CHAPTER XII
FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF THEODORE
ROOSEVELT
September 14, 1901, to March 4, 1905
VICE PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT was away in the New York mountains with his family on a camping and hunting trip when news reached him of the shooting of President McKinley. He arrived at Buffalo the next day. Owing to the hopeful view taken by the physicians regarding the President’s condition and the prevalent belief that he would recover, the Vice President returned to the mountains to resume his outing, and when Secretary Cortelyou sent the telegram—
“The President’s condition has changed for the worse.”
followed a few hours later by another—
“Come at once.”
he was miles out of reach of telegraph on top of Mount Marcy. A guide finally found him, and he set out at once, to make the journey as quickly as possible, by horseback, buckboard, and special train. Before he had covered half the journey, the President was dead and Buffalo was a dark, silent, sorrowing city.
On Saturday afternoon, September 14, 1901, at the residence of Ansley Wilcox, Colonel Roosevelt took the oath of office as twenty-sixth President in the presence of the members of the Cabinet who were in the city at that time with Judge John R. Hazel, United States district judge officiating. The new President, with deep emotion, very briefly pledged himself to carry out the policies of his predecessor:
“In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement, I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity, and honour of our country.”
He was then within two months of being forty-three years of age, the youngest man who had ever assumed presidential duties.
By October he had his family installed in the White House. The advent of a family of children was welcomed by the people. It was the largest group of youngsters since Garfield’s occupancy, four boys and two girls. The eldest at once won the public and was dubbed “Princess Alice.” The boys, Theodore, Archie, Kermit, and Quentin, were placed in the public schools, while Ethel attended the Cathedral School for girls. The experiences, exploits, and performances of the young Roosevelts furnished a joyous chapter to White House history, for they fully lived up to all that was expected of them, and their doings throughout their life in Washington found a responsive, sympathetic note of understanding in the hearts of boys and girls of America.
Mrs. Roosevelt assumed her new duties with the quiet dignity and pleasant manner which were always characteristic of her. The best part of her life had been spent in official circles through the various positions which the Colonel had filled, and she had acquired the art of always giving the impression of being interested and pleased in the affairs of the moment whether she really felt so or not. This charm of manner made her receptions popular and well attended.
President Roosevelt’s career as Civil Service Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, his efficiency and gallantry at San Juan Hill, which had brought him the governorship of New York, his well-known reluctance at being shelved into the vice presidency, all served to invest him with an unusual hold upon the interest of the public, apart from the magnetism of his own dynamic personality. Crowds such as the White House had never before witnessed, except on special occasions, made the President’s office their daily objective.
His first public reception, New Year’s Day of 1902, drew an unprecedented multitude, 8,100 people passing in line to shake his hand and to be presented to the new First Lady and the Cabinet ladies.
Mrs. Roosevelt had tabooed the handshaking for herself early in her husband’s official life at the gubernatorial mansion in New York. Although warned that this exhausting ordeal was expected of her, she managed its omission with the graceful tact that served her so well later for the seven and a half years of White House leadership. Instead of wearing a floral corsage she had simply carried a large bouquet, and no one ever thought she should lay it aside to shake hands.
Five days after the reception, Mrs. Roosevelt introduced Miss Alice, just budding into womanhood, to society, at a most delightful reception and dance at which an elaborate buffet supper was served. Almost immediately she became the White House belle, with enough attention to turn her head completely. Every step was watched, and every act coloured and exaggerated, until simple girlish fun with her young companions was made to assume all sorts of ludicrous and absurd guises, for it must always be remembered that this slip of a girl was her father’s daughter, with his love of the outdoors and of all clean sport. To ride horseback hard and fast as their father and their brothers, to shoot straight, swim, drive, walk, and play every game to win, with all the concentrated energy and knowledge they possessed, had been instilled into the two Roosevelt daughters. Naturally, applied to the diversities of the social game, this sort of inherited dynamic force gave abundant food for discussion of the young dêbutante whose daily activities, daring and bizarre as some of them were, would have created but little attention had she not been a Roosevelt and in the White House.
