T heodore R oosevelt A ssociation
JOURNAL
VOLUME XXXII, NUMBERS 1&2
•
WINTER-SPRING 2011
2
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Officers of the Theodore Roosevelt Association
Executive Committee
Tweed Roosevelt
President
Harry N. Lembeck
Dr. William N. Tilchin
Richard D. Williams
LtCol Gregory A. Wynn, USMC
The Hon. Lee Yeakel
Vice President
Trustees, Class of 2012
RADM P. W. Parcells, USN (Ret.)
J. Randall Baird
RADM Stanley W. Bryant, USN (Ret.)
Rudolph J. Carmenaty
Robert B. Charles
Gary A. Clinton
Barbara J. Comstock
Walter Fish
Fritz Gordner
Randy C. Hatzenbuhler
Jonathan J. Hoffman
Stephen B. Jeffries
CDR Theodore Roosevelt Kramer, USN (Ret.)
Harry N. Lembeck
Joseph W. Mikalic
RADM Richard J. O’Hanlon, USN
RADM P. W. Parcells, USN (Ret.)
Genna Rollins
Elizabeth E. Roosevelt
Tweed Roosevelt
William D. Schaub
Keith Simon
Owen Smith
Tefft Smith
James M. Strock
Dr. John E. Willson
Anne R. Yeakel
Vice President
Dr. William N. Tilchin
Vice President
Barbara Berryman Brandt
Immediate Past President
Stephen B. Jeffries
Treasurer
Elizabeth E. Roosevelt
Assistant Treasurer
Genna Rollins
Secretary
Mark A. Ames
Lowell E. Baier
Michele Bryant
David A. Folz
Dr. Gary P. Kearney
Simon C. Roosevelt
William D. Schaub
LtCol Gregory A. Wynn, USMC
The Hon. Lee Yeakel
Trustees for Life
Barbara Berryman Brandt
Robert D. Dalziel
Norman Parsons
Oscar S. Straus II
Honorary Trustee
The Hon. George H. W. Bush
Trustees, Class of 2011
VADM David Architzel, USN
Paula Pierce Beazley
CAPT David Ross Bryant, USN (Ret.)
Thomas A. Campbell
Matthew J. Glover
Helen Williams Holman
Rogina L. Jeffries
Dr. Gary P. Kearney
CAPT Theodore Roosevelt Kramer, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Amy Krueger
Cordelia D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt III
Simon C. Roosevelt
Trustees, Class of 2013
Mark A. Ames
Lowell E. Baier
Larry Bodine
CAPT Frank L. Boushee, USN (Ret.)
Michele Bryant
David A. Folz
Robert L. Friedman
Anna Carlson Gannett
Timothy P. Glas
Nicole E. Goldstein
Steven M. Greeley
Dr. Michael S. Harris
James E. Pehta
Kermit Roosevelt III
Shawn R. Thomas
Dr. David R. Webb, Jr.
Advisory Board, Class of 2011
Dr. Douglas G. Brinkley
Bernadette Castro
Perry Dean Floyd
Mrs. Oliver R. Grace
David McCullough
Prof. Charles E. Neu
Prof. Serge Ricard
Sheila Schafer
Lawrence D. Seymour
Prof. Samuel J. Thomas
The Hon. William J. vanden Heuvel
Advisory Board, Class of 2012
Donald Arp, Jr.
Prof. H. W. Brands
Prof. David H. Burton
Wallace Finley Dailey
Carl F. Flemer, Jr.
Prof. Richard P. Harmond
Prof. Michael Kort
Edmund Morris
Sylvia Jukes Morris
Dr. David Rosenberg
Dr. John G. Staudt
Advisory Board, Class of 2013
Dominick F. Antonelli
John P. Avlon
The Hon. Senator Kent Conrad
Prof. John Milton Cooper, Jr.
Prof. Stacy A. Cordery
Prof. Douglas Eden
The Hon. Peter T. King
The Hon. Rick A. Lazio
Dr. James G. Lewis
Molly L. Quackenbush
Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
Dr. Cornelis A. van Minnen
Prof. Robert Wexelblatt
Front and back cover illustrations:
Cartoons of November 25, 1903, and
of January 13, 1904, published between
the Panamanian Revolution and the
U.S. Senate’s ratification of the
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty
(covers of Puck magazine)
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
3
Dedication:
In Memory of Leslie Roosevelt
The Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
is published quarterly by the
This issue of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
is dedicated to the memory of Leslie Dangel Roosevelt, who
passed away in Anguilla in March 2011 at the age of sixty-four.
Leslie was a longtime invaluable adviser to her husband, TRA
President Tweed Roosevelt, on matters pertaining to the TRA.
More generally and most importantly, Leslie was a very kind,
very generous, and very special person—not only to Tweed but
also to so many other people. May she rest in peace.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT ASSOCIATION
www.theodoreroosevelt.org
P.O. Box 719
Oyster Bay, NY 11771
Tweed Roosevelt
President
Terrence C. Brown
Executive Director
Hermann Hagedorn (1919-1957)
Director Emeritus
Dr. John A. Gable (1974-2005)
Director Emeritus
Dr. William N. Tilchin
Editor of the Journal
Wallace Finley Dailey
Journal Photographic Consultant
photo by Art Koch
James Stroud
Journal Designer
Leslie Roosevelt at the TRA Annual Meeting in Tampa, Florida, in
October 2009.
Ninety-second TRA Annual
Meeting in North Dakota,
October 27-30, 2011
The Ninety-second Annual Meeting of the Theodore
Roosevelt Association will take place in Dickinson and Medora,
North Dakota, from Thursday, October 27 to Sunday, October
30, 2011. It will occur in an area that was very important to
the development of Theodore Roosevelt, it will feature Edmund
Morris as the keynote speaker at the Saturday banquet, and
overall it promises to be a great event! Registration materials
have been mailed to all members of the TRA. NOTE: When
registering (because other groups also are participating), please
be sure to use the TRA member registration form (and not the
general registration form).
Print & Bind
Nittany Valley Offset
Guidelines for unsolicited submissions: Send three double-spaced
printed copies to Professor William Tilchin, Editor, Theodore Roosevelt
Association Journal, College of General Studies, Boston University,
871 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215. Also provide an
electronic copy as an e-mail attachment addressed to wnt@bu.edu.
Notes should be rendered as endnotes structured in accordance with
the specifications of The Chicago Manual of Style. Submissions
accepted for publication may be edited for style and length.
The Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, established in 1975 by
Dr. John Allen Gable and edited by him through 2004, is a refereed
journal. Articles appearing in the TRA Journal are abstracted in
American History and Life and Historical Abstracts.
The Theodore Roosevelt Association is a national historical society
and public service organization founded in 1919 and chartered by a
special act of Congress in 1920. We are a not-for-profit corporation of
the District of Columbia, with offices in New York State. A copy of the
last audited financial report of the Theodore Roosevelt Association,
filed with the Department of State of the State of New York, may be
obtained by writing either the New York State Department of State,
Office of Charities Registration, Albany, NY 11231, or the Theodore
Roosevelt Association, P.O. Box 719, Oyster Bay, NY 11771.
The fiscal year of the Association is July 1 – June 30.
The Theodore Roosevelt Association has members in all fifty states,
and membership is open to all.
The annual meeting of the Board of Trustees is held on or near
Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday, October 27. The day-to-day affairs
of the Association are administered by the Executive Committee,
elected annually by the Board of Trustees. The members of the Board
of Trustees are elected in three classes, each class with a term of
three years.
4
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Notes from the Editor
Hewett, covering 2009-2010. As always, I hope that readers will
find this issue both enlightening and enjoyable.
Guidelines for Submissions to the TRA Journal
photo by Marcia Tilchin
Because of the inquiries I often receive, I will use a portion
of my editor’s page to offer guidance to those who would like
to submit manuscripts to the TRA Journal. Since this is a
peer-reviewed publication, every unsolicited manuscript that I
determine to be worthy of consideration is assigned to an expert
external evaluator in a process known as double-blind review.
The manuscript will then be published if it receives a favorable
assessment from the external evaluator and will not be published
if it is evaluated unfavorably. As for style, authors should consult
previous issues of the TRA Journal to find models, especially for
endnotes. Manuscripts should be double-spaced, and authors
should hit the space bar twice between sentences. The TRA
Journal utilizes The Chicago Manual of Style system with some
modifications. Please see page 3 of this or any recent issue for
further instructions.
William Tilchin.
This Issue
This expanded edition of the Theodore Roosevelt Association
Journal is highlighted by John M. Thompson’s lead article on
TR and the politics of the Panama question in 1903-1904 and
a feature review by Mark Harvey of Douglas Brinkley’s The
Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for
America. There also is Michele Bryant’s article (accompanied
by a photo album) on the 2010 TRA Annual Meeting in Seattle.
Plus there are the four regular features: Gregory A. Wynn’s
column, Tweed Roosevelt’s column, Presidential Snapshots,
and TR-Era Images. This issue concludes with a two-year TRA
Journal index, diligently prepared by Shirley Hudders and Marie
Remembering Leslie Roosevelt
I will close with a personal note on the late Leslie Roosevelt,
who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in March. I first
met Leslie at the 2003 TRA Annual Meeting in New York City,
and I began right away to like and admire her. Over the years I
became increasingly aware of her innumerable laudable qualities,
including kindness, modesty, poise, intelligence, and wisdom.
Leslie and her husband, TRA President Tweed Roosevelt, were
partners truly devoted to one another. When the TRA’s future
was in jeopardy during a difficult and contentious period in 20082009, Leslie played an important informal advisory role and
thereby helped to secure the organization’s long-term well-being.
It is, therefore, eminently appropriate that this issue of the TRA
Journal is dedicated to her memory.
William Tilchin
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
5
Grass Roots
Notes from the Executive Director
The National Office has been buzzing with activity since
the publication of the last TRA Journal. Communications are
rolling out on a regular basis. THE ARENA presents news and
events from the chapters, as well as information on new books,
new documentaries, centennials, and awards. There will always
be much to report. Your input is always appreciated.
The Nassau County Public Speaking Contest took place on
the porch at Sagamore Hill. It was a blustery sunny day. We
thank Newsday and Cablevision for the local coverage. The New
York City competition was held at the Salmagundi Club, as the
TR Birthplace Site was suddenly closed for a three-month repair.
Both events were highly successful. Congratulations also go to
Atlanta and the Capital Area for equally successful competitions.
Earlier this year the Pelican Island Chapter of Florida took
a big step towards starting programs, and recently San Antonio
also began its planning. It was my pleasure to join members of
both chapters at meetings with police departments, education
officials, and local banks. And what a thrill it was to share
the podium with Boston Celtics legend Tommy Heinsohn as he
presented the TRA’s 75,000th Teddy Bear to Boston Children’s
Hospital, highlighting a very special New England Chapter
event.
At the invitation of the Edith and Theodore Roosevelt
Pine Knot Foundation, I visited the beautiful Charlottesville
area to see the country retreat. That group has built a fun and
educational destination. That the President of the United States
and his wife established a retreat in such Spartan surroundings
and loved it makes quite a statement about this extraordinary
first couple. It can be announced that Pine Knot is following in
the TRA tradition of passing title to important sites to others to
run them in the public interest.
On the high seas the TRA is working with the commanding
officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt to rebuild the In-Port
Cabin and Museum on board in advance of the Big Stick’s 2013
relaunch. And at the invitation of the Independence Seaport
Museum in Philadelphia, I attended the “Summit,” which
presented plans to save the USS Olympia. The TRA made the
case that TR should have a much more robust presence at any
new site. As Admiral George Dewey said: “I didn’t win the Battle
of Manila Bay; Theodore Roosevelt did.”
Col. Terry Brown, Jackson Heights, NY, age 11. Terry’s mother made
this uniform from one of his father’s old suits and a cigar box.
Tweed Roosevelt, President, has energized the Trustees as
worker bees. Exploratory committees have been established
(Chapters, Communications, Development, Membership, and
Programming). Tweed is calling out to the membership to
volunteer. I have thoroughly enjoyed conversations with many of
you. It is amazing what talent and interests are represented in
the TRA. I am confident the troops will rally to Tweed’s banners.
The 92nd Annual Meeting is accepting registrations. Many
of you have said it is on your radar. But although that once
a year gathering is fun and suffused with TR, let’s remember
that building an active, vibrant, and worthwhile TRA of which
we will all be proud is a year-round endeavor. That’s why the
National Office is abuzz. Become a worker bee. We will all enjoy
the honey.
In the spirit of TR . . .
Terry Brown
6
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
THEODORE ROOSEVELT ASSOCIATION JOURNAL
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
CONTENTS
“Panic-Struck Senators, Businessmen and Everybody Else”: Theodore Roosevelt, Public Opinion,
and the Intervention in Panama
by John M. Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 7-28
Simple and Unmistakably American: The Roosevelt White House China
The Material Culture of Theodore Roosevelt #3 by Gregory A. Wynn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 29-32
Presidential Snapshot #15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 33
TR-Era Images
by Art Koch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 34
A Massive and Valuable Study of Theodore Roosevelt and Conservation
(a feature review of Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America)
by Mark Harvey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 35-49
More on the Bradley Abomination: Rudy Carmenaty’s Response to William Tilchin’s
“An Outrage Pure and Simple”
Forgotten Fragments #10 by Tweed Roosevelt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 50-52
The Ninety-first Annual Meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in Seattle, Washington
by Michele Bryant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 53-61
Index for Volumes XXX-XXXI
compiled by Shirley Hudders and Marie Hewett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 62-67
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
7
“Panic-Struck Senators, Businessmen
and Everybody Else”: Theodore
Roosevelt, Public Opinion, and the
Intervention in Panama
by John M. Thompson
“In a democracy like ours a public servant must continually keep in mind not only what the letter of the law permits, but how far he can arouse and guide
public sentiment so that it will justify him.”
Theodore Roosevelt to Henry White, June 15, 1907
Throughout his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt was
sensitive to the inherent difficulties of conducting foreign
policy within the context of the American political system. The
frustration of working with Congress, and especially the Senate;
the influence of sensationalist newspapers; the broader public’s
seeming apathy about international affairs and national defense,
on the one hand, and its occasional misplaced belligerency, on the
other; and the disproportionate and often pernicious influence of
northeastern elites on public opinion: in TR’s view, these factors
served to complicate his conduct of diplomacy. But despite such
concerns, Roosevelt firmly believed in the virtues of his country’s
political system. It is perhaps not a coincidence, then, that he
was as adept as any President in American history at working
the levers of the political process to secure his preferred policy
outcomes. His intervention in Panama in late 1903, perhaps
more than any other foreign policy challenge, underscores this
point.
* * * * *
One of the earliest themes in Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign
policy worldview was a belief that constructing an Americancontrolled isthmian canal in Central America would be essential
to his country’s long-term security. Roosevelt’s fellow naval
enthusiast, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, made the case for
an isthmian canal in the Atlantic Monthly in 1893. Mahan
supported building a canal because it would allow the U.S.
quickly to transfer ships between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
and thus to protect its coastal regions and markets around the
world.1 The commitment of TR, Mahan, and others to the canal
project was interconnected with their ideas about the Monroe
Doctrine and the need for a world-class navy. In a magazine
article in 1895, Roosevelt outlined what he believed should be the
Republican Party’s priorities in the following year’s presidential
campaign. Among his goals, TR included three related ideas.
“We should build a first-class fighting navy . . . of powerful
battleships,” he asserted. He also argued that an “Isthmian
Canal” should be “built either by the United States Government
or under its protection” and that the Monroe Doctrine was “very
much alive.”2 A year and a half later, he told an audience that “if
we possess a formidable navy, small is the chance indeed that we
shall ever be dragged into a war to uphold the Monroe Doctrine.”3
In 1901, he reasserted his support for the Monroe Doctrine and
questioned how any man could fail to do the same, “now that we
are all looking forward to the building of the Isthmian Canal.”4
Roosevelt’s commitment to the canal goal was remarkable
for its passion, but not for its novelty. In fact, American interest
in transiting the isthmus of Central America can be traced
back at least to 1846, when the U.S. signed a treaty with
Colombia (then called New Grenada), which guaranteed the
U.S. government and its citizens the right of passage across the
Panamanian isthmus, including on any future railroad lines or
canals constructed there. In return, the U.S. agreed to ensure
Colombia’s sovereignty over Panama.5 Over the next halfcentury, always at Bogotá’s request or with its consent (until TR
deployed marines in 1902), the U.S. intervened on the isthmus
repeatedly to repress various insurrections or disturbances
which the Colombian government would have otherwise found
difficult to handle.6 But there was at least as much interest in
Nicaragua as a potential canal host as there was in Colombia.
This fact was underlined by the tensions that arose in 1848 when
Great Britain threatened to seize the mouth of the San Juan
River, which would have constituted the Caribbean entrance to
a canal in Nicaragua. The crisis abated in 1850 when the U.S.
and Britain signed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which bound the
two countries to joint control of any Central American canal.7 By
the 1870s Nicaragua was considered by many observers to be the
most likely site for a future canal. This was based largely upon
engineering considerations: Even though a canal there would be,
at 170 miles, more than three times longer than one in Panama,
it would be at a lower elevation, and use could be made of Lake
8
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Nicaragua and the San Juan River.8 The American preference
for Nicaragua was only strengthened by a spectacular failure to
build a canal in Panama in the 1880s, when formidable natural
obstacles and the devastating effects of malaria and yellow fever
had doomed a French effort led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the
famed architect of the Suez Canal.9 By the 1890s, Nicaragua was
the preferred route of both the public and most politicians, due
in part to the efforts of Senator John Tyler Morgan, a Democrat
from Alabama, who believed that the construction of an isthmian
canal would play a key role in revitalizing the South’s economic
fortunes by opening new foreign markets for southern exports.
Morgan preferred Nicaragua, in large part, because its relative
proximity to the South would give seaports in his region an
advantage over northern competitors, and by the mid-1890s he
was the Senate’s acknowledged canal expert.10
fact that under the terms of the treaty, while his country would
assume responsibility for constructing and paying for the canal,
the U.S. would not be able to fortify it or deny passage to enemy
ships.11 Senators, including Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican
from Massachusetts (and Roosevelt’s confidant), and John
Tyler Morgan, expressed similar concerns. The combination of
extensive amendments proposed in the Senate and resulting
British exasperation forced Hay to negotiate a new treaty. This
version allowed the U.S. to construct fortifications.12
Ratification of the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in December
1901, three months after Roosevelt assumed the presidency,
gave the canal project considerable political momentum, and
in early January 1902 the House of Representatives passed the
Hepburn Bill, which provided for a Nicaraguan canal. However,
by this point TR was beginning to rethink his earlier support
for the Nicaraguan route. The Isthmian Canal Commission,
more commonly referred to as the Walker Commission, which
President William McKinley had appointed to evaluate the two
contestants, had concluded that Nicaragua would be a better
site, based on several factors. The most important of these was
the fact that the French company which owned the rights to
the failed French project in Panama, the Compagnie Nouvelle
du Canal de Panama (New Panama Canal Company), was
demanding $109,000,000, a price that most considered to be
extortionate. However, from a technical standpoint, the Walker
Commission had judged that, with advances in engineering
offering potential solutions to many of the problems de Lesseps
had faced, Panama offered a superior site.
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
After the French failure, the U.S. seemed to be the most
likely candidate to attempt the canal project, and TR’s ideas
about the type of canal which should be built led him to play an
important role in the national debate about how to proceed. In
early 1900, when Secretary of State John Hay negotiated a new
treaty with British Ambassador Julian Pauncefote to replace
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, Roosevelt, then governor of New
York, in a move which drew significant attention, announced
his opposition to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. He objected to the
Secretary of State John Hay.
Like most of his countrymen, Roosevelt had long favored
constructing the future canal in Nicaragua.13 But in the
wake of the Hepburn Bill’s passage, he decided that the canal
should be built in Panama. Conversations with engineers,
and probably in particular with George S. Morison—who had
challenged the conclusion of the Walker Commission—seem to
have been decisive.14 As he later wrote, “the great bulk of the
best engineers are agreed that [the Panama] route is the best.”15
Roosevelt came to believe that the merits of the Panama route—
new technology would allow engineers to dam the Chagres River
and create a large, artificial lake, much like in Nicaragua but
much shorter16—so far outweighed the factors which favored
Nicaragua that it would be worth the effort to win congressional
backing for the switch. Probably at TR’s direction, in late
January John C. Spooner, a Republican senator from Wisconsin,
introduced an amendment authorizing the President to purchase
the New Panama Canal Company’s concession for no more than
$40,000,000 (the New Panama Canal Company had recently
lowered its asking price to this amount), to negotiate a treaty with
the Colombian government for the acquisition of a canal zone,
and to construct the canal.17 After a complex and contentious
debate—John Tyler Morgan, for instance, based his opposition to
the amendment on Panama’s traditionally turbulent politics and
predicted that choosing Panama would lead to a dangerous level
of American involvement there—the amendment was passed.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
9
that Colombia might choose to interpret an extension of the New
Panama Canal Company’s concession, which was granted in
1900, as invalid. This would mean that Colombia, rather than
the company, would collect $40 million from the U.S. when the
concession expired in 1904.22
from David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the
Panama Canal, 1870-1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977)
Colombia’s rejection of the Hay-Herrán Treaty reignited
the canal debate in the United States. Three schools of thought
predominated.
First, many called for the President to turn to Nicaragua.
Senate Democrats were prominent voices in this camp. They
were led by Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, who was viewed
by many to be a strong candidate for the Democratic presidential
nomination in 1904, and John Tyler Morgan. Also included in
this group were some prominent Democratic newspapers in New
York City. Nicaragua proponents focused on two issues. They
argued that because the Spooner Act required TR to turn to
Nicaragua if he could not reach an agreement with Colombia
within a “reasonable time,” the President had no choice in the
matter. The New York American declared that “under [the
Hay-Herrán Treaty] it is now the duty of the President to turn
to Nicaragua.”23 In addition, Nicaragua partisans had long
considered Colombia’s political unreliability to be one of the
key disadvantages of the Panama route, and they pressed that
Senator John Tyler Morgan.
Warnings about the political hurdles presented by the
Panama route proved to be prescient. Bogotá had earlier
expressed both its eagerness to host a canal and flexibility about
the terms it would seek in exchange for doing so. But by late
1902, negotiations had been stalled by Colombia’s concerns about
its sovereignty over the proposed canal zone, political unrest in
Panama, and the landing of American marines without Bogotá’s
permission to protect the isthmian transit. An agreement was
not reached until the administration threatened to terminate
negotiations and begin talks with Nicaragua.19 However,
the Hay-Herrán Treaty was unpopular in Colombia, and the
Colombian Senate voted unanimously against ratification in
August 1903. Many observers believed that this would force TR
to turn to Nicaragua, as it left almost no time to find a solution
before the treaty’s September 22 deadline for an exchange of
ratifications.­ To make matters worse from the administration’s
perspective, there were indications that Colombia, instead of
negotiating in good faith, had rejected the treaty in order to
squeeze more money from the New Panama Canal Company
and the American government.­ Also aggravating were reports
image from the public domain
In June 1902 TR signed the Spooner Act, which, among other
conditions, granted the President “reasonable time” in which to
conclude a treaty.18
Senator Arthur Pue Gorman.
