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Home , Cowboy diplomacy, Frontier justice, Mornings on Horseback, Owen Wister, The Strenuous Life, The Virginian (novel)

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12-2012 "Never Draw Unless You Mean to Shoot": 's Frontier Duane G. Jundt Northwestern College - Orange City, [email protected]

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WWHA Journal – December 2012 As President, Roosevelt was often caricatured and lampooned in the political cartoons of the day “Never Draw Unless You as a , sheriff, policeman or Rough Rider on horseback (preferably a bucking bronco) who Mean to Shoot” invariably wielded a very big stick that more than

outweighed the other half of his famous maxim to Theodore Roosevelt’s “speak softly.”5 Roosevelt was seen as a man of Frontier Diplomacy action and, frequently, violent, action. But this stereotypic portrayal is at odds with the reality of Roosevelt the ranchman and Roosevelt the deputy Duane G. Jundt sheriff. Although he inhabited a sometimes violent world in the valley of the Little Missouri River, Roosevelt did not resort to violence with the ease and to the degree that many of his “[] began far off from the contemporaries did; in fact, Roosevelt exercised point with that rooted caution of his—that considerable restraint, caution and discipline in caution which is shared alike by the primitive numerous situations in which an appeal to savage and the perfected .” 1 violence would have been wholly accepted and , The Virginian even condoned in his frontier community. When presented with opportunities to “shoot first and Theodore Roosevelt’s brief foray into the ask questions later”, the end result of Roosevelt’s world of cattle and cowboys in the Bad Lands of course of action often begged the question of why present day North Dakota has most often been he didn’t shoot first. In Dakota, Roosevelt learned viewed by historians and his biographers in firsthand the value of deterrence; preparation for largely personal terms as a time of grieving over armed conflict; decisive action and the need to the dual deaths of his wife and mother on mediate disputes, establish order and elicit Valentine’s Day 1884 and as a time of cooperation. Less than a generation later he transformation when the sickly, effete, asthma- would apply these same lessons to the wracked dude from City remade international frontier as the nation’s chief himself into a rough and ready ranchman, a living 2 diplomat. embodiment of the “strenuous life.” In recent And yet the power of the stereotype and the years historians have come to acknowledge the caricature of the cowboy remain formidable. All political education that Roosevelt received in the 3 too often the fallback position for a Roosevelt dugouts and cabins of his frontier companions. scholar is to link his cowboy years with a Certainly the broad appeal Roosevelt enjoyed as propensity for violence. In her well-received President (and retains to this day) stemmed in part biography, Kathleen Dalton states that Roosevelt’s from his ability to bridge the gap between his blue family asked his ranch hand “Bill Sewall to write blood background and the roots of most ordinary each fortnight about Theodore’s well-being Americans. And of all his presidential because they knew he rode recklessly and dealt achievements, certainly his long list of actions with unruly cowpunchers and neighbors without taken on behalf of natural resource conservation worrying about the consequences.”6 However, a can be traced to his witnessing the denudation of 4 close examination of Roosevelt’s time in Dakota his beloved Bad Lands in the late 1880s. But not reveals that he very much worried about and only was the mourning son and widower healed, restrained his actions in the company of his well the college boy made into a cowboy and the armed neighbors. George Tindall and David Shi politician with the common touch created, but the in their bestselling textbook America: A Narrative future commander-in-chief and recipient of the History, describe Roosevelt as a “blue-blooded Nobel Peace Prize also practiced a form of frontier New Yorker [who] relished hunting, leading diplomacy that presaged his foreign policy as roundups, capturing outlaws, fighting Indians— president. and reading novels by the campfire.”7 Although 4 WWHA Journal – December 2012

Theodore Roosevelt with his Horse “Manitou” in the Badlands in 1884 (Photo provided courtesy of Library of Congress and Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University)

A Stereocard View of Theodore Roosevelt on Horseback in Laramie, (Library of Congress) 5 WWHA Journal – December 2012

Theodore Roosevelt (center) with friends and ranchmen Wilmot Dow (right) and Bill Sewall (left). Dow and Sewall built Roosevelt’s house, oversaw his ranch, and accompanied him on his capture of the boat thieves. (Photo provided courtesy of Library of Congress and Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University)

Roosevelt at his “Bully!” best preaching to the crowds in Idaho (Library of Congress)

