Mr. Clemens comments upon Norman Hapgood’s eulogy of President Roosevelt in Collier’s Weekly for July 11th.
The principal editorial comment in Collier’s Weekly for July 11th contains seven or eight sentences—short ones, therefore it is a brief paragraph. It is a wonderful accumulation of rubbish to be packed into so small a space. It is a burst of servile and insane admiration and adulation of President Roosevelt. It purports to be a reflection of the sentiment of the nation; that is to say, the Republican bulk of the nation. It ought to grieve me to concede that it does reflect the sentiment of the Republican bulk of the nation, but it doesn’t. To my mind, the bulk of any nation’s opinion about its president, or its king, or its emperor, or its politics, or its religion, is without value, and not worth weighing or considering or examining. There is nothing mental in it; it is all feeling, and procured at second-hand without any assistance from the proprietor’s reasoning powers. On the other hand, it would grieve me deeply to be obliged to believe that any very large number of sane and thinking and intelligent Republicans privately admire Mr. Roosevelt, and do not despise him. Publicly, all sane and intelligent Republicans worship Mr. Roosevelt, and would not dare to do otherwise where any considerable company of listeners was present; and this is quite natural, since sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead, for general consumption. Norman Hapgood wrote that paragraph. He is an able young man; well read, well educated, and as honest and honorable as any man whom I am as intimately acquainted with as I am with himⒺexplanatory note. But do I believe that this diseased paragraph came out of his private heart, and reflects his real feeling toward this disgraced outgoing PresidentⒶtextual note? No, I am not able to believe that. If I had him here in private a while I should expect him to find it very difficult to put his finger on half a dozen considerable benefits conferred upon this country since he ceased to be PresidentⒶtextual note, four years ago, and became Czar. Hapgood’s paragraph begins thus:
MR. ROOSEVELT WILL LEAVE OFFICE secure in the hearts of his countrymen. The dexterity and sincerity with which he avoided a renomination for himself, and secured it for a believer in his policies, have solidified the affection and the confidence of mankind.
[begin page 255] That sentence is itself about as dexterous as was the PresidentialⒶtextual note dexterity which it admired. The sentence mixes together a possibly creditable act and a distinctly discreditable one, and the mixing is so cleverly done as to divert attention from the discreditable one and make one or two important words seem to apply to it as well as to the other member of the sentence, when, in fact, no such application of those words is justifiable. That wilyⒶtextual note sentence should be bitten in two and each half of it chewed by itself: “The dexterity and sincerity with which he avoided a renomination for himself—”
That half of the sentence is true. No, that is putting it too strong; it isn’t quite true. If we leave the “dexterity” out and put in “reluctance,” then it is true. Mr. Roosevelt did avoid a renomination of himself, after trying for two years to find some decent way to get out of his bombastic pledges and renunciations of the great office for all future time. The public press kept after him like a swarm of bees, and they pestered and pestered him for two years before they were able to sting a definite and final renunciation out of him. And so we will leave the “dexterity” out of that half of the sentence and put “reluctance” in its place, as being some four hundred thousand miles nearer the truth—but “dexterity” comes good, and exceedingly good, in the last half of that sentence: “The dexterity with which he secured the nomination for a believer in his policies—”
Yes, he dexterously secured Mr. Taft’sⒶtextual note nominationⒺexplanatory note. But dexterity doesn’t cover the whole ground; it needs the help of some more words, in order that the whole truth may be arrived at. The dexterity itself needs these qualifying words; mere dexterity carries with it a suggestion of compliment, but no compliment is due in this case. The President’s dexterity in the matter of Mr. Taft’sⒶtextual note nomination was a dishonest and dishonorable dexterity—the same kind used by him when he jumped that horse-doctor, Leonard Wood, over the heads of fifty regular army brigadiers, real soldiers, and made that Rooseveltian flunky a Major GeneralⒶtextual note by help of the famous “interval,”Ⓔexplanatory note a trick which was merely and simply a lie and a swindle; and also—so to speak—a criminal assault upon the Senate. The President’s act was not superior in respectability to the raping of a blind idiot—a blind and very reluctant idiot, a pleading idiot, a beseeching idiot; in fact that was just about what the Senate was—a blind and rapable idiot, and upon her the President accomplished his hellish purpose, as the Western papers used to say, fifty years ago, in these cases.
