IC-NRLF GIFT OF JANE ROOSEVELTIAN FACT AND FABLE. Illustrated. i2mo. 200 pages. Bound in red cloth. Fourth edition, with index, published No vember i, 1910. Price, postpaid, #1.00. BULL MOOSE TRAILS. 124 pages. Bound in blue cloth. Price, postpaid, 75 cents. BULL MOOSE TRAILS SUPPLEMENT TO " ROOSEVELTIAN FACT AND FABLE" BY MRS. ANNIE RILET HALE PRICE, SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR AT 6 WEST 66-TH STREET NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1912 BY ANNIE RILEY HALE All rights reserved PREFACE When in the compilation of "Rooseveltian Fact and Fable," at Washington, D. C., in the Summer of 1908, I put into the preamble of Chapter IX entitled, "Roosevelt and the Mothers" an old magazine story written by Lincoln Steffins in 1899, I little dreamed that that story rescued from the dust of thirteen years, and carrying Colonel Roose velt s remark when embarking from Cuba, that he "felt like a bull moose," would be the innocent means four years later, of affixing a picturesque pseudonym to a new political party devoted to the public good. Yet such, I understand, is the fact. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS CHAPTER I "SHOWING His TEETH" TO GENERAL MILES (1901) i CHAPTER II How ROOSEVELT "TOOK PANAMA" IN 1903 22 CHAPTER III ROOSEVELT S PACT WITH THE MORMONS (1903-4) 4i CHAPTER IV How T. R. FOUGHT THE "BOSSES" OF NEW MEXICO (1906-7) 78 CHAPTER V SOME EPISODES AND SIDELIGHTS OF THE AFRICAN EXPEDITION (1909-10) . . 103 CHAPTER I. "SHOWING HIS TEETH" TO GENERAL MILES The True Version of a Variously Reported Incident "I ll show you I ve got teeth" suiting the action to the word and lifting a menacing forefinger. "I ve got teeth, and you shall feel them!" The speaker was Theodore Roosevelt, Presi dent of the United States, and the person addressed in these savage words was Nelson A. Miles, Com manding General of the United States Army. The time was December, 1901 ; the place, the reception hall in front of the executive office in the White House ; and the audience, an indiscriminate assem blage of senators, congressmen, newspaper men, and others. The immediate and aggravating cause of this presidential explosion was an interview which Miles had given to an inquisitive reporter some days before in Cincinnati, wherein he had ex pressed his approval of Admiral Dewey s verdict just made public in the "Schley Court of In quiry," which convened in September, 1901, had not concluded its work until December. It will be recalled that this Naval Court, called to decide on i BULL MOOSE TRAILS the merits of the Santiago campaign, was composed of three admirals Dewey, Benham, and Ramsay; and that Admiral Dewey, the presiding member of the Court, had rendered a verdict at variance with the other two. The majority verdict, being re viewed and approved by the Secretary of the Navy, was suffered to stand; from it there was no appeal, except to the President of the United States, and he, when appealed to some weeks later by Admiral Schley, agreed with the majority finding. At the time General Miles gave the Cincinnati interview, however, the President had not rendered his decision against Schley; it was not apparent, at that stage of the proceedings, that he had had any part in the findings of the Naval Court. General Miles s comment, therefore, could not have carried any criticism of Roosevelt, save in that peculiar Rooseveltian sense wherein he assumed responsibil ity for everything which happened under his ad ministration except the panic. It was soon divulged that the Cincinnati inter view had given deep offence to President Roosevelt however, and the Secretary of War was ordered to demand an explanation of Miles. It was given in the following letter: "SIR: "I have the honor to state that my observations as substantially reported had no reference to the action pending, or otherwise, of a co-ordinate BULL MOOSE TRAILS branch of the service. They -wete 1 - merely my per sonal views, based upon matters set forth in various publications given to the world, and concerning which I conceive there was no impropriety in ex pressing an opinion, the same as any other citizen, upon a matter of such public interest. My obser vations were in no sense intended as a criticism of a co-ordinate branch of the service, and the state ment that I had no sympathy with the effort to dis parage a distinguished and gallant officer likewise had no such reference. "Respectfully, "(Signed) NELSON A. MILES, "Lieut-General, U. S. A." Having dispatched this explanation to the Secre tary of War, General Miles repaired to the White House, to make his peace with the President, little dreaming what awaited him there. The account here given of what occurred is taken first-hand from two reliable witnesses who were standing quite near the main participants in the scene; and who, unless eyes and ears both played them false, could not have been mistaken. According to these, General Miles was standing within a window embrasure, talking to a gentle man, when a stir near the door made him aware of the President s entrance. He immediately started toward him with right hand extended; the President quickly thrust his hand behind him, and 4 Bt)LL MOOSE TRAILS tHe Gehdrai as : quickly dropped his standing at attention. The eyes of all those in the room at once fastened on the pair, and under this stimulus Roosevelt s theatrical sense rose rapidly. His wrath was manifested in manner, tone, and sharp explosive sentences: "Yes, yes! I wanted to see you. I wish you to understand that I will have no criticism of my administration from you, or any other officer in the Army. Your conduct is worthy of censure, sir. You had no business to express an opinion" etc., etc. "I have got teeth, and you will find that I can show them," shaking his finger in the General s face and baring all his dental armo ries. Miles s attempted explanation was cut short by a repetition of the foregoing menacing forefinger, teeth, and all. Whereupon the old soldier of a hundred battles lifted his chest and his chin in quiet disdain and allowed his assailant to rave; thinking, as he afterward remarked, that u he must surely stop presently for lack of breath." Hav ing reached this breathless point, the President turned abruptly, and left the Commanding General standing in silence amid the gaping spectators. The following day General Miles received from Secretary Root a formal reprimand, which was at the same time made public "by the direction of the President": BULL MOOSE TRAILS 5 "LlEUT.-GENERAL NELSON A. MlLES, U. S. A. "SIR: "Your explanation of the public statement made by you is not satisfactory. You are in error if you suppose that you have the same right as any other citizen to express publicly an opinion regarding of ficial questions pending in the course of military discipline. . . . (Here follows a partial quo tation of Army Regulations.) You had no business in the controversy, and no right to express an opin ion. Your conduct was in violation of the Regula tions above cited, and you are justly liable to cen sure, which I now express. " (Signed) ELIHU ROOT, Secretary of War." Had Root quoted the full text of the Army Regulations, the irregularity and injustice of this "reprimand" would have been manifest to all. After waiting a whole month for the President s wrath to cool, and willing to forgive much to what was popularly supposed to be the "Roosevelt im petuosity," General Miles, carrying a full copy of the Army Regulations, again sought the Executive presence ; and, pointing out the clause suppressed by Root, asked Mr. Roosevelt, as a matter of simple justice and manly reparation, to order a retraction of the reprimand. Roosevelt promised to "think about it"; and, there being no by-standing gallery to play to this time, he treated the Commanding General with a measure of civility. Needless to 6 BULL MOOSE TRAILS recount however, his pondering on the circum stances of the reprimand" did not result in a re traction. Admissions of error are fatal to one pur posing to establish a habit of infallibility, and the closest study of Rooseveltian annals will not dis close any such mollycoddlish indices of weakness upon his part. It is "the other fellow" who is mis taken always ; never T. R. The popular outcry which went up over the land at the treatment of General Miles was not without its disturbing effect upon the President, however. It could not stir him to the nobility of a manly confession, but it drove him to his customary shift of denial and evasion. This was accomplished through the medium of his obedient "cuckoo" flock at Washington. One dispatch stated: "The President is much annoyed by the criticisms appearing in the press on his censure of General Miles. While the President does not object to honest criticism (oh, wo/), he does not like to be misrepresented. // is now de nied that the scene was as sensational as at first reported, though the language used was emphatic. . . . // is not believed that the President shook his finger in General Miles s face," etc., etc., etc. Still another obliging and ingenious correspond ent so worded his report as artfully to lay the blame for the whole business upon Secretary Root ! The Army and Navy publications of that period, BULL MOOSE TRAILS 7 however, were not so sparing of the Roosevelt sen sibilities. The Army and Navy Journal, of Decem ber 28, 1901, said: "By Article 898, of the Army Regulations, punishment for light offences is lim ited to the censure of the commanding officer; and a reprimand, such as has been administered to Gen eral Miles, can only be administered on the verdict of the court-martial; since it is a distinct and well- defined punishment for specially named offences. Even a non-commissioned officer is under the pro tection of Article 256, which directs superior offi cers to be cautious in reproving him in the hearing of private soldiers. Is it not incumbent that at least equal consideration should be shown to the Commanding Officer in the presence of his military inferiors?" The Army and Navy Register, in a January (1902) issue, offered this comment: "General Miles s assumed views did not justify the severity not to say the brutality of phraseology adopted by the President in the letter signed by Mr. Root; and there was no reason for advertising the Execu tive humiliation to which General Miles was so crudely and so cruelly subjected. . . . The President offended the amenities of official and un official intercourse when he personally rebuked the Commanding General while calling at the White House. It is not possible to justify that incident, notwithstanding the habit which Mr. Roosqvelt has 8 BULL MOOSE TRAILS contracted of losing his temper. . . . It is also undeniable that the President was bound to hear an explanation if General Miles had one to offer. The latter was not, however, permitted to speak in his own behalf, and in the presence of oth ers, who must have wondered at the spectacle. Mr. Roosevelt approached General Miles in a manner which, without exaggeration, may be described as savage." Wayne MacVeagh, of Philadelphia, is authority for the story that a friend of his, who called at the White House quite early on the day of Miles s ill- fated visit, found the President still in the hands of his barber. His business (some phase of Penn sylvania politics) being urgent, he was admitted to the lathered "Presence," and bidden to state his case while the barber proceeded with his work. This man related that he had not gotten far in the statement of his errand when Mr. Roosevelt dragged in the Miles misdemeanor, and became so furious in his denunciation of Miles, that he broke away from his barber, and one side of his face covered with lather strode angrily up and down the room, gesticulating violently; and to the as tounded Pennsylvanian the President declared that he would "show his teeth to General Miles !" To Senator McComas, of Maryland, who called a little later, President Roosevelt uttered a similar threat of "showing his teeth to Miles." BULL MOOSE TRAILS 9 Yet you may search the newspaper files of that period in vain for any mention of the teeth-demon stration, though it was always given in the viva voce accounts of the "reprimand" then, and since which serves to illustrate Roosevelt s phenomenal control of the channels of publicity even in the be ginning of his regime. The incident further serves to cast an illuminating ray upon the "Roosevelt im pulsiveness," which has become so fixed a portion of the popular conception of this illustrious per sonage. We have seen how the "teeth-showing" castiga- tion had been planned and rehearsed to two previ ous callers. Afterward, despite Miles s plea for "sober, second thought"; and despite the Presi dent s promise to consider reparation; General Miles became, thenceforth, the object of studied slights and petty persecutions at the hands of the Roosevelt administration which, beginning with the "reprimand" in December, 1901, did not end with the "retirement order" in August, 1903. His re quest to be sent to the Philippines in March, 1902, was denied, and his plan for ending the war in those islands was rejected. Later, in the Spring of 1902, it was currently rumored in Washington that the President would retire Miles more than a year before the legal age for his retirement, and would appoint a successor to the post of Commanding General. io BULL MOOSE TRAILS The "cuckoo" press was prompt with its explana tion : Miles was not harmonious with the Adminis tration; he had opposed Secretary Root s Army Bill for the creation of a "General Staff," with a "Chief of Staff" who would take the place of the "Com manding General" ; and he had indulged some ra ther frank criticisms of the existent order before the Senate Committee in charge of the bill. All these were capital offences, meriting capital punish ment, and the White House birds chirped forth the news that Miles was slated for decapitation. Then came a lull in retirement rumors, when presently they ceased altogether. Speculation was rife, to account for the change; various explanations were advanced, some even ascribing the credit to Secre tary Root he who had been made the scapegoat for the reprimand ! The following story, vouched for by a high official in Washington, may shed some light on the puzzle picture : Among those who heard with deep disfavor the President s determination to inflict further humili ation upon General Miles was the late Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts. Taking with him six other Republican senators, leaders like himself of "the greatest deliberative body on earth," Senator Hoar waited on President Roosevelt, and became spokesman for the group. He told the President that Miles was a very popular man in Massachu setts, highly esteemed by al} glasses; that he, BULL MOOSE TRAILS n (Hoar), though a political opponent, would be greatly incensed by a needless affront to a distin guished soldier and patriot; and that there were thousands like him in the Bay State who would never forgive it. Then, with that astute appreciation of human motives in which some have supposed the venera ble savant lacking Senator Hoar presented the argumentum ad hominem: "This is a shaky year for the Republicans of Massachusetts; several con gressional districts are trembling in the balance, which this contemplated move of yours against Miles would surely make Democratic." Mr. Roosevelt listened with a thoughtful air as his mind took in the significance of a visit from seven Republican senators with one purpose; then, with a psychomotor display of teeth, he replied to Senator Hoar: "What you say impresses me very deeply, Sen ator. I will consider it most carefully." Possibly the reports which began to appear in the press in regard to Miles s candidacy for the presidency in 1904 impressed Mr. Roosevelt even more deeply than the senators visit, or Hoar s words of warning. An Army officer now living in Washington overheard a dialogue between two White House factotums, wherein one of them af firmed: "Loeb went to him and just told him, if he retired General Miles, the Democrats would 12 BULL MOOSE TRAILS run Miles against him for the presidency and beat him!" We do not need to accept this White House gos sip at its full face value, in order to believe that other motives than kindly consideration for Gen eral Miles stayed Roosevelt s hand in the retire ment plan. In October, 1902, the War Department con sented that General Miles should go to the Philip pines, to inspect the troops and report conditions. If they had known what he was going to find, more especially if they had known what he was going to report, it is most likely the President and Secretary Root would have kept him at home, despite the great personal relief to themselves to get him out of the country for awhile. It was not to be supposed, however, that the man who had exposed the "embalmed beef" scandal in 1898 braving the wrath of corrupt officials would keep silent concerning the mediaeval tortures and barbaric cruelties practised by American sol diers upon defenceless Filipinos in 1902. Still less would he connive at the scandal in the Commissary Department, growing out of the "reconcentration order," wherein hundreds of thousands of natives were ordered into the towns on fifteen days notice gathering in such property as they could carry and held there for several months; during which time the enterprising heads of the Commissary De- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 13 partment sold them "second quality rice, and dam aged flour," at profits ranging from 25 to 100 per cent. ! This Philippines Report submitted by General Miles, February 19, 1903, is not exhibited with noticeable zest at the War Department, but a copy of it may be seen in The Army and Navy Journal of May 2, 1903, and the "Anti-Imperialist League" at Boston is always pleased to furnish copies to applicants. The language of the Report is clear and to the point. It does not deal in vague generalities; it makes specific charges, names spe cific individuals, and cites the proof. The pains taken by Mr. Roosevelt at the time the Report was issued to refute the truth of it, by trying to produce counter evidence in which he failed should have served to impress it on his memory; but we cannot believe he had it in mind when he exhorted the Britishers in his Guildhall speech to model their government of the Egyp tians upon "My Policy in the Philippines and in Panama 1" Naturally enough, this Philippines Report did not tend to improve General Miles s relations with Mr. Roosevelt; and when August 8, 1903 the date for the former s legal retirement arrived, it brought the President s opportunity to even the score. This date also marked the passing of the "Commanding General," as the new order would H BULL MOOSE TRAILS begin with the installation of the "General Staff." The office had been created for General Wash ington in 1798. It had been held by such distin guished soldiers as Winfield Scott, George B. Mc- Clellan, and Generals Halleck, Grant, Sherman, and others. It was bestowed upon General Miles by Grover Cleveland in 1895, upon the retirement of General Schofield. It had been the immemorial custom, in retiring these commanding figures in the Army, for the Sec retary of War to issue simultaneously with the re tiring order a formal eulogy commemorating the valiant deeds, public services, and private virtues of the retiring officer. Here is an exact duplicate of the order issued to General Miles : "WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 1903. "By direction of the Secretary of War, the retire ment from active service by the President, Aug. 8, 1903, of Lieut-General Nelson A. Miles, by op eration of law under the provisions of the Act of Congress approved June 20, 1882, is announced. Lieut-General Miles will proceed to his home. The travel enjoined is necessary for the public service. "By order of the Secretary of War. "H. C. CORBIN, Adj t-General." It is said that Secretary Root balked at this crude and brutal thrust; and submitted a substitute order BULL MOOSE TRAILS 15 which, though not particularly effusive, yet con tained the usual compliments of the conventional document; and that Roosevelt tore it in two, and curtly ordered the first one to stand. To get the full significance of the Miles retiring order, let us compare it with that of his immediate predecessor, perhaps the least illustrious of the commanding generals : "Lieut.