Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [283]
ALL IN ALL, this was not a propitious moment for Theodore Roosevelt to be officially informed that he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work in ending the Russo-Japanese War. “I am profoundly moved and touched …,” he cabled the chairman of the Nobel Committee. “What I did I was able to accomplish only as the representative of the Nation of which for the time being I am President.”
He added that, upon reflection, he had decided to donate the prize money—almost thirty-seven thousand dollars—to “a foundation to establish at Washington a permanent Industrial Peace Committee.”
To Kermit, he explained that after consultation with Edith, he could not accept as a personal gift a sum of money earned as a public figure. “But I hated to come to the decision, because I very much wisht for the extra money to leave to all you children.”
SIR MORTIMER DURAND’S last public view of Roosevelt occurred at a Gridiron dinner on 8 December. He thought that the President’s laughter seemed strained, and noticed a flash of anger when somebody joked about a possible third term.
“Now don’t let us have any damn nonsense,” Roosevelt said, raising a hand to quiet the crowd. “When I made that declaration on the night of my election, I knew what I was about.”
He continued with his speech, his voice constantly breaking into falsetto. Durand studied the bulldog profile, the bared teeth, and strange neck scar.
It is not beautiful, but there is nevertheless an undeniable strength about it—It is a vehement, rather vulgar strength—and some allowance must be made for the divinity that doth hedge a king—but there is strength of a kind. He is not quite a gentleman—but he is fitted for success in the world.
A good motto for him, Durand thought, would be Rem facias rem, si possis recte, si non quocunque modo rem—“The thing, get the thing, fairly if possible, if not, then however it can be gotten.” Roosevelt believed himself to be righteous, and his nature was to believe things with such passion that he took no prisoners when contradicted. “I regard him as a man who might at any time be extremely dangerous, for neither his temper nor his honesty can be trusted.”
As if in proof, Roosevelt the righteous attacked on 19 December, with a special message to the Senate totally upholding the Blocksom report. “Scores of eyewitnesses” in Brownsville had established beyond any doubt that “lawless and murderous” Negro soldiers had “leaped over the walls from the barracks and hurried through the town,” blasting away with their guns “at whomever they saw moving.” The testimony of those who watched in horror was “conclusive,” and there was the corroborative evidence of Army-issue “shattered bullets, shells and clips.”
As to the shared guilt of all the men he had discharged, there was “no question” of their complicity in “shielding those who took part in the original conspiracy of murder.” Roosevelt searched, rather too hastily, for words to communicate the dastardliness of their crime. “A blacker,” he wrote, “never stained the annals of our Army.”
He used his strongest language in repudiating Foraker’s assertion that the dishonorable discharge was not a legitimate punishment. The only thing wrong with it was that it was “utterly inadequate” in this case: “The punishment meet for mutineers and murderers such as those guilty of the Brownsville assault is death; and a punishment only less severe ought to be meted out to those who have aided and abetted mutiny and murder and treason by refusing to help in their detection.”
Foraker responded on the floor of the Senate with a speech that limited itself to facts. He said that only eight, not “scores,” of witnesses claimed to have seen Negro soldiers rioting. He demonstrated the invalidity of every precedent and legal argument Roosevelt and Taft had cited for the discharges. He looked for hard evidence of a conspiracy, found none,