Authors: Edmund Morris
52
Wednesday. Last day
The following account is based on Lovering, “Eyewitness”; Boston
Journal
, 4 Sept. 1902; New York
Herald
, 4 Sept. 1902; George A. Lung, “Roosevelt’s Narrow Escape From Death,” Brooklyn
Daily Eagle
, 9 Jan. 1919; photographs donated by W. Murray Crane (TRB); and an official report by W. T. Meyer, 1 Oct. 1902, Precautionary File (GBC).
53
“Oh my God!”
New York
Sun
, 4 Sept. 1902; the accident happened near the foot of Howard’s Hill. See Stefan Lorant’s photohistory,
The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
(New York, 1959), 380.
54
ROOSEVELT LANDED
Lung, “Roosevelt’s Narrow Escape.” Lung tried to squeeze TR’s chest to see if any ribs were broken, “but he resented the squeeze and asked to be left alone.” By good fortune, TR had landed in soft earth and alluvial runoff from the hill.
The New York Times
, 4 Sept. 1902.
55
“No, I guess not,”
Lung, “Roosevelt’s Narrow Escape”; New York
Sun
, 4 Sept. 1902; Lovering in Boston
Journal
, same date.
56
He saw a man
New York
Sun
, 4 Sept. 1902.
57
“God-damned outrage”
Lovering, “Eyewitness.” Many newspapers moderated this language, extremely unusual for TR. But at least two contemporary reporters quoted it verbatim (New York
World
and Lovering), and TR himself admitted it in an impromptu interview with Lovering later that afternoon. Finley Peter Dunne recounted the incident in his next “Mr. Dooley” column. “I can’t tell ye [what Roosevelt said] till I get mad. But I’ll tell ye this much, a barn-boss that was standin’ by and heerd it, said he niver before regretted his father hadn’t sint him to Harvard.” Dunne,
Observations by Mr. Dooley
, 223–25.
58
As his heir
John Hay to Alvey A. Adee, 4 Sept. 1902 (JH).
59
At the time
W. Murray Crane to Henry Cabot Lodge, 4 Sept. 1902 (HCL) (“His fighting spirit was up and he wanted to punish someone”); New York
Sun
, 4 Sept. 1902.
60
Roosevelt did not
New York
Sun
, 4 Sept. 1902.
61
QUENTIN WAS INDEED
The New York Times
, 4 Sept. 1902. An illustration in Lorant,
Life and Times
, 380, shows TR speaking in Lenox, Mass., just after the accident, despite the massive disfigurement of his face. He insisted on appearing also at other scheduled stops in Connecticut before returning home on the
Sylph
.
62
He was sentenced
Judgment qu. in Pittsfield
Sun
, 22 Jan. 1903.
63
Memories of “poor”
New York Tribune
, 16 Sept. 1902;
Harper’s Weekly
, n.d., in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
64
“It takes more”
New York Tribune
, 16 Sept. 1902. Mark Hanna endorsed at least the first part of TR’s statement. “You may be hung,” he wrote him, “but you will certainly not be killed by a ‘Trolley car,’ ” 4 Sept. 1902 (TRP).
Chronological Note:
TR remained only one night in Oyster Bay, before proceeding south on the second of his campaign swings, a five-day trip through West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. His speeches largely echoed those of his New England trip.
65
Only Edith knew
For a medical article arguing that the Pittsfield trauma was, at least in part, ultimately the cause of TR’s death, see Robert C. Kimberley, “The Health of Theodore Roosvelt,”
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
5.3 (summer 1979).
1
It was different
Dunne,
Observations by Mr. Dooley
, 49–50.
2
THE PRESIDENTIAL EAGLE
New York
Herald
, 20 Sept. 1902; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 326. 144
The question was
Sage,
William Boyd Allison
, 225–27.
3
“We favor such”
Qu. in
Literary Digest
, 16 Aug. 1902.
4
In other words
TR to J. G. Schurman, 11 Aug. 1902 (TRP); Robert LaFollette autobiographical manuscript “B,” 247 (RLF).
