Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [365]
14 “I’m going to a Wake” Alice Hooper reporting to Frederick Jackson Turner in Dear Lady: The Letters of Frederick Jackson Turner and Alice Forbes Perkins Hooper, 1910–1932 (San Marino, Calif., 1970), 303. The very proper Mrs. Hooper remained “quite honestly shocked” nine years later.
15 “I hardly know” Unless otherwise identified, the following quotations by TR are taken from his narrative letter to David Gray (“For nobody’s eyes but yours”) in TR, Letters, 7.409–12. See also below, 625.
16 In contrast to The New York Times, 20 May 1910; Abbott, Impressions of TR, 296–97. According to Alice Hooper, Reid remained afraid until the final hour that TR would insist on wearing the uniform of an American colonel of cavalry. See above, 584, and Turner, Dear Lady, 303.
17 denying Achduke Franz TR got this story direct from the Kaiser. Abbott, Impressions of TR, 298–99.
18 Monarch vied with monarch TR’s stories were apparently well circulated in the royal courts of Europe. Wilhelm II’s favorite was the one of Ben Daniels, marshal of Dodge City, who got his ear “bit off” in the pursuit of frontier justice. Sullivan, Our Times, 4.435; TR, Letters, 7.367.
19 three more kings Nevins, Henry White, 304.
20 They knew TR, Letters, 7.366–67.
21 “glass coaches” Unless otherwise identified, the following quotations are taken from TR, Letters, 7.412–13.
22 Band music blared The following account of Edward VII’s funeral is based on the reporting of The Times, Pall Mall Gazette, and Manchester Guardian, supplemented by The New York Times and New York Tribune, 20, 21 May 1910. Indented quotations by TR continue to derive from his letter to David Gray, cited above.
23 the strange reticence For TR’s similar behavior in Buffalo after the death of President McKinley, see Morris, Theodore Rex, 11.
24 Pichon’s feelings overcame him TR told Mark Sullivan afterward that at the climax of Pichon’s rage, his hair “stood out like a head of lettuce.” Sullivan, Our Times, 4.436.
25 “One remembers” The New York Times, 21 May 1910. Pichon complained afterward that TR “did not exchange half a dozen words within him during the journey.” The New Age, 2 June 1910.
26 “destined to make history” New York Tribune, 21 May 1910.
27 The Tsar whom everybody Later Nicholas II regretted not attending, and in the spring of 1911 pressingly invited TR to visit Russia. But by then TR had had his fill of star-encrusted monarchs. TR, Letters, 7.302.
28 The midday heat Manchester Guardian, 21 May 1910.
29 Roosevelt suffered The New York Times, 20 May 1910.
30 The cloister of St. George’s Asquith, Autobiography, 271; Chicago Tribune and Manchester Guardian, 21 May 1910.
31 Not until Chicago Tribune and The New York Times, 20 May 1910; TR, Letters, 7413.
32 “Dear old Springy” For the relationship of TR and Spring Rice, see Morris, The Rise of TR, 357–59; Stephen Gwynn, ed., The Letters and Friendships of Cecil Spring Rice: A Record (Boston, 1929), passim; and Burton, “Theodore Roosevelt and His English Correspondents.” On 24 May, TR and EKR visited the scene of their wedding, St. George’s Church in Hanover Square, incognito. They asked to see the register for 1886. The verger, indicating a marked page, informed them that it bore the signature of “Mr. Roosevelt, the former President of the United States, who was married here 23 years ago.” He remained unaware of the identity of his visitors until after they left. The New York Times, 25 May 1910.
33 Winston Churchill, whom he considered Lodge, Selections, 2.385.
Biographical Note: While in British East Africa, TR had drawn a sharp distinction between Churchill and an American novelist of the same name—“Winston Churchill the gentleman.” (Lodge, Selections, 2.349.) His strange dislike for the Englishman is easier to document than explain. Before listing some instances, their many similarities should be considered. They were both politicians of privileged background who swung leftward in mid-career, soldiers of heroic courage, men of letters celebrating the life of action. Hyperactive, garrulous, egotistical, and family-minded,