Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [388]
13 Dec. 1901: Germany notifies the United States that she might have to “coerce” Venezuela and make a “temporary occupation” of her ports. 17 Dec. 1901: TR issues an executive order making Culebra, Puerto Rico, a naval base “in case of sudden war.” Jan. 1902: Navy Department advises TR of a plan for emergency deployment of warships in the Caribbean; Dewey warns that Venezuela situation looks dangerous, works out defense strategy centering on Virgin Islands; TR redoubles efforts to buy the islands from Denmark; German Embassy in Washington notifies Berlin of these developments; Wilhelmstrasse strategists refocus their contingency war plans on Long Island; Navy reports German espionage team in Port of Spain, Trinidad. February: State Department asks information on Venezuelan landing places and roads; TR appoints young, aggressive William H. Moody to be Secretary of the Navy. May: Naval intelligence reports German cruiser skulking in Venezuelan waters. June: Forthcoming assembly of “greatest fighting fleet in U.S. history” announced in world press; TR asks Dewey to command it; State Department perfects plan for defense of Venezuelan coast. July: Moody orders a similar plan providing for “offense”; TR urges Speck von Sternburg, in Europe, to visit White House: “I have very much I want to say to you” (19 July [TRP]); Dewey takes personal role in plotting maneuvers; Navy Department informed that TR is “deeply interested” in same; Germany informs Great Britain of willingness for joint reclamation measures against Venezuela. August: Imperialist expansion pressures increase on Wilhelmstrasse. 24 Sept.: TR has strategic conference with Dewey, and tells him “in strictest confidence—what had better not be written now” (Mrs. Dewey diary [GD]). 27 Oct.: TR presses for new naval bases in Cuba; two days later, he sounds out Balfour on the vulnerability of Dutch Caribbean colonies and invites Strachey to make “a flying visit” to the White House. All these activities, implying an extraordinary feeling of gathering crisis, predate the Anglo-German agreement to coerce Venezuela on 12 Nov. 1902.
71 Meanwhile, the United States Livermore, “Theodore Roosevelt.”
72 Finally, on 1 Washington Evening Star, 1 Dec. 1902.
CHAPTER 13: THE BIG STICK
1 One good copper “Mr. Dooley” in The Washington Post, 1 Feb. 1903.
2 ON THE MORNING Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 224–26, 416; in 1902, the West Wing was seen as providing “temporary quarters” for White House staff, until Congress should take up the question of “a permanent, adequate, and thoroughly dignified office for the Chief Executive.” Gilson Willets, Inside History of the White House (New York, 1906), 69.
3 on his right TR’s Cabinet Room is now the Roosevelt Room. The Oval Office was not built until after he left the White House. The following description is taken from photographs in TRC and from William Bayard Hale, A Week in the White House (New York, 1908), 9–11.
4 The room’s main A famous 1903 photograph of TR shows him with the globe in this position.
5 There was nothing much TR, Letters, vol. 8, 1108; TR to Grover Cleveland, 26 Dec. 1902, ibid., vol. 3, 398.
6 Congress was back Washington Evening Star, 1 Dec. 1902.
7 For two and a Ibid. When the President’s Message was published the following day, its reception was equivocal. The Harrisburg Telegraph, clarion of Old Guard Republicanism, called it “one of the most conservative documents ever issued by the White House,” while The Washington Post (Dem.) rejoiced that every line of the Message was “progressive.”
8 By 4 December New York American, 4 Dec. 1902. The Washington newspapers’ front-page coverage of the maneuvers was as warlike as TR could wish. On 5 Dec. 1902, as the “white” half of Dewey’s fleet prepared to engage the “blue” half, the Washington Evening Star excitedly announced, ENEMY PUTS TO SEA.
9 On 7 December Hill, Roosevelt and the Caribbean, 16; TR, Letters, vol. 8, 1102;