Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [277]
Roosevelt, who made no small talk, immediately broached the subject. “I have had to finally abandon any attempts to do confidential business through the present British Ambassador, and must do it through someone else.”
As a member of the government Sir Mortimer Durand represented, Lee was at once put into a delicate diplomatic position. Roosevelt made him understand that something more important than protocol was at stake. The United States and Great Britain “ought to be in specially intimate relations,” but had reached a virtual standstill because of Durand’s imprisonment in his own culture. “He doesn’t begin to understand us.”
At present, fortunately, the international situation was quiet, and no difficult negotiations loomed between Washington and London. “I say this, however,” Roosevelt went on, “and cannot say it too emphatically, that if any difficult question does arise, your government will have to send over, specially, someone with whom we can work, to deal with it. This is not merely my view, but that of Root, and also of Taft—who will probably be the next President.”
Lee stayed at the White House for several days, during which time he was permitted to read the private correspondence Roosevelt had had with other ambassadors during the Portsmouth and Algeciras conferences. “I cannot help but deplore the gradual waning of British prestige and popularity over here, during the last three years,” the President said, knowing that his words would be repeated throughout Whitehall, “and the eclipse of the British Embassy by the French and German missions—both of which are exceptionally well filled.”
Edith Roosevelt contributed her own quiet propaganda over dinner. “You remember, of course, that in your time here, and until Sir Michael Herbert died, it was never spoken of in Washington except as ‘the Embassy.’ ” Lee remembered well, and with nostalgia. In 1899, he had been military attaché to Sir Julian Pauncefote, and engaged to marry an American heiress. It was largely to Ruth Lee’s fortune that he owed his current comfortable place in British society. Now Mrs. Roosevelt seemed to be suggesting that the pair of them could restore 1300 Connecticut Avenue to the center of Washington’s haut monde. “Hardly any of the right kind of people go there,” Edith pursued. “The Durands do practically nothing in the way of entertaining—and that little so poorly that people do not care to go.”
Lee left the White House with an official note from Roosevelt, practically appointing him to the British foreign service. He did not know that a letter recalling Sir Mortimer was already on its way. Sir Edward Grey had heard so many presidential complaints about Durand from Henry White that a more cerebral Ambassador was being looked for. This did not augur well for Lee—who in any case sat on the wrong side of the House of Commons.
Sir Mortimer was thunderstruck when Grey’s letter arrived on 21 October. Twice that night he came down to reopen his dispatch box “to assure myself that I had not dreamt the whole thing.” He had not. His diplomatic career was over.
Edith Roosevelt had chosen the right qualifier to describe the way the Durands entertained. Sir Mortimer was not a wealthy man, and for two years had spent dollars as if they were shillings, just to fulfill his mission. He had given up polo, books, hunting, and traded in his life-insurance policy. Even so, he was penniless.
“I must try to take it like a gentleman,” he wrote in his diary.
BY NOW, TAFT was back in Washington, having installed Charles E. Magoon as Provisional Governor of Cuba. The crisis that had so upset Roosevelt seemed to have been resolved without force, and with the happy acquiescence of most islanders. No date was yet set for Cuba libre segundo, but Taft and Magoon both understood that it had to occur before the President left office.
Senator Foraker was forced to acknowledge that the Administration had behaved honorably toward a sister republic. Perhaps now, he suggested