10
point with renewed vigor. The World argued that “the American
people . . . are in a mood to welcome a return to a route that
is not soaked in scandals, Chagres fever and South American
politics.”24
Second, some Panama advocates were pressing TR to
bypass Colombia altogether. Jacob Gould Schurman, president
of Cornell University, told TR that he should “take advantage of
the present impasse to secure title to the territory concerned.”25
The American Monthly Review of Reviews, edited by TR’s friend
Albert Shaw, asserted that the administration should have “long
ago . . . countenanced the separation of the Isthmus of Panama,
and its international neutralization under the auspices and the
protection of the United States.”26 Henry Cabot Lodge believed
that TR could secure his preferred route “either under the
treaty of ’46 or by the secession” of Panama.27 Shelby Cullom, a
Republican from Illinois and chairman of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, expressed similar sentiments.28
Finally, others who favored the Panama route pulled
Roosevelt in the opposite direction, urging that he exercise
patience, rather than force, in dealing with Bogotá. The Evening
Star reported that “very many senators and representatives
who in the last Congress fought for the ratification of the canal
treaty” believed that TR should approach the Colombians “as
a willful and vacillating child” which could not “be regarded as
responsible for its acts in the same sense that applies to the great
powers.”29 Senator Mark Hanna, a Republican from Ohio and a
potential challenger to TR for the party’s presidential nomination
in 1904, echoed this advice.30
Similarly, the Evening Post, The Nation, and the Springfield
Republican expressed frustration with Colombia but advised
the administration to continue negotiations. Unlike many other
Panama proponents, however, these anti-imperialist publications
warned the administration not to encourage or aid Panamanian
secession. The notion that Panama might seek independence
from Colombia was hardly new; imbued with a strong strain
of nationalism, it had rebelled dozens of times, and in the
wake of the Colombian Senate vote, speculation was rife that
Panamanians would revolt rather than see their chance to host
the isthmian canal squandered.31 While men like Albert Shaw
and Henry Cabot Lodge believed that the U.S. should encourage,
and perhaps even intervene to ensure the success of, such a move,
some anti-imperialists warned their countrymen of the danger
of such thoughts. The Springfield Republican insisted that
“the United States could not encourage a secession movement
and then recognize the direct result of its own intriguing as an
independent state without violating the spirit of the treaty of
1846 and also besmirching our national honor.”32 At the same
time, these publications suggested that the administration
would not only be justified, but would in fact be compelled by
national interest, to safeguard the isthmian transit in the case
of rebellion in Panama.33 This attitude toward the situation—
demanding that the administration do nothing to encourage
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
secession but be ready to intervene if it should otherwise occur—
was noteworthy, because Roosevelt and his advisers believed
that these publications were influential opinion leaders. In fact,
they represented a strain of opinion to which the administration
was particularly sensitive as it considered how to proceed in the
wake of the Colombian Senate’s vote.
* * * * *
TR’s decision-making in the months that followed the
Colombian Senate’s vote was shaped by several factors. One,
his unswerving dedication to the canal project, has already been
noted. A related consideration was the President’s awareness
of the fact that his actions would have long-term consequences,
and he was therefore determined to weigh all factors before
making decisions. Or, as he put it, “what we do now will be of
consequence . . . centuries hence, and we must be sure that we
are taking the right step before we act.”34 Roosevelt’s conception
of Latin Americans as inferior to what he considered to be more
advanced peoples (which most of his countrymen shared) was
another factor in his thinking. He informed John Hay that he
did not think the “foolish and homicidal corruptionists in Bogota
. . . should be allowed permanently to bar one of the future
highways of civilization.”35 A year later he told the British
author Rudyard Kipling that the “corrupt pithecoid community”
in Bogotá had not been entitled to the same “treatment I would
give, say, to Denmark or Switzerland.”36 This understanding
of the Colombians only exacerbated his fury about the fact
that he believed their government had acted in bad faith by
rejecting the treaty. But it would be simplistic to characterize
the President’s reaction as nothing more than a product of his
disdain for Latin Americans. His outrage was also that of a
man who viewed policy issues in moralistic, as well as practical,
terms.37 Simply put, the Colombian rejection of the Hay-Herrán
Treaty offended TR’s sense of right and wrong. As he wrote later
of the Colombian President, Lorenzo Marroquín, “who embodied
in his own person the entire government of Colombia, . . . he
had the absolute power of an unconstitutional dictator to keep
his promise” to ratify the treaty “or break it. He determined to
break it.”38 All of this meant that TR was eager to find a way to
eliminate Colombia from the equation. As he told John Hay, he
was “not inclined to have any further dealings whatever with
those Bogota people.”39
The President was influenced by two other factors in
addition to his hope to circumvent Bogotá and his desire to
weigh his options carefully. First, he believed that he had little
time to act before Congress considered invoking the Spooner Act.
He and other Panama proponents feared that when Congress
reconvened in November, Nicaragua proponents in Congress and
the press would use the act’s “reasonable time” clause to increase
the pressure on him to abandon Panama. As Mark Hanna warned
the President, “our position must be strengthened to resist the
attacks that will be renewed by a powerful lobby in the interests
of the Nic[aragua] route.”40 Congressional debate would offer
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11
But while this concern that Congress might invoke the
Spooner Act constituted grounds for acting quickly, another
factor gave Roosevelt reason to pause. He believed that the two
methods which various commentators had floated for beginning
the construction of the canal in Panama without Colombia’s
permission would be met by strong opposition from the public.
As TR told Albert Shaw, seizing the canal route would be
problematic, because “as yet, the people of the United States are
not willing to take the ground of building the canal by force.”43
And as for encouraging Panamanian secession, the President
confided to Shaw that while he would welcome an independent
Panama, “for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation
of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say it.”44 He told Shaw this
was based on his belief that fomenting rebellion in Panama
would be “underhanded.” However, at the same time that he
was writing to Shaw, Roosevelt and his advisers were quietly
encouraging potential secessionists to act. It therefore seems
unlikely that the President genuinely considered such behavior
to be dishonorable. A more plausible reason for his reluctance to
speak publicly about his support for secession was his fear that it
would engender considerable criticism from influential sections
of the public.
* * * * *
By mid-September, Roosevelt had formulated three possible
responses to Colombia’s rejection of the Hay-Herrán Treaty.45
The first would involve seizing the isthmian transit route and
building a canal without Colombia’s consent. While a number
of commentators had been advocating this course of action, TR
seems to have first begun to consider it seriously in August, when
John Bassett Moore, a professor of international law at Columbia
University and a former official at the Department of State, had
sent him a provocative memorandum. According to Moore’s
reading of the treaty of 1846, Colombia had no legal grounds
for preventing the U.S. from constructing a canal in Panama.46
Roosevelt especially liked the fact that Moore’s reasoning would
have given unilateral action at the very least a veneer of legality,
telling Hay that “if under the treaty of 1846 we have a color of
image from the public domain
a perfect platform for such people to make their case to a U.S.
public that, outside of the few partisans on either side, seemed
to care only that a canal be built. The location was of minor
importance. As the Atlanta Constitution observed, “The people
want that canal—somewhere—and are not at all particular as to
where they do their ditching.” If a deal with Colombia could not
be struck, then the President’s duty was to “start things going for
a canal through Nicaragua.”41 Roosevelt knew that if he could
not formulate a feasible plan for securing the Panama route,
Congress might take the initiative, and that could mean trouble
for the advocates of Panama. “If Congress will give me a certain
amount of freedom and a certain amount of time, I believe I can
do much better than by any action taken out of hand,” he told
Jacob Schurman. “But of course, what Congress will do I don’t
know.”42
John Bassett Moore.
right to start in and build the canal, my offhand judgment would
favor such proceeding.”47 Clearly, however, such a dramatic step
could not be taken without congressional approval. Therefore,
TR drafted a message urging Congress to empower him to
purchase the rights of the New Panama Canal Company and to
begin construction of the canal without Colombia’s permission.
If Congress demurred, he would take up option number two, the
Nicaragua route.48
Even as he was drafting this message to Congress, however,
TR and his advisers were pursuing another option which would
allow them to build the canal without Colombian approval: They
were encouraging Panama to secede. The administration had
followed closely reports of secessionist activity and remained
in contact with several men who might facilitate a rebellion.49
One such figure, William Nelson Cromwell, was a prominent
New York City lawyer and counsel for the New Panama Canal
Company, whose stockholders stood to profit enormously if the
U.S. chose to build the canal in Panama.50 Through Cromwell,
John Hay met J. Gabriel Duque, editor of the Panama Star and
Herald. Hay, while avoiding any direct commitments, probably
made it clear to Duque that the U.S. would prevent Colombia
from suppressing a Panamanian revolt.51 Another connection to
potential secessionists in Panama was Philippe Bunau-Varilla,
an engineer who had been involved in the original French effort
in Panama and later became a large stockholder in the New
Panama Canal Company.52 The Frenchman met John Bassett
Moore in late September and concluded that the administration
was contemplating seizing the canal zone.53 In early October,
Bunau-Varilla met TR at the White House. During their
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
from David McCullough, Path Between the Seas
12
William Nelson Cromwell.
conversation, the President avoided any commitments to
intercede on Panama’s behalf, but the Frenchman left the
meeting fairly certain that TR would use American forces to
prevent Colombia from suppressing an insurrection.54 In fact,
as TR later remarked privately, Bunau-Varilla “would have
been a very dull man had he been unable to” guess how the
administration would react to news of an uprising.55 In midOctober, Hay told Bunau-Varilla that orders had been given to
U.S. naval forces to sail toward the isthmus, and on October
30, the Frenchman learned from Assistant Secretary of State
Francis Loomis that an American warship would reach Panama
within days. Bunau-Varilla, in turn, assured the Panamanian
plotters that they would have American naval protection when
they acted.56
On November 3, the uprising occurred. U.S. naval forces
prevented Colombia from suppressing it,57 and by November
5 Panamanian independence was an accomplished fact. On
November 6, Hay ordered the acting U.S. consul-general at
Panama to establish relations with the new republic.58 The
same day, Bunau-Varilla was named Panamanian minister to
the United States.59 By mid-November, Hay and Bunau-Varilla
had signed a treaty which, in terms that were very favorable to
the U.S., provided for the construction of an American-controlled
canal through Panama.60
from David McCullough, Path Between the Seas
* * * * *
Philippe Bunau-Varilla.
The administration’s public stance in the days following the
revolt underlined the President’s desire to avoid any appearance
of involvement. Officials crafted two bland press releases which
reported that a revolution had taken place, that a government
would be duly organized, and that information was still sketchy.
Only one sentence mentioned the obvious U.S. interest in these
events: “The Navy Department has despatched several vessels to
these ports, with directions to do everything possible to keep the
transit open and maintain order along the line of the railroad.”
This information, contained in a release marked “Not to be used
as a statement from White House,” portrayed the dispatch of
the naval vessels as just one more intervention to protect the
isthmian transit.61 In fact, it was framed in such a manner
that even most anti-imperialists should not have been able to
object, given the fact that the Evening Post and The Nation had
demanded intervention under precisely these conditions.
This attempt to disguise the administration’s role in
encouraging Panamanian secession was consistent with
Roosevelt’s approach throughout his presidency to sensitive
foreign policy actions which he anticipated would elicit strong
public opposition. Generally, he declined to act in such
situations unless two factors were present: the policy was one
TR considered to be of vital importance, and he believed that he
could operate in secrecy, or at least mask the full extent of his
involvement. In this case, there was no question in his mind
of the importance of securing the Panama route, and he seems
13
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
From the New York Herald, November 15, 1903.
to have believed that he could camouflage the administration’s
contact with potential secessionists. But there was a crucial
difference between the Panamanian intervention and other
episodes where the President successfully obscured the extent
of his involvement, such as his role in negotiations to end the
Russo-Japanese War or during the Moroccan crisis of 1905-1906.
In the case of Panama, many Americans immediately suspected,
and some were fiercely critical of, his actions.
Despite the effort made by TR and his advisers to disguise
their role in encouraging Panama to secede, speculation
that they had been involved began immediately. This was
particularly true in the press, where much of the coverage was
critical. Democratic and anti-imperialist publications devoted
extensive editorial space to the subject. Two broad themes were
prominent. First, there was concern that the President was
violating international law and the treaty of 1846 and, in doing
so, would tarnish the nation’s honor. The Evening Post argued
that “it would be an international scandal of the first magnitude
if any American officials or officers should have had a hand” in
encouraging or aiding the rebellion, and The World warned that
“any taking sides, or casting of obstacles in the way of Colombia’s
retaining her territory, would be an invasion of a sister nation’s
rights.”62 Second, critics contended that the Spooner law, in
light of the new complications in Panama, surely compelled
TR to turn to the Nicaragua route. “The plain and imperative
14
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Many in Republican and normally
pro-administration quarters were uneasy,
and their reactions were similar to those of
Democrats and anti-imperialists. “It is to be
hoped that by no act direct or indirect will
the United States in any way assist in the
revolution,” warned the Wall Street Journal.
“A violation of the higher law of nations,
a law to which this country has always
subscribed, is too high a price to pay for the
Panama canal.”66 The New York Tribune,
edited by TR’s friend Whitelaw Reid,
warned that “on the higher ground of honor
and international obligation this country
could not afford to incur the suspicion of
having in any degree encouraged or aided
the secession movement.”67 Another friend,
Nicholas Murray Butler, president of
Columbia University, warned that it would
be a “bad thing” if “any accredited agent of
the United States had stirred up the rebellion.”68 And there was
reportedly unease among some Republican congressmen.69
Roosevelt feared that he was losing control of the debate.
As he told his oldest son, he was disgusted by how all the “panicstruck Senators, businessmen and everybody else” reacted to
“any little flurry of trouble, and the wild clamor they all raise for
foolish or cowardly action.” Even worse than the criticism of the
Evening Post “and the entire fool Mugwump crowd,” however,
was the fact that a number of Republican senators had “shown
about as much backbone as so many angle worms.”70
To regain control, TR and his advisers unleashed a broad
counteroffensive. A preview of the administration’s response
to critics was released on November 5,71 and the next day John
Hay issued a formal statement to the press. The secretary of
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
mandate of Congress embodied in the
Spooner act is for the President to proceed
with the Nicaragua Canal,” concluded
the New York Herald.63 Henry Teller, a
Democrat from Colorado, asserted that the
“haste with which recognition was extended
was positively indecent” and accused
the administration of “bulldozing and
browbeating” the weaker Colombians, when
it would have been much more circumspect
“had a big country been on the other side.”64
Arthur Pue Gorman called for the President
to turn to Nicaragua and insisted that the
U.S. “remain entirely clear of the present
trouble on the Isthmus.” Senator Morgan
warned that “the administration will not
have this matter to decide. It is a question
for Congress.”65
Theodore Roosevelt at the White House in 1903.
state made four points: The treaty of 1846 obliged the U.S. to
intervene in order to keep the transit clear; the intervention was
necessary to protect not only the nation’s vital interests but the
interests of the entire civilized world; the U.S. would continue to
enforce the treaty of 1846 (i.e., against Colombia) and to protect
the isthmian transit; and the administration had exercised
enormous patience in treaty negotiations while Colombia had
shown nothing but bad faith, the implication being that Bogotá
had only itself to blame for Panama’s secession.72
Hay’s statement was particularly effective—it furnished the
bulk of the talking points for many newspapers which defended
the President’s policy73—for two reasons. First, it framed the
debate in terms of the United States’ obligation to intervene
to protect the isthmian transit in a time of political instability,
rather than to secure an independent and pliable Panama as a
host for the canal route, which would be a more controversial
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
The administration took other steps to bolster its case. The
decision to release selected papers and correspondence related
to the Panama intervention, including TR’s draft message to
Congress, which outlined the President’s plan to purchase the
New Panama Canal Company’s concession in Panama and to
dig the canal without a new treaty, turned out to be an effective
move.76 Though some were critical of the President’s draft
message and the fact that he released almost no documents from
prior to November 3,77 many other observers were satisfied. The
documents seemed to prove that TR
and his advisers had not played a
role in instigating the revolution.
Harper’s Weekly declared that the
papers “furnish indisputable proof”
that Roosevelt had no foreknowledge
of Panama’s intention to secede,
The Independent discerned “not a
shred of proof” of the involvement
of administration officials in
encouraging
secessionists,
and The Sun concluded that
the administration “withstood
temptation. . . .
It gave no
countenance to the promoters of the
Panama uprising and no promise of
eventual support.”78 Publications
which had earlier wavered
announced that they had been
reassured. The Wall Street Journal
gave its “complete endorsement”
to “all that the administration has
done in the Panama matter,” and the
New York Tribune could not “discern
the slightest indication of aid or
meddling by the United States.”79
TR and his advisers also began
to reach out in private to influential
elites who were positioned to refute
the most damaging charge, that
the administration instigated the revolution, and to spread
the administration’s most effective criticism of Colombia, that
its leaders were corrupt and had been dealing in bad faith. As
Roosevelt told Albert Shaw, “I did not foment the revolution on
the Isthmus,” and Colombia “signed their death warrant when
they acted in such infamous bad faith about the signing of the
treaty.”80 The President also sought to reassure congressional
Republicans, whose unanimous support would be essential if the
treaty with Panama was to be ratified. He told John Hay that he
had just had a meeting with Joseph Cannon, the new speaker of
the House from Illinois, who supported the Panama intervention
but was “slightly nervous lest the prerogatives of Congress in
foreign affairs should be overlooked by us.” TR instructed Hay
to stay in touch with Representative Robert Hitt of Illinois,
chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and to
“consult with him on any point where there would be a chance of
Congress feeling that it had power of action.”81 Hay also spoke to
Senator Joseph Foraker and assured TR that the Ohioan would
be “all right about Panama.”82
Among Democrats and anti-imperialists, indications
emerged that it would be difficult to translate criticism of
the President’s actions into effective opposition. The Senate
Democratic leadership resolved to oppose TR’s recognition of
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
and less promising argument. This wrong-footed many antiimperialists, as the Evening Post and The Nation had earlier
called for intervention on precisely these grounds.74 Second,
it cast the U.S. as the hero of the piece and Colombia as the
villain. The U.S., Hay argued, had presented Colombia with a
treaty which “contained provisions of extraordinary liberality.”
Colombia had rejected this alleged generosity “unanimously and
without consideration,” Hay contended. This claim was also
difficult for the critics to refute because the Democrats, who were
mainly Nicaragua partisans, had always considered Colombia
to be an unreliable partner, and the anti-imperialists had also
harshly criticized Bogotá. TR and his allies clearly found it to be
an effective line of attack, as they returned to it repeatedly over
the next three months.75
15
From the New York Herald, November 19, 1903.
16
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
they forwarded to the U.S. Senate.
They were overshadowed by a
counter-petition organized a few
weeks later at the university which
garnered far more signatures.86
The New York Anti-Imperialist
League attempted to generate a
petition criticizing Roosevelt. They
gave up after gathering only seven
signatures.87
From the New York Herald, November 26, 1903.
Panama, but they could not agree on whether to oppose the new
canal treaty. As one anonymous senator confessed, there was
concern that by opposing TR’s actions in Panama, they might
lead the public to believe Democrats were not as committed as
Republicans to building a canal.83 And while the Springfield
Republican, the Evening Post, and The Nation remained
implacably opposed to Roosevelt’s actions, a striking number of
influential Democratic newspapers and journals reversed their
initial opposition. Some accepted the policy as a fait accompli
about which they could do nothing. As the New York American
conceded, “Protest as we may against the manner in which the
Republic of Panama has so suddenly been created, . . . it is useless
to shut our eyes to an accomplished fact.”84 The World was less
grudging in its reversal. It concluded in mid-November that
“President Roosevelt’s action has been justified by subsequent
events.” It also encouraged Democrats in Congress to resist
their leaders’ effort to form a unified front against TR’s policy.85
Even the most ardent of TR’s critics, anti-imperialists based in
New York and New England, found it difficult to gain traction in
their attempts to attract attention. A group of professors at Yale
University, along with other prominent New Haven citizens,
signed a petition condemning TR’s intervention in Panama, which
By mid-November, TR and his
advisers, though still concerned
about opposition from Democrats,
believed that they were winning
the public debate.
Wavering
Republican congressmen and
friendly editors had rallied around
the administration.88 Traditional
allies in the press remained
supportive,89 and a number of
publications which had not initially
commented on the intervention
belatedly endorsed it.90 As TR told
his son Kermit in early December,
he “firmly” believed they would
win the coming fight over the
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty.91 Still,
Democratic votes, in addition to
Republican near-unanimity, would
be needed to secure ratification in
the Senate.
As they assessed public opinion, the President and his
advisers realized that southerners would be the most likely
Democrats to vote in favor of ratification, not least because
many southerners had long believed that an isthmian canal
in Central America would provide a major economic boost to
their region. The Mobile Register, for instance, declared that
the South’s “commercial welfare so largely depends upon the
opening of the canal.”92 Indeed, available sources of southern
public opinion indicated that there was overwhelming support
there for the President’s actions. Important newspapers like the
Constitution of Atlanta, the Times-Democrat of New Orleans, the
Dallas Morning News, and the Mobile Register all supported the
treaty. The Constitution’s influential editor, Clark Howell, told
TR that he had been urging his fellow southerners to back the
treaty “with all the force at [his] command.”93 Even if there was
some unease about Roosevelt’s methods, there was a tendency
to focus on ends, rather than on means. As the Dallas Morning
News argued, “nothing is to be gained by thrusting obstacles in
the way of President Roosevelt or of any one else who is really
bent on securing an Isthmian canal at the one place or the other.”
Many of these papers also criticized Democrats who opposed the
treaty, and some warned that such a stance would guarantee
defeat in the 1904 election. The Times-Democrat judged that
the party’s chances in the next election would “be effectually
destroyed by any opposition it may present . . . to the construction
of the Panama Canal.”94
The President’s mailbag also indicated that there was
strong southern support for his actions. William G. McAdoo, a
prominent New York businessman who was raised in Georgia and
Tennessee (and served later as secretary of the treasury under
Woodrow Wilson and as a senator for California), wrote that he
was “gratified by your sound, vigorous and patriotic treatment
of this question and I am ashamed of our Democrats, and all of
our Pharisees, to [sic] oppose you.”95 A prominent southerner
from Alabama assured Roosevelt that “so far as the Panama
situation is concerned, a considerable majority of the people with
whom I have talked at home give unqualified endorsement to
your course.”96 Cecil A. Lyon, chairman of the Texas Republican
State Executive Committee, congratulated TR on his “action in
the Panama matter.” He informed the President that “Texas, as
a state, is very jubilant over the prospect of an early completion
of the canal, as we think it will be of vast benefit to us.”97 A
correspondent from New Orleans exclaimed, “Bully for Panama!
. . . What a pity you are not a good Democrat so we could give
you the vote of the Solid South.”98 One southern Democrat who
had had “much communication with our Southern people on the
situation and the attitude of the Administration with reference
to Panama, and the Panama Canal,” assured Roosevelt that
“whatever the attitude of our Senators and Representatives in
Congress may be, our people are with you in your efforts to build
a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.”99
Despite this apparent widespread southern support for the
treaty, the administration knew that it would not necessarily
translate into southern votes in the Senate. The temptation
to observe party discipline and susceptibility to the passionate
criticisms of anti-imperialists or men like John Tyler Morgan
could persuade many Democrats to vote contrary to the
sentiments of their constituents. As TR complained in midDecember, “every effort is being made to dragoon the democratic
senators to voting in a mass against the treaty.”100 Secretary of
the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw agreed, and argued that Democratic
opposition to the treaty could be eroded by mobilizing public
support. “The opposition, if it accomplishes anything, will be
based on sentiment, and now is the time to create sentiment that
can not be overridden,” he counseled the President. Therefore,
Roosevelt and his advisers began to consider various ways to
push southern senators to break with their party leadership.
One way to do this, Shaw suggested, would be to orchestrate
pro-Panama “resolutions by Boards of Trade and Chambers
of Commerce and other business associations throughout the
South,” which he believed “would have a very desirable effect”
on southern senators.101 TR mobilized sympathetic southern
newspaper editors as well. As noted, Clark Howell was active
on the treaty’s behalf. TR also wrote to John Temple Graves
of the Atlanta News, asserting that while the canal would
17
benefit the entire nation, it would “be especially a benefit to the
South.” He pointed out a recent editorial in The Outlook which
had portrayed Colombia as a nation wallowing in tyrannical
misrule. “I fail to see how anyone reading it can thereafter have
a sentimental objection against my having refused to allow our
nation to be held up by Colombia,” he argued.102 He told Samuel
White Small, associate editor of the Constitution, that the canal
would be “most beneficial to the South and the Pacific slope” and
predicted that construction of the canal would “rank in kind . . .
with the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of Texas.”103
While TR and his advisers believed that ratification of the
treaty would depend upon their ability to secure the votes of a
large number of southern senators, they continued to reach out to
northeastern, and especially New York, critics. Secretary Shaw
spoke at the Chamber of Commerce in New York.104 Assistant
Secretary of State Francis Loomis and Minister Bunau-Varilla
defended the administration at the Manhattan Hotel’s Quill
Club.105 Jacob Schurman spoke in support of TR’s Panama policy
at the Cooper Union.106 Roosevelt implored George McClellan
Harvey, the editor of the Democratic-leaning Harper’s Weekly,
published in New York, to “help prevent the democratic senators
from taking an attitude alike so foolish and so wicked” as
opposing the treaty.107
Two related factors probably played a role in the decision
to devote precious time and resources to shaping opinion in
the Northeast. Most immediately, George F. Hoar worried the
administration. Hoar, a prominent anti-imperialist senator from
Massachusetts, was the Republican most likely to vote against
the treaty, and not surprisingly, when the Senate debate began,
he blasted the President. Roosevelt and his advisers judged that
the impact of Hoar and other detractors needed to be blunted.