5
This “Iowa Idea”
TR to J. G. Schurman, 11 Aug. 1902, and TR to Mark Hanna et al., 1 Sept. 1902 (TRP); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 327, 313. For a discussion of the wildly popular Iowa Idea and Western insurgency, see Fowler,
John Coit Spooner
, chap. 10.
6
Senators Allison
Fowler,
John Coit Spooner
, chap. 10; Merrill,
Republican Command
, 117; Washington
Evening Star
, 16 Sept. 1902.
7
But Governor Cummins’s
Bolles,
Tyrant from Illinois
, 37–38; David P. Thelen,
Robert M. LaFollette and the Insurgent Spirit
(Boston, 1976), 49; “Though commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not be.… The period of exclusiveness is past.” Qu. in Alexander K. McClure and Charles Morris,
William McKinley
(New York, 1901), 309.
8
McKinley’s successor
Sereno E. Payne to TR, 15 Aug. 1902 (TRP). Carleton Putnam sagely remarks that TR was not equipped to understand tariff policy because there was no clear right or wrong to it
(Theodore Roosevelt
, 500–501). “Political economists are pretty generally agreed,” TR wrote in
Thomas Hart Benton
(1887), “that protectionism is vicious in theory and harmful in practice.” Yet by 1902 he saw “no reason” why Americans should not have it, if most of them wanted it. See TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 312–13, and for a detailed study, James A. Rosmond, “Nelson Aldrich, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Tariff: A Study to 1905,” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1974).
9
His failure eighteen
Literary Digest
, 27 Sept. 1902. The word
reciprocity
does not even appear in the index to the 1902
Republican Campaign Textbook
.
10
Tariff reform
Literary Digest
, 16 Aug. 1902; TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 1, 192–94; Merrill,
Republican Command
, 116–20.
11
During the next
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 313, 326–27; Merrill,
Republican Command
, 122–23.
12
DISEMBARKING ON
Chicago Tribune
, 20 Sept. 1902.
13
When the train
Pittsburgh
Dispatch
, 20 Sept. 1902. Quay and his colleague Boies Penrose had met with George Baer on 3 Sept. in a vain attempt to persuade him to arbitrate (Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 132). On the same day, TR, concerned at mounting violence in the anthracite country and criticisms of his own aloofness, released a report on the situation by Carroll D. Wright. This evenhanded document admitted a climate of “no confidence” and “distrust” on either side, but held that both had “reasonable and just” grievances that needed to be publicly adjudicated. Ibid., 109;
The Independent
, 18 Sept. 1902; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 327.
14
No sooner had
New York
Sun
and Pittsburgh
Dispatch
, 20 Sept. 1902; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 327. Sargent is wrongly identified as Carroll D. Wright in the last-named source. For the story of Quay and Penrose’s attempt to influence strike negotiations, see Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 132–40.
15
Roosevelt sent a
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 327.
16
HIS LEFT LEG
Medical bulletin in Washington
Evening Star
, 24 Sept. 1902. The complete text of TR’s speech, his finest trust policy statement as President, is in
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 1, 169–83.
17
It was the first
TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 1, 175–76, 178.
18
Speaking lucidly
Ibid., 178.
19
By choosing two
Ibid., 183–84.
20
At last the audience
Cincinnati
Commercial Tribune, The Cincinnati Enquirer
, and
Detroit Today
, 21 Sept. 1902.
21
A REPORTER COVERING
Detroit Today
, 22 Sept. 1902.
22
Actually, the main
Ibid.
23
Early the next morning
Detroit
Evening News
, 22 Sept. 1902; Detroit
Tribune
, 23 Sept. 1902; Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
24
Speculation that
Indianapolis
Journal
, 24 Sept. 1902; TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 1, 187–95.
25
The tariff, for
TR,
Presidential Addresses and State Papers
, vol. 1, 191, 193.
