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By Root 3368 0

sense of the word, physiological and psychological. He was ruddy and excitable, flush-faced, susceptible to cuts and grazes. (“Theodore,” Edith remarked, after he collided with the Sagamore Hill windmill, “I wish you’d do your bleeding in the bathroom.”) The medieval humor sanguis expressed his character exactly: courageous, optimistic, affectionate, ardent. His apparent fatigue in the summer of 1906 was the result of overstimulation rather than overwork. For more than a year now, he had prevailed too easily against too many opponents, and found himself more than equal to the largest tasks. As a result, he had begun to receive regular boosts of journalistic hyperbole, intoxicating enough to contravene the Pure Food and Drug Act. “It is now universally recognized by experienced politicians of all parties,” The Washington Post reported, “… that he has more political acumen in one lobe of his brain than the whole militant tribe of American politicians have in their combined intelligence; that his political perception, so acute as to amount almost to divination, is superior to that of any American statesman of the present or immediate past era.”

With so much success in his system, and nothing—for the moment—to restrain him, Roosevelt was fast approaching a level of executive hypertension. His reaction, then, was more or less predictable on 16 August, when he received a telegram from the mayor and citizens of Brownsville, Texas, a depressed, dust-baked outpost on the Rio Grande:

At a few minutes before midnight on Monday, the 13th, a body of United States soldiers of Twenty-fifth United States infantry (colored), numbering between 20–30 men, emerged from the garrison inclosure, carrying their rifles and abundant supply of ammunition, also begun [sic] firing in town and directly into dwellings, offices, stores, and at police and citizens. During firing, one citizen, Frank Natus, was killed in his yard, and the lieutenant of police, who rode toward the firing, had his horse killed under him and was shot through the right arm, which has since been amputated at the elbow. After firing about 200 shots, the soldiers retired to their quarters. We find that threats have been made by them that they will repeat this outrage. We do not believe their officers can restrain them.… Our condition, Mr. President, is this: our women and children are terrorized and our men are practically under constant alarm and watchfulness. No community can stand this strain for more than a few days. We look to you for relief; we ask you to have the troops at once removed from Fort Brown and replaced by white soldiers.

Roosevelt ordered a full report on the incident from the War Department. Supplementary details were already appearing in the press. The black battalion—three companies minus a fourth on separate assignment—had arrived in Brownsville fewer than three weeks before, and racial tensions had been rising ever since. Soldiers had been denied access to local bars, shoved off sidewalks, beaten, and warned that their brains might be blown out. On the eve of the riot, the usual “large” Negro had tried to force himself on the usual “respectable” white woman. She could not describe his face, but had total recall of his khaki trousers.

As a result of warnings from downtown, Major Charles W. Penrose, the battalion’s white commander, had placed all his men under curfew the following night. Yet about fifteen of them had allegedly found a key to the barracks and gone on their murderous rampage downtown—even though a call to arms, begun while the bullets were still flying, found all soldiers present or accounted for. The culprits must have sprinted back as soon as they heard the bugle and snuck into line in time to holler “Present” when the roster was read.

Only one voice of authority expressed doubt as to such a scenario. Brigadier General William S. McCaskey, commander of the Army’s Southwestern Division, cautioned the War Department in a telegram received on 18 August:

CITIZENS OF BROWNSVILLE ENTERTAIN RACE HATRED TO AN EXTREME DEGREE … PROVOCATION GIVEN