The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [314]
More responsible newspapers, such as the Evening Sun, cautioned readers that the true facts of the disaster were not yet known, and might be slow in coming. The Maine’s bow was reported buried so deep in the mud of Havana Harbor that digging would be needed to get at the break. Day after day passed with no announcement by the court, until “Is there anything new about the Maine?” became an impatient refrain of everyday conversation. One passenger on a New York electric car was heard to remark that if the Assistant Secretary of the Navy took over the investigation, results would be forthcoming in no time. “Teddy Roosevelt is capable of going down to Havana, and going down in a diving-bell himself to see whether she was stove in or stove out.”37
A HELPLESS VICTIM of the gathering tension was Edith Roosevelt, whose fever heightened to the point that Roosevelt, for the second time in his life, was confronted with the prospect of death in his bedroom. He confessed that he was so “extremely anxious” about her as to be numb to the full consequences of the Maine disaster. As for his son, “Hereafter I shall never press Ted either in body or mind. The fact is that the little fellow, who is peculiarly dear to me, has bidden fair to be all the things I would like to have been and wasn’t, and it has been a great temptation to push him.”38
On the morning of Friday, 25 February, Edith’s weakness finally shocked him into seeking the best medical help available.39 He sent to Johns Hopkins University for Sir William Osler, the great Canadian physician, and left for work as usual, in what torment posterity can only guess.
It so happened that John D. Long was also feeling the strain that morning. Since his violent awakening on the night of the sixteenth, the Secretary had been plagued with insomnia, along with various aches and pains, which he carefully noted in his diary. He had discovered that relief was to be had in “mechanical massage”—a treatment whereby a Washington osteopath strapped him into an electrical contrivance that soothingly jiggled his stomach and legs.40 Long now felt the need of renewed treatment, so much so that around noon he resolved to take the rest of the day off, leaving Roosevelt in charge of the Department as Acting Secretary.
The “mechanical massage” was most satisfactory, and the Secretary proceeded to visit his corn doctor, after which he “walked about the streets in an aimless way” and finally headed for home,41 unaware of the cablegram even then winging halfway around the world:
DEWEY, HONG KONG: ORDER THE SQUADRON, EXCEPT THE MONOCACY, TO HONG KONG. KEEP FULL OF COAL. IN THE EVENT OF DECLARATION WAR SPAIN, YOUR DUTY WILL BE TO SEE THAT THE SPANISH SQUADRON DOES NOT LEAVE THE ASIATIC COAST, AND THEN OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS IN PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. KEEP OLYMPIA UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS.
ROOSEVELT42
This momentous message, which Dewey later described as “the first step” toward American conquest of the Philippines,43 was by no means the only order Roosevelt issued during his three or four hours as Acting Secretary. He sent similar instructions to “Keep full of coal” to squadron commanders all over the world, and to make sure they got it, authorized the Navy’s coal-buying agents to purchase maximum stocks. He alerted European and South Atlantic stations to the possibility of war, and designated strategic points where they were to rendezvous in the event of a declaration.44 He ordered huge supplies of reserve ammunition, requisitioned guns for a project auxiliary fleet, and summoned experts to testify on the firepower of the Vesuvius. He even sent demands to both Houses of Congress for legislation authorizing the unlimited recruitment of seamen.45
Having thus, in a single afternoon, placed the Navy in a state of such readiness it had not known since the Civil War, Roosevelt wrote a “strictly confidential” letter to warn Adjutant-General Tillinghast of the New York National Guard that the world situation was “sufficiently threatening” to warrant plans for statewide mobilization. “Pray remember that