Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [408]
12 He would receive Jusserand, What Me Befell, 240.
Chronological Note: The Post Office investigation, quietly ordered by Postmaster General Henry C. Payne six months before, had become a press sensation during TR’s Western trip, in part because of rumors that its conclusions would embarrass certain high-placed veterans of the McKinley Administration. TR was confident that his own Administration would escape unscathed (the charges were more than three years old), but he was annoyed by editorial suggestions that Payne was trying to delay and downplay the investigation. The Postmaster General had, in fact, been overeager to cooperate with reporters at twice-daily briefings. Even TR complained that Payne “talked too much,” and was inviting “a newspaper trial” before all the evidence was in (James Garfield diary, 17 June 1903 [JRG]).
To that end, the President prevailed upon Payne’s chief investigator, Assistant Postmaster General Joseph L. Bristow, to release at least some preliminary findings. He said he “wished nothing but the truth,” and “cared not a rap who was hit.” Bristow hesitated, having turned up proof that Senator Mark Hanna’s closest aide at the Republican National Committee, Perry C. Heath, had used the District of Columbia Post Office as a clearinghouse for political favors.
TR promised to “protect” Bristow, and an interim report was released on 18 June. It gave Payne enough ammunition to dismiss four bureau heads, and accept many subordinate resignations. Hanna remained silent, and Heath left for a long vacation in Japan.
TR resisted renewed Democratic calls for Payne’s resignation, praising him as “a singularly sweet-tempered and upright man.” (He might have added that Payne had influenced his selection as McKinley’s running mate in 1900.) On 22 June, he announced the appointment of two respected special counsels, Holmes Conrad and Charles Joseph Bonaparte, to assist Bristow in his probe. Bonaparte was later to become an important figure in the Roosevelt Administration.
For more details of the Post Office scandal, see Dorothy Canfield Fowler, The Cabinet Politicians: The Postmasters General, 1829–1909 (New York, 1943), 273–77; James Garfield diary, 1903, passim (JRG); William W. Wight, Henry Clay Payne: A Life (Milwaukee, 1907), 123–41; A. Bower Sageser, Joseph L. Bristow: Kansas Progressive (Lawrence, Kans., 1968); Washington Evening Star, 18 June 1903; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 494–99 and passim.
13 John Hay cautioned John Hay to William Loeb, 7 June 1903 (TRP); DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 222. The Colombian Congress had not actually convened since 1898, Marroquín having seized power in 1900 by deposing another dictator, M. A. Sanclemente. TR therefore never believed that he was dealing with a republic. “[Marroquín] embodied in his own person the entire government of Colombia.” TR, Autobiography, 532–34.
14 There was no Story of Panama, 339; Foreign Relations 1903, 143. See also Marks, Velvet on Iron, 100–101. Not one of the letters Hay sent TR on tour mentions Colombia or the treaty, although he covers lesser matters conscientiously (TRP). Hay did, however, confide his forebodings to Mark Hanna. 14 May 1903 (TD).
15 Hay, a poet’s Elihu Root interviewed by Philip C. Jessup, 23 Jan. 1934 (ER); Jusserand, What Me Befell, 262, 264–65; Thompson, Party Leaders, 280–81; Mrs. Dewey diary, 21 Mar. 1905 (GD); Bemis, American Secretaries of State, vol. 9, 116–17.
16 Roosevelt moved Washington Evening Star, 8 June 1903; Jules Jusserand sagely observed that Hay, a man of “more vivacity than force,” was “better able to banter than decide.” What Me Befell, 265.
17 THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT Foreign Relations 1903, 146.
18 Hay acted Thompson, Party Leaders, 261–62; John Hay to George Smalley, 10 July 1903 (TD); Robinson, My Brother, 9.
19 At sixty-four Hay portrait file (FBJ); John Hay profiled by James Creelman in New York World, 10 May 1903.
20 The Secretary was Ibid. Infinitely complex, graceful and cruel, warmhearted yet aloof, Hay awaits