-General John M. Schofield, having reached the age entitling him to relief from active military service, is hereby placed upon the retired list of the Army. It is with much regret that the announcement is made, that the country is thus to lose from the command of its Army this distin guished General, who has done so much for its honor and efficiency. His gallantry in war chal lenges the admiration of all his countrymen; while they will not fail gratefully to remember and ap preciate how faithfully he has served his country in times of peace. His career furnishes to the Army an example of inestimable value, and should teach all our people that the highest soldierly qualities are built upon the keenest sense of the obligations of good citizenship. "By order of the Secretary of War. "GEO. D. RUGGLES, Adj t-General." And what of this man, Nelson A. Miles, whose retiring order reads like the curt dismissal of a 1 6 BULL MOOSE TRAILS corporal in disgrace? Had he no claim upon the country s grateful recollection"? Just a glance, if you please, at his war record lest we forget, and to better appreciate this episode of the Roose velt regime, with its reflex light on the Roosevelt character. At the age of 22, Miles entered the Federal serv ice in the Civil War, as Captain of the Twenty- second Massachusetts Volunteers. Within a year he became, successively, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel of the Sixty-first New York Infantry. In May, 1864, he was made Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and in October, 1865, Major-General of Volunteers. He was twice breveted in one day. At the close of the Civil War he went West to fight the Indians, entering the Regular Army as Colonel of the For tieth Infantry. In 1880 he again attained the rank of Brigadier-General, and that of Major-General in 1890. Cleveland appointed him Commanding General in 1895, and Congress created him Lieut- enant-General in 1900. These are his military titles and honors, and here are a few of the daring deeds which won them : At the Battle of Fredericksburg (1862) Miles com manded the Sixty-fourth New York Volunteers, comprising 27 officers and 408 men; three of his officers were wounded and 105 of his men killed, wounded, or missing; yet he remained a gallant BULL MOOSE TRAILS 17 figure on the firing line until he received a severe wound in the throat, and even then was forcibly restrained from leading one more desperate charge on the Confederate breastworks. At Chancellorsville, Miles held until wounded it was supposed mortally a line of abattis and rifle-pits against a determined attack of the Con federates, made in two columns on each side of the road. He had an important command in the Get tysburg campaign, and in the Mine Run campaign; he was actively engaged in the battles of "The Wil derness," and battles around Richmond. At Spott- sylvania he led his brigade into the renowned "Bloody Angle," and was foremost in the fighting before Petersburg; his division led the advance from Richmond to Appomatox. In a word, he was in every battle fought by the "Army of the Poto mac," except one which he missed on account of a severe wound. He received his commission as Brigadier-General in 1864, after every officer under whom he had served including Grant, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, and a dozen others had recommended him to the Secretary of War. A Southern historian writes thus of Miles: "If we except some of the veterans of Napoleon, we shall have to go back to the warriors Gibbons tells us of, for soldiers who saw as much dangerous serv ice as Miles had seen when completing his twenty- 1 8 BULL MOOSE TRAILS sixth year. He was four times wounded at Fair Oaks, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Peters burg. He belonged to the glorious Second Corps under Hancock, which was the Tenth Legion of the Army; and there was a while that Miles was in command of the whole of it though only a young man of twenty-five. No other soldier of that war participated in more bloody battles, or sustained more grievous wounds than he." And this from a Northern authority: "Miles s military record makes that of Lord Roberts, Com- mander-in-Chief of the British Army, insignificant by comparison. His service on the plains after the Civil War would alone entitle him to high soldierly distinction. He practically ended the Indian wars in the vast region beyond the Mississippi, which had been devastated and terrorized, and opened it up to settlement and civilization, for which the legisla tures of five States and Territories accorded him a vote of thanks." General Sheridan said of Miles s Indian war fare: "It was the most comprehensive and most successful in this country since its settlement by the whites." General Hancock said, in 1882: "Miles is sec ond to none not even to Napoleon." And now let us place over against all this the war record of "Colonel" Roosevelt he who had ordered the "reprimand," and put spikes in the re- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 19 tiring order, for General Miles. According to his most approved biographers, Messrs. Leupp and Riis, Roosevelt, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, u brought on" the war with Spain for his own glory. By a strong political pull, he had himself appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the fantastic "Rough Riders" ; then, by a further jerk of official patronage pulling Wood up higher Roosevelt attained his present proud title of "Colonell" Pur suing his impetuous role, he "drew first blood" in Cuba by persuading General Wheeler to disobey or ders in the premature engagement at Las Guasimas wherein the Rough Riders under Wood and Roose velt ran into an ambush, from which they were nar rowly rescued by the Negro troops as has been so oft recounted not, however, until sixteen Rough Riders were killed, and fifty-two wounded a needless sacrifice. We next find the valiant "Colonel" in his old impetuous fashion dislodging a few non-resisting Spaniards from the top of Kettle Hill, a low browed knoll in the vicinity of San Juan, and paus ing to watch his comrades the Infantry of Kent and Hawkins storm and capture the Spanish Block House on the top of San Juan Hill. Yet a fake story sent to the Associated Press featured Roosevelt as the daring leader of the San Juan Hill charge, instead of the safe and sane on-looker from behind the sugar kettles, a third of a mile away! 20 BULL MOOSE TRAILS If we except the "Round Robin" mix-up, which Sec retary Alger said merited a court-martial and ex pulsion from the Army, and "shooting a little Span iard in the back" of which the Colonel himself is the chronicler this fake charge up the San Juan Hill, and the fiasco at Las Guasimas, make up the grand total of Roosevelt s military exploits his much-vaunted "war record." Yet the American people have crowned it with loving kindness and tender mercies, and rewarded it with every gift they had to bestow. Not the least count in the indictment against us as a nation for the Roosevelt folly which has overtaken us, is that we exalted this "rough-rider" tin soldier to a posi tion whence he could snub Nelson A. Miles ! Like the kid in the fable, non ille, sed locus, huic male- dlxit. As ex-officio Commander-in-Chief of the Army, President Roosevelt was perfectly safe in striking at any other officer, who could not strike back without incurring further punishment and hu miliation for contumacy toward his chief. Only the people, whose battles Miles had fought for forty- two years, could rebuke President Roosevelt; and their answer to that was his triumphant re-election in 1904 by the largest majority ever given to a President ! The people of the West, whose homes Miles had freed from the Indian s war-whoop and scalp- ing-knife, were particularly uproarious and arc BULL MOOSE TRAILS 21 still in their admiration for the President who had "shown his teeth" to their deliverer. The apology is sometimes made for us, that "we are yet a child among the nations of the earth" ; and our tendency to honor fake heroes, while neglect ing real ones, is ascribed to the child s ignorance and capriciousness in the selection of a toy. I am unable to decide whether this view of us is more gratifying to national pride than Mr. Barnum s dictum : "Americans just naturally love to be hum bugged!" What do you think? CHAPTER II HOW ROOSEVELT "TOOK PANAMA" IN 1903 Colonel Roosevelt s declaration to the students of the California University on March 23, 1911, that he "took the Canal Zone while Congress de bated," was followed by consequences out of all proportion to the Colonel s innocent diversion of indulging in personal boasts, while on his stated advertising tours. The immediate effect of this Panamamac boast or "confession," as some un flattering ones have dubbed it was an avalanche of press criticism chiefly adverse; more serious at tacks and results followed, later. Now the Colonel never objects to newspaper comment, friendly or otherwise; au contraire, it is the very breath in his nostrils. No man in public life, past or present, ever had more astute apprecia tion of the notoriety-worshipping note in human nature, which measures a man s greatness by the number of times his name appears in the public prints. Certainly no man in American public life ever went such desperate lengths in working the notoriety argument on the unthinking element of the population. An amusing instance of this in the last Republi- 22 BULL MOOSE TRAILS 23 can Convention June, not August at Chicago, was related by a staff writer for the New York Sun: One of the colored delegates to that convention, who had served in one of the negro regiments em ployed in the Spanish-American War, and was for that reason or some other a warm supporter of Colonel Roosevelt, was commissioned by the managers to try to win over some of his brother delegates, instructed for Taft. Said the dusky Spanish War veteran: "Yas, sir, I tell yer Colonel Roosevelt s a great man ! He s de fust white man what I see when I got to Cuba. Soon as I landed, I looked up, and dar wuz Colonel Roosevelt a set- tin up on his hoss ! Yas, sir ! dar he wuz a settin on his hoss!" What more could anybody ask, as proof of the Colonel s conspicuous military service in that campaign ? And even as the Colonel understood he must "get up on his hoss" to convince the multitude that he was the hero of the Cuban War, he has known ever since that he could ride into popular esteem on screaming head-lines and editorial leaders. If these last were sometimes severely condemnatory, as in the case of the California address just quoted, they were made the text for vigorous and exuberant replies, and thus the Roosevelt fame went ever for ward on the publicity merry-go-round. After the newspaper flutter caused by the foolish speech had subsided; and after the Colombian 24 BULL MOOSE TRAILS minister at Washington, Senor Francisco de P. Borda, had sent a formal note of protest to our Secretary of State, on March 28th; Hon. Henry T. Rainey of Illinois, on April 6th, introduced into the House a resolution for a Congressional inquiry into the methods of this canal-strip seizure; to the end that the country might learn the facts, and suit able reparation be made to Colombia, if the facts sustained her contention that our Government under the Roosevelt regime had been guilty of wrong toward a weaker republic. The "Rainey Resolution" was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which thereafter instituted a searching investigation, sending for records and witnesses. Thus the whole scandalous Panama affair, the high-handed and shameless manner of taking the Isthmus, garnished with the usual Rooseveltian intrigue and high preachment was revived and thrashed out in all its disgraceful details. Absorbed in the work of building the canal, and elated over the near prospect of completion and profits, Americans had well-nigh forgotten those of them who ever knew the national dishonor in volved in the initial step, "how the United States acquired the right" to dig the big ditch; and Mr. Roosevelt has only himself to thank, if, now that he has so modestly called attention to it, his part in that Panama moving-picture show of 1903, shall BULL MOOSE TRAILS 25 not appear so heroic and blameless as he would have us believe. He may some day learn the sad truth that, stripped of presidential prestige and official glamour, his acts must stand before the bar of history and the sober judgment of his disillu sioned countrymen, upon precisely the same footing as all others incredible as that may seem to him now. The Colonel s Canal speech recalls a story John Sharp Williams of Mississippi once told on the floor of the House, and which may have a wider applicability than to the gentleman John Sharp meant to hit with it : A young man whose father had been lost at sea, went to the morgue of a coast town, seeking his father s remains among the unidentified dead. He found one which so nearly resembled his father that even in the absence of positive identification marks, he was willing to give the poor corpse the benefit of the doubt, and ordered it removed to an under taker s establishment for suitable preparation and interment. In moving the corpse, in the young man s presence however, the morgue attendants in advertantly turned it over, and the jostling caused a set of false teeth to drop from the dead man s mouth. Whereupon, the supposed son, with a hasty exclamation, quickly revoked his order, and disowned the body, averring that his father had never worn false teeth! After the young man s 26 BULL MOOSE TRAILS departure, the morgue-keeper, settling the corpse to its former position, addressed to it the following disgusted remark: "You blamed fool! If you could have kept your d d mouth shut, you might have had a decent burial I" In the judgment of some of us, however, it is far more important that the truth of history should be vindicated ; that the American conscience should be aroused by a full review of the facts in the case to the real import of this Panama seizure, to the end that tardy justice may be done a weaker nation so far at least as money restitution can repair the wrong, than that T. R. should have "a decent burial." Though we shall endeavor with the aid of this, and other interesting facts in his public record to celebrate his political obsequies with as much dignity as possible, and not later than No vember, 1912. The "Rainey Resolution" and the Congressional inquiry found a quick echo in various magazine ar ticles on the subject published throughout the country; most prominent among these being, "The Stain on Our Flag," by Henry G. Granger, a former United States Consul in Colombia, which appeared in the staid and circumspect Independent (New York) of August 17, 1911; and Colonel Roosevelt s 4,oooword answer to all his critics, issued in the Outlook of October 7, 1911, and en titled "How the United States Acquired the Right BULL MOOSE TRAILS 27 to Dig the Panama Canal." The Outlook out break in turn drew fire from the Consul-General of Colombia living in New York, Francisco Esco bar, in an "open letter" to Colonel Roosevelt, and some months later from Leander T. Chamberlain, in an exhaustive and masterly arraignment of Mr. Roosevelt s course in the Panama affair, which was published in the February (1912) number of the North American Review. The Escobar letter is chiefly significant in the sympathetic comment it evoked from the American press. Out of more than thirty newspapers ex amined, I found only five which evinced any dis position to defend the Colonel from the Consul- General s attack, and these based their defence upon a point of etiquette, rather than a "plea in equity," and since the doughty Colonel himself, when shown the letter, was quoted as saying: "Gracious me ! I would not think of answering it any more than I would think of flying," it may be well to quote this letter in full : "To Theodore Roosevelt, Contributing Editor to The Outlook, New York City. "Sm: Former Presidents of the United States have stepped down from the highest position attain able by mortal man, to again become private citi zens of this great Republic, and have carried with them into their retirement the dignity of their office and the respect of their fellow-countrymen. You 28 BULL MOOSE TRAILS have elected a different course, and by capitaliz ing your Presidential prestige as the paid employee of a weekly journal, have forfeited the considera tion due to the high office you once held. You can now pretend only to such respect as you as a man deserve. I say this to make it quite clear that I am addressing you as an individual, and do not wish to reflect either upon the Government or the people of the United States, for whom I have the deepest respect and regard. 4 In a signed article purporting to show how the United States acquired the right to build the Panama Canal, you use language which any decent newspaper would have hesitated to print. You say that Colombia had shown herself utterly incompe tent to perform the ordinary governmental duties expected of a civilized state. You refer to the gov ernment of Colombia as government by a succes sion of banditti/ and as archaic despotism in efficient, bloody, and corrupt/ and in summing up your actions as President you declare, We did harm to no one save as harm is done to a bandit by a policeman who deprives him of his chance of blackmail. "In default of argument, such is the unseemly language you use to justify the rape of the Isthmus, and refute the oft-repeated charges that you dealt unfairly with Colombia; that you violated a public treaty, in which the United States had pledged its BULL MOOSE TRAILS 29 honor as a nation to guarantee the sovereignty of Colombia over the Isthmus; that you recognized the fake republic of Panama, in defiance of accepted principles of international law, so as to permit your friends who were interested in the Panama Canal Company, to put through their forty million dollar deal with the United States; that you prostituted the Navy of the United States to the same end; that you but why continue the long list of un answered charges? Instead of answering them, you hurl insults and slanders at the unfortunate country you robbed of her most valuable possession. "When you speak of blackmailers and bandits, Mr. Roosevelt, have you forgotten the ultimatum you sent to Colombia, threatening her with dire results if her Senate did not ratify without amend ment the treaty written by the attorney for the Panama Canal Company ? Have you forgotten the American marines landed by Admiral Glass and sent into the Atrato region to Yavisa, and Real de Santa Maria? Who was the blackmailer and bandit then? Who has told the truth about this matter all along ? Was it you, when you told Con gress that the people of Panama rose literally as one man ? Was it you when you boasted that you took Panama and let Congress debate? Or was it you, when you wrote that your actions in this mat ter were as free from scandal as the public acts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and 30 BULL MOOSE TRAILS that every action taken was not only proper, but was carried out in accordance with the highest, finest, and nicest standards of public and govern mental ethics ? "I think Colombia can safely leave these ques tions to be answered by the conscience of the Ameri can people. "FRANCISCO ESCOBAR, "Consul-General of Colombia." The New York Herald observed of this letter, that it as "nearly typified the physical acts of boxing the ears, tweaking the nose, and adminis tering a kick, as a piece of writing could possibly do;" and the friendly note of most of the press comment in regard to it can only be interpreted as a distinct repudiation of Colonel Roosevelt s felici tation upon his manner of "taking" the Isthmus. This much is gratifying, and argues hopefully for the vindication of Escobar s trust in "the conscience of the American people." Scarcely less drastic than the Consul-General s in dictment of T. R., though couched in more digni fied terms, was that of Leander T. Chamberlain, the venerable minister, scholar, author, scientist, publicist, patron of arts, and former judge-advocate of the Navy, who replied to the Colonel s Outlook peroration, which the learned divine characterized as a curious blend of "personal boasting, sweeping misstatement, and perfervid invoking of high BULL MOOSE TRAILS 31 morality." After reciting the treaties, marshaling the facts, and recounting the