That was because TR considered the northeastern section of
the country—which was home to many of the fiercest and most
eloquent critics of the President’s actions in Panama—to have
a
disproportionate
effect on opinion in
the rest of the nation.
While he followed
press coverage and
political
gossip
throughout
the
country, he tracked
the press and political
news of New York
City more closely than
anywhere else and was
much more sensitive
to
opprobrium
emanating from there.
And while he had long
regarded newspapers
like the Evening
Senator George F. Hoar.
Post and many of the
image from the public domain
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
18
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
people who read them with disdain, that did not lessen his
sensitivity to their criticism. As he complained bitterly to one
correspondent, “we have, especially in New York City and parts
of the Northeast, a small body of shrill eunuchs who consistently
oppose the action of this government whenever that action is to
its own interests.”108
* * * * *
Congressional debate about the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty
revealed both weaknesses in the administration’s position and
potential avenues for counterattack. Even though the House
would not vote on ratification, the subject was sufficiently
contentious to elicit extended remarks from both sides of the
aisle. Democrats, led by Minority Leader John S. Williams of
Mississippi, voiced a variety of conflicting ideas, including unease
about Roosevelt’s intervention, concern about the possibility of
war with Colombia, reluctance to abandon the Nicaragua route,
and barely disguised enthusiasm that construction of a canal
would probably begin soon, even if Panama would be the site.
They were particularly anxious to demonstrate that they wanted
to build an isthmian canal as much as the Republicans. As
Williams admitted, “If we can not get” the canal “where it ought
to be, we will take it somewhere else.” He went further, saying
that “even at Panama it will benefit American commerce. It will
benefit American industry, and it will strengthen the American
Navy for the purpose of self-defense.”109 Republicans recognized
that their opponents were on the defensive and pressed their
advantage. They emphasized two points. They argued that
Democratic criticism of the administration gave aid and comfort
to the Colombians, who might launch an attack in order to retake
Panama, and they accused the Democrats of not really wanting
a canal.110
Senate Democrats were much more aggressive during the
treaty debate than their counterparts in the House, and they were
encouraged by George F. Hoar’s criticism of the administration.
Hoar and the Democrats made three main accusations.
First, they framed TR’s policy as dishonorable, arguing that
the President and his advisers had known about the revolution
beforehand and had planned to intervene on its behalf. Morgan
charged that “the President knew of such a conspiracy and stood
ready with armed ships properly posted to protect those engaged
in the ‘uprising’ when it should occur.” To make matters worse,
Morgan continued, members of the administration associated
with undesirables like Cromwell and Bunau-Varilla “to guard
the interests of the New Panama Canal Company.”111 This taint
of dishonor extended to TR’s hasty recognition of Panama, a
resolution introduced by Hoar on December 9 implied, as it was
not in keeping with the conventional standards of neutrality
during a conflict between warring parties.112
Second, these critics argued that Roosevelt had
overstepped his powers in several respects. Morgan charged
that, by deploying military forces in Panama, the President had
employed his powers as commander-in-chief “with a dreadful
latitude of construction.” Even worse, argued Hoar, TR seemed
to have declared war on Colombia without congressional assent.
“Mr. President,” he asked rhetorically, “is there any doubt
that, as now standing unexplained, this was an act of war?”113
What was more, maintained Morgan, TR had contravened the
Spooner Act by not turning to the Nicaragua route once the
September 22 deadline expired. “The Spooner Law required
him to open negotiations with Nicaragua and Costa Rica for
that purpose. It had no reference to any caesarean operation
by which a republic of Panama might be taken alive from the
womb of Colombia.”114
Third, Senate critics asserted not only that the President
had, in effect, declared war, but that Colombia would almost
certainly fight back. Morgan warned that TR “would need all his
military abilities and all the money of the people in the Treasury
and the lives of many of their sons” to defeat the guerrilla fighters
that Colombia was preparing to infiltrate into Panama.115
Augustus Bacon of Georgia introduced a resolution which would
have required the U.S. to compensate Colombia for the loss of
Panama if it could be demonstrated that the U.S. intervened to
support Panama’s secession, because he argued that “if we do
not hold out to those people some prospect that the great United
States Government . . . will in a proper, magnanimous spirit
endeavor peacefully to adjust these differences, there must be
war and bloodshed.”116
Given the force of Hoar’s and the Democrats’ critique,
Senate Republicans had a much more difficult assignment than
their counterparts in the House. Joseph Foraker, Henry Cabot
Lodge, John Coit Spooner, and Shelby Cullom all attempted to
refute the Democrats’ charges.117 But it was TR himself who
spearheaded the counterattack. In addresses to Congress in
December and January, the President forcefully reiterated many
of the arguments he and his advisers had been making since early
November. He continued to blame Colombia’s misgovernment
and its bad faith negotiations for Panama’s secession; he
declared that “no one connected with this Government had any
part in preparing, inciting, or encouraging the late revolution
on the Isthmus of Panama,” and that it was not just American
interests he was safeguarding, but the interests of the entire
“civilized world.”118 The President also opened new lines of
attack. He averred that the country’s urgent need for the canal
did not allow for any delay. This precluded further negotiations
with the Colombians.119 He also countered the accusation
that he was thwarting the will of Congress and ignoring the
Spooner amendment by asserting that his intervention and swift
conclusion of a treaty with Panama did precisely what the law
commanded. In fact, he argued, those Democrats who continued
to agitate for a Nicaraguan canal were themselves attempting to
bypass the Spooner amendment, and it was “no longer possible
under existing legislation to go to the Nicaragua route.”120 Thus,
he declared, the Democratic argument that the United States
19
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Cover of Puck magazine of December 23, 1903.
could still turn to Nicaragua was specious, and he warned his
countrymen that the only choices available to the U.S. were a
canal through Panama or none at all.121
* * * * *
While the Senate debated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty,
Bogotá was doing everything it could to regain Panama. It
sent one of the country’s leading statesmen, General Rafael
Reyes, to the United States. He was instructed to convince
the administration to relinquish Panama, or, failing that, to
sabotage the treaty. To this end Reyes hired Wayne MacVeagh,
a well-connected lawyer and political figure who quickly made
life difficult for Roosevelt by providing damaging information to
his critics.122
To make matters even more complicated, a minor war
scare erupted in mid-December.123 The prospect of American
forces pummeling overmatched Colombians aroused conflicting
emotions. Some were excited by the possibility of war. Joseph
Pulitzer’s The World proclaimed that “our legions stand ready to
rush to arms. Our ships lie throbbing with banked fires. Our
gallant President is eager to let loose the dogs of war in defense
of Panama.” The New York American insisted that a “Collision
Between Colombian Troops and U.S. Marines Is Imminent.”124
Others were horrified by the prospect of U.S. soldiers slaughtering
Colombians. The Nation scolded war enthusiasts, averring that
“there would be no more ‘glory’ ” in war with Colombia “than in
kicking a newsboy into the gutter.”125
Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt viewed with unease
emotional public reactions to foreign policy issues, fearing that
they limited his ability to formulate sound policy. In the case
of the war scare, TR feared that the combination of sympathy
for the Colombians and the fierce attacks of Democrats and
anti-imperialists might be enough to swing the debate over
the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty to the side of its opponents. He
told one correspondent in mid-December that he was “more
concerned about Panama than anything else. . . . It will be a
lamentable thing if a twisted party feeling should join with mere
hysteria to prevent at this time the fulfilling of what has been
accomplished.”126
20
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Roosevelt’s actions during the war scare also indicated
a concern about the eagerness of many Americans for a fight.
The only factors that had prevented Bogotá from suppressing
the Panamanian rebellion at its outset were the presence
of the American Navy, which had prevented Colombian
troops from landing, and the inability of Colombian forces to
penetrate the vast wilderness which separated Panama from
the rest of Colombia.127 After the U.S. recognized Panama, the
administration had assumed an aggressive stance, stationing
marines on the ground and maintaining a large naval presence
in the area.128 The commander of the Caribbean squadron,
Rear Admiral J. B. Coughlin, informed Reyes that the United
States would prevent Colombia from landing troops anywhere in
Panama, and the Joint Board of the Army and Navy advocated
stationing troops at the border, in the Yavisa region, to prevent
an invasion of any part of Panamanian territory.129 When
Reyes asked Hay on December 11 how the U.S. would respond
to a Colombian invasion of Panama, Hay warned him that the
administration would “regard with the gravest concern any
invasion of the territory of Panama by Colombian troops.”130
extend U.S. defenses to the Panama border and instead ordered
that U.S. forces were to retreat in the event of a Colombian attack
and to restrict military operations to defense of the isthmian rail
line.132 “The political reasons against seeming to court a clash
with Colombia outweigh the military disadvantages” of not
occupying the Yavisa region, he told one correspondent.133 When
Reyes again asked how the U.S. would respond to a Colombian
attack, Hay responded in a more conciliatory manner than he had
earlier. The secretary of state again warned against invading
Panama, but he also informed Reyes that “the formal action
we should take upon such a contingency must be determined
by the circumstances of the case,” and that the administration
had “only the friendliest intentions toward Colombia, and will
not lightly be provoked into assuming a hostile attitude toward
that Republic.”134 Similarly, Secretary of the Navy William H.
Moody was told that warships making a scheduled visit to the
Colombian port of Cartagena should avoid anything that might
appear to be a “warlike demonstration. . . . General Reyes and
our Mr. [Alban] Snyder [chargé d’affaires] in Bogota ought to be
very fully informed of our intention beforehand, and also before
the newspapers have had their fun of it.”135 Finally, warships
stationed off the coast of Panama were not to fire “unless fired
upon,” because if hostilities broke out the President wanted to be
“dead sure that Colombia fires first.”136
However, it quickly became clear that the administration’s
posture would need to be softened for legal, strategic, and
political reasons. To begin with, the use of troops beyond the
narrow isthmian transit route would be of dubious legality. TR
had justified his intervention by reference to the treaty of 1846
and the United States’ obligation to keep the transit route open.
Yet until the treaty with Panama was ratified the U.S. would
have no legal grounds for defending the rest of Panama. Also, TR
realized that his initial deployment of the navy and marines had
increased the chances of war with Colombia. Not only did he want
to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, but Roosevelt knew that if war
were to break out he would be much more vulnerable to criticism
from Democrats and anti-imperialists. Some newspapers were
already asking pointed questions. “In the absence of a treaty
obligation, by what right does the president use the army and
the navy to protect the
Panama government
from exterior attack,
without
authority
from Congress to
wage war,” wondered
the
Springfield
Republican.131
image from the public domain
Therefore,
TR
decided that the
military should adopt
a more conservative
position and the
administration a more
conciliatory tone in
communications with
Colombia. He rejected
the military’s advice to
There was a further sign that Roosevelt had begun to
reassess the situation in Panama: Even as the President
continued to insist publicly that Panamanian independence was
irreversible, he began quietly to explore the possibility of some
kind of U.S.-brokered peace between Panama and Colombia, up
to and including reunification. First, TR told Hay to see Reyes
and “find out whether he has any practical proposal which we can
even take up for consideration in connection with the Panama
people.”137 Then, a week later, Henry Cabot Lodge recounted to
Roosevelt what he considered to be a promising conversation he
had had with an unnamed representative of Reyes regarding a
deal which would have included an extremely favorable canal
treaty and Colombian-Panamanian reunification by popular
referendum. The senator from Massachusetts encouraged the
President to consider the offer.138 However, despite Lodge’s
enthusiasm for and Roosevelt’s apparent openness to a deal of
this nature, nothing came of the negotiations.
Rafael Reyes.
It has been argued that TR opposed reunification
unwaveringly and that he was only open to a Colombia-Panama
rapprochement linked to a recognition of Panama’s independence.
This interpretation is based upon a letter Roosevelt wrote on
November 30, in which he vowed not “to surrender the Panama
people . . . to the Colombian people.”139 However, a closer
examination of the evidence reveals that the President did
consider Lodge’s recommendation, and the fact that it failed to
materialize was probably the result of somewhat different factors
than have been understood. First, the President and his advisers
only began to grasp the difficulty of their situation in December.
It was at that point, with Colombia seemingly poised to attack
21
and the U.S. restricted to defending
the transit route, that they became
receptive to compromise. As TR told
one correspondent in early January,
“If . . . Panama can again become a
state under Colombia, and desires
to do so—why, well and good; but
they shall not longer tyrannize
over Panama nor longer block the
pathway of the canal.”140
The second factor that
influenced Roosevelt and his
advisers was their concern about
public opinion and the Senate.
Hoar might vote against the treaty;
southern Democrats might decide
to observe party discipline; war
with Colombia might erupt any
day; mass public opinion could react
unpredictably: There were still a
number of obstacles which alone
or in combination could damage, or
even altogether sink, the President’s
policy. Hence, the possibility of
securing an agreement which would
be on the “exact terms” of the HayBunau-Varilla Treaty, as Lodge
wrote, and which would remove the
possibility of war with Colombia,
had genuine appeal. As Lodge
noted, such an arrangement “will
From the New York Herald, February 24, 1904.
go through at once and [be] greatly
approved by [the] country.” And
even if the deal fell through, efforts
French canal project, advised Hay and Root that Colombia would
to find common ground with Colombia, if made known to the
have enormous difficulty invading Panama by land.145 As the
public, would give the people “additional proof of our own good
141
threat of war receded, and ratification became increasingly likely,
dealing and strengthen our position.”
the administration’s incentive to compromise on the matter of
Panamanian independence greatly diminished.
Of course, all of this fails to explain why no deal for
reunification emerged. One can only speculate, but two
developments appear to have played a central role. First and
* * * * *
foremost, by mid-January the administration was increasingly
At the same time that TR and his allies were making their
confident that the treaty would be ratified.142 Second, the
case to the Senate, they worked behind the scenes to defuse their
administration seems to have concluded that Colombia would
critics’ most damaging charges. For one, Hoar’s December 9
probably not attack Panama. The U.S. Navy dominated the
resolution had rattled the administration. The President seems
sea. On land, while there were reports of troop movements in
to have drafted at least a portion of his January 4 message to
Colombia, it was clear that Bogotá was having great difficulty
Congress with it in mind.146 In part, Hoar had questioned whether
organizing its forces.143 The U.S. minister reported that despite
the provisional Panamanian government could legally ratify a
considerable anger in Colombia toward the U.S., the government
treaty with the U.S. The day after Hoar introduced his resolution,
realized the “futility and undesirability of making war” and
Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis met Bunau-Varilla,
preferred to “settle the matter amicably, and to recognize the
who urged the Panamanian provisional government to draft and
new republic, and to obtain thereby the best terms possible
adopt a constitution, which it quickly did.147
as to the payment of the foreign debt, etc.”144 Bunau-Varilla,
knowledgeable about the terrain from his time working on the
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
22
Roosevelt also reacted sharply to a piece of evidence read into
the Congressional Record by Senator Morgan. The Alabaman
quoted an article Bunau-Varilla had published in early September
in the French newspaper Le Matin which shrewdly analyzed the
options open to the administration and forecast with amazing
accuracy the policies TR would contemplate implementing.
Morgan argued that there was no way the Frenchman could have
known this information without consulting with TR and/or Hay
about their intentions.148 The President claimed to be pleased
that Morgan had publicized the article, which had been published
on September 2, well before TR or Hay had met Bunau-Varilla
or had begun to finalize their plans. Roosevelt told Lodge that
Morgan and his allies had overreached with this piece of evidence,
that they had “proved too much,” and that the administration
could demonstrate this if necessary.149
But the flurry of correspondence provoked by Morgan’s
speech underlined the fact that Roosevelt considered this line
of attack to be potentially damaging if not effectively refuted,
so he prepared to do just this. The President instructed Francis
Loomis to provide him with a brief summary of the
administration’s interactions with Bunau-Varilla,
including the Frenchman’s meeting with TR at the
White House. He did the same with John Bassett
Moore.150 Roosevelt wrote letters to John Bigelow and
to Silas McBee, editor of The Churchman, arguing that
Morgan’s argument was specious and that the clever
Frenchman had been able to guess the administration’s
intentions accurately through foresight and assiduous
detective work.151 Hay procured through BunauVarilla a statement from Panama’s minister of foreign
affairs which attested that “there has been neither aid
nor intervention of any kind offered in advance by the
American Government.”152
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
approved the treaty, Republicans attached a number of what they
considered to be minor amendments. But the administration
worried that these amendments would necessitate returning the
treaty to Panama for a second ratification and cause considerable
delay in beginning construction of the canal.154 This prompted
an exchange of letters between Roosevelt, John Hay, John Coit
Spooner, and Shelby Cullom, in which the senators were assured
that Panama would permit the treaty to be interpreted so as to
address concerns raised by the amendments.155 TR’s and Hay’s
letters were masterpieces of tact, flattery, and persuasion, but
the President and his advisers were privately bewildered that the
senators could fail to grasp the potential impact of their actions.
As TR delicately told Spooner, he did not think that they had “any
right to jeopardize a great policy even to a slight degree, for the
purpose of obtaining in a given way certain objects which can with
absolute certainty be gotten by the methods already adopted.”156
The senators quickly agreed to withdraw the amendments.
Despite this prompt and satisfactory resolution, however,
the incident probably served to bolster an emerging perception
Actually, one final hurdle had arisen in late January.
When the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
It is difficult to pinpoint how effective these
measures were, but they probably helped to stifle the
final push of critics like Morgan, who by this point
were gaining little traction outside of anti-imperialist
circles. Debate in the Senate continued into February,
but by mid-January it was clear that the treaty would
be ratified. On January 18, the Committee on Foreign
Relations voted the treaty out of committee, and it was
ratified decisively on February 23. Half of the twentyeight Democrats voted in favor of ratification. Of these
fourteen men, twelve represented southern states.153
We cannot assess with any precision the impact the
administration’s attempts to shape public opinion had
upon the number of southern senators who voted for
the treaty, but the final vote certainly vindicates the
conclusion of TR and his advisers that the fight for
ratification could be won or lost in the South.
President Theodore Roosevelt in the Panama Canal Zone in November 1906.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
of the President’s: that the Senate could not be counted on
to act responsibly in the conduct of foreign policy. A second
conclusion, which Roosevelt would only begin to draw about the
Panama episode in the final years of his presidency, was that
the difficulties of the ratification struggle fit into a broader
pattern of weak public support for the idea of the U.S. accepting
greater responsibility for policing the Caribbean (embodied soon
after ratification of the canal treaty in the Roosevelt Corollary
to the Monroe Doctrine). As he told one correspondent in 1908,
in addition to his interventions in Panama, Cuba, and the
Dominican Republic, which he was able to carry out only by
exercising “the greatest care in order to keep public opinion here
with me,” he would have acted in Haiti, Venezuela, and a few
other places as well, but he could not convince “our people” of the
need to “back a reasonable and intelligent foreign policy which
should put a stop to crying disorders at our very doors.”157 The
emotional and conflicting reaction to the war scare with Colombia
was a third area of concern. The Republican (not to mention
anti-imperialist and Democratic) criticism which emerged when
it looked like the administration might be caught in the act of
encouraging Panamanian secession was a fourth.
In short, then, while the President had reason to be pleased
with his Panamanian intervention—he later called it “by far the
most important action” he “took in foreign affairs”158—it also
highlighted several areas in which TR would continue to face
opposition from members of Congress and crucial segments of the
public. In a number of respects, the Panama episode embodied
a pattern that recurred throughout Roosevelt’s presidency: TR
generally encountered intense opposition to his most ambitious
foreign (and domestic) policies, but he usually was able to
overcome it through a combination of astute diplomacy abroad
and deft political maneuvering at home.
23
“The Issues of 1896,” in Hermann Hagedorn, ed., The Works
of Theodore Roosevelt, National Edition, 20 vols. (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926), Vol. XIV, pp. 247-248.
2
“Washington’s Forgotten Maxim,” Works of TR, Vol. XIII, pp.
193-194.
3
“National Duties,” Works of TR, Vol. XIII, p. 475. See also, for
example, Theodore Roosevelt to Alfred Thayer Mahan, May 3,
1897, in Elting E. Morison et al., eds., The Letters of Theodore
Roosevelt (8 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1951-1954), Vol. I, p. 607; and TR to John St. Loe Strachey,
March 8, 1901, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 8.
4
Dwight C. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route: The Story
of the Spooner Act and the Hay-Herrán Treaty (1940; New York:
Octagon Books, 1966), pp. 12-14; Walter LaFeber, The Panama
Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978), pp. 8-9; John Major, Prize Possession: The
United States and the Panama Canal, 1903-1979 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 12; Miles P. Duval, Cadiz
to Cathay: The Story of the Long Diplomatic Struggle for the
Panama Canal (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1940),
p. 36.
5
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, p. 70; LaFeber, Panama
Canal, p. 22.
6
David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation
of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1977), p. 38; Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 14-17.
7
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 17-29; LaFeber, Panama
Canal, p. 18; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 74-75.
8
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 45-203; LaFeber,
Panama Canal, p. 11.
9
Joseph A. Fry, John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern
Autonomy (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992),
pp. 198-199; Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 26-30;
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 259-265.
John M. Thompson received his Ph.D. from the University of
Cambridge in 2010. He has taught American history at the
Universities of Cambridge and Utrecht, and from 2008 to 2010
he was junior researcher at the Roosevelt Study Center in the
Netherlands. Dr. Thompson’s forthcoming monograph is titled
Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Foreign Policy.
10
Endnotes
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 255-259; Miner, Fight
for the Panama Route, pp. 96-118.
“The Isthmus and Sea Power,” Atlantic Monthly, October 1893,
reprinted in Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in
Sea Power, Present and Future (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat
Press, 1970), pp. 59-104. See especially pp. 87-104.
New York Times, February 12, 1900. See also John Hay to
TR, February 12, 1900, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C., Reel 308; TR to Mahan, February
14, 1900, and to Albert Shaw, February 15, 1900, Letters of TR,
Vol. II, pp. 185-187.
11
12
1
TR to Anna Roosevelt, May 20, 1894, Letters of TR, Vol. I, p.
379. See also TR to Mahan, May 3, 1897, Letters of TR, Vol. I,
p. 607; TR to Strachey, March 8, 1901, and to Arthur Hamilton
13
24
Lee, March 18 and April 24, 1901, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 8-9,
19-21, 64-65.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
30
Marcus A. Hanna to TR, October 4, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 37.
For the history of Panama’s independence movement, see
LaFeber, Panama Canal, pp. 19-22. For speculation that Panama
would secede in the wake of the Colombian Senate vote, see, for
example, Alvey Adee to John Hay, August 18, 1903, and Hay to
TR, September 7, 1903, Hay Papers, Reels 4, 6; Harper’s Weekly,
September 12, 19, and 26, 1903; American Monthly Review of
Reviews, September and October 1903; Chicago Tribune, August
18, 1903; Wall Street Journal, August 20 and September 25,
1903.
31
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 266-268, 325-327;
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 120-121.
14
15
TR to Hay, August 19, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 566-567.
16
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 307-314.
Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Session, January 28,
1902, p. 1048; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 264-328;
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, p. 123.
17
For Morgan’s speeches, see Congressional Record, 57th
Congress, 1st Session, June 4 and June 17, 1902, pp. 6267-6280,
6909, 6921-6935; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 318328, 331; Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 147-156.
Springfield Republican, August 17, 1903. See also Evening
Post, September 1 and 9, 1903; The Nation, September 17, 1903.
