Theodore Roosevelt Abroad

1 The Old Lion Departs 1
2 The Great Adventure Begins 27
3 A Lion Roars in East Africa 53
4 White Rhino and Giant Eland 75
Gallery 89
5 Down the Nile: Khartoum to Cairo 101
6 European Whirl 117
7 Peace Emissary 133
8 Last Rites: England 151
9 The Old Lion Is Dead: Epilogue and Dramatis Personae 171

Notes
181
Selected Bibliography
205
Index
215

A century ago, the journalist John Callan O’Laughlin published
From the Jungle through Europe with Roosevelt
(1910). Outside TR’s own
African Game Trails
that same year O’Laughlin’s work has until now remained the only other separate book-length study to seriously chronicle even part of Roosevelt’s fifteen-month post-presidential

o d y s s e y .
¹
The reasons for this neglect are many. First, hunting has not been a popular subject for contemporary historians, who also have been in the main loath to admit the key role played by gentlemen hunters such as Roosevelt in the founding and preservation of the American conservation movement.
²
In such natural pursuits TR had a long history, back to his boyhood studies of birds and other wildlife in New York, further stimulated at Harvard and in his brief, yet formative, “Cowboy” period in the Dakotas.

The most dynamic president the United States has ever had, TR was also the first, and sadly only, environmentalist head of state. Roosevelt’s most lasting domestic legacy as president came in the conservation of vast tracts of wilderness for the future use and enjoyment of the nation. When he left the presidency in 1909, TR was well aware that many African species were already endangered, and he was careful to mount what was considered at the time a cutting-edge scientific safari. Stories of bloody Rooseveltian carnage have abounded ever since, yet out of hundreds of African big game trophies, the number taken for his personal collection was tiny, with almost all of the specimens going to the Smithsonian and other collections, where they are still studied by scientists today.

Another reason TR’s tour has been given relatively little attention is simply that it represents a calm between the relative storms of his preceding presidency and the soon to follow 1912 Bull Moose campaign. Roosevelt attempted to leave politics behind in 1909, and

wanted to allow his anointed successor and friend William Howard Taft to plow his own furrow. However, even in Africa, he could not escape the fight that soon developed at home between President Taft, who had promised to carry on the “Roosevelt policies” unchanged, and a band of insurgent Republicans who picked up TR’s fallen progressive banner. This work argues that the impetus to make the 1912 Bull Moose fight against Taft, which for all practical purposes handed the presidency to Woodrow Wilson, was firmly established before Roosevelt ever returned to America’s shores in June 1910.

Another theme in the following has to do with Roosevelt’s postexpansionist imperialism, or as he would have preferred to call it, “Democratic Nationalism.” The great majority of his 1909–1910 journey was spent in Britain’s African Empire, and then ended in its seat, London. This affords an opportunity for a comparative glimpse of American and British imperialism as it was in the period just before World War I. As president, Roosevelt charted a new imperial and great power course for America. He also believed deeply in the destiny of what he called the English-Speaking peoples as a positive and civilizing force in the world. He both laid the foundation and solidified AngloAmerican amity in a threatening new century.

The final major thread followed in this book is the little noticed peace mission Roosevelt carried out in Europe in 1910, in speeches and unofficial diplomacy, most importantly with his doppelganger Wilhelm II, Emperor of the “quasi-autocratic” German Empire.
³
Both men practiced a personal brand of diplomacy and interacted with each other through crises in Venezuela, Morocco, and the Far East, before they ever met in 1910. TR was famous for his foreign policy creed, borrowed from a West African proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Wilhelm’s motto might have been: “Speak loudly; and you will scare ancient enemies into each other’s arms”— for this is exactly what he did with England, France, and Russia in the years before World War I. Wilhelm and his brethren in Europe fully expected that Roosevelt would once again be president of the United States, as did he in his heart of hearts, whatever protestations he made at the time.

