Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [455]
64 “as good American” TR, Letters, 8.1195–97.
65 “It is possible” The New York Times, 28 May 1917.
66 “I told Wilson” Pringle, TR, 599.
67 secretly become engaged QR recalls their betrothal this month in a letter to Flora Whitney, ca. Nov. 1917 (FWM).
68 Edith Roosevelt had taken QR to Flora Whitney, 15 Nov. 1917 (FWM); EKR to QR, quoted in QR to Flora Whitney, 18 May 1918 (FWM). EKR was a woman whose affection had to be earned by prospective daughters-in-law. Eleanor qualified by virtue of shared Mayflower ancestors. Belle, regrettably, was a Democrat. Grace was too independent and pushy. Flora was a touch nouveau, but she had been received by British royalty, and there was much to be said for her expectations. Moreover, the girl spoke French as well as QR, and might pass for a Parisienne with her darkness and smallness and balletic way of posing for photographs.
69 “Ah, Fouf” QR to Flora Whitney, 28 May 1917 (FWM).
70 He was a year Palmer, Newton D. Baker, 1.287; McGerr, A Fierce Discontent, 289; Palmer, Newton D. Baker, 1.287; The New York Times, 9 Apr. 1917.
71 The war had so QR to KR, 19 June 1917.
72 Flora was as sure For a full account by Thomas Fleming of the love affair of QR and Flora Whitney, see Cowley, The Great War, 286–303.
73 Ted and Archie EKR diary, 20 June 1917 (TRC); TR to Lloyd George, 20 June 1917 (TRC). See also TR, Letters, 8.1201–3; Longworth, Crowded Hours, 256–57; EKR diary, 14 July 1917 (TRC).
74 Quentin simultaneously The New York Times, 15 July 1917; Parsons, Perchance Some Day, 265.
75 He told Edith EKR diary, 21 July 1917 (TRC); TR, Letters, 8.1356.
76 Dearest … Flora to QR, 19 July 1917 (FWM).
77 On Monday morning EKR diary, 23 July 1917 (TRC); EKR to ERD, 23 July 1917 (TRC).
78 She murmured Flora to ERD, 24 July 1917 (FWM); Longworth, Crowded Hours, 257–58.
CHAPTER 26: THE HOUSE ON THE HILL
1 Epigraph Robinson, Collected Poems, 81.
2 “I have always believed” TR to H. C. Stokes, 5 Aug. 1914 (TRC).
Biographical Note: TR’s last major statement on religion, an essay entitled “Shall We Do Away with the Church?” appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1917. It confirmed that faith, for him, was a social rather than spiritual force. Decrying clerical formalism as “the enemy of religion” from the days of the Pharisees to those of modern “ultra-sabbatarians,” he argued that nevertheless, “a churchless community … is a community on the rapid downgrade.” Conversely, communities already depressed by economic or other misfortune, such as the “abandoned-farm” regions of New York and the poor-white South, became revitalized when church activities resumed. The church was a sort of moral gymnasium: to attend Sunday services was to “tone up” one’s system for the rest of the week. Communal worship gave the individual a sense of belonging to a larger whole. It helped resolve the opposing tensions of “envy and arrogance.” There was much to be said, too, for the aesthetic beauty of the litany and religious music. TR acknowledged that charismatic evangelists could arouse “that flame of the spirit which mystics have long known to be real and which scientist now admit to be real,” but he noted that such ardor subsides quickly. He was contemptuous of Calvinism because of its “tendency to confuse pleasure and vice.” The ideal faith was democratic rather than domineering, and valued good works over dogma.
3 He was being punished In an impotent gesture, TR published his entire correspondence with Newton D. Baker in the Aug. 1917 issue of Metropolitan magazine.
4 “I love you, dearest” QR to Flora Whitney, 23 July 1917 (FWM).
5 “Flora came over” TR to QR, 28 July 1917 (FWM).
6 It was too early Flora to QR, 18 Dec. 1917; Flora to ERD, 24 July 1917 (FWM).
7 “I am so sorry” Flora to ERD, 24 July 1917 (FWM).
8 On 9 August TR, Letters, 8.1221–22. ABR was transferred