Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [465]
82 Roosevelt woke The New York Times, 7 Jan. 1919. Reviewing TR’s final illness, this article refers to him suffering “from [a] pulmonary embolism at the Roosevelt Hospital three weeks ago,” i.e., mid-Dec. 1918. Other newspaper reports suggested it occurred around 4 Dec., but all concur that he was “in a critical condition” for some time.
83 His temperature shot up Straus, Under Four Administrations, 391. This may have been during “a brief thirty-six hours” attack of “pneumonia” mentioned in Robinson, My Brother TR, 361.
84 “Poor dear” The New York Times, 6 Dec. 1918 and 7 Jan. 1919; EKR to KR, 15 Dec. 1918 (KRP).
85 He was buoyed TR, Letters, 8.1416–17.
86 He would have to Ibid.
87 “I am pretty low” Chanler, Roman Spring, 202.
88 He did get better EKR to KR, 24 Dec. 1918 (KRP).
89 Corinne came in Robinson, My Brother TR, 362.
90 “Well, anyway” Ibid.
91 “Don’t do that” Dr. John H. Richards interview, ts. (HP). According to the Roosevelt Hospital’s cautious discharge statement, the Colonel was expected to make a full recovery “in the time ordinarily taken for such cases” of inflammatory rheumatism, and should “be able to take up his usual duties in six weeks or two months.” The New York Times, 25 Dec. 1918.
92 Alice, Ethel, Archie ERD to Richard Derby, 25 Dec. 1918 (ERDP); TR to KR, 27 Dec. 1918 (TRC).
93 There was a ERD to Richard Derby, 25 Dec. 1918 (ERDP); ERD to KR, 25 Dec. 1918 (KRP); TR to KR, 27 Dec. 1918 (KRP).
94 It had been Ethel’s Wallace, Sagamore Hill, 1.62–63.
95 Propped up in 1918 furniture inventory in Wallace, Sagamore Hill, 1.71 and 335.
96 Every morning The New York Times, 7 Jan. 1919; EKR to KR, ca. 30 Dec. 1918 (KRP).
97 It may have been ERD to Richard Derby, 31 Dec. 1918 (ERDP). See also Kermit Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 208–9.
98 On New Year’s Day Josephine Stricker to AP, Steubenville (Ohio) Herald-Star, 6 Jan. 1919; Ferdinand C. Iglehart, Theodore Roosevelt: The Man As I Knew Him (New York, 1919), 281.
99 “We all of us” Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 292–95.
Biographical Note: In his final comment on the world situation, TR observed that the concert of powers envisioned by WW was so vague that Germany, Russia, Turkey, and Mexico might believe they were welcome to join it, on equal terms with the United States, Britain, and France. But equality was not a right or a reward. Governments responsible for the recent war would have to earn full membership of the League of Nations, in part by paying “the sternest reparation … for such horrors as those committed in Belgium, Northern France, Armenia, and the sinking of the Lusitania.” Weak or neutral nations should not expect to have a “guiding voice” in the League’s strategic decisions. That was the prerogative of the strong nations who had fought for peace. As perhaps the strongest of the strong in 1919, the United States should henceforth police only its own hemisphere. The “civilized” powers of Europe and Asia would have to control their own forces of disorder. TR was confident that if WW made these strictures clear at the peace table, Clemenceau and Lloyd George would agree. “I believe that such an effort made moderately and sanely, but sincerely and with utter scorn for words that are not made good by deeds, will be productive of real and lasting international good.” (Ibid.)
100 In a letter TR to George H. Moses, 3 Jan. 1919 (TRP).
101 The effort of ERD to Richard Derby, 8 Jan. 1919 (ERDP). The following narrative of the events of 4–6 Jan. 1919 is based mainly on primary accounts by EKR and James Amos. These are: EKR to ERD, 3, 4, 5 Jan. 1919 (ERDP); EKR to KR, 6 Jan. 1919 and 25 Mar. 1923 (KRP); EKR to TR.Jr., 12 Jan. 1919 (TRJP); James Amos, “The Beloved Boss,” Collier’s Weekly, 7 Aug. 1926; Amos, Theodore Roosevelt: Hero to His Valet (New York, 1927), 154–58. There are two other near-primary accounts: ERD to Richard Derby, 8 Jan. 1919 (ERDP), and George Syran to Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne, 11 Jan. 1919, privately owned. Minor conflicts of chronology are resolved in favor of EKR’s recall. Individual