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By Root 3115 0

words. He was radiant, original, irresistible. “I wonder how a man so thick-set, of rather abdominal contour, with eyes heavily spectacled, could have had such an air of magic and wild romance about him, could give one so stirring an impression of adventure and chivalry.” Like so many others who tried to describe him, she turned to images of electricity: his smile was “an arc-light” coming down the corridor toward her, and the “magnetic sparkle” that animated his face was duplicated by “the sparkle of his mind.” No matter who came to see him (on one occasion, an African dignitary festooned with rings and beads), she observed that they reacted the same way when the Colonel, genially shaking hands, propelled them toward the elevator. “Their faces had that trance-like expression, as if living over again within themselves some dramatic moment just passed; some, smiling at nothing in particular; others, excited and muttering to themselves, all showing some sign of having passed through a tidal moment in their lives.”

Whatever Roosevelt had lost of actual power to shape events, he was obviously still capable of inspiring all those who did not feel threatened by him. Aside from ever-wistful Progressives, and a few furtive Republicans wondering whether he would consider returning to the GOP, with a view to running for president in 1916, there was now a growing body of military men who wished to serve under him if (as he kept predicting) the United States was compelled to abandon its policy of neutrality. He had not forgotten his dream of leading a force of super-Rough Riders into battle, and took it for granted that the War Department would allow him to do so as a major-general. The plan sounded old, even antiquated, when he spelled it out to General Frank Ross McCoy on 10 July. “My hope is, if we are to be drawn into this European war, to get Congress to authorize me to raise a Cavalry Division, which would consist of four cavalry brigades each of two regiments, and a brigade of Horse Artillery of two regiments, with a pioneer battalion or better still, two pioneer battalions, and a field battalion of signal troops in addition to a supply train and a sanitary train.”

Roosevelt vaguely explained that he meant motor trains, “and I would also like a regiment or battalion of machine guns.” But it was obvious he still thought the quickest path to military glory was the cavalry charge—ignoring the fact that modern Maxim-gun fire had proved it to be an amazingly effective form of group suicide. And he also chose to forget that the last time he had tried to haul his heavy body onto a horse, at Sagamore Hill in May, he had ended up on the ground with two broken ribs.

He knew nonetheless that he would prefer to die heroically in Europe rather than in Mexico. Ted could fight Pancho Villa if he liked, but none of his other sons were free to volunteer. “Whereas I should expect all four to go in if there were a serious war, and would of course go in myself.”

THE COLONEL SPENT the second half of July on the West Coast, attending a series of events connected with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. A belated celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal, it was the biggest such show ever held, and he was saluted with a special “Roosevelt Day” on the twenty-first. His speech in response was a harsh contrast to the exuberant hymn to expansionism he had indulged in at Mechanics’ Pavilion twelve years before. Then, he had called upon Californians to look to the Orient instead of the Occident for their commercial future, and had welcomed an emergent Japan as one of the “great, civilized powers.” Now, he lectured them to look again across the Pacific, to see the consequences of China’s failure to arm against foreign predators. As a result, that opulent nation had been dismembered, province after province, “until one-half of her territory is now under Japanese, Russian, English, and French control.” If the United States was going to continue to “Chinafy” its foreign policy, at cost of preparing itself militarily against