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By Root 4209 0

Fort Sill two year later, huge crowds showed up to hear President Roosevelt’s speeches in Pittsburgh, Louisville, Saint Louis, and a hodgepodge of depots in between en route to Texas. A high-pitched train whistle always announced his arrival. Children—anonymous and interchangeable—stood along the tracks, waving flags and looking for a glimpse of their hero. Refusing to disappoint them, Roosevelt thrust his head out the train window, shouting hellos and farewells. Courthouse bells usually clanged on his arrival in every village. Water tanks were invariably painted red, white, and blue. Vendors set up wiener and lemonade carts, hoping to capitalize on the whir of anticipation that a visit by T.R. brought to town. Usually, Roosevelt’s impromptu stages were fairground bleachers, hotel balconies, or railroad sidings. As on all of Roosevelt’s whirlwind tours, whistles blew and the atmosphere accompanying each speech was festive. Americans had acquired a new respect for Roosevelt following the 1904 election, and this respect burst forth like the plume of a fountain.

Roosevelt formed an important alliance with the great Comanche leader Quanah Parker. Together they worked to bring buffalo back to the Wichita Mountains.

Quanah Parker. (Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

On April 4, in Steubenville, Ohio, however, tragedy struck. The Roosevelt Special accidentally bulldozed into a man who was boarding a freight train and plowed right over him as it went west at thirty-five or forty miles per hour.29 Roosevelt grew despondent over this; he was also embarrassed. Yet he refused to dwell on the death, and his Roosevelt Special went on. He took in the varied American landscapes from the window of his train compartment: the indolent Ohio hamlets fading, the drainage ditches of Missouri receding, the dark and haunted Oklahoma prairie stretching for hundreds of miles south of Tulsa. On a map, it seemed obvious that Oklahoma had a weird language all its own: Okmulgee, Wetumka, Wapanuka. Staring out into the darkness Roosevelt sought the hills, tall pines, and thicket oaks beyond. The prairielands soothed the neurotic and agonized part of his spirit.

By the time the Roosevelt Special reached Dallas, the president, alert and curious, was in a buoyant mood. Cowboys along the tracks pointed at him in admiration. People craned their necks to see the Rough Rider who hadn’t lost his luster. In honor of his visit, Dallas had decorated the large public square near the Oriental Hotel with flags and bunting; an estimated 30,000 people came to hear the president speak about the “American century.” Even oil field scouts and get-rich-quick geologists had come to Dallas in wagons. Appealing to the chauvinism of the Lone Star state, he called Texas a “mighty and beautiful state,” a “veritable garden of the Lord.”30 Roosevelt promoted improvements for the Trinity River and irrigation projects around Dallas in general. Aridity could be conquered by forest conservation and modern engineering. More water and grass, he said, were needed in Texas. And appealing to the old Confederates’ pride, he boasted that he was half southern gray, half northern blue, but all Lone Star. This became a standard applause line in his stump speeches in Texas.

At Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Roosevelt inspected national troops and spoke of the Monroe Doctrine as a guiding American principle. He also called for restoring integrity to Wall Street. On every street Roosevelt was greeted as if he were a hometown boy who had made good. A major thoroughfare had been renamed Roosevelt Avenue in his honor (only the christening of the polar explorer ship made him prouder). While on horseback in Texas, Roosevelt always made sure a lasso was coiled around the horn of his saddle, just in case a wild horse or runaway cattle entered his domain. What a showman Roosevelt was! Speaking like a cowboy, Roosevelt acted as if dusty ole San Antone were the greatest place on earth. He had learned Texans’ lingo, mores, and folkways. “In the old days in Texas I understand that there used