32
18
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp. 329-332; Miner, Fight
for the Panama Route, pp. 157-195.
19
Hay to TR, September 7, 1903, John Hay Papers, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C., Reel 4.
20
Evening Post, September 9, 1903; The Nation, September 17,
1903. The Springfield Republican did not make this argument
explicitly, as the Evening Post and The Nation did, but it placed
the blame for the failure of negotiations squarely at the feet
of Bogotá. See Springfield Republican, August 17 and 19 and
September 23 and 28, 1903.
33
34
TR to Hay, August 19, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 566-567.
TR to Hay, August 19 and September 15, 1903, Letters of TR,
Vol. III, pp. 566-567, 599; TR to Rudyard Kipling, November 1,
1904, Letters of TR, Vol. IV, pp. 1007-1008. See also TR to Hanna,
October 5, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 625; TR’s description
of Mexicans as a “weaker race” as compared to the Texans of the
mid-nineteenth century in Works of TR, Vol. VII, p. 114; Thomas
G. Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1980), pp. 52-53, 140-141.
35
See, for example, Minister Arthur Beaupré to Hay, September
5, 1903, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS),
1903, pp. 191-192.
21
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 59, 331; Major, Prize
Possession, pp. 32-33.
22
23
New York American, September 24, 1903.
TR to Kipling, November 1, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol. IV, pp.
1007-1008.
36
For a good summary of the terms of the Spooner Act, see Miner,
Fight for the Panama Route, p. 156; The World, Sept. 23, 1903.
See also New York Times, August 18, 1903; The World, August
15, 1903; New York American, September 24, 1903; New York
Herald, August 18, 1903. Morgan had been making this point
for a long time. See Fry, Morgan and the Search for Southern
Autonomy, p. 226.
24
Jacob Gould Schurman to TR, September 9, 1903, TR Papers,
Reel 37.
25
For the most thorough examination of this feature of TR’s
thinking, see Frederick W. Marks III, Velvet on Iron: The
Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1979), pp. 89-117. See also William C. Widenor,
Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign
Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 162167.
37
Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
(1913; New York: Da Capo Press, 1985), p. 561.
38
26
American Monthly Review of Reviews, October 1903.
Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, September 5, 1903, TR Papers, Reel
36.
27
New York Herald, August 15, 1903, quoted in Duval, Cadiz to
Cathay, p. 264.
39
TR to Hay, September 15, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 599.
40
Hanna to TR, October 5, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 37.
28
29
Evening Star, October 16, 1903.
The Constitution, August 16 and 19, 1903. For similar
comments, see Dun’s Review, September 26, 1903; New York
American, August 18, 1903; The World, August 15 and September
23, 1903.
41
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
25
42
TR to Schurman, September 10, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III,
pp. 595-596.
56
Bunau-Varilla, Panama, pp. 316-319, 331; Miner, Fight for the
Panama Route, pp. 356-357, 361.
TR to Albert Shaw, October 7, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp.
625-626.
57
TR to Albert Shaw, October 10, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p.
628.
Actually, because of a mistimed communication, some
Colombian troops did manage to land. See Richard H. Collin,
Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe
Doctrine, and the Latin American Context (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1990), pp. 262-266.
45
Hay to TR, September 13, 1903, Hay Papers, Reel 4, and TR to
Hay, September 15, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 599.
Evening Star, November 6, 1903; Hay to Arthur Beaupré,
November 6, 1903, FRUS, 1903, pp. 225-226.
See Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 427-432, for a copy
of the memorandum.
59
43
44
46
TR to Hay, August 19, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 566567. For good analyses of administration thinking on the Moore
memorandum, see Major, Prize Possession, pp. 35-37, and Miner,
Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 341-347, 350-352.
58
Charles D. Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-Varilla: New Light
on the Panama Canal Treaty,” Hispanic American Historical
Review, Vol. 46, No. 1, February 1966, pp. 34-35.
47
48
See Roosevelt, Autobiography, pp. 572-574, for the draft text.
The Panamanians were told that they would not be permitted
to amend this treaty. With no other option, despite considerable
anger, they ratified it on December 2, 1903. See Miner, Fight for
the Panama Route, p. 378.
60
61
See, for example, Hay to TR, September 7 and 13, 1903, Hay
Papers, Reel 4.
Two press releases, November 3, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 427.
49
See Charles D. Ameringer, “The Panama Canal Lobby
of Philippe Bunau-Varilla and William Nelson Cromwell,”
American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 2, January 1963, pp.
346-363. Cromwell claimed to have converted Mark Hanna
to the Panama cause, and it was Hanna who had introduced
Cromwell to Roosevelt. See Hanna to TR, June 1, 1903, TR
Papers, Reel 34; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, p. 276.
For the correspondence regarding Cromwell, see Hanna to
Hay, June 1, 1903, Hay Papers, Reel 8; Adee to Hay, August 20,
September 19, 22, 23, and 25, 1903, Hay Papers, Reel 6. Most
of this correspondence consists of Adee keeping Hay informed
of Cromwell’s attempts, on behalf of the New Panama Canal
Company, to ascertain how large a bribe would suffice to remove
the Colombian Senate’s objections to the treaty.
50
51
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, pp. 347-348.
Evening Post, November 4, 1903, and The World, November 6,
1903. See also Harper’s Weekly, November 7 and 14, 1903; New
York American, November 7, 1903; Courier-Journal, November
5, 1903; Evening Post, November 5 and 6, 1903; New York
Times, November 5, 6, 9, and 13, 1903; Springfield Republican,
November 5 and 6, 1903.
62
New York Herald, November 5, 1903. See also New York
American, November 5, 1903; New York Times, November 5
and 7, 1903; and Courier-Journal, November 5, 1903, which
scolded TR for not turning to the Nicaragua route as soon as
Colombia rejected the Hay-Herrán Treaty. Even the Springfield
Republican, a proponent of the Panama route, worried on
November 6, 1903, about “the peril of national scandal” and
argued that “if diplomatic means have failed to bring about a
satisfactory arrangement with Colombia the President’s duty is
to take up the Nicaragua route.”
63
64
52
Ameringer, “Panama Canal Lobby,” pp. 347-348.
Evening Star, November 9, 1903.
Dallas Morning News, November 7, 1903; Mobile Register,
November 7, 1903.
65
Philippe Bunau-Varilla, Panama: The Creation, Destruction,
and Resurrection (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1920), pp. 295297.
53
Bunau-Varilla, Panama, pp. 310-312; Miner, Fight for the
Panama Route, p. 356; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, pp.
350-351.
54
TR to John Bigelow, January 6, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol. III,
p. 689.
66
Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1903.
67
New York Tribune, November 6, 1903.
Nicholas Murray Butler to TR, November 9, 1903, TR Papers,
Reel 38.
68
55
Evening Star, November 7, 1903; Chicago Tribune, November
9, 1903.
69
26
TR to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., November 15, 1903, Letters of
TR, Vol. III, p. 652.
70
71
See, for example, Evening Star, November 5, 1903.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
82
Hay to TR, November 16, 1903, Hay Papers, Reel 4.
83
Evening Star, November 12, 1903.
Courier-Journal, November 17, 1903; New York American,
January 15, 1904.
84
72
Press release, November 6, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 427.
See, for example, The Constitution, November 6 and 7, 1903;
Harper’s Weekly, November 21, 1903; The World, November 19,
1903; San Francisco Chronicle, November 9 and 18, 1903; The
Independent, November 12 and 19, 1903; New York Tribune,
November 7, 1903.
73
Evening Post, September 9, 1903; The Nation, September 17,
1903.
74
For a few examples of this, see, in the press: The Constitution,
November 6, 1903; The World, November 19, 1903; San Francisco
Chronicle, November 9, 1903; the political cartoon in Harper’s
Weekly, November 21, 1903; The Independent, November
19, 1903. In Congress, see the speeches of, for example: Rep.
Robert Hitt, Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session,
December 11, 1903, Vol. 38, pp. 136-140; Senator Joseph Foraker,
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, December
17, 1903, Vol. 38, pp. 321-324; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, January 5,
1904, Vol. 38, pp. 459-473. In TR’s mailbag, see, for example,
John Burroughs to TR, December 6, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 39.
75
For the House resolution calling for the White House to make
public all the papers and correspondence relating to Panama and
TR’s transmission of documents, see Congressional Record, 58th
Congress, 1st Session, November 9 and 16, 1903, Vol. 38, pp. 151,
260. See also New York Times, November 10, 17, and 18, 1903.
The World, November 19, 1903. See also New York Herald,
November 8 and 9, 1903; and Harper’s Weekly, November 21 and
28, 1903.
85
Terence Graham, The “Interests of Civilization”?: Reaction in
the United States Against the “Seizure” of the Panama Canal
Zone, 1903-1904 (Lund, Sweden: Esselte Studium, 1985), p. 128;
TR to Dr. T. R. Lounsbury, January 16 and 25, 1904, TR Papers,
Reel 333; clipping from the Commercial Advertiser, TR Papers,
Reel 41.
86
87
Graham, “Interests of Civilization”?, p. 129.
For the rallying of Republican congressmen around TR’s policy,
see Evening Star, November 9, 1903, and Chicago Tribune,
November 9, 1903. Both the New York Tribune (November 7,
1903) and the Wall Street Journal (November 23 and 26, 1903)
ran strongly supportive editorials. The San Francisco Chronicle,
an important Republican daily which had sharply criticized the
administration and its support for the Panama route in August,
came out strongly in favor of administration policy; see issues of
November 9, 11, 14, and 18, 1903.
88
76
The Sun and the Chicago Tribune continued to run supportive
editorials, as did Lawrence Abbott’s The Outlook and Shaw’s
American Monthly Review of Reviews.
89
These included Dun’s Review (November 14 and 21, 1903), a
New York financial journal; Life (November 26, 1903), a New
York satirical journal; Puck (November 25; see front cover of this
issue of the TRA Journal), another New York satirical journal;
and The Independent (November 12 and 19, 1903), an influential
religious/public affairs weekly.
90
See, for example, New York Times, November 18, 1903; Evening
Post, November 16 and 17, 1903; Springfield Republican,
November 14 and 16, 1903.
77
Harper’s Weekly, November 28, 1903; The Independent,
November 12 and 19, 1903; The Sun, November 18, 1903.
78
TR to Kermit Roosevelt, December 5, 1903, TR Papers, Reel
332.
91
Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1903; New York Tribune,
November 7, 1903.
79
TR to Albert Shaw, November 6, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III,
p. 649. See TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, November 9, 1903,
and TR to Schurman, November 12, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol.
III, pp. 649, 651; and TR to Lawrence Abbott, November 12 and
13, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 332. See also Hay to N. J. Manson,
November 23, 1903, Hay Papers, Reel 2.
92
Mobile Register, January 7, 1904.
93
Clark Howell to TR, February 24, 1904, TR Papers, Reel 42.
80
TR to Hay, November 7, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 649650.
81
Dallas Morning News, November 13, 1903; the TimesDemocrat, December 16, 1903. See also the Times-Democrat,
November 8 and December 19, 1903; the Constitution, November
8, 10, and 12, 1903, December 17, 1903, and January 6, 1904;
Mobile Register, January 5 and 7, 1904; Dallas Morning News,
December 11, 1903, and January 5 and 6, 1904. One scholar
who examined a large sample of southern newspapers found
94
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
that many of those which were critical of the means of the
administration’s policy nevertheless embraced its ends. See
Graham, “Interests of Civilization”?, pp. 45-47.
William G. McAdoo to TR, November 16, 1903, TR Papers,
Reel 38. For McAdoo’s biography through his cabinet position
under Woodrow Wilson, see John J. Broesamle, William Gibbs
McAdoo: A Passion for Change, 1863-1917 (Port Washington,
NY: Kennikat Press, 1973).
27
23-24, 1903, Vol. 37, pp. 425-433, 443-464.
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, December
9, 1903, Vol. 38, p. 65.
112
95
William E. Chandler (president, Spanish Treaty Claims
Commission, Washington, D.C.; formerly secretary of the
Democratic State Executive Committee of Alabama) to TR,
November 18, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 38.
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, December
17, 1903, Vol. 38, pp. 316-318.
113
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 1st Session, November
23, 1903, Vol. 37, pp. 425-433.
114
96
97
Cecil A. Lyon to TR, December 3, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 39.
115
Ibid.
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, January
12, 1904, Vol. 38, p. 614..
116
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, January 5,
1904, Vol. 38, pp. 459-473.
117
[Unknown first name] Parker to TR, December 3, 1903, TR
Papers, Reel 39.
98
TR, Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1903, FRUS,
1903, pp. 33-34, 36-37, 39; TR, Message to Congress, January 4,
1904, FRUS, 1903, pp. 261-262, 273.
118
99
John M. Allen to TR, December 23, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 39.
TR to George Harvey, December 19, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol.
III, pp. 673-674.
100
Leslie M. Shaw to TR, November 13, 1903, TR Papers, Reel
38.
TR, Message to Congress, January 4, 1904, FRUS, 1903, pp.
274-275.
119
101
120
Ibid., p. 260.
102
TR to John Temple Graves, December 28, 1903, TR Papers,
Reel 333.
TR, Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1903, FRUS,
1903, p. 33.
TR to Samuel White Small, December 29, 1903, Letters of TR,
Vol. III, p. 685.
Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, p. 378. For TR’s annoyance
with MacVeagh, see TR to Bigelow, January 6, 1904, Letters of
TR, Vol. III, p. 689, and TR to Lodge, January 6, 1903, Letters of
TR, Vol. III, p. 690.
103
104
New York Tribune, November 18, 1903.
Evening Star, December 15, 1903; New York Times, December
16, 1903; San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 1903.
105
106
Schurman to TR, December 21, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 39.
TR to Harvey, December 19, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp.
673-674.
107
121
122
See, for example, Evening Star, December 9-17, 1903; New
York American, December 20, 1903; Chicago Tribune, December
10, 16, and 18, 1903; The World, December 11 and 18, 1903; New
York Times, December 8-10, 1903; the Constitution, December
8, 10, 14-16, and 18, 1903; San Francisco Chronicle, December
8-10, 15, 17, 18, and 22, 1903.
123
The World, December 11, 1903; New York American, December
20, 1903. See also The World, December 18 and 23, 1903.
124
TR to Otto Gresham, November 30, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol.
III, pp. 662-663.
108
125
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, December
11, 1903, Vol. 38, pp. 128-142.
The Nation, December 24, 1903.
109
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session , December
11 and 14, 1903, Vol. 38, pp. 128-142, 257-260; Evening Post,
December 19, 1903.
TR to Charles S. Osborn, December 19, 1903, TR Papers, Reel
332.
126
110
127
Duval, Cadiz to Cathay, pp. 356-363; McCullough, Path
Between the Seas, p. 379.
128
111
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 1st Session, November
McCullough, Path Between the Seas, p. 379.
28
Duval, Cadiz to Cathay, p. 361; Richard Challener, Admirals,
Generals and American Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1973), pp. 156-158.
129
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Ameringer, “Bunau-Varilla: New Light on the Panama Canal
Treaty,” p. 51.
145
TR to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, January 6, 1904, TR Papers,
Reel 333.
146
Rafael Reyes to Hay, December 8, 1903, and Hay to Reyes,
December 11, 1903, Hay Papers, Reel 4.
130
Ameringer, “Bunau-Varilla: New Light on the Panama Canal
Treaty,” pp. 50-51. See also Elihu Root to TR, December 11,
1903, TR Papers, Reel 39; and Major, Prize Possession, pp. 53-54.
147
Springfield Republican, December 11, 1903. See also Evening
Post, December 31, 1903, and January 7, 1904.
131
132
Challener, Admirals, Generals, pp. 156-157.
TR to Leslie M. Shaw, December 24, 1903, Letters of TR,
Vol. III, p. 678. See also TR to Admiral John Grimes Walker,
December 23, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 677.
133
Reyes to Hay, December 29, 1903, and Hay to Reyes, December
30, 1903, FRUS, 1903, pp. 280-281.
134
See Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session,
January 4, 1904, Vol. 38, for both the text of Bunau-Varilla’s
article in Le Matin and Morgan’s argument.
148
TR to Lodge, January 6, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 690.
See a similar letter to John Bassett Moore, January 6, 1904,
Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 690-691.
149
Francis Loomis to TR, January 5, 1904, and Moore to TR,
January 7, 1904, TR Papers, Reel 40.
150
Hay to William H. Moody, December 24, 1903, William H.
Moody Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Container
10.
135
136
TR to Moody, December 21, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 674.
TR to Bigelow, January 6, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol. III, p. 689;
TR to Silas McBee, January 6, 1904, TR Papers, Reel 333.
151
Bunau-Varilla to Hay, January 7, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 40.
Bunau-Varilla sent Hay an extract from a letter written by Dela
Espriella, Panama’s minister of foreign affairs, dated December
28, 1903.
152
General Rafael Reyes was in Washington negotiating with
Hay for a share of the payment to Panama in return for Panama’s
share in the Colombian debt. More importantly, as noted on p.
19, he was lobbying, with the counsel and assistance of Wayne
MacVeagh, to attempt to defeat the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty.
See Bunau-Varilla, Panama, p. 417; and Miner, Fight for the
Panama Route, p. 378.
137
138
Lodge to TR, December 31, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 39.
Major, Prize Possession, p. 52. The letter Major cites is TR
to Gresham, November 30, 1903, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 662663. Other historians have neglected this episode altogether.
139
Charles F. Lummis to TR, December 30, 1903, TR Papers,
Reel 39; TR to Lummis, January 4, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol. III,
pp. 688-689.
Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, February
23, 1904, Vol. 38, p. 2261; Evening Star, February 23, 1904;
Graham, “Interests of Civilization”?, p. 96.
153
154
Evening Star, January 18, 1904.
TR to John Coit Spooner, January 20, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol.
III, pp. 700-701; Spooner to TR, January 23, 1904, TR Papers,
Reel 41; Hay to Spooner, January 19 and 20, 1904, and Hay to
Shelby Cullom, January 20, 1904, Hay Papers, Reel 2.
155
140
141
Lodge to TR, December 31, 1903, TR Papers, Reel 39.
TR to Spring Rice and to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., January 18,
1904, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp. 698-699; Hanna to TR, January
18, 1904, TR Papers, Reel 40.
TR to Spooner, January 20, 1904, Letters of TR, Vol. III, pp.
700-701.
156
TR to William Bayard Hale, December 3, 1908, Letters of TR,
Vol. VI, p. 1408.
157
142
See, for example, Acting Minister Snyder to Hay, January
2, 1904, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Colombia to the
Department of State, T33, Roll 61.
143
Memorandum by Beaupré, January 11, 1904, Despatches
from U.S. Ministers to Colombia, T33, Roll 61.
144
TR, Autobiography, p. 553. At the same time, the quotation
that is widely attributed to Roosevelt after he left office—“I took
the Canal Zone and let Congress debate”; see, for example, New
York Times, March 25, 1911—was probably either a slip of the
tongue or a misquote. See James F. Vivian, “The ‘Taking’ of the
Panama Canal Zone: Myth and Reality,” Diplomatic History, Vol.
4, No. 1, Winter 1980, pp. 95-100.
158
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
29
THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (#3)
a column by Gregory A. Wynn
photo by Art Koch
SIMPLE AND UNMISTAKABLY AMERICAN:
THE ROOSEVELT WHITE HOUSE CHINA
complete china service remained in the Executive Mansion at
the turn of the twentieth century.2 To their credit, both Mrs.
Hayes and Mrs. Harrison attempted to start a china collection—
but with no success. Mrs. Hayes took the modest collection home
with her to Ohio at the end of her husband’s term, assuming
that it would not be maintained after their departure!3 While
many may recall Jacqueline Kennedy’s magnificent efforts at
preserving White House history, the first presidential china
collection at the Executive Mansion would be the initiative of
Mrs. McKinley.4 Edith Roosevelt would officially establish the
collection and put significant effort into adding to it, but, sadly,
enhancing the collection would hold little interest for subsequent
first ladies until Mrs. Kennedy’s efforts in the early 1960s.
Gregory A. Wynn and Andy Wynn.
Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection
White House china is an expensive and active collecting
field. Single items from some presidential place settings can
soar into the thousands of dollars at auction. Dallas-based
Heritage Auction Galleries recently sold a dessert plate, nine
inches in diameter, from the James K. Polk administration for
$15,535.00.1 Items from the Theodore Roosevelt china service
are very rare too, and the story behind its design and scarcity
provides interesting insights into Edith Roosevelt’s personality
and the manner in which she conducted her social duties as first
lady.
Each President’s choice of his White House china design
has been a topic of immense public interest, as well as of careful
deliberation for the incoming first family. The china service for
the Theodore Roosevelt administration was no exception.
Typically, as a new presidency was ushered in, the White
House staff would clean out any unwanted objects. Dinner, tea,
and dessert services were seldom kept, as each administration
would order a new pattern based on current tastes in fashion
and design and the first family’s own preferences. Not a single
Demitasse cup (approximately two and one-fourth inches high) from the
Roosevelt White House china service.
30
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Small saucer (approximately four and one-fourth inches in
diameter), which accompanies the cup, from the Roosevelt White
House china service.
At the urging of Army Colonel Thomas W. Symons,
superintendent of public buildings and grounds, Mrs. Roosevelt
built upon Mrs. McKinley’s efforts regarding the collection.
She directed that two black walnut cabinets be built in the
lower corridor of the White House to display the collection.5 TR
himself saw the genesis of this collection and enthusiastically
supported it.6 White House staff actively sought pieces for this
fledgling effort. An early White House china expert, Abby Gunn
Baker, would write that Mrs. Roosevelt refused to purchase
any historical china because she “desired that the collection
should be a patriotic one, and the pieces for it should be given
or loaned rather than purchased.”7 Even then, verification of
a piece’s actual use at the White House was difficult. Many of
the Presidents had purchased designs that were available on the
open market and not decorated or monogrammed to order.
While the search for previous place settings continued, the
Roosevelts would have to decide upon their own service pattern.
Mrs. Roosevelt did admire the stately and attractive Harrison
administration pattern and ordered two dozen plates from
that service.8 But the Roosevelts wanted a decidedly American
design, preferably made by an American manufacturer. Much to
their frustration, no American manufacturer could produce the
quality of china they desired. In 1902 the American porcelain
and ceramic industry was still in its infancy. In fact, there
was such popular resistance to American pottery that domestic
potters sometimes used bogus foreign labels and European
marks in order to be able to compete.9
Thus commissioned, Van Heusen Charles would gather
and submit seventy-eight different designs from this country
and Europe to the Roosevelts for selection.10 Of these seventyeight sample designs, examples do surface on the market from
time to time and are quite desirable. It is likely that the Albany
importer sold them to collectors.
Ultimately the Roosevelts chose a design called Ulanda
from the eighteenth-century factory of Josiah Wedgwood in
Etruria, England. This design was already in production and
was translucent cream-white color decorated around the edge
with a border of gold lines arranged as a colonnade in what was
called by the press a “simple colonial pattern.”11 The pottery
itself was bone china. Wedgwood china was extremely strong,
yet, importantly, maintained a delicate appearance.
What distinguished the Roosevelt china from the
commercially available Ulanda pattern was the Seal of the
United States that was designed for the service. It was the
first time the colored seal had been used for this purpose, and it
was applied to each piece.12 The artist for this seal was Herbert
Cholerton, a decorator, artist, heraldic painter, and gilder who
worked for Wedgwood between 1901 and 1955.13 This specific
Wedgwood design, including the Seal of the United States, was
copyrighted and patented for use by the White House, and the
design remains protected today.14 It cannot be reproduced. A
similar pattern without the seal, called Gold Colonnade, is still
produced by Wedgwood.
Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection
Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection
Mrs. Roosevelt procured the services of a well-established
importer of china, glass, and house furnishings: the Van
Heusen Charles Company of Albany, New York. She may have
previously employed this company while residing in Albany
during TR’s governorship. The only specification the first family
provided was that the design of the Roosevelt china be simple
and unmistakably American.
