Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [379]
39 He pressed The New York Times, 19 Mar. 1911.
40 “The Panama Canal I naturally” Stenographic transcript of TR’s speech, from his own typescript, reproduced in University of California Chronicle, Apr. 1911, and quoted in James F. Vivian, “The ‘Taking’ of the Panama Canal Zone: Myth and Reality,” Diplomatic History, 4 (Winter 1980).
41 He had come to Berkeley EKR to Cecil Spring Rice, 5 Apr. 1910 (CSR); Horace M. Albright (eyewitness), “Memories of Theodore Roosevelt,” Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Winter 1987. TR’s five Earl Lectures at the Pacific Theological Seminary were published as Realizable Ideals (San Francisco, 1912), and reprinted in TR, Works, 15.575ff.
42 Roosevelt was referring Morris, Theodore Rex, 84–85, 112–14.
43 The revolution, he joked Vivian, “The ‘Taking’ of the Panama Canal Zone.”
44 What his script said See the survey of reportage in ibid.
45 If I had followed TR quoted in The New York Times, 24 Mar. 1911.
46 cheated of its expectations See Morris, Theodore Rex, 271–97.
47 agreed with Senator Root Undated speech draft ts., ca. May 1914 (PCK). Knox inserted the adverb practically by hand. He also altered the second sentence, deleting a direct reference to TR. As originally drafted, it read, “We did not take it from Colombia, we took it from the Panamans [sic], and it may be this was the sense in which Colonel Roosevelt made the statement that he took Panama.” Knox accepted that Colombia had suffered “serious damage” in the revolution of 1903, while “corresponding benefits accrued to us.” Quite apart from financial gains, the United States got “sovereignty and jurisdiction over a 10-mile zone in a dependent country,” hitherto tied to Bogotá. The United States therefore had a “moral” right to compensate Colombia “not for what she lost but what we gained.”
48 the fuss his “boast” had caused A bitterly critical 1911 pamphlet, “I Took the Isthmus,” is preserved in the Pratt Collection at TRB. TR remained unapologetic about his speech at Berkeley. Vivian, in the essay cited above, strives to absolve him of indiscretion. But TR was always quick to correct misreports of his remarks, and his silence during the ensuing controversy seems significant. It is possible, as Vivian says, that “I took the Canal Zone” may have been a verbal slip (TR’s script is marked “read”). But a year later, TR firmly wrote, “In 1903 I took Panama” on the proof of an article submitted to him by Lawrence F. Abbott. See the facsimile in Abbott, Impressions of TR, 62. His handwriting speaks for itself, as does a sentence in his autobiography, “I took Panama without consulting the Cabinet.” See also TR, Works, 22.623, and TR to Albert Cross, 4 June 1912 (“I know plenty of people who … opposed the taking of the Panama Canal”), TR, Letters, 7.554. There is a further reference to “our taking … the Panama zone” in TR, Letters, 7.854.
49 He had other priorities For TR’s appearance in Madison on behalf of La Follette, during which he privately expressed his disillusionment with WHT, see Belle and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 2 vols. (New York, 1953), 1.327–29.
50 Qui plantavit curabit “He who has planted will preserve,” TR’s family motto. In a long, ruminative letter to Lady Delamere, written before starting west, TR noted that he had enjoyed more years of power than either Hamilton or Lincoln. “For the last century none of the men who reached the summit had careers that lasted longer—I mean careers in the maturity of their success.” The letter is reproduced in Lord Charnwood, Theodore Roosevelt (Boston, 1923), 251ff.
51 Old friends were not Bryce to Sir Edward Grey, 5 Apr. 1911, in Bourne, British Documents, pt. 1, ser. C, 14.284; EKR to Cecil Spring Rice, 5 Apr. 1911 (CSR). Bryce compared TR’s political position, “mutatis mutandis, to that held in England by Mr. Gladstone from 1875 to 1880.” A suspicious Robert La Follette reached even further back in Victorian imagery to describe TR’s intentions regarding himself: “He is willing to have someone