Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [400]
11 Had Wilson not TR, Letters, 7.598; Gable, The Bull Moose Years, 20–21.
12 “She was quite radiant” E. A. Van Valkenburg, “Roosevelt the Man.” Albert J. Beveridge wrote many years later that TR in 1912 was possessed of “a kind of exaltation,” equally composed of fervor, unselfishness, and “an august dignity.” TR, Works, 8.xxi.
Biographical Note: In Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 252–53, the banker Otto Kahn gave this account of a conversation with TR in the winter of 1916:
Q. What did induce you to make the run on the Progressive ticket?
A. (head shoving forward) If a man does a thing which he discerns clearly to be against his interest, if he accepts the burden, strain and bitterness of a fight, at the end of which he sees discomfiture, defeat and lasting disability, if he leads a forlorn hope … how would you diagnose his motives?
Q. It seems to me the answer is—
A. (interrupting) The answer is that his motives disregard his personal interests, that he is actuated by a compelling sense of what his duty, his conscience and his station require him to do.
Potts, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party,” dissents from the received view that TR left the GOP in order to revenge himself on corporate conservatives and WHT in particular. He argues that TR’s moral conscience always dictated his decisions in moments of crisis. When the Party was threatened with a similar split in 1884, for example, the young TR cited three moral reasons to stay with it: the cause (resentment against the nomination of James G. Blaine) was not overwhelming, the time was not right, and the effect of his leaving would not be demonstrably “proper.” See Putnam, TR, chap. 25; Lewis, TR, 368–70; and TR, “How I Became a Progressive,” TR, Works, 19.435–40.
13 “weaving the inevitable” White, Autobiography, 468. On the eve of the convention, EKR told John C. O’Laughlin that “she did not want her husband nominated, [and] looked forward with dread to returning to the White House.” O’Laughlin, “Diary of the National Republican Convention,” 16 June 1912 (OL).
14 other visitors as well e.g., Elizabeth Cameron in Adams, Letters, 6.550.
15 The Roosevelt children According to the manager of the Progressive Party, TR held a family conference after WW’s nomination and warned that the consequences of his proceeding with a third-party campaign would be dire. “Some of the finest minds in the country, some of the men I most admire and love are going to stop coming here.” David Hinshaw, interviewed by Hermann Hagedorn, n.d. (TRB).
16 To the puzzlement Morris, Theodore Rex, 400; Longworth, Crowded Hours, 228–29; Cordery, Alice, 221–22. Longworth’s talent was recognized by no less an authority than the conductor Leopold Stokowski, who said that music was his “natural element.” His fellow quartet players were all professionals. He was also an excellent pianist and dabbled in composition. Later in life he became president of the Washington Chamber Music Society.
17 “first, last and always” This slogan was repeatedly chanted at the Chicago convention by supporters of TR.
18 Representative Longworth’s position Longworth, Crowded Hours, 192–94; Cordery, Alice, 223–28. In old age Alice told Michael Teague that she had briefly considered divorcing Nicholas Longworth in 1912, but was dissuaded by TR and EKR. Teague, Mrs. L, 158.
19 Ted was an ardent Longworth, Crowded Hours, 197; Eleanor B. Roosevelt, Day Before Yesterday, 58–59.
20 the Land of Beyond Robert W. Service’s imagery had a powerful effect on thousands of young romantically inclined Americans in the early 20th century. Kermit Roosevelt, The Happy Hunting Grounds (New York, 1920) makes plain its author’s lifelong wanderlust.
21 He was