Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [361]
37 Shortly before three Journal des Débats, 24 Apr., and The Times, 25 Apr. 1910.
38 he proceeded to read The following quotations from TR’s Sorbonne address are taken from the version in TR, Works, 15, 349–76.
39 This touched on “To them [the French] the German menace is like a constant nightmare, which may perhaps be explained by the fact that most of the older men know what an invasion means.” British naval attaché report, 22 Jan. 1910, quoted in Kenneth Bourne, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, pt. 1, ser. F, 13.100. (Hereafter Bourne, British Documents.)
40 Roosevelt bit off The Times, 25 Apr. 1910; Le Gaulois, quoted in Literary Digest, 21 May 1910.
41 It is not the critic TR, Works, 15.354. According to The Times, 25 Apr. 1910, TR won further ovations when he repeated one of his own paragraphs, a declaration that “property belongs to man and not man to property” in French. He resorted to antique French for a closing quote from Froissart: Le royaume de la France ne fut onques se déconfit qu’on n’y trouvât bien toujours á qui combattre (“The realm of France was never so stricken that there were not left men who would valiantly fight for it.”) For a modern reprint of his speech, see John Allen Gable, ed., The Man in the Arena: Speeches and Essays by Theodore Roosevelt (Oyster Bay, N.Y., 1991). It is available on many Internet websites, and remains one of TR’s most-quoted orations.
42 one of his greatest rhetorical triumphs Journal des Débats, 24 Apr. 1910; Jules Jusserand to TR, 10 May 1910 (TRP); TR, Letters, 7.379–80; The New York Times, 25 Apr. 1910. After TR’s departure, an American military officer in Paris reported that the Briand government had suppressed a “monster” May Day demonstration by socialist and revolutionary groups. For the first time in fifteen years, policemen were allowed to use firearms in their own self-defense. This policy was “freely attributed in intelligent quarters” to TR’s morale-boosting speech. Abbott, Impressions of TR, 166.
43 Only two Literary Digest, 18 June 1910; TR, Works, 15.645; Jules Jusserand to TR, 10 May 1910 (TRP); TR, Letters, 7.77. “Never since Napoleon dawned on Europe, has such an impression been produced there as has been made by Theodore Roosevelt,” Le Temps commented.
44 He wanted to TR, Letters, 7.381. For an account of the Dreyfus case and its effect on French morale after 1906, see Tuchman, The Proud Tower, 171–226.
45 For two and a quarter hours The Times and The New York Times, 28 Apr. 1910. “The maneuver was necessarily too rapid,” TR told the military governor of Paris afterward. “You have made your men do in half an hour what should in reality take four hours.” The Times, 28 Apr. 1910.
46 two aides O’Laughlin continued to act as the semi-official chronicler of TR’s travels, in charge of a press contingent that grew to six by the time his tour reached Paris. Harper to Arthur Beaupré, 25 Apr. 1910 (TRP).
47 They traveled east ERD to Edwin Arlington Robinson, 28 Apr. 1910; TR, Letters, 7.382–83.
48 A sobering display TR could see from the bridge of his own ship the German imperial yacht Meteor, and a small launch named Alice Roosevelt in honor of his daughter. ARL had launched the Meteor from a New Jersey shipyard in 1902. There was some speculation that TR had been snubbed at Kiel by the no-show of a local resident, Prince Heinrich of Prussia. But a letter of profound apology from the prince (Wilhelm II’s brother), indicates that it was caused by a staff failure. Chicago Tribune, 3 May 1910; Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 234–35; Heinrich (“Henry”) to TR, May 1910 (TRP).
49 signs of ominous enlargement The work of widening the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Kiel) Canal was completed by 1914.
50 King Frederick VIII TR, African and European Addresses, 138. Crown Princess Alexandra