, 3 Apr. 1908 (JH).

61
Adams had to
Henry Adams to Mrs. Frederick Tams, 3 Apr. 1908 (JH). Lodge’s fabled
froideur
, and total lack of interest in what anybody thought of him, had finally alienated Adams. “If I told Cabot that he is personally and physically loathsome to me … he would not understand what I meant.” Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 693.

  
1
I don’t know
“Mr. Dooley” in Chicago
Record-Herald
, 20 Oct. 1907.

  
2
THE FIRST DAY
TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1044–45.

  
3
“Q,” as schoolmates
For a classic memoir of Quentin Roosevelt, and an endearing boy’s-eye view of his father, see Earle Looker,
The White House Gang
(New York, 1929).

  
4
(“The Republican”)
Ibid., 44–45.

  
5
The property office
The following account of the Battle of the Guidon is taken from ibid., 92–94. While writing his memoir, Looker interviewed all surviving members of the gang, save Quentin.

  
6
(obsessive clock-watcher)
Q’s dollar pocket-watch is a leitmotiv in Looker’s descriptions of gang activities. For TR’s own time consciousness, see the pseudonymous article by “K” (probably Finley Peter Dunne), “The Powers of a Strenuous President,”
The American Magazine
, Apr. 1908: “No railroad engineer runs more sharply on schedule than he. His watch comes out of his pocket, he cuts off an interview, or signs a paper, and turns instantly, according to his timetable, to the next engagement. If there is an interval anywhere left over he chinks in the time by reading a paragraph of history.”

  
7
“Too late! Too late”
Dialogue transcribed verbatim from Looker,
White House Gang
, 94–96.

  
8
Roosevelt’s surprise attack
“If Hughes is going to play the game,” TR had said, grinning after hogging the headlines with his Special Message, “he must learn the tricks.” William Manners,
TR and Will: A Friendship That Split the Republican Party
(New York, 1969), 49.

  
9
With that, he
For another presidential reprimand, involving the gang’s embellishment of White House portraits with spitballs, see ibid., 16, and TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1004.

10
as had Mark
Beer,
Hanna
, 586.

11
The famous MacMillan
Looker,
White House Gang
, 120–21. “Time and again, afterwards, I have thought of these enchanting models—realizing that it was a rare privilege given me, to see the genesis of Quentin’s interest in the air.”

12
“I have two”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1044.

13
For some time
Ibid., vol. 5, 679; TR,
Letters to Kermit
, 238, 240; Carl Akeley, introduction to TR,
Works
, vol. 5, x–xi. The date of Akeley’s dinner (or lunch) with TR is uncertain, but it appears to have occurred between 25 Oct. and 7 Nov. 1907, after the President’s return from Louisiana. See also Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 224, and Kermit Roosevelt,
Happy Hunting-Grounds
, 11–14. From April 1908 on, the “note of Africa” is increasingly sounded in TR’s correspondence.

14
“I think I”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 6, 1060. Another person who got an advance indication of TR’s designs on African wildlife was John Burroughs, who joined him around this time for a weekend at Pine Knot. One night after dinner, while EKR knitted, TR gave the naturalist J. H. Patterson’s
The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures
(London, 1907) to read by lamplight, and himself read Cromer’s
Modern Egypt
(London, 1908) at a table in the big bare room. “Suddenly Roosevelt’s hand came down on the table with such a bang that it made us both jump, and Mrs. Roosevelt exclaimed in a slightly nettled tone, ‘Why, my dear, what
is
the matter?’ He had killed a mosquito with a blow that would have demolished an African lion.” Hearing this story years later, the essayist Gamaliel Bradford commented: “He killed mosquitoes as if they were lions, and lions as if they were mosquitoes.” John Burroughs,
Under the Maples
(New York, 1921), 106; Wagenknecht,
Seven Worlds
, 6.
Note:
Burroughs’s chapter on Pine Knot contains a spurious refutation of TR’s sighting of passenger pigeons there in 1907. See Lindsey, “Was Theodore Roosevelt?”

15
ROOSEVELT STAMPEDE
Washington
Evening Star, 3
June 1908.

16
(Charles P. Taft)
was Taft’s mentor-like half-brother.

17
“If your friend”
Cullom,
Fifty Years
, 303.

18
At latest count
Pringle,
William Howard Taft
, vol. 1, 348; Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 284.

19
The giant airship
A photograph of the zeppelin appears on p. 537 of Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 3, directly opposite a paragraph on p. 536 describing the nomination of Taft.

20
On Tuesday
Pringle,
William Howard Taft
, vol. 1, 350–51; Joseph Bucklin Bishop,
Presidential Nominations and Elections
(New York, 1916), 72.

21
The proceedings in
The New York Times
, 18 June 1908; Pringle,
William Howard Taft
, vol. 1, 352; Alsop, “Autobiography,” 7.

22
“That man is”
Official Report of the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Republican National Convention
(Columbus, Ohio, 1908), 88.

23
Joseph Bucklin Bishop
For Bishop’s anti-Semitism, see, e.g., his letter to TR of 21 Oct. 1903: “I have just had the exquisite pleasure of trampling upon the Jew [newspaper editor Moses Strauss] as he crawled at my feet” (TRP). In a follow-up letter, dated 24 Oct., he warned TR against a “Jew syndicate” attempting to control the New York press. Waspish, emotional, unctuous, and conniving, Bishop was also an antifeminist. “I never met a man who had so low an opinion of women as human beings” (Villard,
Fighting Years
, 129). These traits did not dissuade TR from choosing Bishop, years later, as his authorized biographer.

24
He saw no reason
Bishop,
Presidential Nominations
, 72–73.

25
At 1:30
Ibid., 73; TR,
Letters to Kermit
, 250.