The following work reveals Roosevelt’s post-presidential journey largely through his words, in his letters and speeches, which remain eloquent and compelling today, and in the words of those who wrote to and about him, without overwhelming authorial prodding and

comment. Luckily for the historian and biographer, TR carried on an immense private and public correspondence. The great majority of Roosevelt’s papers and diaries are in two locations: the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, and The Theodore Roosevelt Collection at the Houghton Library, Harvard. In addition to these, research for this work was undertaken at the Smithsonian Institution Archives; the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History; the Parliamentary Archives, London; The Courtauld Institute, London; the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge; and the Cambridge University Library. In addition to the various Roosevelt collections, the papers of numerous contemporaries were also consulted for this work, which has been based, in part, on evidence not previously published.

I must express my thanks to the following individuals and institutions who made materials available to me, gave assistance or permissions without which this study could not have been completed: Mr. Wallace Finley Dailey, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Jennifer Brathovde, The Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division; The Smithsonian Institution Archives; Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues, Associate Director for Research and Collections, Linda Gordon, James Dean, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History; The Clerk of the Records of the Parliamentary Archives, on behalf of the Beaverbrook Foundation; The Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge; The British Library Board; The Courtauld Institute of Art; The National Army Museum; Fauna and Flora International; and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Library. If I have unwittingly infringed on the copyright of any persons or institutions, I hope they will accept my sincerest apologies and notify me of the oversight. This work was supported by a Lamar University Research Enhancement Grant and much of the research was carried out while I was a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University.

In addition I wish to thank professors R. J. Q. Adams, Thomas Kennedy, and William Lubenow, and Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues, who read all or parts of the manuscript and whose gentle and insightful comments have greatly enriched the work. Thanks are also due to my

research assistant, Tom Caraway. Special appreciation once again goes to my wife Diane, who has with good humor for many years shared her husband with various historical figures. Finally, I wish to dedicate this book to Diane’s father Raymond Ulrich, both for his role in providing such an exemplary wife, and for his own example of a life well-lived and full.

The fog lifted at New York harbor on the morning of June 18, 1910, to reveal beautiful summer weather, just in time to grace the arrival of the S.S.
Kaiserin Auguste Victoria
on which Theodore Roosevelt returned from a fifteen-month post-presidential odyssey that an enraptured American public had followed as though it were a serial story. Pandemonium reigned on land and sea and “such a shout went up from the shore as to waken the stones” when TR showed himself on the bridge of the revenue cutter ferrying him to the pier. It was the welcome home of a conquering hero rather than a private citizen in a frock coat. The impresario Flo Ziegfield cabled for a “line to the people” for his annual review set to include “within the limits of a stage spectacle” Roosevelt’s triumphant return, recreating the scene of mounted Rough Riders, West Point Cadets, and other celebrities on hand to acclaim the near-legendary world traveler. After being greeted by Mayor Gaynor, and making a brief speech at the Battery, TR received “one continuous heartfelt ovation” from the hundreds of thousands who crowded the red, white and blue decorated streets to gain a view of their “Teddy” in his carriage as he rode up Broadway and Fifth Avenue.
¹

Roosevelt’s great adventure in Africa fulfilled a long-held dream for the hunter-naturalist aspect of his multifaceted character. However, besides big game rifles, TR also brought along his “bully pulpit” and accompanying ideals. While he shot lion and elephant and rhino through their East African possessions, Roosevelt could not refrain from also lecturing Britain’s Liberal government on the proper methods of keeping up their lion’s share of the “White Man’s Burden” of Empire, returning the sentiment his friend Rudyard Kipling had urged on America a decade before during the Spanish-American War.
²

Once his safari was done, TR extended his preachments to Europe in pursuit of another dream—world peace. Andrew Carnegie, whose peace ambassador Roosevelt became abroad, in particular with the

German Kaiser, gushed that never was there “such a chance for mortal man to immortalize himself,” as was now available to the former president. Writing from Skibo Castle in Scotland, the world’s richest man went on, “You have only to approach Britain with the League of Peace idea to be welcomed.” No party in England could afford to reject “such an invitation as you will now be able to give them, with the American people behind you.” After TR’s meeting with Kaiser Wilhelm, if he did no more than to reveal to the world that Germany was “responsible for the present unbearable position. Much will have been gained.” What pleased Carnegie was that “our country is now leader in the movement to abolish war as a means of settling disputes.” He dreaded TR’s “descent into party politics as inevitably lowering the position you have now attained.” Smaller men, in his opinion, could “fight political questions.”
³