Theodore Rex (143 page)

Read Theodore Rex Online

Authors: Edmund Morris

23
Miles reminded the
Washington
Evening Star
, 19 Apr. 1902;
Washington Times
, 21 Apr. 1902.

24
Senator Joseph Hawley
The Washington Post
, 25 (qu. Watterson) and 26 Feb. 1902.

25
Root’s expressionless
Cleveland
Plain Dealer
, 30 Apr. 1902.

26
Roosevelt was struggling
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 247–48, 271; Hale,
Bull Moose Trails
, 11–13; John C. Shaffer to TR, in Frederick S. Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him: The Personal Recollections of One Hundred and Fifty of His Friends and Associates
(Philadelphia,
1927), 132–33
.

27
Perhaps, after all
Miller,
“Benevolent Assimilation,”
258, erroneously states that Miles was sent to the Philippines “in the spring of 1902.” TR did not authorize a visit until much later, when it suited his political convenience to have Miles out of the United States.

28
“It is getting”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 248.

Chronological Note:
TR visited Charleston, S.C., between 7 and 10 Apr. 1902. For accounts, see Rhodes,
McKinley and Roosevelt
, 231–32, and Wister,
Roosevelt
, 96ff. The trip was aimed at undoing some of the damage done to his Southern reputation by the Booker T. Washington dinner. Another purpose was to reconnoiter the extraordinarily complicated South Carolina patronage situation. From now until 1904, the state tested TR’s skill in negotiating the political tightropes among Conservative, Bryan, Commercial, and Gold Democrats, not to mention Black-and-Tan (Booker T. Washington) and Lily White (Mark Hanna) Republicans. For a lucid discussion, see Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., “Theodore Roosevelt and Southern Republicans: The Case of South Carolina, 1901–04,”
South Carolina History Magazine
70.4 (1969).

29
LODGE’S COMMITTEE
For extensive quotations, see
Literary Digest
, 26 Apr. 1902. 100
“Had you any”
Major Littleton W. T. Walker court-martial, Manila, 8 Apr. 1902, transcript in NA.

30
Waller also quoted
Ibid. For an account of the Waller case, see Miller,
“Benevolent Assimilation,”
219–32.

31
“A man is thrown”
57 Cong., 1 sess., 1902 S. Doc. 331, vol. 25, no. 33, pt. 1, 1767. See Miller,
“Benevolent Assimilation,”
213, on “this very mild form of torture,” from which, apparently, “very few died.”

32
Other reports spoke
Alfonso,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Philippines
, 95; M. K. Sniffen to Carl Schurz, 22 May 1902 (CS).

33
Amid mounting cries
57 Cong., 1 sess., 1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 2, 881–85. See, e.g.,
Literary Digest
, 26 Apr. and 10 May 1902, and Robert W. McKee to Edward W. Carmack, 28 Apr. 1902: “A deep, half-sullen sense of mighty and most flagrant outrage against
Americanism
—[of] rape upon the holiest traditions of our land and its institutions” (EWC).

34
He met with
Washington
Evening Star
, 14 Apr. 1902;
The Washington Post
, 15 Apr. 1902.

35
THE PRESIDENT DESIRES
Full text: 57 Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 24, pt. 1, 1548–49. See also Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 1, 342–43.

36
Roosevelt also ordered
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 259; memorandum of the Secretary’s movements, 1902–1904 (ER).

37
“It is almost”
Qu. in
Literary Digest
, 10 May 1902. General Adna R. Chaffee cabled the War Department on 5 May to say that Smith was “of unsound mind” (ER). Root’s final list of officers convicted or being disciplined for cruelty numbered as many as 350. Root to Henry Cabot Lodge, 4 May 1902 (ER). Although the Philippine insurrection was de facto President McKinley’s war, TR was at least partly responsible for the severity of its prosecution in the early months of his Administration. After the massacre at Balangiga (26–27 Sept. 1901), he had ordered General Chaffee to use “the most stern measures to pacify Samar” (Miller,
“Benevolent Assimilation,”
206–7, 219). Like Root, TR was disposed to be tolerant of even culpable United States soldiers. When, e.g., Lieutenant Preston Brown was sentenced by a military court to dismissal and five years’ hard labor for killing a prisoner, TR commuted the sentence to loss of half pay for nine months, plus a slight downgrading of his place on the promotion list. Ibid., 218; 57 Cong., 1 sess., 1902, S. Doc. 205, pt. 1, 42–49.