It had long been an accepted fact that the White House had become inadequate for the official entertaining, and still more so as a residence for a fair-sized family. Though many White House mistresses had cogitated on ideas of remodelling, Mrs. Harrison having left a splendid plan for this, it was not until 1902 that Congress made the appropriation of $65,196 for the necessary repairs. Work began almost at once that enlarged, renovated, and beautified the building. Two connecting wings were added, one of which took the office and its growing staff away from the house altogether. While the work was being done, the President occupied a house on Jackson Place, now the home of the Women’s City Club, as the temporary White House.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS FAMILY
As they appeared when he became President.
In the summer of 1902, President Roosevelt decided to make a tour of New England for about ten days. On the last day of this junket, a collision between a trolley car and the vehicle containing his party resulted in the instant death of one of the White House Secret Service men, affectionately known as “Big Bill Craig,” who was seated with the driver, and injuries to the President and to Secretary Cortelyou. The uncertainty over the extent of the President’s injuries and the lack of details of the accident, owing to the fact that the conveyance with the newspaper men had been separated from the party and no members of the press were at hand, caused the greatest excitement and alarm when rumours of the accident reached New York and Washington. The Associated Press rushed its Washington representative from New York to Oyster Bay in a spectacular dash against time. Upon Mr. Roosevelt’s arrival at home, long delayed, he received the representative of the Associated Press at Sagamore Hill at ten o’clock that night, and despite a swollen lip, injured hand, leg, and various severe and painful bruises, he paced up and down his library floor and dictated the story of the accident, refusing, however, to allow the account to carry his name.
He had already planned a series of trips he intended making, and as the next on the list was to attend a labour convention at Chattanooga during September, he decided to accede to the demand of his home folks and family acquaintances to receive them before his next departure. Accordingly, one Saturday afternoon, early in September of 1902, President and Mrs. Roosevelt invited their neighbours and friends to a reception at Sagamore Hill. All day long the trains and boats poured out a stream of “neighbours.” It seemed as though everybody on the Sound were coming to pay his respects to the “Colonel” and Mrs. Roosevelt.
The horror of the days at Buffalo of the year before was still upon officials, and the appearance in the vicinity of the summer White House of several suspicious-looking characters rumoured to be anarchists brought about the swearing in as deputy sheriffs of five or six hundred citizens, among them the newspaper men stationed in the little town; sixty New York policemen were also added to the staff about the house.
About three o’clock, the procession began its winding journey to the home on top of the hill. Carriages were stopped some distance down the drive, and all occupants required to complete the distance afoot. Coats, shawls, umbrellas, parasols, cameras, lunch boxes, even bouquets, were all scrutinized, and all belongings not actually attached to their owners were required to be deposited under a tree on the lawn. The consequent confusion arising when departing guests tried to redeem their belongings was the only flaw in an otherwise perfect day. These extreme measures were simply in obedience to orders to allow no one to approach the President save with hands exposed and unencumbered. Every precaution was taken to prevent a repetition of the tragedy of the previous year. Threatening letters had added to this fear, which was never absent from Mrs. Roosevelt’s mind. Even parents carrying children were required to show their hands.
A double line of Secret Service men stationed themselves ahead of the President, and as each person came up, he was subjected to double scrutiny. Standing at the President’s side was another guard and protector, whose purpose was not generally known. This was Theodore, Junior, who had armed himself with a pistol, and during the entire afternoon kept his hand in his pocket and his finger upon the trigger, ready for the slightest suspicious move toward his idolized father. He was the object of grave concern to the Secret Service, and of a certain grim amusement to his father, whose reliance upon his son’s judgment was not shared by the others.
