T heodore R oosevelt A ssociation JOURNAL V O L U M E X X X I I , N U M B E R 4 • F A L L 2 0 1 1 2 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Officers of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Executive Committee Tweed Roosevelt President RADM P. W. Parcells, USN (Ret.) Vice President Dr. William N. Tilchin Vice President Shawn R. Thomas Treasurer Elizabeth E. Roosevelt Assistant Treasurer Genna Rollins Secretary Mark A. Ames Lowell E. Baier Michele Bryant Dr. Gary P. Kearney James E. Pehta Simon C. Roosevelt LtCol Gregory A. Wynn, USMC The Hon. Lee Yeakel Trustees for Life Barbara Berryman Brandt Robert D. Dalziel Norman Parsons Oscar S. Straus II Honorary Trustee The Hon. George H. W. Bush Trustees, Class of 2012 J. Randall Baird RADM Stanley W. Bryant, USN (Ret.) Rudolph J. Carmenaty Robert B. Charles Gary A. Clinton Barbara J. Comstock Walter Fish Fritz Gordner Randy C. Hatzenbuhler Jonathan J. Hoffman Stephen B. Jeffries CDR Theodore Roosevelt Kramer, USN (Ret.) Joseph W. Mikalic RADM Richard J. O’Hanlon, USN RADM P. W. Parcells, USN (Ret.) Genna Rollins Elizabeth E. Roosevelt Tweed Roosevelt William D. Schaub Keith Simon Owen Smith Tefft Smith James M. Strock Dr. John E. Willson Anne R. Yeakel Trustees, Class of 2013 Mark A. Ames Lowell E. Baier Larry Bodine CAPT Frank L. Boushee, USN (Ret.) Michele Bryant David A. Folz Robert L. Friedman Anna Carlson Gannett Timothy P. Glas Nicole E. Goldstein Steven M. Greeley Dr. Michael S. Harris James E. Pehta Kermit Roosevelt III Shawn R. Thomas Dr. David R. Webb, Jr. Trustees, Class of 2014 VADM David Architzel, USN Paula Pierce Beazley CAPT David Ross Bryant, USN (Ret.) Thomas A. Campbell Rogina L. Jeffries Dr. Gary P. Kearney Arthur D. Koch CAPT Theodore Roosevelt Kramer, Jr., USN (Ret.) Amy Krueger Cordelia D. Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt III Simon C. Roosevelt Winthrop Roosevelt Dr. William N. Tilchin Richard D. Williams LtCol Gregory A. Wynn, USMC The Hon. Lee Yeakel Advisory Board, Class of 2012 Donald Arp. Jr. Prof. H. W. Brands Prof. David H. Burton Wallace Finley Dailey Carl F. Flemer, Jr. Prof. Richard P. Harmond Prof. Michael Kort Edmund Morris Sylvia Jukes Morris Dr. David Rosenberg Dr. John G. Staudt Advisory Board, Class of 2013 Dominick F. Antonelli John P. Avlon The Hon. Senator Kent Conrad Prof. John Milton Cooper, Jr. Prof. Stacy A. Cordery Prof. Douglas Eden The Hon. Peter T. King The Hon. Rick A. Lazio Dr. James G. Lewis Molly L. Quackenbush Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. Dr. Cornelis A. van Minnen Prof. Robert Wexelblatt Advisory Board, Class of 2014 Dr. Douglas G. Brinkley Bernadette Castro Dr. Kathleen M. Dalton Perry Dean Floyd Mrs. Oliver R. Grace Prof. Joshua D. Hawley David McCullough Prof. Char Miller Prof. Charles E. Neu Prof. Serge Ricard Sheila Schafer Lawrence D. Seymour Prof. Mark R. Shulman Prof. Samuel J. Thomas The Hon. William J. vanden Heuvel Front cover illustration: A magazine cover from November 1916 featuring a TR photo-cartoon (from Rick Marschall, Bully! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 370) Back cover illustration: “The Long, Long Trail” by “Ding” Darling, sketched shortly after TR’s death, “one of the most famous editorial cartoons in history” (from Marschall, Bully!, p. 395) Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 TRA Journal Annual Fund Please see page 4 regarding the establishment of an annual fund to support the publication and distribution of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal. 3 The Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal is published quarterly by the THEODORE ROOSEVELT ASSOCIATION www.theodoreroosevelt.org P.O. Box 719 Oyster Bay, NY 11771 Tweed Roosevelt President Terrence C. Brown Executive Director Hermann Hagedorn (1919-1957) Director Emeritus New TRA Officers Congratulations to all new members of the Executive Committee, the Board of Trustees, and the Advisory Board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, as well as to all who are continuing to serve and to all whose terms of service have recently concluded. The listing on page 2 incorporates the slate (the entire Executive Committee and the Classes of 2014 for the Board of Trustees and the Advisory Board) approved by the Board of Trustees in Dickinson, North Dakota, on October 28, 2011. Dr. John A. Gable (1974-2005) Director Emeritus Dr. William N. Tilchin Editor of the Journal Wallace Finley Dailey Journal Photographic Consultant James Stroud Journal Designer Print & Bind Nittany Valley Offset Guidelines for unsolicited submissions: Send three double-spaced printed copies to Professor William Tilchin, Editor, Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, College of General Studies, Boston University, 871 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215. Also provide an electronic copy as an e-mail attachment addressed to [email protected]. Notes should be rendered as endnotes structured in accordance with the specifications of The Chicago Manual of Style. Submissions accepted for publication may be edited for style and length. The Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, established in 1975 by Dr. John Allen Gable and edited by him through 2004, is a peer-reviewed periodical. Save These Dates The Ninety-third Annual Meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association will take place in Chicago, Illinois, from Thursday, October 25 to Sunday, October 28, 2012. Centered at the Union League Club, this year’s Annual Meeting will have as its focus a centennial celebration of the 1912 Progressive Party convention. More details can be found at www.traannualmeeting2012.org. Registration materials will be mailed to all TRA members well in advance of this exciting event. The Theodore Roosevelt Association is a national historical society and public service organization founded in 1919 and chartered by a special act of Congress in 1920. We are a not-for-profit corporation of the District of Columbia, with offices in New York State. A copy of the last audited financial report of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, filed with the Department of State of the State of New York, may be obtained by writing either the New York State Department of State, Office of Charities Registration, Albany, NY 11231, or the Theodore Roosevelt Association, P.O. Box 719, Oyster Bay, NY 11771. The fiscal year of the Association is July 1 – June 30. The Theodore Roosevelt Association has members in all fifty states and many foreign countries, and membership is open to all. The annual meeting of the Board of Trustees is held on or near Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday, October 27. The day-to-day affairs of the Association are administered by the Executive Committee, elected annually by the Board of Trustees. The members of the Board of Trustees are elected in three classes, each class with a term of three years. 4 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Notes from the Editor photo by Marcia Tilchin The Editor’s Satisfactions William Tilchin. This Issue This issue of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal features Bruce Shields’s and Louis Priebe’s lead article—both medical and historical in nature—on TR’s vision. Then Rick Marschall’s new book filled with TR cartoons (a couple of which are on this edition’s front and back covers) is reviewed by Robert Wexelblatt. The fifth installment of Gregory A. Wynn’s column in essence introduces a reprinted article (unusual for the TRA Journal, but deemed worthy of republication on account of its fascinating content and literary quality). Next comes the twelfth installment of Tweed Roosevelt’s column, followed by Presidential Snapshots and TR-Era Images. Last there is an article by the editor pertaining to a recent TR-centered event at Boston University. Despite the heavy demands on my time and the unglamorous detail work that is central to the production of each issue, there are several reasons why I greatly enjoy fulfilling the role of editor of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal. First and foremost, being the editor of the world’s leading periodical focused on Theodore Roosevelt and his era affords me the opportunity to be at the center of U.S. and international TR scholarship and to interact frequently with numerous prominent TR authorities. Second, I find it stimulating to oversee the production of a peer-reviewed journal with very high standards for historical accuracy, literary expression, accessibility for readers, and illustration and design. Third, this responsibility enables me to apply some of my professional strengths to an important task in the service of a venerable organization of which I have been an enthusiastic member for over thirty years, and in the process to honor and carry forward the legacy of my late friend and mentor, Dr. John A. Gable. Fourth and finally, I am pleased and energized whenever I am fortunate enough to be the recipient of a thoughtful complimentary message from a reader of the Journal. Establishing an Annual Fund for the TRA Journal TRA President Tweed Roosevelt has made the membership aware of the formidable (but far from insurmountable) challenges currently confronting the TRA. One of the significant expenses in the TRA’s annual budget is the production and distribution of the TRA Journal. During the TRA’s Ninetysecond Annual Meeting in North Dakota in October, the Executive Committee endorsed a proposal to establish an annual fund for the Journal. All contributions to this fund will be designated for a single purpose: supporting the TRA Journal. Anyone who might be interested in participating in a TRA Journal annual fund is encouraged to contact Tweed Roosevelt ([email protected]) or Executive Director Terry Brown ([email protected]; P.O. Box 719, Oyster Bay, NY 11771). William Tilchin Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 5 Grass Roots Notes from the Executive Director If you are like me, you can’t help but think of the parallels between the current political campaign and that of a century ago. CNN is like the cover of Life Magazine. A tweet is a street corner sign. And social media take the place of speeches delivered from the back end of a Pullman. The year 2012 is an important centennial for TR, and the TRA is all over it. Certainly the major event will be the Ninetythird Annual Meeting at the Union League Club in Chicago during October 25-28. Highlights will include the Windy City’s architecture by boat, a gala reception at the Field Museum, and, for the brave, a tour of Wrigley Field. Another important look at the Progressive Party will take place from mid-June through election day in the New York area. An exhibition and symposium entitled “TR in ‘12” will be staged at the TR Birthplace National Historic Site on East 20th Street in New York (June 15 - Sept. 9) and will then travel to the Oyster Bay Historical Society on Long Island. Posters, cartoons, letters, political buttons, and artifacts will tell the story, including the assassination attempt in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912. This is the first project in a new initiative to give the TRA a larger role at the TR Birthplace NHS by creating such temporary displays. A catalog and online symposium will accompany the exhibit. If you have museum experience, please step up to be part of future planning. Interior decorating is not among the punch list items in the TRA’s Vision Statement. Nonetheless, that important skill can aid in “perpetuating the memory and ideals of TR.” In 2012 the TRA will be helping the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) to recreate the museum and the in-port cabin on board. These two spaces present the TR story to the crew, visitors, and VIPs. They are important locations on the ship. The NCAA has expanded its headquarters in Indianapolis. The new building has six conference rooms, and one is named for TR. The TRA is lending important items to tell the TR story there. As a case in point that the TRA is moving forward, the “Strenuous Life 2012 - Cuba” trip filled up quickly. Plans are in the works for a centennial Panama voyage in 2014, as well as for other domestic and overseas opportunities. These are a Terry Brown, young Civil War enthusiast. benefit of your membership. If you have friends who may wish to travel with TRA members, including a visit to the USS TR aircraft carrier in 2013, encourage them to join now! Congratulations to the Capital Area Chapter for a successful Police Award. Also noted are successful fundraisers for Teddy Bears in New York City and Dallas. All of the above are happening because member volunteers, with support from the headquarters in Oyster Bay and New York City, put in the energy, time, and thought to start them up and see them through. Your participation is invited. Bring forth your ideas. Tweed and I and the Executive Committee are more than happy to listen and to help you explore the possibilities. As was 1912, 2012 promises to be an interesting and exciting year. If you are like me, you may be thinking that the more things change, the more they stay the same. TR made things change. What changes will November 2012 bring? In the spirit of TR . . . Terry Brown 6 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal THEODORE ROOSEVELT ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 CONTENTS Theodore Roosevelt’s Vision by Milton Bruce Shields and Louis Victor Priebe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 7-13 Review of Rick Marschall, BULLY! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt by Robert Wexelblatt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 14-15 A Monumental Memorial The Material Culture of Theodore Roosevelt #5 by Gregory A. Wynn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 16-17 Presidential Images, History, and Homage: Memorializing Theodore Roosevelt, 1919-1967 by Alan Havig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 18-28 An Essential TR Library: Fifty Indispensable Books Forgotten Fragments #12 by Tweed Roosevelt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 29-32 Presidential Snapshot #17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 33 TR-Era Images by Art Koch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 34 Theodore Roosevelt Celebrated at Boston University by William N. Tilchin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pages 35-39 Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 7 Theodore Roosevelt’s Vision by Milton Bruce Shields and Louis Victor Priebe Introduction As an exceptionally frail child growing up in the New York City of the 1860s, “Teedie” Roosevelt was confronted with two significant health problems: bronchial asthma and myopia. How this determined lad overcame both medical challenges to become one of our nation’s most robust and progressive Presidents is indeed an inspirational saga. Roosevelt’s life, previously unpublished medical information, interviews with knowledgeable people, and visits to places of importance in TR’s life: his New York City birthplace at 28 East 20th Street, his Sagamore Hill home in Oyster Bay, and the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University. Myopia Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library The physical nature of Roosevelt’s eyes can best be Much has been written understood by considering the about the influence of TR’s lifecustomary analogy of the eye to a threatening asthma during his camera. Both may be thought of early years, most notably by the as a black box with a lens at one distinguished historian David end and film at the other (at least McCullough in Mornings on in the pre-digital age of cameras). Horseback, which chronicles In our eyes, the film is called the the first twenty-seven years of retina. Diverging rays of light our twenty-sixth President’s life. enter the eye or camera and pass McCullough describes the agony through the lens, which must focus of young Roosevelt’s asthmatic the rays precisely on the retina condition, referred to as “a or film to create a sharp image. disease of the direst suffering,” In the normal eye, the focusing but suggests that it may have power of the lens and the distance contributed to his robust nature in between lens and retina are such later life by providing the impetus that a clear image is created. to develop his strength.1 Less has In many people, however, the rays come to a focus behind the been written about his significant– retina, either because their eye is but more subtle–myopia, or shorter than normal or because nearsightedness. Most references the focusing power of their lens is on this aspect of TR’s health are too weak. This is called hyperopia oblique, leaving readers with or farsightedness, since such the impression that it may have individuals can see at a distance, had less influence on him than Theodore Roosevelt carried twelve pairs of steel-rimmed but have difficulty reading his asthma. While the relative glasses in the clothing and hat that he wore in Cuba. without glasses that help to focus importance of the two conditions the light rays. Conversely, a on the formation of Roosevelt’s character is most prudently left person such as TR with myopia to conjecture, an undeniable fact is that his severely restricted or nearsightedness may be able to read without glasses but eyesight was indeed a major factor throughout his life. sees poorly at a distance. This impairment is usually present because his or her eyes are longer than normal, and light rays In this essay, we attempt to fill an important gap in come to a focus before reaching the retina. The larger eyes of chronicling Theodore Roosevelt’s life, as seen through the prism the myope also have thinner retinas, which increase the risk of of his visual impairment and how it influenced him over his sixty retinal detachment, especially with trauma–a point of interest years. Our research is based on available literature on President in Roosevelt’s ocular history. 