Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [112]
After a short spell of training in Texas, and a disorderly disembarkation in Florida, the Rough Riders gave up their horses—there was no room on the inadequate transports—and stepped ashore Cuba as infantrymen. Officers like Roosevelt, however, kept their horses, allowing Frederic Remington to later paint the iconic picture of Roosevelt on horseback, six-shooter in his hand, leading his men up the heights outside Santiago. It was the battle that won the war and the image that placed him in the New York governor’s mansion in 1899 and the White House in 1901.
Just as Roosevelt’s friends begged him to stay in office and avoid active service in 1898, Bryan’s supporters made the same entreaties to the Boy Orator of the Platte. One Bryan biographer comments on such “unsolicited advice” in terms that equally apply to Roosevelt: “Bryan possessed a tough self-sufficiency in making decisions, and he was not one to anguish over them or to seek out the opinions of others.” Just as Roosevelt had, Bryan offered his services to his country. Bryan, however, acted a bit late. With two Nebraska volunteer regiments already organized and shipped out, in May the Nebraska governor belatedly authorized the raising of a third regiment, with Bryan as colonel. Time was slipping away, however, as Roosevelt’s Rough Riders had already arrived in their Texas training camp. Not until July 13 was Bryan officially inducted into the army as a colonel. The pivotal Battle of San Juan had been fought two weeks earlier, on July 1, with Roosevelt’s regiment taking the heights above Santiago. On July 18, Bryan’s regiment of volunteers departed Nebraska for the Florida coast. The day before, the Stars and Stripes had already been raised above Santiago as Spanish troops began their withdrawal from Cuba. By the time Bryan’s train pulled into Jacksonville, Florida, on July 22, the war was over.
The Spanish-American War marked the moment when Bryan and Roosevelt began to battle each other directly. The war marked their divergence on an issue beyond the monetary supply. With the annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam from Spain as part of the 1899 peace treaty, imperialism suddenly overtook silver as the key issue of the 1900 election. Bryan led the anti-imperialists, although with the American empire already a fait accompli, Bryan’s opposition placed him in an awkward position. Not only did he appear out of touch with mainstream America, but he had actually supported the signing of the peace treaty when it came before the Senate in early 1899.
Roosevelt, on the other hand, had been consistent in his calling for an American empire, given the orders to Dewey to destroy the Spanish Pacific Fleet in the Philippines, and played a decisive role in driving the Spanish out of Cuba. In addition to the income from his best-selling memoir of the war, The Rough Riders, his reward was his election as New York governor and a place with McKinley on the Republican presidential ticket for 1900. Following Bryan’s path across the country, Roosevelt often appeared on the speaker’s dais flanked by the uniformed Rough Riders he had commanded during the war. The results of the 1900 election were more lopsided than those of 1896, with the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket even winning Bryan’s home state of Nebraska. Roosevelt successfully sought reelection in 1904, using “Hot Time in the Old Town” as a campaign song.
Aside from the 1900 election, Bryan and Roosevelt came closest to outright opposition to one another in their differing stances regarding American involvement in the Great War. After deciding not to seek reelection in 1908, Roosevelt passed the mantle of the presidency to