Criticism of Norman Hapgood’s eulogy of President Roosevelt, continued.
Examined by the facts of Mr. Roosevelt’s PresidentialⒶtextual note career, the rest of Mr. Hapgood’s paragraph becomes matter for laughter:
Turned aside by none of the flattering and plausible arguments which were daily showered upon him, he gave up power, kept his word, and set a high example. Scarcely was Mr. Taft nominated when the President gave another example of his quality by springing enthusiastically to the aid of Heney, Spreckels, and their friends in San FranciscoⒺexplanatory note, at a time when the current had set strongly in the opposite [begin page 256] direction. A few days more, and, in his praise of Cleveland Ⓔexplanatory note, Mr. Roosevelt once again struck with hearty truthfulness those notes which celebrate earnestness and the truth. He has been a good Police Commissioner, a good Governor, a good PresidentⒺexplanatory note, and a good man. Twenty years of active life may still be his. Meanwhile he has already done splendid service for a thankful nation.
In what way has Mr. Roosevelt given up power? He hasn’t given it up; he has merely gone through the form of transferring it to his serf, Mr. Taft, who runs to him daily with the docility of a spaniel to get his permission to do things. Taft even carries his speech of acceptance to his master to be edited and made the utterance of the master, not the voice of the serf. In what way has the President set a high example? Is it a high example for a president of the United States to keep his word? Is keeping one’s word such a very extraordinary thing, when the person achieving the feat is the first citizen of a civilized nation? It could be a compliment to say of a burglar that he has kept his word and has thereby set a high example for the other burglars, but it is probably the poorest compliment that has ever been fired at a president of the United States up to this time. And yet there is some little reason why Hapgood should consider it a compliment, and praiseworthy, in this President’sⒶtextual note case, for this PresidentⒶtextual note has never been servilely addicted to keeping his word. A man’s acts are also his word. Look at Mr. Roosevelt. He is always vaporing about purity, and righteousness, and fairness, and justice, just the same as if he really respected those things and regarded himself as their pet champion, whereas there is little or nothing in his history to show that he even knows the meaning of those words. Mr. Roosevelt’s character and conduct have undergone many changes since he rose upon the political horizon and became notorious, but the changes are not to his credit, since they have been persistently not for the better but for the worse. Years ago he was the champion and vigorous fighter for civil service reform, and in this character he won the strong and outspoken praises of a public sick unto death of the spoils systemⒺexplanatory note. This was before he was President. The other day this stately foe of the blending of public office with politics, sent three hundred federal office-holders to represent his interests at the Republican Convention in ChicagoⒺexplanatory note and help nominate his shadow. Mr. Roosevelt is always talking about his policies, but he is discreetly silent about his principles. If he has any principles they look so like policies that they cannot be told from that commodity, and they have that commodity’s chiefest earmark—the quality of impermanency, a disposition to fade out and disappear at convenience. In the matter of justice and fairness, he evidently has no fixed idea; he talks fairness and justice noisily, but he is quite ready to sacrifice these things to expediency at any time, and apparently without a pang. He admires the dime-novel hero, and has always made him his model, but he has always failed to “make good,” as the slang phrase has it; he has always been ready to do the fine and spectacular hero-act, and he has always been equally ready to wish he had let it alone when he found that it pleased only half of the people and not the other half. Six or seven years ago he had a chance to do some dime-novel heroics and he eagerly accepted the opportunity to make a big sensation and set the whole American world applauding [begin page 257] —applauding his nerve, his courage, his daring. He invited a negro to lunch with him at the White House, and the negro did it. That was Booker T. WashingtonⒺexplanatory note, a man worth a hundred Roosevelts, a man whose shoe-latchets Mr. Roosevelt is not worthy to untieⒺexplanatory note. A negro feeding at the White House table! The storm that burst on us from one end of the country to the other must have enthused the circus soul of the little imitation cowboy to the utmost limit, for a few hours, for the whole eighty millions were helping to make that noise, but when the inspirer of it found that it wasn’t all praise, but that the Southern half of it was furious censure, it was not in his nature to remain happy.
