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The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [435]

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less slaughter than Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, and an abundance of original zoological information. The chapter on the life habits of the grizzly bear marked a definite contribution to science: TR was by now recognized as the world authority on this and other large Western species. There are several delicious comic episodes, notably the story of Fowler and the Turk, and the dialogue overheard by TR on the Brophy ranch in 1884, as well as one of his finest lyrical pieces, inspired by the all-night song of a Tennessee mockingbird. See TR.Wks.II.330–4, 327–30, and 52–5. For sample reviews in 1893, see Nation, Aug. 14; St. Paul Press, Aug. 22; Edinburgh National Observer, Dec. 30.

51. Mor.367; Wag.304; TR to B, Nov. 6, 1893; Mor.391, 409. TR accepted no fees for lectures on Civil Service Reform. These he considered part of his job.

52. Pri.157.

53. Mor.342–3; see also n. 56, below.

54. Mor.343. The land was sold to his uncle James A. Roosevelt. It reduced to 30 acres the original estate he bought during his first marriage. TR to B, Jan. 28, 1893; EKR to Emily Carow, May 19, 1894; Mor.306.

55. Ib., 343, 376; see also TR to B, Apr. 15, 1894, and EKR to B, Jan. 10 and June 6, 1894 (TRC). The extent of TR’s embarrassments may be gathered from his suggestion to Bamie, who had a habit of understamping her letters, that she buy “a pair of scales and a copy of the postal regulations,” so as to save him the 20-cent collect charge. TR to B, April 1, 1894.

56. Mor.345.

57. Ib., 340; TR to HCL, July 4, 1893 (LOD.).

58. Mor.389, 323, 335; TR to B, June 20, 1893. A memo sent to Secretary Smith suggests that the hostility may have been mutual. See Mor.328.

59. Cecil Spring Rice to Elizabeth Cameron, July 2, 1891 (ADA.).

60. Foulke, William D., Fighting the Spoilsmen (Putnam, 1919) 40.

61. On Nov. 28, 1893. Foulke, Spoilsmen, 38–40; Mor.317. See also ib., 341; Foulke, William D., Lucius Burrie Swift (Bobbs-Merrill, 1930) 69.

62. Halloran, Matthew F., The Romance of the Merit System (Washington, D.C., 1929) 77; TR to HCL, June 8, 1893 (LOD.).

63. Mor.343; see also ib., 396.

64. Mor.393. See Woo. 19 for an earlier example of TR’s reaction to suggestions that he again run for Mayor.

65. TR to HCL, Oct. 11, 1894 (LOD.); EKR to Emily Carow, 1894 passim (Derby mss.).

66. Sto.223.

67. TR to B, qu. Bea.47.

68. Mor.379, 409. See also Bea.46–7. This is not the first mention of the Canal by TR. He had been interested in France’s attempt to build a waterway at Panama since his Dakota days. Among his papers in TRP there is a copy of a U.S. Government Special Intelligence Report on the Progress of the Work on the Panama Canal During the Year 1885. The document contains much technical prose, thoughtfully penciled by TR.

69. Mor.384; TR to B, Feb. 25, 1894.

70. Ib., Aug. 18, 1894.

71. Ib.; also July 29, 1894. Elliott had, for example, severely burned himself that February by accidentally tipping an oil lamp over his naked body. In May he had spent the night in a police cell, being too incoherent to say where he lived. In July he had driven into a lamppost while blind drunk and been catapulted onto his head, incapacitating himself.

72. C to B, Aug. 15, 1895 (TRC); TR to HCL, Aug. 18, 1894 (LOD.).

73. TR wrote to HCL afterward: “I confess I felt more broken than I had thought possible.” Aug. 18, 1894, LOD. To B in England he wrote that Elliott “would have been in a straight jacket had he lived forty-eight hours longer.… he had been drinking whole bottles of anisette and green mint, besides whole bottles of raw brandy and champagne, sometimes half a dozen a morning … He was like some stricken, hunted creature; and indeed he was hunted by the most terrible demons that ever entered a man’s body and soul.” Aug. 18, 1894, TRB.

74. Ib. Elliott’s companions at Greenwood were Alice Lee and Mittie Roosevelt. See also Las.56–7. Elliott had been living with Mrs. Evans at 313 West 102 Street under the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Eliot.” TR to B, n.d., 1894; World, Aug. 16, 1894. According to Lash (who does not identify the woman), she had a house

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