The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [499]
As ex-president, Roosevelt hiked the canyonlands of the American Southwest, many of which he had saved by designating them as national monuments.
T.R. hiking the canyonlands of Utah. (Courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DANGEROUS ANTAGONIST: THE LAST BOLD STEPS OF 1909
I
To some, President Roosevelt looked tired during his last days in the White House; his exhausted face seemed to consist of only the two eyes, with dark shadows like a raccoon’s mask. Unapologetic for riding roughshod over Congress, Roosevelt seemed to enjoy being an all-around nuisance on the Hill. In fact, he had developed a sense of mischievousness in early January 1909. While reporters were gossiping about William Howard Taft’s cabinet appointments, the fifty-one-year-old Roosevelt started to put into motion his last bold conservationist acts as president. Owing to his intense connection with the outliers of America, he seemed to feel immune from the disapproval of Washington’s opinion-makers. The people were with him. Conjuring up the ghost of Grover Cleveland—who had set aside 7 million acres of forest reserves as a parting gesture in 1897—Roosevelt was ready to trump his predecessor. “Ha ha!” Roosevelt had written to Taft on New Year’s eve: “While you are making up your Cabinet, I, in a lighthearted way, have spent the morning testing the rifles for my African trip.”1
Playing kingmaker, Roosevelt had selected the fifty-one-year-old Taft over the more senior Charles Evan Hughes, Elihu Root, and Joe Cannon to be his successor as the Republican candidate for president. The voters agreed that Taft was the logical choice; his experience as the chief civil administrator of the Philippines and as secretary of war qualified him to be the commander in chief. Keep in mind, though, that whoever was chosen by Roosevelt in 1908 would have been likely to defeat William Jennings Bryan, so Taft clearly owed his good fortune to Roosevelt. One evening during his second term, following his surprise announcement that he wouldn’t be a presidential candidate in 1908, Roosevelt invited Taft (and Taft’s wife, Nellie) to a private dinner at the White House. After dessert Roosevelt and the Tafts repaired to the library for serious conversation. Leaning back in his leather armchair Roosevelt began to pretend that he had prophetic powers. Squeezing his eyes shut, gazing upward, he jokingly chanted: “I am the seventh son of a seventh daughter. I have clairvoyant power. I see a man before me weighing three hundred and fifty pounds. There is something hanging over his head. I cannot make out what it is; it is hanging by a slender thread. At one time it looks like the presidency—then again it looks like the chief justiceship.”
Roosevelt enjoyed chopping his own firewood and clearing his own paths in the wild.
T.R. chopping firewood. (Courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library)
“Make it the presidency!” Nellie burst out excitedly.
“Make it the chief justiceship!” Taft quickly interjected, not wanting history to record that he had asked to be president.2
Of course, Taft welcomed Roosevelt’s nod. But already in January 1909, Roosevelt was becoming lukewarm about his handpicked successor. Taft wasn’t offering administrative jobs to young, progressive Republicans as T.R. had hoped. Many holdovers from Roosevelt’s administration, in fact, were being dismissed. And Taft didn’t even seem to know what the Biological Survey and the Forest Service were. On a number of occasions Taft treated Pinchot like someone