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interviews with McDaniel, whose reliability was vouched for, established that birds matching the ones TR described had been sighted on the farm six days earlier. Lindsey, “Was Theodore Roosevelt?” subjects TR’s claims to exhaustive scrutiny and concludes that he was indeed the last qualified observer of wild passenger pigeons. Nine years later, at the height of the Great War in Europe, TR wrote: “The extermination of the passenger pigeon means that mankind was just so much poorer; exactly as in the case of the destruction of the cathedral at Rheims.” TR, Works, vol. 4, 227.

CHAPTER 29: SUCH A FLEET AND SUCH A DAY

1 “D’ye think?” “Mr. Dooley” in Chicago Record-Herald, 20 Oct. 1907.

2 The agreeable James R. Reckner “ ‘I Had Great Confidence in the Fleet’: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet,” in Naylor et al., Theodore Roosevelt, 383. Elihu Root remained TR’s principal foreign-policy adviser, but the multilingual, much-traveled Meyer was the Administration’s expert on the social aspects of diplomacy. On this date, Root was in Clinton, N.Y., recovering from illness. Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 2, 23.

3 “Nothing during my” TR, Letters, vol. 5, 671–72.

4 calling for war Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 2, 23.

5 Elihu Root did Ibid.

6 Roosevelt was not so Ibid., 6–23; Dorwart, Office of Naval Intelligence, 83; TR, Letters, vol. 7, 393. See also Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, 111; Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 2, 24.

7 The Office of Dorwart, Office of Naval Intelligence, 83.

8 He had asked Reckner, “ ‘I Had Great Confidence,’ ” 383–84.

9 COLONEL W. W. Ibid., 383.

10 Roosevelt said Ibid.; Wimmel, Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet, 220. See also TR, Letters, vol. 5, 729–30, and James R. Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet (Annapolis, 1988).

11 The idea was Wimmel, Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet, 220; Dewey to TR, qu. in Jusserand, What Me Befell, 308. See also TR, Letters, vol. 5, 725–26, and Louis Morton, “Military and Naval Preparations for the Defense of the Philippines During the War Scare of 1907,” Military Affairs 13.2 (1949).

12 Wall Street’s stock Strouse, Morgan, 564–65; Adler, Jacob H. Schiff, 45.

13 He had private information TR, Autobiography, 564.

14 He issued Reckner, “ ‘I Had Great Confidence,’ ” 384.

15 When someone asked Wimmel, Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet, 221.

16 Metcalf was authorized Reckner, “ ‘I Had Great Confidence,’ ” 385, claims that TR bungled the announcement, first by allowing it to be leaked, then by issuing a series of conflicting statements about the fleet’s true destination. According to Francis B. Loomis, TR did have some initial qualms about the possibly inflammatory consequences of his order, not only on Japanese war sentiment but on the much more truculent “yellow” newspapers of the United States. In the event, Japanese reaction was encouragingly muted, and by late July TR’s resolve had hardened to a calm self-certainty. See Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 332 and esp. 543–44.

17 “a practice cruise” TR, Letters, vol. 5, 709.

18 twenty-nine million Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 3, 497–98; Strouse, Morgan, 573–74. Rockefeller was right. The fine was canceled on appeal.

19 Conservatives blamed TR, Letters, vol. 5, 746.

20 Roosevelt, who Ibid., 745–46.

21 “The present trouble” Ibid., 747.

22 “Please do not” Ibid., 763. Bonaparte consulted, on TR’s orders, with Herbert Knox Smith, who informed him that the Sherman Act was “an economic absurdity … impossible of general enforcement.” On 24 September, TR instructed Bonaparte to abandon his case against International Harvester. Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 218.

23 With that, he TR to George Otto Trevelyan, 23 Aug. 1907 (TRP). On Wall Street, feelings of foreboding persisted, mixed with recriminations against Roosevelt for his alleged fiscal irresponsibility.

24 ONE THING THE ROMANS Ferrero was much on TR’s mind at this time. See TR, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, vol. 6, 1374.

25 WJ McGee, the visionary Lacey, “Mysteries of Earth-Making,” 379, nicely describes