No reception of President Roosevelt in Washington equalled this one in all of the elements of human interest. Men and women whom he had not seen in many years came in droves, and his delight in meeting them was genuine and spontaneous. Mrs. Roosevelt at his side shared his pleasure. Did she turn to speak to one of her receiving party for a minute, she was at once recalled enthusiastically to meet some old acquaintance. Once everyone’s attention was centred upon a smallish unpretentious individual, who was greeted thus: “Bless my soul, it’s Jake!” and Jake, red of face, beaming with joy, was dumb with delight. In one of the short lulls, the President told some of the porch party of Jake:
“When I was like Ted,” indicating his eldest son, “I roamed these woods and swamps during holidays and week ends, hunting and fishing. My father engaged Jake as a sort of guide and guardian, to see that I did not get lost or hurt, and that I turned up at home on schedule. Jake and I and the boys who went along had many good times. He used to make us the most delicious ‘Squawk Pie.’ Delicious on a cold day around a camp fire, when you are a boy, tired and hungry! Of course, you don’t know what ‘Squawk Pie’ is!—made out of young, tender swamp herons—regular hunters’ pie—bully!” He laughed reminiscently, glanced out to the side of the house, where Jake was already surrounded by his three younger boys, and resumed his place.
A few seconds later, the whole line was stopped while he and Mrs. Roosevelt greeted two elderly women, one of whom had been his nurse and had brought with her a picture of him when he was five years old. Such a warm, friendly greeting as those two received! They were repaid for the journey of several hundred miles made to bring this little reminder of his childhood. They were taken back into the house and treated with that delightful democratic courtesy so characteristic of this family.
A group of Hungarians brought a beautiful hand-wrought lamp, which, after it had been examined, they were allowed to present to the President.
For three hours, this moving pageant of humanity, beaming with pleasure and admiration and frankly curious of the man himself, filed past him. To each and every one was given that individualistic greeting that was one of his many claims to popularity. As the visitors left the other side of the porch, they were served with raspberry shrub, each person being presented with the little crystal punch cup from which he drank and on which were written the words, “Theodore Roosevelt, 1902.”
The next day, Sunday, everyone in Oyster Bay went to church and gathered about the little church attended by the President. From dawn, police and Secret Service men had been scouring the vicinity for the pair of strangers, alleged anarchists, who had appeared in the town the day before. The air was tense with expectancy and dread. The Roosevelt pew was occupied by the President and his wife and part of their family. As the sermon progressed and lost some of the pathos of its memorial to Mr. McKinley in its tribute to the new ruler, likened to “a young David raised to lead his people,” the President’s countenance flushed with displeasure. His wife’s hand upon his arm restrained any budding impulse to rise or leave.
When the congregation knelt to pray, those seated in the rear of the Roosevelt pew enjoyed the reassuring and edifying spectacle of a formidable revolver protruding from the hip pocket of the Chief Executive.
A trip to Chattanooga will never be forgotten by some of the army officers and other members of the party, who failed in keeping up, either riding or walking, with their athletic, enthusiastic leader, to whom fatigue seemed an unknown sensation.
The next scheduled trip was to Omaha, Nebr., but it ended at Indianapolis, as the President was there forced to undergo an operation of bone scraping as the result of the injury to his leg in the Pittsfield accident of the late summer. While not alarming, the operation carried an element of danger that kept the nation on the qui vive until complete convalescence was assured.
The state receptions of 1902 and 1903 were significant for their size and brilliance, as were all of those in the succeeding four years. To each came many of the great social and financial leaders of New York, who had never previously considered these official White House functions of sufficient importance for their attendance. But all through the Roosevelt régime the entertainments were distinguished by the presence of more of the national celebrities in arts, letters, sciences, finance, and social eminence than had ever been seen in Washington in such numbers before. The reason for this was due not merely to the long-established social position of the President and his wife, but to the personality of the many-sided Executive who touched more different kinds of people in a wider range of activities than had any of his predecessors. He was thoroughly versed in a greater variety of subjects and had the faculty of getting the measure of a project, whether it related to politics, invention, exploration, religion, navigation, finance, agriculture, mining, sport, or diplomacy, in a shorter time, with fewer words, than any other public man of his day.
Furthermore, his mind absorbed information with sponge-like avidity and possessed a trained quality of retaining the needed amount of detail for the complete picture of the enterprise, project, or policy to remain in a photographic clearness and enabled him to discuss his problems with amazing comprehension. He had a positive genius for study and research, and a gift for eliminating the non-essentials from his mental storehouse.