38
Roosevelt again
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 313–14; William H. Taft to Mrs. Taft, 1 Mar.
1902; Philadelphia
North American
, 5 May 1902; H. Welsh to Carl Schurz, 30 Apr. 1902 (CS).

39
Like all conservatives
Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 2, 503; Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, 11 July 1902 (ER); Alfonso,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Philippines
, 32; Taylor,
Philippine Insurrection
, vol. 3, 358–59; Rudyard Kipling in
McClure’s
, Feb. 1899.

40
He may be a
Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 1, 7.

41
Filipinos, Taft wrote
Alfonso,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Philippines
, 44–46. See also TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 276, for Taft attempting to restrain the President on self-determination for Filipinos.

42
These sentiments, while
See, e.g., Woodrow Wilson in
Atlantic Monthly
, Dec. 1901: Filipinos were but “children” in “matters of government and justice.” They should remain “in tutelage” to the United States, and so learn “the discipline of the law.” TR’s own prepresidential epithets regarding Filipinos, turned to embarrass him when Senator Edward Carmack of Tennessee wrote them into the record: “Savages, barbarians, wild and ignorant, Apaches, Sioux”
(Congressional Record
, 57 Cong., 1 sess., 1901, vol. 35, pt. 1
, 4673)
.

43
THE PRESIDENT REMAINED
David Healy,
The United States in Cuba: 1898–1902
(Madison,
1963), 202–3;
Washington
Evening Star
, 29 Apr. 1902. The rumors regarding the beef trust proved accurate. Because of rising food prices, Knox’s injunction, announced in May, won further popular support for the Administration, and further recriminations from corporate conservatives. Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 53; Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 368; Allan Nevins, ed.,
Selected Writings of Abram S. Hewitt
(Port Washington, N.Y., 1965 [1937]), 402.

44
“Theodore is a”
Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 378.

45
On 24
April
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 242. See
Review of Reviews
, Apr. 1902, on the changeover.

46
The little white
Clips in Presidential scrapbook (TRP);
The Washington Post
, 26 Apr. 1902. USS
Dolphin
is listed in
Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1901
as a 240-foot cruiser (sixth class), commissioned in 1884.

47
The appointments of
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 48; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 242;
Review of Reviews
, Apr. 1902. Long had noticed within weeks of TR’s arrival that the President intended to take personal charge of Navy policy.

48
“big navy man”
Paul T. Heffron, “William H. Moody,” in Paolo E. Coletta, ed.,
American Secretaries of the Navy
(Annapolis, 1980), vol. 1, 464. Moody’s service as Secretary began on 1 May 1902.

49
SPRING CAME TO
Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 376; Thomas Fleming,
Around the Capitol
(New York,
1902), 112;
TR to Joel Chandler Harris, 9 June 1902 (TRP). TR and EKR were regularly seen dining alfresco on the White House portico. Their “pleasant Continental habit of eating in the open air” soon became the vogue in Washington. New York
World
, 26 Oct. 1902.

50
An especial closeness
Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 237; Rep. James Slayden in New York
World
, 30 May 1902.

51
ELIHU ROOT RETURNED
Welch,
Response to Imperialism
, 142; Alfonso,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Philippines
, 103.

52
When Lodge rose
The Washington Post
, 5 May 1902.

53
He began to read
Ibid.; Henry Cabot Lodge to George H. Lyman, 15 Feb. 1902 (MHS). Another imaginative Filipino technique included the slitting open of American bodies and stuffing them with United States Army mess provisions. Miller,
“Benevolent Assimilation,”
204.

54
Over the next
Welch,
Response to Imperialism
, 144; Some senators, notably Henry Cabot Lodge, were unenthusiastic about the bill’s assembly clause, but with
Taft’s powerful encouragement they eventually accepted it. Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 58.