8 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Museum at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, New York Today, thanks in no small measure to Roosevelt’s observations and concerns, vision testing is a routine part of school health programs. A Theodore Roosevelt 1904 campaign button in the shape of his trademark pince-nez glasses. The influence of TR’s myopia and its eventual correction with glasses is expressed most poignantly by the renowned Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris in The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt: It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this event on the boy’s maturing sensibilities. Through the miraculous little windows that now gripped his nose, the world leaped into pristine focus, disclosing an infinity of detail, of color, of nuance, and of movement just when the screen of his mind was at its most receptive. One of the best features of his adult descriptive writing—an unsurpassed joy in things seen—dates back to this moment; while another—his abnormal sensitivity to sound—is surely the legacy of the myopic years that came before.3 TR’s Recorded Ocular History It is difficult to envision TR without those iconic pincenez glasses. They were as much a part of him as his trademark mustache and toothy smile, and his spectacles played many varied roles over the course of his life, from evoking derision to possibly saving his life. Yet the most significant influence of his myopia may have been during those first thirteen years when he was without glasses. Only a person with significant myopia can appreciate what it must have been like to hear the song of a bird but not see its source or to see trees as amorphous shapes of green and not realize that they were composed of delicate branches and individual leaves. This hardship is conveyed best in TR’s own words, as he reflects in his autobiography on his thirteenth year: It was this summer that I got my first gun, and it puzzled me to find that my companions seemed to see things to shoot at which I could not see at all. One day they read aloud an advertisement in huge letters on a distant billboard, and I then realized that something was the matter, for not only was I unable to read the sign but I could not even see the letters. I spoke of this to my father, and soon afterwards got my first pair of spectacles, which literally opened an entirely new world to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until I got those spectacles. I had been a clumsy and awkward little boy, and while much of my clumsiness and awkwardness was doubtless due to general characteristics, a good deal of it was due to the fact that I could not see and yet was wholly ignorant that I was not seeing. The recollection of this experience gives me a keen sympathy with those who are trying in our public schools and elsewhere to remove the physical causes of deficiency in children, who are often unjustly blamed for being obstinate or unambitious or mentally stupid.2 Indeed, as Morris notes, one outcome of TR’s deprivation of corrective spectacles in his formative years was the enhancement of his auditory sense. Throughout his life, he took pride and pleasure in an almost encyclopedic ability to identify bird calls. In his first printed work, The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks, he devoted more attention to the sounds of the birds than to their colors or any other aspect.4 His highly developed sense of hearing may have also served him well on his many hunting forays (which were additionally aided by a custom-made Winchester rifle that was said to have had a crescent cheek-piece, which apparently helped alleviate the influence of his myopia5). While his glasses opened up a whole new world to TR, they were not without their detriments. In the late nineteenth century, glasses were still viewed by some as a sign of weakness. In fact, a few ranchers in the Dakota Badlands regarded his spectacles as a sign of defective moral character and derisively referred to the young TR as “that four-eyed maverick.”6 There was even disappointment among some of his recruits to the Rough Riders when they discovered that their leader wore glasses.7 But Roosevelt became accustomed to these reactions and would defiantly gaze back through the same offending lenses with such confidence and intensity as to assuage any question about his character. With time, his glasses became part of his recognizable persona or “image.” The rimless pince-nez squeezed his thick nose, producing a perpetual furrow between his eyebrows, and their changing reflection from the constant movement of his head made the expression of his pale blue eyes hard to gauge. When he returned home to a hero’s welcome after the Cuban campaign, it was the reflected light from his spectacle lenses that allowed those on shore to pick out TR from all the other soldiers on the bridge of their ship.8 The Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War was one of those points in Roosevelt’s odyssey when glasses may Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 Another close call occurred many years later. When TR was campaigning for the presidency against William H. Taft and Woodrow Wilson in 1912, he was shot by a would-be assassin, and the wound might well have been mortal had the bullet not entered through his inner coat pocket where he had placed a thick folded speech and the empty case for his spectacles.11 It is well documented that Roosevelt remained exceptionally vigorous during his presidency, setting aside regular times for wrestling, boxing, jujitsu, tennis, horseback riding, and long walks. During a boxing bout with an army officer in 1904, TR sustained an injury to his left eye, eventually leading to blindness in that eye. But, as a consummate gentleman who was sensitive to others’ feelings, he never revealed the identity of the officer, as he did not want the person to “feel badly.” Roosevelt also seemed reluctant to have the public know of his infirmity, since it would be another thirteen years before he revealed “for the first time the fact that the sight of one of his eyes was destroyed at the White House, when he was President, during a boxing exercise with a young captain of artillery who was on his staff there.”12 Shortly thereafter, the New York Times published an article in which Colonel Dan T. Moore indicated that he must have been the person who “put out Roosevelt’s eye,” since he was the only one who fit the description, and yet he never knew the seriousness of the injury until he read the recent newspaper accounts. “But could you ask for any better proof of the man’s sportsmanship,” he was quoted, “than the fact that he never told me what I had done to him, never told anybody else that I know of?”13 Medical Information Regarding TR’s Ocular Status In our quest to learn more about the medical facts of Roosevelt’s ocular history, we had hoped to examine a pair of his glasses in order to document their precise power (referred to as “refractive error”). We were perplexed to discover, however, that apparently not a single pair is known to exist–not in his boyhood home, now a museum, in New York City, not in the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University, and not even in his home at Sagamore Hill or the adjacent museum. Furthermore, neither today’s leading authorities on Roosevelt nor members of his family appear to know of the existence of a single pair of his glasses.16 From his thirteenth year to his final day, it is unlikely that Roosevelt was ever far from his glasses. So dependent was he on them that they were undoubtedly the last thing he relinquished when he turned the lights out at night and the first thing he reached for in the morning. We know that he also continually kept several backup pairs available (although probably never as many as when he charged up San Juan Hill!). With so many pairs of glasses over his lifetime, it is mystifying to discover that none is presently known to have survived for posterity. (Authors’ note: Information about the location of any of TR’s spectacles will be greatly appreciated.) Whatever the reason may be, it is likely that Roosevelt would not object to their disappearance, since he always tried to downplay his physical infirmities. Had he been born in more recent times, it is reasonable to speculate that he would have embraced the opportunity to trade in his thick spectacles for contact lenses or even the laser surgery called LASIK. But, alas for TR, he was born into a world that was neither fully prepared for his progressive political vision nor medically equipped to better correct his personal vision. The artifacts we found that were most closely related to Roosevelt’s eyewear were two campaign buttons from the 1904 election, one of which can be viewed in the museum behind the family home of Sagamore Hill and the other in the museum located in his boyhood home in New York City. Both buttons Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York City have played a role in preserving his life. As he stepped off the ship onto the sandy beaches of Cuba, there was one essential item that he had made sure to have with him: a dozen pairs of steel-rimmed glasses strategically placed within his clothing and even sewn into his Rough Rider hat.9 He clearly did not want to find himself in the heat of battle without being able to see the enemy. (As it turned out, however, during the charge up San Juan Hill, his sweat-fogged glasses reduced awareness of his surroundings largely to sounds identified by his exceptionally keen sense of hearing.10) 9 When playing tennis, TR chose to stay close to the net because of his myopia, despite the fact that he apparently wore his glasses when he played.14 In 1908, during the last year of his presidency, he is reported to have been struck in the left eye by a tennis ball with sufficient force to shatter his glasses and lacerate the skin around the eye. It is not clear whether this also contributed to his loss of vision, but it is well established– even though he tried to play it down at the time–that Theodore Roosevelt was blind in one eye when he left the White House and embarked on an extended African hunting safari (all the more remarkable when considering that he personally killed 296 animals).15 Two Theodore Roosevelt 1904 campaign buttons, one in the shape of pince-nez glasses. 10 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal are in the form of pince-nez glasses, with Roosevelt in the right frame and his running mate, Charles W. Fairbanks, in the left. The only other ocular-related artifact we found is the glasses case that may have saved his life during the 1912 campaign–also on view in the New York City museum. asked if he might send them to Snyder.21 In her letter, she also noted that “I only heard Doctor tell of his pleasant associations with the President, Mrs. Roosevelt and the children, and of course he was especially interested in providing the glasses (9 pairs I believe) for his African hunting trip.”22 A “breakthrough” came, however, when we were introduced (courtesy of Edmund Morris) to Wallace Finley Dailey, curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard College Library. Dailey recalled the text of a lecture, titled “T.R.,” that had been delivered in 1959 to the New England Ophthalmological Society by Charles Snyder, who was then librarian of the Lucien Howe Library at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, just across the Charles River from Harvard. The information that follows is from Snyder’s printed lecture and related materials, kindly provided by Dailey. Dr. Grow undoubtedly knew the details of Roosevelt’s uniocular blindness, but he was discreet in his faithfulness to doctor-patient confidentialities in not publicly disclosing them, since he also knew, as we have seen, that TR was very sensitive about the defect and for many years made every effort to conceal it not only from political associates and opponents but also from his family and friends. Not only was this one of Roosevelt’s best-kept secrets until late in his life, but the actual nature of the blinding defect has also remained unclear. Most biographers have concluded that the blindness in TR’s left eye was the result of a retinal detachment. This is reasonable, since the thin retina of the myope, as previously discussed, is more susceptible to tearing and detachment, especially in response to trauma. However, that theory may not be entirely correct. Snyder related that he had received “some weeks ago” from Dr. Hanford L. Auten of Hanover, New Hampshire, a small box containing two lenses without the frames. On the outside of the box was inscribed, “The lenses were worn by Theodore Roosevelt during his entire presidency. He always had several pair available–as he was 8 D myopic (D refers to diopter, the unit of measure for lens power) and could see but little without them. New glasses were prescribed for him by Dr. E. J. Grow, U.S. Navy, at the time he left Washington to go to Africa.” The lenses were examined at Mass Eye & Ear Infirmary and found to be identical to each other in all respects. However, their power was measured at -7 D, not -8 D (the minus prefix denotes myopia, while a positive sign indicates hyperopia). But either power represents a high degree of myopia, with -5 D being the approximate cutoff between “medium and high” refractive error. The lenses were eventually given to the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, but this donation occurred before Dailey became curator, and despite his extensive search, they have not been found. Nevertheless, the Snyder paper provides some interesting glimpses into TR’s ocular history.17 To learn more about the ophthalmologist who refracted Roosevelt (meaning measured his lens power), Snyder wrote to the widow of Dr. Grow and received a letter from her, which Dailey also shared with us.18 The letter was accompanied by Grow’s obituary, which noted that he died in 1935, having retired from the U.S. Navy at the rank of captain. He had served “with the Naval Forces in Europe during the World War,” and his seminal contribution had been “establishing standards of vision in the Navy,”19 which must have been close to TR’s heart considering his interest in eyesight and his love for the navy. In her letter to Snyder, Ms. Grow noted that Roosevelt’s lenses “have been in my husband’s bureau all these years, and largely from sentiment and his handwriting I could not throw away the little box.”20 However, one day when she had an appointment with Dr. Auten, she inquired as to whether he might be interested in them and was surprised to find that he was very pleased and The most accurate information on this question is very likely to be found in the transcript of an interview with Dr. William H. Wilmer, a distinguished professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the early twentieth century (today the Department of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins is called the Wilmer Institute), by Henry F. Pringle, who published a biography of TR in 1931. A copy of this transcript was given to Snyder by Robert H. Haynes, who was then curator of the Roosevelt Collection at Harvard. Wilmer noted that “President Roosevelt was seen with Admiral Rixey, December 12, 1904. At that time the President gave a history of having noticed for a while a dimness before the left eye after wrestling, and the further history that about two weeks ago, he was struck in the left eye while boxing. Since that time, he had noticed black spots before the eye.” While “at first it seemed rather central and blurred the vision, . . . now it seems to have moved about two inches to the left. President Roosevelt was very near-sighted, but with proper glass he had unusually keen and accurate vision. Examination at the time showed a few spots of hemorrhage in the retina of the left eye and some floating opacities in the vitreous” (the clear gel that fills up the back of the eye). Wilmer persuaded the President to “rest for a short while, giving up his usual vigorous exercises.” TR initially objected, but eventually consented when Wilmer pointed out that “the President of the United States should at least have as good treatment as an ignorant pauper in the hospital, which appealed to him, and he did make an excellent patient.” Wilmer continued to examine the President periodically over the following years and noted that the retinal hemorrhages were resolved and that only a few opacities remained in the vitreous. However, in later life he developed a cataract (an opacity of the lens), “reducing vision in the left eye to perception of light. The type of cataract was one that could have been Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 Still, it does not entirely close the story. A cataract that is dense enough to limit vision to only the perception of light would likely