Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [50]
Roosevelt made it a point of honor to answer all letters upon receipt, dictating with such rapidity that his stenographers had to operate in shifts. Often he did so while hand-correcting documents already in typescript. (“It makes the letter more personal.”) He hesitated only when he had replied to someone in anger. Usually, a milder version went forth, while the original was filed for posterity.
The President was also a cornucopia of policy notes, press releases, instructions, and memoranda. A joke went around that if the mutilated remains of his grandmother were discovered in his cellar, Roosevelt would immediately produce written evidence that he was elsewhere at the time of the crime. His documentary caution extended to tracking down letters of his youth, and asking owners to keep them private. Again and again, White House reporters were reminded that the President must never be quoted. Even paraphrases of his remarks had to be submitted for approval.
This managerial compulsion did not surprise old Washington hands. They had long been aware of the “boy’s” maturity of purpose, as of his precocious talent. “Roosevelt,” declared Grover Cleveland, “is the most perfectly equipped and the most effective politician thus far seen in the Presidency.”
ON FRIDAY, 3 JANUARY, Mark Hanna issued a press statement on “the present status of the canal question.” Why Hanna—a member of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals, but not an active one—should suddenly espouse this subject was a mystery to newsmen. They supposed that a man so tied to Great Lakes shipping and transcontinental railroads might work to quash the idea of any Isthmian waterway—as the directors of Northern Securities were said to be doing. Yet here he was proclaiming himself a canal man, and hinting at his own preference.
Hanna said that, contrary to general belief, the Isthmian Canal Commission was “impressed with the superior advantages of the Panama route.” It had recommended Nicaragua “to bring the Frenchmen to terms.” And indeed, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama now seemed likely to announce a reduced price for its rights and holdings. Accordingly, “a powerful group of Senators” stood ready to transform the pending Canal Bill in Panama’s favor.
At least one reporter—the ubiquitous Walter Wellman—already had a shrewd idea of what the price would be. Wellman did not merely represent the Chicago Record-Herald in Washington; he was something of a political operator and go-between. Acting on behalf of the “powerful group,” he had cabled Philippe Bunau-Varilla, chief negotiant for the Compagnie in Paris: COMMITTEE SENATE PROBABLY ACCEPT OFFER FORTY MILLIONS. IMPERATIVE NOT HIGHER. MOVE QUICKLY.
On the very morning Hanna’s statement was published, a return cable confirmed that the Compagnie would sell all rights and assets for forty million dollars. Admiral John G. Walker, chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, delivered the offer to the State Department at noon. Secretary Hay received it without comment. Roosevelt, too, remained silent.
ON 9 JANUARY, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for Nicaragua, 308 to 2. Senator John Tyler Morgan (D., Alabama) announced that his Committee on Interoceanic Canals would consider the House bill at once, with a view to recommending its passage into law.
The old man could barely control his excitement. After twelve years of invoking visions of a blue, all-American canal, closer to home than France’s muddy “ditch,” he saw his dream trembling on the verge of reality. The South would have its renaissance as ships of a hundred nations, Nicaragua bound, put in at Gulf ports and loaded rich cargoes of Alabama coal, Mississippi cotton, Tennessee lumber, Florida beef, and Georgia peaches.
Mark Hanna jerked him back to reality at a meeting of the Committee on Thursday, 16 January:
HANNA I want the report on Nicaragua delayed until the Panama offer has been considered.
MORGAN It is not worth waiting for.