Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [110]
The room’s main decoration was a huge globe. Spun and stopped at a certain angle, this orb showed the Americas floating alone and green from pole to pole, surrounded by nothing but blue. Tiny skeins of foam (visible only to himself, as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Navy) wove protectively across both oceans, as far south as the bulge of Venezuela and as far west as the Philippines. Asia and Australia were pushed back by the curve of the Pacific. Africa and Arabia drowned in the Indian Ocean. Europe’s jagged edge clung to one horizon, like the moraine of a retreating glacier.
When Roosevelt spoke of the Western Hemisphere, this was how he saw it—not the left half of a map counterbalanced by kingdoms and empires, but one whole face of the earth, centered on the United States. And here, microscopically small in the power center of this center, was himself sitting down to work.
There was nothing much he could do right now about the Caribbean theater, except wait for an opportunity to invoke the Monroe Doctrine there, once and for all. President Cleveland had attempted to do so definitively against Britain in 1895—also in a matter regarding Venezuela—but Lord Salisbury’s government had backed down too soon for any American show of force. Roosevelt held that only “power, and the willingness and readiness to use it” would make Germany understand the Monroe Doctrine fully. If he could send such a forceful message, it would “round out” Cleveland’s policy nicely.
Few among the President’s callers that morning saw his new globe as anything other than a piece of furniture. Congress was back in town—not the newly elected Fifty-eighth but the same old Fifty-seventh, reconvening for its last winter session. Senators and Representatives paid their usual respects, and declared their usual keen interest in the Message he would be sending them later in the day.
For two and a half hours, Roosevelt pumped hands and exchanged pleasantries. Toward noon, his flow of visitors slackened, as Congressmen and correspondents headed for Capitol Hill. The White House grew quiet. Even Edith and Alice took a carriage to watch the opening ceremonies. Roosevelt remained at his desk. Behind him as he worked, the USS Mayflower dropped down the bright river.
FOR THE NEXT WEEK, he remained closeted in the White House, giving no hint of anxiety about Venezuela. By 4 December, Secretary Moody had authorized a concentration of fifty-three warships—the largest such deployment the Navy had ever seen—compared with twenty-nine Allied vessels. The imbalance signified nothing, of course, since neither armada was contending. Still, Roosevelt had real strength available if he needed it. He knew the historic propensity of blockades toward invasion.
On 7 December, Germany and Britain informed President Castro that they were closing their consulates in Caracas and initiating “pacific” measures to satisfy their claims against him. Admiral Dewey simultaneously took command of the fleet off Culebra, under orders to be ready to move south at an hour’s notice. He began an immediate program of dummy landings along stretches of the Puerto Rican shore that resembled Venezuela’s.
As if toughening himself for the crisis to come, Roosevelt intensified his latest exercise routine, “singlesticks.” Every evening in the residence, he and Leonard Wood donned padded helmets and chest protectors and beat each other like carpets. “We look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” the President joked.
General Wood noted in his diary that Roosevelt was too excitable a stick-fighter to remember the rules. “It