remarkable proceed ings at Panama in November, 1903, this high au thority writes across the whole affair, U A Chapter of National Dishonor." He replies to "the self- appointed protagonist of imperial efficiency," in the scathing words : "The verdict of history reads, The policeman himself turned bandit. In the name of equity, and under the guise of friendship, he smote the innocent and plundered the defence less. " However, there is no special need of expert testimony or learned expositors to make plain the nature of this Panama transaction. A very cursory reading of the official and historic records, will re veal to the man in the street just what it meant for this Government to "take" the Canal Zone in the manner authorized, and now bragged about, by its then accredited agent, Theodore Roosevelt, Presi dent. We will briefly review the facts: Back in the 40*8, before the days of transcontinental rail roads in the United States, it was very important to our Government, in the opening up and settle ment of California and the Pacific slope, to have the free transit of the Isthmus of Panama, owned and controlled then as in 1903, by the South American State of New Granada, afterwards called Colombia. So that in the latter part of President Polk s administration, 1846-8, a treaty was formu- 32 BULL MOOSE TRAILS lated, signed, and ratified, which cited in the pre amble : "The United States of North America and the Republic of New Granada (now Colombia) in South America, desiring to make lasting and firm the friendship and good understanding which happily exist between both nations, have resolved to fix in a manner clear, distinct, and positive, the rules which shall in the future be religiously ob served between them, by means of a treaty, or gen eral convention of peace, friendship, commerce and navigation." The terms of this u firm and inviolable peace and friendship," stripped of superfluous verbiage, were certain reciprocal privileges of importation and tonnage dues; a guarantee upon the part of Co lombia of a free and open transit across the Isth mus ; and upon the part of the United States, being the stronger of the two republics, an absolute guarantee of Colombia s sovereignty over the Isthmus, and her property rights in the territory; and to maintain the strict neutrality of the Isthmian passage against any threatened foreign invasion. It was not merely a diplomatic exchange of friendly platitudes; it was a bargain, with clearly defined stipulations, signed and sealed; for certain privi leges and immunities obtained from Colombia, the United States covenanted to secure to the little sister republic, the peaceful enjoyment of her choicest possession the Isthmus of Panama. It BULL MOOSE TRAILS 33 was so held and respected by all our Presidents from Polk to Roosevelt not inclusive of the latter. The archives of the State Department at Wash ington abound in expressions from former presi dents and secretaries of state, confirming, empha sizing, and strengthening this compact. In 1869, a new convention was entered into be tween Colombia and the United States, which gave the latter leave to build a ship canal across Panama ; yet though it was signed by the Presidents of both countries and ratified by the Colombian Congress, the Senate of the United States rejected it, but somehow not much prominence has been given to this "infamous, corrupt, and bloody" attempt upon the part of our Senate to obstruct and defeat "the great world enterprise and dream of the centuries" ! The reverse of this programme obtained in 1903, when the "Hay-Herran Treaty" was signed at Washington in January, ratified by our Congress in March, and forwarded to the Colombian Congress, with President Roosevelt s ultimatum, that that treaty "covered the whole matter, and any change would be in violation of the Spooner law, and not permissible." This ultimatum was re-inforced by one or two veiled threats from the State Depart ment to the American minister at Bogota by way of soothing Colombia s pride while the treaty was pending in the Colombian Senate, and these, to- 34 BULL MOOSE TRAILS gether with the more material considerations, led to its rejection by Colombia on August 12, 1903. Says Mr. Granger, writing in the Independent: "It is interesting to note that there is no evidence to sustain the report circulated at the time, that Colombia attempted to hold up the United States Government for a larger sum than the $10,000,000 stipulated by the treaty. . . . The official records of the United States show that if Colombia had been allowed to deal with the French Canal Com pany as was her right by the Hay-Herran Treaty, and to exact from this company a sum which under the circumstances was within reason, the treaty would have been ratified by Colombia, and the United States would have secured all it desired in a perfectly proper and legitimate manner." Other reliable investigators of Colombian official records, testified that "of all the amendments intro duced into the Colombian Senate, there was not one relating to the compensation, either in money or in any other form, that Colombia was to receive from the United States in exchange for the concessions granted by the former to the latter country;" that "the objections of Colombia to the Hay-Herran treaty were two-fold: (i) Divested of all diplo matic jargon, the treaty provided for the sale to the United States of the Canal Zone, and such alienation of the national territory was expressly prohibited by the Colombian Constitution; (2) the BULL MOOSE TRAILS 35 Treaty entailed an abandonment of Colombia s re versionary right in the Panama Railroad from which she derived a yearly income of $250,000 and made no provision for an equitable settlement between the New Panama Canal Company and Colombia, looking to the payment by the former of just compensation to Colombia for the general release of concessionary obligations contemplated by the transfer of the Company s property to the United States." It will be observed that Editor Roosevelt finds in this natural, reasonable, and legitimate desire upon the part of Colombia to hold the New Panama Company to the terms of its agreement with her, a final sign of depravity, just what one might expect from a "bloody, archaic despotism" like the Colombian government ; and when we learn the deep and abiding interest of his dear friend, William Nelson Cromwell, in the fate of the New Company, this is not to be wondered at. William Nelson Cromwell, the brilliant and ver satile New York lawyer who was the American attorney for the "New Panama Canal Company" which had succeeded the old, bankrupt De Les- seps Company on the Isthmus openly confessed that he had written the "Hay-Herran" treaty, and this readily accounts for the convenient loop-holes in that instrument enabling the New Company to elude its obligations to Colombia. From all ac- 36 BULL MOOSE TRAILS counts, Mr. Cromwell was the very busy lobbyist for the New Canal Company at Washington, from January, 1902, when the House passed the Hep burn Bill by a practically unanimous vote to build the canal at Nicaragua, up to March, 1903, when the Nicaraguan forces, led by the venerable Senator Morgan of Alabama, were completely overthrown in the ratification by the Senate of the Hay-Herran treaty. The only thing saved to the Nicaraguan contestants was the Spooner proviso, that upon the failure of Colombia to ratify the treaty "within a reasonable time," our Government would immediately proceed to negotiate for the Nicaraguan right of way. It was commonly said at the time that the chief influence which changed the Congressional verdict from the Nicaraguan to the Panama route, was that of Senator Hanna ; but a Republican Senator very close to Hanna is my authority for the state ment, that up to the time of William Nelson Crom well s appearance in Hanna s office, that "practical" statesman knew as much or cared as much about the subject of inter-oceanic canals as he did about Wag- nerian opera ; and that the masterly argument, set ting forth the advantages of the Panama route, which Hanna delivered in the Senate and which was reputed to have had such convincing weight was the argument of William Nelson Cromwell 1 Naturally, such a versatile genius was not to be BULL MOOSE TRAILS 37 turned from his purpose of having the United States build a canal across Panama, by a trifle like the failure of the Colombian government to ratify the treaty. Neither was the Spooner Amendment pertinent, or in any way germane to the Crom- wellian plan so it was never mentioned nor con sidered after Colombia s refusal. There yet re mained for the attainment of the Cromwell goal, a Panama "uprising," which with the timely and efficient backing of United States gunboats, might grow into a Panama "revolution" which would serve every Cromwellian end. The^ story of how President Roosevelt ordered "Acting Secretary of the Navy" Darling to send the cablegram to the commander of the United States warships stationed at Colon and neighboring ports, to "maintain an open transit," and prevent the landing of any Colombia troops "within fifty miles of Panama" this order being dated Novem ber 2d, and the "uprising" not occurring until November 3d, and the immediate recognition of the fake "Republic" on November 5th, two days after the "up-rising," was all thrashed out in the press and in the Congress of that day, and is too familiar to require repetition of the details. Editor Roosevelt finds vindication of President Roosevelt s course, in the fact, that all the Euro pean powers quickly followed his example in giv ing recognition to the infant Republic. Certainly, 38 BULL MOOSE TRAILS why not? Where is the European "power" which would refuse recognition to "Uncle Sam s" adopted foundling? Quoting Dr. Chamberlain: u He adopted the child before it was born, mid- wifed its birth, and became sponsor for it during its puling infancy"; and he brought it to such robust national proportions in nine days from the date of its birth, that it was ready to treat on an equal footing with the great American govern ment at Washington on April 13, 1903, through its accredited ambassador, M. Philippe Bunau- Varilla ! This gentleman, a French alien, and business associate of Mr. Cromwell in the New Canal Com pany, was conveniently located in New York so that no time might be lost in transporting him from Panama to Washington and he was escorted to the White House by "Acting Secretary of State Loomis." Five days later, November i8th, the canal treaty was signed, whereby Colombia s $10,000,000 went to the Panamaniacs, and the $40,000,000, paid by our Government for the New Company s property which it was said had been offered a short time previous for $6,000,000 was delivered through J. P. Morgan and Company, bankers, to Crom well, Bunau-Varilla, and their associate holders of the French Company s stock, and all this long be fore Panama had anything resembling a constitu- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 39 tion, before she had held an election, or exercised any of the usual functions of a sovereign State ! The sinister aspects of Mr. Cromwell s connec tion with this Panama business, need not be empha sized further than to say, that when he was sum moned as a witness before the Senate Committee in vestigating the same in 1906, he persistently and arrogantly refused to answer pertinent questions, and his insolent replies to old Senator Morgan, won him the contempt of everybody who heard him, or who read the Committee hearings. The impertinent inquiry raised by the New York World in the Fall of 1908 "who got the money?" i.e., who were the chief beneficiaries of the $40,000,000 fund, is still shrouded in mystery. The World s impertinence was rebuked by Presi dent Roosevelt in a criminal libel suit instituted against it by his Attorney-General in February, 1909; and the Indianapolis News was likewise brought into court on a similar indictment, for presuming to quote the World s scandalous charges. After two years of court proceedings, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the matter was not justiciable in the Federal Courts. This, of course, only settled the question of jurisdiction, and did not touch the question at issue between Mr. Roosevelt and the World. I understand, however, that the case may be tried on its merits in the State courts, and some persons 40 BULL MOOSE TRAILS have wondered why Colonel Roosevelt did not promptly rebuke the Supreme Court decision by bringing action for libel against the World in the New York courts. Perhaps after the fall election, and the assign ment of the Bull Moose to its proper place in the governmental machinery, he may have more leisure to do this. We may then get some illuminating phases of the Panama incident not now obtainable from the records. CHAPTER III ROOSEVELT S PACT WITH THE MORMONS (1903-4) Twenty-five years ago so the story goes a young politician consulting Charles A. Dana as to a convenient campaign issue, received this cynical advice: "Flay the Mormon, and roast the China man, for neither has any friends." If the great journalist were alive to-day he would have to retract his witty cynicism as to the Mormons. He would know, what every one keep ing tab on the under-currents of politics knows, that the Mormon s "friends" are the most impor tant factor in present-day Mormonism; that to these "the Church of the Latter-day Saints" owes its advancement, in twenty-five years, from a de spised and "persecuted" sect to a rich and power ful hierarchy, counting its wealth in terms of rail roads, mines, power and light plants, salt-works, sugar factories, department stores, newspapers, theaters every conceivable form of business en terprise; and numbering its "friends" among the learned and potent in American political and financial cliques. Beginning with six members in 1831, this queer 41 42 BULL MOOSE TRAILS sect whose corner-stone is polygamy, now has a following in this country and abroad of nearly one million souls. Its real estate holdings com prise a region larger than France plus Spain and Portugal. u As to money, mere gold," says one recent investigator, "the Mormon Church over- towers the Steel Trust or Standard Oil; it can command and secure $50,000,000 on twenty-four hours notice." Joseph F. Smith, present Prophet and head of the Church, has a yearly income of approximately $2,000,000 from the tithes levied on its member ship, for whose investment or distribution he is accountable to no one save himself. He exercises absolute and autocratic sway over his followers in secular, as well as spiritual mat ters, and no member of his flock dares enter upon any sort of business venture without his consent. The few hardy spirits who have attempted defi ance of his will, have bitterly paid the price in the wreck of their fortunes. A Northwestern senator, who shall be nameless here by his own request (Northwestern statesmen being notoriously ret icent touching Mormon State secrets), thus testi fied in 1910: "Politically, the Mormon Church grows constantly stronger. It holds Utah in the hollow of its hand; it holds the balance of power in Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, Mon tana, Arizona, and New Mexico; and has convinc- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 43 ing political weight in Oregon and Washington State. In the United States Senate, for what it wants, the Mormon Church already holds twelve seats, and when Arizona and New Mexico pick their senators, it will get its brand on four more." How has all this come about? It is a long story, but the answer may be found, in brief, in Mormon industry, patience, and cunning in "mak ing friends" with important Gentile political and commercial interests. After the killing of their Prophet and founder, the first Joseph Smith, whose "divine revelation" anent plural and celestial marriage accompanied by an energetic application of the principle in his own person, together with certain lax notions con cerning the property rights of his neighbors, cost him his life in the Illinois village of Nauvoo sev enty years ago, the "Saints" fled into the Western desert (1847) under the leadership of Brigham Young, the mightiest Mormon of them all, and the doughty husband of twenty-one wives! It is said that at first he had dreams of an inde pendent empire in the West devoted to his pe culiar marital theories, but later compromised on the "State of Deseret" which he reared amid the sand dunes of what is now Utah. This he sought to have admitted to the Union, but was denied during many years because of the sentiment against polygamy existent in the coun- 44 BULL MOOSE TRAILS try, though two American Presidents, Fillmore and Pierce, had appointed Brigham governor of the new Territory. Secure in their desert fastnesses, the apostles of animalism were allowed to pursue their polyga mous ways unmolested until 1862, when some un easy Eastern conscience succeeded in having Con gress pass a law prohibiting polygamy in the Territories of the United States; though no one was sufficiently energetic to have the law enforced during twenty years. Not until the passage of the "Edmunds Law" in 1882, did the Mormon troubles with the Federal authorities begin. These troubles were very real, however, and not to be ignored. Prosecutions grew, and as the evidence lay all about, convictions were not difficult. More than one thousand "Saints" were appre hended and sent to jail. The "Edmunds-Tucker Act" of 1887 was a still more drastic measure for the stamping out of polygamy in the United States; "the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter- day Saints" was disincorporated, its property con fiscated, its members disfranchised; and finally, after sore bufferings, exiles, and hardships from what they termed the "Diocletian Persecution," the stubborn polygamous spirit was broken, and the followers of Joseph the First came out of their hiding-places and in their prison stripes, to make terms with the "persecutor," BULL MOOSE TRAILS 45 If Uncle Sam would only admit Utah to the sisterhood of States, the Children of the Prophet would be good; they would abandon their long- cherished doctrine of plural marriage; they would omit the pregnant whisper on the eve of elections, warning the faithful to "take counsel" how they should vote; and individual Mormons should be free to choose their own vocations, without inter ference or dictation from the Hierarchy. As an earnest of the Mormon change of heart, the presi dent of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, issued a proclamation that he had received a new revela tion from on High, which declared polygamy no longer essential to salvation; and since the Con gress of the United States had seen fit to forbid it, he would recommend its discontinuance to his fol lowers. This "Woodruff Manifesto" as it was called was issued September 24, 1890, and on Oc tober 6, next ensuing, a formal conference of all Church officials was held to confirm and endorse it and make it obligatory upon all Mormons under penalty of disfellowship. It was made perfectly clear not only would no more plural marriages be solemnized, but all such existing prior to the "Manifesto" were annulled as to cohabitation, though it was agreed that existent plural wives with their children should be cared for. President Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, George Q. Cannon, and Anthon Lund, apostles, 46 BULL MOOSE TRAILS all testified that the Woodruff manifesto meant giving up plural marriages already existing. With these fair promises, the "Saints" began anew the battle for Statehood. Gentile residents of Utah, studying the Mormon character at close range, gravely shook their heads, and warned the country that the "Manifesto" was merely a ruse to escape Federal espionage and place the regula tion of marriage laws in Mormon hands. Senator Edmunds, and some others, opposed the Statehood bill in Congress, but its friends triumphed over all opposition, and Utah was admitted to the Union in 1896, with anti-polygamy and the other pro visions cited, nominated in the bond. Not until the Smoot case came up in the Senate of the United States, did the country learn the full extent of Mormon perfidy in the matter of State hood pledges, or get a side-light on the Mormons "friends." Reed Smoot, one of the twelve apostles of the Mormon hierarchy, presented his credentials as a United States Senator from the State of Utah, February 23, 1903. On the same day and at the