preclude the ophthalmologist from seeing into the back of the eye and determining whether a retinal detachment, which could have developed later after formation of the cataract, was also present. Today we have ultrasound instruments, which allow determination of the retinal status through opaque media, but nothing of the sort was available in Roosevelt’s time. In addition, cataract surgery has advanced dramatically since the early twentieth century, and it is quite likely that Roosevelt would have such surgery today in order to regain binocular vision, if his retina was determined to be healthy. But the regrettable fact is that we are unlikely ever to know the full story of the blindness in Theodore Roosevelt’s left eye. As a final interesting aside, Wilmer concluded the interview by noting: It might be interesting to know that the last Sunday I spent in America, before going to France in the early summer of 1918, I passed with Colonel Roosevelt at Oyster Bay. I arrived in the afternoon about half past three or four, and found him sitting on the floor playing with his daughter Ethel’s children. He jumped up with great alacrity, and said, “Wilmer, behold in me the natural born grandfather!” I congratulated him upon his seeming good health and vigor and asked him how he felt. He replied, “Well, apart from the fact that I am blind in one eye and cannot hear out of one ear, I am fit as a fiddle.”24 Six months later, Theodore Roosevelt removed his glasses, lay down in his bed at his beloved Sagamore Hill, and closed his eyes for the last time. myopia and his persona. It has long been suggested that both myopia and hyperopia may influence an individual’s compensating habits, preferences, and mannerisms to some degree. While such generalizations must be viewed with caution, theories about the influence of both conditions seem logical. The myope, who sees more comfortably close up, may prefer reading and other private or individual pursuits that are within arm’s reach. As a result, the person with the so-called “myopic personality” tends to be more studious, shy, and withdrawn and is often seen as a bit less sociable. The hyperope, in contrast, sees more comfortably at a distance, and is more likely to prefer being out-of-doors, playing sports, hunting, hiking, and the like. In general, the “hyperopic personality” is said to tend more toward extroverted and sociable behavior. While the impact of myopia on personality has been a controversial issue, with published reports on both sides, the most recent studies have failed to reveal a significant correlation. The most notable of these studies is by Robert van de Berg et al., who analyzed data from 633 individual twins and 278 family members, comparing refractive error with results of the International Personality Item Pool questionnaire. They concluded: “The long-held view that myopic persons are introverted and conscientious may reflect intelligence-related stereotypes rather than real correlations.”26 Theodore Roosevelt’s personality is clearly consistent with these scientific observations regarding myopia and personality. On the surface, despite his high degree of myopia, his interests and personality are more in line with those of the “hyperopic personality.” Yet he also had the enormous appetite for reading that is seen more with the “myopic personality.” So, on the whole, TR’s personality does not appear to correlate with his refractive error. It should be noted, however, that most of the studies regarding myopia and personality were performed on persons wearing corrective eyewear for their nearsightedness. The British ophthalmologist, Patrick Trevor-Roper, in The World Through Blunted Sight, suggested over forty years ago Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York City removed but as long as vision in the other eye was quite perfect it was not necessary to do so.” According to Dr. Wilmer, therefore, Roosevelt’s blindness in the left eye was due to a cataract, probably of traumatic origin, and not a retinal detachment,23 and that is where Snyder left it in his lecture. 11 Speculation on the Influence of TR’s Myopia Having reviewed the facts, as we have them, of Theodore Roosevelt’s ocular history, we now venture into more speculative territory. Did TR’s myopia, especially in his formative years, materially influence the development of his proclivities, interests, and abilities? Or, put more simply, to what extent did it influence TR in becoming who he was? When this question was posed to Edmund Morris, he expressed the belief “that TR’s myopia profoundly affected him,” noting as an example “that his extraordinary auditory sensitivity may have derived from it.” However, he would not “go so far as to suggest that it turned him into an intellectual.”25 Morris is undoubtedly correct. Yet a question remains as to the possible correlation between his The bullet-damaged steel-reinforced spectacle case that TR fortunately had in his vest pocket at the time of an attempted assassination in Milwaukee in October 1912. 12 that “such influence [of any refractive error on personality] is inevitably greater when the ocular defect develops in childhood, and is often tempered, but never annulled, by the early provision of corrective spectacles.”27 This leads us to wonder whether TR’s very limited visual world during his first thirteen years of life might have further enhanced his interest in reading, writing, and intellectual pursuits, especially in a person with his innate inquisitiveness, his speed-reading ability, and his nearly photographic memory. Had his vision been normal or corrected at an earlier age, would he have spent more of his youth playing ball and engaging in the other outof-doors activities of the average young boy? And would he then have read less and possibly developed a narrower range of literary interests? And would this have meant that Roosevelt the man would not have been the voracious reader, the writer of more books than any other President, and the broadly versed intellectual that he was? If so, we would expect to see the association repeated with reasonable frequency in other people. But this does not appear to be the case. For example, another Republican President, Ronald Reagan, was also highly nearsighted and did not receive glasses until age 9 or 10.28 And yet, while he was a very talented and well-regarded President, no one would put him in the same intellectual or literary league with TR. If Roosevelt’s myopia did not appreciably affect his personality, might it have contributed to his political outlook? We have already seen how his visual impairment in childhood gave him empathy for children in similar situations, which may have led to the current emphasis on vision testing in public schools. It is also reasonable to assume that what “Teedie” read influenced the development of his worldview and values and opinions and his selection of role models during these formative years. While we were unable to learn the entire scope of his childhood reading, it is certain that it included the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and other classics in world and American literature, which unquestionably influenced his literary interests, and possibly too his political outlook, for the remainder of his life. The fact is that we will never know conclusively to what extent TR’s myopia and other visual problems influenced his remarkable life. It is of interest, however, to reflect on another comment by Trevor-Roper regarding persons with myopia, who, he observes, share “a common burden which, like any other impediment, may be either stimulating or damaging to the evolution of their characters.”29 In consideration of this observation, one conclusion which can be drawn with certainty is that Theodore Roosevelt’s character development was stimulated by virtually every challenge he encountered in his life–including, undoubtedly, his myopia. Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Milton Bruce Shields is Professor and Chairman Emeritus in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Shields is the author of Shields’ Textbook of Glaucoma (1982; 6th edition, 2011) and is co-founder and past president of the American Glaucoma Society. He is a resident of Burlington, North Carolina. Louis Victor Priebe, a public relations counselor in Washington, D.C., is an inductee in the National Capital Public Relations Hall of Fame, a former governor of the National Press Club, and a Distinguished Alumnus of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Oklahoma. He resides in Springfield, Virginia. Acknowledgements The authors express gratitude to the following individuals for their invaluable assistance and advice in acquiring relevant information and materials for this essay: Mike Amato, National Park Service ranger, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site; Terrence C. Brown, executive director, Theodore Roosevelt Association; Wallace Finley Dailey, curator, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library; David Dary, prominent western author and chairman emeritus, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Oklahoma; Howard Ehrlich, former acting executive director, Theodore Roosevelt Association; J. Douglas Frantz, former mayor, Enid, Oklahoma, and relative of Rough Rider Capt. Frank Frantz; Edmund Morris, eminent Roosevelt biographer; Mike Piorunski, librarian, Wilmer Eye Institute; Tweed Roosevelt, great-grandson of TR and president, Theodore Roosevelt Association; Beth Shanke, director of research, Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library, National Press Club; Anisa Threlkeld, Atlanta ophthalmologist; William N. Tilchin, editor, Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal; and Ralph W. Weitz III, stewardship pastor, Immanuel Bible Church, Springfield, Virginia. Endnotes David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981), p. 90. 1 Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (1913; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1985), p. 18. 2 3 Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979; Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 reprint, New York: Random House, 2010), p. 35. 4 Morris, Rise of TR, pp. 65-66. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (2001; reprint, New York: Random House, 2010), p. 172. 5 6 7 Morris, Rise of TR, pp. 198, 296. Morris, Rise of TR, p. 648. 8 Morris, Rise of TR, p. 695. 9 Morris, Rise of TR, p. 667. 10 Morris, Rise of TR, p. 685. Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt (New York: Random House, 2010), pp. 243-248. 13 William H. Wilmer to Henry F. Pringle, cited by Pringle in Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1931), quoted in Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, derived from Henry F. Pringle papers (Roosevelt R110.P93r, p. 1), TR Collection. 23 24 Ibid. 25 Edmund Morris to Bruce Shields, e-mail, August 17, 2011. Robert van de Berg, Mohamed Dirani, Christine Y. Chen, Nicholas Haslam, and Paul N. Baird, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Vol. 49, No. 3, March 2008, pp. 882-886. 26 Patrick Trevor-Roper, The World Through Blunted Sight (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1970), p. 14. 27 11 “Blind in Left Eye, Roosevelt Admits,” New York Times, October 22, 1917; “T.R. Tells Loss of Eye,” Washington Post, October 22, 1917. Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (New York: Modern Library, 1999), p. 46. 28 12 29 Trevor-Roper, World Through Blunted Sight, p. 14. “The Man Who Put Out Roosevelt’s Eye,” New York Times, October 28, 1917. 13 14 Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 246. 15 Morris, Colonel Roosevelt, p. 26. 16 Tweed Roosevelt, personal communication, May 20, 2011. Charles Snyder, “T.R.,” paper read before the New England Ophthalmological Society, April 13, 1959, Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 17 A. K. Grow to Snyder, undated but copied by Snyder, April 15, 1959, Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, TR Collection. 18 Obituary of Capt. E. J. Grow, who died September 5, 1935, from a clipping taken from the Army and Navy Journal, date unknown, copied by Snyder, April 15, 1959, Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, TR Collection. 19 A. K. Grow to Snyder, undated (see note 18), Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, TR Collection. 20 Hanford L. Auten to Snyder, February 6, 1959, Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, TR Collection. 21 A. K. Grow to Snyder, undated (see note 18), Roosevelt R130.Sn9t, TR Collection. 22 Vision Statement The purpose of the Theodore Roosevelt Association of Oyster Bay, New York, is to perpetuate the memory and ideals of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, for the benefit of the people of the United States of America and the world; to instill in all who may be interested an appreciation for and understanding of the values, policies, cares, concerns, interests, and ideals of Theodore Roosevelt; to preserve, protect, and defend the places, monuments, sites, artifacts, papers, and other physical objects associated with Theodore Roosevelt’s life; to ensure the historical accuracy of any account in which Theodore Roosevelt is portrayed or described; to encourage scholarly work and research concerning any and all aspects of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, work, presidency, and historical legacy and current interpretations of his varied beliefs and actions; to highlight his selfless public service and accomplishments through educational and community outreach initiatives; and, in general, to do all things appropriate and necessary to ensure that detailed and accurate knowledge of Theodore Roosevelt’s great and historic contributions is made available to any and all persons. 14 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Book Review Rick Marschall. BULLY! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2011, 440 pp. Reviewed by Robert Wexelblatt its ideal subject in TR. BULLY! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt can be read straight through, as it is full of information and tells TR’s story with concision and accuracy; but it is also fun to browse. BULLY! affords both profit and delight. from Rick Marschall, Bully! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 235 It is usual for biographies to be illustrated with pictures, but here it is the other way around. Rick Marschall’s lively biography furnishes the personal and political context for scores of political cartoons, the real glory of the book. As an art form, the American political cartoon had reached considerable heights a century ago, and this book makes a case that the genre found A cartoon of 1904 by Homer Davenport, “one of the most famous cartoons in American political history.” Though uncritical and nearly boundless, the author’s affection for TR is neither naïve nor uninformed. A historian and cartoonist himself, Marschall retrospectively relishes a subject irresistible to cartoonists for the sheer scope of his actions and achievements no less than his physical presence. The twentysixth President, he reminds us, loved fun and found lots of it; he delighted in humor and provoking more of it. TR even enjoyed being the butt of other people’s humor, which Marschall counts as “one of the many refutations [of] those who say he possessed a large ego” (p. 6). He observes in his foreword that “Presidents were boring before Theodore Roosevelt, and boring after him; life, as many said after he died, seemed emptier without him” (p. 4). This sentiment was doubtless true for the nation’s political cartoonists, who had been drawing TR for decades, and who must have felt a fraternal kinship with him. Marschall makes a persuasive case that it was the cartoonists who left us the best visual record of TR’s career and person: “Movies and newsreels were new, but cartoonists told us how Roosevelt walked and ran and rode and gestured and laughed” (p. 4). The cartoons collected in the book come from well-known magazines like Puck, Judge, and Life and the great metropolitan newspapers like New York’s Journal, World, and Herald, but also from the work of obscure caricaturists in forgotten journals. Even experts are bound to make delightful discoveries. BULLY! is a book both charming and useful. It is arranged in ten chapters, each devoted to a phase of the great man’s life, each providing a brief, lively account (interspersed with cartoons) of TR’s activities and their political context, each concluding with a large “cartoon portfolio” from the period, with commentary. As a biography the book is characterized by its author as “comprehensive but not exhaustive” (p. 10). It is intended as an introduction to TR, not the Last Word on 15 from Marschall, Bully!, p. 393 Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 “There was one cartoon made while I was President, in which I appeared incidentally,” declared Theodore Roosevelt, “that was always a great favorite of mine.” This cartoon was created by Everett E. Lowry for the Chicago Chronicle. him. Still, comprehensive it is, beginning with an account of the Roosevelt family and concluding with an evaluative and admiring afterword. The author is well-qualified to execute what is clearly a labor of love. Marschall is a widely published author with a specialty in American popular culture who has had a lifelong fascination with TR. He knows the trade of cartooning, having served as an editor at Marvel and a writer for Disney Comics, as well as teaching courses on the craft. His personal collection of vintage newspapers, magazines, cartoons, and advertisements, with a particular focus on the period between the Civil War and World War I, is among the most extensive in the country. For a time Marschall was himself a political cartoonist, and so he has a feel for the symbiotic relationship between the people who produced these pointed pictorial commentaries and their most cherished and inexhaustible subject. As he puts it, TR was “the cartoonists’ best friend. . . . ‘Slow news days’ were solved in the city rooms of American newspapers: cartoonists could draw what TR did, or would do, or might do” (p. 9). Marschall admits that he regards TR as the most interesting of Americans, a model politician, and an exemplary human being: “In my larger political philosophy and my more personal, family-circle civic discussions, he is a model” (p. 402). His hope is that BULLY! will lead more Americans not just to study the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt but to emulate him. Robert Wexelblatt, a member of the Advisory Board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, is professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He has published essays, stories, and poems in a wide variety of journals, as well as several books, including, most recently, the novel Zublinka Among Women. This is the third book review he has written for the TRA Journal. 