I am speaking as if I knew. I think I do know; I think I know he was an unhappy man over that incident. For this reason: there was a freshet of honorary degrees at Yale, and the President was there to get part of the ducking, and I was there on the same errand, and there were sixty more, gowned and hooded for baptismⒺexplanatory note. The President asked me if I thought he was right in inviting Booker Washington to lunch at the White House. I judged by his tone that he was worried and troubled and sorry about that showy adventure, and wanted a little word of comfort and approval. I said it was a private citizen’s privilege to invite whom he pleased to his table, but that perhaps a president’s liberties were more limited; that if a president’s duty required him, there was no alternative, but that in a case where it was not required by duty, it might be best to let it alone, since the act would give offenceⒶtextual note to so many people when no profit to the country was to be gained by offending them.
I didn’t tell him all I thought about it—we never do that; we keep half of what we think hidden away on our inside and only deliver ourselves of that remnant of it which is proper for general consumption. Privately, I thought it a president’s duty to refrain from offending the nation merely to advertise himself and make a noise, but I didn’t say that. But I believed that he would not leave that mistake of his alone; I believed he would watch for a chance to rectify it and get himself back into Southern favor. His opportunity came, by and by, and he seized it with avidity, and instantly made himself as splendidly popular in the South as Alexander VIⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note is in hell. It was the Brownsville incident that gave him his chance. Some unimaginable ass in the War Department—surely not Taft—and it couldn’t be Taft anyway, because Taft was always away from home around the globe somewhere electioneering for Roosevelt at the nation’s expense—ordered the 25th Colored Infantry to take post at Brownsville, on the Mexican border. The Brownsville people heard of this proposition, and they implored the War Department to not fling this firebrand into their midst; that the sight of a nigger soldier could not be endured by Texans and disaster must certainly follow if the colored soldiers came there. Whoever was doing the particular assing in the War Office at that time paid no attention to these appeals. The negro soldiers went into barracks there, and by and by the prophesied hatred and bad blood manifested itself between the two colors, and presently there was some shooting done at midnight, manifestly with governmentⒶtextual note arms and by negro soldiers. To please the Brownsville folk, the Government did several strange and shabby things: it sent a commission of officers of the regular army down there to take [begin page 258] testimony and they took it; took such of it as would go toward convicting some of the negro soldiers and stopped there—they were not interested in any testimony that could go to the favor of those menⒺexplanatory note. By the testimony of Captain McDonald, Texan Ranger, a man whose character for veracity is well established, the Government and its agents acted in a shabby and dishonest and dishonorable wayⒺexplanatory note from the beginning to the end. Mr. Roosevelt was anxious to convict some of those soldiers and thus get back into Southern favor, but as he was not able to do it he did the next best thing; he convicted the entire command himself, without evidence and without excuse, and dismissed them from the army, adding those malignant and cowardly words, “without honor.”
How long would it take me to set down a list of the acts and utterances of the President which are at variance with Norman Hapgood’s estimate of Mr. Roosevelt as crystallized in his closing sentence? It would take me a good while; too long for this day and this weather, and so I will leave that interminable list unregistered until another time.
But meantime, I find this editorial in an old newspaper—a New York Herald of something more than a month agoⒺexplanatory note. The writer of it seems to me to know Mr. Roosevelt pretty well:
PRESIDENT TAFT—Roosevelt’s Reign of Terror Over.
William H. Taft is the next President of the United States—provided the Democratic National Convention nominates William J. BryanⒺexplanatory note.
It is an office for which Mr. Taft has conspicuous qualifications. But best of all, his nomination means the end of Roosevelt and Rooseveltism. It means the end of personal government, of autocratic régime, of militarism, of jingoism, of rough-riderism, of administration by shouting and clamor, tumult and denunciation. It means the end of the Roosevelt reign of terror and the restoration of the Presidency to its historical dignity under the Constitution.
Even Andrew Johnson, in his periods of sobrietyⒺexplanatory note, had more innate respect for the office itself, for its traditions and for appearances than Mr. Roosevelt has shown. Never before was there such a lawless President. Never before was the Presidency so deliberately lowered to gratify a love for studied and sensational theatricalism.
Mr. Taft’s nomination means the end of the most shocking extravagance known in the history of the country; the most extraordinary contempt for economy and retrenchment that any Executive ever displayed; the most irresponsible clamor for bigger navies by absurd appeals to the war spirit and absurd threats of foreign enemies; the most reckless disregard of constitutional limitations and constitutional checks and balances. Every serious, thoughtful citizen can now breathe more freely, and feel that the Republic is safer, having withstood another searching test of its right to endure.