The proper Wedgwood mark, which appears on the bottom of the saucer,
for the Roosevelt White House china service.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
31
So the Roosevelts ordered their china service in 1902, and it
was delivered a year later at a cost of $8,094.00. (In comparison,
the George W. Bush administration spent nearly half-a-million
dollars on its service for 320 settings.16) The full Roosevelt service
was 1,296 pieces for 120 people, with extra dinner plates. It
consisted of bread and butter plates, after-dinner coffee cups and
saucers, fish plates, soup plates, and oyster plates, among other
pieces.17 Each item was individually decorated and marked with
the distinctive Wedgwood vase symbol and the text: “Wedgwood/
England/From/The Van Heusen Charles Co./Albany, N.Y./Rd No
399026/Patent Applied for.”
The William Howard Tafts did not design their own china
service, but rather continued to use the Roosevelt china and
ordered additional pieces (which had the same markings) for
their own administration. Mrs. Taft thought it absurd to change
china with each administration. She desired the Roosevelt
china to be the permanent White House china.18 Writing to
presidential aide Major Archie Butt on March 11, 1909 (shortly
after inauguration day), Mrs. Taft commented that not only were
the Hayes and McKinley services “too awful for words,” but the
consequence is: “The closets are loaded up with a mass of china,
most of which is hideous and ordinary and which I would not use
on my private table.”19
The Theodore Roosevelt service is one of the most desirable
to White House china collectors. It is quite rare, and even a
small, damaged item can sell for thousands of dollars. Part of the
explanation is that Edith Roosevelt refused to allow pieces to be
given away as souvenirs and instructed that broken or damaged
pieces should be completely destroyed. As to the collection, Edith
made sure it was owned and supervised by the Department of
Public Buildings and Grounds before she left the White House,
thus protecting it for posterity. To close, a letter from Archie
Butt to his sister-in-law Clara Butt dated December 11, 1908,20
describes Edith Roosevelt’s legacy at preserving our presidential
heritage and her position on governmental accountability and is
worth quoting at length:
I had rather an interesting time the last few days
looking over the china at the White House with a view to
destroying all that is chipped or broken in any way. Mrs.
Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection
Because of the public interest in and fascination with
presidential china patterns, imitations were common. A
slight variant of the Roosevelt design, on chinaware made by
Tressemannes & Vogt, Limoges, France, was marketed for
retail at the National Remembrance Shop in Washington, D.C.,
during the Roosevelt administration. Interestingly, this was the
manufacturer of the Harrison china service that so appealed to
Mrs. Roosevelt. This French chinaware is often incorrectly (or
deceptively) identified as Roosevelt china service, and the author
once mistakenly purchased a salt shaker with this attractive
design. Because this design has so often been misidentified, the
White House curator’s office maintains a specific file on it.15
An example of the French Limoge china variant of the Roosevelt
pattern. This china is often mistaken for the Roosevelt White House
china service. It was mass produced and sold as souvenirs during
Roosevelt’s presidency.
Roosevelt does not want it sold at auction, for she thinks
this method cheapens the White House. I took the matter
up with Bromwell, who really has it on his papers and is
responsible for it, and he thought it ought to be sold but
that it should be sold by private bids to cabinet officers and
others who are connected with the White House in some
way. In former years it was regarded as the property of the
mistress of the White House, who would give it away as she
desired, but Mrs. R. thinks that it should never be given
away­—and it should not, in my opinion, for it is government
property just the same as the furniture. If it were sold
by private bids it would create an awful howl in the press
should it become known, and so I convinced all concerned
that it should be broken up and scattered in the river, which
will be done. When I think how I should value even one
piece of it, it hurts to smash it, but I am sure it is the only
right thing to do.
Mother was accustomed to say that when one was in
doubt what to do, it were well to stop to think how it would
look in the newspapers and act accordingly. She said that . . .
a mother would forgive what the public would not condone,
and so it was not always safe to measure one’s actions by
what one’s mother would think. It is a test I often put myself
to, and it has kept me from doing some questionable things
in the service, and I think it was that standard as much as
anything else which kept me free from the petty scandals in
the Philippines.
I ran across one plate in a pawnshop the other day
which, if I am rightly informed, was one of the Grant set.
The owner wanted fifty dollars for it. Sloan, the auctioneer,
tells me that he would be able to get from ten to fifty dollars
32
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
for every plate which the White House would sell, and badly
broken pieces would bring something.
15
Mrs. Roosevelt has collected nearly all the china of
past administrations, which is now in cabinets in the White
House. She has had some pieces donated to her, and others
she has purchased at very high prices. Of course, she paid
for them out of the contingent expenses of the White House
and they belong to the Government, but if she had not
interested herself in collecting what remained of the china
of former administrations it is doubtful if it would ever have
been done. In order to ensure the continuance of their care
she has donated them to the Smithsonian Institution, but
to be kept in the White House crypt as long as it is desired
to have them there. This means that the Smithsonian
Institution is responsible for them and takes stock of the
collection at regular intervals.21
16
Endnotes
Heritage Auction Galleries, Dallas, Texas, sale of November 16,
2010.
1
Marian Klamkin, White House China (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1972), p. 4.
Correspondence between the author and White House Curator
William G. Allman, April 5, 2006.
Jura Concius, “To Serve Twin Needs, White House Unveils
a China Accord,” Washington Post, January 8, 2009. Fittingly,
Laura Bush presented the new china pattern in the White House
below a portrait of Edith Roosevelt.
Klamkin, White House China, p. 106; Klapthor, Official White
House China, p. 142.
17
18
Klapthor, Official White House China, p. 143.
19
Ibid.
Major Archie Butt was the senior and most intimate presidential
military aide to both TR and Taft. His correspondence, detailed
in two separate volumes, is well worth reading for anyone
interested in a truly insightful perspective on both Presidents
and their families, and especially on the TR-Taft split. Archie
Butt died as a passenger on the Titanic in 1912.
20
Lawrence F. Abbott, ed., The Letters of Archie Butt (2 vols.,
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1925), pp. 234238.
21
2
3
Ibid., p. 6.
4
Ibid., p. 5.
5
Ibid.
Margaret Brown Klapthor, Official White House China: 1789 to
the Present (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1975), p. 11.
6
7
Klamkin, White House China, p. 5.
8
Klapthor, Official White House China, p. 143.
9
Klamkin, White House China, p. 105.
10
Klapthor, Official White House China, p. 140.
11
Ibid., p. 141.
12
Ibid.
13
Klamkin, White House China, p. 106.
14
Ibid.
Vision Statement
The purpose of the Theodore Roosevelt Association
of Oyster Bay, New York, is to perpetuate the memory
and ideals of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President
of the United States, for the benefit of the people of
the United States of America and the world; to instill
in all who may be interested an appreciation for and
understanding of the values, policies, cares, concerns,
interests, and ideals of Theodore Roosevelt; to preserve,
protect, and defend the places, monuments, sites,
artifacts, papers, and other physical objects associated
with Theodore Roosevelt’s life; to ensure the historical
accuracy of any account in which Theodore Roosevelt is
portrayed or described; to encourage scholarly work and
research concerning any and all aspects of Theodore
Roosevelt’s life, work, presidency, and historical legacy
and current interpretations of his varied beliefs and
actions; to highlight his selfless public service and
accomplishments through educational and community
outreach initiatives; and, in general, to do all things
appropriate and necessary to ensure that detailed and
accurate knowledge of Theodore Roosevelt’s great and
historic contributions is made available to any and all
persons.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
33
PRESIDENTIAL SHAPSHOT (#15)
President Roosevelt Assesses the Book
John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman
by Charles William Eliot, and Then Reflects on
Oblivion and on the Measure of a Life Well-Lived
the greater part of a letter of December 5, 1904, to Oliver
Wendell Holmes (in Morison et al., eds., The Letters of
Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. IV, pp. 1059-1060)
“I am immensely pleased with President Eliot’s little book,
which you sent me, and I agree with you absolutely as to its
worth. It is very unsafe to say of anything contemporary that
it will be a classic, but I am inclined to venture the statement
in this case. It seems to me pre-eminently worth while to have
such a biography of a typical American. How I wish President
Eliot could write in the same shape biographies of a brakeman
or railroad locomotive engineer, of an ordinary western farmer,
of a carpenter or blacksmith in one of our small towns, of a
storekeeper in one of our big cities, of a miner­—of half a dozen
typical representatives of the forgotten millions who really make
up American life. I am immensely pleased with the book; it is
good wholesome reading for all our people.
“I was rather struck at what President Eliot said about
oblivion so speedily overtaking almost everyone. But after all,
what does the fact amount to that here and there a man escapes
oblivion longer than his fellows? Ozymandias in the Desert—
when a like interval has gone by who will know more of any man
of the present day than Shelley knew of him? I suppose it is
only about ten thousand years since the last glacial epoch (at
least that is, I understand, the newest uncertain guess of the
geologists); and this covers more than the period in which there
is anything that we can even regard as civilization. Of course,
when we go back even half that time we get past the period when
any man’s memory, no matter how great the man, is more than a
flickering shadow to us. . . .
“It makes small odds to any of us after we are dead
whether the next generation forgets us, or whether a number
of generations pass before our memory, steadily growing more
and more dim, at last fades into nothing. On this point it seems
to me that the only important thing is to be able to feel, when
our time comes to go out into the blackness, that those survivors
who care for us and to whom it will be a pleasure to think well
of us when we are gone, shall have that pleasure. Save in a
few wholly exceptional cases, cases of men such as are not alive
at this particular time, it is only possible in any event that a
comparatively few people can have this feeling for any length of
time. But it is a good thing if as many as possible feel it even for
a short time, and it is surely a good thing that those whom we
love should feel it as long as they too live.
“I should be quite unable to tell you why I think it would be
pleasant to feel that one had lived manfully and honorably when
the time comes after which all things are the same to every man;
yet I am very sure that it is well so to feel, that it is well to have
lived so that at the end it may be possible to know that on the
whole one’s duties have not been shirked, that there has been no
flinching from foes, no lack of gentleness and loyalty to friends,
and a reasonable measure of success in the effort to do the tasks
allotted. This is just the kind of feeling that President Eliot’s
hero had the right to have; and a Justice of the Supreme Court or
a President or a General or an Admiral may be mighty thankful
if at the end he has earned a similar right!”
34
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
TR-ERA IMAGES
Image #8
Art Koch
Image #7
This stereoscope card shows the encampment of the Rough Riders and
other U.S. Army regiments atop the San Juan Heights following their great
victory of July 1, 1898, against Spanish forces in Cuba.
(For the first time, no reader provided a winning response for this TREra Images selection.)
Image #8
This image from the Utah State Historical Society appears on page 17 of the Fall 2010 issue of the TRA Journal. TR photography
authorities Wallace Dailey and Gregory Wynn have pointed out that the caption on that page is incorrect, as the person on the left is not
Theodore Roosevelt. Can you identify that person? Readers are invited to send their responses to Art Koch by e-mail at Rooseveltimages@
gmail.com (or by mail at One West View Drive, Oyster Bay, NY 11771). Mr. Koch will identify the writer of the best response on his TR-Era
Images page in the next issue of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
35
A Massive and Valuable Study of
Theodore Roosevelt and Conservation
a feature review of Douglas Brinkley,
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
(New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 940 pp.
by Mark Harvey
Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior puts a bright
spotlight on Theodore Roosevelt’s passion for conservation.
Although the twenty-sixth U.S. President’s abiding interest in
hunting and birding and his general enthusiasm for the out-ofdoors are well-known and have been ably examined in a number
of other scholarly works, none has ever treated the subject
so comprehensively as Brinkley has in his book. Brinkley
acknowledges that the late John Gable of the Theodore Roosevelt
Association spurred him to write this book. Gable thought that
a full-fledged and fresh study of the subject was warranted
because the older works on the subject, like Paul Cutright’s
two volumes (Theodore Roosevelt, The Naturalist [1956] and
Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist [1985]), had
not been able to tap the full range of primary source materials
now available. Gable also gave Brinkley the benefit of his own
vast knowledge of TR by providing him with a comprehensive
list of every refuge, national forest, and national monument
that Roosevelt established by proclamation and the national
parks he created with Congress. Brinkley has written a massive
volume that will surely please TR enthusiasts and a good many
TR scholars. His book furnishes far more detail on the subject
than Cutright’s books did, though just how much Brinkley sheds
new light on Roosevelt’s conservation thought or influence may
be open to debate.
Brinkley’s research is certainly impressive. He has
seemingly read everything that TR ever wrote about the natural
world, and in this book he is more than eager to share it. With
gusto and enthusiasm, The Wilderness Warrior serves up many
intriguing quotations from Roosevelt’s vast correspondence and
from his very numerous essays and books. This is a big book
indeed, with twenty-six chapters that showcase TR’s early life
as a naturalist, his hunting trips in the Northeast, far West, and
South, his journeys as President to such places as Yellowstone
and Yosemite National Parks and the Grand Canyon, and his
passion for the gamut of conservation issues which came into
public view in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
such as the growing pressure on many species of birds and big
game from market hunting to name just one. The book also
provides detail about a large number of the bird refuges, national
forests, and national parks and monuments that Roosevelt
helped to establish.
There are plentiful merits to Brinkley’s lengthy study. In
the first place, he ably traces the genesis of TR’s interest in
nature from his youth and upbringing in New York and through
the people and places that influenced him as a young man. Like
Cutright before him, Brinkley explains how Roosevelt’s parents,
both avid birders, encouraged their son in his ornithological
interests, and he notes others as well, including a friend,
Frederick Osborn, who died young, and TR’s uncle, Robert
Barnwell Roosevelt. TR relished watching the birds in and
around Oyster Bay at the family’s Long Island getaway, and
on occasion, much like other birders of his time, he shot birds
so that he could mount them on wires for display. His booklet
on the birds of Long Island Sound, his first major publication,
caught the attention of C. Hart Merriam, the first director of
the United States Biological Survey. Later, when TR offered
to donate his collection of birds to the Smithsonian Institution,
he gained a new admirer and friend in its director, Spencer F.
Baird. Birding provided the foundation of Roosevelt’s interest
in nature and marked the beginning of his acquaintance with
leading naturalists and scientists in the United States.
Roosevelt’s awakening to the delights of nature was
influenced too by the time he spent abroad on family trips to
Europe and the Middle East. These visits to Egypt and the
French and Swiss Alps broadened TR’s knowledge of world
geography and zoology, while sparking his love of deserts and
mountains. On one trip to Switzerland in 1881, TR ascended
both the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn.
Echoing Cutright in another way, Brinkley shows the
influence of Harvard professors, especially the geologist
Nathaniel Shaler, on Roosevelt’s burgeoning interest in science
and nature.1 At the same time, he explains how TR disliked
36
the focus on laboratory science at Harvard and resented his
professors’ bias against the older field-naturalist tradition. In
love with the out-of-doors, TR yearned to be a field biologist, and
for a time he considered this as his profession.
Despite his eventual choice of a career in politics, Roosevelt
was constantly drawn away from the crowded city to remote
locations, where he
hunted and fished and
enjoyed parts of the
American landscape he
deemed special. In such
distant haunts, he fell
in with people like Will
Sewall, a hunting guide
he encountered on his
trips to Maine, and Joe
Ferris, a guide in the
Badlands of the Dakota
Territory, both of whom
had an outdoor savvy
and a taste for adventure
which
appealed
to
Roosevelt greatly. These
men encouraged TR’s
fondness for hunting and
wildlife observation, for
collecting animal skins
and trophy heads, and,
generally, for roaming
the back country.
Throughout
The
Wilderness
Warrior
Brinkley
emphasizes
Charles
Darwin’s
considerable influence on
TR. The great biologist’s
seminal work On The
Origin of Species (1859)
captivated
Roosevelt
with its blend of biology
and history, and Brinkley
argues that TR was so
moved by the book that he
became “a foot soldier in
the Darwinian ‘revolution
of natural history’ ” (p. 61)
and developed a passion for collecting and studying animals to
learn how and why species adapted to their environments over
time. Darwin’s ideas about the struggle among species also
touched a nerve in Roosevelt. “He wasn’t like John Muir studying
ferns or John Burroughs praising bluebirds,” Brinkley finds. “The
blood-and-guts aspect of Darwin’s account appealed to Roosevelt
[who] felt part of the bond of violence” (p. 429).
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Brinkley also emphasizes and puts greater stress than
Cutright put on how TR’s “Uncle Rob” played a crucial role in the
young man’s education about the natural world.2 Regaling his
nephew with exciting stories about “treed opossums and sneaky
foxes” (p. 82), Robert showed TR that nature was spell-binding
and deserved special attention and careful stewardship. From
the pets he kept in his home to his book Game Fish (published
in 1862) to the leading
role he had in the New
York Sportsmen’s Club
and the New York State
Fish Commission, Uncle
Rob encouraged young
Theodore down the path
towards conservation.
Brinkley writes most
eloquently of Roosevelt’s
love
of
various
landscapes. Of these, the
most important was the
Badlands of the Dakota
Territory in what became
the state of North Dakota
in 1889. The Badlands
provided TR with his first
taste of the American
West: its open spaces,
breathtaking
vistas,
unusual
geological
formations,
and
abundance of mammals,
birds, and fish. A strange
landscape of colorful
buttes
and
hidden
canyons that wound
along the Little Missouri
River and its tributaries,
the Badlands offered
TR a getaway from the
pressures and tensions in
New York, most notably
in 1884 following the
deaths of his mother and
his beloved first wife,
Alice, who both died on
the same day. For nearly
a dozen years following
this tragedy, Roosevelt returned to Dakota to hunt big game
and run his ranch along the Little Missouri River near the small
hamlet of Medora. The ranch was the base from which he took
hunting trips within the Dakota Territory and into Montana,
Idaho, and Wyoming’s Big Horn range. Brinkley claims that
“more than any other landscape that Roosevelt would ever
encounter, the Badlands had an inspiring resilience that swept
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
37
Roosevelt R020.1.R67n1 1879, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University
him away into an almost spiritual state of
appreciation” (p. 156).
Roosevelt’s passion for hunting is an
important theme that Brinkley weaves
throughout the book. In love with the outof-doors, Roosevelt enjoyed nothing more
than getting on a horse with his gun and
heading out with a guide or two in pursuit of
game. As his trophy collection burgeoned,
he looked back fondly on his hunting
expeditions, for they reminded him of
the variety of great American landscapes.
To his great credit, Brinkley enters the
debate over TR’s motives as a hunter.
Was he mainly a hunter-naturalist, or
did he hunt primarily because he liked to
kill? Brinkley agrees with other scholars
like Kathleen Dalton that Roosevelt felt
guilty about having missed the bloodshed
of the Civil War and therefore seized the
opportunities to hone his skills with a gun
to demonstrate his manliness. His passion
for hunting was rooted, then, in his pursuit
of “the strenuous life” and in fears that he
stood to lose his manly edge. “One of the
prime dangers of civilization,” TR told an
audience in Berlin in 1910, “has always
been its tendency to cause the loss of
virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge.
When men get too comfortable and lead too
luxurious lives, there is always the danger
lest the softness eat like an acid into their
manliness of fibre.”3
Brinkley
probes
this
subject
throughout the book. He reveals how TR
was crestfallen when he was discouraged
from hunting while in Yellowstone National
Park in 1903, and how in that same year
he took a scolding from John Muir for
his seeming inability to look beyond the
kill during his time in the out-of-doors.
“ ‘Mr. Roosevelt,’ Muir asked, ‘when are
you going to get beyond the boyishness of
killing things?’ ” (p. 544).
Brinkley does not—and perhaps
cannot—resolve the lingering questions
about TR’s hunting, but he does illustrate
the apparent contradictions in the
President’s thinking.
In 1903, after
designating a bird refuge in Puerto Rico
in order to preserve a rare species of
parrot, Roosevelt decided to adopt a few of
38
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
these birds as pets, seemingly unaware that there might be a
contradiction between these two actions. Elsewhere, Brinkley
notes the menagerie of animals that TR brought back from his
outings to the White House grounds, underscoring how his love
of the natural world was often accompanied by a keen desire to
possess it. Roosevelt wanted to own the animals he encountered,
either as trophies mounted on his wall or as skins in his private
collection or as household pets. The man simply could not leave
anything alone.
Roosevelt’s fears about the rapid decline of various game
species led him to rally his wealthy friends in the East to join
him in founding a new organization dedicated to conserving
game and habitat. In 1887, joined by George Bird Grinnell, who
had founded the first Audubon Society the year before, Roosevelt
co-founded the Boone and Crockett Club to form a high-profile
organization that promoted “manly sport with the rifle” and “the
preservation of the large game of this country” (p. 204). The
club undertook many campaigns. A notable one culminated
in 1894 with a federal regulation that banned hunting within
Yellowstone National Park, a crucial landmark in the protective
history of the national park system.
In many ways, Brinkley is at his best in the first third of
The Wilderness Warrior. Throughout these early chapters, the
author keeps a fairly tight rein on his passion for narrative and
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Nonetheless, Roosevelt’s seminal contribution to
conservation in the late nineteenth century was by his advocacy
of sport hunting. His arrival in the Dakota Territory in 1883
coincided with the virtual extinction of the bison on the northern
Great Plains, owing largely to the intensive market hunting
following the expansion of railroads across the West in the 1870s
and 1880s. After TR bagged a bison of his own in Montana, he
began to realize that the iconic herbivore of the Great Plains
had nearly been hunted out of existence and that other large
mammals were likewise imperiled by those he labeled “swinish
game butchers” in his book Hunting Trips of a Ranchman,
published in 1885. So, influenced by such men as William Henry
Herbert and by the slaughter of bison and many species of birds
and other animals, Roosevelt advocated hunting methods that
gave animals a chance to escape.
The cabin at Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch, circa 1885.
39
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
The stables at Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch, circa 1885.
provides an illuminating portrait of the development of TR’s
interests in collecting, hunting, and conservation. The early
chapters hold some of the book’s smoothest prose and clearest
discussions of the people who influenced Roosevelt, of the books
he read, and of his hunting trips to Maine, Illinois, Minnesota,
and the Dakota Territory. These were the years that built the
foundation of TR’s passions for natural history, conservation,
and outdoor adventure.
In the next several chapters Brinkley introduces other
people who were part of the larger network of conservationists.
Among those he profiles in some detail are the great nature
writer John Burroughs; President Grover Cleveland’s Secretary
of the Interior Hoke Smith; Madison Grant, who collaborated
with TR in creating the New York Zoological Society, and William
Hornaday, who directed it; the aforementioned C. Hart Merriam;
Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the United States Forest Service
and Roosevelt’s right-hand man on conservation throughout
his presidency; and the great bird activist William Dutcher.
Here and throughout the volume, these character sketches
of scientists, birders, hunters, and conservation activists add
an intriguing dimension to Brinkley’s study and supply much
human interest. Moreover, they are a reminder that Roosevelt
was only one among many Americans who tried to heighten
public awareness of the beautiful, fascinating, and increasingly
endangered natural world. Brinkley’s character sketches give
readers a glimpse into this busy network of people involved with
protecting nature.
Nonetheless, the vignettes and forays into various side
topics are at times intrusive into Brinkley’s main discussion,
and by the middle chapters of The Wilderness Warrior it is clear
that the author struggled to keep Roosevelt in focus while also
providing background and context. Sprinkled with numerous
quotations and stories about a variety of individuals with whom
TR hunted or corresponded, the narrative begins to sag, and it
becomes harder to follow the thread of Roosevelt’s life. Brinkley’s
unwillingness to be selective in what he covers is part of the
problem. He seems to want to follow Roosevelt everywhere,
to introduce all the people he met and describe their passions
for nature, and to bring in all the rising threats to big game,
bird sanctuaries, and scenic places. At times the narrative is
overburdened with these details.
A prime example of the challenge facing the reader can
be found in chapter 11, titled “The Bronx Zoo Founder.” Here
40
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Brinkley starts out well enough by tracing TR’s role in the
origins of the zoo, but soon he moves into a host of unrelated
topics, among them Roosevelt’s service as police commissioner of
New York City, the establishment of forest reserves by President
Grover Cleveland and the backlash against them from the
western states, a profile of William McKinley’s Secretary of the
Interior Cornelius Bliss, conflict between Gifford Pinchot and
John Muir over sheep grazing in the forest reserves, TR’s time as
assistant secretary of the navy, his feud with C. Hart Merriam
over classification of species and sub-species, the naming of
the Roosevelt elk on the Olympic peninsula, the outlawing of
jacklighting in hunting in the Adirondacks, and Roosevelt’s
promotion of stamps with a western theme. No narrative
thread ties this material together, except the mere fact that it all
pertains to the year 1897.