same hour, there was filed with the Senate a protest against seating him, signed by eighteen of the most prominent and reputable Gentile residents of Utah. Then for nearly a year the non-Mormon world rang with protests, and many pages of the Con gressional Record were devoted each morning to BULL MOOSE TRAILS 47 the numberless petitions pouring in upon every Senator in the body irrespective of party from churches, temperance societies, women s clubs, singing schools, Christian Endeavorers, Y. M. C. A. s, and every known organization dedicated to the up-lift, u praying for an investigation of the charges against the Hon. Reed Smoot." Yet it was January 27, 1904, before a resolution was "put through" the Senate to refer the case to the Committee on Privileges and Elections. This committee comprised eight Republicans and 5 Democrats; the Republican members were Senators Burrows (chairman), Hoar, McCombas, Foraker, Depew, Dillingham, Beveridge, and Hopkins; and the Democrats, Pettus, Bailey, Du- bois, Overman, and Clarke of Arkansas. Later, Senators Knox and Dolliver were appointed to the vacancies caused by the deaths of Hoar and McComas, and Senator Frazier of Tennessee took the place of Senator Clarke of Arkansas, who, it was said, resigned from the Committee in disgust at the filthy testimony elicited from President Joseph F. Smith, head of the Mormon system. For two years and four months, this Senate tri bunal examined witnesses, and weighed evidence; then on June n, 1906, Chairman Burrows (of Michigan) announced to the Senate that, "in the judgment of a majority of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, Reed Smoot is not en- 48 BULL MOOSE TRAILS titled to a seat in the United States Senate." The vote in committee stood 8 to 5, Senators Burrows, Depew, and Dolliver uniting with all the Demo cratic members for Smoot s expulsion; whilst Foraker, Knox, Beveridge, Hopkins and Dilling- ham voted for his retention, and signed a "mi nority report" dissenting from the majority ver dict. When the "Burrows Resolution" was offered in the Senate these five "friendly" dis senters prevented a vote on it, and any further con sideration of the question at that time. Again in December (1906) they side-tracked it with a con venient motion for postponement. When it could be no longer deferred and reached the final debate in the Senate in February, 1907, the ablest of the "friends" Senators Knox, Foraker, and Beve ridge exhausted their learning, eloquence, and legal sophistries, in defense of the Mormon Senator. Senator Knox argued the constitutional end of the question he having studied that noble "guardian of our liberties" with special reference to making it fit all emergencies like the Smoot case ; Senator Foraker, able lawyer that he is, was through some subtle influence inveigled into putting forth a blanket apology for polygamy, upon the historic ground that back in the fifties the United States Government had seemed to lend a quasi-official sanction to it, in the appointment of Brigham Young by Presidents Fillmore and BULL MOOSE TRAILS 49 Pierce. Just why Senator Foraker should have overlooked the attitude of American presidents much nearer to him as evinced in the ringing anti-polygamy messages of Grant, Hayes, Gar- field, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison will prob ably never be known. Senator Beveridge a veritable Hotspur in every legislative battle for humanity dwelt long and feelingly upon the many amiable qualities, and virtuous freedom from polygamous taint, of the Hon. Reed Smoot him self, and dramatically likened him to the much abused Dreyfus of France ! All of which is what the late Bill Arp would term, "mighty inter-^tin. n Senator Burrows, speaking for the opposition, quietly called attention to two salient points in the controversy : ( i ) That the contention that po lygamy as a religious tenet was under the Con stitutional guarantee of religious freedom to all, had been conclusively settled by repeated decisions of the United States Supreme Court ruling against any such absurdity; and Senator Burrows recited the cases in detail, declaring bigamy and polygamy crimes by the laws of all civilized countries, and crimes against decency and morality. To advocate them upon religious grounds, is to offend the com mon sense of mankind. (2) That Reed Smoot was not on trial as a polygamist; although one wit ness, on his own responsibility and without suffi cient evidence, had made the charge, it was not 50 BULL MOOSE TRAILS contained in the main protest, which recited that "Reed Smoot is one of a self-perpetuating body of fifteen men, who constituting the ruling authorities of the Mormon Church, claim supreme authority divinely sanctioned, to shape the belief and control the conduct of their followers in all matters what soever, civil and religious; who thus uniting in themselves the functions of Church and State, in culcate and encourage polygamy, and by all the means in their power, protect and honor those who, with themselves, violate the laws of the land and engage in practices destructive of the family and the home." Reading further from the Majority Report, Senator Burrows said: U A sufficient number of specific instances of the taking of plural wives since the Manifesto of 1890, have been shown by the testimony, to demonstrate the fact that the leaders of this church the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles connive at the practice, and have done so ever since the issuance of the mani festo purporting to put an end to it." Among the "specific instances" referred to were seven ruling apostles, President Smith himself having per formed the ceremony for one of them. President Smith also confessed to living with five wives at that hearing, and to be the father of forty-three children, eleven of whom had been born since the Manifesto. When asked by one of his judges if BULL MOOSE TRAILS 51 he did not know he was violating the laws, the prophet replied: "I do not claim that in this I have obeyed the law of the land; but I preferred to take my chances." It was also put in evidence that President Smith, addressing a congregation in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, June, 1904, had said if he were to give up his polygamous mode of life he should expect to be forever damned, and debarred from the society of those he held most dear in the hereafter. Extracts from the "Book of Doctrine and Cov enants" the Mormon Bible inculcating the sanc tity of polygamy, were read before the committee, and testimony given to show that this book is still circulated among the "Saints," and is regarded by them as of higher authority than the Manifesto which by some curious oversight has not been in corporated in the sacred book! The Senate Committee learned that Mormon leaders suppressed testimony regarding polygamous marriages by sending the witnesses out of the coun try. Gentiles charged that records kept in the Mormon Temple would disclose the fact that plural marriages have been contracted in Utah since the Manifesto with the sanction of the church officials; but a witness who was required to bring these records, refused to do so after consulting President Smith. In a word, it was patent to the Committee that "all sorts of shifts, tricks, and 52 BULL MOOSE TRAILS evasions were resorted to in order to avoid service of a subpoena to appear and testify"; and after reviewing all the facts and the evidence in the case the Majority Report summed up its conclusions as follows : "The conduct of Mr. Smoot in this regard can not be separated from that of his associates in the government of the Mormon Church. Whatever his private opinions, or his private conduct, he stands before the world as an integral part of an organization which counsels, encourages, and ap proves polygamy; which not only fails to discipline those who break the laws, but loads with honors and favors the most noted polygamists among them. It is an elementary principle of law that where two or more persons are associated together in an act, organization, enterprise, or course of con duct, which is in its character or purpose unlawful, the act of any one of them is the act of all; and the act of any number of them is the act of each one. But the complicity of Mr. Smoot in the conduct of Mormon leaders, does not consist wholly in the fact that he is one of them. By repeated acts, and in a number of instances, Mr. Smoot has given active aid and support to the violators of State laws and common decency. By his own admission he helped to make Joseph Smith president, and repeatedly voted to sustain him after full knowledge of his polygamous living; he also helped to select Heber BULL MOOSE TRAILS 53 J. Grant, a notorious polygamist, as president of a mission; he voted for Charles W. Penrose as an apostle after testimony given in this investigation proved him to be a polygamist. As a trustee of Brigham Young University, Mr. Smoot made no protest against retaining Benjamin Cluff, Jr., a noted polygamist, as president of that institution, nor did he protest against the election of another polygamist in Cluff s stead. At no time has he uttered a syllable of protest against the conduct of his associates, but has sustained them both by his acts and by his silence. In the judgment of the Committee, Mr. Smoot is no more entitled to a seat in the Senate than he would be if he were associating in polygamous cohabitation with a plu rality of wives." Nor was the polygamous sin the only count in the Smoot indictment. He admitted before his judges that he had gone through the "endowment" cere monies in the Mormon Temple that sanctissimum sanctorum of the Latter-day worshippers whose threshold has never been profaned by Gentile foot; and a number of witnesses testified that the "oath of vengeance" or oath of "blood atonement" is part of these "endowment" rites. A copy of this oath was read before the Senate Committee : "I do solemnly promise and vow that I will never cease to pray and importune High Heaven to avenge the blood of the prophets (Joseph and 54 BULL MOOSE TRAILS Hyrum Smith) upon this nation (the United States), and that I will teach this to my children s children unto the third and fourth generation." An effort was made to discredit this testimony as to the "endowment oath," by impeaching the veracity of three of the witnesses; but as this im peachment rested on the word of Mormons only, it did not weigh greatly with the lawyers of that Committee who had for months been taking obser vations of Mormon veracity. A witness called in Smoot s behalf, a Mr. Dougall, who corroborated the testimony in regard to the "endowment oath," was not even challenged by Smoot s attorneys. Concerning the Committee hearings in the Smoot case, Senator Dubois, of Idaho, speaking in the Senate on the "Burrows Resolution," said: "Not ten Senators would vote for Reed Smoot if they had read the testimony." However, on the final ballot whether due to ignorance of the testimony, or for some other equally valid reason forty-two Senators were re corded as voting to retain the Mormon Senator, and only twenty-eight to unseat him eighteen be ing paired and not voting. Senators Depew and Dolliver, who had voted in committee against Smoot, switched to his support on the Senate roll- call ; and Burrows alone, of all the Republican Sen ators who reviewed the testimony "from the bench," carried his colors into the fight on the Sen- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 55 ate floor, and held them aloft in the moment of de feat. As soon as his resolution to expel the Mor mon Senator was lost, the man from Michigan gave formal notice that he would shortly introduce a bill in the Senate asking an amendment to the Federal Constitution which would give Congress the power to punish polygamy, and he did ; but the proposed amendment was referred to the Judiciary Committee and was never more heard of. The Mormon s "friends" were sufficiently numerous in that committee to strangle even a report on the measure. All praise to "the senior Senator" from Michi gan ! President Roosevelt might brand him as a "reactionary," and other Mormon allies go after his political scalp and get it; yet there remained more of honor on the credit side of his senatorial balance-sheet than could be found on the side of all those who had saved their togas at the sacrifice of their principles. For, sentiment and religion aside, this great fact stands out from the world s history that thus far in human development, monogamous marriage is the one solid rock on which to build a decent so ciety all else is shifting sand. It is one and the chief one of "those fundamental rules which poor human nature has worked out, with such infinite pains, for its own protection;" it is the only thing which lends dignity and sanctity to the home; and 56 BULL MOOSE TRAILS anything which tends to impair this institution weakens the whole social fabric. Mormonism, with its absurd, fanatical doctrine anent "plural and celestial marriage," aims the deadliest blow at the monogamous idea, of any thing else not even excepting lax divorce laws; and it is incredible that men holding the monoga mous relation, and believing it the only moral safeguard for their own wives and daughters, should yet vote to seat in the highest councils of state a representative and anointed emissary of the Mormon system! Yet such is the merciless showing of the Congressional Record of February 20, 1907, and such is ever the pitiable story of the "exigencies of practical politics." Senator Newlands of Navada, speaking in favor of the "Burrows Resolution," shed some light on the situation in stating that he realized the gravity of the possible consequences to himself in opposing the Mormon Church, "which," he said, "is a strong political factor in a portion of Nevada, and the man who antagonizes that Church takes his politi cal life in his own hands" O. W. Powers, Territorial Supreme Justice of Utah, appointed by President Cleveland, testified in the Smoot trial: "The Mormon Church always impresses on its followers the necessity for unity of action; the necessity of obeying counsel; the BULL MOOSE TRAILS 57 propriety of following their file leader without question." A. E. Hyde, a Mormon mine owner of Salt Lake City, and a son-in-law of ex-Senator Frank Cannon, who was stopping at the Shoreham Hotel in Washinton, D. C., in October, 1908, gave out a published interview in the Washington Herald which contained the following statements: "The Mormon Church is a perfect political organiza tion. If orders go out the night before election day to vote for a certain candidate, every Mormon unhesitatingly, and without questioning, will cast his vote as directed." Mr. Hyde stated that he did not approve of his Church engaging in politics, because its leaders had to promise the United States Government, before they were accorded Statehood, that the Church would cease its political interfer ence. "But we are backsliders," he added, "and we are playing politics as strong as we ever did. . . . Yes, I am a Mormon, but I am a young Mormon. ... Is polygamy dead? Certainly not; I have lots of friends who practice it, notwithstanding all testimony to the contrary. I could give you the names of twenty-five without difficulty. And Mor- monism is making wonderful strides everywhere and making converts every day." Senator Kearns of Utah, speaking in the United States Senate, February 28, 1905, said of the Mor mon Hierarchy: "Its political autonomy is com- 58 BULL MOOSE TRAILS plete. Parties are nothing to it, except as parties may be used by it. It adheres to the party in power. No man can be elected to either house of Congress against its wish from the States where the Mor mons hold the balance of power." In this connec tion, it is interesting to note, that of the nine Re publican Senators who voted against Smoot, five Burrows, Hale, Heminway, Hansbrough, and Kitt- redge have been retired from public life in the five years since the ballot was taken. Dubois, a Democratic Senator in a Mormon stronghold (Idaho), which had been pledged to the Republi can Administration, in opposing Smoot, simply courted the political death which was foreordained for him. Yet while the Hierarchy no doubt exercised a directly controlling influence upon the Gentile Senators from the Western States where Mormon voters mostly congregate, it could have had no di rect weight with those statesmen from the East and Middle West, who voted and wrestled mightily in prayer and argument for the Hon. Reed Smoot. In order for the Mormon influence to reach these, it must pass through some friendly Eastern poten tate. Who was Ms Mormon medium? It was the common talk about Washington and the capitol at the time, that the pressure which com pelled these unwilling Senators to vote against their home traditions, was exerted from the White BULL MOOSE TRAILS 59 House, and that to President Roosevelt the Hon. Smoot owed his retention in the Senate of the United States. Senator Dubois openly charged it in his "swan song"; and the Salt Lake Tribune the anti- Mormon organ of Utah re-echoed the charge on its front page, the morning of February 21, 1907 : although President Roosevelt was on record as having "advised" the Utah Legislature prior to the selection of Smoot not to send a Mormon to the United States Senate. Which presidential "ad vice" the Hierarchy evidently felt itself strong enough to disregard. Mr. Hyde, in his Washing ton Herald interview, likewise stated that u a bar gain was made at the time Senator Smoot was fight ing for his seat ; to deliver the Mormon vote to the Republicans in return for the Administration s in fluence in behalf of Smoot." The editor of the Tribune and others keeping watch at Salt Lake, believed the deal to have been consummated in the spring of 1903 (a few months after Smoot s debut in the Senate), when President Roosevelt visited Salt Lake City and spoke in the Mormon Tabernacle. A writer in Pearson s Magazine for September, 1910, places the date near the close of the 1904 presidential campaign, and sets forth the terms of the pact as follows : "Theodore Roosevelt himself made the bargain with the Mormon Church, which exists to this day. 60 BULL MOOSE TRAILS The Church agreed to deliver to Roosevelt the electoral votes of Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, in exchange for three things: (i) A cessation of the agitation within the Republican party for an amendment of the Federal Constitution giving Congress the power to legislate concerning plural marriage ; (2) a defence of Reed Smoot, apostle and representative of the Mormon hierarchy, as a Senator of the United States; and (3) a dispo sition of Federal patronage in Utah and surround ing States in obedience to the wishes of the Hier archy, expressed to the Administration through Apostle Reed Smoot." This Pearson s writer gives as his authority for this statement u a man high in the councils of the Republican party in the West, who supported both Roosevelt and Taft," and quotes from this high Western authority as follows: u As the fall of 1904 arrived, the pressure of events became too fierce for Roosevelt to stand. You will recall that in September, the Republican leaders became panicky, and none more so than Roosevelt. It looked to all of them as if Parker might be elected. The sky was black with Democratic gains. In that crisis Roosevelt did what any one who knows him as I do, knows he will do, in the thick of any fight use the first weapon his hand can reach and fight in any way to win" ! Shade of E. H. Harriman ! Thou are vindicated at last, even BULL MOOSE TRAILS 61 out of the mouth of a Western supporter of Theodore ! In the nature of the case a corrupt political deal of any sort is difficult to prove by direct testimony since usually the only witnesses to the compact are the criminal bargainers themselves. The only way to get at the truth of such bargains is by circum stantial evidence sometimes the most convincing of any. Taking stock, for instance, of the political and other indices surrounding the Smoot case, we find that Utah, which in 1896 had given Bryan a plurality of 33,116, and McKinley a small margin of 2,140 in 1900, gave Roosevelt a plurality of 29,033 in 1904. Apostle Hyrum Smith, son of Joseph F., speaking to his congregation in the Tabernacle on April 5, 1905, said: "I want to say this: we believe that in President Roosevelt we have a friend; and we believe that in the Latter- day Saints President