Norman Hapgood wrote that paragraph . . . intimately acquainted with as I am with him] The paragraph (inserted later in this dictation) was not the “principal,” but only one of twelve short editorials in the 11 July 1908 issue of Collier’s Weekly, edited by Hapgood since 1903. He and Clemens saw each other with some regularity during this period, usually at dinner or lunch (see AutoMT1 , 598 n. 375.2).
he dexterously secured Mr. Taft’s nomination] Roosevelt had succeeded to the presidency on 14 September 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley. He was elected to his own term in 1904, and as early as election night, 8 November of that year, announced that he would not seek reelection. In 1907 he chose Taft, his secretary of war, as his successor, and orchestrated his nomination as the Republican candidate in 1908. Taft took office in March 1909, but soon alienated Roosevelt by abandoning some of his progressive policies in favor of an increasingly conservative agenda. This led Roosevelt to challenge him for the 1912 Republican presidential nomination and then, after failing, to oppose him in the general election as the candidate of the Progressive Party (popularly known as the Bull Moose Party). This split in the Republican party insured the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
he jumped that horse-doctor, Leonard Wood . . . by help of the famous “interval,”] Roosevelt’s first appointment of Wood to the rank of major general in August 1903 was met with opposition in the Senate; on 7 December 1903, during the brief interval between two sessions of Congress, Roosevelt renewed his nomination, which was finally confirmed in March 1904 (see AutoMT1, 409, 619 n. 409.1–17).
springing enthusiastically to the aid of Heney, Spreckels . . . in San Francisco] Rudolph Spreckels (1872–1958), sugar magnate and organizer of the First National Bank of San Francisco, was a prime mover and financier of the 1906–8 investigations and convictions for corruption of San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz, Republican political boss Abraham Ruef, and several city officials. The lead attorney in the spectacular trials was Francis J. Heney (1859–1937), a noted federal prosecutor and San Francisco assistant district attorney. In the process Spreckels, Heney, and their supporters came under attack from several wealthy and influential San Franciscans. On 8 June 1908 Roosevelt sent a long letter of support to Spreckels, urging him and Heney not to feel “downhearted when you see men guilty of atrocious crimes, who for some cause or other succeed in escaping punishment, and especially when you see men of wealth, of high business, and, in a sense, of high social standing, banded together against you.” He exhorted them to “not be discouraged; don’t flinch” and to “keep up the fight” (New York Times: “Keep Up Graft War, Roosevelt Urges,” 21 June 1908, 8; “Service Tomorrow for Francis Heney,” 2 Nov 1937, 25; “Rudolph Spreckels Dies at 85,” 5 Oct 1958, 86).
in his praise of Cleveland] Grover Cleveland, the former two-time Democratic president (1885–89, 1893–97), died on 24 June 1908. On 27 June, Roosevelt attended the funeral in Princeton, New Jersey, at which, exclusively for the members of Cleveland’s two cabinets, he delivered “an exquisite eulogy on the life and death of Cleveland. It was the only eulogy at the funeral, and even this was delivered behind closed doors, to men who once were much in the public eye” (“Eulogy by President,” Washington Post, 28 June 1908, 3).
vigorous fighter for civil service reform . . . spoils system] Roosevelt had been a leader in reforming the spoils system, by which government offices were routinely awarded according to party affiliation, so that there could be wholesale turnover after elections. He served as the U.S. Civil Service Commission’s most vigorous member from 1889 to 1895.
to represent his interests at the Republican Convention in Chicago] Largely by means of political patronage, Roosevelt dominated the convention that met in the Chicago Coliseum on 16–19 June 1908 and nominated Taft, his chosen successor.
He invited a negro to lunch with him at the White House . . . Booker T. Washington] On 16 October 1901 Roosevelt hosted Washington, the famous black leader, at a family dinner, not lunch, in the White House, to discuss the Republican party’s position in the South. This was the first time that a black person had dined in the White House. Clemens does not exaggerate the “storm” of reaction, particularly from Southern whites, who demanded Roosevelt’s impeachment. Some in Roosevelt’s camp tried to limit the political fallout by claiming the event was only an impromptu business lunch in the presidential office. Roosevelt himself, dismayed by the abuse, reportedly threatened to invite Washington to dinner again. He did not do so, but did continue to consult with him. For a detailed account of the dinner and its repercussions, see Davis 2012, 187–247.