By chapter 15, Brinkley begins to examine Roosevelt’s
years as President, a topic that occupies the remainder of the
book. Brinkley now examines the conflicts that engaged TR,
including those between market hunters and bird protectionists,
logging companies and scientific foresters, pot hunters and
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
A similar hodgepodge of unrelated topics appears in
chapter 13, titled “Higher Political Perches.” Here Brinkley
surveys Roosevelt’s conservation policies as governor of New
York, furnishes more background on Gifford Pinchot, narrates
TR’s “strenuous life” speech in Chicago in April 1899, and then
describes a number of Roosevelt’s trips, first to Niagara Falls,
then to Las Vegas, New Mexico, for a reunion with fellow Rough
Riders, and finally to several other places where he joined
in birding expeditions. Once again no thread ties this series
together, except the calendar year: 1899. Wading through such
chapters as these is not easy, and many readers, wanting more
anchors in this sea of disconnected narratives, will be frustrated.
Theodore Roosevelt preparing for a bird-watching adventure on Long Island Sound (on p. 475 of The Wilderness Warrior).
41
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and others in front of a giant sequoia at Mariposa Grove, May 15, 1903 (on p. 539 of The Wilderness Warrior).
42
archeologists, and others who clashed over public lands and
threatened places. Throughout he demonstrates how Roosevelt
employed the full authority of his office to set aside national
forests, national monuments, and bird refuges, drawing in
the first two cases on powers Congress provided him in the
Forest Reserve Act of 1891 and the Antiquities Act of 1906.
In the case of bird refuges, for which TR had no congressional
authorization to provide federal protection, he simply asked
his attorney general if anything prevented him from issuing an
order proclaiming them, and when he was assured that nothing
did, he simply said, “I So Declare It” (p. 15). In Florida he set
aside Pelican and Pine Islands and eight other bird refuges that
were henceforth off limits to hunters. By employing the Forest
Reserve Act, Roosevelt declared forest reserves in Alaska and
throughout the western states (150 in all), and by use of the
Antiquities Act he established Devils Tower, Chaco Canyon,
Muir Woods, and Montezuma’s Castle national monuments,
along with fourteen more.
the often slow, burdensome process entailed in creating national
parks, which required action by Congress. When Congress did
send him bills to create national parks, he quickly signed them
into law, giving final approval to Wind Cave, Crater Lake, Mesa
Verde, Sullys Hill, and Platt National Parks (the last two were
later converted into wildlife refuges). In analyzing his actions
as President, Brinkley drives home TR’s fervor and energy as
he inculcated his conservation principles into American culture,
society, and law.
This broad overview of Roosevelt’s embrace of conservation
as President has its merits. For anyone interested in the
making of the American conservation state—in the framework
of the national forests, wildlife refuges, and national parks and
monuments which emerged during Roosevelt’s presidency—The
Wilderness Warrior provides ample detail of the personalities
and politics that marked this all-important decade in American
environmental history. For those wanting to know more about
President Roosevelt and the breadth of his interests in wildlife,
hunting, birding, and tramping around the out-of-doors there is
much to relish here, including a bounty of TR quotations. There
is, in sum, a good deal to be said for Brinkley’s discussion of
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Roosevelt relished his authority to proclaim national forests
and national monuments, because he could act quickly and
decisively to protect such places, and he did not have to follow
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
TR alone and with John Muir on Glacier Point with Yosemite Falls in the background, May 17, 1903 (on pp. 21 & 542 of The Wilderness Warrior).
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Roosevelt’s presidential years. (Given the volume’s great length,
most readers would not ask for more. Still, it is curious that in
a book focusing heavily on TR’s passion for adventure, Brinkley
offers nothing about his post-presidential journeys to Africa and
to South America.)
Beyond the many attributes already discussed, significant
weaknesses mar the portion of the book focusing on Roosevelt’s
presidency, and these will give scholars pause in relying on The
Wilderness Warrior as the ultimate authority on Roosevelt’s
motives and actions. Although no one can accuse Brinkley of
overlooking Roosevelt’s enthusiasms or convictions about the
importance of conservation, some might wish that he had been
more careful to tease apart TR’s key ideas, had looked more
closely at his motives, and had worked harder to understand
the obstacles he faced. Brinkley becomes a little too exuberant
about his subject as the book wears on, and in the last several
chapters he seems to applaud Roosevelt’s campaigns for nature
as much as to analyze them. Now and again he even cheers TR
on himself, made plain by his use of Roosevelt’s own “Bully!”
phrase at key moments in the text. Such prose may make for
engaging reading but does little to illuminate the President’s
complexities.
Biography should do more than merely follow the individual
life through time. It ought to shed light on the changes in that
life, on how the individual grappled with difficult problems,
faced hard challenges, coped with personal or political setbacks,
and wrestled with changing political or economic conditions.
Rather than simply narrate, biography should analyze how the
individual experienced change as the country itself changed. In
this regard, The Wilderness Warrior falls short, for in Brinkley’s
way of telling the story Roosevelt marched ever onward in his
crusade and was seemingly unaffected by what anyone else
thought about the often contentious issues surrounding forests,
parks, and wildlife. Readers are asked to believe that TR was
always in charge, always at the forefront, always ready to plunge
headfirst into the next battle. “He was all forward motion,”
Brinkley writes, “ready to rule by righteousness and a bit of the
belt” (p. 396). This is more caricature than accurate portrait.
Brinkley portrays a man who was never discouraged or set
back by opponents of his conservation policies. In his rendition,
Roosevelt never doubted himself, never questioned any of his
initiatives, principles, or core ideas. Driven constantly by his
abiding interests in nature, he was relentless in his efforts
to conserve and protect animals, forests, and scenery and
undaunted by those who questioned him. Brinkley creates a
portrait of Roosevelt as a conservation hero, but the portrait
sometimes strains credulity. Roosevelt did not always have the
spotlight on these matters, nor did he always have the prevailing
winds at his back. Historians who agree that he played an
instrumental role in codifying conservation in the United States
might still be dubious about Brinkley’s portrait, which suggests
that TR achieved his successes easily.
43
Part of the problem is with elevating Roosevelt’s role
artificially high. Though TR was clearly embroiled in many
debates involving conservation, he was not always at the
forefront of them, and was often absorbed in other pressing
issues such as labor conflicts and strikes, war between Japan
and Russia, construction of the Panama Canal, revolts in the
Caribbean, and business monopolies. Readers cannot expect
that Brinkley would go into these other weighty topics, but they
might expect him to acknowledge how the President had to rely
heavily on the numerous conservation advocates to fight most
of these conservation battles. Brinkley, though, often implies
that Roosevelt was all-powerful and overshadowed them and
that the conflicts on the ground were finally settled only after
TR intervened.
One of the oldest critiques of biography is how it confers more
credit on the individual being profiled than he or she deserves,
while simultaneously giving short shrift to the less well-known
actors who may actually have done most of the work. In this
sense, Brinkley too often downplays the grassroots conservation
activists, such as thousands of American women who dominated
most of the state Aububon societies and who spearheaded
campaigns to end the hunting of the great plumed birds in
Florida whose feathers were prized in upper-class women’s hats.
He gives too much credit for saving the plumed birds to TR and
Iowa Congressman John Lacey, for neither of these men would
have succeeded in their efforts without steady work and advocacy
from the grassroots.4 In his desire to showcase Roosevelt as the
hero, Brinkley oversimplifies the historical context.
Brinkley also oversimplifies and at times caricatures
conservation opponents. While he recognizes their often
vitriolic and strident opposition to government regulations on
grazing, logging, and protection of scenic places, he typically
labels such individuals or lobbying groups as scoundrels,
self-serving politicians, robber barons, bandits, and villains.
Employing this kind of language embellishes Brinkley’s portrait
of TR as conservation hero, but it can also obscure as much
as illuminate. Recent scholarship in environmental history
has uncovered a more complex political opposition than mere
corporate “thievery.” Class, as much as corporate power, often
determined particular views toward the new conservation state.
From the Adirondacks in New York to the national forests in
the West, substantial opposition to federal regulations on
timber cutting and game laws arose from subsistence farmers
and working-class people who lived in or near the boundaries
of parks, forests, and wildlife reserves. To them, hunting and
fishing on such lands was a matter of survival, and the state
or federal government’s restrictions were arbitrary and unjust.5
Given TR’s upper-class status, it would be illuminating to learn
how he reacted to such grassroots resistance. But Brinkley says
little about it, alluding to the class aspect of conservation politics
only once before asserting that TR still “wanted to lock up any
and all scoundrels trying to despoil the federal forestlands” (p.
296).
44
Service Chief Gifford Pinchot, on the firing lines. It was Pinchot,
not Roosevelt, who went to the Denver Public Lands convention
in 1907 to confront the angry ranchers, loggers, and miners
up in arms over the latest proclamation of national forests.
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Given the sometimes truculent outspokenness toward the
President’s proclamation of forest reserves, readers deserve
some analysis of how Roosevelt reacted to this ire. One way
he did so was by putting his lieutenants, most notably Forest
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Theodore Roosevelt, with Skip on his lap, in the doorway of West Divide Creek Ranch House near New Castle, Colorado, in the spring of 1905 (on p. 616 of
The Wilderness Warrior).
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Brinkley likes to portray TR himself as being on the front lines
of these confrontations and suggests that he was undaunted by
his opponents, either ignoring them or shouting louder than
they did. But shouting did not always enable him to prevail,
especially when he faced strong opposition in Congress.
In one legendary instance, surreptitiousness proved to be
a more fruitful strategy. Early in 1907, Roosevelt, using the
sixteen-year-old Forest Reserve Act, proclaimed thousands of
acres of new national forests in Washington state. His move
prompted an outcry against such use of presidential authority
by the local press, chambers of commerce, and the state’s
congressional delegation–-all fearful that the reserves would
remove too much land previously available for homesteading
and hinder the state’s economic development. TR could not
simply ignore this, and eventually he and Pinchot relented and
called the proclamation a clerical error. Oregon Senator Charles
Fulton then introduced an amendment to the Agricultural
Appropriations bill to eliminate the President’s authority to
create reserves in six specified western states by stipulating
that only Congress could do so. This bill passed in late February
of 1907. Over the next several days, Roosevelt and Pinchot
hurriedly assembled one last presidential decree in which TR
proclaimed sixteen million acres of additional forest reserves
in those six western states, the so-called “midnight reserves,”
which he defended by saying he had saved these forests from
the “lumber syndicates.” Only then did TR sign the amended
Agricultural Appropriations bill.
Brinkley’s account of the story of the Fulton Amendment in
part misses the mark. At one point he claims that Roosevelt
wanted to create the reserves because “these forests would
humanize the soul” (p. 676), an interpretation so far off that
we can only attribute it to the author’s flair for the dramatic.
Furthermore, he intermingles his discussion of this Fulton
Amendment with congressional opposition to the Antiquities
Act, which had nothing to do with forest reserves but rather
with public lands of historic or scientific value. At the end of
his discussion Brinkley alludes to two Supreme Court cases,
U.S. v. Grimaud and Light v. U.S., implying that these cases
had been brought over the whole question of Roosevelt’s power to
proclaim forest reserves, when in fact the cases actually centered
on whether the government had the legal authority to regulate
grazing within the national forests. This lack of precision may
not be troubling to some readers of this volume, but it will give
pause to those familiar with the scholarship on this subject.
An additional shortcoming of The Wilderness Warrior is in
Brinkley’s use of the terminology. “Conservation,” “preservation,”
and “wilderness” were quite distinct terms in Roosevelt’s time
(and still are), but Brinkley’s somewhat haphazard use of them
conflates their meanings all too often. Even the book’s title, The
Wilderness Warrior, is problematical, for although it indicates
Roosevelt’s determination to protect nature, it also obscures
the diversity of actions he took as President on its behalf.
45
Terminology matters. To conserve essentially meant to put
natural resources such as forests, waters, or game animals under
state or federal management to regulate their use to ensure longterm sustainability and to benefit as many people as possible. To
preserve meant to safeguard scenic or historic places or wildlife
from injury or encroachment by commodity industries or interest
groups that would destroy or deface them.
Brinkley downplays the need for distinguishing among these
terms, referring to a “shopworn debate over whether [Roosevelt]
was a nature preservationist or a utilitarian conservationist”
(p. 897), a point he makes only in his acknowledgments section
and not in the text. Just why he thinks this is such a shopworn
debate is not clear, but the whole business should not be so easily
dismissed. These distinctions were significant in TR’s era, and it
is important for readers today to know clearly what principles he
stood on and what motivated him to take the actions that he did.
“Wilderness” is a word fraught with ambiguity as well,
especially for historians.6 In recent years, environmental
historians and other scholars have published a rich lode of
material teasing apart the meanings of “wilderness.” Their
work has shown that how “wilderness” is conceived has
frequently shifted over time, and this insight has compelled
scholars of wilderness history to define the subject carefully in
its ecological, cultural, and political contexts.7 Brinkley ignores
this scholarship and thereby fails to examine Roosevelt’s or
any of his contemporaries’ understanding of wilderness. At one
point, addressing Roosevelt’s interest in the West, he claims that
TR “was on an accelerated mission to save its wilderness areas
and big game” (p. 213).
But just what kind of “wilderness” did TR have in mind, and
how are readers supposed to interpret the word in this context?
Brinkley generally employs the term in an old-fashioned way to
depict lands that supposedly had no human impacts whatsoever
and were rich in animals. Yet recent scholarship convincingly
shows that such places were not necessarily as “natural” as the
term “wilderness” once implied. Some landscapes in Roosevelt’s
time were considered “wild” because indigenous peoples—such
as the Nez Perce and Shoshone peoples of the Yellowstone
plateau—had been summarily dismissed from their traditional
hunting and gathering places upon establishment of the national
parks’ boundaries. Yellowstone, Yosemite, and other national
parks were defined as places where there was no room for
human beings who lived off the land. “Wilderness” was thus an
artificially created preserve from which former inhabitants had
been erased. By ignoring this scholarship, Brinkley is not clear
about whether Roosevelt knew that Indian peoples had been
erased from the parks, or whether he even acknowledged the
prior presence of native peoples in these places. Did Roosevelt
think that, after their conquest and removal to reservations,
“wilderness lands” were now completely “natural”?8
The ambiguity does not end there. Scholars have made
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
46
President Theodore Roosevelt conferring about conservation with Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot during the Inland Waterways Commission excursion on
the Mississippi River in October 1907 (on p. 694 of The Wilderness Warrior).
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
clear that the term “wilderness” cannot be used without
reference to historical context. Since Brinkley does not do
this, readers will be left uninformed about its time-bound
meaning. In our time the term “wilderness” may well bring to
mind the language of the 1964 Wilderness Act, which defines
it as “an area where the earth and its community of life are
untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who
does not remain.”9 This language was meant to ensure that
within these areas natural processes should be unrestrained
by human intervention or manipulation. Roosevelt clearly did
not understand “wilderness” in this way, nor did he think that
in declaring a forest reserve he was setting aside a wilderness.
His rationale for forest reserves was firmly anchored in
Pinchot’s precept of utilitarian use and in the provisions of the
law governing the forest reserves, which focused on protecting
the timber supply and watersheds. Roosevelt understood that
the forest reserves would be regulated and managed to ensure
that logging and grazing would occur on a sustainable basis.
He knew that the forest reserves required a firm managerial
hand to regulate logging and grazing, enforce game laws, and
practice the type of silviculture which Pinchot preached. He
had no notion that he was creating wilderness preserves that
would be off limits to all logging, mining, or other economic
uses. TR always comprehended that the forest reserves would
be used, albeit efficiently and with an eye to long-term economic
security.
And no wonder he did. The late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries witnessed a tremendous expansion of
American industrial output and manufacturing, most visible in
the emergence of the great industrial enterprises in steel, iron, oil,
and minerals and in the rapid growth of railroads that propelled
the extraction of timber, gold, silver, copper, and other resources.
That conservation became a national imperative was in large
part due to the rapid depletion of these natural resources. By the
1870s, scientists in the American Forestry Association spoke of
a pending “timber famine” which, if not prevented, would wreak
havoc on key facets of the economy that relied on a consistent
wood supply. When Roosevelt reached the White House, he knew
that without regulations these resources were likely to diminish
to a dangerously low point and threaten the industrial economy.
He thus listened to Pinchot and other foresters who called for
expansion of the forest reserves. In many ways, conservation
was born of economic necessity, ensuring security for a capitalist
economy. “It is safe to say,” TR told the Conference of Governors
on conservation in 1908, “that the prosperity of our people
depends directly on the energy and intelligence with which
our natural resources are used. It is equally clear that these
resources are the final basis of national power and perpetuity.
Finally, it is ominously evident that these resources are in the
course of rapid exhaustion.”10
This point brings up another problem with how The
Wilderness Warrior interprets TR’s thinking. “Roosevelt was
a moral advocate for nature,” Brinkley asserts (p. 410), and
47
elsewhere he argues that conservation was, “above all else, a
moral issue to Roosevelt” (p. 761). But “moral” can also be an
ambiguous word, and it is worth asking what Roosevelt meant
by it. In a speech he delivered in Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1910,
the former President told the audience that “conservation is a
great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of ensuring
the safety and continuance of the nation.”11 What he meant by
“safety and continuance” was that natural resources should be
open to use “for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized
for the benefit of the few,” a progressive-minded principle which
reflected Roosevelt’s resentment of business monopolies and his
hatred of economic inequities. Roosevelt rooted his convictions
about the necessity for conservation in his progressive ideals of
equal access to public lands and opportunity for all people. The
morality of which he spoke was concerned with people’s needs
and not with protecting nature for its own sake. The latter is
a much more modern notion of nature protection, one that TR
grasped only in a limited way.
This is not to suggest that Roosevelt had no understanding
of “preservation” or to question that he advanced that cause.
Certainly he did so by lending his own voice and executive
authority to those working to establish national parks and
wildlife refuges. At a time when many interest groups, market
hunters, and extractive industries sought to exploit all wild
animals and nearly every square foot of American lands, TR’s
support for preservation was heartening to such activists
everywhere. Still, to call him a “radical preservationist,” as
Brinkley does, is an overstatement. If by “radical” he means
that TR had far more sympathy for protecting animals and
scenery and historic sites than most Americans did, then he
is on the mark. But if he means that TR jettisoned all other
political or economic considerations in his haste to preserve, then
he is off track. We must remember that most of the national
monuments he declared were places of quite small acreage,
and their establishment did little to threaten major industries
like logging, mining, or ranching. Setting aside Devils Tower
in Wyoming did not hamper that state’s ranching industry, and
establishing Montezuma’s Castle in Arizona and Chaco Canyon
in New Mexico and Natural Bridges in Utah did not threaten
those states’ mining industries. Even most of the bird refuges
were small, and while the market hunters railed at Roosevelt
they still had ample places where they could pursue their prey.
To his credit, Brinkley is right to underscore Roosevelt’s courage
in setting aside two large national monuments, the Grand
Canyon, where Arizona miners had a large stake, and Mount
Olympus in Washington, where logging companies sought to
exploit the tall stands.
That the label “radical preservationist” goes too far is
particularly evident in light of Roosevelt’s failure to get behind
the hard-fought campaign that his friend John Muir mounted
to preserve the integrity of Yosemite National Park. The
showdown over the Hetch Hetchy Valley was perhaps the biggest
preservation battle during Roosevelt’s presidency, yet Brinkley all
48
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
There are several places where the author makes
misleading or inaccurate statements. In one such case Brinkley
asserts that John Muir “was also largely responsible for Mount
Rainier’s becoming a national park” (p. 542), but a coalition of
scientists (especially geologists), mountaineering clubs, local
businesses, and recreational interests were the leading voices of
that campaign.12 Elsewhere he claims that saving the American
West from environmental ruin after the winter of 1886-1887
became a high priority for public policy, but this statement is
unsupported in the scholarship. His claim that “farm property
values, as a result of Roosevelt’s agricultural policies, doubled
throughout the United States between 1900 and 1910” (p. 433)
similarly has no basis in fact. He is wrong in saying that Charles
Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on February 22, 1803
(they were born on February 12, 1809). “Woodnuff Manifesto”
(p. 241) should be “Woodruff,” and there was no such thing as the
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
but ignores it. In this valley within the northern half of Yosemite
National Park, the city of San Francisco wanted to dam the
Tuolumne River to create a water supply and a source of hydroelectric power. The Hetch Hetchy debate ignited a controversy
so powerful as to open a deep wedge between conservation and
preservation, between the philosophy of “regulated use” and
that of safeguarding nature’s greatest wonders. The debate put
Roosevelt on the horns of a terrible dilemma by confronting him
with an agonizing choice between the twin poles (in this instance)
of conservation and preservation. Unfortunately, regarding TR
and Hetch Hetchy, Brinkley offers only a single quotation in which
TR claimed to have been torn by the question of whether to dam
the valley but was finally persuaded to go along with the proposed
dam by Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield and Forest
Service chief Pinchot. That decision alone should have given
Brinkley pause in referring to TR as a “radical preservationist.”
President Theodore Roosevelt in the Louisiana canebreaks with his hunting partners (on p. 701 of The Wilderness Warrior).
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
“new forestry service” (p. 407) or the “National Forest Service”
(p. 448). (The correct term is United States Forest Service.) The
Anasazi, ancestors of today’s Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, did
not construct “elaborate cliff dwellings” (p. 415) in Chaco Canyon
(the Chaco Canyon structures were built on the desert floor),
and there was no “anti-war” environmentalist named Wallace
Stesner (p. 535); here, Brinkley means Wallace Stegner, who was
certainly not an anti-war activist.
This review has been critical of The Wilderness Warrior in
some respects, but perhaps in the most important sense this
highly ambitious book deserves some of the accolades it has
received. For Brinkley does remind us of an American President
who actually showed bold leadership in bringing attention to the
world of nature, a point that is well worth remembering at a time
when bitter partisanship and a highly fractured politics have
made such leadership exceedingly difficult. Moreover, Brinkley
shows us in depth that Roosevelt had a breadth of interests in
the natural world, from hunting and birding to forestry and
reclamation. One cannot help but be impressed by Roosevelt’s
zeal for nature, for wanting to soak up everything he could about
it, and for wanting to share his enthusiasms with anyone who
would listen and with those who likely would not. TR was a
lifelong learner, an opinionated and outspoken lecturer and
writer, and a politician willing to take a stand. By his writings,
speeches, and actions as President, Theodore Roosevelt played
an instrumental role in bringing the spectrum of conservation
causes into the public arena and in making visible a part of
American life that for too long had been overlooked. This was no
small feat, and Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior offers
a timely and valuable reminder of Roosevelt’s achievements.
49
Press, 1985), p. 7.
Quotation under “Fighting Virtues” entry in Albert Bushnell
Hart and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds., Theodore Roosevelt
Cyclopedia (New York: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1941),
p. 180.
3
See the important essay by Jennifer Price, “When Women Were
Women, Men Were Men, and Birds Were Hats,” in her book,
Flight Maps: Adventures With Nature in Modern America (New
York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 57-109. Another work on this topic
is Mark Barrow, Jr., A Passion For Birds: American Ornithology
After Audubon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).
4
Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers,
Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
2001); Louis S. Warren, The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and
Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1997).
5
Brinkley’s website indicates that his working title for this book
had been “cowboy conservationist,” a title which would have
been much more accurate, though perhaps less marketable, than
“wilderness warrior.”
6
A centerpiece of this scholarly critique is William Cronon, “The
Trouble with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,”
Environmental History, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1996, pp. 7-28.
7
On this subject see Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the
Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National
Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
8
Quoted in Doug Scott, The Enduring Wilderness (Golden, CO:
Fulcrum Publishing, 2004), p. 156.
9
Mark Harvey is professor of history at North Dakota State
University, Fargo. He is the author of A Symbol of Wilderness:
Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (1994)
and Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the
Wilderness Act (2005). His current project is an interpretive
study of the conservationist, historian, and cultural observer of
the American West, Bernard Devoto.