6 WWHA Journal – December 2012 Roosevelt confesses to a single armed standoff incorrectly noting that “Teddy Roosevelt never did with a small band of Indians, he never engaged ‘nothing’ at all.”11 any in combat. Douglas Brinkley rightly and Perhaps the tendency to associate Roosevelt succinctly notes that “Roosevelt never killed a the cowboy with violence stems from the larger Confederate, an Indian, a Mexican, or any other and much more firmly entrenched public human on American soil.”8 perception of the “Wild West.” As Roosevelt made no secret of his attachment to and love of the , it seems natural to tie him to the violence that supposedly pervaded the West. Yet some recent scholarship makes the case for a “mild” West that was far less violent than the one so frequently portrayed in the popular culture. In Frontier Cattle Ranching in the Land and Times of Charlie Russell, Warren M. Elofson compares the 1880s frontier communities of southern and Canada and Montana and finds that “The Canadians were not all law-abiding and tame and the Americans were not all vicious and blood thirsty.”12 Elofson argues that the frequency of gun violence on the American frontier has been

exaggerated and he even takes Roosevelt to task “Standing Off Indians” for overstating the amount of lethal gun play in his (Frederick Remington illustration from Roosevelt’s book Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail.13 In “New Tales Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. Courtesy , www.booneandcrockettclub.com) of the Old West” Lee Sandlin reviews two 2011 publications about the gunfight at the OK Corral and and concludes that “If these two The desire, in some cases, to literally portray books actually do manage to help deconstruct Roosevelt as bound to violence retains its allure anything, it’s the myth that the West was for some scholars. The covers to both the extraordinarily violent. Violence in that time was hardcover and paperback editions of Walter much less common than violence is now.”14 Nugent’s Habits of Empire: A History of In Law and Order in Buffalo Bill’s Country: American Expansionism, feature large portraits of Legal Culture and Community on the Great Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. Plains, 1867-1910, Mark R. Ellis shows that Roosevelt is depicted wearing a cowboy/western Lincoln County Nebraska was ruled by an hat and bandana and clutching a rifle held high effective system of law and order including across his chest. The implication here is clear: sheriffs, local police forces and railroad police and Roosevelt, a chronicler and proponent of that it had functioning courts, prisons and legal American expansion, was a western imperialist systems. Despite its claim as the home of Buffalo bent on expanding the American empire at the Bill Cody, this community, and many more like it point of a gun.9 The publishers of Evan Thomas’ across the Great Plains, did not suffer from an The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and epidemic of lawlessness and violence that had to the Rush to Empire, 1898, also seem to editorialize be tamed by the likes of Cody. Ellis asserts that with their choice of a cover that features a “it is hard to ignore the fact that legal criminal photograph of a young Roosevelt with the top of prosecutions were the way of life for the vast his head out of frame and out of sight, implying a majority of Great Plains communities.”15 He finds brainless and unthinking march to war.10 An the legacy of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows to August 2011 episode of “Deadliest Warriors,” on be detrimental to an accurate portrayal of the the cable channel Spike, focused on Roosevelt’s frontier because they perpetuated the idea that the exploits in the Spanish-American War with one of West “was a lawless and dangerous region where the show’s commentators ineloquently and was administered by six-shooters and 7 WWHA Journal – December 2012 vigilantes rather than by judges and juries.”16 The work in founding the Little Missouri Stockmen’s western novelist Elmer Kelton, in a spirited Association. defense of the reputation of the American cowboy, Despite Roosevelt’s reputation for action (“a argues that the very meaning of “cowboy” has steam engine in trousers”), upon closer study what been distorted by the contemporary political strikes one about all of these encounters is not culture which has embraced “the idea that what Roosevelt does, but what he does not do. cowboys as a class are quick to fight. In reality, When confronted with a pistol waving, belligerent the average cowboy rarely handles a gun. Even in drunkard in a Montana barroom, Roosevelt did earlier times, when gun toting was normal, a not, in turn, reach for his weapon. Instead he cowboy was known to let a pistol rust away in his exercised his pugilistic skills and laid out his saddlebag or bedroll, unused and neglected.”17 adversary with a right, left, right combination that Roosevelt confronted the idea of an anarchic West abruptly ended the confrontation without in his own time noting in 1888 that “a man has escalation. When the Marquis de Mores, a French very little more to fear in the West than in the aristocrat and would be American entrepreneur East, in spite of all the lawless acts one reads who wrongly believed that Roosevelt was about.”18 conspiring against him, dangled the prospect of a duel before Roosevelt in the fall of 1885, Roosevelt replied in kind that he was “ever ready “’A man,’ [the Virginian] stated to hold myself accountable in any way for reflectively, ‘any full-sized man, ought to own a anything I have said or done.”21 The Marquis big lot of temper. And like all his valuable never responded to Roosevelt’s reply and the possessions, he’d ought to keep it and not lose matter quickly faded away, but again Roosevelt any.’” had demonstrated a quiet resolve and had not Owen Wister, The Virginian19 