Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [392]
Historiographical Note: Few episodes in TR’s career have aroused as much controversy as the first Venezuela crisis of 1902. His secrecy about it as President, the apparent collusion of three governments in obliterating the record, and some inconsistencies in his later accounts have caused historians, beginning with Howard C. Hill in 1927, to accuse TR of faulty memory at best and boastful lies at worst. Alfred Vagts and the American diplomatic historian Dexter Perkins, apologists respectively for Nazi Germany and the New Deal, were particularly virulent in the 1930s, and contributed much to the decline in TR’s reputation. They never succeeded, however, in challenging his basic honesty. Even Henry Pringle, the most iconoclastic of Roosevelt biographers, felt compelled to believe him, after an interview with William Loeb in which the former secretary testified that he was present at the two meetings with von Holleben. Loeb also described them to Hermann Hagedorn. Seward W. Livermore in 1946 and Howard K. Beale in 1956 were the first modern scholars to uncover fresh facts in support of TR’s story. Since then, the historical pendulum has continued to swing his way. Edward Parsons wrote a telling essay in 1971, and Frederick W. Marks III in 1979 almost succeeded in proving an international conspiracy to deny that anything happened—when plainly, something very considerable did. The account given in this chapter is based on the author’s article “ ‘A Few Pregnant Days.’ ” See also Parsons, “German-American Crisis,” and, for an important conflicting view that TR’s ultimatum was delivered in late January/early February 1903, see Serge Ricard, “The Anglo-German Intervention in Venezuela and Theodore Roosevelt’s Ultimatum to the Kaiser: Taking a Fresh Look at an Old Enigma,” in Serge Ricard and Hélène Christol, eds., Anglo-Saxonism in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1899–1919 (Aixen-Provence, 1991), 66–77. While allowing for continuing scholarly disagreement about dates, William N. Tilchin writes, “By any reasonable standard, this controversy should now be considered resolved [in TR’s favor].” Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt, 32.
CHAPTER 14: A CONDITION, NOT A THEORY
1 We insist that “Mr. Dooley” in The Washington Post, 1 Mar. 1903.
2 “THE EQUILIBRIUM” Georges Picot qu. in Jean Jules Jusserand, What Me Befell: The Reminiscences of J. J. Jusserand (Boston, 1933), 219; see, e.g., Jean Jules Jusserand, The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare (1890), Piers Plowman (London, 1894); and A Literary History of the English People (London, 1895).
3 Equally clearly Jusserand, What Me Befell, 219; whenever TR’s name was mentioned, Cambon would tap his head significantly. Storer, In Memoriam, 38–39.
4 French foreign-policy Paris correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, 19 Oct. 1902. For an overview of the scant French literature on TR, see Serge Ricard, “The French Historiography of Theodore Roosevelt,” Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, summer 1984.
5 “the proper policing” Hay had cabled TR’s refusal to arbitrate to Herbert Bowen, the American Minister in Caracas, on 27 Dec. 1902. Although tempted, TR had declined on Hay’s advice, partly out of a desire to help out the court, which was atrophying through lack of business. Livermore, “Theodore Roosevelt”; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt.
“A great number of Frenchmen and Europeans are happy to join with me in expressing to you their gratitude for the generous, unyielding firmness you have displayed in support of international justice,” a Hague delegate wrote. “The initiative of the United States, compared with the paralysis of Europe, is a sign of the times” (Baron d’Estournelles de Constant to TR, 27 Dec. 1902 [TRP]).