The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [238]
Ironically, being elected vice president brought a jolt of jitters to Roosevelt. Had his political career hit an impasse? Had he really become just a “dignified nonentity”? Instead of satisfying his ambition, the vice presidency became distressing. Intoxication could be found, he believed, in the Colorado Rockies. Blocking out six weeks of his calendar in January–February 1901, Roosevelt put himself on assignment for the U.S. Biological Survey. He would collect cougar specimens and then write about his hunts for a magazine. That was, from his perspective, honest work. He wouldn’t have to be in Washington, D.C., until the inaugural ceremony on March 4. “How I wish I could wait and make the hunt in March and April, so as to get after bear,” Roosevelt wrote to Philip Stewart, “but, of course, I have to be back in time for the Inauguration.”41
III
Ever since Roosevelt read Winthrop Chanler’s essay on forest-clad northeastern Colorado in American Big-Game Hunting he had been hankering to hike and hunt in the White River region. Right after New Year’s Day 1901, he headed to Colorado Springs—nicknamed “Little London” because so many English tourists came to see the Rockies by train—for a combination holiday and cougar hunt. At long last Roosevelt would get to see snow-tipped Pikes Peak, the parts not desecrated by logging, even though the awful January weather made the summit impossible to ascend. From a Colorado outfitter Roosevelt acquired a large leather coat, sweaters, a corduroy jacket, a buckskin shirt, and loads of other appropriate winter wardrobe accessories. With his clothing secure he would travel by train to Colorado Springs to connect with friends and then head north to Meeker.
Roosevelt’s host was Philip B. Stewart of Vermont, Yale class of 1886, a former football captain, now a utility executive. He lived off and on in the resort town. (Stewart’s Republican father had served as governor of and congressman from Vermont.) Gladly, Stewart pointed out such landmarks as the Antlers Hotel and Garden of the Gods upon Roosevelt’s arrival. And there were others involved in the hunt. A surgeon in the Rough Riders, Dr. Frank Donaldson, chief of the throat and chest clinic at the University of Maryland, lived part-time in Manitou Springs, Colorado, where he ran the Red Crags wellness clinic and lodge (advertised as “the Saratoga of the Rockies”), was also there to greet Roosevelt.42 As the nurse Clara Barton noted in her memoir The Red Cross, Donaldson had been able to find the best medical supplies in Cuba for his Rough Riders because he demanded them.43 Overflowing with excitement, however, Roosevelt could do nothing but talk to Stewart and Donaldson about the beauty of Pikes Peak—which he climbed a quarter of the way up in a failed attempt to find bighorn sheep.44 Donaldson, who believed that thin mountain air was healing for asthmatics, enjoyed hearing Roosevelt talk about his personal medical history and how nature helped him breathe. Two other Rough Riders from Colorado Springs—Walter Cash and Ben Daniels—were also on hand for Roosevelt’s visit.
The primary purpose of this trip was to collect cougars (and to a lesser extent lynx) from the White River area for Merriam. His job, in fact, was to shoot as many of the predators as possible for