President Roosevelt handled his problems in a direct, fearless manner, and he accepted the attacks and criticisms hurled at him in a fearless attitude that enabled him to capitalize on his opposition. He started some reforms and innovations that contributed greatly to his working schedule, because he felt he had to keep abreast of public opinion. To one clerk was assigned the task of daily skimming through between three and five hundred newspapers and clipping therefrom every article commenting on or relating in any way, complimentary or otherwise, to the administration and its policies. These were classified and pasted into reference scrapbooks for the President’s perusal.
The winter of 1903 brought many interesting events. “Princess Alice” received an invitation brought by Prince Henry of Prussia from the German Emperor to christen his yacht, then under construction in this country. She accepted, and on February 25th, at Shooter’s Island, performed the little ceremony. Some time later, she received a handsome bracelet from Germany with a miniature of the Emperor surrounded by diamonds.
In order to keep himself evenly balanced in his strenuous days of constructive and routine work, the President sent for the director of the New York Athletic Club, Mike Donovan, to come down, test him out, and make a survey of his physical condition. Donovan came as to any of his pupils; and as his coming was the establishment of a brand-new precedent, there was a great furore. The President decided to have Donovan repeat the visit at least twice a year. Donovan gave a little account of the “interview” with the President of the United States, which appeared in the New York World and other publications at the time:
“Had President Roosevelt come to the prize ring instead of the political arena, it is my conviction he would have been successful. The man is a born fighter. It’s in his blood.
“It is no exaggeration when I say that in some mix-ups with him I have been compelled to resort to all the arts and devices that have come to me from years of serious fighting, often to slug right and left to save myself.
“I have a vivid recollection of my first fistic encounter with President Roosevelt. The Governor left me in the old billiard room of the executive mansion, at Albany, which he had fitted up as a gymnasium for his boys in order that they might begin their physical education under his eyes. He then went downstairs to don his boxing clothes. In a few minutes he returned.
“It was the Governor of the State of New York who had left me. It was the fighting man who entered the room. He wore a sleeveless flannel shirt, his khaki rough-rider uniform trousers and light canvas shoes without heels. First I was struck by the expression of his eyes, which are large, light blue, placed well apart—aggressive, fearless, persistent.
“He is about 5 feet 8 inches in height, but his great breadth of shoulders and bulk of body made him seem shorter. His arms are short, but heavy and well muscled. His head is that of the typical fighter. It is broad and symmetrical, poised on a powerful neck. A plumb-line could be dropped from the back of his head to his waist. That formation shows not only the fighting spirit, but the physical vigour to sustain it. His short, thick body, with its high arched chest, is certainly set on unusually strong, sinewy legs.
“After pulling on his gloves he stepped forward on the mat. Most men on coming for the first time to box with a champion, present or retired, show some trepidation. There was none of that here.
“After we shook hands I studied him carefully. Then I led a left jab, following it up with a faint-hearted right that landed like a love-tap high up on his cheek. He dropped his hands and stopped.
“‘Look here, Mike,’ he said indignantly, ‘that is not fair.’
“I was afraid I had done something wrong.
“‘What’s the matter, Governor?’ I asked.
“‘You are not hitting me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’d like you to hit out.’
“‘All right, Governor,’ I said, thinking to myself, this man has a pretty good opinion of himself.
“We started in again, and I sent in a hard right to the body as he rushed in and then tried a swinging left for the jaw. He stepped inside and drove his right to my ear. It jarred me down to the heels.
“I realized from that moment that the Governor was no ordinary amateur. If I took chances with him I was endangering my reputation.
“From that day I have taken no chance with Theodore Roosevelt with the gloves. I’ve hit him many times as hard as ever I hit a fighter in the ring without stopping him, and thousands know how hard I can hit.
“I want to say, now, that I never saw him wince or show even by an involuntary sign that he was discomfited in spirit, no matter how severe the bodily pain. On the contrary, it met with only that characteristic turning of the head a bit to the side, a grim smile, and a determined setting of the bulldog jaw, followed by another rush. Theodore Roosevelt is a strong, tough man; hard to hurt and harder to stop.