Roosevelt has the greatest friendship among them; that there are no people in the world who are more friendly to him, and will remain friendly unto him just so long as he remains true, as he has been to the cause of hu manity !" We all know the Mormon interpreta tion of "the cause of humanity." Again, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, on April 4, 1909, Elder Benjamin E. Rich a reputed three-ply polygamist and head of the Eastern Mormon Missions gave out a statement which was later published in the 62 BULL MOOSE TRAILS Liahona, the official organ of the Mormon Church, of date October 15, 1909: "I want to say to you that this people never had a better friend in the White House than Theodore Roosevelt There has never been a man there that understood this people as he understood them. He has been, and is, your friend. Many a conversation have I had with him concerning the struggles of this people and the building-up of this land with the aid of our fathers." Another interesting sidelight on the Roosevelt- Morman pact was furnished in the spring of 1909, when Senator Hopkins of Illinois was fighting for re-election to the United States Senate. Another aspirant for his seat not Lorimer brought out Hopkins s record in the Smoot trial in order to discredit him. Whereupon Hopkins, to clear him self, had published in one of the Chicago papers a letter which he had received from President Roose velt highly commending his course in the Smoot case. A similar letter from Roosevelt to Senator Knox was likewise given to the press. If further corroboration be needed of the en tente cordiale subsisting between Colonel Roosevelt and the Latter-day Saints, may it not be found in the extremely friendly and indulgent tone adopted toward Mormonism in the pious Outlook since the Colonel became "contributing editor" ? Summing up the evidence on the Pearson s in- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 63 dictment: Roosevelt did receive the Mormon vote in the 1904 election, and the electoral votes of the three States named; Reed Smoot did retain his seat in the United States Senate, over the emphatic pro test of the whole non-Mormon population ; several Gentile Federal appointees were replaced by Mor mons; and Senator Burrows s bill for a constitu tional amendment aimed at polygamy was strangled in committee. So ! He who runs may read. The past two years, 1910-12, witnessed a con siderable agitation of the Mormon question in the Gentile press. Several large Eastern dailies sent out staff correspondents to explore the Mormon strongholds of the West, and printed their findings at great length; five sizable magazines in New York, Everbody s, McClure s, Cosmopolitan, Hampton s, and Pearson s each contributed a ser ies of articles to the literature of what is now called "the Mormon problem. " The burden of testi mony brought in by all these various investigators and expositors, sounds one unanimous note: that polygamy is as rampant as ever under the protec tion of "the Prophet," and that he dominates his followers absolutely in business, politics, and social affairs. Judson Welliver, an admirer of Colonel Roose velt, writing in January (1910) number of Hampton s, on the baneful alliance between the 64 BULL MOOSE TRAILS Mormon Church and the Sugar Trust, affirmed: "There is no body of people in America so per fectly organized, so completely controlled, politi cally, and in business matters, as the Mormons." Alfred Henry Lewis, a one-time spell-binder for the Colonel, who after several months residing and spying in Mormon fastnesses, embodied his impressions of "The Viper on the National Hearth stone" in a graphic series in the Cosmopolitan (1911), says: u The present Mormon attitude to ward the Federal Government is that of the cap tive. The Church they say, through superior force is held in chains; and since it is permitted one to mislead a foe, the Mormons are free to lie to the United States or State authorities, whenever and wherever the truth would prove ill-timed. That is the Mormon creed. Every one from Prophet Smith and the twelve apostles including Senator Smoot down to the last mean handful of proselytes brought from Europe, is at liberty to lie ; he may deny his "blood atonement" oath, deny his hatred of our Government, deny polygamy, deny political domination, deny the numbers, the wealth, the purpose, the power, of the Mormon Church." If this be true, Prophet Smith must have felt pretty secure in the protection of his "friend" in the White House, to have spoken as frankly to the Senate Committee as he did concerning his marital pluralities. BULL MOOSE TRAILS 65 Touching the prevalence of present-day polyg amy, the New York World correspondent testified that, at the Eighty-first Annual Conference of the Mormon Church, held on April 6, 1911, eleven of the twenty-five highest church officials were known to be polygamists; and the Salt Lake Tribune, on various dates during the year 1910-11, published the names of 230 polygamists, with the names of their wives and places of residence, and no denial was offered. Mormon statistics reveal a startling growth of the propaganda abroad, since Smoot s election to the Senate. The outcome of his trial was cited by Mormon missionaries as a complete vindication of their system ; and their converts increased from 600 per year in 1906, to 1,200 in 1908. Mormon immigrants to this country, from 1903 to 1910, increased proportionately. George B. Billings, commissioner of immigra tion at Boston, on November 2, 1908, gave out the statement: "About 700 to 800 Mormon converts, a majority of whom are probably women, pass through this port annually." Immigration officials claim that our laws, as at present constituted, are inadequate to debar these Mormon immigrants, who are coached by missionaries abroad, how to answer the inspectors here, are provided with "show money," and otherwise find their pathway smoothed by Mormon agents at the various ports 66 BULL MOOSE TRAILS of entry. A high Government official who would not allow the use of his name the usual official reticence said at Washington, in June, 1911: "When Reed Smoot retires from the United States Senate we may get some legislation that will en able us to keep Mormons out of the country. Under the present laws our hands are tied so tightly that it is virtually impossible to prevent polygamists from entering." The only thing neces sary to evade the law is for the immigrant to pro fess his or her usually her disbelief in polyg amy; and there are instances of inspectors being punished on complaint of Senator Smoot for questioning too closely these women converts to the Latter-day faith. When one remembers how easily under the Mormon code as defined by Alfred Henry the only difficulty of the law may be met; and that as a matter of fact, these Mormon women from Europe in many cases young and silly girls are "sealed" to the polygamous patriots of Utah and Idaho before they leave home, there is no prac tical difference to the non-Mormon understand ing between the law concerning Mormon aliens, as at present administered, and the licensing of "white slave traffic." Mr. Hans P. Freece, the young man commis sioned by the Presbyterian Board of Home Mis sions to expose the Mormon system at home and abroad, is of the opinion, that if the foreign supply BULL MOOSE TRAILS 67 could be shut off, Mormonism would soon die of inanition, due to the death or apostasy of the American-born "saints." Mr. Freece, who with his wife, spent a year (1910-11) in an anti-Mormon campaign in Europe, returned to this country in the fall of 1911 with a written endorsement of his work in England, signed by a dozen or more distinguished English clergymen, municipal dignitaries, and mem bers of Parliament among the last-mentioned, a son of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Shortly after his return, Mr. Freece chancing in the office of the Outlook one day, was asked by a member of the staff, Mr. Townsend, why he did not call to talk with Colonel Roosevelt about his work; that "the Colonel was much interested in the Mormon ques tion." On Mr. Freece s replying that while he would be very glad to talk with Colonel Roosevelt on the subject if he wished it, he did not care to intrude on him uninvited, Mr. Townsend said that he thought that an interview "could be arranged." Then, about September I5th, Mr. Freece re ceived a note from Mr. Frank Harper, Roosevelt s private secretary, saying the Colonel would be glad to see him at a certain time, and Mr. Freece ac cordingly presented himself at the Outlook office, and was at once admitted to the Colonel s presence. The following dialogue as reported by Mr. Freece ensued : 68 BULL MOOSE TRAILS Mr. Freece: "I called to see you at the sugges tion of Mr. Townsend and your secretary, Mr. Harper, in regard to the Mormon question." Colonel Roosevelt: "Yes, yes." Mr. Freece: "I don t know, Mr. Roosevelt, whether you are aware of the fact, that Mormon elders, in order to carry on their propaganda with most success, do not hold up the lives of their great men as examples, to bolster their system, but are using the name of Theodore Roosevelt for that purpose." Mr. Freece then produced a copy of the Mormon magazine containing the statement from Benjamin E. Rich, before mentioned in this chapter, and laid it before his illustrious colloquist. Colonel Roosevelt: "Well, that is only his opin ion. I do not know that I am the best friend they ever had." Mr. Freece: "True, it is only his opinion; but the matter in which I am interested is to know whether this Mormon high-priest and reputed polygamist has been invited by you many times to discuss Mormonism with you?" Colonel Roosevelt: "Yes I know Ben Rich, who has been down to the White House to talk it over with me quite a number of times. But it does not say here that the conversation was favorable to the Mormons. Only fools and knaves can get that out of it !" (This rings true and life-like.) BULL MOOSE TRAILS 69 Mr. Freece: "Mr. Roosevelt, it seems to me, that when Mr. Rich states that he had been in numerous conversations with you about Mormon- ism, and then gives as his conclusion that you are the best friend the Mormons ever had, it would follow in the minds of most persons that your part of the conversation had been friendly to the sys tem. However, I was more particularly anxious to know whether Ben Rich had been invited to the White House. Another thing I wish to speak about: when I was in Europe this summer the Mormons there had a letter which they claimed had been written by you in defence of Mormonism. They printed it in the English, Danish and Dutch languages, and distributed it to the people, claim ing if the great ex-President of the United States spoke kind words for Mormons, the system must be all right." Colonel Roosevelt: "Well, what was that letter?" Mr. Freece: "It was the letter which they claim was written by you to Isaac Russell, a Mormon mis sionary, and printed in Collier s Weekly last April. Colonel Roosevelt: "Oh, yes, I wrote that let ter, and I am perfectly willing that the Mormons should use it if they print the entire letter." Mr. Freece: "The part I was interested in was the statement that your detectives out West were not able to find any cases of new polygamy?" 70 BULL MOOSE TRAILS Colonel Roosevelt: "Yes, that s true." Mr. Freece: "Well, when you were President, and Mr. Smoot was on trial, a number of men, such as Merrill, Hickman, Reynolds, and others, testi fied under oath that they had married new wives since the Manifesto, and the chairman of the Sen ate Committee declared in his report that such prominent Mormons as Taylor, Cowley, Teasdale, and others, also had taken new polygamous wives." Colonel Roosevelt: "I do not know those men." Mr. Freece: "Perhaps not, but you were cog nizant of the sworn testimony, were you not?" Colonel Roosevelt: "Well, I did not pay much attention to the testimony, but I sent my detectives to look into the matter, and I printed their report. They were the best I had on the force." Mr. Freece: "It seems very strange that those detectives could not find where these prominent Mormons were living; because everybody in Salt Lake knows where they live. Inquiry anywhere would have revealed their residences." Colonel Roosevelt: "I cannot help that. I sent them out, they brought back the report, and I printed it." Mr. Freece: "Furthermore, since that official report was printed, the Salt Lake Tribune has pub lished the names of over 230 men who have rec ently taken plural wives. The Tribune gives the names of most of the wives, where the ceremony BULL MOOSE TRAILS 71 was performed, where the parties are now living, and in some instances the number of children that have been born." Colonel Roosevelt, rising and speaking angrily: "I do not care what the Tribune prints. I wouldn t believe it under oath any quicker than I would the New York World, or Hampton s Magazine, or any of the Hearst papers !" And with this parting shot, the Colonel turned his back abruptly on his invited caller, and stalked across the room to begin conversation with another visitor. Space forbids giving the full text of Colonel Roosevelt s letter to Elder Russell, of date Feb ruary 17, 1911, owing to the Colonel s copious epistolary style, which the Mormons had found so valuable in enlisting foreign recruits ; but it may be found, in all its wealth of expletive and tergiversa tion, in Collier s Weekly of date April 15, 1911. I will close this chapter with a few choice extracts from it, and brief comment thereon. u My dear Mr. Russell : I thank you for your letter calling my attention to the charges made against me in con nection with an alleged bargain with the Mormon Church. The letter you enclosed contains a quo tation from a magazine which states" here fol lowed the quoted passage from Pearson s, and the usual vehement denial: u No such bargain was ever in any way, directly or indirectly, suggested to, or considered by me. It is not merely an atrocious 72 BULL MOOSE TRAILS falsehood, but it could by no possibility be any thing but a falsehood!" Judge Parker will recall the peculiar ictus of this phrase. "Neither the Church, nor any one on behalf of the Church, ever agreed to deliver to me the votes of the States men tioned, nor was any allusion to the matter ever made to me. Neither Senator Smoot, nor any other citizen of Utah, was, as far as I know, con sulted about the patronage in the States surround ing Utah, nor did the Mormon hierarchy, through Senator Smoot or any one else, ever express a single wish in connection with that patronage. ... As to the cessation for the movement for Federal con trol of marriage, including divorce and polygamy, so far as I know, there never was such cessation; personally, I have always favored such control. . . . Whether it is especially needed as regards polygamous marriage, I cannot say. . . . On one occasion while I was President, a number of charges were made about these polygamous marriages in Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah, charges against some of our Federal officials even. . . . A very thorough investigation was made, and the charges were proved to be without the smallest basis of fact. It was finally found, a fourth-class postmistress , whose earnings were about $2$ per year an old woman had been plurally married about thirty years previously, but had long since ceased living with her husband!" (I respectfully submit, that this BULL MOOSE TRAILS 73 presidential investigator, universal regulator, and judge-of-all-the-earth, having run to cover this piti ful offender, was bound, upon every principle of humanity to either find this poor woman another husband, or raise her salary.) T. R. affirms fur ther, that not only were his government officials found blameless as to polygamy, "but incidentally, the investigators were unable to find a single case of polygamous marriage entered into since the practice had been professedly abandoned." . . . And I may add, every Mormon with whom I spoke, assured me that since the public renuncia tion of polygamy, the law had been observed in this respect, just as in others. ... As for the case of Senator Smoot, he came to me of his own ac cord, and not only assured me that he was not a polygamist, but that he had never had relations with any woman except his own wife. . . . He also assured me that he had always done everything he could to have the law about polygamy obeyed, and most strongly upheld his Church s position in its public renunciation of polygamy. . . . / looked into the facts very thoroughly" it will be recalled that he told Mr. Freece that he paid little attention to the testimony "became convinced that Senator Smoot had told me the truth, and treated him ex actly as I did all other Senators that is, strictly on his merits as a public servant. I did not inter fere in any way with his retention in the Senate," 74 BULL MOOSE TRAILS etc., etc., etc. This simple, child-like acceptance by T. R. not only of the Vestal-virgin professions of the Honorable Smoot, but of all the other tales told him by his Mormon informers touching the existence of polygamy in their territory, makes one of the most affecting chapters in his most remark able history. He who is known to be so sensitive to the presence of liars, that he has developed a Sherlock-Holmes faculty for spotting them in all sorts of disguises, was yet unable to find a single Mormon witness whom he deemed worthy of mem bership in his favorite Club! And yet his dear special-pleader and hero-wor shipping delineator, Alfred Henry Lewis, says that it is the cardinal tenet in the Mormon creed to lie! How will Alfred Henry and the Colonel ever "get together" on the Mormon question! T. R. concludes his disposition of the charges in the Russell letter as follows: "I have thus gone over, point by point, the infamous accusations made by the writer, whoever he was, whom you quoted" (Richard Barry, another special writer disposed to deal gently with the Colonel for the most part) "accusations which brand with infamy the man who made them, and also the magazine editor who pub lished them" (Pearson s, another dear friend and admirer, alas this is heart-breaking!) "and any one who quotes them." (This gets the "in famous brand" upon the Rev. R. M. Stevenson, a BULL MOOSE TRAILS 75 Presbyterian divine, and president of Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and upon my unworthy self.) Here the Colonel remarks further to the appreciative Russell: "There is a peculiar infamy in this species of slander, and the men engaged in it, do not stand one whit above any men who have really taken part in the practices which they affect to denounce. So much for these slanderers. Now a word to the Mormons" but time and space call a halt you can find it all in Collier s. In brief, T. R. concludes his Mormon letter with a warning so Pickwickian that one could imagine the "Saints* 1 laughing at it except that a Mormon sense of humor is unthinkable. At least we may fancy them indulging some inward chuckles, much as naughty children chuckle at the drastic threats of a weak mother, which long experience has taught them she will not enforce. Just how seriously the Mormons regarded the Roosevelt rebuke in this letter, is suffi ciently evinced by their circulating it in three lan guages all over their foreign mission field I One only remaining thought is suggested by this Roosevelt Epistle to the Mormons. We note that the gravamen of reproof and exhortation is quickly and adroitly shifted from polygamy to race suicide, and a comparison instituted very flattering to the former. This sheds a new light on Mr. Roose velt s espousal of the Mormon cause. For what ever the Mormon s infirmities and short-comings, it 76 BULL MOOSE TRAILS cannot be charged that "the artificial restriction of families" is among them. He has no sin of "will ful sterility" resting on his soul. No wonder the Colonel loves him, aside from his "unity of action" in elections ! It is all clear as day. And now lest I be accused of presenting only one side of this Roosevelt-Mormon picture for there are always at least two sides to T. R. I will state that it is a matter of record that the Roosevelt preachments against polygamy are to be found in his public documents, as well as his private corre spondence though these sometimes become inter changeable. In one of his messages he even mildly advocated Federal control of polygamy and a Con stitutional amendment