Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [143]
Roosevelt moved quickly to restore the diplomatic offensive, and Hay’s wilting morale. One of the most important conventions in the history of the Americas demanded a resolute State Department. He saw the Secretary briefly, behind closed doors, on the afternoon of 8 June. Whatever transpired, Hay returned to work as if galvanized. The next morning, new instructions went out to Beaupré, couched in language of unusual force:
THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT APPARENTLY DOES NOT APPRECIATE THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION. THE CANAL NEGOTIATIONS WERE INITIATED BY COLOMBIA, AND WERE ENERGETICALLY PRESSED UPON THIS GOVERNMENT FOR SEVERAL YEARS. THE PROPOSITIONS PRESENTED BY COLOMBIA, WITH SLIGHT MODIFICATIONS, WERE FINALLY ACCEPTED BY US. IN VIRTUE OF THIS AGREEMENT OUR CONGRESS REVERSED ITS PREVIOUS JUDGMENT AND DECIDED UPON THE PANAMA ROUTE. IF COLOMBIA SHOULD NOW REJECT THE TREATY OR UNDULY DELAY ITS RATIFICATION, THE FRIENDLY UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES WOULD BE SO SERIOUSLY COMPROMISED THAT ACTION MIGHT BE TAKEN BY THE CONGRESS NEXT WINTER WHICH EVERY FRIEND OF COLOMBIA MIGHT REGRET.
Hay acted like a new man in the days that followed. Town gossip had it that twenty-one months of “strenuous Teddy” had enfeebled him—that he was being kept on only as a venerable symbol, Washington’s last link with the administration of President Lincoln. There was some truth to both rumors, although Hay was still capable of inspired diplomacy. And his relationship with Roosevelt was genuinely affectionate, rooted in a mutual memory of Theodore Senior introducing them nearly thirty-three years before—reedy boy and young diplomat shaking hands to the roar of the Hudson Valley thunderstorm.
At sixty-four, Hay was still as elegant as he had been then. The severe cut of his Savile Row clothes gave line to his five-foot-two-inch figure, while a slight fullness of silk under the winged collar focused attention on his unforgettable face. In youth, when merely mustached, Hay had looked almost mandarin, with his high cheekbones and Ming-smooth brow. Now the mustache floated over a magnificent whitened Vandyke, while the skin above was slashed with creases, two of the deepest plummeting in a frown so anguished that photographers felt obliged to retouch them.
The Secretary was, by common consent, one of the great talkers of his time, holding forth in a quiet, beautiful voice. Like a well-resined viola, it poured forth suave melodies, lapsing instantly into accompaniment whenever the presidential trumpet sounded. Even more than Root, Hay was a master of the sly mot juste that inspired Roosevelt to go too far. His inert pose and hazel stare gave no hint of the hilarity suppressed beneath his waistcoat.
Although Hay found the President amusing, he never savaged him as Adams did. He recognized that Roosevelt had “plenty of brains, and a heart of gold,” not to mention a gift for storytelling that rivaled his own. Curious to hear about the great cross-country trip, he invited Roosevelt to dinner on 12 June, along with Ambassador and Madame Jusserand.
With very little encouragement, the President launched beaming into an account of his adventures. Big sticks and badgers and midnight fusillades, rose-petaled streets and redwoods, golden gifts and glistening Beardsleyesque faces held the table entranced. As he talked on and on, Roosevelt began to free-associate earlier western memories: of sharing a bed with the judge who jailed Calamity Joe, of Hell-Roaring Bill Jones chasing a lunatic across the prairie, of bandy-legged Frank Brito “shooting at his wife the time he killed his sister-in-law.” To Jusserand, such stories sounded as remote and strange as any in Piers Plowman. Roosevelt’s extraordinary frankness, his high-pitched mirth (punctuated with table thumps and chortles of “Hoo! Hoo!”), and perpetual discharge of energy were such that the Ambassador could conclude only that France was being vouchsafed some sort of privileged audience.
After dinner, Hay displayed some of the rarities in his library. Roosevelt