acted impulsively or recklessly in the face of the challenge. This episode also demonstrates Roosevelt ranched, hunted and wandered the Roosevelt’s awareness of his own limitations, his Bad Lands of Dakota from the fall of 1883 to the discretion and plain good sense. The Marquis was spring of 1887. He was never more than a part- an accomplished marksman who had already time resident and was, in effect, after his killed two men in duels.22 The bespectacled acquisition of two separate cattle ranches, an Roosevelt, known as “old four eyes” by his absentee landlord. Yet Roosevelt spent just cowboys, was most decidedly not a good shot. As enough time - about a year total - on his slice of David McCullough, one of Roosevelt’s the dwindling frontier to experience the variety of biographers notes: “Had there been a conflicts that have come to mark the popular duel…almost certainly Theodore would have been imagination’s view of the Wild West.20 He was killed.”23 targeted for drinks and abuse by a drunken That same fall of 1885 Roosevelt had his cowboy in a saloon. He entertained the idea of a most notable encounter with the Native Americans duel with the richest, most powerful businessman who still inhabited the area. Out on yet another in the territory. He found himself alone on the solitary sojourn across the prairie, Roosevelt prairie with five Indians, their intentions unknown, suddenly found his isolation broken by five bearing down on him. He witnessed the workings mounted Indians who approached him at a of vigilante justice as the area cattlemen hunted gallop’s pace. Roosevelt, unsure of their down and executed both the guilty and innocent intentions, quickly dismounted, drew his accused of horse and cattle theft. He pursued, Winchester, aimed it at his pursuers and politely, captured and delivered to justice the three outlaws but firmly, asked them to come no further. that stole his boat. He began the process of According to Roosevelt: “Indians—and, for the introducing properly constituted law and order matter of that, white men—do not like to ride in with his appointment as a deputy sheriff, and he on a man who is cool and means shooting.”24 assisted in the transition of the territory from an Despite further entreaties from the Indians to unorganized backwater to a legal entity with his approach, Roosevelt held his ground and his aim 8 WWHA Journal – December 2012 and they eventually retreated. Again, Roosevelt Despite Roosevelt’s initial eagerness to join acted with prudence and caution. He did not flee the “stranglers” and his approval of their methods, in a panic; he did not rashly open fire; neither did when given the opportunity to practice this form he belittle, insult or antagonize his uninvited of frontier justice, to partake in this type of guests. Outnumbered and alone, Roosevelt held violence, Roosevelt demurred. In late March his ground but did not heedlessly escalate the 1886, Roosevelt began his legendary pursuit of the confrontation. thieves who had stolen his small yet valuable boat While Roosevelt was careful and considered used in crossing the Little Missouri River. with the use of violence in his personal Roosevelt spent nearly two weeks doggedly confrontations, he did condone the use of pursuing, capturing and transporting the three collective violence to maintain a degree of law and criminals in brutal winter conditions. The tale is order in his politically unorganized territory. In at times enthralling, with the river choked with short, Roosevelt approved of the use of vigilante ice, bitter winds and cold and the men reduced to justice as an antidote to the ever-present horse and starvation rations. And yet the most amazing cattle thieves. Although he will never admit it in aspect of the tale to Roosevelt’s contemporaries his own considerable writings detailing his time in was its resolution. Having surprised and Dakota, Roosevelt’s biographers believe that he overwhelmed the thieves without firing a shot, intended to join the most prominent vigilante Roosevelt insisted on delivering them to the group, “the stranglers” as early as June 1884, but nearest sheriff in Dickinson, Dakota Territory. that he was rightly dissuaded from doing so by Under the prevailing frontier rules, Roosevelt one of its organizers.25 Roosevelt acknowledges could have shot or hanged the thieves on the spot. but does not celebrate the work of the vigilantes in Why didn’t he? Roosevelt biographer Carleton his writing, indicating that their work was Putnam argues that “To have done so would have necessary to establish some semblance of law and seemed as wrong to him as to have let them order in the territory. He is also careful to note escape. Either course would have been lawless that they sometimes exceeded their own tenuous and Roosevelt’s prime interest was in seeing the authority and killed the innocent.26 law enforced.”27 Nearly two years after his aborted attempt to join the vigilantes, Roosevelt had, no doubt, matured in his thinking and outlook. He was all of twenty-seven when he undertook this odyssey and his beliefs were still in flux. Roosevelt wanted to see the territory mature politically, moving beyond the frontier stage by taking on aspects of settled civilization. The continuance of vigilante justice, with its attendant loss of innocent life, retarded this growth. Roosevelt also gave his expedition legal legitimacy by acting in his capacity as a deputy sheriff of Billings County. Roosevelt’s decision to spare the lives of his