55
Only George F
. Thompson,
Party Leaders
, 58–71; George F. Hoar to Carl Schurz, 3 June 1902 (CS). This incident occurred on 18 May 1902. See also Hoar to TR, 15 June 1902 (TRP), and TR’s moving reply in
Letters
, vol. 3, 276–77.

56
“Everybody that”
George F. Hoar to Carl Schurz, 3 June 1902 (CS).

57
A few seconds before noon
Washington Times
, 20 May 1902;
The New York Times
, 21 May 1902; Leonard Wood diary, 20 May 1902 (LW).

58
On the roof
Frank McCoy to his mother, May 1902 (FMcC);
The New York Times
, 21 May 1902; news clips and photographs in Leonard Wood scrapbook (LW).

59
“—and I hereby”
The New York Times
, 21 May 1902.

60
From far across
Philadelphia
Press
, 21 May 1902; Frank McCoy to his mother, May 1902 (FMcC).

61
By any standards
This sentence is paraphrased from one in Howard Gillette, Jr., “The Military Occupation of Cuba, 1899–1902: Workshop for American Progressivism,”
American Quarterly
, Oct. 1973. See Healy,
United States in Cuba
, 179–86.

62
A trained surgeon
Leonard Wood, transcript of speech at Williams College, 25 June 1902 (LW). See also Leonard Wood, “The Military Government of Cuba,”
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
21.30 (1903); and Gillette, “Military Occupation of Cuba.”

63
The cannons continued
New York
Herald
, 21 May 1902; Leonard Wood diary, 20 May 1902 (LW); James Hitchman, “The American Touch in Imperial Administration: Leonard Wood in Cuba, 1898–1902,”
The Americas
, Apr. 1968; Healy,
United States in Cuba
, 180–82 (“By the end of 1901, free public education was a reality in Cuba”). Gillette, “Military Occupation of Cuba,” suggests that Wood’s experiment did much to inspire the Progressive reform movement in the United States.

64
What protection
Leonard Wood to Elihu Root, 9 Apr. 1902 (ER).

65
The forty-fifth
Washington Times
, 20 May 1902; Frank McCoy to his mother, May 1902 (FMcC).

66
There were groans
Eyewitness account in Harry Frank Guggenheim,
The United States and Cuba: A Study in International Relations
(New York, 1934), 99; New York
Herald
, 21 May 1902; Leonard Wood diary, 20 May 1902 (LW). Wood also took with him an extremely detailed, up-to-date map of Cuba, to give to the War Department, and a complete survey of Havana harbor and its environs, “including all fortifications, fieldworks, etc.” Wood to Elihu Root, 18 Nov. 1902 (ER).

67
As soon as
Leonard Wood diary, 20 May 1902 (LW); Hill,
Roosevelt and the Caribbean
, 77; New York
World
, 19 May 1902.

CHAPTER 7
: G
ENIUS
, F
ORCE
, O
RIGINALITY

  
1
What’s all this
Dunne,
Observations by Mr. Dooley
, 91.

  
2
THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S TOTAL
New York
World
, 19 May 1902; Oswald Garrison Villard,
Fighting Years: Memories of a Liberal Editor
(New York, 1939), 152.

  
3
Whether exercising
New York
World
, 19 May 1902.

  
4
On 28 May
New York
World
, 29 May 1902; William Dudley Foulke,
A Hoosier Autobiography
(New York, 1922), 117; Leupp,
The Man Roosevelt
, 311–13; Wister,
Roosevelt
, 93–99; New York
World
, 3 May 1902. For TR’s introduction to this new and exotic sport, see Akiko Murakata, “Theodore Roosevelt and
William Sturgis Bigelow: The Story of a Friendship,”
Harvard Library Bulletin
23.1 (1975)
.

  
5
White House groundsmen
John Burroughs,
Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt
(Boston,
1907), 84;
New York
World
, 30 Mar. 1902. Calvin Brice remarked that he intended in the future “to observe the President from the safe summit of some neighboring hill.” Qu. in Adams,
Letters
, vol. 5, 364.

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