Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [448]
40 The French Ambassador Both the French and British governments shared TR’s fear of war if the Kaiser was not thrown a sacrificial lamb. Delcassé was succeeded on 6 June 1904 by the less imperialistic Maurice Rouvier. For the text of TR’s memo (which he shared with Jusserand), see TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1256–57. Larsen, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Moroccan Crisis,” chap. 3, provides the most detailed account of TR’s parallel negotiations in 1905. For TR’s own record, see TR, Letters, vol. 6, 231–51.
41 Roosevelt made a point Jusserand, What Me Befell, 302–3.
42 “eight guinea-pig power” TR, Letters, vol. 5, 242.
43 A summons to Sir H. Mortimer Durand diary, 18 June 1904 (HMD).
44 “He told me” Sir H. Mortimer Durand to Lord Lansdowne, 16 June 1904 (HMD).
45 (“You are the only”) TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1203.
46 Lodge, in turn Sir H. Mortimer Durand to Lord Lansdowne, 16 June 1904 (HMD). TR could not resist giving a hint to what he was doing when he told the graduating class at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., on 21 June: “No man in public position can, under penalty of forfeiting the right to the respect of those whose regard he most values, fail as the opportunity comes to do all that in him lies for peace.” Transcript in TRB.
47 Durand noted Ibid. For TR’s two June “posterity letters” to Henry Cabot Lodge, describing his activities, see TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1202–6 and 1221–33.
48 JUSSERAND HAD NO Jusserand, What Me Befell, 302–3; John Hay to TR, 16 June 1904 (TD).
49 “I suppose nothing” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1216.
50 In the mid-Atlantic John Hay diary, 13 June 1904 (JH). The vision of Lincoln prompted Hay to write his own epitaph. See Thayer, John Hay, vol. 2, 408–9.
51 Roosevelt was in TR joked to Hay that “the more I saw of the Tsar and the Kaiser, the better I liked the United States Senate.” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1286.
52 As they talked John Hay to Clara Hay, 20 June 1904 (TD).
Chronological Note: On 28 June, TR attended the twenty-fifth reunion of the Harvard Class of 1880. For an excellent account, see Marian L. Peabody, “Theodore Roosevelt Visits Cambridge: Reminiscences of His Hostess’s Daughter,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 3 May 1958.
53 NEWS OF THE TR reacted to Hay’s death with genuine grief. But he made clear that he mourned him as “a beloved friend,” and not as a member of the Administration. “For two years he has done little or nothing in the State Dept. What I didn’t do myself wasn’t done at all” (TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1260—or, for harsher criticism, 1271). He attended the Secretary’s funeral in Cleveland on 5 July, accompanied by past and present Cabinet officers. In a strange scene afterward, when the presidential party was picnicking on a railside lawn at Wheelock’s Switch [Ohio] en route east, TR suddenly rose to his knees “and asked God’s mercy” on Hay’s soul. The Cabinet knelt with him for a few minutes of silence under the trees. The New York Times, 7 July 1905.
54 Simultaneously, William Washington Evening Star, 1 and 2 July 1905; Longworth, Crowded Hours, 69–70.
55 “Elihu,” the President Emily Stewart notes, 1905 (PCJ).
56 Root sat silent Dunne, “Remembrances”; Elihu Root, interviewed by Emily Stewart, 13 Sept. 1932 (PCJ). According to Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1, 449, Root sacrificed an estimated $200,000 in annual income to become Secretary of State at $8,000.
57 He exchanged glances Emily Stewart notes, 1905 (PCJ). This conversation took place on the presidential train after Hay’s funeral in Cleveland.
58 ROOSEVELT WAS QUITE Elihu Root, interviewed by Emily Stewart, 13 Sept. 1932 (PCJ).
59 Apart from an Japan declined TR’s suggestion of an armistice. Dennett, Roosevelt, 205.
60 A sense gathered Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 83. TR did not realize that Britain needed Japan’s goodwill in a secret attempt to strengthen the Anglo-Japanese Alliance vis-à-vis India and Korea. The allies were soon to sign a revised agreement protecting British interests in the former and Japanese