“Address by the President,” Proceedings of A Conference of
Governors in the White House, May 13-15, 1908 (Washington
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909), p. 7.
10
Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism,” speech, August
31, 1910, in Louis Auchincloss, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: Letters
and Speeches (New York: Library of America, 2004), p. 809.
11
Ted Catton, National Park, City Playground: Mount Rainier in
the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2006), pp. 16-17.
12
Endnotes
Paul Russell Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt: The Naturalist
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), pp. 19-21.
1
Paul Russell Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a
Conservationist (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
2
50
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
FORGOTTEN FRAGMENTS (#10)
a column by Tweed Roosevelt
MORE ON THE BRADLEY ABOMINATION:
RUDY CARMENATY’S RESPONSE TO WILLIAM TILCHIN’S
“AN OUTRAGE PURE AND SIMPLE”
Cruise. It was so thoughtful that it got me to thinking about
the much broader issue of how American history is depicted
these days. To that end, I wrote the essay below. I doubt
it will ever see the light of day. However, I wanted to share
it with you because I have enjoyed our conversations in the
past, and I believe as a TRA board member it is incumbent
on each of us to stand up for TR and his legacy—a legacy I
hope to pass on to my two sons who at the ages of nine and
six are huge admirers of TR.
photo by Will Kincaid
With kind regards,
Rudy Carmenaty
Tweed Roosevelt.
Since the publication in the TRA Journal’s Fall 2010
edition of “An Outrage Pure and Simple,” William Tilchin’s
feature review of James Bradley’s The Imperial Cruise: A Secret
History of Empire and War, a large quantity of members’ written
responses, all of them highly favorable and encouraging, have
come to my attention. Most of these responses have been in the
form of thoughtful letters and notes sent by e-mail or U.S. mail
to Professor Tilchin, to the TRA office in Oyster Bay, or to me.
One of the respondents, attorney Rudy Carmenaty of the
TRA Board of Trustees, composed a short essay and sent it to
Prof. Tilchin. The note to Prof. Tilchin that accompanied Mr.
Carmenaty’s essay reads in its entirety as follows:
Dear Dr. Tilchin,
I truly appreciated your review of Bradley’s The Imperial
I found Mr. Carmenaty’s essay both interesting and
provocative. In it he points out that Bradley’s enormously
ignorant and deceitful book can be seen as merely an extreme
example of a much bigger problem in the United States: a severe
decline in recent years in the quality of historical literature and
history education. I think Mr. Carmenaty is onto something,
although I am mindful that as time passes and people get
older they do tend to fall into a nostalgic mood of believing that
everything is going downhill and that we should, even must,
return to the “good old days.” I remember feeling when I was
much younger that my father, and especially my grandfather,
had succumbed to this tendency. I think I was partially right
about Dad and even more right about Grandfather, who had
adopted the view that most change, especially in economics, had
something to do with evil communist machinations and could
lead directly to the demise of the United States. Even at that
time, however, I did not fall into the trap of believing that all of
their concerns about the younger generation and the state of the
U.S. were misguided. Over the years, I have come to believe that
they were right much more than I had thought and I was wrong
much more than I had thought. All this, I suppose, is perfectly
normal. So, at the risk of encouraging my son and daughter to
think I am getting to be an old fogey, I will say that I believe
Mr. Carmenaty has a legitimate point. To give my readers a
chance to judge for themselves, I have decided, with permission,
to present his essay to you in this issue’s column. I hope you find
it stimulating, and, as always, I look forward to your comments.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
* * * * * * * * * *
Reflections on James Bradley’s
Outrage and U.S. History
by Rudy Carmenaty
51
mean-spirited account of America’s past; far more tragically, it
is symptomatic of what has lately been happening to the timehonored craft of writing U.S. history.
Teachers, historians, journalists, and popular chroniclers
have not served us particularly well in recent years. For at
least one generation, if not longer, American students have been
actively taught to deny their past and even to despise it. This is
a sad reality, but it is a reality nevertheless.
Anyone who has conducted even a cursory analysis of what is
being taught in our schools these days realizes that the America
he or she knows and loves may no longer exist in the pages of the
history texts. Somewhere along the line a perversion has taken
place that goes beyond the mere “dumbing down” of academic
standards.
Having recently read “An Outrage Pure and Simple” by
William Tilchin, there is little that I could add to his review of
James Bradley’s The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire
and War. Bradley’s book, however, is not simply a flawed and
How could such a thing have occurred? How could a nation
that has served as a beacon of hope and a symbol of freedom
throughout the world for more than two centuries now be painted
as inhumane and undemocratic? How could a people who has
photo by Art Koch
There are some who say that ours is a cynical time, that
we live in an age without heroes. To the extent that these
observations are even remotely true, the blame must be placed at
the door of those entrusted with preserving our nation’s heritage.
I for one happen to believe that our nation is still capable of
virtue and heroism.
Rudy Carmenaty with his family at Sagamore Hill on October 27, 2008, Theodore Roosevelt’s one hundred fiftieth birthday.
52
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
William Tilchin on
James Bradley’s
The Imperial Cruise
(from the Fall 2010
TRA Journal,
pp. 4, 42-44)
“According to the logic of James Bradley’s
self-righteous and historically vacuous screed,
the United States was a nation of predatory,
racist, murderous expansionists—a nation
whose very existence was of questionable
legitimacy. . . . The Imperial Cruise is infused
with hatred for Americans. . . . Particularly
venomous loathing is directed toward the leading
villain of them all: Theodore Roosevelt. . . . The
Imperial Cruise has not a single redeeming
quality. . . . It is, simply put, one of the worst
books I have ever encountered on any subject.”
sacrificed so much for the freedom of others now be depicted as
selfish and aggressive and destructive?
What appears to have happened is an Orwellian distortion
of our history designed to debase any evidence of achievement
or heroism. The view of the American experience currently in
vogue shows the United States in the worst conceivable light. In
what might be described as a process of literary self-flagellation,
America is portrayed by many of the writers of its history as a
sick society guilty of a litany of sins highlighted by racism and
xenophobia and imperialism—a parade of horrors without end.
The heroes of former days, Theodore Roosevelt being a prime
example, are too frequently shown with their warts alone, with
the proverbial feet of clay, and without a hint of the qualities that
made them special and made this country, as Abraham Lincoln
so insightfully observed, “the last, best hope of man on earth.” In
the writings of such detractors, the faintest notion of American
exceptionalism is at best dealt with as little more than a punch
line and at worst as an indictment of the American way.
Over the past several decades, the cultural divide in our land
has become quite pronounced. The divisions among our people
often appear adamantine and intractable. As our values are lost
or are pushed into disrepair, one wonders if, like Rome before
us, we too shall succumb to a paralytic cultural malaise which
could threaten our very existence as a people. It does seem that,
much like Nero, some of those who have been entrusted with our
precious heritage are busy fiddling as all we hold dear decays in
a mixture of ignorance and apathy and cynicism.
The problem is ironically compounded by the fact that many
of us genuinely believe in the principles of fair play. Unlike the
ideologically motivated, we realize that we should not impose
our views on others. Indeed, standards should never be imposed
from without; rather, they should be encouraged and nurtured
from within. To play with an old adage, you can lead a horse to
water but you can’t make it think.
As caretakers of our history, we have an obligation to all who
came before us and all who will come after us to tell our story as
it rightfully should be told. In carrying out this obligation, we
have to teach our children by our actions as well as by our words,
engendering in them a healthy appreciation for American values
and ideals. Like Theodore Roosevelt a century ago, we must in
our comportment prove worthy of the lessons we seek to impart
to the young. That is but one of the reasons why I belong to the
Theodore Roosevelt Association.
Much as TR did before us, we must enter the arena, including
the arena of ideas. Refusing to be intimidated, we as Americans
have the right and, more importantly, the responsibility to
preserve our heritage. We need to rediscover and reaffirm our
history (even while acknowledging its blemishes) with all its
hope and glory. Such a rediscovery, such a renaissance if you
will, may well be the cure for much of what ails us as a nation.
In his own twisted way, perhaps Mr. Bradley has done us
a service after all. By making a mockery of TR and what he
stood for, Bradley vividly illustrates what not to do. Moreover,
his appalling book provides us with the impetus to renew our
acquaintance with the past. By reaffirming our past, we will
secure the reins of the future, which hopefully will lead us to a
brighter day.
Tweed loves to hear from his readers. He can be reached at
tweedr@sprynet.com.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
53
The Ninety-first Annual Meeting of
the Theodore Roosevelt Association in
Seattle, Washington
by Michele Bryant
We have gotten past the stage, my fellow citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we treat any part of our country as
something to be skinned for two or three years for the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the water,
the scenery. Whatever it is, handle it so that your children’s children will get the benefit of it.1
Theodore Roosevelt spoke these words in 1903 while
witnessing the magnificence of the Grand Canyon. More than
one hundred years later, we are that generation to which he was
referring. It is because of his farsighted wisdom that we are able
to enjoy and benefit from the unparalleled inheritance we call
the American West, an expanse that he bullishly fought to save
from ecological ruin at the hands of unrestrained commercial
interests.
experiencing Seattle’s rich history. First on the agenda was
an afternoon guided walking tour through the subterranean
passages beneath Seattle’s sidewalks. Participants explored
buildings and the streets that were once the main roadways;
To recognize the important role Theodore Roosevelt played
in caring for the land, water, and wildlife in the West, the
Theodore Roosevelt Association gathered for its Ninety-first
Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington, October 21-24, 2010.
The theme of the meeting was “Theodore Roosevelt’s Western
America,” as we honored his achievements as a pioneering
conservationist.
More members arrived Friday and spent much of the day
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
The meeting kicked off on Thursday evening with a
collaborative effort between the TRA and the University of
Washington. On April 6, 1911, former President Roosevelt
visited the campus speaking in full academic regalia to an
overflow crowd at the open-air amphitheater, originally the
site of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.2 In tribute
to the President’s visit, TRA members gathered for a reception
on the campus­—in part to donate a photograph from Harvard’s
Theodore Roosevelt Collection of Roosevelt and UW President
Thomas Kane taken during that visit. Dr. Bruce Hevly from the
university gave a lecture titled “The Carpenter’s Rule: Theodore
Roosevelt at the Nexus of Marksmanship, City Building, and
Civic Virtue,” noting twenty-five-year-old Roosevelt’s remark in
a letter he wrote to his sister Anna about his precision shooting
of a grizzly bear: “The bullet hole in [the bear’s] skull was
exactly between the eyes as if I had measured the distance with
a carpenter’s rule.”3
Former President Theodore Roosevelt walking on campus with
University of Washington President Thomas Kane, April 6, 1911.
54
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
soggy tideflats that the original
township was built on.4
Some
members continued on to the world
famous Pike Place Market, considered
the “soul of Seattle” since 1907, while
others visited the historic Arctic Club
Hotel. Opened in 1916 for members
of the Arctic Club and having lodged
veterans of the Alaska gold rush,
adventurers, and wealthy eccentrics,
it is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places.5
TRA members exploring the underground, roaming the passages that were once the main roadways and
viewing the first-floor storefronts of old downtown Seattle, on Friday, October 22.
But, of course, a trip to Seattle
would not be complete without
visiting the iconic Space Needle, built
for the 1962 World’s Fair and costing
a mere $4.5 million. The TRA was
treated to an all-out cocktail reception
in the Needle’s unique banquet room,
including turn-of-the-century jazz
music performed by Combo de Luxe.
It was a crystal clear evening, allowing
for breathtaking views of Puget
Sound, Mt. Rainier, skyscrapers,
the Cascade Mountains, and Mt.
Olympus, made a national monument
under the Antiquities Act by Theodore
Roosevelt, two days before leaving
office. Guests also received tickets to
ride up to the observation deck, at 520
feet, for even more dramatic views.
The day’s activities concluded
with a complimentary “President’s
reception” in the Belvedere Room of
our host hotel, the Fairmont Olympic.
In 1903, during his 14,000 mile
western tour, Roosevelt visited Seattle
and spoke to an immense crowd on
the very grounds where the Fairmont
Olympic Hotel now sits. The audience
was packed so tight during his address
that Roosevelt pulled up his chair and
stood on it, so that everyone would
have a comfortable view of him.6
Guests headed one block south
on
Saturday
to the city’s main library
During the Friday cocktail reception, views from the Space Needle were exceptionally stunning.
for a TRA symposium to hear four
nationally known speakers talk
about Roosevelt’s legacy and impact
these were destroyed by the great Seattle fire of 1889, the year
on the West. For those who have not been to the Seattle
Roosevelt was appointed Civil Service Commissioner. The town
Central Library, its unique, award-winning architecture is best
was subsequently rebuilt one entire floor higher to thwart the
facetiously described as a Rubik’s Cube cinched by a corset and
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
considered a must-see attraction
for any visitor.
The symposium
was held in the library’s auditorium
and was moderated by humanities
scholar and chief consultant for
the Theodore Roosevelt Center at
Dickinson State University, Mr. Clay
Jenkinson. Daniel Ruddy took the
podium and discussed his new book,
Theodore Roosevelt’s History of the
United States. The book is filled with
interesting TR quotations, carefully
selected and arranged by Mr. Ruddy,
and the audience thoroughly enjoyed
Mr. Ruddy’s meaningful readings.
Dr. Sandra Archibald, Dean of the
UW Evans School of Public Affairs,
gave a well-received talk about the
Reclamation Act, including Roosevelt’s
involvement, the act’s impact on
settlers in the West, and current
water development issues. Dr. Francis
McManamon, Chief Archeologist of the
National Park System (1995-2009),
gave an expert presentation about the
Antiquities Act of 1906 and Roosevelt’s
broad interpretation of its provisions.
His edited collection of essays, The
Antiquities Act: A Century of American
Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and
Nature Conservation, was available
for those in the audience who wished
to learn more about this effective
means to protect endangered public
lands for posterity. The symposium
concluded with historian Dr. Douglas
Brinkley speaking to the crowd about
his newest epic, The Quiet World:
Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom,
1879-1960. The audience fully enjoyed
Professor Brinkley’s assessments
of Roosevelt and also his depth of
subject knowledge, emphasizing TR’s
commitment to conservation as a moral
issue and the battle lines Roosevelt
drew against those of irresponsible
commercial ambitions. Guests were
then invited to a book-signing event
sponsored by Barnes and Noble.
55
TRA Executive Committee member Michele Bryant, chair of the ninety-first annual meeting, and TRA
Trustee Nicole Goldstein at the Saturday cocktail reception and silent auction.
Barbara Brandt (second from left), 2010 Rose Award winner, with her daughter Deborah (left), her
husband Roger, and Rebecca Rickey.
A couple of hours after the
symposium, guests entered the
lush tree-filled Garden Room back at the historic Fairmont
Olympic. The gala evening brought together one hundred
fifty members, friends, and fans for a night of inspiration and
celebration. Features included a cocktail reception, an extensive
silent auction of original TR editorial cartoons spanning 18841913, an elegant dinner, and thought-provoking speakers.
56
Tweed Roosevelt, president of the TRA, served as the master of
ceremonies, and Terrence Brown, TRA executive director, also
addressed the dinner guests.
Dr. Gary Kearney presented the annual Rose Award to Mrs.
Barbara Brandt, TRA president from 2006 to 2009. This award
is given in memory of Mrs. Reginald P. Rose for her longtime
dedication to the TRA. The Rose Award recognizes the highest
level of service to the association.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt Junior Officer Leadership
Award was presented by Captain David Bryant (Ret.), seventh
commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to Lieutenant
Thomas Della Rocco of the USS TR. This award is presented
annually to a junior officer on board the “Big Stick” who
exemplifies the exceptional leadership, pride, professionalism,
dedication, and sense of duty of which Theodore Roosevelt would
be proud. Captain Pete Stiles (Ret.) was also on hand to deliver
remarks on behalf of the United States Navy League Lake
Washington Council. Vice Admiral David Architzel, Commander,
Naval Systems Command, and sixth commanding officer of the
USS Theodore Roosevelt, was in attendance.
Since 1923, the TRA has periodically presented the Theodore
Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal to recognize those who
have made exceptional contributions to the nation and have lived
up to the ideals and values espoused and practiced by President
Theodore Roosevelt. They are individuals or groups who have,
by their leadership, inspired and motivated the American
public. This year the TRA presented the Theodore Roosevelt
Distinguished Service Medal for Public Service to William D.
Ruckelshaus. Mr. Ruckelshaus has been involved in public
service for fifty years, most notably serving as the first and fifth
head of the Environmental Protection Agency, acting director of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and deputy attorney general
at the Justice Department. James Strock made the introductory
remarks. Mr. Strock served as California’s first secretary for
environmental protection and worked at the EPA as a special
assistant to Mr. Ruckelshaus. The award was presented by
Mr. Strock and Tweed Roosevelt and led into Mr. Ruckelshaus’s
charmingly entertaining keynote address comparing Roosevelt’s
conservation record to that of Richard Nixon.
Sunday morning guests traveled to the Museum of Flight,
home to the largest and most comprehensive air and space
collection in the United States. Noted World War I aviation color
and markings expert Alan Toelle treated the large crowd to a very
in-depth lecture about Roosevelt’s youngest son Quentin. Mr.
Toelle provided fascinating photographs and information about
Quentin, who was killed in battle while flying a Nieuport 28
fighter aircraft over enemy lines.7 Guests then received a docent
tour of the museum, which houses an original Nieuport 28, on
display with Quentin’s 95th “Kicking Mule” Aero Squadron paint
scheme, before it was time for those in attendance to board the
bus for the airport.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
The Ninety-first Annual Meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt
Association left members with a greater understanding of
Roosevelt’s love of nature and crowning commitment to its
continued safekeeping, as well as a renewed appreciation of our
extraordinary inheritance in the American West.
NOTE: To view photos and videos from the Seattle
meeting and news about the upcoming Ninety-second TRA
Annual Meeting in North Dakota, please visit the following
website: traannualmeeting2010.org.
All Seattle Annual
Meeting photos accompanying this article appear courtesy of
Bart Norton (bnorton@asemblon.com) and Lars Sandvik (lars@
thundershotmedia.com).
Michele Bryant, a principal organizer of the Ninety-first Annual
Meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, is the coauthor (with Candace Brown) of The President They Adored:
Washington State Welcomes Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 (2010)
and a member of the Executive Committee of the TRA.
Endnotes
Theodore Roosevelt, at Grand Canyon, Arizona, May 6, 1903,
in Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers:
February 19, 1902, to May 13, 1903 (New York: The Review of
Reviews Company, 1910), p. 369.
1
2
“Roosevelt Plea for Navy,” New York Times, April 7, 1911.
Theodore Roosevelt, Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna
Roosevelt Cowles, 1870 to 1918 (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1924), p. 68.
3
Clarence Bagley, History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement
to the Present Time, Volume 1 (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing,
1916), p. 428.
4
Arctic Club, Historic Seattle, http://www.historicseattle.org/
advocacy/award-ac.aspx.
5
Michele Bryant and Candace Brown, The President They
Adored: Washington State Welcomes Theodore Roosevelt in 1903
(Seattle: Blurb Publishing, 2010), p. 35.
6
Michele May, “Aviators: Quentin Roosevelt - He died fighting,”
Aviation History, October 29, 2007, http://www.historynet.com/
aviators-quentin-roosevelt-he-died-fighting.htm.
7
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Photographs from the Ninety-first Annual Meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in Seattle, Washington.
57
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Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
More photographs from the TRA Annual Meeting in Seattle.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
More photographs from the TRA Annual Meeting in Seattle.
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Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
More photographs from the TRA Annual Meeting in Seattle.
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
More photographs from the TRA Annual Meeting in Seattle.
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Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
2009-2010
Index to Volumes XXX - XXXI
Alger, Russell XXXI.1&2:8,19,45
Alsop, Corinne Robinson – granddaughter XXXI.4:7
Amos, James – see Sagamore Hill – Servants
Baier, Lowell XXXI.1&2:63,64,72
Barton, Clara XXXI.1&2:27,47
Bird Lists – see Material Culture . . .
Bismarck, Otto von XXX.1&2:40,42
Book Reviewers
Jundt, Duane G. XXXI.1&2:55-62
Manson, Michael L. XXXI.1&2:63-64
Roosevelt, Elizabeth XXXI.1&2:65
Wexelblatt, Robert XXXI.4:35-37
see also Lembeck, Harry; Tilchin, William N.
Book Reviews
Benge, Janet and Geoff
Theodore Roosevelt: An American Original
(children’s book) XXXI.1&2:56-58
Bradley, James
The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of
Empire and War XXXI.4:39-45
Garraty, John
Teddy Roosevelt: American Rough Rider
(children’s book) XXXI.1&2:58-59
Harness, Cheryl
The Remarkable Rough Riding Life of
Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of Empire
America (children’s book with illustrations)
XXXI.1&2:59-62
Hawley, Joshua David
Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness
XXX.4:38-39
Hendrix, Henry J.
Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The
U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American
Century XXX.3:26-36
Kerley, Barbara
What to Do About Alice? (children’s book with
i llustrations by Edwin Fotheringham)
XXXI.1&2:62
Mills, Claudia
Being Teddy Roosevelt (children’s book)
XXXI.1&2:55-56
Olson, Nathan
Theodore Roosevelt: Bear of a President
(children’s book) XXXI.1&2:56
Ruddy, Daniel
Theodore Roosevelt’s History of the United
States: His Own Words, Selected and
Arranged by Daniel Ruddy XXXI.3:51-53
Thompson, J. Lee
Theodore Roosevelt Abroad: Nature, Empire
a
nd the Journey of an American President
XXXI.4:35-37
Vietze, Andrew
Becoming Teddy Roosevelt: How a Maine
G
uide Inspired America’s 26th President
XXXI.1&2:65
Wilson, R.L.
Theodore Roosevelt: Hunter-Conservationist
XXXI.1&2:63-64
Boone and Crockett Club XXXI.1&2:63
Boxer Rebellion XXX.4:10
Brandt, Barbara Berryman XXX.4:4; XXXI.1&2:73
Brinkley, Douglas XXX.4:15; XXXI.1&2:73-74
Brown, Terrence C.
“A Personal Introduction by the TRA’s New
Executive Director” XXXI.3:4-5
see also Grass Roots – Notes from the Executive Director
Buffalo Soldiers – see Spanish-American War
Bulloch, James D. XXXI.4:24-25
Burton, David H.
“A Conversation Piece: My Unforgettable Visit with
Alice Roosevelt Longworth” XXXI.3:7-8
“The President and a Poet” XXX.3:37-39
Bush, George W. XXXI.1&2:20
Butt, Archibald XXX.1&2:14; XXXI.1&2:24
Buyer, Steve XXXI.1&2:9,10,15
Carnegie, Andrew XXX.3:20,21; XXXI.4:35,37
Chadwick, French E. XXX.3:29,30
Churchill, Winston XXXI.4:36,41
Cleopatra’s Needles XXXI.4:21-33
Cleveland, Grover XXXI.3:53; XXXI.4:7
Clinton, William J. XXXI.1&2:14-20
Conrad, Kent XXXI.1&2:12-20
Conservation
Governor’s Conference 1908 XXX.4:7
Problems in China XXX.4:7-14
Cordery, Stacy A.
