Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [343]
69 VIVE LE ROI William Sturgis Bigelow and George Cabot Lodge to TR, 14 Sept. 1901 (TRP).
70 Kohlsaat followed him Herman H. Kohlsaat, From McKinley to Harding: Personal Recollections of Our Presidents (New York, 1923), 96–97; Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding (New York, 1922), vol. 1, 135. Wilson, Professor of Jurisprudence and Politics at Princeton, was on his way home from Rosseau Falls, Ont.
Biographical Note: According to one of TR’s classmates, Wilson was an “ardent” admirer of TR as early as 1883. Albert Shaw, “Reminiscences of Theodore Roosevelt,” ms. (AS). Scattered references in Wilson’s early papers indicate that the two men first crossed paths on the academic lecture circuit on 20 Nov. 1890. By the middle of the decade they were corresponding; they appeared on the same platform at a Reform Rally in Baltimore, 3 Mar. 1896 (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link [Princeton, N.J., 1966], vol. 9, 483–85; The Baltimore Sun, 4 Mar. 1896). Surviving correspondence dates from April 1897 (Wilson, Papers, vol. 10, 238). Wilson expressed public admiration for TR (“This popular, this gifted man”) at Harvard on 13 Oct. 1899. TR was equally complimentary about Wilson. As Governor, he hoped the professor would visit him in Albany. “There is much I should like to talk over with you.” In 1900, Wilson consulted TR about his appointment to the chair of politics at Princeton. He valued TR’s advice “as showing … a very sane, academic side of him, not known by everybody … but constituting his hope of real and lasting eminence.” On 18 July 1901, TR invited Wilson, as a man of “constructive scholarship and administrative ability” (TR, Letters, vol. 3, 277), to stay at Oyster Bay. He wished advice “on how to arouse our young college students … to take an active interest in politics.” TR was musing on an academic career himself at this point, and had a scheme to establish student reform committees at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Wilson came, saw, and was conquered by TR’s ebullience. Afterward, he praised the visit as “most delightful and refreshing” (Wilson, Papers, vol. 11, 253, 277, 352, 513–16; vol. 12, 164, 172).
71 “I am going to make” Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 97–98, 63; New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901.
72 “John Hay is” New York Herald, 15 Sept. 1901; Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 97–98.
73 Compounding the flattery Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 99. The ultraconservative Gage was indeed nervous about having to serve under TR. Hay to Henry Adams, 19 Sept. 1901 (TD).
74 My dear Roosevelt Hay to TR, 19 Sept. 1901 (TRP). During the course of the day, TR also received a letter from Henry Cabot Lodge, the controlling power of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, beseeching him, “Above all, do nothing which could cause the retirement of Secretary Hay.” Francis E. Leupp, The Man Roosevelt: A Portrait Sketch (New York, 1904), 54.
75 16 SEPTEMBER DAWNED The New York Times and New York Sun, 17 Sept. 1901; film, “President McKinley’s Funeral Cortege at Buffalo,” Library of Congress; Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 100.
76 THE FUNERAL TRAIN Catalogs illustrating these beautiful vehicles can be seen in GBC.
77 Reporters were assigned The New York Times and New York Sun, 17 Sept. 1901; Kohlsaat, From McKinley, 100ff.; TR scrapbooks (TRP). Loeb was subsequently appointed assistant secretary to the President. TR’s decision to retain Cortelyou over him struck many Rooseveltians as opportunistic and unfeeling. McKinleyites, however, were delighted. The well-connected Cortelyou helped smooth out many transition problems between the two camps, and Loeb eventually got his delayed preferment. For a biographical sketch of Loeb, see “The Perfect Stenographer” in Louis W. Koening, The Invisible Presidency (New York, 1960).
78 At 8:57 The following narrative of TR’s twelve-hour, 420-mile journey to Washington is based on the firsthand observations of newspapermen who rode on the funeral train, principally Joseph I. C. Clarke (New York Herald) and H. H. Kohlsaat (Chicago Times-Herald). Other accounts appeared in The New York Times,