16 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT (#5) a column by Gregory A. Wynn A MONUMENTAL MEMORIAL Gregory A. Wynn and Andy Wynn. The article that follows this column tells a fascinating story that describes a dedicated and important effort by the Roosevelt Memorial Association, the forerunner of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, to establish a “monumental memorial” in Washington, D.C., to honor Theodore Roosevelt.1 RMA leaders considered it their “most important undertaking.”2 It failed. Its title is Plan and Design for the Roosevelt Memorial in the City of Washington—John Russell Pope Architect—Submitted to the Congress of the United States by the Roosevelt Memorial Association Pursuant to the Joint Resolution of Congress Approved by the President, February 12, 1925. Each copy was produced with its own lidded cardboard box with a paper label on the cover of the box that reads: “Roosevelt Memorial in the City of Washington.” The book was published in December 1925 by Pynson Printers, Inc., a New York boutique press known for its beautiful and expensive printing. It is folio sized, measuring approximately 11 ¾” x 14 ¼”. Hardbound with only nineteen pages, it contains Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection photo by Art Koch produced for the fundraising effort and the competition, this book is the only published item specifically promoting the final design. And, as a special congressional presentation item, few were made, and fewer are known today. It is a tangible example of the RMA’s effort to mobilize Congress hurriedly on behalf of the TR memorial cause and the excessively ambitious design of John Russell Pope. The article by Alan Havig, reprinted from American Quarterly, provides insight into historical topics that are not often addressed within the pages of this journal: the varying stature of Theodore Roosevelt in the public consciousness in the years following his death, the early efforts of our own organization, and the political nature of the memorials at the Washington tidal basin. As an introduction to the article, this issue’s column will briefly comment upon an elaborately produced publication of the Roosevelt Memorial Association. It is the prospectus for the memorial that was never built, what Havig refers to as “the beautifully printed copy of the design given to each member of Congress.”3 While there were a few booklets and pamphlets Box label for the RMA’s prospectus for a Theodore Roosevelt Memorial. Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 17 Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection The RMA would not give up on its hope for a memorial in Washington. It eventually settled on Analostan Island, which would soon become Theodore Roosevelt Island. Interestingly, RMA leaders maintained Pope as their chosen architect for this effort, though they were undecided about what the character of that memorial would be.6 Fraught with back-and-forth debate and controversy, this memorial too took many years to finalize, eventually without a Pope contribution. Title page of the RMA’s prospectus. Despite the array of personalities involved on behalf of the RMA’s original cause, it was the combination of scale, location, and TR’s uncertain historical legacy (later reinforced by Henry F. Pringle in his misconceived Pulitzer Prize-winning 1931 biography) that resulted in its defeat. Even in our own young century such ambitious monuments have been criticized. The elaborate National World War II Memorial bears many striking similarities to Pope’s TR design. It too had difficulties being legislated into existence and received similar criticisms in regard to its scale and design. Most notably, it was called “heavyhanded,”7 which seems to be an apt description of the RMA’s illfated effort as well. Endnotes Roosevelt Memorial Association, Roosevelt Memorial Competition: Program of a Competition to Select the Artist or Group of Artists Who Will Be Commissioned to Design and Direct the Construction of a Monumental Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in the City of Washington (New York: Lenz & Riecker, Inc., 1925), title page. 1 six detailed drawings from the architect’s design. Numerous significant American artists and architects had been invited by the RMA to submit designs. Architects invited included C. Grant LaFarge and the firm of McKim, Mead & White. Sculptors invited included, oddly enough, the taxidermist Carl Akeley, and the landscape designers invited included Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.4 2 Ibid., p. 5. Alan Havig, “Presidential Images, History, and Homage: Memorializing Theodore Roosevelt, 1919-1967,” American Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4, Autumn 1978, p. 520. 3 John Russell Pope won the design award, and his magnificent, but over-the-top, drawings illustrate the book. Despite the TR memorial’s failure, Pope would go on to design the National Gallery of Art, the National Archives, and the Jefferson Memorial. The memorial to our third President would be built where Pope’s TR design was not to be. (Frank Lloyd Wright called Pope’s Jefferson Memorial an “arrogant insult to the memory of Thomas Jefferson.”5) As it turned out, Pope was not done with Theodore Roosevelt. A later design of his was chosen for the New York State Roosevelt Memorial in 1928. This is the famous addition to the American Museum of Natural History which faces Central Park West. Not completed until 1936, it was renamed specifically the “Theodore Roosevelt Memorial,” as by that time another President Roosevelt, the guest speaker at the dedication, was rapidly overshadowing his famous cousin. 4 Roosevelt Memorial Competition, p. 16. Thomas S. Hines, review of Steven Bedford, John Russell Pope: Architect of Empire (New York: Rizzoli, 1998), New York Times, November 15, 1998. 5 Analostan Island: The Site for the National Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in Washington (New York: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1931), p. 9. 6 Michael Z. Wise, “The New World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Is Meant to Celebrate the Power of Democracy. So Why Does It Resemble a Monument to a Defeated Fascist?”, Architecture, May 2004, p. 95. 7 18 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Presidential Images, History, and Homage: Memorializing Theodore Roosevelt, 1919-19671 by Alan Havig The final axis terminal became the focus of an unintended controversy during the 1920s. Confident of their hero’s right to be memorialized with Washington and Lincoln, the devoted friends of the recently deceased Theodore Roosevelt saw an initial hold on the valued location slip from their grasp before the stronger historical claims of Thomas Jefferson. In a fascinating contest of historical images and the conflicting responsibilities of national homage, Jefferson eventually gained a position with Washington and Lincoln in the nation’s most significant garden of honor. By the time another President bearing his name had come to reside in the nearby executive mansion, Theodore Roosevelt had been memorialized by the dedication of an island in the Potomac River—within sight of, but excluded from, the charmed triangle of greats. * * * * * Until the turn of the twentieth century the Mall had more the appearance of an overgrown pasture and railroad yard than a magnificent focus of the nation’s public life. A meeting of the American Institute of Architects in the capital city in 1900 was the occasion for the first serious consideration in decades of ways to beautify the city and rescue L’Enfant’s vision of central Washington from neglect and commercial development. An A.I.A. delegation established contact with the Senate Committee from American Quarterly, Autumn 1978, p. 515 By the 1920s, the Mall and the adjacent Potomac Park-Tidal Basin area in the nation’s capital were approaching the finished form envisioned in the plans of Pierre L’Enfant in the 1790s and the Senate Park Commission in 1902. Since 1885 the completed Washington Monument had stood near the intersection of the Capitol and White House axes that L’Enfant had incorporated into his original plan for the federal city. Three of the four terminal points of the huge cross formed by the axes were occupied by 1922: to the east of the Washington Monument the Capitol; to the north the White House; and to the west the recently completed Lincoln Memorial. Although the Mall area was assuming its present appearance, it remained unbalanced and incomplete, for south of the towering obelisk memorializing George Washington, in the Tidal Basin area, lay an unoccupied but significant site (see the image on this page). on the District of Columbia, and in 1901 its chairman, James McMillan of Michigan, gained Senate authorization to commission plans for the improvement of the District’s park system. The resulting Senate Park Commission was notable both for the prestige and ability of its members and for the scope and boldness of its vision. Daniel Burnham, Charles F. McKim, Augustus St. Gaudens, and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., dedicated themselves to the revival and expansion of L’Enfant’s plan for the entire city. Working in a national atmosphere sensitive to the “city beautiful,” these creators of Chicago’s White City of 1893 submitted their plans to the Senate in 1902. The proposals, though not binding, came to have “great moral force” over the years as Congress funded public structures. As historian John Reps has written, these “skilled and dedicated men . . . set the pattern for the subsequent development of one of America’s major cities.”2 An example of this “moral force” was the selection of a site for the Lincoln Memorial on land not yet reclaimed from the Potomac. Though the Commission’s decision provoked opposition, it was here that the Memorial was built within two decades. The Commission was much less specific about the potential memorial site south of the Washington Monument. Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 This Tidal Basin area became in the 1902 report the location of a cluster of buildings dedicated to notable Americans, perhaps the Founding Fathers. This dormant suggestion was the reigning proposal for the site which the friends of Roosevelt would find alluring during the 1920s.3 More than 85 years elapsed between the death of George Washington and the completion of the monument dedicated to him; 57 years passed between Lincoln’s assassination and the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.4 Perhaps to avoid such delays, Roosevelt’s friends quickly organized after his death in January 1919. If they were finally unable to place their hero on a symbolic par with the Founder and the Defender of American nationhood, they at least surpassed the promoters of Washington and Lincoln in their organizational and financial power. after its founding in March 1919, the group held over $1,700,000 in contributions. The fund was pledged to the fulfillment of three goals: to create a memorial park at Oyster Bay, Long Island; to perpetuate Roosevelt’s “ideals” through such efforts as underwriting programs in the schools and collecting sources relating to TR’s life; and, of primary importance, “To erect a monumental memorial in Washington to rank with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.” The Association pledged one million dollars toward this final goal in 1923, and established a prestigious committee, chaired by Roosevelt cabinet members Elihu Root and James R. Garfield, to oversee the selection of a site and design.5 Together with Garfield, Hermann Hagedorn, Director of the R.M.A. for many years, directed the tangible and intangible resources of the Association during the 1920s. Hagedorn served the memory and interpreted the meaning of Theodore Roosevelt with remarkable devotion. The New York City-born son of a wealthy German immigrant, he met and worked with the former President in 1916, during the maneuvering that killed the Progressive Party. In 1918 the thirty-six-year-old Hagedorn published The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt, the first of a series of books on TR that continued into the 1950s. Foreshadowing the themes of patriotism and Americanism that would constitute a considerable measure of the R.M.A.’s message during the 1920s, Hagedorn devoted his efforts during the war to a newspaper propaganda group called the “Vigilantes” and wrote a book on loyalty aimed at German-Americans.6 Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection The organization was the Roosevelt Memorial Association [later renamed the Theodore Roosevelt Association]. Two years 19 The RMA’s 1919 TR-birthday mailer soliciting contributions for a Theodore Roosevelt Memorial in Washington. Hagedorn’s efforts on behalf of Roosevelt aroused controversy and even ridicule, relevant to the campaign for a Roosevelt Memorial. Despite the R.M.A.’s positive contributions, skeptics had good reason to fault the organization’s uncritical approach to all that TR ever did and said, and its alacrity in pushing for a national memorial so soon after his death. At least one old Roosevelt friend, the naturalist John Burroughs, balked at “this indecent haste” to build a monument in 1919. “Give the grass time to grow on his grave before we pile up the marble.” By 1927, Kansas historian James C. Malin complained that the historical Theodore Roosevelt had been obscured by “the Roosevelt Legend,” one produced by his “uncritical admirers.” On the occasion of the Roosevelt centennial in 1958, two longtime acquaintances of Hagedorn harshly summarized his four decades of service to Roosevelt’s memory. Writing to his friend Van Wyck Brooks, Lewis Mumford noted “something quixotic and pathetic . . . about Hagedorn’s trying to bring to life the dead bones of T.R.” Brooks 20 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal replied: “There is in all this much childish sentiment, along with the endemic German worship of the fuhrer. Hermann’s fuhrer happened to be T.R.”7 [Editor’s note: Written after World War II, Brooks’s comment on Hagedorn, even acknowledging its private context and even assuming thoroughly benign intent, seems particularly ignorant and distasteful and insulting and inappropriate.] The most sarcastic public critic of the R.M.A. was Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of The Nation. In April 1925 he published a scathing piece in The American Mercury entitled “Creating Reputations, Ltd.” He was organizing a new business, announced Villard, a firm designed to defend and embellish the reputations of prominent men. No longer need the friends of politicians rely upon “that vague thing called the ‘truth of history’ and . . . Father Time himself.” Instead, Villard’s firm would use modern advertising techniques to manufacture reputations, “to anticipate the future and to copper rivet a favorable decision so soundly that the work can never be offset or undone.” The model that he would follow was the R.M.A. and Hagedorn. With its skills and resources, this organization had fashioned a one-dimensional image of Roosevelt designed to be immune to criticism or revision. Although Hagedorn had reason to object to the exaggerations and implications of “the witch-hunting Mr. Villard,” there was an essence of truth in the charges. As a historian of Theodore Roosevelt’s changing image has concluded, the Association’s efforts were “at times misdirected and over-religious,” producing “an unending stream of minutia and idolatry which seem almost ahistorical in their moralistic and evangelistic bent.” However worthy of recognition Roosevelt’s achievements were, the R.M.A.’s unquestioning devotion and narrow perspective during the 1920s would lead it to push too early and with seeming arrogance for a grand memorial in Potomac Park.8 Joint Resolution 135 was also rapidly approved because James Garfield marshalled support for it. After