Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [186]
When Root used the adjective conservative, conservatives listened. Private word came that Wall Street opposition was at last diminishing. “It has become almost flat for me to express to you my realization of all you have done for me,” the President wrote Root.
Late on the evening of 4 February, George Cortelyou came in with a shock bulletin. Senator Hanna had been diagnosed with typhoid fever. Roosevelt was at the Arlington Hotel well before nine the next morning. Doctors barred entry to the sickroom, but he stayed ten minutes with Mrs. Hanna. The afternoon papers noted his pilgrimage, as did Hanna, who scrawled a trembly note:
My dear Mr. President:
You touched a tender spot old man when you call personaly [sic] to inquire after this a.m. I may be worse before I can be better But all the same such “drops” of kindness are good for a fellow
Sincerely Yours
M.A. Hanna
Friday PM
The Senator lay comatose for several days, then surprised Mrs. Hanna by reaching for her hand. “Old lady,” he said, “you and I are on the home stretch.”
HALF A WORLD AWAY, the Far East exploded into war. For months, State Department officials had known that Japan would not long tolerate Russia’s expansionism in Manchuria and her designs on Korea. However, even John Hay was surprised by the ferocity and speed of the first attack, on 8 February. Dispatches confirmed that Admiral Heihachiro Togo had virtually annihilated the Russian Oriental fleet in a single swoop on Port Arthur. On the ninth, reports of further naval attacks followed like claps of thunder. In under twelve hours, Russia’s two biggest battleships were sunk, another seriously damaged, and four cruisers disabled or destroyed. Japan was now the superior power in the Yellow Sea. Minister Kogoro Takahira could hardly conceal his elation as he delivered the Mikado’s proclamation of war to Hay. On 11 February, Roosevelt announced that the United States would remain neutral.
Count Cassini, the Russian Ambassador, was not consoled by Hay’s expressions of sympathy. He knew that the President personally favored Japan. Marguerite and Alice became even more estranged.
UNCONSCIOUS, MARK HANNA drifted toward death. He had never paid much attention to the world at large. Panama was merely a crossroads of American commerce, the oceans but highways for American ships. The cosmopolitan curiosity of a Theodore Roosevelt (currently reading a study of Indo-European ethnicity, in Italian) was beyond him. All he had learned in life was that industry created wealth, and wealth subsidized good government. He had not done badly in either field; he had made seven million dollars, and a President of the United States.
Hanna’s horizon contracted. He knew nothing of the vigilants in the lobby below, the constantly shrilling telephone booth, the letter from Roosevelt: “May you soon be with us again, old fellow, as strong in body and as vigorous in your leadership as ever.”
Inert on the pillow, he looked as formidable as ever, porcine features firm, skin tanned from oxygen treatment. But in the small hours of Monday the fifteenth his heart began to fail. Doctors worked all morning to stimulate life. They blew ether up his nose, poured champagne and whiskey and nitroglycerine down his throat, and pumped brandy into his abdomen in eight-ounce shots. Washington’s political activity slowed to a halt. Congressmen quit their desks and joined the crowd in the Arlington lobby. At 3:00 P.M., when Roosevelt walked over again from the White House, Hanna’s pulse rate was scarcely perceptible.