therefor. True, this was in his palmy, sovereign days, when he was advocating Federal control of pretty nearly everything, and holding the term "Federal" synonymous with "Rooseveltian" ; still, the fact remains, he did talk against the Mormon evil, and as before recited he advised Utah against sending a Mormon to the United States Senate. If any one holds this to be inconsistent with his defence of Reed Smoot, and otherwise favoring the Mormons, it only shows he hasn t the proper light on T. R. s dual sometimes kaleidoscopic, personality. Did he not slap the "rich malefactor" with one hand, and receive the Harriman contribu tion with the other? Has he not vociferously de- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 77 nounced the "interests," and granted immunity to those "so friendly" to himself? Scored the "cor- ruptionists," and protected the "court favorites"? And railed at all the "bosses" except his own ac complices? It will be seen that T. R. s Mormon record is precisely in line with all his other "policies." CHAPTER IV HOW T. R. FOUGHT THE "BOSSES" OF NEW MEXICO IN 1906-7 Colonel Roosevelt s valiant boast that, in this 1912 campaign, he is leading the fight against "boss-rule" and "machine politics" makes pertinent an illuminative page from his past, in re of the ad ministration of Herbert J. Hagerman, Territorial Governor of New Mexico from January 22, 1906, to May 3, 1907. Hagerman was appointed gov ernor by President Roosevelt upon the recommen dation of Hon. Ethan Allen Hitchcock, then Secre tary of the Interior, whose secretary of embassy Hagerman had been when Hitchcock was Ambas sador to Russia. In grieved tones and with virtuous mien, our for mer President told the new governor how dis tressed he was by the tales which had reached his ears of conditions in New Mexico, where political free-booters had been for years using the Republi can organization for their own selfish ends to ex ploit and corrupt the Territory. For this reason he was appointing "a man of the Hagerman type" able, clean, and fearless and, without consult ing the machine out there, in order that he might 78 BULL MOOSE TRAILS 79 have a free hand in the drastic reforms he was ex pected to inaugurate, and for which was pledged the full support of the Federal power. In a word, Governor Hagerman understood that he was given carte blanche to "clean up the gang" in New Mexico, and forthwith went his unsuspect ing way, to the prompt and full execution of his appointed task. The principal members of the New Mexican "gang," which Hagerman had been dele gated to chastise, were H. O. Bursum, chairman of the Territorial Republican Committee and Super intendent of the Territorial Prison; William H. Andrews (the notorious "Bull" Andrews), dele gate to Congress from New Mexico, and formerly a member of the Quay machine in Pennsylvania; Major W. H. H. Llewellyn, United States Attor ney, who posed as a Rough-rider intimate of Roose velt; Attorney-General Pritchard; J. Wallace Ray- nolds. Territorial Secretary, and Max Frost, editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican. The new Governor removed Bursum from the office of Prison Superintendent, after an investiga tion revealed him nearly $5,000 short in his ac counts which he was forced to refund and other evidences of flagrant malfeasance; he replaced At torney-General Pritchard with Captain Reid, and made one or two other official changes. Having reported these to the Secretary of the Interior at Washington, Hagerman received from the Presi- 8o BULL MOOSE TRAILS dent the following telegram, dated March 13, 1906: "Secretary Hitchcock has shown me your letter. I entirely approve of your course. I shall give you an entirely free hand in the Territory, because I hold you to an absolute responsibility for the con duct of affairs. Remove, whenever you deem wise, the three men whom you report as unsatisfactory, and any others whom you find unsatisfactory. If any of my appointees hamper you, let me know at once, and I will remove them. You are welcome to show this telegram to any one you desire. "(Signed) THEODORE ROOSEVELT." How well President Roosevelt kept the pledge of this telegram, as well as his other promises of support to his reform appointee, will appear as this narrative based on official documents shall un fold. Although the changes effected by Governor Ha- german were all good, from an administrative point of view, and approved by all honest citizens of the Territory, without regard to party, his efforts to cleanse the Augean stables of New Mexican politics quite naturally aroused the bitterest antagonism of the members of the plunderbund, who soon saw that unless they could rid themselves of the new Executive they would have to go out of business and thus they began to plot his downfall. Before BULL MOOSE TRAILS 81 many months had elapsed they found the President of the United States a compliant accessory to their scheme. Had Hagerman s faith in Roosevelt been less absolute, he might have discerned u the cloud no bigger than a man s hand" which was ultimately to o ercast his whole sky, and cut short his reforming career in the Territory, in the following letter from William Loeb, Jr., in March, 1906: "I am directed by the President to ask whether there is any position under you, or subject to appointment by the President in New Mexico, to which Captain George Curry can be ap pointed. Curry is coming home soon, and the President very much wishes to provide him with a position." Governor Hagerman replying that the only posi tion in the Territory open at that writing was that of Game Warden, Loeb wrote again, in April of that year: The President doubts if Captain Curry could accept the position of Game Warden, as the salary is not sufficient." The next time Governor Hagerman encountered "the President s desire to provide a place for Cap tain Curry" (one of the Rough-rider braves then in the Philippines), nearly a year had elapsed, and 82 BULL MOOSE TRAILS the President s move for the accomplishment of his desire was so disguised that the Governor did not recognize it until subsequent events enabled him to trace the fateful threads of hidden fire connecting plot and plotter. In the closing days of the Territorial Legislature which convened in January, 1907, a u spite resolu tion" was introduced into the Lower House which had been thoroughly organized by Mr. Bursum, the deposed Prison Superintendent charging the Gov ernor with misconduct, in re of the Pennsylvania Development Co., and providing a committee to be appointed by the Speaker, who was bitterly hostile to Hagerman, to investigate the charges and report their findings to the House. The resolution was adopted, and the report of the committee was just what was expected by the conspirators one-sided, false, and venomous. The special message sent by the Governor, fully explain ing his action in the case, and a perfect defence to any one looking for the truth, was ruled "out of order" by the Speaker; and the message was never read nor communicated to the House in any man ner! The "report" was put into the hands of a subordinate attorney in the Department of Justice at Washington a Mr. Cooley who, without waiting to hear a word on the other side, rendered a preliminary decision adverse to Governor Hager man. BULL MOOSE TRAILS 83 And President Roosevelt, also without waiting to hear anything in rebuttal, accepted this ex parte "Cooley Report" unreservedly, and made it the al leged basis of his ultimate action in the matter. No intimation of the President s attitude was vouch safed to Governor Hagerman at this juncture, how ever. On the contrary, his friend Mr. Barnes, who had been in Washington in February, stated on his return that Secretary Garfield (who had succeeded Hitchcock as head of the Interior Department) had told him there was no truth in the rumor circulat ing in New Mexico, that the President would re quest Hagerman s resignation. This statement being questioned, Barnes tele graphed the Secretary, and received the following reply : "WILL C. BARNES, "Santa Fe, N. M. "Answering your telegram, you were correct in quoting me as saying that the Department approved Governor Hagerman s efforts for honest adminis tration, and that his removal was not contemplated. "(Signed) J. R. GARFIELD." Of the same date as the Garfield telegram (March 7) , a letter from Mr. Loeb informed Gov ernor Hagerman that "the President would like to see him at the White House on the morning of March 28"; but upon Hagerman s signifying his 84 BULL MOOSE TRAILS readiness to comply, the invitation was withdrawn by telegram on March 20. Garfield likewise wired the Governor: "I prefer that you postpone your leave of absence for a few weeks." Finally, on April 8, Hagerman was notified that "the Secretary would be pleased to see him in Wash ington whenever it was convenient for him to come"; and he left Santa Fe immediately, accom panied by Mr. Levi Hughes, the newly appointed Territorial Treasurer, arriving in Washington the night of April 12. Early on the morning of the I3th, they called on Secretary Garfield, who told Hagerman the Presi dent was waiting to see him, and instructed him to report at the White House at 1 1 o clock. Neither from the previous correspondence, nor from the Secretary in this interview, could Hagerman obtain an inkling as to what was wanted of him; but at the appointed hour he repaired to the White House with Mr. Hughes, who alone was admitted to "the presence," while the Governor was requested to wait outside with Mr. Loeb. About noon Mr. Gar- field came from the President s office, and handed Hagerman a copy of the "Cooley Report," with the message that the President desired him to re turn at 3 o clock to "talk over the Report, and one or two other matters." Then, for the first time, the Governor understood BULL MOOSE TRAILS 85 that he had been summoned to Washington to an swer charges in the Pennsylvania Development Co. land matter. To his surprised protest that the time was rather short in which to digest a voluminous report and prepare an answer, Mr. Garfield offered no comment. In the anteroom Mr. Hughes was waiting, mani festly much disturbed over his interview with the President; who, as soon as he learned that Hughes had accompanied Hagerman to Washington, showed symptoms of deep anger, and told Mr. Hughes "it would be absolutely useless for him to say anything in the Governor s defence; that what he had done was so bad it would be ridiculous to listen to any friend of his." He further in timated that Hagerman had surrendered the deeds to the Pennsylvania Co., "in order to get the endorsement of the Democratic Territorial Convention, and to harm Delegate Andrews in his campaign." Delegate Andrews, be it remembered, was a most conspicuous exponent of that particular brand of politics which President Roosevelt had expressly deputized Governor Hagerman to stamp out in New Mexico ! Hagerman says of him : "His repu tation was so opposed in every way to the ideal I had conceived of Roosevelt, that I confess I felt much chagrin when I discovered that the President was championing Mr. Andrews." 86 BULL MOOSE TRAILS After this, Governor Hagerman foresaw that his hearing before the President would be a mere for mality; but, at the appointed hour after reading as much of the "Cooley Report" as possible in the time allotted he once more presented himself at the White House. Mr. Roosevelt started "the hear ing" by telling the Governor that what he had done was so bad his usefulness in New Mexico was ended; that if he did not know him to be honest, he would have summarily removed him on the Coo- ley Report alone; that if he had been "an ordinary Governor," he would never have given him an opportunity to come to Washington at all ! What followed is best given in Hagerman s own words : "The President went on to say, in effect, that he desired my resignation to be brought about with as little annoyance and pain to me as would be con sistent with his opinion about the end of my use fulness in New Mexico. He wished the contents of the Cooley Report to remain known only to himself, Mr. Garfield, Mr. Cooley, and myself. He wished me to go back to New Mexico and send in my resignation; on receiving it, he would write a private letter for my eyes alone, in which he would say my usefulness had ended, and, therefore, he ac cepted my resignation ; and then he would write an other letter for the office files, and for publication if I desired to publish it in which he would say I BULL MOOSE TRAILS 87 was strictly upright and fearless, and would men tion what I had done for the Territory. Turning to the Secretary, he asked to be reminded what I had done, when the time came for writing this sec ond letter, the first draft of which I might return to him with any suggestions and additions of my own, before the final draft was signed by him the draft which might be published! "This proposal in regard to the letters seemed very extraordinary to me ; that one in his position should want to employ so devious and unusual a method for accomplishing a simple result. I told him I was ready to give him my resignation then and there, intimating politely that I thought this the more simple and dignified course. He did not desire it, however, and I decided to let the matter take its way. When given an opportunity to speak, I went over, as fully as I could, the land matter, and asked him how it was, that this which at the worst could only be called an error of judgment could offset all the other things I had done for the public weal in New Mexico? "He replied that it was infinitely more than an error of judgment; that it was a very serious of fence. While I could hold his reluctant attention, I briefly reviewed the achievements of my adminis tration in line with what I thought he wanted done all which was hastily brushed aside as he indi cated the hearing was ended; and reiterated that 88 BULL MOOSE TRAILS the incident had been very painful to him, that he was deeply grieved to have to take the step he was taking. During the interview Sec retary Garfield only spoke when addressed by the President, and then in briefest terms of ac quiescence." Before leaving Washington, however, Governor Hagerman demanded of the Secretary a hearing on the Pennsylvania Development Co. case before the law officers of the Department; and this was granted, though Garfield warned him: "When a man in an appointive position disagrees with the President, there is nothing for him to do but ac cept the President s point of view." The Departmental lawyers, Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Holcombe, after going thoroughly into the case, sustained Hagerman s action, and promised to give their opinion to the Secretary, though Mr. Holcombe said he had never asked for it. (Mr. Hagerman has heard frorn various sources that the subject of his eviction from the governorship of New Mexico, is one which Mr. Garfield refuses to discuss.) Governor Hagerman went from Washington to St. Louis; and there, on April 17, he saw an Asso ciated Press dispatch from the White House that "Governor Hagerman had told the President he would resign, and that Captain Curry had been ap pointed." BULL MOOSE TRAILS 89 Thus did Mr. Roosevelt keep his part of his own pre-arranged program. When the news reached New Mexico, it raised a storm of protests. A mass meeting was held at Albuquerque, voicing the popular indignation; two leading lawyers of the Territory, one a Democrat and the other a Re publican, came to Washington to plead the Gov ernor s cause with the President. The only answer anybody got from him was that u the incident was closed." On April 22, Governor Hagerman sent in his formal resignation, and on May 3 he received the following : "THE WHITE HOUSE, "WASHINGTON, April 29, 1907. "My DEAR GOVERNOR HAGERMAN: "In response to your letter of 22d inst, I ac cept your resignation, to take effect forthwith. While matters which I went over with you ver bally, and which it is not necessary now to recapitu late, make it necessary to request your resignation, I wish to say that I am entirely convinced of your personal integrity, and your zealous desire to ac complish good results for the Territory. Much that you have done was of lasting importance to do; and while I did not think it for the interests of the public to continue you in your present po sition, I am glad to state I believe there are many positions in the public service which you could fill 90 BULL MOOSE TRAILS with honor to yourself and profit to the Govern ment. "Wishing you all success in your future life, be lieve me, "Very truly yours, "(Signed) THEODORE ROOSEVELT." An interesting sidelight on this letter is an inci dent which occurred several years later in a club in St. Louis, when a gentleman, on being introduced to Mr. Hagerman, inquired if he were the ex-Gov ernor of New Mexico. Answered in the affirma tive, this gentleman related he had always wanted to meet Hagerman, because of an interview he had partly overhead between President Roosevelt and Assistant Attorney-General Cooley (author of the memorable "report"), upon the occasion of his calling at the White House with Mr. Cooley on or near April 13, 1907. In the presence of this visitor, Roosevelt began talking to Cooley about Hagerman, saying the matter was troubling him a great deal, and that they "would have to do some thing to fix it up." He asked Cooley whether he did not think the governorship of Porto Rico might be offered to Hagerman and at that mo ment they withdrew into an adjoining room, and the visiting gentleman heard no more. It will be observed that this story tallies with the closing sentence in the Roosevelt letter just quoted, and serves to accentuate by contrast the general tone and purport of a second letter from BULL MOOSE TRAILS 91 the same source, penned two days later, May i, 1907, from which we gather that the immediate and aggravating cause of the presidential change- of-front toward the Hagerman character, that which converted it over night from benevolent in tention to malevolent accusation, was the receipt of two telegrams: One addressed by Governor Ha german to Hon. Gifford Pinchot, and the other by his father to the Hon. Elihu Root, indicating the wide range of the Roosevelt counselors at that time. The Pinchot telegram assuming the Presi dent s ignorance of the fact asked to have it brought to his personal attention that hundreds of persons in New Mexico sent telegrams protesting against his acceptance of Hagerman s resignation. This, of course, offered needless irritation to a presidential conscience already perturbed, and seeking to quiet its qualms and placate its victim with an adroit tender of official patronage; and it is no surprise to find "offended majesty" writing to the hapless ex-Governor: "This renders it neces sary to speak very plainly to you I" But, in order that the full extent of the Hagerman offending be known, and nothing lost of its exasperating de tails, we quote the entire telegram sent by the elder Hagerman to the State Department: "Please ask President to delay action on resig nation of Governor Hagerman until latter has time 92 BULL MOOSE TRAILS to answer charges which are known to be un founded, and made by party free-booters to re store themselves to power. President has been shamefully deceived, and put in false light by men unworthy of his confidence. "Last week Major Llewellyn stated to reputable men in Roswell that he knew, six weeks before, that President would remove Hagerman and ap point Curry. This is causing impression very un favorable to the President ; he owes it to his good name, to the Republican Party, to the people of New Mexico, to truth and justice, to sift this thing to the bottom before final action. ... I send this to you, because of the impression here that communications about this matter never reach the President. "Respectfully, "(Signed) J. J. HAGERMAN." The main count in the presidential indictment of Governor Hagerman, contained in the "plain- spoken" letter of May i, was that his delivery of the deeds to the Pennsylvania Development Co., for land acquired before he became Governor, consummated "a grossly fraudulent transaction, which could not have been completed without this action, made with full knowledge of its fraudulent character." This main charge is garnished and embellished with such delicate suggestions as "the inference which ought legitimately to be drawn from the BULL MOOSE TRAILS 93 facts," that the Governor