Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [468]
6 On 14 January The New York Times, 15 Jan. 1907. TR also withdrew his order that dischargees be denied civil employment in the government.
7 a full investigation Authorized by the Senate on 22 Jan. 1907.
8 “this belief in” TR, Letters, vol. 5, 631.
9 Such an opportunity Ibid.; Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform, 46–47.
10 Judge Gary praised Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform, 46–47. See also TR, Letters, vol. 5, 563.
11 This was a Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform, 46–47.
12 a giant trust Strouse, Morgan, 469–70.
13 IF MEMBERS OF Except where otherwise indicated, the following account is based on a reminiscence by Samuel G. Blythe, ca. Jan. 1932, in HBP and a letter of Joseph Foraker, 29 Jan. 1907, qu. in Foraker’s own Notes of a Busy Life, vol. 2, 249–57. Other accounts appear in Arthur Wallace Dunn, Gridiron Nights (New York, 1915), 182–87; Watson, As I Knew Them, 70–73; and Clark, My Quarter Century, vol. 2, 443–49.
14 a table perpendicular The evening’s seating arrangements, confused in all written accounts, are mapped out by the Washington Herald, 27 Jan. 1907, in Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
15 All coons look Blythe reminiscence (HBP).
16 “I would like” Ibid.
17 “the mob” The Washington Post, 29 Jan. 1907.
18 Then, picking Ibid.; Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life, vol. 2, 251.
19 Senate debate on Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life, vol. 2, 250–51.
20 Diners from Blythe reminiscence (HBP). Watson, As I Knew Them, 71, says TR’s speech was “very coldly received.” Blythe’s earlier account (“[He] sat down amid much applause”) is supported by a similar statement in The Washington Post, 29 Jan. 1907.
21 “The hour for” Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life, vol. 2, 249. [“I take” inferred from Foraker’s “He took.”] Less primary accounts have Blythe saying, “Now is the time to bridge the bloody chasm.” Weaver, Senator, 126.
22 (the next course) All accounts agree that everyone remained hungry through the evening, but memories differ as to which courses did not arrive. According to The Washington Post, 29 Jan. 1907, there were four. In that case, diners ate just oysters and clear turtle soup. TR’s speech prevented consumption of the shad, and Foraker forestalled the filet de boeuf à la Gotham. The terrapin à la Maryland, squab stuffed with truffles, tomato salad, frozen strawberry bombe, and assorted cakes were enjoyed in menu form only. Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
23 “all persons” Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life, vol. 2, 251.
24 He noted that Ibid.
25 The noise subsided Ibid., 253. Champ Clark, writing thirteen years later, quotes TR as ranting in this rebuttal against the “bloody butchers” of Brownsville, who “ought to be hung” (My Quarter Century, vol. 2, 447). But he also recalls TR saying that “all talk on that subject was academic,” a remark that Foraker, in his letter of 29 Jan. 1907, ascribes to the President’s first speech. If TR had, at any point, used the language Clark quotes, Foraker would surely have noted it. Samuel Blythe states that TR’s tone during the latter part of the evening was “neither bellicose nor belligerent.” TR himself wrote on 27 Jan. that he had been “inclined to make a Berserker speech,” but had decided against it. Letters, vol. 5, 571.
26 “If the floor” Blythe reminiscence (HBP). See also Watson, As I Knew Them, 72–73.
27 “I call that” Lawrence, Memories of a Happy Life, 157–58.
28 a reluctant party Lane, Brownsville Affair, 141–42. Taft’s doughy receptivity to TR’s sharp-edged impress, mentioned elsewhere in the text, is indicated by a remark to his brother Charles on 1 Jan. 1907: “I am not responsible for the Brownsville order; but I think it entirely justified” (WHT).
29 By the time Foraker, I Would Live It Again, 281–88. Mrs. Foraker’s account of surveillance by the Secret Service, written in 1932, is unsupported by any other evidence, except that regarding Tillman in Dunn, From Harrison to Harding, vol. 2, 92. It is, nevertheless, detailed enough to give any reader pause.
30 Roosevelt showed TR, Letters, vol. 5, 559–60.
31 A VISITOR TO Everett Colby in