Proud Tower - Barbara W. Tuchman [95]
Against the strenuous lethargy of the diehards he succeeded in opening the curriculum to modern studies, introducing the elective system, assembling a faculty that gave Harvard its golden age, raising the Law School and Medical School to prestige and prominence and through his influence modernizing the whole American system of higher education. When in 1894 at the age of sixty he celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary as president, opposition had given way to respect and admiration. He was suddenly recognized as Harvard’s greatest president and the “first private citizen of the country.” It was said that the Boston Symphony could not open without him and the sanguine birthmark appeared no longer as a blemish but as “an emblem of triumph over the handicaps of life.”
To Roosevelt, then thirty-eight, Eliot himself seemed one of the die-hards who refused to understand that America’s manifest destiny lay outward. Having imbibed deeply from Mahan, Roosevelt felt urgently the need of his country to equip itself for the role of greatness which the times were shaping. The distaste for that role of many of the influential men of his time made his voice shrill with frustration. “If ever we come to nothing as a nation,” he wrote Lodge after learning that they had been called “de-generated sons of Harvard,” “it will be because the teaching of Carl Schurz, President Eliot, the Evening Post and futile sentimentalists of the international arbitration type” will produce “a flabby timid type of character which eats away the great fighting features of our race.”
It was maddening to him that now, when war with Spain was in prospect, just such a flabby timid character was in the White House. Roosevelt was determined that there should be someone inside the Administration alert and capable of making ready for great events. He had set his heart on bringing together the man who understood the new destiny—himself—with the instrument upon which all depended—the Navy. McKinley’s Secretary of the Navy was an easygoing and friendly gentleman and former Governor of Massachusetts, John D. Long. Roosevelt believed that if he himself were appointed Assistant Secretary he could, through superior force of energy and ideas, take over the real command of that office.
So did everyone else. Long somewhat apprehensively said, “Roosevelt has the character, standing, ability and reputation to entitle him to be a Cabinet minister—is not this too small for him?” The only thing against him, Lodge wrote to his friend after seeing McKinley on his behalf, was “the fear that you will want to fight somebody at once.” Nevertheless McKinley, persuaded as usual by more forceful characters, appointed Roosevelt on April 5, 1897, and he was confirmed on April 8. S. S. McClure, the exposive and perceptive editor of McClure’s Magazine, sensed whence the appointment came and where it would lead. “Mahan must be seen and talked to at once,” he wrote to his co-editor. “He is the greatest naval biographer and student of this century and his field is going to become more and more popular.” An identical twin of his time, McClure knew what his twin would do. “Roosevelt seems big from here,” he continued. “Write to him and try to get his naval stuff. Mahan and Roosevelt are just our size.” This was indeed so. McClure shared their feeling of power and muscle and largeness of opportunity. When in the last year of the century he wanted Walter Hines Page for an editor, he telegraphed him, “Should see you immediately. Have biggest thing on earth.” When Page agreed to come, McClure was jubilant and replied that they would make the strongest editorial combine in the world. “Oh my dear boy, we are the people with the years in front of us!”
Now the long-thwarted annexation of Hawaii was revived. Roosevelt in the effort to galvanize McKinley reported to him on April 22 that the Japanese had sent a cruiser to Honolulu. He wrote to