Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [144]
“I’m fur Teddy,” a scrubwoman declared. Asked why, she said, “He’s fur me.”
When not orating, he would dictate further speeches for use down the line. The toll on his voice soon began to show. There was something manic about the way he drove himself, and the way he ate: Philip’s main duty was to keep large meals coming. Since February, Roosevelt had gained so much weight that Frank Munsey, a strict dieter, felt obliged to warn him of the coronary effect of too much heavily salted roast beef and Idaho potatoes. Rumors persisted that he was a boozer. “Did you see that?” somebody said in Duluth, Minnesota, as the Colonel’s retinue hustled him through a surging crowd in the lobby of his hotel. “He was so drunk they had to carry him upstairs!”
Actually, “they” were worried about physical assaults, whether affectionate, as from those who wished to tear at his clothing, or worse. The fanaticism of his followers became more apparent the deeper he penetrated the Midwest. Almost half the population of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, turned out in pouring rain to hear him. His speech—a comparison of his and Wilson’s tariff policies—was received as if it were the Holy Writ. He decided to use parts of it again when he spoke in Milwaukee, in the heart of La Follette country.
But first, Chicago beckoned: a much more favorable city, with Medill McCormick’s newspaper, the Tribune, daily propounding Progressivism. By the time Roosevelt got there on the morning of the twelfth, Dr. Terrell was seriously concerned about his roughening throat, and persuaded him to cancel three speeches the following day. That afternoon Roosevelt addressed an open-air meeting. A raw wind blew in from the lake, nearly silencing him. After dinner he had to speak again, in the enormous Coliseum, and his voice broke altogether. For the next thirty-six hours he was reduced to whispering.
He should have nursed his laryngitis through Monday, 14 October, in order to save vocal strength for his important speech in Milwaukee that evening. But he impulsively decided to make an appearance in Gary, Indiana, the home of U.S. Steel. He wanted to show that he was not ashamed of his relationship with the world’s biggest trust, nor of having one of its directors, George W. Perkins, as his closest adviser—something Wilson had drawn attention to.
Roosevelt spoke there for no more than four minutes, but it was enough to fray his voice again. He returned to Chicago for lunch. During the meal, O. K. Davis handed him a letter from a well-wisher in Detroit, enclosing a newspaper clipping and suggesting that action should be brought against its publisher.
The clipping was only two days old, and came from the Ishpeming, Michigan, Iron Ore, a small Republican sheet owned and published by one George A. Newett. It concerned the Colonel’s moral character, and contained the direct libel he had been looking for:
Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way; he gets drunk too, and all his intimates know it.
He read the article through, then said to Davis, “Let’s go at him.”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, the Mayflower hitched itself to another train and headed for Wisconsin. Advance word came that a “GXLC” situation portended in Milwaukee, with plans for a grand parade and public dinner before Roosevelt’s speech. Dr. Terrell refused to let his patient be subjected to these strains.
Upon the train’s arrival in Milwaukee at six o’clock, members of the local Progressive committee came aboard, and were told that the Colonel was “extremely tired.” He would dine privately in his car, rest for an hour or so, and not use his voice until the time came for him to speak at the