Theodore Rex (78 page)

The President beamed at his visitor, showing no regret for
temps perdu
. Few people realized it, but Roosevelt loved Quay, probably the most despised
politician of the last twenty years. He had made a secret pilgrimage to say good-bye, and been moved by Quay’s lament, “I do wish it were possible for me to get off into the great north woods and crawl out on a rock in the sun and die like a wolf!” Public men of the future must face a brighter, more
businesslike light, the shadow-free light of Cooper-Hewitt lamps and popping press bulbs and Luxfer office windows.
George Cortelyou—stenographer, scheduler, filer, colorless as onionskin, the quintessential modern bureaucrat—did not blink at this kind of light. Neither did Moore’s young Republicans.

“
Go see Cortelyou as soon as you can,” the President said. “And tell him,” he added ingratiatingly, “I want him to work with you.”

AT SIXTY-FOUR
years of age, Ion Perdicaris—“Jon” to boyhood friends in New Jersey—felt that he had found his final home in Tangier, Morocco. His dividends from United States cotton and gas stocks financed a palatial villa outside of town, on the slopes of Djebal Kebir.

This did not mean that Mr. Perdicaris had severed all American ties. Cultured and suave, he made a point of entertaining visiting compatriots, and enjoyed his role as dean of Tangier’s little English-speaking colony. When the mood struck him, he was capable of crossing to New York, renting the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and putting on a show scripted by himself, with sets by “I. Perdicaris,” and his own stepdaughter as star. Such shows might open on Monday and close the following Thursday; but Mr. Perdicaris was wealthy enough to be philosophical, returning always to the peace of his Moroccan retreat.

He sat there now on the cool evening of 18 May 1904, relaxed in dinner jacket and pumps, surrounded by his family and the luxurious jumble of a cosmopolitan life. Tiny amphorae on the mantel testified to his birth in Athens, where his father had been United States Consul General. Oriental rugs and American skins bestrewed the floor; Moorish tables and shelves displayed a collection of
objets d’art
from three continents; William Morris wallpaper hinted that the lady of the house was an Englishwoman. Mrs. Perdicaris, however, was as happily expatriate as her husband. She liked to cuddle two Brazilian monkeys, who ate orange blossoms out of a pouch slung round her waist.

The other male member of the party was her son, Cromwell Varley. He was younger than his stepfather by some twenty years. But when sudden screams came from down the hallway, the old man lithely beat him to the door.

Mr. Perdicaris supposed, as he ran, that his French chef was quarreling with the German housekeeper as usual. Not until he reached the servants’ quarters, with Varley following, did he realize that bandits had invaded his property. Armed Moors approached him, pausing only to club his butler to the floor with rifle butts. Mr. Perdicaris tried to intervene. He was instantly beaten and bound with palmetto cords. Varley leaped forward, enraged, whereupon his hand was slashed and he, too, taken prisoner. The rifles prodded both men toward the guardhouse, where a handsome, short, pale, turbaned Berber intoduced himself.

“I am the Raisuli.”

Mr. Perdicaris was not encouraged. Ahmed ben Mohammed el Raisuli was a notorious insurgent, ruling three of the most violent hill tribes in Morocco—the Er Riff Mountain
kabyles
, whom Sultan Mulay Abd al-Aziz IV had never been able to subdue. Captured once by the Pasha of Tangier, Raisuli had spent four years chained to a wall. Since then, his hatred of the French-dominated sultanate had become compulsive. Yet his voice tonight was low and unthreatening.

“I swear by all we hold sacred,” Raisuli said, indicating Mr. Perdicaris’s other servants, “that if there is no attempt to escape or rescue, no harm shall come to these people. But they must mount and ride with us!”

Mr. Perdicaris saw his own horses being saddled for travel. He had no idea why he was being abducted. “I accept your assurance, Raisuli,” he replied in Arabic. He and Varley were made to mount, too. A small caravan formed, and trotted out into the darkness.

