Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [357]
20 Taft, consequently, had had no choice For WHT’s own feeling, early in 1910, that “a complete break within the Republican party” was coming, see Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, 272. For detailed accounts of the rivalry between Ballinger and Pinchot, 1909–1910, see Harold T. Pinkett, Gifford Pinchot: Private and Public Forester (Urbana, Ill., 1970), 116–29, and Miller, Gifford Pinchot, 209–17.
21 Taft had endorsed George E. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement (New York, 1946, 1960), 52, 63–64. For a detailed account of the 1909 tariff battle in Congress, see Kenneth W. Hechler, Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era (New York, 1964), 92–145.
22 “Honored Sir” J. Corry Baker to TR, 6 Jan. 1910 (TRP).
23 “I flatter myself” Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, 179.
24 “My political career” Abbott, Impressions of TR, 53. “Don’t lay down,” one GOP politician begged TR. “The people will fall over one another in due time to follow your leadership.” William Bradford Jones to TR, 7 Jan. 1910 (TRP).
25 one delicate encounter The Washington Post, 18 Mar. 1910. See also The Times, 18 Mar. 1910, and TR, Letters, 7.350–51.
26 He had not hesitated Morris, Theodore Rex, 323–38, 347–51, 440–42; Michael B. Oren, Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (New York, 2007), 309–16. Oren notes (316) that TR’s affirmation at the 1906 Algericas Conference of three key principles—minority rights, free U.S. trade, and support for the Anglo-French alliance—“would remain cornerstones of American diplomacy in the region for the next fifty years.”
27 On the morning KR diary, 18 Feb. 1910 (KRP); Abbott, Impressions of TR, 206–7. Frank Harper joined Abbott in Rome.
28 an ever-expanding grand tour See Wallace Irwin’s Homeric parody, The Teddysee (New York, 1910). This poem appeared first as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post.
29 Even the Calvinist Academy TR, Letters, 7.364–65.
30 I searched Abbott, Impressions of TR, 185. The work cited is W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vols. (New York, 1879). During this 22-hour journey, TR was also seen reading an account of Britain’s campaign against the Sudanese caliphate, and working on the text of his address to the University of Berlin. According to O’Laughlin, he toyed with the idea of delivering it in German. Chicago Tribune, 19 Mar. 1910.
31 Roosevelt was not new TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, 24 Aug. 1884, in Lodge, Selections, 1.9. “It was Lecky’s history of the Eighteenth Century that made me a Home Ruler,” he wrote John Morley in 1908. (TR, Letters, 7.) Lecky was an Irish Protestant, M.P. for Trinity College, Dublin, and one of the most distinguished scholars of the Victorian age. He merits rereading as the last great practitioner in English of history as literature. His Rationalism in Europe is available at Positive Atheism (http://www.positiveatheism.org).
32 two clerical provocations TR, Letters, 7.57; Abbott, Impressions of TR, 213–14.
33 “Moi-même, je suis libre-penseur” TR to Jules Cambon, quoted in Geneviève Tabouis, Jules Cambon par l’un des siens (Paris, 1938), 105.
34 He scoffed at theories For an extensive discussion of TR’s religious beliefs, see chap. 5, “The World of Spiritual Values” in Wagenknecht, The Seven Worlds of TR.
35 As President, he TR, Letters, 5.842–43. TR’s two main objections to “In God We Trust,” neither of which convinced Congress, were that “no legal warrant” justified engraving the pietism on American coins, and that doing so “cheapened” it by associating religion with commerce. For a detailed account, see Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy: Episodes of the White House Years (Baton Rouge, La., 1970),