Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [320]
Knowing them both to be Protestant, he ventured an anti-Catholic remark during the automobile ride to Christ Episcopal Church. Roosevelt gave him a quizzical look.
“Archie, when I discuss the Catholic Church, I am reminded that it is the only church which has ever turned an Eastern race into a Christian people. Is that not so?”
Forty small boys saluted as the President led the way into the little church on Shore Road. Captain Butt joined him and Mrs. Winthrop in the front family pew, while Edith, Ethel, and Kermit sat behind. Butt was intrigued to see that Roosevelt, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, bowed his head in prayer, “just as all good Episcopalians do,” before the service started. He needed no prayer book, singing all the plainsong chants and the “Te Deum” by heart. He sang every hymn too, changing sometimes to a lower octave, somewhat surprising for a man whose speaking voice broke so often into falsetto. His only concession to the faith of his fathers, so far as Butt could see, was a refusal to bow his head during the Creed and again at the Gloria. “I came to the conclusion before the service was over that the President was at heart an Episcopalian, whatever his earlier training might have been.”
Asked afterward what his favorite hymns were, Roosevelt listed “How Firm a Foundation,” followed by “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “Jerusalem the Golden,” and “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.”
He indulged in no sports that afternoon, explaining to Butt that although Sabbath observance meant little to him personally, it meant a lot to many Americans, and he felt an obligation, as President, to respect such common beliefs.
Butt’s last day at Sagamore Hill, Tuesday, 28 July, was the eve of William Howard Taft’s long-awaited acceptance speech in Cincinnati. Roosevelt again revealed that he was worried about his candidate. He sensed a general “lack of enthusiasm” for the Republican ticket, in contrast to Bryan’s gathering strength. The Commoner still impressed him.
“And he is not a charlatan, either: he is a splendid politician and a wonderful leader. He has met with nothing but defeat so far, and yet he is stronger today than ever and will be the hardest man to beat, whatever the papers may say to the contrary.”
President and aide sat that night on the porch in a flood of moonlight, talking about many things. Roosevelt confessed another fear, which he had entertained for the past year and a half: that of war with Japan. He did not think it would come soon, but he was sure it would one day.
“No one dreads war as I do, Archie.… The little I have seen of it, and I have seen only a little, leaves a horrible picture in my mind.”
The surest way to postpone it, he said, was to prepare for it as much as possible, and show evidence of a steely willingness to fight. That was why he had authorized the Great White Fleet to proceed across the Pacific, stopping en route at Yokohama.
TAFT’S SPEECH SEEMED to bear out Roosevelt’s belief that he intended “no backward step” from the policies of the current Administration. He pledged himself “to clinch what has already been accomplished at the White House,” and said that his chief work would be “to complete and perfect the machinery by which the President’s policies may be maintained.”
With that, he returned to Hot Springs to complete and perfect the machinery of his golf game, which to the consternation of Republican strategists interested him much more than politics.
Now began what the veteran Philadelphia Press reporter Henry L. Stoddard called “a silent