had been actuated in his u grossly improper and presumably unlawful con duct" by his desire to secure Democratic aid in the faction fight; and "there seemed" to the sensitive Roosevelt conscience "no moral doubt that, in appointing six members of the Legislative Council to lucrative positions," Hagerman was guilty of "bartering offices for legislative support!" The grave accusation : "You accepted from Mr. Hopewell his personal check for $11,113" to a cursory reading, might easily convey the notion that this was the Governor s personal fee for aid ing the "grossly fraudulent" deal, which probably under strong outward pressure had been "subse quently deposited with the Land Commissioner" so careful is Mr. Roosevelt to withhold the fact that the Territory had derived any benefit from Governor Hagerman s action. Then follows the gratuitous slap at the elder Hagerman: "Secretary Root has handed me a long telegram from your father. . . . What he means by saying the charges are unfounded, I am unable to imagine. . . . With the gossip that your father repeats, and the inferences he draws thereform, I have no concern. . . . Charges of a very grave character were made to me against your father himself, in connection with his land transactions in the past. Whether they were true or not, I cannot say, since a preliminary 94 BULL MOOSE TRAILS investigation showed action on them would be barred by the statute of limitations." This May i letter is marked throughout with a lofty tone of outraged virtue and long-suffering forbearance, so befitting a righteous judge wishing to temper justice with clemency ! Particularly im pressive are the references to the findings of the Departments of Justice and of the Interior, as lend ing an air of official sanction to the presidential spleen. In very favorable contrast is the quiet self-re straint and dignified candor of Governor Hager- man s reply: "Due regard to your exalted station forbids that I should answer your letter in terms justifiable under the provocation it offers. I hope, however, that my reply will not be less forceful because of the absence of harsh lan guage." He then reviews the facts, in re of the Pennsylvania Development Co., as he had re viewed them before at the White House and to the lawyers of the Interior Department: At the time Governor Hagerman, acting on the advice of his attorney-general, delivered the deeds to Mr. Hope- well, agent for the Pennsylvania Co., the land de scribed therein had been for years in the possession of the company, or its assigns. Ten thousand dol lars of the purchase money had been paid, and the remainder, a little over $10,000, had been paid by a note; and the deeds had been executed, but re- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 95 tained in the Land Commissioner s office as surety for the unpaid balance. Quantities of timber had been cut by the company, for which the sum pre viously paid was inadequate compensation; a suit by the Territory to recover the value of the timber would have been of doubtful efficacy; and the deeds, whether in the Territorial Land Office or in the possession of the company, would have been equally available as a defence to any such suit. If the title could pass at all in this case, it had as a matter of equity already passed. If the whole business was, as the President declared, unlawful from its inception, the mere delivery of the deeds could have no validating effect. Every thing possible to complete the alleged unlawful contract had been done before Hagerman came into office, and his surrender of the deeds neither helped the company nor impaired the rights of the Territory, and was of no importance except as it enabled him to get for the Territory something over $11,000, which might serve as indemnity for the timber if the attempted sale were declared void. Mr. Hagerman then reminds his august accuser that all this had been embodied in a report sub mitted by him in September, 1906; that he had been advised by the Secretary of the Interior that the report was satisfactory to him, and he believed equally so to the President; and concludes his de- 96 BULL MOOSE TRAILS fence with the manly words: "And now, Mr. President, permit me to say that, but for your gra tuitous and irrelevant attack upon my father, I might have refrained from making any reply to your letter; notwithstanding it is easy to refute every suggestion of improper conduct you make against me. My father is advanced in years, and in feeble health; he has spent much of his life and fortune in the development of the West, and has never, to my knowledge, been accused of fraudu lent or improper conduct. I, therefore, ask you, as a square man, to make your allegations specific, so that he can meet them ; and I will undertake for him that he will not plead any statute of limita tions. I submit that every principle of fairness requires that you withdraw what you said about my father, or that you say more. "(Signed) H. J. HAGERMAN." This elicited a brief, sharp reply, through Mr. Loeb, of date May 23, 1907: "SiR: "I am directed by the President to state that what he said about your father was, in view of your father s telegram, the least that could be said. The President says, moreover, that your explana tions explain nothing, and do not aid your defence, as they leave the statement of the Assistant Attor ney-General unaffected." BULL MOOSE TRAILS 97 The elder Hagerman wrote twice to President Roosevelt, earnestly and respectfully asking him to state specifically the charges against him, and who had made them. There was never the slightest acknowledgment of these letters. Corroborative of the telegram which was made both the occasion and the defence of Roosevelt s unwarranted attack, is the following affidavit, of which Governor Hagerman holds the original : "TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO, "County of Chaves, ss. "J. F. Hinkle, being duly sworn on oath, states that on April 20, 1907, near the Grand Central Hotel in Roswell, affiant met Major W. H. H. Llewellyn, and remarked: Well, Major, you fel lows have succeeded in getting Hagerman out. To which Llewellyn replied : I did not have anything to do with it, but I knew Curry would be appointed six weeks ago. I was bound in confidence not to mention it until after the appointment was made. "(Signed) J. F. HINKLE. "Subscribed and sworn to before me this May 30, 1907. "(Signed) MYRTIE ALDRIGE, "Notary Public." The Llewellyn statement received further cor- roboration some months later from Governor Curry, who stated at a banquet given him in Ros- 98 BULL MOOSE TRAILS well, on August 6, that the governorship of New Mexico had been offered him in February (1907) before he left the Philippines. This was before the adjournment of the Territorial Legislature; before the introduction of the u spite resolution"; before the date of Garfield s telegram to Barnes. And this was "the gossip" with which President Roosevelt stated he "had no concern!" If further confirmation were needed of the pre arranged verdict in the Hagerman case as well as the whole opera bouffe character of Roosevelt s reform program in New Mexico it was furnished by events following Governor Hagerman s re moval. Having thundered in the index of the Territorial land transactions, it was, of course, in cumbent to keep up the mimic show a little longer until public attention could be averted. In the Summer of 1907 Messrs. McHarg and Gordon were sent out to make u a thorough inves tigation" of public lands and other matters in New Mexico; but when, instead of establishing Hagerman s guilt and sustaining the President s verdict, the investigation brought to light the shady records of the men upon whose testimony the verdict had been rendered, and likewise impli cated some of the President s personal friends, the investigators were called off, and soon returned to Washington. Their activities, with the net results, may be briefly summarized: Suit was brought BULL MOOSE TRAILS 99 against the Pennsylvania Development Co., the American Lumber Co., and others, for the recov ery of lands and timber sold by the Territory prior to Governor Hagerman s induction to office. These sales had been made in violation of a restrictive provision in the Act of Congress, June 21, 1898, regulating the sale of public lands; said provision limiting the quantity which might be sold to each person, or corporation, to 160 acres; but, being regarded as unwise, had been disregarded by New Mexican authorities almost from its inception. Quantities of land largely in excess of 160 acres had passed to the possession of individuals and corporations, with the approval of Governor, Land Commissioner, and Legislative Assembly. In many instances large sums had been spent for im provements, flourishing business houses erected on these lands; and, because of the complications aris ing therefrom, the lawyers of the Interior Depart ment were very chary of advice or opinions for the guidance of a perplexed Executive seeking to square the rights of the Territory, and the rights of purchasers, with the letter of the law. Governor Hagerman, therefore, receiving no answer to his numerous appeals to the Department, was forced to exercise his own discretion, assisted by the advice of his attorney-general. After several months of probing and agitating by the Government agents, no indictments were too BULL MOOSE TRAILS found against any one for connection with the land sales; but nineteen persons were indicted for al leged fraudulent coal land entries. Shortly there after a Washington dispatch announced "all but three or four of the nineteen indictments will be dismissed." As a matter of fact, all the coal land cases were in a few months dismissed, and Assist ant Attorney-General Cooley issued the following statement: "I cannot talk for publication about the Department s plans in detail; but I can say that Mr. Hagerman will not be indicted, and that whatever may be the facts about his connection with land matters in the Territory, he has not been guilty of any moral wrong." Mr. Cooley was subsequently appointed District Judge in New Mexico, and sought through Gov ernor Curry an interview with ex-Governor Hager man, maintaining to him that, upon the evidence presented to him, he could not make any other "report" than the one he rendered; but that since coming to New Mexico and realizing conditions there, he wanted Hagerman s friendship, etc., etc. In view of this and the further fact that it no where appears from the records that the "Cooley Report" was ever submitted to the Attorney-General for approval, the inference seems not wholly strained, that this weighty document declared to be the sole basis of Roosevelt s action may have been framed at the dictation, BULL MOOSE TRAILS 101 and under the express direction of the President himself. The documentary proofs of this story includ ing the official correspondence between Roosevelt, Hagerman, and Garfield are all contained in a pamphlet issued by the ex-governor for private circulation in 1908, copies of which ex-President Eliot of Harvard is said to have advised placing in all the public libraries of the country. In con cluding his statement, Governor Hagerman says: "The President may have been influenced in this matter by higher motives of public policy than ap pears on the face of things; but he has never re vealed to any one, to my knowledge, what those motives were. Irrespective of the justice or in justice of his acts concerning me personally, it is not unfair to summarize the effects of them upon New Mexico as follows: I. A distinct lowering of the standards of pub lic morality, and the fostering of moral cowardice in regard to public affairs., II. The rehabilitation of a corrupt and dis credited political machine, hated or feared by all decent people in the Territory : by virtue of whicn "Bull" Andrews returned to Congress, and Mr. Bursum reimbursed himself from the Territorial Treasury for the $5,000 shortage he had been forced to pay into it. III. The intimidation and subserviency of pub- 102 BULL MOOSE TRAILS lie officials throughout the Territory, tending to ward the growth of a fawning bureaucracy. IV. The widespread belief that special priv ileges and immunities are granted by the Adminis tration for political reasons to unworthy men, and that defamation and persecution are sure to follow him who incurs its displeasure. And it was thus that "Colonel" Roosevelt, when President, purified politics in New Mexico, and administered his favorite nostrum of u the square deal" to the Hagermans father and son. CHAPTER V SOME EPISODES AND SIDELIGHTS OF THE AFRICAN EXPEDITION When Roosevelt set sail for the African hunting- grounds, in the Spring of 1909, not nearly so many people on this side the Atlantic were wishing "the lions might do their duty," as were pictured in his egotistic fancy. Not even the plethoric gentlemen of Wall Street who, he had been at such pains to convince the multitude, were especially hostile gave him much anxious thought, one way or the other. They, with the great majority of us a few deluded worshipers excepted were perfectly content to have him "play around" with the lions, and other jungle beasts; amuse himself and others in European courts, before high-brow societies literary, scientific, or otherwise, and give this country a brief respite. Owing to the ceaseless efforts of his untiring press-bureau, however, the country was not per mitted to enjoy the complete rest from T. R., to which it was justly entitled, and which the lifting of his strenuous presence should have secured. His name never disappeared from the public prints; every step of his journey, and every incident of his sojourn abroad, was duly chronicled in scare-heads, 103 104 BULL MOOSE TRAILS from the attempted assassination on shipboard on the outward voyage observed only by a few hand- picked witnesses, to the graceful flip-flop on the steps of the Vatican on the homeward route staged for world observation by the forehanded ex pedient of giving the diplomatic correspondence to the Associated Press without letting the Papal secre tary know anything about it ! As soon as the Roosevelt ship, with its cargo of newspaper men, artists, and photographers, as well as "faunal naturalists" and gun-experts, touched shore at various Mediterranean ports, American dispatches kept us informed of the eager commo tion among all the royal personages or their repre sentatives within a radius of many miles, to sig nalize with befitting attentions their grateful ap preciation of T. R. s approach. Only certain cor- repondents of French newspapers evinced a carping disposition. One of these is accredited with the ill- natured remark: "When the Caesar of modern de mocracy goes hunting, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America climb to their windows and watch the cara van of publicity pass." Another with calmer in spection observed that Roosevelt seemed absorbed in self; that he displayed no interest in, and no appreciation of, the beauties and art treasures at Naples only impatience to be off to the African wilds and the slaughter of the innocents; and the writer contrasts this behavior with the u nobler BULL MOOSE TRAILS 105 breeding of the Emperor William, who asked to be left alone before a marble bust which affirmed the eternity of beauty." Another French reporter re lates that Roosevelt s talk was all of himself and his achievements; that he boasted: "I have fought the 011 kings and the Steel emperors of my own land. They tried to break my back, but my back is still intact" ! This Rooseveltian boast on a foreign shore in 1909 is highly interesting in the light of the 1911- 1 2 revelations in this country brought out by Con gressional investigation and established by sworn testimony that Roosevelt, when President, refused to prosecute the Sugar Trust upon evidence which his Assistant Attorney-General told the Congres sional Committee was sufficient to secure a convic tion ; and upon which the receiver of an independent sugar company wrecked by the Trust had caused the latter in a private suit to disgorge $2,- 000,000; that he was accessory before the fact to the absorption of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company by the Steel Trust in 1907; and that he halted the Government s suit against the Harvester Trust, and locked up the evidence at the request of his dear friend, George W. Perkins, who, by some curious and wholly unrelated fortuity, is now serving in the disinterested and patriotic role of campaign manager for the new "Bull Moose" Party I io6 BULL MOOSE TRAILS All this, of course, the foreign publicity hosts did not know in 1909 their ignorance in this re spect being hardly greater than the average Ameri can s and were accordingly mightily impressed by the boastful utterances of the great American Trust Buster. The impertinent comment of the French correspondents received fitting rebuke by the Colonel s enrolling one of them, M. Jean de Bonnefon, of Le Journal de Paris, in the Ananias Club he being the first recorded foreigner ad mitted to membership and with this trifling inci dent of the day s travel, the unflattering French criticism passed. Noisy promulgation had been made of the fact that the Roosevelt African expedition was under taken "in the interests of science, and not for butch ery" ; that it would be the high purpose of its leader and animating spirit to secure specimens of the great mammals which the Smithsonian Institute had so long coveted; and that no more game would be wantonly sacrificed than just enough to supply the hunters with food. Yet the Roosevelt killings reported from time to time embraced many insig nificant and harmless creatures, gazelles and wilde-beests, which were not important either for the museum or the camp; not a few protests went up from the cruelty-prevention societies, both in this country and in England; and when at last the great "faunal naturalist" folded his tent like the BULL MOOSE TRAILS 107 Arab, and turned his back on the African plains, the scene of his scientific and philanthropic labors was featured by the caricaturists like "the valley of dead bones" in Ezekiel s vision. Most likely the truth will never be known as to how many wild creatures perished in that expedi tion, nor whose hand brought them down nor does it greatly matter. If the published accounts of the methods of pursuing the game were at all accurate, the conclusion is inevitable that the only danger in it for anybody was incurred by the Afri can natives, who were employed to go into the jungles and thickets, and roust out the ferocious beasts, in order that these highly civilized and highly protected sportsmen might take a safe and sane shot at them in the open. I recall a heroic episode in one of the press dispatches about T. R. saving the lives of two negro natives engaged in this perilous business of disturbing the animals in their native lairs; and it let in a flood of light (needless to say, this was not the purpose of the dispatch) on the question as to whose lives were be ing jeopardized in this scientific sport aside from the wild beasts, of course. Again, it is somewhat difficult of belief that a man so near-sighted as the Colonel, of whom it is said he has to put on his glasses to eat his soup, could attain such skill and win such prestige as a marksman; but this is no greater strain upon our credulity than many other io8 BULL MOOSE TRAILS exploits claimed for him by the adulators so we will let that pass. One thing only seems quite clear, in the light of past and present events, and that is: the African hunting trip was undertaken not so much for science, nor for sport, as for politi cal effect. The Colonel returned to civilization, and the peaceful arts of political advertising, on March 14, 1910, when he reached Khartoum, Egypt, and some days later delivered the address before the Cairo University on the Egyptian political situa tion, which outraging official propriety and the amenities of social life caused a near-riot. The bitter friction between the Government and the Nationalist Party wishing to cast off the British yoke which had culminated in the assassi nation of Boutras Pasha Ghaly, the Egyptian Prime Minister, had been somewhat allayed by the more conciliatory attitude adopted by the Govern ment; and both parties were engaged in a com mendable effort to make the best of an irritating situation. Into this tense atmosphere came Col onel Roosevelt, splashed with jungle gore and his