whose shoe-latchets Mr. Roosevelt is not worthy to untie] Echoing Mark 1:7: “the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose”; also Luke 3:16 and John 1:27.
a freshet of honorary degrees at Yale . . . gowned and hooded for baptism] The occasion was the elaborate closing ceremony of Yale University’s bicentennial celebration, on 23 October 1901. Booker T. Washington attended as one of the invited academics, and Roosevelt was there to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree. Clemens was honored with a doctor of letters degree; among those who received the same distinction were his friends Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William Dean Howells, and Richard Watson Gilder. In conferring Clemens’s degree, Yale President Arthur T. Hadley remarked, “It would be supererogation to enlarge upon his attainments” (“Yale Commemorates Her Bi-Centennial,” New York Times, 24 Oct 1901, 1–2; Davis 2012, 219–23).
the Brownsville incident . . . testimony that could go to the favor of those men] The “incident” began with a racial melee in Brownsville, Texas, on 13 August 1906, which resulted in the death of one white civilian and the wounding of another. White Brownsville residents blamed the black soldiers of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, who had recently been stationed at nearby Fort Brown. In what is regarded as the worst mistake of his presidency, Roosevelt ordered the discharge of all 167 black soldiers, costing them their careers, pay, pensions, and honors, without a military trial, and despite the fact that white officers testified that they were in their barracks at the time of the fracas. Nevertheless, a 1907–8 Senate investigation supported Roosevelt’s action. Further inquiry in 1909 and 1910 resulted in the reenlistment of a small number of the dismissed soldiers. But it wasn’t until 1972 that the army, after a new investigation, declared the soldiers innocent and made restitution to the two who were still alive.
the testimony of Captain McDonald . . . Government and its agents acted in a shabby and dishonest and dishonorable way] William Jesse McDonald (1852–1918) was a famed Texas Ranger captain from 1891 until 1907, who also served in 1905 as one of Theodore Roosevelt’s bodyguards (Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum 2013). Convinced of the guilt of the soldiers accused in the Brownsville incident, he tried to arrest them for civil prosecution. The military authorities refused to hand them over, however, and, contrary to what Clemens says here, did in fact listen to “testimony that could go to the favor of those men,” ultimately finding the evidence against them insufficient for indictment. Clemens’s characterization of McDonald was no doubt influenced by Paine, who gave a complimentary account of his actions in a book published in 1909, Captain Bill McDonald, Texas Ranger. But Paine also makes it clear that McDonald was intemperate and vainglorious, and asserted that his damning report to Roosevelt precipitated the president’s Draconian action (Paine 1909, 315–56). A 1970 study that prompted the investigation leading to the soldiers’ exoneration throws a harsh light on McDonald’s inflammatory and prejudicial behavior (John D. Weaver 1970, 80–87).
I find this editorial in . . . a New York Herald of something more than a month ago] The four paragraphs that follow were extracted from a longer article in the New York World, not the Herald, of 19 June 1908.
provided the Democratic National Convention nominates William J. Bryan] Attorney, editor, and populist leader William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925), a twice-defeated presidential candidate (1896, 1900), was nominated at the Democratic convention in Denver in July 1908. He lost to Taft by a wide margin in the November election.
Andrew Johnson, in his periods of sobriety] Johnson had been drunk at his inauguration as Lincoln’s vice-president on 4 March 1865. A few weeks later he succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln’s assassination and, after barely surviving an impeachment attempt in 1868, finished out Lincoln’s second term. In March of 1869, as Johnson was leaving office, Clemens lampooned him and his dubious record in “The White House Funeral,” written for the New York Tribune but not published (SLC 1869b; for its text, see the enclosure with 8–10 Mar 1869 to Young, L3 , 458–66).
Source documents.
Collier’s Facsimile of “The Outgoing President,” Collier’s: The National Weekly 41 (11 July 1908): 7: ‘MR. ROOSEVELT . . . mankind.’ (254.34–37); ‘Turned . . . nation.’ (255.36–256.5).World Facsimile of New York World, 19 June 1908, 8: ‘PRESIDENT TAFT . . . endure.’ (258.17–37).
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 2583–97, made from Hobby’s notes, Collier’s, and World.
TS1 is the only authoritative source for the dictated portion of this dictation. Clemens did not revise it. For Collier’s and World we follow the source texts, and the trivial errors that Hobby introduced in TS1 have not been reported.