three captives sent a powerful signal to the larger community of western Dakota that the time for vigilante justice was drawing to a close and that a new chapter of duly established law and order was at hand. “The “Hands Up! – The Capture of Finnigan” great free ranches… mark a primitive stage of A depiction of the capture of some of the boat existence as surely as do the great tracts of thieves in March 1886. primeval forests, and like the latter must pass (Frederick Remington illustration from Roosevelt’s book 28 Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. Courtesy Boone and away before the onward march of our people.” Crockett Club, www.booneandcrockettclub.com) Much, if not most, of what we know about Roosevelt’s Dakota years come from his own 9 WWHA Journal – December 2012 writings. In Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), and the lessons learned were not easy to discard. Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail (1888) and Roosevelt had indeed received a valuable political chapter IV of his autobiography (“In Cowboy education in the Bad Lands. His encounters with Land”), Roosevelt relates the stories that have now the diverse population of the Bad Lands, its become synonymous with his time in the Bad cowboys, barroom bullies, Native Americans, Lands. A valuable and underappreciated cattle killers and horse thieves informed his view affirmation of much of what Roosevelt writes can of human nature, and the lessons he learned from be found in Lincoln A. Lang’s Ranching with dealing with these varied individuals could not be Roosevelt. A younger contemporary of Roosevelt kept from informing his statecraft. in the Little Missouri valley, Lang notes that Roosevelt’s views on many of the major “Roosevelt was generally quiet and unobtrusive in foreign policy and national security issues of his manner. If there was anything of the fire-eater presidency and beyond - the expansion of the about him, the over-riding swashbuckler or grand- American navy, the pacifying of the Philippines, stander… I, at least never saw it.”29 Lang also and the debate over the establishment of a League addresses the myths that had grown up around of Nations for example - were molded in part by Roosevelt’s time in the West and confirms TR’s his Bad Lands experience. Roosevelt scholar lack of a fighting record: “But despite the many William Tilchin writes that Roosevelt’s “big stick spectacular stories which I have heard to the diplomacy had at its foundation five central contrary, I have no reason for thinking that he was principles” and a careful look at Roosevelt’s ever called upon to engage actually in a physical Dakota years reveals at least a degree of symmetry encounter during the period of his ranching between his cowboy diplomacy and his career.”30 presidential statecraft.33 “The first was the Lastly, Lang also notes the difference possession of a formidable military capability.” between the reality and the perception of the Bad Roosevelt’s ranching arsenal ranged from his Lands cowboy: matching Colt revolvers to his model 1873 and “And of the frontiersmen of the 1876 Winchester rifles. “The second principle period, the rancher, the cow-puncher was to act justly toward other nations.” Roosevelt, whom the world seems to visualize as for example, refused to put his own brand on cattle shooting indiscriminately… I would say he found on another rancher’s range. “The third this: As a matter of fact, they were the was never to bluff.” Roosevelt rarely drew his most discriminating shooters I have ever weapons, but when he did, he did so with deadly known. If anybody knew guns, they did. intent as in his confrontation with the boat thieves. Because they did, they respected and “[A]nd the fourth was to strike only if prepared to handled them accordingly. Under all strike hard.” He knocked out cold the barroom conditions, outside of actual fighting, bully of Mingusville. “Fifth and finally, big stick where they sought to hit, the last thing diplomacy required its practitioner to allow an they wanted to do was to injure honorable adversary to save face in defeat.”34 anybody.”31 Roosevelt treated the boat thieves with considerable dignity and restraint given the After the disastrous winter of 1886-1887 vigilante ethos of the time and place. Roosevelt wiped out most of the cattle on the open range of also tapped his frontier experience for language, northwestern Dakota, Roosevelt began the process examples and metaphors that he employed to help of gradually divesting himself of his financial sell his foreign policy views to a nation that may interest in the region, although he retained his have not been steeped in the workings of Elkhorn ranch mainly to serve his periodic diplomacy, but because of the work of Roosevelt, appetite for hunting and horseback riding in the Frederick Remington, Buffalo Bill Cody and Bad Lands. By 1898 Roosevelt had severed the Owen Wister, was very much aware of the need last links he had to the cattle industry and his time for a sheriff and his posse to bring law and order on the frontier, like the existence of the frontier to an untamed frontier whether it was in Wyoming itself, had come to an end.32 Yet the memories or Luzon, Dakota or Santo Domingo. 10 WWHA Journal – December 2012

A portrayal of Roosevelt as a Westerner “The Wisdom of the West” Des Moines Register and Leader A political cartoon from Roosevelt’s 1910 Tour of (Courtesy www.tramericanpatriot.com) Europe which highlights his “straight talk.”

