Theodore Rex (130 page)

AT HAMPTON ROADS
on 22 February, Roosevelt stood for the last time as Commander-in-Chief on the bridge of the
Mayflower
. He strained his one good eye through a pair of naval binoculars, trying to glimpse what everyone around him saw clearly: distant white superstructures looming through gray rain and fog. “Here they are,” he eventually shouted, feeling rather than seeing, as the sound of twenty-eight ships’ bands playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” grew in volume, to the rhythmic crash of cannon. The music, the gunpowder, the echelons of saluting bluejackets: all were for him, and for history.

“
That is the answer to my critics,” he said, his top hat glistening in the wet air. “Another chapter is complete, and I could not ask a finer concluding scene for my administrations.”

“
I COULD NOT ASK A FINER CONCLUDING SCENE FOR MY ADMINISTRATIONS.”
The Great White Fleet returns from its round-the-world trip, 22 February 1909
(photo credit 32.2)

AT A TIME
when he was still able to joke about his future, William Howard Taft used to say, “
It will be a cold day when I go into the White House.”

He was right, although he could not have imagined how cold.
His Inauguration was the most arctic any Washingtonian could remember. For many of the visitors whose trains managed to scrabble into town, along rails carbuncled with rock-hard ice, it was the worst weather they had known in their
lives. A brutal west wind drove in billows of snow. Branchloads of ice crashed from trees, some bringing down tangled decorations. Ice sheaths snapped telephone and telegraph wires, cutting off communications with the rest of the country. Freezing rain sent automobiles careening, carriage horses sliding, and streetcars to unscheduled terminals. And the sullen sky discharged such further quantities of snow that groundsmen gave up any attempt to keep the eastern Capitol plaza clear. At eleven o’clock, spectators were told that the swearing-in ceremony was being transferred indoors. Arriving guests had to find their own way to the Senate chamber, and their own seats when they got there. The rough pine platform built for the swearing-in whitened slowly as it stood abandoned, bare of all bunting.

“I
KNEW THERE WOULD BE A BLIZZARD WHEN
I
WENT OUT.”
Roosevelt and Taft arriving at the Capitol, 4 March 1909
(photo credit epl.1)

“
I knew there would be a blizzard when I went out,” said Roosevelt, with grim satisfaction.

He left the White House with Taft at ten o’clock, and they were driven to the Capitol in a twelve-team equipage whipped by flying snow. Pennsylvania Avenue was lined with empty bleachers. A few hundred well-wishers straggled along the sidewalks, walking to keep warm, easily keeping up with the presidential carriage. They cheered occasionally—“Oh, you Teddy!”—but their mood seemed more sad than celebratory. Roosevelt kept dropping his window and waving at them until the snow clouds forced him to raise it again.

Progress was so slow that the procession did not crest Capitol Hill until shortly before eleven. A small, familiar figure awaited Roosevelt and Taft at the foot of the Senate steps: that of Philander Knox, exuding triple dignity as Senator, Secretary of State-designate, and chairman of the congressional welcoming committee. He led the way to the President’s Room, where a final bureaucratic duty awaited Roosevelt: the signing of a pile of bills that had been passed overnight. The Sixtieth Congress and he were going out together. There had been precious little else they had done in tandem over the last couple of years.

Roosevelt’s entire Cabinet was on hand to witness this ritual. Scrupulous to the last, he handed each bill out to the appropriate officer for approval before taking it back and writing his name. Taft, meanwhile, played host to politicians drifting in to pay their respects.

Toward noon, the flow of visitors slowed. Roosevelt finished his work and went to join Taft. They chatted and laughed with much of their old warmth, but a sense of strain was apparent between them. They soon ran out of conversation, and sat side by side in silence until the President got up to bid farewell to a few departing guests.

One of them was Captain Butt, already transferred to Taft’s service, and not entirely happy about it. He choked as he tried to say good-bye.

“
It isn’t good-bye,” Roosevelt said to soothe him. “We will meet again,
and possibly you will serve me in a more important capacity than the one you have now.”

Butt had little time to ponder this strange remark, for Vice President Fairbanks had come through the door with Sherman and announced that the “march” would begin at once.

The hands of the grandfather clock stood at 12:12 as Taft and Roosevelt followed their assigns down the corridor and into the Senate Chamber, where a sudden roar greeted them.

OBSERVERS WERE STRUCK
by Roosevelt’s immobile concentration as his successor was sworn in. Those who did not know him thought that the stony expression and balled-up fists signaled trouble ahead for Taft. His sister Bamie, describing the scene to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson afterward, got only “the most wonderful feeling of dignity and strength, and people who had really not cared for him suddenly realized what a great man he was.” In fact, he was making a special effort not to distract attention from the new President of the United States. An occasional curt nod indicated his approval of points made in Taft’s subsequent speech.

Roosevelt’s fabled vigor was apparent only at the end, when he bounded out of his seat and ran up the steps of the rostrum to shake Taft by the hand. The two men embraced briefly, then stood talking, their hands on each other’s shoulders.

“
There was not a dry eye in the place,” Bamie wrote, “and everyone’s throat contracted; as he said good-bye before anyone realized what was happening he went down the steps from the speakers desk and bowing and smiling went out of the little side door.… It was the simplest most dramatic exit imaginable & left the whole packed Senate with a tremor going through it.”

THE SNOW HAD
stopped falling during the ceremony, and Roosevelt found a large, boisterous crowd of well-wishers waiting for him when he emerged onto the plaza outside. Mounted police tried to hold them back as they surged and roared, “Good-bye, Mr. President!” It was no longer his title, but they were clearly unwilling to give it to another.

William Loeb, Jr., was on hand (as so often before, starting at North Creek in the Adirondacks!) to escort Roosevelt to his train. A drab honor guard of about a thousand New York County Republicans formed a rectangle about the carriage and led the way toward Union Station, to thumping band music, while the crowd followed. The general mood was festive, but when the band segued into “Auld Lang Syne,” a sudden valedictory pall descended.
Thousands of voices swelled the chorus, and the mass of marchers began to sway to the tune’s slow rhythm.

Roosevelt, who had been laughing and brandishing his silk hat, lapsed into quietness. Loeb furtively watched him, afraid he might break down. But by the time they arrived at the station, the band had switched to “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” and Roosevelt was as jovial as ever.

“Good-bye to you all,” he shouted in his high, cracking voice, and leaped out of the carriage the moment it rolled to a halt. Before the crowd could close around him, he had disappeared.

EDITH ROOSEVELT RECEIVED
him in the new terminal’s magnificent President’s Room, as yet—and still—unused by any Chief Executive of the United States. Quentin was with her, looking triumphant, because he had managed to sneak into the Capitol without a pass. He and “Taffy” had watched the Inauguration together, squeezed into one seat in the Taft family row.

A special train was waiting, but ice delayed its departure for two wearying hours. Roosevelt was forced to hold an impromptu reception as hundreds of Washington friends and diplomats, including a tearful Jules Jusserand, came to wish him well and—over and over again—“good hunting.” Just as frequently, he assured everyone who would listen that he had had “a bully time” as President, but was happy to lay down the burden of office.