Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of American Leadership by Jon Knokey

Author:Jon Knokey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2015-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

Since at least 1886, when he offered to fight against Mexico with “an entire regiment of cowboys,” Theodore had dreamed of military glory. He wanted to restore honor to the Roosevelt name, to erase the one blemish of Thee’s life.90 But as military glory became an ever increasing possibility, Theodore faced the very real prospect that he would lose another wife to a premature death. Edith had fallen ill, and for over ninety days her life hung in the balance.

In November, 1897, Edith went into premature labor and gave birth to the couple’s fifth child, a healthy boy named Quentin. Complications from childbirth and a subsequent illness confined her to bed, leaving her unable to take care of herself or the children. At different times, from different doctors, the illness was diagnosed as grippe, sciatica, and neuralgia.91

As Edith deteriorated, so did the conditions in Havana. She had been bed-ridden for over a month when news from Cuba trickled in on January 1st, 1898, that its citizens were rioting in the streets. On January 12th, Spanish officers demolished the printing presses of local newspapers that had been critical of Spain’s occupation. The ensuing violence lasted less than a day but it gave the Journal the opportunity to report, erroneously, that throngs of protestors were attacking American citizens in the streets. Hearst’s paper demanded, “Next To War With Spain,” complete with the untrue prediction that “armed intervention” was imminent, perhaps within two days.92

U.S. Consul-General Fitzhugh Lee, the nephew of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, decided that the minor skirmish had indeed put American lives at risk and dispatched a coded signal to Captain Charles D. Sigsbee of the battleship USS Maine. The secret cable—TWO DOLLARS—alerted Sigsbee to immediately coal up the Maine and set sail for Havana.93

Stirred by the riots in Cuba, Roosevelt stormed into John Long’s office and shouted his intentions “to abandon everything and go to the front.”94 Long, the old mediator, tried to persuade his zealous assistant by deriding any conflict with Spain as a “bushwhacking fight” where military glory would not be won, but where Roosevelt would only “improve every opportunity of dying with malaria.”95

“I tried to persuade him that if it was his country which was at stake, or his home should be defended, such a course would be worthwhile,” Long wrote. “I called him a crank, and ridiculed him to the best of my ability, but all in vain. The funny part of it is that he actually takes the thing seriously.”96 Long was perplexed by his subordinate’s singular focus on fighting in Cuba. In a moment of reflection he confided the confusion to his diary, “. . . [Theodore] evidently regards it as a sacred duty which he owes to his own character.”97

Long’s inclination was dead-on. Military glory had indeed become a tenet of Theodore’s character. He had to restore honor to his family’s name, he had to live up to Mittie’s stories of valor, he had to practice the doctrine of action that he had been preaching in his books.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.