(Courtesy www.tramericanpatriot.com)

This political cartoon from the Daily Roosevelt’s image as a Westerner is shown in the News portrays Roosevelt in Western regalia Westminister Gazette, London (Courtesy www.tramericanpatriot.com) (Courtesy www.tramericanpatriot.com)

11 WWHA Journal – December 2012 “Yet the Virginian stood quiet by the bar, Even as a ranchman Roosevelt appreciated and many an eye of astonishment was turned the diplomatic advantage that accrued to carrying upon him. ‘I’d not stand half that language,’ a big stick. In Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail some muttered to each other. Still the he notes that “the practice of carrying dangerous Virginian waited quietly, while the fools weapons makes cowboys show far more rough reasoned with Trampas.” courtesy to each other.”41 In describing the Owen Wister, The Virginian35 workings of cowboy diplomacy circa 1888, the future President foreshadowed his cautious Roosevelt’s foreign policy will forever be approach to statecraft: “When a quarrel may very identified with his use of the West African proverb probably result fatally, a man thinks twice before “Speak softly and carry a big stick” which is most going into it: warlike peoples or classes always often associated with his advocacy for, and treat one another with a certain amount of deployment of, a robust American naval fleet to consideration and politeness.”42 “’Diplomacy,’ complement traditional methods of diplomacy. Roosevelt declared before a Naval War College Yet Roosevelt’s introduction to the workings of audience in July 1908, ‘rests on the substantial this maxim may very well have occurred among basis of potential force.’”43 If Roosevelt’s Indian the cowboys of the Bad Lands who were pursuers were deterred by his Winchester, then themselves well armed and who appreciated the surely America’s foes could be kept at bay and her man, especially the stranger, who said as little as interests secured by maintaining a powerful naval possible. In Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail fleet. Long before he confronted the Kaiser or (1888) he asserts that: “It is always a good plan, if challenged the Tsar, Roosevelt knew to tread visiting a strange camp or ranch, to be as silent as carefully, speak deliberately and keep himself possible.”36 In his Autobiography of 1913 armed and ready in the presence of both cowboys Roosevelt writes: “But my own experience was and kings. that if a man did not talk until his associates knew Roosevelt’s unique brand of cowboy him well and liked him, and if he did his work, he diplomacy featured a tag line that emphasized never had any difficulty in getting on. If, for both his willingness to invoke his ranching years instance, I was sent off to represent the Little in articulating his foreign policy and his reluctance Missouri brands on some neighboring round-up, to use force in response to various diplomatic such as the Yellowstone, I usually showed that crises. “I have a horror of the individual who kind of diplomacy which consists in not uttering bluffs and, when his bluff is called, does not fight, one word that can be avoided.”37 One of and have always acted upon the cardinal principle Roosevelt’s ablest defenders, Frederick W. Marks of the Western man in the good old days when I III, notes that “Soft speaking, in Roosevelt’s first struck the cattle country - ‘Never draw unless sense, did not mean the mincing of words or any you mean to shoot.’”44 “Drawing” by idly hedging on issues. T.R. addressed himself threatening to use military force would have been forcefully, even pointedly, to foreign envoys. But a kind of bluff he detested. From navigating he did so privately and in such a way as to afford a America’s relationships with Great Britain and graceful exit from awkward confrontation.”38 Germany, to explaining the political impossibility Long before he confronted a diplomatic , of intervening on behalf of beleaguered minorities Roosevelt challenged a young cowboy poking fun such as the Jews of Russia or harping on the need at his eyeglasses with “‘Shut up. Put up. Be for decisive American military action in the First friends or fight.’”39 When Roosevelt learned that World War, some variation of “never draw unless Jerry Paddock, who was known “to settle you mean to shoot” pithily stated Roosevelt’s arguments with a gun rather than his fists,” had belief that America should only resort to military threatened to shoot him, Roosevelt did not issue a force if it could do so decisively with strong noisy public challenge to Paddock in the streets public support.45 Roosevelt understood and and saloons of Medora. He went directly to sympathized with those who yearned for Paddock’s shack and confronted and eventually American military and humanitarian intervention befriended his would be adversary.40 abroad, but he also knew the limitations of the 12 WWHA Journal – December 2012 nation’s ability to project power in the remotest intervention in the Philippines by repeatedly and corners of the globe and the difficulty in mustering explicitly comparing the resistance of the Filipinos public opinion to support such efforts in a nation to that of the American Indians, arguing that to still marked by a strong isolationist streak. surrender there would be on par with ceding the Roosevelt again looked to his Dakota frontier back to the Sioux or Apache. In both experience to explain the necessity of pacifying cases, Roosevelt believed, barbarism would the Philippines and defeating the insurgency that triumph over civilization.49 had arisen against the imposition of American rule in the wake of the Spanish-American War of “It is only the somewhat green and 1898. Speaking in North Dakota as the unseasoned cow-puncher who struts before the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate in 1900, public in spurs and deadly weapons.” Roosevelt reminded his Fargo audience that just as Owen Wister, The Virginian50 the former Dakota Territory at one time was not fit for self-government, so the Philippines of 1900 Roosevelt could resort to the use of frontier were not ready to be turned loose from their language, metaphors and examples both in his American masters: “The progress made by the private correspondence and in his public addresses Indian toward civilization is a good indication of because he knew that in the age of the western what can be done in the matter of being governed dime novel and in the heyday of Buffalo Bill’s without their consent. You here who knew of the (and other) Wild West shows, his audience would conditions which existed twenty-five years ago have a ready appreciation for his invocation of the know what a perfect absurdity it was to insist on a West.51 Douglas Brinkley notes that well into his 46 self government for this country.” One can hear second term “[TR] usually donned a Stetson hat the echoes of Roosevelt’s 1884 barroom triumph and often wore a bandanna around his neck, and in this September 1900 exhortation to carry his public rhetoric was full of western toponyms, through the difficult fight against the insurgency: cowboyisms, and Indian words not often heard in Now, gentlemen, if there is one the East.”52 Roosevelt understood the lesson that is good for a private citizen to considerable appeal of the West in the American learn just as well as a nation, it is, don’t imagination and he did not shy away from using hit at all if you can help it, but if you do frontier references to explain his foreign policy. hit, don’t hit soft. Then they [the Filipino “In order to succeed, I must use arguments that insurgents] struck and now we must appeal to plain rugged men” Roosevelt wrote in decide as a nation whether we belong to 1910, and peppering his speeches with words and the foolish class who think that when you phrases like sheriff’s posse, vigilante and outlaw get into trouble you can hit a little. You seemed perfectly suited to reach such an never once heard of any instance where audience.53 He also knew that his political one man earned the friendship of another opponents would try to portray him as a cowboy 47 by only striking him a little. to project an image of him as a loose cannon, an immature gun slinger and a volatile commander- Roosevelt frequently compared the Filipino in-chief. Following his electoral triumph in the insurgents to native tribes of the American West fall of 1904, Roosevelt, much to his delight, who had gradually and inexorably yielded to the recognized that this strategy had backfired: power of the federal government. “When we expanded west of the Mississippi it meant that we There is one point in connection with put a stop to the tribal warfare which had endured the last election which has amused me. for ages among Sioux and Crow, Cheyenne and Owing to the peculiar methods of attack Pawnee. So now the establishment of our rule in chosen by my antagonists they did me the Philippines means to give the islands peace, certain services which my friends could and it is the only chance they have of getting not have rendered. Again, it would have peace or of getting good government.”48 been an absurdity for my supporters to Roosevelt challenged the opponents of American say anything about my having been a 13 WWHA Journal – December 2012 military man, or having been a ranchman; Dakota), “Speak softly and carry a big stick” finds for one appeal would have looked its expression in The Virginian just as it did in ridiculous in view of my having served Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. While the only four months in a very small war, and Virginian can be a garrulous spinner of tall tales, the other would have looked demagogic. he also knows when to remain silent, especially But the opposing papers, and especially when challenged by the blustering Trampas. True the opposing caricaturists, invariably to form for a cowboy, he is armed with revolvers represented me in the rough rider but is reluctant to draw much less fire his uniform, or else riding a bucking broncho weapons. When his bride-to-be Molly Wood [sic] and roping a steer, or carrying a big observes that “‘You had your pistol ready for stick and threatening foreign nations and him’” the Virginian responds with a laconic thereby made to the younger among their “‘Why, I believe I did. It was mighty own readers the very kind of ad unnecessary.’ And the Virginian took out the captandum appeal on my behalf which it pistol again, and shook his head over it, like one would have been undignified for my who has been caught in a blunder.”56 The supporters to have made.54 Virginian will in the end resort to violence to end his feud with Trampas but he will not do so with Roosevelt had to learn how to carefully enthusiasm. Trampas, for his part, with his final, handle the double-edged sword that was his whiskey fueled, intemperate and ill considered western inheritance. On the one hand, he could pistol waving threats, recalls perfectly Roosevelt’s embrace his cowboy past and ride the wave of disdain for “the braggart, the man who uses words popularity of all things western. On the other which he does not translate into deeds.”57 hand, doing so left him open to political attacks Trampas knows that “his own rash proclamations that equated him and his policies with the violent had trapped him. His words were like doors stereotypes of the West that fascinated the public shutting him in to perform his threat to the in the age of Buffalo Bill. letter.”58 The Virginian embodies the restrained The public’s embrace of Roosevelt as a cowboy/diplomat/nation state while Trampas cowboy and an icon of the American West represents the bluff, bluster and false bravado of a received a considerable boost in 1902 with the politician or nation unable and unwilling to ensure publication of Owen Wister’s seminal western its words are backed by action. Beyond listening novel The Virginian. Dedicated to Roosevelt, the to presidential proclamations or viewing the bestselling novel of 1902, “the most widely read cartoonists’ caricatures, the American reading work of fiction in the decade of the 1900s” and public could divine insights into both Roosevelt’s “the first western novel widely accepted as frontier past and the workings of cowboy literature”55 reminded its multitude of readers that diplomacy from the pages of The Virginian. their President had once lived the life of the novel’s eponymous hero. While the novel does “And I gave him a show to change his not lack for violence (featuring a vigilante mind. I gave it to him twice. I spoke as quiet hanging, a brutal beating and the climactic as I am speaking to you now. But he stood to it. gunfight), it is not marked by a steady stream of And I expect he knows he went too far in the violent episodes. The final showdown between hearing of others to go back on his threat. He the Virginian and his foe Trampas comes at the will have to go on to the finish now.” end of five years of tension and hostility between Owen Wister, The Virginian59 the two with the Virginian all the while exhibiting the virtues of caution, restraint and prudence in the face of increasing taunts and threats from The end of Roosevelt’s presidency in 1909 Trampas. Perhaps because Roosevelt had did not signal an end to his involvement in and proofread parts of the manuscript and because commentary on American foreign policy. Wister had experienced the frontier at the same Following his much anticipated African hunting time as his friend (in Wyoming rather than safari, the former president embarked on a wide 14 WWHA Journal – December 2012 ranging European tour in 1910 which featured there is violence, an honest man must protect numerous high-profile addresses and meetings himself; and until other means of securing his with the continent’s crowned heads of state. In his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to addresses at the Sorbonne in Paris, the Guildhall persuade him to surrender his arms while the men in London and before the Nobel Committee in who are dangerous to the community retain theirs. Christiania, Norway, Roosevelt invoked some So it is with nations. Each nation must keep well aspects of his frontier past.60 As for the crowned prepared to defend itself until the establishment of heads of state, when given the opportunity to meet some form of international police power, privately with Roosevelt, they seemed most competent and willing to prevent violence as interested not in probing his views on the weighty between nations.”62 On the frontier, Roosevelt issues of the day but in and his fellow ranchmen and cowboys had to hear[ing] about my regiment, and provide for their own defense or had to resort to especially about my life in the West, vigilante justice in the absence of a governmental evidently regarding it as an opportunity authority. Roosevelt equated his safety and to acquire knowledge at firsthand and at security on the frontier with his ability to arm close range concerning the Buffalo-Bill himself and he expected the United States to and Wild-West side of American likewise provide for its own defense in a existence. Most of them had obviously sometimes dangerous international climate. read up on my writings for the occasion, An ardent proponent of preparedness in the and would appeal to me for years leading up to America’s entry into the war, enlightenment upon points which they Roosevelt recalled his western experience in could not understand… Accordingly, arguing for a robust American arms buildup: after the usual formal and perfunctory “Years ago I served as a deputy sheriff in the conversation with the new king or crown cattle country. Of course I prepared in advance prince, or whoever it was, he would, with for my job. I carried what was then the best type a little preliminary maneuvering, ask me of revolver, a .45 self-cocker. I was instructed if I would mind repeating the story I had never to use it unless it was absolutely necessary told some preceding king about this, that, to do so, and I obeyed the instructions. But if in or the other frontier hero.…61 the interest of ‘peace’ it had been proposed to arm me only with a .22 revolver, I would promptly Although he was famous as a historian, have resigned my job.”63 In 1914, Roosevelt hunter, soldier and President, it was his role as a responded to the outbreak of the Great War with a cowboy that most intrigued and enchanted his call for the formation of an international posse European hosts. Roosevelt’s frontier past allowed comitatus, in effect, a sheriff’s posse, that him to charm and entertain the courts of Europe, explicitly recalled the lawless frontier.64 Again, in adding yet another dimension to the workings of both these cases, Roosevelt reached back to his cowboy diplomacy. western law enforcement career to draw an Roosevelt leaned heavily on his Dakota years analogy between the frontier and international when debating the issue of establishing an arenas. international collective security agency (such as When Roosevelt left the Bad Lands in 1887 the eventual League of Nations) in the years he left in peace. He had made no lasting enemies surrounding the First World War. Roosevelt drew and he had not fired his weapons in anger at any on his work in forming the Little Missouri man. There were no tales of gunfights in saloons Stockmen’s Association and invoked his role as a or showdowns on the main street of Medora to deputy sheriff to lend increased weight to his calls embellish his legendary status. He had achieved for a security body that included a provision for fame in his time because of what he had done and the use of collective armed force to guarantee the what he had not done. If the community had a peace and to punish those who threatened it. monument to Roosevelt, it came in the form of the Roosevelt addressed the Nobel Prize Committee in boat thieves languishing in a jail cell. Likewise, May, 1910: “In new and wild communities where when Roosevelt left the presidency in March 1909 15 WWHA Journal – December 2012 the United States was at peace. A coincidence? Perhaps. But the man who was once dismissed as 4 Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore “that damned cowboy” knew a thing or two about Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009). how to keep the peace. 5 As Roosevelt biographer Kathleen Dalton has noted: “Too often Theodore Roosevelt has been confused with a cartoon creation, remembered more for his frenetic visual kinship with Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops than for his real personality.” Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), 9. 6 Dalton, A Strenuous Life, 97. 