Hagedorn requested that Pepper be prodded, Garfield conferred not only with the Senator but also with House Speaker Frederick Gillett, with Roosevelt’s son-in-law Congressman Nicholas Longworth, and with President Coolidge. On January 10, 1925, he reported to Hagedorn that the resolution would pass and that Coolidge would sign it. The President acted routinely on the measure in mid-February.10 Misgivings about the R.M.A.’s plan in early 1925 were sufficient to force two modifications in the Association’s resolution. In its petition the organization had stated that Congress might have to appropriate funds to complete the project, as had been necessary with both the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The resolution as passed, however, made no mention of the possible future use of public monies, and the Association was charged with sole financial responsibility for obtaining an architectural design. Hagedorn’s group had also petitioned for a conditional grant of the site for construction of a memorial, not simply the use of the location as a basis for the design competition. The resolution which Coolidge signed specifically stated that the Association did not have the authority to execute its plans for a memorial without further congressional approval, and that the Tidal Basin site was the organization’s to use only as the basis for a design competition. At this early stage, Congress hesitated to make even the conditional commitment that Roosevelt’s partisans desired.11 From May 1923, when the R.M.A. selected the Tidal Basin site, until May 1926, when a House committee decided in favor of a Jefferson memorial for that location, Congress and the public faced the issue of memorializing Theodore Roosevelt. The Association settled on the location after a survey of possible sites in Washington, during which it was advised by a group of artists which included Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., a member of the 1901 Park Commission. Following the group’s pledge of one million dollars to the memorial’s construction in October 1923, it drafted a resolution requesting congressional permission to use the Tidal Basin site. Republican Senator George W. Pepper of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Library, introduced the petition in May 1924.9 The Association held its design competition between April and early October of 1925. Approximately eighteen architects, sculptors, and landscape designers either were invited or applied to solve “a many-sided and complex problem of the first magnitude, permanently establishing the only remaining cardinal point of the great central composition around which the Capital of the United States is developing.” Adhering to the rules of the American Institute of Architects, the Association arranged for a professional jury of award, which submitted its decision to Hagedorn on October 4, 1925. Two days later, in a ceremony at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art, R.M.A. President Garfield announced John Russell Pope of New York as the winner. His design was made public on December 12, on the occasion of its submission to Congress. Accompanying the beautifully printed copy of the design given to each member of Congress was the R.M.A.’s request for approval of the plan and permission to erect the memorial. Congressional passage of the resolution introduced in the Senate by Pepper and in the House by Robert Bacon of New York would have authorized construction of the memorial.12 Although Hagedorn became impatient with Congress’ failure to act on the request, in reality the legislators moved quickly considering its significance. While this partially resulted from an absence of serious opposition to the request, Senate Pope’s design, in its grand dimensions and its classical style, was worthy of a heroic national figure. Its central feature was a huge shaft of water thrust two hundred feet into the air from the center of an island of white granite. The island was set in a * * * * * Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 circular basin which was flanked on the east and west by curving colonnades. Although the memorial was not “calculated to dwarf the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument,” as Villard charged, it was out of proportion to other structures in the Mall composition. After their first exposure to the design, even Hagedorn and Garfield admitted that “it seemed to lack unity.” The island from which the fountain rose was 280 feet in diameter, just short of the length of a football field, and the basin was 600 feet across. A straight line drawn from the center of one colonnade to the other measured 800 feet. Each colonnade was 670 feet long and 60 feet high. A Washington Post writer calculated that the entire memorial, landscaping included, would extend 1,940 feet from east to west. By comparison, the Capitol building was only 751 feet in length, and the Washington Monument 555 feet tall. In the debate that occurred in late 1925 and early 1926, however, few people made size or visual disunity the basis of their criticism. Nor were there objections to the classical mode of the Pope design or the credentials of the architect. Ironically, one of Pope’s final contributions to monumental Washington was the more restrained and manageable Jefferson Memorial, erected on the site for which his Roosevelt memorial had been intended.13 21 of the deep sources of his nation’s history and sank back into them only to rise anew, cleansing the air and inspiring his countrymen with power, sparkle, faith and endurance. The fountain ever changing in its rising and falling, now flashing in the sunlight, now scarcely visible in the cloudy dusk, is always the Potomac River; even as Roosevelt, legislator, soldier, Governor, President, apostle of civic righteousness, a square deal, of national defense and national unity and the helping hand across the sea, is always—America. The theme of Roosevelt the nationalist, the unifier, was further represented in the idea that the memorial, with its imposing colonnades on the east and west, was a gateway between the sections as they met at the Potomac River. The New York-born Roosevelt, through his mother’s family a son of the South as well as of the North, symbolized as President “the final closing of the breach” between the one-time antagonists and the true restoration of “a more perfect union.”15 The Roosevelt Memorial Association used two arguments to justify the appropriateness of the Tidal Basin site. One related vaguely to Roosevelt’s role in the revitalization of L’Enfant’s Surprisingly, in the economy-minded Coolidge era, interested commentators made little mention either of the memorial’s cost or of the likely need for public funds to complete it. The press unofficially quoted an R.M.A. estimate of five million dollars for the realization of the Pope design, and an equal sum for reclaiming land from the Potomac and other “incidental improvements,” the latter to be borne by the government. One vocal citizen deplored the Association’s intention to “pass the buck to Congress” after it had spent its one million dollars on the memorial, but he did not represent a major public concern. The burden of the opponents’ case rested on the appropriateness of memorializing Roosevelt on the chosen site at all, not on such practical considerations as cost.14 It is to Roosevelt, the American, exemplar of patriotic devotion, that this design is dedicated. . . . Roosevelt’s spirit sprang out Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection The R.M.A.’s strategy for winning approval of the memorial plan included “rapidity of action” to “prevent opposition” and efforts to highlight the merits of the design itself. The Association missed few opportunities to interpret the symbolism inherent in the memorial. The “spout of living water” was chosen to represent the Rooseveltian vitality and energy, as well as the hero’s multifaceted Americanism. According to Garfield: Cover of the RMA’s prospectus for a Theodore Roosevelt Memorial. Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Gregory A. Wynn Theodore Roosevelt Collection 22 The proposed Theodore Roosevelt Memorial on the Washington Tidal Basin, as pictured in the RMA’s prospectus. plan for the city by the Park Commission in 1901 and after. The R.M.A. maintained that its location for the memorial was fitting because “of President Roosevelt’s part in the creation of the Park Commission plan,” by his support of it, and “by his insistence that each new element of beauty or utility introduced into the city should be in harmony with it.” When critics charged that Roosevelt’s admirers intended to alter the L’Enfant plan or its 1901 revival, Hagedorn asserted that the memorial would fulfill, not violate, these plans by developing the remaining undeveloped site in the Mall composition. Shortly after he saw the design, Hagedorn seriously considered using this argument as the focus of the Association’s publicity campaign: “that the carrying out of the great Washington plan, rather than any monument in marble, was the national memorial to Mr. Roosevelt.” Such an approach reflected doubts about the sprawling memorial and the wisdom of focusing on the design itself, but it was also based on doubtful history. Hagedorn and other partisans exaggerated Roosevelt’s role in the work of the Park Commission. Though as President he did give crucial support to the 1901 plan, the Commission was a creation of the Senate; it was formed and put to work prior to TR’s succession to the presidency; and it had been activated and invigorated more by the spirit and dedication of Senator McMillan than by those of anyone else.16 More significant than all of this, however, was the second and fundamental justification for Roosevelt’s presence in the axial design with Washington and Lincoln: His champions believed that Roosevelt was one of the three greatest American leaders, and that this historical judgment could be made within a brief time following his death. Although Hagedorn reported in October 1926 that the officers of the R.M.A. had “refrained from embarking on a public debate regarding the relative greatness of Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt,” he knew that this was the issue upon which Congress and the nation would decide the Association’s request. And it was not true that Roosevelt’s supporters had refrained from such a debate, for the Director and others were unable to mute their belief that Roosevelt was the equal of Washington and Lincoln. Hagedorn drew forceful parallels between the Founder and the Savior of the nation, on the one hand, and Roosevelt, on the other. Each man stood at a crucial juncture in the nation’s history; each symbolized a central theme in its successful development. As Hagedorn phrased it late in 1925: Just as Washington founded the Republic and Lincoln united it, so did Roosevelt consolidate and revitalize it. Roosevelt’s greatest service to us was as a fighter for national unity. All his career was devoted to a struggle against cleavage—sectional, religious, class and racial cleavage. Elihu Root agreed. Roosevelt deserved memorialization with Washington and Lincoln because of his greatest contribution, “uniting and harmonizing capital and democracy.” As the nation honored Washington for founding an independent republic and Lincoln for maintaining the Union, so should it also “honor Roosevelt for preventing the dissolution of the Republic through clashes between classes.” Or as Roosevelt’s former employer and ardent supporter, The Outlook, phrased the comparison: “Washington stands for the birth of the Republic, Lincoln for the permanency of its political union, Roosevelt for those social ideals that permeate all groups and conditions of Americans.” “Son of the East and South, foster-child of the West, Theodore Roosevelt expressed in his single personality the multiple virtues and achievements of our American democracy.” As a nationalist, as unifier of a divided and disrupted nation, as healer of sectional and social cleavages—this Roosevelt merited historic and symbolic equality with those other preeminent Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 Americans, Washington and Lincoln.17 This case failed to convince many private citizens, key public officials, and members of the press corps. While the controversy did not become a raging national debate, and while the full Senate and House never had the opportunity to discuss or vote on the memorial proposal, substantial opposition to the plan developed. Ultimately it focused on the Roosevelt reputation and the nation’s responsibilities toward other historical figures. Before the location was irrevocably appropriated, Theodore Roosevelt’s historical credentials received a thorough examination. The verdict was that, at the very least, it was too soon to freeze in granite the judgment that he was the equal of Washington and Lincoln. At times during 1925 and 1926, Garfield and Hagedorn misjudged or overemphasized certain motives of their opponents. They saw Villard’s attack on the R.M.A. in March 1925, for example, as largely a personal release of “his own spite and venom.” The group’s leaders did not reflect, as they might have, on the truth of Villard’s admittedly caustic remarks on the way in which organization and publicity techniques could be used to influence written history. Several months after Villard’s piece appeared, Hagedorn became alarmed that partisan Democrats coveted the Tidal Basin site, that the location “is being eyed by the Wilsonians.” But while Hagedorn continued to fear “mendacious and malicious” political opposition, he knew that, given large Republican majorities in Congress, the Roosevelt proposal was not defeated solely by Democrats, Wilsonians or others.18 No less a Republican than Coolidge recognized that it might be premature to grant the Tidal Basin site to Roosevelt. Garfield discussed the matter with the President on October 29, 1925, and found him concerned about possible “serious opposition to the selection of the Roosevelt site on the ground that it is now too soon to determine definitely his place in history.” The President chose not to become involved in the memorial debate, and he was said by several news reports to favor a site on 16th Street at the entrance to Rock Creek Park. Coolidge’s doubts about making instant historical judgments on past leaders did not surprise Hagedorn, even though he disagreed with them. Noting that he had expected strong opposition to the R.M.A.’s plan in Congress and elsewhere, he revealed that doubt also plagued the Roosevelt camp: “Even ardent Rooseveltians, I find, question the advisability of giving this particular site to Roosevelt so soon after his death.” That sentiment, when it united with the realization that other historic figures had not yet received proper recognition even though their reputations had withstood the test of time, doomed the proposal.19 Among the opponents of the plan was Dr. Charles Moore of Detroit, Chairman of the District of Columbia Commission of Fine Arts. In 1901 Moore had been Senator McMillan’s personal secretary, and he had worked closely with the Park 23 Commission professionals. This longtime overseer of the capital city’s development firmly opposed the Tidal Basin as the site for Roosevelt’s memorial. He preferred a location that he had first suggested to the R.M.A. in 1919, one near Walter Reed Hospital at the edge of the District. One cause of Moore’s concern in 1925 was the integrity of established procedures for the capital city’s embellishment. The Association had ignored the Fine Arts Commission by directly approaching Congress with its plan. Beyond procedural niceties, however, Moore further charged the R.M.A. with a substantive error: “The allotment of this particular site to a memorial for any one man is bound to result in controversy.” Agreeing with the Park Commission of 1901, he believed that the location should house a memorial to the founding fathers. Throughout the fall of 1925, Garfield and Hagedorn feared that Moore was using his considerable influence behind the scenes “to block the approval of the design,” and they made discreet inquiries about his position. Moore’s opposition certainly harmed the Association’s hope for congressional and public approval.20 Influential opposition to the plan also developed among architects, many of whom wished to reserve the site for a future Supreme Court building. By late November 1926 the New York and Chicago chapters of the American Institute of Architects had passed resolutions “protesting against the erection” of the Roosevelt fountain, and others within the profession were reportedly prepared “to bring all possible pressure upon Congress to preserve this location” for the Court. Although other architects pointed out that the justices did not wish to be housed so far away from the Library of Congress and the Capitol, the critics urged professional unity to preserve the symmetry of official Washington embodied in the city’s plan. The R.M.A., troubled by this opposition, obtained assurances from Chief Justice William Howard Taft that the Court did not want its building “put down in the flat lands of the Potomac.” Taft was reported to have told Elihu Root that “the Supreme Court is enough of a tomb as it is, . . . and he did not want to see it made into a Walhalla.” While these assurances seemed to eliminate the Court as a potential competitor for the