Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [354]
85 He has to laugh TR, Works, 5.161–62.
86 Snug in his tent Ibid., 5.262.
87 He has to drive Ibid.
88 It is plain to him Ibid., 5.37; The Leader of British East Africa, 7 Aug. 1909. The only blanket order J. Alden Loring could recall TR issuing on safari was a ban on the whipping of porters, although it was a punishment sanctioned by the British East Africa administration. Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 216.
89 the Song of Solomon TR to Lawrence F. Abbott, 21 Oct. 1909 (ABB). TR, who had not read the Bible through before he went to Africa, boggled at some of its racier parts. “I must say that it contains matter that I should not care to have my children read until they had reached the years of discretion.” To J. Alden Loring, quoted in Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 220.
90 Oh, sweetest of all For more of the text of this letter, see Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 351–52. It was one of the very few billets-doux from TR that EKR, after his death, did not destroy. Had their daughter Ethel not saved a handful, one of the great loves in American history would be undocumented.
91 Moving on to Londiani KR diary, 30 Nov. 1909 (KRP); The Leader of British East Africa, 7 Aug. 1909; TR, Letters, 7.39–40.
92 From now on TR, Works, 5.357.
93 He is generous Lawrence F. Abbott wrote, after a few months of handling TR’s finances, “He had less interest in money, as mere money, than almost any man that I have ever known.” Impressions of TR, 210.
94 totaling almost $40,000 In contemporary (2010) dollars, this sacrifice amounted to $711,000 (Measuring Worth). As President, TR earned $50,000 ($888,000) a year. He felt that his prize money, totaling almost $37,000 ($696,000) in 1906, had been earned while he was a public servant, and therefore was not his personal property. He directed that it be used to endow a foundation dealing with what he then considered to be the largest problem of the age—labor/capital strife. See Morris, Theodore Rex, 473, 723. For the later history of this bequest, see 539.
95 He is therefore relieved TR, Letters, 7.13–15, 24–25, 36–37. For an extended account of Carnegie’s infatuation with TR as a potential “Great Peace Maker,” see Joseph F. Wall, Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1970, 1989), 924–35.
96 “The very large edition” Robert Bridges to TR, 21 Oct. 1909, 10 Feb. 1910 (SCR). In this letter, Bridges tried to interest TR in a follow-up travel series focusing on the American Southwest. “We should of course be willing to pay a very large sum for it.” When TR showed no enthusiasm, Bridges offered a staggering $5,000 per article. TR declined, but, as will be seen, eventually did write some Southwestern pieces for Scribner’s Magazine.
97 In Nairobi’s little bookstore TR, Letters, 7.44; Randall, Joseph Conrad and Warrington Dawson, 28; TR, Works, 5.357, 14.463–64.
98 It is elephant country TR, Works, 5.373–75, 423.
99 He is in superb health The sentence in African Game Trails, “An elderly man with a varied past which includes rheumatism does not vault lightly into the saddle, as his sons, for instance, can” is an example of TR’s self-mocking humor. In a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge dated 5 Feb. 1910, he reports that while he and Kermit remained healthy, all the other members of his party “have been down with fever of dysentery; one gun bearer has died of fever, four porters of dysentery and two have been mauled by beasts.” During their visit to one Ugandan village, “eight natives died of sleeping sickness.” TR, Letters, 7.47.
100 His stride is tireless E. M. Newman in Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 223; TR, Works, 5.417. According to Newman, TR’s pace when marching “compelled the average man to maintain a dog trot to keep up with him.”
101 He looks better TR boasted on 21 Jan. 1910, “I have not for years passed nine months of such good health.” (TR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles [ARC].) See also TR, Works, 5.298, 375–76; John C. O’Laughlin in the Chicago Tribune, 13 Mar. 1910.
102 Yet on the seventh day TR, Letters, 7.348–49.
103 a three-week halt TR states in a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge that