The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [352]
First Lady Edith Roosevelt. (Courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library)
The antics of all these White House pets made colorful newspaper copy. Once Algonquin, a spotted pony, was escorted to the second-floor family quarters to boost the morale of nine-year-old Archie, stuck in bed with measles; the disease had swept through Washington like an epidemic.22 Ecstatic to see Algonquin, whom he loved, Archie let out an Indian “whoop” and dived to hug his pet. Algonquin was so startled by Archie’s abrupt gesture that his legs buckled and all 350 pounds of pony slipped and fell to the floor. The loud thud sounded like a muffled gunshot blast. The whole Roosevelt clan rushed into the bedroom deeply concerned. When the president returned from California he mildly reprimanded Archie, saying that such suddenness was unwise when dealing with ponies; they spooked too easily. The comical episode is now remembered as another Roosevelt first—the first time a horse rode in a White House elevator.23
Then there was the famous Kansas jackrabbit affair, which rocked Washington. A Topekean had donated to Roosevelt’s White House menagerie two young jackrabbits from his home state. One day while being fed pellets, the rabbits escaped their cage. A wild scramble ensued. The president and his sons chased after them. Escaping from the White House lawn, the rabbits made their way to G Street and Twelfth Avenue, where they parted company, one heading east, the other west. “Newsboys and messenger boys joined in the exciting chase after the rabbits, and for a time business in that vicinity was practically at a standstill,” the Washington Post wrote in a long feature story. “Both animals were large specimens, and, as they spread out their long limbs, many thought they were young deer.” After hours of mayhem one rabbit was captured at Turelane and M Street N.W. The other made its way back to the White House as if wanting to be put back into its hutch. Instead, the president decided to let them both live in the White House shrubbery, “wild and free.”24
Roosevelt started tossing carrots to the jackrabbits whenever he wandered the White House grounds to feed nuts to the squirrels. Both T.R. and the grounds policeman, named Mr. Curtis, ensconced in a security booth just east of the White House entrance, used to hand-feed the squirrels. Before long the squirrels were as tame as the Angora house cats. Roosevelt would sit on the grass, and the squirrels would scurry up to him to be fed. The squirrels weren’t even afraid of the Saint Bernard, named Rolla, or the retriever Sailor Boy. Sometimes 100 squirrels would line the walk heading into the White House, waiting for the president to come out and apparently knowing that he had pocketfuls of nuts.25
Perhaps the most exotic pet President Roosevelt had was a spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) named Bill, from the plains of Ethiopia. Eventually, Bill weighed about 150 pounds. He had been given to Roosevelt in March 1904 by Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, who claimed to be directly descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Menelik had brought with him to America such wildlife as elephants, monkeys, tigers, pythons, and rare birds to donate to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. But he insisted that Roosevelt keep the hyena pup and a lion cub as personal pets.26 Roosevelt donated the lion cub to the Bronx Zoo, but he kept Bill for a while, teaching it tricks, enjoying its high-pitched cackle, and letting it beg for table scraps.27
More than anything else, however, it was dog stories that the press loved. Whether it was Sailor Boy the Chesapeake retriever or Jack the terrier, President Roosevelt always seemed to have a canine friend nearby. He could have made a fortune writing stories about the White House dogs (on the order of later books such as Old Yeller or Marley and Me) for Outing. Even during important cabinet meetings about the Panama Canal or the Ottoman empire, Roosevelt would often pat a dog while he spoke. Sometimes he carried lunch scraps in the