site, the opposition of some architects harmed the R.M.A.’s cause.21 The New York Times carried the most extensive coverage of the memorial debate. It was also read and frequently corrected by Hagedorn. In its pages in late 1925 one finds articles continually maintaining that there existed a bitter controversy over the memorial plan, letters to the editor increasingly critical of the R.M.A.’s proposal, and correctives from Hagedorn futilely attempting to keep the discussion under control and properly informed.22 Citizen critics made several points. They advised that Congress avoid any hasty, ill-considered decision in filling the site, “incomparably the most important” remaining in the capital. Accepting the axiom that contemporaries are unable to judge their leading public figures properly, thoughtful observers 24 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal argued that the general procedure for paying monumental homage to dead heroes was haphazard and unjust. As one writer put it: “In the country at large we have 110,000,000 Democrats, Republicans and Borahs, each of whom is perfectly free, if his friends so choose, to have a monument in Washington.” As a result, Congress had committed serious errors of commission and omission, including the failure to erect a monument to Thomas Jefferson. The nation needed a fair and systematic procedure, and the occasion provided by the Roosevelt proposal should lead to the establishment of one.23 Finally, vocal citizens voiced a concern that became the focus of congressional thinking when the politicians thwarted the Roosevelt memorial proposal in the spring of 1926. As H. G. Dwight, a one-time State Department official, wrote to the Times, the site in question was so significant that it should only receive a monument to “commemorate one of the greatest events in our history or one of our three greatest men.” The R.M.A. had not adequately defended Roosevelt in these terms. As another writer noted, while Washington and Lincoln were by consensus the greatest American leaders, if “a third choice were to be made . . . a dozen men would divide the votes.” The central question was whether to turn the location over “to an organization which represents only ‘some of the people,’ ” or to withhold it from use until “a figure shall emerge clearly discerned by all the people” as the foremost figure of “our great war period.” There is no way to know how widely these views were held by the interested public, or how large that public was, but it is reasonable to assume that they made a strong appeal to the common sense notions of many people. Hagedorn and Garfield, at least, took special note of Dwight’s persuasive arguments. As “a writer of considerable reputation,” Hagedorn believed, this gentleman could turn opinion against the memorial plan.24 Few politicians took a position on the memorial controversy, probably because they were not forced to do so. But those who went on record to oppose the R.M.A. chose to dispute Roosevelt’s right to a place in history, or in the Mall area, with Washington and Lincoln. In December 1925, shortly after the Association had submitted the Pope design to Congress, Democrat William King of Utah addressed the Senate on the proposal. He called it an ill-advised, if not an audacious plan which contemplates the placing of Roosevelt’s name alongside [those] of Washington and Lincoln, and the creation of a great national triumvirate by constituting Mr. Roosevelt the third member of this illustrious and immortal group. King did not object to honoring Roosevelt, but he reminded his colleagues that important figures, long dead, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson, had not yet received suitable monuments in Washington. Whether any of these men should be honored in the Tidal Basin site King did not say, but he firmly opposed building a Roosevelt memorial “at such a place as will indicate a purpose to apotheosize Mr. Roosevelt and declare to the world that the three immortal figures in our history are Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.” The Senator hoped that the R.M.A. would “not press its demand.”25 The memorial controversy came quickly to a head on May 12 and 13, 1926. The precipitating figure in disposing of the issue was John J. Boylan, a Democratic congressman from New York who fancied himself a Jeffersonian. But while Boylan was the active agent in the culminating events, he only reflected an apparent congressional consensus that the movement to memorialize Roosevelt was inappropriate. On May 12 Boylan sent a letter to House Library Committee Chairman, Republican Robert Luce of Massachusetts, which transformed “wavering committee sentiment on the Roosevelt proposal” into positive action on a memorial for Thomas Jefferson. Boylan argued that the construction of a Roosevelt memorial would be unacceptable to many Americans so long as Jefferson remained unrecognized. Luce’s reply the following day signified the demise of the R.M.A.’s goal: “There seems little likelihood of favorable action being taken on the proposal of the Roosevelt Memorial Association about which you wrote us.” The site itself and the prospect of considerable governmental expense do “not meet with general favor in the committee.” In a meeting on the 13th, after Boylan had spoken, the committee authorized the drafting of a resolution to call for a Jefferson memorial on the Tidal Basin site. This action did not quickly lead to the construction of the present Jefferson Memorial, which was not begun until 1938 and was completed only in 1943. But it did effectively kill further consideration of the Roosevelt proposal.26 * * * * * The Roosevelt Memorial Association and its Director took their defeat gracefully, though they were reluctant to acknowledge that the proposal had in fact been rejected. Technically, Hagedorn was correct when he pointed out in late 1926 that Congress had not rejected the R.M.A.’s design; it had simply failed to approve it, and Hagedorn did not consider the matter closed. The Association’s Executive Committee decided “not to take any active steps for the present to push” its proposal, but rather to allow the Pope design itself to win converts. But as the years passed, the R.M.A. came to accept the reality of congressional opinion. In a special report to the Trustees in 1931, marked “Not For Publication,” Hagedorn confessed that opposition to the use of the Tidal Basin site “was practically insuperable,” and that further Association pursuit of the original goal would “have no result except to postpone for a generation the construction of any memorial.”27 Frustrated in its initial attempt to secure a memorial site, the Association requested that the National Capital Park and Planning Commission suggest alternate locations. Among those proposed was Analostan Island, lying west of the White House in the Potomac. On May 8, 1930, the organization selected the Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 Island as “far more promising even than the original site” chosen seven years earlier. After a fifteen-month period of difficult negotiations with the Island’s owner, the Washington Gas Light Company, the Association purchased the property in the fall of 1931 for $364,000. On Roosevelt’s birthday in October of that year, the R.M.A.’s Trustees voted “to perpetuate Analostan Island . . . as a Roosevelt memorial by presenting it to the United States Government for use as a park.” More than eleven years after it had established the goal of erecting a Roosevelt memorial in Washington, the R.M.A. had at last obtained a clear title to an appropriate site.28 With homage to Roosevelt now placed in a physical context quite different from that of the Tidal Basin location, there occurred a marked shift in the image of the former President which was to be projected. While Roosevelt the nation-healer, the unifier of sectional and social division, was symbolized in the Pope design, it was Roosevelt the rugged outdoorsman, the hiker and camper, the naturalist and conservationist, who was best represented by the overgrown and undeveloped woods and meadows of Analostan Island. “The Island gives an impression of wild country peculiarly appropriate as a setting for a memorial to Colonel Roosevelt,” Hagedorn wrote, and for the present the R.M.A. was content to let the property itself stand as the memorial, unencumbered by structures or monuments. As Hagedorn told a Senate committee in 1932, the Island “should be kept . . . a wild place” so that it will retain “a sense of sanctuary where the people may flee from modern civilization.”29 In view of its past difficulties, the R.M.A. accomplished 25 a smooth transfer of “Roosevelt Island” to the government in the election year of 1932. Its acceptance by the nation was ceremonially sealed at a small White House gathering on December 12. In what must have been an overriding atmosphere of political gloom, Garfield, who had been chairman of the platform committee at the recent Republican convention, presented the Island to the recently defeated President Hoover. As another Roosevelt era was about to begin, it was perhaps poignantly and ironically fitting that the defeated Republicans should pause for a moment to honor the Roosevelt who had led the Republican Party during better days. The irony did not end on that day. In early 1933 the lame-duck Hoover signed into law a bill changing “Roosevelt Island” to “Theodore Roosevelt Island,” lest anyone confuse the man soon to occupy the White House with the man honored by the patch of land in the river a short distance away.30 Theodore Roosevelt Island eventually did receive a memorial to the man whom it honored. On October 27, 1967, Roosevelt’s birthday, President Lyndon Johnson dedicated a monument built on the Island at public expense. Standing near a bronze statue of the former President, in a “woodsy setting” that was “exactly what any outdoorsman would have ordered,” Johnson chose to recall a Roosevelt who could be put to service in the defense of his administration’s Asian policy. LBJ called for national unity and resolve by using Roosevelt’s words: “Woe to the country where a generation arises which shrinks from doing the rough work of the world.” In a discordant mixture of Rooseveltian belligerence and love of the outdoors, the nation at last dedicated a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in Washington. Hermann Hagedorn, dead since 1964, would have been satisfied.31 photo by Rachel Cooper * * * * * Theodore Roosevelt Island, wrote Hermann Hagedorn, “gives an impression of wild country peculiarly appropriate as a setting for a memorial to Colonel Roosevelt.” Far from the heated controversy over the proposed Roosevelt memorial in Washington, in the rugged Black Hills of western South Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt was accorded monumental parity with Washington, Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. During the same years that public officials denied Roosevelt a position of equality with the American immortals, sculptor Gutzon Borglum chose to elevate him to the heights of Mount Rushmore. As a creative artist and private citizen, Borglum was free to interpret American history as he saw fit. Borglum had known Roosevelt personally, and had followed his Progressive Party in 1912. To the sculptor, the twenty-sixth President exemplified, fully as much as did his colleagues on the mountain, one of the “four great periods in the country’s progress.”32 26 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Regardless of the Roosevelt image embodied in the Rushmore sculpture, Roosevelt rose to join the immortals on a western mountain just as he was being relegated to a subordinate place in central Washington. The Roosevelt Memorial Association, which had nothing at all to do with Mount Rushmore, could derive at least a small measure of triumph from its hero’s symbolic victory. photo by Rachel Cooper Alan Havig moved from his home state of Minnesota in 1962 to pursue graduate study in history at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His dissertation investigated the political activities of six supporters of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, when they backed the Bull Moose Party, and in 1916, when most of them joined TR in returning to the Republican Party. Dr. Havig earned his Ph.D. in 1966 and began teaching at Stephens College the following year. His publications encompass a variety of fields in American history. He retired from teaching in 2006. A seventeen-foot bronze statue of TR stands in the center of Theodore Roosevelt Island. Although Borglum was often pressed to defend his selection of Roosevelt, particularly by partisans of Woodrow Wilson, he reportedly considered only one other man for inclusion, Benjamin Franklin. His justification of Roosevelt’s presence honored the nationalist and imperialist. He was honoring Jefferson as the philosopher of democracy, Washington as the father of the Republic, and Lincoln as preserver of the Union, Borglum once explained. Roosevelt joined the group for completing the dream of Columbus and opening forever the way between the great western and eastern oceans. . . . He was eminently Anglo-Saxon in spirit, and consciously or unconsciously made this ocean-to-ocean Republic . . . the controlling factor of the western world. When Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Rushmore Memorial site on August 10, 1927, he, too, stressed Roosevelt the empire-builder and internationalist: “By building the Panama Canal he brought into closer relationship the east and west and realized the vision that inspired Columbus in his search for a new passage to the Orient.”33 Endnotes This article was originally published under the same title in American Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4, Autumn 1978, pp. 514-532 (© 1978, The American Studies Association). It is reprinted here with the gracious permission of the author and The Johns Hopkins University Press. Aside from the correction of typing errors, the text is essentially unmodified. Endnotes have been partially reconfigured to bring them into line with the style of the TRA Journal. 1 John W. Reps, Monumental Washington: The Planning and Development of the Capital Center (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. xiii quoted, see also pp. 72-108; Thomas S. Hines, Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 139-151, 155; Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington: Capital City, 18791950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 132-146, p. 139 quoted; Charles Moore, Washington, Past and Present (New York, 1929), pp. 257-268. 2 Reps, Monumental Washington, pp. 20, 66-69, 109-111, 155159, 167; Hines, Burnham, pp. 152-156; Moore, Washington, Past and Present, p. 267. 3 On the memorialization of these two Presidents see Moore, Washington, Past and Present, chapters 13, 19; Frank Freidel and Lonnelle Aikman, George Washington, Man and Monument 4 Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 (Washington: Washington National Monument Association, 1965), pp. 30-55. Roosevelt Memorial Association, A Report of Its Activities, 1919-1921 (New York, 1921), pp. 9-11, 18, 32-34; Report of Activities, 1921-1922 (New York, 1923), p. 6; Annual Report, 1923 (New York, c. 1924), p. 12; Annual Report, 1926 (New York, c. 1927), p. 4; Annual Report, 1928 (New York, 1928), pp. 3-9, 10-21; Annual Report, 1929 (New York, 1930), p. 23. 5 “Hermann Hagedorn,” in The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Current Volume A (New York: James T. White, 1930), pp. 247-248. 6 Clara Barrus, The Life and Letters of John Burroughs (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), Vol. 2, pp. 371-372; James C. Malin, quoted in Richard H. Collin, “The Image of Theodore Roosevelt in American History and Thought, 1885-1965” (Diss., New York University, 1966), pp. 288-289; Robert E. Spiller, ed., The Van Wyck Brooks-Lewis Mumford Letters: The Record of a Literary Friendship, 1921-1963 (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970), pp. 412-413. 7 Oswald Garrison Villard, “Creating Reputations, Ltd.,” The American Mercury, Vol. 4, April 1925, pp. 385-389. For Hagedorn’s response see New York Times, Mar. 23, 1925. Collin, “Image of TR,” pp. 276-277, 299; Villard, “Roosevelt vs. Wilson: Fourth Round,” The Nation, Jan. 20, 1926, p. 52. 8 R.M.A., Report of Activities, 1921-1922, pp. 11-12; Annual Report, 1923, pp. 3-5. 9 27 “Roosevelt vs. Wilson,” p. 52. On Pope see Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, comps., Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased) (Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1970), pp. 480-481. Washington Post, Dec. 13, 1925; New York Times, Nov. 1, 1925. 14 Garfield to Hagedorn, Oct. 14, 1925, Garfield Papers; Hagedorn to Elihu Root, Dec. 19, 1925, Elihu Root Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; “Great Roosevelt Memorial Planned in Washington,” p. 11; Doolittle, “A Roosevelt Memorial,” pp. 263-270; Washington Post, Dec. 13, 1925; “The Proposed Roosevelt Memorial in Washington Designed by John Russell Pope,” The Outlook, Dec. 23, 1925, pp. 632-633. 15 Hagedorn to Garfield, Oct. 9 and 14, 1925, Nov. 25, 1925, Dec. 1, 1925, Garfield Papers; Hagedorn letters to the editor, New York Times, Nov. 9 and 24, 1925; Washington Post, Dec. 13, 1925. Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1931), and William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961), do not mention TR’s relationship with the Park Commission, but Reps gives Roosevelt credit for defending the 1901 plan. Monumental Washington, pp. 147-151. 16 R.M.A., Annual Report, 1926, pp. 7-8; Annual Report, 1929, pp. 17-18; Hagedorn, quoted in Harris E. Ewing, “Roosevelt Memorial Stirs up a Dispute,” New York Times, Nov. 22, 1925; Root quoted in Glenn Brown, “The Roosevelt Memorial Site,” Architectural Record, December 1926, pp. 587-588; “Are You Ready for the Question?”, The Outlook, Dec. 23, 1925, p. 624. 17 Hagedorn to James R. Garfield, Dec. 4, 1924; Garfield to George W. Pepper, Dec. 6, 1924; Pepper to Garfield, Dec. 8, 1924; Garfield to Hagedorn, Jan. 9, 10, and 13, 1924, James R. Garfield Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 18 R.M.A., Annual Report, 1924 (New York, c. 1925), pp. 5-7; Annual Report, 1925 (New York, c. 1926), pp. 5-6; Congressional Record, 68th Cong., 1st sess., 65:8, May 3, 1924, p. 7737. 19 10 Hagedorn to Garfield, Mar. 20, 1925, Oct. 12, 1925, Nov. 25, 1925, Garfield Papers; Garfield to Hagedorn, Mar. 27, 1925, Garfield Papers; New York World, Oct. 3, 1925, clipping in Garfield Papers. 11 R.M.A., Annual Report, 1925, pp. 5-10; Annual Report, 1926, pp. 6-7; New York Times, Apr. 6, 1925, Sept. 28, 1925, Oct. 1 and 7, 1925, Dec. 13, 1925; Washington Post, Oct. 7, 1925. 12 “Great Roosevelt Memorial Planned in Washington,” Exporters and Importers Journal, Vol. 34, Mar. 5, 1926, p. 11; Will O. Doolittle, “A Roosevelt Memorial,” Parks and Recreation, Vol. 9, January-February 1926, pp. 263-270. Both of the above are in the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Washington Post, Dec. 13, 1925; “The Roosevelt Memorial,” editorial, Washington Post, Jan. 5, 1926; Garfield, unpublished diary, Vol. 43, 1925, entries for Oct. 6, 7, and 8, Garfield Papers. Villard’s comment is in 13 Garfield to Hagedorn, Oct. 30, 1925, Nov. 5 and 21, 1925, Garfield Papers; Hagedorn to Garfield, Nov. 7, 19, and 25, 1925, Garfield Papers; Henry L. Stoddard to Garfield, Nov. 2, 1925, Garfield Papers; Garfield to Stoddard, Nov. 5, 1925, Garfield Papers. On Coolidge’s views see Washington Times, Oct. 24, 1925, and New York World, Oct. 3, 1925, clippings in Garfield Papers. Charles Moore to Root, Aug. 27, 1919, Charles Moore Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; Hagedorn to Moore, Dec. 17, 1920, Jan. 19, 1921, Moore Papers. Moore’s opinions are in Ewing, “Memorial Stirs up a Dispute,” and in “How Great was Roosevelt?”, Washington Daily News, Nov. 4, 1925, clipping in Garfield Papers. Hagedorn to Garfield, Oct. 29, 1925, Garfield Papers; Garfield to Charles D. Wolcott, Dec. 24, 1925, Garfield Papers; Wolcott to Garfield, Dec. 29, 1925, Garfield Papers; Moore, Washington, Past and Present, pp. 3-4. 20 28 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Negative comment is found in Ewing, “Memorial Stirs up a Dispute,” and in The Architect, Vol. 5, January 1926, p. 387, copy in TR Collection; positive views are in The American Architect, Jan. 20, 1926, p. 183, copy in TR Collection, and in Brown, “Roosevelt Memorial Site,” pp. 587-588. Taft’s views are reported in Hagedorn to Garfield, Dec. 2, 1925, Garfield Papers. image from the public domain 21 On Hagedorn’s problems with the press see his letters to Garfield of Nov. 9 and 25, 1925, and Dec. 16, 1925, Garfield Papers. 22 See New York Times editorial page on Oct. 18 and 21, 1925, Nov. 1, 1925, and Dec. 7, 1925. 23 Hagedorn to Garfield, Oct. 23, 1925, Garfield Papers; “How Great Was Roosevelt?”; see also sources in note 23. 24 Congressional Record, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 67:1, Dec. 16, 1925, pp. 919-920. 25 New York Times, May 14, 1926; Washington Evening Star, May 13, 1926. For efforts to honor Thomas Jefferson see Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 377-379, 420-432, Reps, Monumental Washington, pp. 173-176, and “Jefferson Monument to Have Precedence,” New York Times, July 4, 1926. 26 R.M.A., Annual Report, 1926, pp. 7-8; Annual Report, 1927 (New York, c. 1928), pp. 3-4, 17-18; Hagedorn, confidential report, “To the Trustees of the Roosevelt Memorial Association,” March 15, 1931, p. 1, copy in Herbert Hoover Presidential Papers—Individual Name File, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, IA. 27 Hagedorn, “To the Trustees of the R.M.A.,” pp. 1-3; R.M.A., Annual Report, 1931 (New York, c. October 1931), in Hoover Presidential Papers; New York Times, Oct. 14 and 28, 1931. The negotiations are revealed in papers located in the file at the Hoover Library cited in note 27. 28 R.M.A., Annual Report, 1931, pp. 2-4; “Analostan Island: The Site for the National Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in Washington,” pamphlet, no date, in Hoover Presidential Papers; Hearings Before the Senate Library Committee on S. 290, A Bill to Establish a Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in the National Capital, 72nd Cong., 1st Sess., Jan. 29, 1932, in TR Collection. 29 Hearings on S. 290; Public Law 146, May 21, 1932, 47 Stat. 163; New York Times, May 17, 22, 24, and 31, 1932, Dec. 13, 1932, Feb. 8 and 15, 1933. 30 Mount Rushmore. New York Times, June 11, 1967, Oct. 28, 1967; “Happy Birthday, TR,” Time, Nov. 3, 1967, p. 22; Irene McManus, “Return of the Rough Rider,” American Forests, October 1967, pp. 18-21, 44-48; W. Douglas Lindsay, Jr., U.S. Department of the Interior, to author, May 6, 1975; John A. Gable, Executive Director, Theodore Roosevelt Association, to author, May 10 and 14, 1975. 31 Robert M. Casey and Mary Borglum, Give the Man Room: The Story of Gutzon Borglum (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), p. 282. 32 Gilbert C. Fite, Mount Rushmore (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952), pp. 4-5, 45, 47, 81, 85, 211. Borglum quotation is from his “First Survey and the Development of the Memorial Project,” in Mount Rushmore National Memorial (Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission, 1930), p. viii. Calvin Coolidge’s address is also in Mount Rushmore National Memorial, pp. ix-x. 33 Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 29 FORGOTTEN FRAGMENTS (#12) a column by Tweed Roosevelt AN ESSENTIAL TR LIBRARY: FIFTY INDISPENSABLE BOOKS Some time ago on the TRA listserve someone challenged members to post their ideas about the five best books relating to Theodore Roosevelt. Many were proposed. The list needed to be varied and “fun.” In reading order my proposed list is as follows: First, I suggest Edmund Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, possibly the best book on TR, very readable, and, although long, captivating. Also, this is the portion of TR’s life often found most interesting by novices. Next, I suggest Cowboys and Kings: Three Great Letters by Theodore Roosevelt, edited by Elting E. Morison. It is short, charming, and a good introduction to the “real” TR. This ought to hold and confirm their interest. Then, I recommend one of the recent one-volume biographies, probably H. W. Brands’s TR: The Last Romantic—although this is among the longest books ever written about TR, and any of several others would do as well. Fourth, in order for novices to get a better feel for the breadth of TR, would be Edward Wagenknecht’s The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt. Finally, Hermann Hagedorn’s The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill would provide a flavor of TR’s family and personal life. If readers are not hooked after reading these books, they never will be. After this exercise, I determined to take on a much more ambitious project. I decided to create a list of books that any TR enthusiast should have read and have in his or her library. This was not to be a list of the best books on TR, but, rather differently, it was to be a list of the essential books, books that are required reading for a well-rounded education on Theodore Roosevelt. Therefore, a less good book might be included if none better is available and the particular subject matter is important, while a very good or excellent book, such as Cowboys and Kings, might be excluded because there is an even better one on the subject or the subject is adequately covered in other volumes. photo by Will Kincaid I eventually modified the endeavor. I am often asked to recommend books to those who are unfamiliar with TR. So I decided to determine which five books I would recommend to novices—to my mind, quite a different objective than choosing the five best. The point was to capture their interest so they would want to learn more. Tweed Roosevelt. Biographies offered another dilemma. I think it is important that several be read, and I have included them. Perhaps the most controversial is Henry Pringle’s Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography. This is a very uncomplimentary and misguided biography which is viewed with horror by many TR historians and aficionados, and which caused much damage to TR’s reputation for many decades—to a degree, right up to the present. But simply because of its enormous impact I think it should be included. Another criterion was that the books should be reasonably easy to obtain and not too costly. This is not a list for collectors. An example of a book I omitted for one of these reasons is A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt, a fine new collection edited by Serge Ricard, which contains some superb essays but is extremely expensive. The next decision was about how long the list should be. 30 This was not easy, but I realized the necessity of imposing selfdiscipline. After trial and error I decided on fifty; even at that high number it was hard to fit in all the ones I wanted to, and some important books had to be left out. (Two of the listed items, it should be noted, are multi-volume collections of TR’s own writings.) It is interesting to speculate on what size such a list ought to be for other Presidents. I believe that the only President for whom there would be a longer list is Abraham Lincoln. A few, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, might join TR at the fifty level, while the rest would merit significantly less than fifty, some only a very small number. I am cognizant of what TR wrote, while he was in Africa on safari, of Harvard President Charles Eliot’s newly published list of the one hundred best books, and therefore I emphasize that this is not “the” list but merely “a” list. I realize that some of the books I have included may perplex certain readers, and that some I have failed to include may outrage others. So I will not write an analysis of this list but will leave that assignment to you. Have fun! I look forward to hearing from my readers, but I will impose one caveat. If you wish to propose an addition, you must also recommend a deletion. Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal Tweed’s Essential TR Library 1. Abbott, Lawrence, ed. The Letters of Archie Butt, Personal Aide to President Roosevelt. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1924. 2. Beale, Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956. 3. Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, ed. Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919. 4. Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954. 5. Brands, H. W. TR: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997. 6. Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. 7. Burroughs, John. Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1906. 8. Burton, David H. Theodore Roosevelt: Confident Imperialist. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968. 9. Chessman, G. Wallace. Governor Theodore Roosevelt: The Albany Apprenticeship, 1898-1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965. 10. Cooper, John Milton, Jr. The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983. 11. Cutright, Paul Russell. Theodore Roosevelt: The Naturalist. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. 12. Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. 13. Dyer, Thomas G. Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980. 14. Gable, John Allen. The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1978. 15. Gardner, Joseph L. Departing Glory: Theodore Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 Roosevelt as Ex-President. Sons, 1973. 31 New York: Charles Scribner’s 16. Gatewood, Willard B. Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy: Episodes of the White House Years. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970. 17. Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. 18. Hagan, William T. Theodore Roosevelt and Six Friends of the Indian. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. 19. Hagedorn, Hermann. The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill. New York: Macmillan, 1954. 20. Hagedorn, Hermann. Roosevelt in the Badlands. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921. 21. Hagedorn, Hermann, ed. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt. Memorial Edition, 24 vols., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923-1926. 22. Harbaugh, William Henry. Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1961. 23. Hart, Albert Bushnell, and Ferleger, Herbert Ronald, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia. Second edition, Oyster Bay, NY, and Westport, CT: Theodore Roosevelt Association and Meckler Corporation, 1989. 24. Hendrix, Henry J. Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009. 25. Hoyt, Edwin P. Teddy Roosevelt in Africa. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1966. 26. Jones, Virgil Carrington. Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1971. 27. Lang, Lincoln A. Ranching with Roosevelt. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1926. 28. Lorant, Stefan. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959. 31. Marschall, Rick. BULLY! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2011. 32. McCullough, David. Mornings on Horseback. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. 33. Millard, Candice. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey. New York: Doubleday, 2005. 34. Miller, Nathan. The Roosevelt Chronicles. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1979. 35. Miller, Nathan. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1992. 29. Lutts, Ralph H. The Nature Fakers: Wildlife, Science & Sentiment. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 1990. 36. Morison, Elting E., et al., eds. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. 8 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951-1954. 30. Marks, Frederick W., III. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. 37. Morris, Edmund. Colonel Roosevelt. New York: Random House, 2010. 32 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal 44. Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1931. 45. Putnam, Carleton. Theodore Roosevelt: The Formative Years, 1858-1886. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958. 46. Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. 47. Wagenknecht, Edward. The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1958. 48. Weaver, John D. The Brownsville Raid. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1992. 49. Wister, Owen. Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship, 1880-1919. New York: Macmillan Company, 1930. 50. Wood, Frederick S. Roosevelt as We Knew Him: The Personal Recollections of One Hundred and Fifty of His Friends and Associates. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1927. Tweed loves to hear from his readers. He can be reached at [email protected]. 38. Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. 39. Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex. New York: Random House, 2001. 40. Morris, Sylvia Jukes. Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980. 41. Mowry, George E. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958. 42. Naylor, Natalie A., Brinkley, Douglas, and Gable, John Allen, eds. Theodore Roosevelt: Many-Sided American. Interlaken, NY: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1992. 43. Neu, Charles E. An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906-1909. