Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [421]
77 Whatever happened TR, Autobiography, 526. TR told Jules Jusserand around this time that he would force canal construction “even if war resulted.” Jules Jusserand to Théophile Delcassé, 17 Nov. 1903 (JJ). See also Friedlander, “Reassessment.”
78 ALL DAY LONG Amador had been warned of the troopship’s probable arrival by Governor Obaldía. McCullough, Path Between the Seas, 362.
79 In a series Story of Panama, 382.
80 The coordinated grace Nikol and Holbrook, “Naval Operations”; Bunau-Varilla, Panama, 334.
81 the junta had postponed Story of Panama, 382.
82 Now the plot was The Governor’s acquiescence was taken for granted, since he lived in Amador’s house. Clapp, Forgotten First Citizen, 314; Story of Panama, 385; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, 369.
83 General Esteban Huertas Huertas has been disparaged by historians because he accepted a bribe of sixty-five thousand dollars, wore a large number of feathers, and stood not much taller than his own sword. But he was strong-willed and principled enough to give the junta many anxious moments. See DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 321–22, 331.
84 Huertas’s battalion Ibid., 337, 327, 307–8, 277–79; Story of Panama, 382–84.
85 PREVENT LANDING Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, 361–62. The Dixie received an identical cable.
86 A similar order Story of Panama, 383; Foreign Relations 1903, 236; McCullough, Path Between the Seas, 364.
87 He was awakened The following timings of TR’s day are taken from news items covering his trip in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
88 Commander Hubbard sent John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP); Story of Panama, 380, 387, 430
89 agreed that at all Story of Panama, 388; Shaler had already transferred most of his available passenger cars to the other end of the line. McCullough, Path Between the Seas, 363.
90 Hubbard’s problem was John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP); Story of Panama, 430. The number of tiradores was underestimated in some official communications during the day.
91 Simultaneously, Roosevelt Washington Evening Star, 3 Nov. 1903.
92 Another, very short Fletcher, “Canal Site Diplomacy,” 166; Story of Panama, 340–41. The author assumes that the Panamanian jungle was as luxuriant in Nov. 1903 as it was when he crossed the Isthmus on this same railroad in 1980.
Note: Señora Amador, wife of the revolutionary leader, has been credited with the idea of separating Tovar from his troops. But Humphrey, “History of the Revolution,” states that he suggested it to Ricardo Arango when plotting the revolution in early October.
93 THE PRESIDENT VOTED New York Sun, 4 Nov. 1903; Kerr, Bully Father, 134.
94 After about a half Kerr, Bully Father, 135. The “desolate emotions” referred to are conveyed not just between the lines of the letters TR wrote about this visit, but in his idiosyncratic use of the word homesickness. Since childhood, when a photograph of Edith Carow possessed him with “homesickness and longing for the past,” he tended to conflate both emotions into a general sense of temps perdu. Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 54.
95 AS ROOSEVELT DID SO Hubbard received his orders (misdirected to another boat in Colón harbor) at 10:30 A.M. TR came down from Sagamore Hill around that time, and left Oyster Bay at 11:15 A.M. John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP).
96 The tiradores did The Washington Post, 4 Nov. 1903; John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP). Hubbard’s cable, described as “mutilated” in Story of Panama, 289, appears to have been garbled in transmission. See Nikol and Holbrook, “Naval Operations.”
97 A certain lack Story of Panama, 390; John Hubbard to William H. Moody, 8 Nov. 1903 (TRP). The junta had decided to advance the time of revolution to five o’clock that afternoon. Washington Evening Star, 4 Nov. 1903; DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 325.
98 He cast his mind TR, Letters, vol. 3, 642. The catalog of TR’s reading in the following pages is taken from his letter to Butler, reproduced in Letters, vol. 3, 641–44.
99 Sophocles’ Seven