Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [2]
—BILL BELL, New York Daily News
Also by Edmund Morris
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
Beethoven: The Universal Composer
Colonel Roosevelt
2002 Modern Library Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2001 by Edmund Morris
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This work was originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., in 2001.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Morris, Edmund.
Theodore Rex / Edmund Morris.
p. cm.
Sequel to: The rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
eISBN: 978-0-307-77781-2
1. Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858–1919. 2. Presidents—United States—Biography. 3. United States—Politics and government—1901–1909. I. Title.
E757 .M885 2001
973.91′1—dc21 2001019366
Modern Library website address: www.modernlibrary.com
v3.1
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The narrative of this book confines itself exclusively to Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, 1901–1909. For compatibility with quotations, many usages current at that time have been retained, particularly with regard to place-names. Hence, e.g., Peking is used for Beijing and Port Arthur for modern Lushun. Where necessary, such names are clarified in the notes. A few words spelled differently then, but pronounced the same now, have been modernized. Hence, Tsar for Czar. “Simplified spellings” adopted by Roosevelt in his second term have been retained as idiosyncratic when quoted. Hence, thoroly, fixt, dropt. Ethnic appellations and honorifics reflect the styles of the Roosevelt era, as do occasional references to countries as feminine entities. Superlatives such as an unprecedented landslide apply only as of the date cited. Expectations or intimations of “coming events” are those of the period. Historical hindsights are confined to the notes.
To my Mother and Father
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Publisher’s Note
Dedication
Prologue: 14–16 September 1901
THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION, 1901–1904
1: THE SHADOW OF THE CROWN
2: THE MOST DAMNABLE OUTRAGE
3: ONE VAST, SMOOTHLY RUNNING MACHINE
4: A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
5: TURN OF A RISING TIDE
6: TWO PILOTS ABOARD, AND ROCKS AHEAD
7: GENIUS, FORCE, ORIGINALITY
8: THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME
9: NO POWER OR DUTY
10: THE CATASTROPHE NOW IMPENDING
11: A VERY BIG AND ENTIRELY NEW THING
12: NOT A CLOUD ON THE HORIZON
13: THE BIG STICK
14: A CONDITION, NOT A THEORY
15: THE BLACK CRYSTAL
16: WHITE MAN BLACK AND BLACK MAN WHITE
17: NO COLOR OF RIGHT
18: THE MOST JUST AND PROPER REVOLUTION
19: THE IMAGINATION OF THE WICKED
20: INTRIGUE AND STRIVING AND CHANGE
21: THE WIRE THAT RAN AROUND THE WORLD
22: THE MOST ABSURD POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF OUR TIME
Interlude
THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION, 1905–1909
23: MANY BUDDING THINGS
24: THE BEST HERDER OF EMPERORS SINCE NAPOLEON
25: MERE FORCE OF EVENTS
26: THE TREASON OF THE SENATE
27: BLOOD THROUGH MARBLE
28: THE CLOUDS THAT ARE GATHERING
29: SUCH A FLEET AND SUCH A DAY
30: MORAL OVERSTRAIN
31: THE RESIDUARY LEGATEE
32: ONE LONG LOVELY CRACKLING ROW
Epilogue: 4 March 1909
Acknowledgments
Archives
Select Bibliography
Notes
Illustration Credits
About the Author
A Preview of Edmund Morris’s Colonel Roosevelt
PROLOGUE:
14–16 September 1901
Saturday
THEODORE ROOSEVELT became President of the United States without knowing it, at 2:15 in the morning of 14 September 1901. He was bouncing in a buckboard down the rainswept slopes of Mount Marcy, in the Adirondacks. Constitutionally, not so much as a heartbeat impeded the flow of power from his assassinated predecessor to himself. Practically, more than four hundred miles of mud and rails still separated him from William McKinley