Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [404]
47 On the flatland Burroughs, Camping and Tramping, 12.
48 At whistle-stops “Comment” scrapbook.
49 (“If I might”) TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 333; TR qu. in Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Notes and Anecdotes of Many Years (New York, 1925), 117.
50 Indistinguishable as TR, Letters, vol. 3, 554.
51 THE “ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 328; TR, Works, vol. 4, 228–29. For TR’s formal visit to the site of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis, see, e.g., Collier’s Weekly, 16 May 1903, and Jusserand, What Me Befell, 231ff.
52 (“Three cheers for”) TR, Letters, vol. 3, 425; Robbins, Our Landed Heritage, 333.
53 In Iowa’s fecund New York Sun, 29 Apr. 1903; Des Moines Register and Leader, 29 Apr. 1903.
54 “There were two” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 554–55. In exchange for the badger, TR gave the little girls a silver-and-gold medal he had been presented in Chicago. Lindsay Denison in New York Sun, 4 May 1903; Des Moines Register and Leader, 8 June 1903.
55 The baby badger TR, Works, vol. 3, 325–6; as the journey proceeded, Josiah was joined by two bears, a lizard, a horned toad, and a horse. TR, Letters, vol. 3, 555.
56 NEW MEXICO TERRITORY Lindsay Denison in New York Sun, 6 May 1903.
57 “Why don’t the” New York World, 7 May 1903; Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 16 June 1903 (JJ).
58 “his ancestors” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 557.
59 In the plaza TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 366; “Comment” scrapbook; photographs in Leslie’s Weekly, 28 May 1903.
Chronological Note: TR had touched on the subject of conservation before, as Governor of New York and in his First Annual Message as President. Just before leaving Washington on 1 Apr., he had made a private speech to the Society of American Foresters at Gifford Pinchot’s house (TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 249–57). But his post-Yellowstone utterances at Grand Canyon on 5 May 1903 marked the first time he pronounced the gospel in plain language to the people. As will be seen, TR became increasingly obsessed with the theme of conservation as he traveled through the Southwest and California.
60 “I don’t exactly” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 557. The Grand Canyon was not yet a national park in 1903. Technically a “forest reserve,” it was threatened by mining and real-estate interests.
61 “Leave it as” TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 1, 370. For the aesthetic reaction of a later President to the Grand Canyon, see Franklin D. Roosevelt: “It looks dead. I like my green trees at Hyde Park better.” Fox, John Muir and His Legacy, 199.
62 “I felt as” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 557–58; TR, Letters to Kermit, 38.
63 Fifteen hundred children Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 16 June 1903 (JJ); Thomas, “Roosevelt Among the People,” 212–13. All TR’s speeches in California have been published in California Addresses by President Roosevelt (San Francisco, 1903).
64 “this plain tilled” California Addresses, 24. Later, at Santa Barbara, TR exclaimed, “I do not know that I ever before so thoroughly understood the phrase, ‘A garden of the Lord.’ ” Ibid., 36.
65 Amid all the TR wrote that he liked to see California girls and women riding unself-consciously astride (Kerr, Bully Father, 116). Every speech he made through 12 May exulted in irrigation, fertility, and beauty.
66 For four hours Ironically, for all this hydrological and horticultural display, Los Angeles was just beginning to realize that its swelling population and falling aquifer were incompatible. See Reisner, Cadillac Desert, 65ff., for how this realization led to the construction of the Owens River Aqueduct, endorsed by TR.
67 THE SIGHT