Helpless and hysterical, Mrs. Perdicaris remained behind. Then she discovered that Raisuli had neglected to cut the villa’s telephone cord.
Just before eleven o’clock, Samuel Gummeré, the American Consul General in Tangier, rode up through the cork trees to comfort her.

THE FIRST CABLE
from Gummeré did not reach the State Department until early afternoon of the next day, 19 May.

John Hay was out of town, so once again Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Loomis had to handle a foreign crisis with the President.

Conveniently, Roosevelt had just dispatched sixteen white warships on a “goodwill cruise” of the Mediterranean. His response was quick, and more forceful than Gummeré could have hoped. Loomis cabled back that several of these ships would be sent to Tangier, as soon as possible. “May be three or four days before one can arrive.”

That estimate was somewhat optimistic. The nearest ships to Morocco were those of Rear Admiral French E. Chadwick’s South Atlantic Squadron, comprising the fast cruiser
Brooklyn
, a protected cruiser, and two gunboats. About one day behind steamed four big battleships of the North Atlantic Fleet, under Rear Admiral Albert S. Barker. Bringing up the rear was Rear Admiral Theodore F. Jewell’s European Squadron of three protected cruisers.

The last seven units were scheduled to rendezvous in the Azores before proceeding to Portugal and the Rivieras. Chadwick’s four were due to visit Gibraltar, and then tour the North African coast. These were the vessels Roosevelt chose to divert to Tangier. But he overestimated the speed at which even the
Brooklyn
could move. The Navy Department advised that Chadwick would not reach Tangier much before the end of May.

RAISULI’S CARAVAN JOGGED
inland all day, under the staring sun. Mr. Perdicaris and his stepson stifled under Moorish
haiks
, wrapped around them for disguise. Toward evening, they ascended into the Riff Mountains—tribal country, forbidden to Christians and coastal Arabs alike. Mr. Perdicaris’s horse slipped on some rocks. The old man, still bound, was thrown off, dislocating a thighbone. He lay quivering until Varley and Raisuli lifted him back onto the saddle. For hours, the climb continued up a wet, dark gorge. Shortly before midnight, Raisuli called a halt at the village of Tsarradan, on the spur of Mount Nazul. Mr. Perdicaris was escorted to a hut that reeked of stagnant water. Unable to stand on his throbbing leg, he lay down on the clay floor, and someone threw a blanket over him. He could not sleep. The hut’s thatch was half open to the sky. Rain began to fall, softening the clay to paste.

In all his wandering life, Mr. Perdicaris had never felt so remote from help or hope.

ROOSEVELT’S ARMADA STEAMED
on across the Atlantic, leaving the Caribbean basin unguarded. As if to remind its citizens that out of sight was not out of mind, the President chose 20 May—the second anniversary of
Cuba libre
—to make an official statement of his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Once again Elihu Root served as his spokesman. Addressing the Cuba Society of New York that evening, Root asked permission to read a letter from the President of the United States.

Its first two paragraphs were blandly congratulatory, but there was a passing clause that caught attention: “
It is not true that the United States has any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards other nations,
save such as are for their welfare
.”

The third paragraph moved quickly from reassurance to threat.

The letter ended as it began, with polite clichés, but its message was clear: Caribbean and Latin American countries must in future match their “interests” to those of the Colossus of the North. If not, they would be policed.

In sending such a message at such a time—little more than four weeks before the Republican National Convention—Roosevelt took a calculated risk. Better, with mere rhetoric, to arouse a chorus of criticism from anti-imperialists than to court much wider outrage by actually implementing the Corollary, if things got any worse in Santo Domingo. His statement should at least reduce the latter possibility through November.

Congressman David DeArmond of Missouri accused him in the New York
World
of “
jingoism run mad.” The same newspaper also used the words
patronizing, menace, knight-errantry
, and
bumptiousness
. Yet most commentators north and south of the border praised the President’s good intentions. Memories of German and British gunboats bombarding Venezuela still rankled. For better or worse, the Roosevelt Corollary was now a permanent feature of hemispheric policy.