Roosevelt's Crowning Achievement, Judge Magazine, 1904, LOC
Theodore Roosevelt called the
Panama Canal his greatest achievement yet the day of its official opening, the
Bull Moose Progressive Party politician never mentioned it. Instead (excerpts
from The Cowboy and the Canal: How Theodore Roosevelt Cheated Colombia, Stole Panama, and Bamboozled America):
"The day the Panama Canal opened for business, former President
Theodore Roosevelt was embarking on a four-and-a-half hour long, bone-rattling
automobile trip from Oyster Bay to Hartford, Connecticut to keynote the
Progressive state convention. At fifty-six, the bronco busting hero of San
Juan, the slayer of black bears and bull elephants, and the subjugator of
Bowery criminals and Wall Street tycoons, heaved his stiff and clumsy body into
his motorcar like an old man of ninety. For his entire life, Theodore Roosevelt
had applied the greatest force of his quite considerable energy to proving his
worth—first to his father, then to his country, and now in the early hours of
the dew-clad morning of August 15, 1914—to himself…"
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| Weary Roosevelt on his Eastern Progressive Party speaking tour, 1914, LOC |
"After warm-up speeches by the handsome and elegant exponent of the
eight-hour workday, industrialist Charles Sumner Bird, and the office boy who
became J.P. Morgan’s “right-hand man,” George Perkins, Roosevelt would bring
down the house. He always did. His only
concern was his voice. In a weakened condition,
his voice was the one presentation of self he could not easily
stage-manage. His high-pitched
voice once made him a laughing stock in his early career as a New York
legislator. It was a quality, his mockers claimed, of an effeminate male. The
young legislator was often described quite simply, as 'pathetic.'"
Roosevelt had become persona non-gratis with Republicans who
blamed him for breaking with the party and dividing the vote, thereby
installing Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House. Even his old mentor and
closest ally, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, had told him to stay out of politics.
Roosevelt later freely admitted to novelist Henry Rider Haggard that his
actions in 1912 caused, “The great bulk of my wealthy and educated friends [to]
regard me as a dangerous crank.”
His physical problems after
his return from his disastrous 1913-14 River of Doubt expedition continued to
dog the Colonel. People still saw that the physical effects of the jungle
ordeal clung heavily to him:
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| Roosevelt at the beginning of his search for the River of Doubt, 1913, Wikimedia Commons |
"Once the most robust of men . . . he looks ten years older than he
did two years ago. His system is filled with malaria,” reported the Montgomery
Advisor on June
29. “The terrible siege of illness he experienced in the tropics lowered his
vitality.” And worse for Roosevelt, as the peerless media manipulator to whom
image was everything would instinctively recognize, “the Colonel sick,”
astutely noted the Advisor writer, “would be much less
interesting than if well and robust.”"
"Determined to deflect the gossip
that he was now a mere shadow of his former vigorous self, Roosevelt ignored his doctor’s
recommendation that he rest for four months after his South American ordeal. Meanwhile, as Roosevelt was winding his
way toward the Parson’s Theater to give his speech, in Panama…"
"The SS Ancon, an aging cargo ship owned
by the Navy and leased to the Panama Railroad Company, was to have the
distinction of being the first official ship to cross the gigantic 51-mile
trench. Its sister ship, the SS Cristobal, along with the seagoing
tugboat Gatun, successfully negotiated trial runs earlier, thereby removing any
real anxiety—but not the excitement—from the first official transit. The decks
were crowded with canal administrators, Panamanian officials—including the
mustachioed, President Belisario Porras of Panama—and their wives and families,
but no United States representative of any prominence was aboard that day. The
guests of George Goethals—chief engineer and undisputed overlord of the Canal
Zone—packed the promenade."
"The seventy-four officers and men
aboard the Ancon wore dazzling white uniforms and the ship itself glistened
with new paint. The men in white linen suits and broad-brim white hats
significantly outnumbered the women in light colored summer dresses and
decorative plumed hats. The few children aboard were as sparkling in their
Sunday best as the Ancon’s newly polished fittings. As the ship headed into a
waterway lined on both sides by tropical vegetation, except for the tops of
dying trees in the lake and the fresh earth and broken rock of the Culebra Cut
that could be seen in the distance, the “impression that it had existed from
the time of Balboa” was communicated by the scene to the passengers."