“On the evening of March 3, 1905, the day before the Inauguration, between 5 and 6 o’clock, the President and I had a go of ten rounds. He was happy as a schoolboy as he stripped for the fray.
“‘Now, Mike,’ he said, ‘we must have a good bout this evening. It will brighten me up for to-morrow, which will be a trying day.’
“We boxed for ten hard, long rounds. He had improved so much in his practice with me that I had to resort to all the strategy that my experience had taught me. After the fifth round, I felt like calling a halt, but did not want to appear a quitter. We were having it hot and heavy. In an exchange I tried to land a right-hand body blow, ducking to avoid a left-hand counter. Instead, he struck me a flush right-hander on the top of my head, knocking me sprawling to the mat. As I got to my feet, he said:
“‘That’s a good make-believe knock-down, Mike.’ Evidently he did not realize how hard he hit me.”
The President decided wrestling would be beneficial and engaged in that sport several times a week. He also acquired the art of jujutsu. In a note to one of his boys, he referred to this Japanese art:
“I am very glad I have been doing this ... but ... I am not at all sure I shall ever try it again while I am so busy with other work as I am now. Often by the time I get to five o’clock in the afternoon I will be feeling like a stewed owl, after eight hours’ grapple with Senators, Congressmen, etc., then I find the wrestling a trifle too vehement for mere rest. My right ankle and my left wrist and one thumb and both great toes are swollen sufficiently to more or less impair their usefulness, and I am well mottled with bruises elsewhere. Still I have made good progress, and since you left they have taught me three new throws that are perfect corkers.”
He also took up fencing; he engaged in all of these sports and exercises with either General Leonard Wood or his own boys.
In April, 1903, the President, with a party of twenty-seven selected and invited by himself, started on the long-postponed and often-discussed trip to the Pacific Coast. The party left on the morning of April 1st and returned after sixty-five days of almost continuous travel on the evening of June 5th. On this trip, the travellers experienced every kind of climate, saw every type of vegetation, and met every class of people in the United States. The itinerary covered 13,955 miles, 23 states, and 136 cities.
On his return to Washington, the President was given a tremendous reception by the people of the Capital. Crowds lined both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue and cheered as he rode from the station to the White House.
President Roosevelt’s first administration accomplished a number of important projects. His term opened with his interest centred in the creation of a Department of Commerce and Labour, also of the establishment of forest reserves and the irrigation of the dry or arid land by the government. The Canal across the Isthmus of Panama long under discussion and partially under construction became a reality after Congress authorized the purchase of the French holdings for $40,000,000, and after a revolution in Colombia resulted in the establishment of the Republic of Panama in November, 1903, which was recognized by the United States Government a few days later and a treaty signed containing more liberal terms than the one rejected by Colombia. Dr. W. C. Gorgas applied the discoveries of the Spanish War to the problem of the yellow fever, and American sanitary science made the completion of the Canal possible without the scourges of diseases of past years.
President Roosevelt was unanimously nominated for President in June, 1904, by the Republican National Convention held at Chicago. No Vice President who ever succeeded to the Presidency on the death of a chosen President had ever stood so strong with the people. He made no speeches during the campaign, remaining most of the time at his summer home at Oyster Bay, holding frequent conferences with party leaders. Judge Alton B. Parker, the Democratic candidate for President, having made charges in speeches delivered shortly before the election, that the Republican campaign committee had received vast contributions of money from trust companies in return for favours done them by Chairman Cortelyou when he was Secretary of Commerce and Labour, the President, three days before the election, issued from the White House a vigorous denial of the charges, challenging Judge Parker to produce the proof. It was in this statement that the President employed the famous “square deal” term, ending his defense of Chairman Cortelyou with these words: “All I ask is a square deal. Give every man a fair chance; don’t let anyone harm him, and don’t let him do harm to anyone.”
In November, he was elected by the largest electoral vote ever given a nominee for the Presidency up to that time.