“Reflections on David Burton’s ‘A Conversation
Piece’ ” XXXI.3:9
“The Precious Moments Before the Crowded
H
our: Edith and Theodore Roosevelt in Tampa,
1898” XXXI.1&2:22-31,71-72
Cowles, Anna Roosevelt – (Bamie, Bye) – sister
XXX.1&2:10; XXXI.1&2:24,27
Davis, Richard Harding XXXI.1&2:25,27,46
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Dewey, George XXX.3:27,28; XXXI.4:42
Dow, Wilmot - see Sewall, William
Ehrlich, Howard XXXI.3:3
“Prize-Winning Student from the Netherlands Visits
Oyster Bay” XXX.4:40-41
Fairchild, David XXX.4:8,9
Faithfully Yours – Notes from the Editor XXXI.4:3,4
Flagler, Henry M. XXXI.1&2:45,46
Forgotten Fragments
#4 “One Hundred TR Firsts” XXX.1&2:52-57
#5 “OK, Ninety-five TR Firsts” XXX.3:41-43
#6 “Remembering Grandfather: Part I, The Early
Years” XXX.4:32-37
#7 “The Second Battle of San Juan Hill”
XXXI.1&2:8-21
#8 “Really, Really Bad Books” XXXI.3:10-15
#9 “Who Was Gorringe, and Why Does He
Matter?” XXXI.4:20-34
Gable, John A. XXXI.1&2:63; XXXI.4:3,4
Speech by
“Theodore Roosevelt’s Legacy: A Historical
Review” (JAG’s handwriting), Portland, OR,
10/23/04 XXX.4:15-29
Gaillard, David D. XXXI.3:27,37
Garfield, James R. XXX.4:7
Goethals, George W. XXXI.3:21-40
Goethals, Thomas
“George W. Goethals, Theodore Roosevelt, John F.
Stevens: The Transfer of Authority (FebruaryApril 1907)” XXXI.3:21-40
Gorgas, William XXXI.3:26,27,34,35,39
Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch XXXI.4:20-34
Grass Roots – Notes from the Executive Director
XXXI.4:3,5
Gray, David XXX.3:7,8,9,10,12,25
Great White Fleet XXX.1&2:46-48; XXX.3:32-33; XXXI.4:41
Grey, Edward XXX.3:8,13,20
Hagedorn, Hermann XXXI.4:3
Harding, Warren G. XXXI.3:7,9
Hay, John XXX.1&2:32; XXX.3:27,30; XXXI.1&2:32-33;
XXXI.4:8
Hendrix, Henry J. XXX.3:26-36
see Book Reviews
Hitchcock, Ethan Allen XXX.4:7
Hodge, Carl Cavanagh
“Theodore Roosevelt and the Transoceanic Naval
Arms Race, 1897-1909” XXX.1&2:39-49
Hudson, Hannah
“Theodore Roosevelt: A Poem” XXXI.1&2:5-7
Johnson, Lady Bird XXXI.3:8,9
Jusserand, Jean Jules XXX.1&2:15,31; XXX.3:20; XXXI.4:35
Kaiser Wilhelm II (Emperor of Germany) XXX.1&2:40,42;
XXX.3:15-23,27
Koch, Art XXX.1&2:23
see also TR-Era Images (Picture Index)
63
Kort, Michael XXXI.4:3
Lansdowne, Lord XXX.3:29
Lazio, Rick XXXI.1&2:10,19
Lee, Arthur XXXI.1&2:27
Lembeck, Harry
Book Reviews by XXX.4:38-39; XXXI.3:51-53
Lewis, James G.
“Deforestation in China: Theodore Roosevelt’s
Cautionary Tale” XXX.4:7-14
Lincoln, Abraham XXXI.4:8,9
Lodge, Henry Cabot XXX.1&2:39,40; XXXI.1&2:28
Long Island Railroad XXX.1&2:6
Long, John XXX.1&2:40,41; XXX.3:27
Longworth, Alice Roosevelt – daughter XXXI.1&2:28;
XXXI.3:7-8,9; XXXI.4:41,47
Mahan, Alfred Thayer XXX.1&2:39-41,44,46,49; XXX.3:26
Marsh, George Perkins XXX.4:9
Marshall, John XXXI.3:53
(The) Material Culture of Theodore Roosevelt
Introduction XXXI.3:3
#1 “Roosevelt’s Birds” XXXI.3:16-20
Published lists of birds XXXI.3:17,18,19
#2 “ ‘Doing my Duty’: Twenty Pages and an
Important Legacy” XXXI.4:7-10
McCullough, David XXXI.3:21,39
McHale, Paul XXXI.1&2:8-11,15,19
McKinley, William XXX.1&2:30; XXX.3:27; XXXI.1&2:23,45
Medora, ND XXXI.4:20
Meyer, Frank N. XXX.4:8-10,11,12
Minot, H. D. XXXI.3:16
Moody, William XXX.3:28
Morison, Elting E. XXX.3:8
Mormons (Latter Day Saints) XXXI.4:11-19
Mormino, Gary R.
“Cuba Libre, Florida, and the Spanish-American
War” XXXI.1&2:43-54
Morris, Edmund XXX.3:27
Muir, John XXX.4:25
Naylor, Natalie A.
“Understanding the Place: Theodore Roosevelt’s
H
ometown of Oyster Bay and His Sagamore Hill
Home” XXX.1&2:6-19
Newspapers
NY Times 2/27/07 (Panama Canal) XXXI.3:31-33
Oyster Bay, NY
History XXX.1&2:6-7
Roosevelts in XXX.1&2:7-16
Panama Canal XXX.3:29; XXXI.3:21-48,49
Perdicaris Affair XXX.3:29-30
Pershing, John J. XXXI.1&2:39,41,48-49
Pinchot, Gifford XXX.4:7,8,9,10,11,24
Pine Knot – see Roosevelt, Theodore – Homes
Plant, Henry XXXI.1&2:45
Tampa Bay Hotel XXXI.1&2:24-25
Presidential Snapshots
64
#9 Re: TR and the anthracite coal strike of 1902
XXX.1&2:58
#10 Re: Big Stick in Venezuela, Great White Fleet,
and African trip XXX.3:44
#11 Re: letter to Burroughs regarding behavior and
evolution of animals XXX.4:30
#12 Re: weekend at Pine Knot and plans for Russo
Japanese Peace Conference XXXI.1&2:66
#13 Re: TR on political environment and
developments – early 1904 XXXI.3:49
#14 Re: family update to Alice XXXI.4:47
Remington, Frederic XXXI.1&2:9,74
Ricard, Serge XXXI.4:3
Robinson, Edwin Arlington XXX.3:37-39; XXXI.3:8
Roosevelt Family
Cove Neck residents XXX.1&2:7,20-22
Roosevelt, Alice Lee – wife XXX.1&2:10; XXX.3:7; XXXI.4:17
Roosevelt, Anna (Bamie) – sister see Cowles, Anna
Roosevelt
Roosevelt, Archibald Bulloch – son XXX.4:33-37
Home XXX.4:32-33
Roosevelt, Edith Kermit – wife XXX.1&2:10-16; XXXI.3:17;
XXXI.4:17
In Tampa 1898 XXXI.1&2:22-29
Roosevelt, Elizabeth E. XXX.4:15
“The Roosevelt Cousins of Oyster Bay: A Personal
Family Memoir” XXX.1&2:20-22
Roosevelt, Ethel – daughter XXXI.4:47
Roosevelt, Franklin XXX.1&2:13; XXX.4:39; XXXI.3:8
Roosevelt, Kermit – son XXX.3:37; XXXI.1&2:28,66;
XXXI.3:8; XXXI.4:37
Roosevelt, Martha Bulloch (Mittie) – mother XXXI.4:7,8
Roosevelt, Theodore
Author
. . . Birds of Oyster Bay . . . XXX.1&2:7
The Naval War of 1812 XXX.1&2:39
Books About
Categories of books XXXI.3:10-12
The Imperial Cruise and its shortcomings
XXXI.3:12-14; XXXI.4:4,39-45
Collectors XXX.3:3,6-7,10
Comparisons with
Goethals, George XXXI.3:23
Congressional Medal of Honor XXXI.1&2:8-21,71
Conservation XXX.4:7-14,15-29
Election 1904 XXXI.3:49
Foreign Policy/Diplomacy XXX.1&2:30-38,39-51;
XXX.3:12-23,26-36,44
Big Stick policy XXX.1&2:32
Monroe Doctrine XXX.1&2:41,42
Roosevelt Corollary to XXX.1&2:42
Navy XXX.1&2:31,32,35,39-49; XXX.3:26-36
Panama Canal XXX.1&2:32,34,41,42,43-44;
XXX.3:29
Russo-Japanese War XXXI.1&2:34,66
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Spanish-American War XXXI.1&2:33,34,36
Homes
Pine Knot XXXI.1&2:66
Leadership Style XXX.3:26-27
Letters to
Gray, David XXX.3:8,10,25
Trevelyan, Sir George XXX.3:12-25,52
see also Presidential Snapshots
Navy XXX.3:26-36; XXXI.1&2:33-34
Philosophy and Beliefs XXX.4:38-39
Quotations about
Alsop, Corinne Robinson XXXI.4:7-8
Amos, James XXX.1&2:12
Brands, H. W. XXXI.1&2:28
Burroughs, John XXX.4:16
Butt, Archibald XXX.1&2:14-15
Cleveland, Grover XXXI.3:53
Chandler, Alfred XXXI.3:25
Forman, Henry XXX.1&2:12
Gould, Lewis L. XXXI.1&2:28
Grey, Edward XXXI.3:19
Hard, William XXX.3:6
Hendrix, Henry J. XXX.3:26,27,31,32,33
Holliday, Presley XXXI.1&2:40
Jusserand, Jean Jules XXX.1&2:15
Lee, Arthur XXXI.1&2:27
Long, John D. XXXI.1&2:28
Matthews, Brander XXX.4:16
Meyer, Frank N. XXX.4:9
Morris, Edmund XXXI.1&2:28
Neu, Charles XXXI.4:41
Roosevelt, Franklin D. XXX.1&2:13
Roosevelt, Martha Bulloch XXXI.4:8
Roosevelt, Tweed XXX.4:21,29
Thompson, J. Lee XXXI.4:36
Twain, Mark XXXI.4:37
White, William Allen XXX.4:17,29
Quotations by
Alaska/Canada boundary dispute XXXI.4:44
America’s preparation for war XXXI.1&2:38
Birds XXXI.3:16,18-19
Buffalo Soldiers XXXI.1&2:37,40,70
Children playing XXX.1&2:14
Churchill, Winston XXXI.3:53
Cleopatra’s Needle XXXI.4:33
Conservation XXX.4:7,8,10-14(message to
Congress),26,27
Ethnocentrism XXXI.4:36
Failure to annex Hawaii XXXI.3:53
Goethals, George XXXI.3:40
Government XXX.4:38,39
History as literature XXX.3:10
Mormon leaders XXXI.4:11,14,15,17
Naval power XXX.1&2:35
Panama Canal XXXI.1&2:33
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Reception in Europe 1910 XXXI.4:37
Relations with the British XXX.1&2:35
Roosevelt, Edith K. XXX.1&2:15
Health XXXI.1&2:22,23,24,27
Roosevelt family XXXI.1&2:28
Speeches by
Annual address to Congress, December 1908
(Forests) XXX.4:10-14
Views on American history XXXI.3:51-53
Roosevelt, Theodore, Sr. XXX.1&2:7; XXXI.4:29
Allotment System XXXI.4:7-10
Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. XXX.1&2:11,14
Roosevelt, Tweed XXX.1&2:52; XXX.4:3,21,23;
XXXI.1&2:69,71,80; XXXI.4:4,5
Inaugural remarks XXX.4:4-5
see also Forgotten Fragments
Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, The Netherlands
TR American History Award 2009 XXX.4:40-41
Root, Elihu XXX.1&2:32,35,36; XXXI.3:26,39
Rose Award 2009 XXXI.1&2:72,74
Russo-Japanese War XXX.1&2:34,44,45
Sagamore Hill NHS, Oyster Bay, NY XXX.1&2:6-16
Servants
Amos, James XXX.1&2:12,13; XXXI.1&2:25
Davis, Alfred XXX.1&2:11
Gillespie, Robert XXX.1&2:13
Lee, Charles XXX.1&2:13
Seaman, Noah XXX.1&2:11
Schafer, Sheila XXXI.1&2:11,72
Sewall, William (and Dow, Wilmot) XXX.1&2:4;
XXXI.1&2:65
Shafter, William R. XXXI.1&2:27,38,47
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Poem – “Ozymandias” XXXI.4:31
Sims, William S. XXX.3:31-32
Smoot, Reed XXXI.4:12-16
Spanish-American War
Buffalo Soldiers XXXI.1&2:37-42,48,70
Cuba and Florida XXXI.1&2:43
Preparations in Tampa XXXI.1&2:22-31,45-52
Results for the U.S. XXXI.1&2:32-36
Spring Rice, Cecil XXX.3:27; XXXI.3:7-8
Sternburg, Hermann Speck von XXX.3:19,28; XXXI.4:40
Stevens, John F. XXXI.3:21,26-40
Taft, William Howard XXX.4:7,8; XXXI.3:21,22,30,33,38,39;
XXXI.4:15,35,41
Taylor, Quintard
“Ambiguous Legacy: Theodore Roosevelt
and the Buffalo Soldiers” XXXI.1&2:37-42
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Advisory Board XXXI.1&2:3
Annual Dinners/Meetings/Reports
2004 XXX.4:15
2008 XXX.1&2:23
2009 XXX.1&2:3; XXX.3:3,36A; XXX.4:3-5;
65
XXXI.1&2:68-75
2010 XXXI.1&2:3
By-laws changes re Officers of the Assn. XXXI.1&2:3
Directors Emeriti XXXI.4:3
E-newsletter THE ARENA XXXI.4:5
Exhibit at headquarters
“TR and the Horse” XXXI.1&2:80
Interim Director
Howard Ehrlich XXX.1&2:4; XXXI.3:3
Journal
Advertising in XXX.3:4
Corrections to “Understanding the Place”
XXX.3:4
General Index
2007-2008 XXX.1&2:60-64
Picture Index
2007-2008 XXX.1&2:64-65
Table of Contents XXX.1&2:5; XXX.3:5; XXX.4:6;
XXXI.1&2:4; XXXI.3:6; XXXI.4:6
Museum project XXX.1&2:4
New home XXXI.4:5
Strenuous Life Weekend – Maine – 2009 XXX.1&2:4
Vision Statement XXX.1&2:51
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace NHS NYC, NY XXXI.4:5
Theodore Roosevelt Conference
2011 Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France XXXI.4:3
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural NHS, Buffalo, NY
Journal Index project XXX.1&2:65
Tilchin, William N. XXXI.1&2:80; XXXI.4:3
“A Grand Day Aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt”
XXX.3:46-48
‘‘Theodore Roosevelt and Foreign Policy:
The Greatest of all U.S. Presidents” XXX.1&2:30-38
“Theodore Roosevelt, the Spanish-American War,
a
nd the Emergence of the United States as a
Great Power” XXXI.1&2:32-36
Book Reviews by XXX.3:26-36; XXXI.4:39-45
see also Faithfully Yours
Transatlantic Studies Association Conference – 2008
XXX.1&2:29,30-38,39-51
Trevelyan, George XXX.3:8,10
TR letter to XXX.3:12-25,52
U.S. Allotment System XXXI.4:7-10
U.S. Dept. of Interior XXX.4:7,25
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service XXX.4:25
U.S. Forest Service XXX.4:7,25
USS Gettysburg XXXI.4:25
USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71
Commanders XXX.3:46-47
Friends and Family Day Cruise 2009 XXX.3:47-48
Fund XXX.4:41
Jr. Officer Leadership Award 2009 XXXI.1&2:72
Vanderbilt, William Henry XXXI.4:24,29
Washington, Booker T. XXXI.1&2:41
Wharton, Edith XXXI.3:53
66
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
Wheeler, Joseph XXXI.1&2:38-39,47
Wiegand, Joe XXX.1&2:4
Wilhelm, Kaiser – see Kaiser Wilhelm
Willis, Bailey XXX.4:9-10
Wilson, Woodrow XXX.4:39; XXXI.4:36
Winder, Michael K.
“Theodore Roosevelt and the Mormons”
XXXI.4:11-19
Wood, Leonard XXXI.1&2:24,25,47
Wynn, Gregory A.
“ ‘Under Your Own Roof’: An Important TR Letter
Discovered” XXX.3:6-11,27
see also (The) Material Culture . . .
PICTURE INDEX
Adams, John Quincy XXX.3:41
Alger, Russell XXXI.1&2:11
Ames, Mark XXXI.1&2:73
Art Work
Australian souvenir XXX.3:32
Cigar art XXXI.1&2:44,45,46
Dinner Program 1910 XXX.3:7
Illustrations from Harness book re TR
XXXI.1&2:57-62
Magazine and newspaper covers
XXXI.1&2:48,49,50
Manitou XXXI.1&2:80
Political Cartoons XXXI.3:14; XXXI.4:1,13,48
Postcard 1904 XXX.3:6
Sketches
Cleopatra’s Needles XXXI.4:25,26,27,28,29
Panama Canal XXXI.3:22,24,28,36,54
Washington, Booker T. (image) XXXI.1&2:41
Beebe, William XXXI.3:11
Bird lists of TR XXXI.3:17,18,19
Book covers XXX.3:27; XXXI.1&2:63,65; XXXI.3:52;
XXXI.4:36,38
Brandt, Barbara Berryman XXXI.1&2:75
Brinkley, Douglas and Anne XXXI.1&2:71
Brown, Terrence C. XXXI.3:4; XXXI.4:5
Bryant, Michele XXXI.1&2:75
Buffalo Soldiers – see Spanish-American War
Burton, David H. XXXI.3:7
Bush, George W. XXXI.1&2:19,20,21
Buyer, Steve XXXI.1&2:12
Chadwick, French E. XXX.3:30
Churchill, Winston XXXI.4:43
Cleopatra’s Needle XXXI.4:23,30,32
Clinton, William J. XXXI.1&2:13,15
Conrad, Kent XXXI.1&2:13
Cordery, Stacy XXXI.1&2:22; XXXI.3:9
Dailey, Wallace F. XXXI.1&2:74
Derby, Ethel Roosevelt – daughter XXX.1&2:53
Dewey, George XXX.3:28
Evans, Robley XXX.1&2:48
Fisher, Sir John XXX.1&2:44
Foote, James XXX.4:40
Forest devastation XXX.4:9,10,11,13
Gable, John A. XXX.4:22; XXXI.1&2:16
Goethals, George W. XXXI.3:1,21,25,30,39
Gorringe, Henry Honeychurch XXXI.4:21
Great White Fleet XXX.1&2:47,48; XXXI.1&2:34; XXXI.4:42
HMS Dreadnought XXX.1&2:44
Harrison, Benjamin XXX.3:41
Hay, John XXXI.1&2:33
Hudson, Hannah XXXI.1&2:6
Kaiser Wilhelm II XXX.1&2:42,57
Lazio, Rick XXXI.1&2:12
Lee, Arthur XXX.1&2:35
Lembeck, Emily XXXI.1&2:68
Lembeck, Harry XXXI.1&2:68
Letter – Bill Clinton to Tweed Roosevelt XXXI.1&2:14
Longworth, Alice Roosevelt XXXI.3:8,14
Longworth, Nicholas XXXI.3:14
Mahan, Alfred Thayer XXX.1&2:41
Maps
Cove Neck and Sagamore Hill (1880-1914)
XXX.1&2:7-9,13,16
Long Island (1895) XXX.1&2:6
McHale, Paul XXXI.1&2:12
McLaughlin, Craig XXX.1&2:23
Medal of Honor (Presentation and Certificates)
XXXI.1&2:12,17,18
Meyer, Frank N. XXX.4:8
Moline, Bill XXXI.1&2:72
Mormino, Gary XXXI.1&2:43
Nasaw, David XXXI.1&2:71
Newspaper articles XXXI.4:14,16
Panama Canal
Culebra Cut XXXI.3:35
Isthmian Canal Commission, 1907 XXXI.3:29
Map – Isthmus with completed canal XXXI.3:32
Poster – Exposition (1915) XXXI.3:36
Workers XXXI.3:26
Parsons, Norman XXX.1&2:23
Pehta, Jim and Marjie XXXI.1&2:69
Pinchot, Gifford XXX.4:1,42
Pius IX XXX.3:42
Plant, Henry XXXI.1&2:48
Rich, Ben E. XXXI.4:11
Robinson, Edwin Arlington XXX.3:38
Roosevelt Family
At the White House 10/16/2002 XXXI.1&2:21
Boats – Mistress and Nancy Belle XXX.1&2:22
Cousins (1897, 1908) XXX.1&2:20,21
TR, Edith, and children XXXI.1&2:28
Roosevelt, Archibald B. – son XXX.4:35
Volume XXXII, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2011
Home at Cold Spring Harbor, L.I. XXX.4:33,34
Roosevelt, Edith – wife XXXI.1&2:26
Roosevelt, Elliott – brother XXXI.3:13
Roosevelt, Ethel – see Derby
Roosevelt, Theodore
Calling card XXXI.4:7
Ass’t Sec’y of Navy XXX1&2:31
Hunting with Elliott XXXI.3:13
Rough Rider XXX.1&2:35; XXXI.1&2:1,82
President XXX.1&2:12,15,33,34,43,47,48,53,54;
XXX.3:32,43; XXX.4:1,42; XXXI.1&2:35;
XXXI.4:15,17,18,40
Panama Canal XXXI.3:23
Post-President XXX.1&2:53,55,56,57; XXX.3:1,9;
XXXI.3:12
Roosevelt, Tweed XXX.1&2:52; XXX.3:41,49;
X
XX.4:4,5,32; XXXI.1&2:8,10,12,13,15,16,19,20,21; XXXI.3:10;
XXXI.4:20,22,32
Roosevelt, Winthrop XXXI.1&2:13
Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, The Netherlands
TR American History Award winner 2009 XXX.4:40
Russo-Japanese Peace Conference delegates XXXI.4:40
Sagamore Hill XXX1&2:1,10,11,66
Outdoor activities at XXX.1&2:12,14,15
Schafer, Sheila XXXI.1&2:74
Schaub, William XXX.4:22
Shafter, William XXXI.1&2:49
Sims, William S. XXX.3:31
Ship – SS Imperator XXXI.3:12
Shultz, George XXX.1&2:37
Smoot, Reed XXXI.4:12,18
Spanish-American War XXXI.1&2:9,23,,33,39,49,50,82
Buffalo Soldiers XXXI.1&2:38,39,40
Tampa Bay Hotel XXXI.1&2:25,27
Tampa preparations XXXI.1&2:23,49,51
Sperry, Charles S. XXX.1&2:48
Stevens, John F. XXXI.3:27
Taylor, Quintard XXXI.1&2:37
Theodore Roosevelt Association
Annual Dinners/Meetings
2008 XXX.1&2:23-28
2009 XXXI.1&2:76-79
Tilchin, William N. XXXI.1&2:32; XXXI.4:4
Tirpitz, Alfred XXX.1&2:40
“TR and the Horse” exhibit XXXI.1&2:80-81
TR-Era Images #2 XXX.1&2:59; #3 XXX.3:45; #4 XXX.4:31;
#5 XXXI.1&2:67; #6 XXXI.3:50; #7 XXXI.4:46
Transatlantic Studies Association Conference, Dundee,
Scotland XXX.1&2:29
Trevelyan, George Otto XXX.3:1,9
U.S. Allotment Commission XXXI.4:8,9
USS Gettysburg XXXI.4:24
USS Michigan XXX.1&2:45
USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71 XXX.3:46,47,48,49
Friends and Family Day Cruise 2009 XXX.3:50-51
67
Vanderbilt, William Henry XXXI.4:24
Ventura, William XXXI.1&2:69
Wells, Heber M. XXXI.4:17
Wheeler, Ladd XXX.3:49
Wynn, Gregory A. XXXI.3:16; XXXI.4:7
Son, Andy XXXI.3:16; XXXI.4:7
Yeakel, Anne XXXI.1&2:73
TRA Journal Indexes
As of this edition, the Theodore Roosevelt
Association Journal has now published indexes
covering all issues through Volume XXXI, Number
4 (that is, through calendar year 2010). Previous
indexes have appeared in Volume XIX, Number 3
(Winter 1993), in Volume XXIV, Number 3 (2001),
in Volume XXVIII, Number 3 (Summer 2007), and
in Volume XXX, Numbers 1 & 2 (Winter-Spring
2009). These indexes have been prepared, with
great diligence, by volunteers at the Theodore
Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in
Buffalo, New York. As was the index published in
Volume XXX, the index appearing here has been
assembled by Shirley Hudders and Marie Hewett.
In appreciation of their efforts, the TRA is making
a contribution to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural
Site Foundation. Shirley and Marie—thank you
once again!
T heodore R oosevelt
A ssociation J ournal
W inter -S pring 2011