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| Guests aboard the SS Ancon Opening Day, "Pan American Union Bulletin," 1914. | |
"As promised by Colonel Goethals,
the flag of the American Peace Society floated in the light breeze from the Ancon’s
masthead. Ironically, at the same time beneath the fluttering flag of peace and
undoubtedly unknown to the Society members, —deep within the Ancon’s cargo bay—two
gigantic pieces of artillery destined to enhance the Canal’s gun emplacements
were stowed. The fully loaded Ancon, polished to a high gloss for the local
dignitaries and cameramen, left dock number nine at the port of Cristobal at
7:10 am, about the time Roosevelt would have been getting underway for his trip
to Hartford. His speech at the Parsons theater was later that evening, but
first on Roosevelt’s agenda was lunch with his sister, nicknamed “Bye” at her
home in Farmington, just west of Hartford."
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| The 16-inch gun sent to fortify the Canal Zone, http://www.oocities.org/fort_tilden/16ingun.html |
"The 10,000 ton vessel seemed to those aboard to be tiny, dwarfed
by the gargantuan Culebra, as one guest aboard the Ancon recalled. It bore straight
through the Cut to reach Pedro Miguel, where it entered a single lock and
descended 30 feet. A crowd of spectators, among them 100 female schoolteachers from
England, gathered at the lock to greet the Ancon. The school teachers, —as
unique as a assemblage of 100 women in the Zone was, —did not capture the
attention of the passengers aboard the Ancon as did the sight of
Goethals himself as he “stood at the entrance of the lock in shirt sleeves,
wearing a characteristic small straw hat and carrying in his hand his ever
present umbrella.”"
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| Rare photo from an article in "Spillway," University of Florida, http://ufdc.ufl.edu |
"A mighty cheer erupted from the passengers when
they saw Goethals, who ignored the adulation “with characteristic modesty” and
continued inspecting the operation of the lock. In thirty minutes,
the Ancon descended into the water of Miraflores Lake and onward to slide
down the two flights of the Miraflores Locks.… Now, the Ancon was only eight miles away
from the deep water of the Pacific Ocean and “the gateway to its mighty
commerce of uncounted millions of dollars and population.”"
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| Ancon reaching the Pacific Opening Day, “Bulletin of the Pan American Union,” 1914 |
"Presently, the Ancon passed Balboa with its repair shops, dry docks, and the old
Panama Railroad wharves. The shriek from whistles of the several ships
gathering, waiting their turn to cross from the Pacific to the Atlantic the
following day, and from shops and launches, pierced the air until to the
passengers of the Ancon it “seemed as if bedlam
was veritably let loose.” Increasing its speed, the Ancon headed past the
breakwater, beyond the fortified islands of Naos, Perico, and Flamenco, past
the last buoys marking the entrance to the canal and “majestically stuck her
nose into the deep water of the Pacific Ocean.” It then swung
around and headed back to Balboa. About 2,000 miles away, Roosevelt would have
also reached his destination, the Parsons Theater, about the same time the Ancon merrymakers were returning
to Cristobal aboard specially chartered Panama Railroad cars, after
disembarking at Balbo."
"… On his way to the theater
to deliver his speech, Roosevelt’s automobile passed through streets that were
deserted except for the usual Saturday night shoppers and people gathered to
read the bulletins about the European war. Few people recognized him as he rode
through the hushed streets of Hartford until he reached the stage door, where
he was quickly ushered inside. The expectant throng of 2,000 Progressives
greeted him enthusiastically when he took the stage. At one point, the crowd
erupted into wild applause when someone shouted from the audience, “Our next
President!”"
"In his lengthy speech that night, Roosevelt explained his unorthodox and unpopular endorsement of a Republican instead of a Progressive for governor of New York, extolled the virtue of the Monroe Doctrine, lambasted treaties as worthless, and abused the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, but never mentioned Panama. Curiously, “the long-coveted canal . . . the dream and idealism of centuries,” with its official opening had “at last become a tangible fact, a golden reality,” went unnoticed by the Colonel."
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| Roosevelt's campaign slogan for the 1916 race according to one artist, 1915, LOC |
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