Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [461]
94 At sunset Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 423.
95 “But—Mrs. Roosevelt?” Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys.” By now (7:30 A.M.), TR had at least informed EKR that QR was missing. Her telegram transmitting this news to ERD in Maine was received “early” on the 17th. ERD to Richard Derby, 17 July 1918 (ERDP).
96 He disappeared Thompson, “Roosevelt and His Boys.”
97 “Quentin’s mother” The New York Times, 18 July 1918.
98 “I must go” Bishop, TR, 2.452.
99 Telegrams of condolence Josephine Stricker, “Roosevelt a Hero to His Private Secretary,” New York Tribune, 5 Oct. 1919.
100 “We must do” Sylvia Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 423.
101 Roosevelt had no sooner Hermann Hagedorn memo, 20 Sept. 1923 (HP).
Biographical Note: The Harvard-educated Hagedorn (1882–1964) had attracted TR’s attention in 1912 by publishing a poem and contributing the fee ($10) to the Progressive Party. A friend and patron of Edwin Arlington Robinson, he began accumulating biographical materials on TR in 1917. His research materialized in three valuable if saccharine books, The Boys’ Life of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1918), Roosevelt in the Bad Lands (Boston, 1921), and The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill (New York, 1954). From 1918 on he dedicated most of his career to memorializing TR, editing the National and Memorial editions of TR’s collected works and serving as director of three successive Theodore Roosevelt associations. A letter TR wrote introducing Hagedorn to William W. Sewell in 1917 should serve as a model to public figures entrusting their lives to a responsible biographer: “I want you to tell him everything, good, bad and indifferent. Don’t spare me the least bit. Give him the very worst side of me you can think of, and the very best side of me that is truthful.… Tell him about our snowshoe trips.… Tell him about the ranch. Tell him how we got Red Finnegan and the two other cattle thieves. Tell him everything.” TR, Letters, 8.1244–45.
102 “Now, Colonel” Hermann Hagedorn memo, 20 Sept. 1923 (HP).
103 Afterward Hagedorn noted Pringle, TR, 601. See also Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 429–30.
104 Edith came ERD to Richard Derby, 17 July 1918 (ERDP).
105 “Before the Colonel” The New York Times, 19 July 1918.
106 “My fellow voters” Lafayette Gleason, verbatim transcript of TR’s remarks at Saratoga on 17 July 1918, preserved by Elmer R. Koppelmann. Copy in AC.
107 “Surely in this great crisis” Sullivan, Our Times, 5.500.
108 Before he got TR, Letters, 8.1341; WHT to TR, 19 July 1918 (WHTP); Bishop, TR, 2.453–54.
109 “I have only one” Robinson, My Brother TR, 346.
110 QUENTIN’S PLANE The New York Times, 20 July 1918.
111 EVERY REASON 12:50 P.M., 19 July 1918 (FWM).
112 Newspapers got The New York Times, 20 July 1918.
113 The Colonel, clutching F. Trubee Davison interviewed by Mary Hagedorn, 30 Mar. 1955 (HH).
114 speech exquisitely calligraphed One of these copies is preserved in the Pratt Collection (TRB). Included is an introduction by J. B. Millet, who collaborated on the speech, noting that after the first report of QR’s disappearance, he had suggested to TR that they postpone their work (presumably on the afternoon of 16 July). TR insisted on finishing it. “I saw by his manner, and by his kindly words to me, that it was a relief to have a subject before him to which he could give his whole heart.” Ibid.
115 “What hope” Ibid. “It was one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of control and courage that I have ever seen.”
116 The telegram confirmed WW to TR, 20 July 1918 (TRP).
117 On Saturday Original in ERDP. Chamery is misspelled “Chambry.” According to an American POW who witnessed the ceremony on 15 July 1918, QR was buried in the presence of a detachment of approximately 1,000 German soldiers, with officers standing at attention before the ranks. “I was told afterward … that they paid Lieut. Roosevelt such honor not only because he was a gallant aviator, who died fighting bravely against