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 33 PRESIDENTIAL SHAPSHOT (#17) President Roosevelt Assesses Conditions in Cuba and Oversees U.S. Policy Just Days Before Reluctantly Initiating the U.S. Military Intervention of September 1906 - January 1909 the complete text of a letter of September 10, 1906, to Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon (in Morison et al., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. V, pp. 402-403) “I am more and more imprest [this letter includes several instances of the employment by Roosevelt of the new “simplified spelling”] by your suggestion about Root, tho I greatly wish we could have an hour’s talk with him before he went to Cuba. If he could stop in Havana and make a serious address to the people, calling attention to the fact that those who bring about revolution and disturbance are in reality doing their best to secure the intervention and domination of the United States and are in the profoundest way unpatriotic to the cause of Cuban independence, he might accomplish a great deal. It may be impossible to wait, however, until he can get there, and when you come here next Saturday or Sunday we will have to consider whether it is not desirable for me in some shape or way, whether in a formal letter to the Cuban Congress or otherwise, to speak a solemn warning stating that we do not want to intervene, but that they will leave us no alternative if they reduce the country to a condition of revolutionary anarchy. It may be that such a warning would make some of the revolutionists pause. In any event it would clear our skirts. “Cannot you write to Steinhart to tell Palma to use in the most effective fashion all the resources at his command to quell the revolt? Sleeper is evidently a wretched and worthless creature; and Morgan needs to be told that he has mist the great chance of his diplomatic life by not being on the spot. At the first symptom of disturbance in Cuba he should have been hurrying to his post. “I send you the enclosed from Steinhart, which please look thru carefully, and treat it as confidential. Steinhart is wrong about immediate intervention; but it may be worth while considering whether an emphatic warning to the people of Cuba as to what revolutionary disturbances will surely entail in the way of intervention would be a good thing. I will speak to you about this next Saturday. Meanwhile cable to Steinhart for his private information that it would be out of the question for us to intervene at this time; but that we are considering whether or not to send a word of emphatic warning as to the certainty that intervention will come in the end unless the people are able to patch up their difficulties and live in peace. Let him convey this confidentially to Palma, but not publish it. Let him, however, publish the authorized statement that the article in La Lucha purporting to give a statement by the Herald as to my views on the Cuban situation is without one particle of foundation and represents simply a tissue of deliberate and malicious inventions.” 34 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal TR-ERA IMAGES Image #10 Art Koch Image #9 Six co-winning responses were received from Captain Jeff Hennessy, Mike Thompson, Robert J. Walker, Larry Marple, Dick Boera, and Philip Fontana. (Honorable Mention goes to Phillip Gibbons, Bill Moline, Dennis Crawford, Al Frazia, and Gene Kopelson.) Capt. Hennessy wrote: “The picture . . . was taken on Sept. 13, 1898, at Montauk, Long Island. Colonel Roosevelt is shown at the mustering out of his men. After being escorted out of his tent, Roosevelt was presented with [Frederic] Remington’s ‘The Bronco-Buster’ by his men. You can see the bronze on the table behind Roosevelt. As all of the men filed past Roosevelt, he shook their hands in a good-bye.” Mr. Thompson added that “the statuette had been purchased with monies collected from members of the regiment.” Mr. Fontana’s submission drew from Douglas Brinkley’s excellent discussion of this event in The Wilderness Warrior; according to Brinkley, “the Rough Riders had given Colonel Roosevelt the best gift possible.” TR was overwhelmed with gratitude. This cast can be found at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site (currently closed for renovations); another is in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington. Image #10 Can you identify this stereoscope card? Readers are invited to send responses to Art Koch by e-mail at [email protected] (or by mail at One West View Drive, Oyster Bay, NY 11771). Mr. Koch will identify the writer of the best response on his TR-Era Images page in the next issue of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal. Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 35 Theodore Roosevelt Celebrated at Boston University by William N. Tilchin The enormous and unrivaled Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University is wellknown to TR enthusiasts and widely utilized by TR scholars. However, another extensive (even if much less so than Harvard’s) TR collection, this one housed in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, appears to have escaped the attention of many students of TR and certainly is underutilized by researchers. Boston University’s Theodore Roosevelt Collection came as a gift from Paul C. Richards, who spent two decades assembling it. This collection encompasses more than a hundred original manuscripts of Roosevelt’s articles, books, and speeches, along with a very large number of letters, almost seven hundred of which are handwritten. It also contains approximately eightyfive photographs of Roosevelt, many inscribed; contemporary engravings, postcards, cartoons, and memorabilia (including campaign buttons from TR’s vice presidential and presidential campaigns); and three recordings of Roosevelt’s speeches. Among many books by and about Roosevelt are signed first editions; a full eight-volume set of The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, edited by Elting E. Morison and his associates; and complete sets of both Scribner’s editions of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, one in twenty-four volumes, the other in twenty-eight. Each academic year the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center hosts approximately six “Student Discovery Seminars” in its Reading Room on the fifth floor of Boston University’s Mugar Library. These hour-long seminars give students the opportunity to view, hold, and examine original letters, manuscripts, photographs, and other items. After brief introductory presentations by a member of the Gotlieb Center’s staff and a guest speaker from the B.U. faculty, student participants are encouraged “to walk the room, handle the documents, and experience your own revelations” (with the staff member and the professor available to answer questions). Handwritten four-page contract dated June 20, 1885, among Theodore Roosevelt, William Sewall, and Wilmot Dow. The original was on display during the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center’s Student Discovery Seminar on February 24, 2011. 36 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal At 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, February 24, 2011, a Student Discovery Seminar titled “Theodore Roosevelt and the American Presidency” took place. Approximately thirty students were in attendance. The Gotlieb Center’s Alex Rankin introduced the seminar and then introduced me as the guest speaker. My presentation follows, in full: * * * * * * * * * * The materials on display here today pertain to the life and career of one of the most interesting and one of the most extraordinary individuals ever to cross the stage of United States history, the country’s twenty-sixth President, Theodore Roosevelt. So, in my remarks here this evening, I would like to address both Roosevelt as a unique character and the significance of his achievement-filled presidency. Having overcome a severe asthmatic condition as a youth, the adult Roosevelt became America’s leading apostle of what he called “the strenuous life.” An enthusiast of nature and the outdoors since his childhood, the upper-class New Yorker TR toughened himself by spending large parts of three years as a rancher in the Dakota Territory in the mid-1880s. An avid reader with a powerful intellect and an amazingly retentive memory, Roosevelt also became a versatile and prolific author, publishing his first book, the highly acclaimed The Naval War of 1812, at the age of twenty-three and well over thirty total books on history and natural science and political questions during his sixty-year lifetime. In addition, incredibly, he wrote more than 100,000 letters. Prior to TR’s presidency he was a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, was president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, made a great impact during a one-year stint as assistant secretary of the navy, organized the Rough Riders and heroically led them as they fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, was a very popular reformer as governor of New York, and then was elected Vice President of the United States in 1900. And upon the assassination of William McKinley in September 1901, TR became at forty-two the youngest-ever U.S. President. Even as President, Roosevelt lived the strenuous life. In Washington, TR frequently engaged in demanding physical activity; he enjoyed some rugged vacations; and he played hard with his six children during his many months at his Summer White House in Oyster Bay, New York. After his presidency, Roosevelt went on a long African safari and then, in 1914, experienced the most dangerous adventure of his life, a near-fatal trip down the previously unexplored River of Doubt in Brazil. And when the United States entered World War I in 1917, at which time TR was fifty-eight years old, he sought a front-line battlefield deployment—but was denied by his bitter political rival, President Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt really is an irresistible historical figure, and his enduring appeal to Americans is closely tied to the personal attributes he embodied. In this regard I will read a quotation from Jonathan Tobin, who wrote these words in a recent review essay: The legacy that has so endeared Theodore Roosevelt to successive generations is not so much his progressivism, [his] enthusiasm for global American power, or even his environmentalism. It is, instead, based on an understanding that the spirit of adventure, service, sacrifice, and yes, valor that Theodore Roosevelt exemplified is one they find uniquely admirable regardless of the politics of his day or our own. . . . These virtues are precisely the ones that have earned him his enduring popularity. Of course, it is Theodore Roosevelt’s accomplishments and legacy as President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 that are by far the most historically significant aspects of his life. So here I will briefly address Roosevelt’s presidency by focusing on four areas: public relations, progressivism, environmentalism, and foreign policy. Least important of these four—but certainly still noteworthy—TR was the first modern President in the way he utilized the media to build his image and to help himself gain and maintain political support. His knack for media relations was a real asset to him as he pursued a very ambitious substantive policy agenda. Regarding domestic policy, TR was the first of the modern progressive Presidents (and the only one who was a Republican). Despite TR’s well-earned reputation as a trust-buster, the primary objective of what Roosevelt called his Square Deal program was federal regulation of large corporations in the interest of the American citizenry. Such landmark laws as the Hepburn railroad bill, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act were the first major contributions to the system of federal regulation of business on behalf of the people that became and remains an important element in modern American life. Theodore Roosevelt also was the foremost environmentalist President in U.S. history. His conservation policies provided a vivid demonstration of the Rooseveltian concept of stewardship, according to which a primary duty of the President is to act for the benefit of the American people as a whole, future generations emphatically included. The results were more than 150 million acres of new forest reserves, the first twenty-four federal irrigation projects, the first four national game preserves, the first fifty-one federal bird reservations, the first eighteen national monuments, five new national parks, and, during the final year of Roosevelt’s presidency, the convening of three major conservation conferences. This was truly a breathtaking record—a record that by itself would be sufficient to mark TR’s presidency as a very beneficial and important one. Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 37 Campaign poster, 1898. The original was on display during the Gotlieb Center’s Student Discovery Seminar on February 24, 2011. President Roosevelt’s accomplishments in the arena of foreign policy also were extraordinary. A hands-on diplomatist of great discretion, acumen, and vision, Roosevelt fully grasped the complex and far-reaching implications of the United States’ recent emergence as a great power. He sharply increased the size and efficiency of the American navy, secured permanent U.S. control of the Panama Canal Zone, began building the canal, and established U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. He adroitly cultivated a special relationship between Great Britain and the United States, while at the same time maintaining amicable relations with Germany and Japan, the two powers he viewed as America’s most formidable potential enemies. His skillful mediation—illuminated by some of the items available for viewing here today—brought an end to the Russo-Japanese War (and won him a Nobel Peace Prize), and his deft behindthe-scenes diplomacy facilitated a peaceful resolution of the highly dangerous Franco-German crisis over Morocco. Overall, the twenty-sixth President was almost uniformly successful both in dealing with specific foreign policy challenges and in advancing his broader objectives. Moreover, his statesmanship significantly enhanced the United States’ image in the world. And, decades later, updated versions of TR’s core foreign policy principles—broadly defined U.S. interests, formidable military power, and an Anglo-American partnership—would guide the U.S. to victories over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II and over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and, still later, would guide America in its confrontation with Islamic extremism. When historians rank American Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt most often comes in fourth, behind Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and George Washington. Back in 2005, the Gotlieb Center produced a booklet called Capturing History, to which I contributed a short chapter on the Lincoln and TR 38 Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal collections. In that chapter, titled “The Country’s Greatest Presidents Are at Boston University,” I wrote the following about TR and the matter of rankings: A case can be made that Theodore Roosevelt— despite never experiencing a crisis nearly as severe as the Great Depression or the Second World War—should be ranked right behind Abraham Lincoln. TR’s domestic policy record was outstanding. As to foreign policy, TR encountered no extreme crisis largely because he expertly promoted international peace and stability and was remarkably good at anticipating crises and heading them off. . . . All the while he upheld his broad and wellconsidered conception of vital U.S. interests. Indeed, the consistently stellar diplomatic record of the first President Roosevelt led the author of this essay to identify TR in a book published in 1997 as probably “the United States’ greatest practitioner of statecraft in the twentieth century.” photos by Katherine Kominis I would like to close my prepared remarks by telling everyone here about the Theodore Roosevelt Association. I am a Vice President of this organization and, as Alex mentioned, the editor of the quarterly Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal. The TRA promotes historical research and writing on Roosevelt and advocates for the contemporary and, even more, the permanent relevance of many of TR’s ideals and policy prescriptions and actual presidential policies. I have brought with me some membership application forms and several copies of a recent issue of the TRA Journal, which I will be pleased to share with anyone who might like to consider joining the TRA. Four of Professor William Tilchin’s students (at the time enrolled in his Social Science 202 course on U.S. foreign policy since the 1930s) investigate display items from Boston University’s Theodore Roosevelt Collection on February 24, 2011. Bottom photo: Jose Chavez. Middle photo, left to right: Yessenia Guncay, Neva Wallach, Liliana Pon. Top photo, right: Prof. Tilchin. And now it’s time for all of us to look at the treasure trove of items from Boston University’s Theodore Roosevelt Collection set out on the tables in this room this evening. I will stay around to help Alex answer any questions. Thank you very much for your kind attention. * * * * * * * * * * Following my presentation, the students in attendance (all wearing white gloves) spent about forty minutes handling and closely viewing the dozens of items on display. These included original letters, original marked-up manuscripts, and memorabilia of various sorts. As I too Volume XXXII, Number 4, Fall 2011 39 Letter of August 12, 1905, from Theodore Roosevelt to Julia Ward Howe. The original was on display during the Gotlieb Center’s Student Discovery Seminar on February 24, 2011. examined the display items, I had the opportunity to answer numerous questions and to engage several students in animated conversations regarding Theodore Roosevelt. Students were learning firsthand about TR and, more generally, about the nature of the primary materials that constitute the foundation of the historical record. The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center’s Student Discovery Seminars are aptly named. This particular event, enthusiastically and thoughtfully and very capably organized by Alex Rankin, appears to have been a grand success. And for the guest speaker in particular, it also was extremely enjoyable! T heodore R oosevelt A ssociation J ournal F all 2011
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