customary cock-suredness. Undeterred either by his ignorance of local complications, or by the ordi nary delicacy of an invited guest seated between two warring entertainers, he proceeded in vigorous fashion to read the Nationalists a severe lecture upon the sin of insubordination; scored the "in- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 109 decent" sympathizers with the assassin, and ex horted them to "think what a disaster it would be if British rule were removed from the Soudan" 1 Small wonder that the authorities with difficulty prevented a riot, and that they watched the depart ure of this novel "scientific expedition" with much greater joy than they had welcomed its arrival. According to press dispatches, Mr. Roosevelt, while at Gondokoro in February, had written to the American ambassador at Rome that he would like an audience with King Victor Emmanuel, and with the Pope. This was after the Fairbanks inci dent had laid the ecclesiastical world of both con tinents by the ears. Mr. Fairbanks, it will be re called, had been denied an audience with Pope Pius X. early in February, when it became known that he intended to deliver an address before the Methodist Society in Rome, which, the Catholics charged, had gone out of its way to defame and insult "the holy father." Be that as it may, the Catholic feeling against the Methodists in Rome was so bitter that His Holiness declined to receive any one affiliating with them in any way. Since Mr. Fairbanks had already given his promise to address the Methodists before receiv ing the Pope s ultimatum, and was, moreover, a member of the Methodist household-of-faith, he had no option as a loyal Methodist, and honor able man but to adhere to his Methodist pro- no BULL MOOSE TRAILS gram, and withdraw his request for a Papal au dience. And thus the matter ended, after some sectarian pow-wow on both sides the Atlantic which settled nothing, except that no future visitor to Rome might expect to call on the Pope and the Methodist Colony simultaneously. That was the one clearly established fact emerging from the con troversy. Mr. Roosevelt heard it, and understood it, as well as any one else. When, therefore, with this Fairbanks pointer fresh in everybody s mind, the Colonel craved an audience with His Holiness, the Catholic authorities were perfectly justified in believing that he accepted the condition imposed upon his former presidential mate, and upon all Protestant rulers of Europe and elsewhere. This view was confirmed by an announcement appearing in the press in the interim, that "Mr. Roosevelt would call on the holy father when he came to Rome, and that he would make no ad dresses of any kind while there." This was con strued by both Protestants and Catholics to mean that he was steering his craft in Roman waters with special reference to avoiding the Fairbanks break ers. Whether this press report was authorized by Mr. Roosevelt or not is of little consequence. The point is, he knew the terms upon which he might see the Pope, from the first week in February up to the last week in March, when he decided it BULL MOOSE TRAILS in would be a clever political stroke to issue a spec tacular rejection of them. Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal secretary, through whom the nego tiation had been conducted, was naturally aston ished at the sudden turn of affairs; and justly complained that Mr. Roosevelt s final decision had been given to the press before it was communicated to the Vatican these exchanges concerning audi ences being regarded by the Vatican authorities as confidential, and never to be made public. At Cairo, on March 23d, Mr. Roosevelt re ceived the telegram which was made the pretext for the coup-de-main which was to startle two con tinents. This telegram from the Papal secretary ran as follows: "The holy father will be de lighted to grant an audience to Mr. Roosevelt on April 5th, and hopes that nothing will arise to prevent it, such as the much-regretted incident which made the reception of Mr. Fairbanks im possible." To this Roosevelt replied in courteous and diplomatic phrasing, it is true that he "must de cline to make any stipulations or submit to any conditions which would in any way limit his free dom of conduct"; and, after one or two more polite exchanges, the proposed Roosevelt audience with the Pope was called off; though the matter was kept secret until Roosevelt entered Rome on April 3d, and then as before related it was an- ii2 BULL MOOSE TRAILS nounced in the press before it was given to the Papal secretary. There seems no good reason for doubting the sincerity of the latter s statement, that the Vatican had no intention of imposing hard or impossible conditions, or of restricting Mr. Roosevelt s per sonal freedom; that the same procedure had been adopted in his case as was customary in arranging audiences with the Pope; and that the reference to the Fairbanks incident in the Papal telegram was "merely a friendly intimation." The Cardinal might very properly have added that, but for the diplomatic code which renders the recital of many superfluous things imperative, the "friendly intima tion" was also considered a superfluous intimation, since it was taken for granted that Roosevelt knew all about the Fairbanks trouble, and what was ex pected of him, if he would avoid a similar dilemma. Merry del Val meets the charge of religious in tolerance, in the further statement: "It was not in any sense a question of religion; Mr. Roosevelt might have gone to his own, or to a Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, or any other Protestant church in Rome except the Methodist and delivered an address there; and he would have been received by the Pope, even on the same day. But he could not be received when it was suspected that, after the audience, he intended to visit the Methodist church in Rome, which is carrying on a most of- BULL MOOSE TRAILS 113 fensive campaign of calumny and detraction against the pontiff." Now, one does not need to agree with this Vatican view of the Methodists, nor to espouse either side of the Methodist-Romanist imbroglio, in order to determine the crux of this Roosevelt- Vatican episode; and to see quite clearly, in the cold light of the facts, that the Vatican s position was consistent and right in the matter, and that Roosevelt s difficulty was entirely of his own manu facture. To a disinterested on-looker, untinged with sec tarian bias of any hue, this was the situation: Here were two warring sects. Whatever the respective merits or demerits of the parties to the conflict, it was an undisputed fact that the Catholics and Methodists in the "eternal city," so far from dwell ing together in the peace and unity enjoined upon Christians, were sadly at logger-heads; they ad mitted it themselves, and there was no immediate prospect of a truce of hostilities even. Along comes a distinguished individual, who is neither Methodist nor Catholic, has no place in the con troversy whatever; has not even been asked to enact his favorite role of "interposing his friendly offices" and asks to be presented to the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Pius X, who is one of the commanding figures in Europe. Please bear this in mind : Roosevelt had asked to ii 4 BULL MOOSE TRAILS see the Pope ; the Pope had not asked to see Roose velt. One would think, under the circumstances, that ordinary good-breeding, and a knowledge of the laws of courtesy, would have sufficiently indi cated the line of conduct to be pursued. Merry del Val s contention, that it was not a question of religion, but of etiquette, was perfectly sound; it was a question of observing or offending the pro prieties of the Papal court, at whose gate Roosevelt was knocking for admission. Personally, I place little stress upon the outward pomp and circumstance of either pontiffs or kings; but, if I esteemed any private individual sufficiently to beg the privilege of calling upon him, or upon her, I should hold myself bound by every known canon of good taste and good manners to avoid offending the sensibilities of mine host, or hostess, in any way whatsoever; such, for instance, as giv ing prominence to the fact that I intended shortly to call on his or her bitterest foe living just across the street, we will say; and as for noisy insistence upon my personal right to consort with their foes well, that would be too vulgar for words ! Many persons think that what would be mani festly improper in the case of an individual is still more improper in the case of distinguished officials; and certainly we know that all Catholics hold that a discourtesy to the Pope greatly intensifies the offence per se. Now, while Mr. Roosevelt is not BULL MOOSE TRAILS 115 afflicted with any great amount of innate refine ment, and seldom allows any nice sense of pro priety, or regard for other people s feelings, to interfere with his purposes or desires, it cannot be argued that he is ignorant of polite usages both in private and official life. When he sins against these, he sins knowingly. This Vatican incident was not the act of a bull-in-a-china-shop. Neither can we believe that Mr. Roosevelt wished to offend the Catholics. This idea is pre cluded both by the unctuous wording of his cable grams to "the holy father," and by the letter which he quickly dispatched to Dr. Abbott in his beloved Outlook, but which was really intended for Ameri can voters. In it he makes a pious almost pa thetic appeal to his "fellow- Americans, Catholic and Protestant" after he had wantonly set them at each other s throats not to allow this "merely personal incident" between himself and the Pope to be made the occasion for bitter sectarian wrang ling; which recalls the story of the man who turned the bear loose in the streets, and then called on his neighbors to "come, help catch it, quick!" One sentence from this patriotic Outlook letter is so touching and so inspiring that one feels it should be inscribed (in illuminated text) on the "Bull Moose" banners, in these piping campaign days of 1912 : "It would cause me a real pang to have any thing said or done that would hurt or give pain to ii 6 BULL MOOSE TRAILS my friends, whatever their religious belief, but any merely personal considerations are of no conse quence in this matter." This may at least be war ranted should he encounter it to deepen the smile on the blond features of the Hon. William Howard Taft. If further proof were needed of Mr. Roose velt s regard for American Catholics, it may be found in a statement made by the Hon. Paul Mor ton (himself a Catholic) at a White House dinner given to capital and labor leaders November 12, 1904: "It is a notable fact, without an important exception, that the Catholic press of the United States supported President Roosevelt in the election just passed" ; and in another statement from Father Hannan, pastor of St. Martin s Church at Wash ington, D. C., spoken in his pulpit just after the Rome incident in April, 1910, that "Roosevelt was the first Republican President who polled the great Catholic vote in America." Of course, Mr. Roosevelt loves American Cath olics, and every other class of Americans with votes to register. (The only exception to this, to date, being the case of Southern negroes; but this is too recent to get the true perspective yet.) The question naturally arises: Why was Mr. Roosevelt willing to risk losing his Catholic sup port in the United States through the faux pas at Rome in 1910? BULL MOOSE TRAILS 117 If he were unwilling to comply with the stipula tion with respect to the Methodists, which he knew beforehand would be made, why did he ask to go to the Vatican at all? Yet, having asked and re ceived assent with the "friendly intimation" why did he choose to disregard the latter, and raise the question of his "personal liberty," which was not at all at issue? His case was not analogous to that of Mr. Fairbanks; he was not a Methodist, nor had he been asked to address the Methodists; they stated afterward that they had no intention of embarrassing him with such an invitation. The way was open and clear for him to visit the Pope if he wished it. Did he wish it? If so, why raise this senseless obstacle? Evidently he had wished to see the Pope when he preferred the request in February. What had occurred to alter his de sire? With one of T. R. s duplex and complex per sonality, one must delve for motives. Surface in dications are never trustworthy. Probably the best sidelight on this Vatican-Roosevelt episode is fur nished by a sermon preached in the Foundry Meth odist Episcopal Church at Washington, D. C, on March 13, 1910, by the Rev. Bishop Earl Cran ston, head of all the Northern Methodist congre gations. In this fervid discourse, which was entitled "The Church and the Government," the Reverend Bis- n8 BULL MOOSE TRAILS hop virtually flung down the gage of battle to the Holy See, and raised the standard of revolt to the Republican Party. Catholics might say there was nothing new about the first part of the Bishop s program, but those acquainted with the political history of the country must concede that it would be "going some" for Northern Methodists to de sert the Republican standards. "Leaders who deal largely in political craft," declared the Bishop, "need just now an admonition. The people are not being fooled all the time that they are silent. They may be too busy to write letters, but they know there is now no vital issue between the great parties, no moral issue except that involved in keeping party pledges. Protestanism has not figured largely in the calculations of politicians, because it has been a divided force. They think we ll vote the ticket anyhow" and here the preacher paused impress ively, and swept the congregation with a significant smile which said plainer than words, "We ll show them something different!" Bishop Cranston is probably the most powerful Protestant ecclesiastic in the country. He is an able scholar, an effective preacher, a winning per sonality, a life-long Republican, and withal a kindly, lovable old man. His word would carry as much or more weight, not only to the Methodists, but to all Protestant America, than any other churchman in it. He left Washington immediately BULL MOOSE TRAILS 119 after preaching that sermon, to travel the rounds of his circuit, and everywhere he reiterated its pur port, and sounded the tocsin for Protestant resist ance to Papal encroachments in American politics. Rumors began to circulate also about a "Protestant Federal Council, or League," composed of all de nominations, with headquarters at Washington, whose purpose was to keep tab on political ma- neuvres with the "hierarchy." Inevitably the wireless currents carried the news of all this across the African seas, and the Past Grand Master of American politics had been re flecting on it some days when he received the mes sage from Cardinal Merry del Val, that His Holi ness would be pleased to receive him with the "friendly intimation." So here was his opportunity to disarm American Protestants, and he would take a chance on appeasing American Catholics. The Rev. Mr. Tipple s too hasty felicitation on the event enabled the Colonel almost immediately to turn his favorite trick of "playing both ends against the middle," by calling off the reception he had planned to give the American Colony as a direct rebuke to the Methodists for allowing the Rev. Tipple to "talk too much." From the chorus of applause from the Protest ant clergy on this side the water, T. R. must have been vastly pleased with the success of the Protest ant end of his double coup. I was much amused 120 BULL MOOSE TRAILS by the ringing words of praise for Roosevelt s " fearlessness and frankness" from one of these rev erend gentlemen who, some time before the Vatican incident, had discussed with me Roosevelt s con genital untruthfulness, and, to illustrate, had told me a story of his having been unanimously elected to the Ananias Club by a company of physicians at Washington so much for the warring zeal of op posing sectaries. The only noteworthy incident of T. R. s visit to Paris was the address he had been invited to make before the Sorbonne, wherein the French savants were treated to such startling pronouncements as, "Educated men know more than ignorant men! Peace is not so bloody as war! The rich are not the poor! Race suicide is one cause of depopula tion" and, having tapped this prolific theme, the Roosevelt eloquence flowed glibly on to its close, while Parisian matrons listened aghast, marveling at the idiosyncrasies of American ex-Presidents. At Berlin the Kaiser paid him the unwonted compliment of allowing him to review the German troops, and T. R. signalized his appreciation of the honor by declaring that "the German Army is the greatest university in the world!" The Guildhall speech, made after he had been given the freedom of the city of London, was the grand climacteric effort of T. R. s European speech-making. In this, among other things, he BULL MOOSE TRAILS 121 condemned the policy of the British Government in Egypt as weak and sentimental, and exhorted John Bull to either lay on with the Big Stick, or clear out of Egypt altogether! It seemed to be the concensus of opinion at home and abroad that, for sheer ignorance, bad manners, and colossal effrontery, the Guildhall speech in the graphic language of Huckleberry Finn u laid over" all the Colonel s previous European stunts. Even his ad miring friend, the late W. T. Stead, observed, in sorrow, that this speech "brought about a bad slump in the value of Roosevelt as a preacher of righteousness." Nevertheless, Mr. Stead ventures the prediction : "After being feted everywhere as the greatest liv ing American, he will return to his native land cov ered with laurels and laden with the trophies of the chase, and will unless something unforeseen hap pens be nominated, against his emphatic protest, with enthusiasm for a new presidential term of office." We can only hope that Mr. Stead was as bad a prophet as he was a judge of T. R. s unwill ingness to accept a new presidential term. Yet Stead was not the only European editor who was predicting further lease of power for the ex-Presi dent. Nearly all the London organs, and several Berlin and Paris papers, seemed to be perfectly satisfied that Mr. Roosevelt was marked out for another term in the White House, 122 BULL MOOSE TRAILS In fact Colonel Roosevelt returned to his native land with a European nomination for the presi dency ! Was it that some adroit press agent whis pered it in the European ear? Or is the European mind more susceptible to impressions by mental suggestion ? Colonel Roosevelt s unobtrusive manner of pass ing through European capitals, inspired a fellow army officer on this side to pen the following verses, which were read at a social function on Governor s Island, the night of July 16, 1910: INCOGNITO The shades of night were falling fast, As through a town in Europe passed A quiet man with stealthy tread, Who now and then in whisper said, Incognito ! Before him blared a big brass band, He shot off guns with either hand; A red torch flared above his head, And as he cheered, again he said, Incognito ! He wore a sash, red, white, and blue, At times he beat a bass drum, too; And then he stood upon his head, As with a wink again he said, Incognito I BULL MOOSE TRAILS 123 "Is that your name?" the old man cried; He waved the questioner aside, "Begone ! the query gives me dread, I m traveling, you see," he said, Incognito ! "Stay!" cried a maid, "Aren t you T. R., The mighty hunter from afar?" The stranger flushed and hung his head, "I m trying hard to keep," he said, Incognito I Where er he went twas just the same, But when they asked him for his name, He would not mention it; instead, He tried to ride away, and said, Incognito ! And then as through the land he passed, And when he sailed for home at last, Nobody knew the strange man s name, Nobody knew from whence he came ; His modest ways, his cringing mien Left memories calm and most serene; And if you ask the people there, Just who he was, with puzzled air Each one will say, and shake his head, He never told, he only said, Incognito ! UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 843 14 2 5)u\ 57JZ KEC D LD JUL221957 Marj 4 49CP 180ct 50HF REC D LD FEB28 1959 LD21-100m-9, 47(A5702Bl6)47Wti 7 DEAD 30Apr 62ttl .General Library University of Californi Berkeley^ foraia YB 20251 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY