Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [453]
149 “We Americans” Qu. in ibid., 142.
150 Roosevelt seemed to know TR was receiving regular briefs from the reporter John Callan O’Laughlin, a member of his secret du roi with good connections in Portsmouth. See Dennett, Roosevelt, 252n.
151 He asked Rosen Korostovetz, Diary, 91–92; Dennett, Roosevelt, 252. TR was unaware, as he talked, that Nicholas II had that day summoned the Duma (national assembly)—the first truly democratic step taken by any Russian monarch.
152 Rosen, politely masking The ambassador kept his anger for later (Rosen, Forty Years, vol. 1, 104; Korostovetz, Diary, 99).
153 “If it is our” Qu. in Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 299. TR’s proposal was rejected outright by Nicholas II (Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 142). Throughout the conference, the Russians felt they were being leaned on by TR, because the Japanese were rigidly silent about his equal pressure on them. He compared his own attitude as being that of “a very polite but also very insistent Dutch uncle.” TR, Letters, vol. 5, 1.
154 On Monday, the President Dennett, Roosevelt, 253.
155 “I earnestly ask” TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1307–8.
156 “not an inch” Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 138.
157 The cable went TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1306–8.
158 “I think I ought” Ibid., 1308–9.
159 Then, putting TR to Jules Jusserand, 21 Aug. 1905 (JJ). In a handwritten postscript, TR adds: “I have received a couple of brand-new pipe dreams from my constant correpondent [Wilhelm II].”
160 “I cannot” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 707.
161 THE SIGHT OF Sergei Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 145.
162 “Russia is not” George Meyer to TR, 23 Aug. 1905, qu. in TR, Letters, vol. 5, 5–6. See ibid., 6–9, for more cables to and from TR during the crisis period.
163 On the same day For an indication of TR’s frenzied activity in this period (“I am having my hair turned gray”), see Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 298–302.
164 Another year of war TR, Letters, vol. 5, 1312–13.
165 The letter was wired Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 301–2.
166 ON FRIDAY, 25 August For more on TR’s famous dive, see Douglas, The Many-Sided Roosevelt, 104–5; Hagedorn, Roosevelt Family, 226–29.
167 cigarette after cigarette Smalley, Anglo-American Memories, 399. This dramatic story was told by Witte after the conference. Witte wrote later that he had spent the previous night “sobbing and praying.” Witte, Memoirs, vol. 2, 440.
168 Rumors spread over the weekend Korostovetz, Diary, 102; Dennett, Roosevelt, 260.
169 On Tuesday, 29 August Korostovetz, Diary, 107–8.
170 Komura sat Dennett, Roosevelt, 261.
171 HENRY J. FORMAN This incident occurred on 10 Aug. 1905. Forman, “So Brief a Time,” 29–31.
172 Then Roosevelt was Ibid., 30.
173 “the best herder” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 719.
174 “It’s a mighty” Harold Phelps Stokes, “Yale, the Portsmouth Treaty, and Japan,” privately printed memoir, 1948 (TRC).
CHAPTER 25: MERE FORCE OF EVENTS
1 Ye see, th’ fact Dunne, Mr. Dooley’s Observations, 97.
2 “Accept my congratulations” Qu. by TR in Letters, vol. 5, 9. For the plaudits of other foreign government officials, see Benson J. Lossing, Our Country (New York, 1908), vol. 8, 2084–87.
Chronological Note: On 13 Sept. 1905, in a development that greatly amused TR, Nicholas II called for a second Hague Peace Conference. TR asked the Russian Ambassador if this meant that His Majesty wished to have it appear that he (not TR in 1904) had conceived of calling a second conference. When Baron Rosen answered yes, TR told him that he was delighted to have the Tsar take the initiative in the matter, and that he would heartily back him up. While relieved that it would not fall to him, once again, to “appear as a professional peace advocate,” the President did find a “rather grim irony” in the fact that the man who had so prolonged the Russo-Japanese War was now taking the lead in a “proposition toward world peace” (TR, Letters, vol. 5, 25–26, 30–31). The Second Hague Conference met on 15 June 1907.
3 The Mikado’s enigmatic TR, Letters, vol. 5, 8–9. After the Portsmouth Peace Treaty was