26
Standing awkwardly
Ibid., 194;
The Washington Post
, 24 Sept. 1902. Spooner wrote dryly to Senator Allison: “Some of it you undoubtedly recognize as familiar.” Merrill,
Republican Command
, 123.
27
WITH FURTHER ROARS
Washington
Evening Star
, 24 Sept. 1902. Except where otherwise indicated, the following account of the events of 23 Sept. 1902 is based on “President Roosevelt’s Injury,”
Indiana Medical Journal
, Oct. 1902; Indianapolis
Evening News
, 23 Sept. 1902; and
The Washington Post
, 24 Sept. 1902.
28
From Logansport station
The Washington Post
and Indianapolis
Evening News
, 24 Sept. 1902.
29
“The President has”
The Washington Post
, 24 Sept. 1902.
30
“Elihu … if”
Memorandum, ca. 25 Sept. 1902 (GBC).
31
Root paced up
Ibid.
32
The President moved
Ibid.; “President Roosevelt’s Injury”; New York
World
, 26 Oct. 1902.
33
Dr. George H
. Medical bulletins in
The Washington Post
, 24 and 29 Sept. 1902; Dr. Lung qu. in Brooklyn
Eagle
, 9 Jan. 1919.
34
At five o’clock
Douglas,
Many-Sided Roosevelt
, 96;
The Washington Post
, 24 Sept. 1902; Indianapolis
Evening News
, 23 Sept. 1902.
35
Successive bulletins
Alvey A. Adee to John Hay, 24 Sept. 1902 (JH);
The Washington Post
, 29 Sept. 1902; Indianapolis
Sentinel
, 24 Sept. 1902.
36
PAINTERS AND PLASTERERS
EKR Diary, 24 Sept. 1902 (TRC);
The Washington Post
, 25 Sept. 1902.
37
She established him
Presidential scrapbook (TRP); Philander Knox to
The Washington Post
, 25 Sept. 1902;
Chicago Tribune
, 25 Sept. 1902.
38
He regretted that
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 328;
The Washington Post
, 30 Sept. 1902; Merrill,
Republican Command
, 127; Willis Van Devanter to F. E. Warren, 13 May 1903 (WVD).
39
That did not
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 335; New York
World
, 28 Sept. 1902; Croly,
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
, 417ff.
40
Right now, he
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 335.
41
ON SUNDAY
, 28 Washington
Evening Star
, 29 Sept. 1902.
Note:
Dr. Rixey was the father of Lilian Rixey, author of
Bamie
.
42
The President’s
EKR to Kermit Roosevelt, 28 Sept. 1902 (TRC); Dr. Rixey testimony in
Roosevelt vs. Newett: A Transcript of the Testimony Taken and Depositions Read at Marquette, Michigan, May 6–31, 1913
(privately printed, 1914; copy in TRB), 66, 306–7; “President Roosevelt’s Injury”; EKR to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., ca. 29 Sept. 1902 (TRJR); Washington
Evening Star
, 29 Sept. 1902.
43
CHILL WEATHER
George H. Gordon to John Mitchell, 27 Sept. 1902 (JM); Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 174; Low to TR, 2 Oct. 1902 (TRP). According to Wiebe, “Anthracite Coal Strike,” 244, the panic was unnecessary. If the operators had allowed their trains to haul bituminous coal (which was in plentiful supply, and which Mitchell had not embargoed), “all market demands could have been met.” In any case, fairly adequate supplies of bituminous coal got through somehow. There never was, as TR believed, “a coal famine.” For another account, see Arthur M. Schaefer, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Contribution to the Concept of Presidential Intervention in Labor Disputes: Antecedents and the 1902 Coal Strike,” in Naylor et al.,
Theodore Roosevelt
, 201–20.
44
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, 22 and 27 Sept. 1902 (TRP).
45
“Literally nothing,”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 331. Heman W. Chaplin argues in
The Coal Mines and the Public: A Popular Statement of the Legal Aspects of the Coal Problem, and the Rights of Consumers as the Situation Exists
(New York, 1902) that TR actually was entitled to intervene under the Sherman Act (55).