7 George Tindall and David Shi, America: A Narrative History, Brief 7th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 667; italics added for emphasis. 8 Brinkley, Wilderness Warrior, 244. 9 Walter Nugent, Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansionism (New York: Knopf, 2008). Roosevelt, of course, would be less than thrilled to share the cover spotlight with Thomas Jefferson. 10 Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010). 11 “Teddy Roosevelt vs. Lawrence of Arabia,” Deadliest Warrior, Spike, aired August 28, 2011. 12 Warren M. Elofson, Frontier Cattle Ranching in the Land and Times of Charlie Russell (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), 187. 13 Ibid., 72. 14 Lee Sandlin, “New Tales of the Old West,” The Wall Street Journal, Saturday-Sunday, 21-22 May 2011, C5. 15 Mark R. Ellis, Law and Order in Buffalo Bill’s Country: Legal Culture and Community on the Great Plains, 1867-1910 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 217. 16 Ibid., xiii. 17 Elmer Kelton, “True Grit,” TexasMonthly.com, July 2008, accessed February 17, 2010, http://www.texasmonthly.com. 18 Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1888; reprint, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 111. In this same work Roosevelt admits that A rare TR postcard from 1909 “a revolver is a mere foolish incumbrance [sic] for any but a (Author’s Collection) trained expert, and need never be carried.”; Ibid. 19 Wister, The Virginian, 170. Endnotes: 20 For a detailed look at exactly how much time Roosevelt spent in Dakota between 1883 and 1887 see Clay 1 Owen Wister, The Virginian: A Horseman of the S. Jenkinson, Theodore Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands: Plains (1902; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1998), An Historical Guide (Dickinson, ND: Dickinson State University, 2006), 35-36. 354. 21 2 Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 309. Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt 22 (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980); David McCullough, Ibid., 308. 23 McCullough, , 343. Mornings on Horseback (New York: Simon & Schuster, 24 Inc., 1981). Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (1913; 3 Paul Grondahl, I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political reprint, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), 113. 25 Jenkinson, Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands, 66. Education of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Free Press, 26 2004); Joshua David Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 111-112; idem, Ranch of Righteousness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Life and the Hunting Trail, 14, 114-115. Press, 2008).

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27 Carleton Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt: The on American soil and this, in turn, allowed Roosevelt to Formative Years, 1858-1886 (New York: Charles Scribner’s “[a]pply the Frontier Myth…to a new situation in which Sons, 1958), 569. Asians become figurative Apaches and the Philippines 28 Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, 24. become a symbolic equivalent” of Kentucky, Texas or 29 Lincoln A. Lang, Ranching with Roosevelt Dakota. Richard Slotkin, Nation: The Myth of (: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1926), 310. the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Interestingly, the title page of the book indicates that it is Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992), 53. authored “by a companion rancher”. 50 Wister, The Virginian, 359. 30 Ibid. 51 In Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in 31 Ibid., 311. Twentieth-Century America, Richard Slotkin writes that “From 32 Jenkinson, Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands, 90-91. 1885 to 1905...it [Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show] reached large 33 William N. Tilchin, “Theodore Roosevelt’s audiences in every major city and innumerable smaller ones throughout the United States. The period of its European triumph Discerning Worldview and Remarkable Record in Foreign coincided with the period of massive immigration to America.” Policy,” Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal XXVIII Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 87. (Spring 2007): 17. 52 Brinkley, Wilderness Warrior, 676. 34 Ibid. 53 Theodore Roosevelt to Sydney Brooks, October 17, 1910 35 Wister, The Virginian, 363. in Louis Auchincloss, ed., Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and 36 Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, 90. Speeches (New York: The Library of America, 2004), 631. 37 Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 99; italics added for 54 Theodore Roosevelt to James Ford Rhodes, November 29, emphasis. 1904 in Auchincloss, Letters and Speeches, 376-377; italics in 38 Frederick W. Marks III, Velvet on Iron: The original. 55 G. Edward White, The Eastern Establishment and the Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln, NE: University Western Experience: The West of , Theodore of Nebraska Press, 1979), 69. Interestingly, Marks, who Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (New Haven, CT: Yale University stresses Roosevelt’s cautious approach to foreign policy, Press, 1968; reprint, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1989), neglects Roosevelt’s Dakota years in making his case. 7; Kelton, “True Grit”. The novel remains in print in a multitude of 39 Putnam, Roosevelt: The Formative Years, 528. formats. 40 Roger L. Di Silvestro, Theodore Roosevelt in the 56 Wister, The Virginian, 349-350. Badlands (New York: Walker & Company, 2011), 41, 140. 57 Theodore Roosevelt, “The Instant Need; and the Ultimate 41 Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, 55. Need,” in The Foes of our Own Household, in Works of TR, XIX, 42 Ibid. 9. 58 Wister, The Virginian, 373. 43 William N. Tilchin, “Theodore Roosevelt’s 59 Ibid., 369. Discerning Worldview,” 17. 60 44 See Theodore Roosevelt, African and European Addresses Theodore Roosevelt to Whitelaw Reid, August 3, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910). 1905 in Elting E. Morison et al., eds., The Letters of 61 Theodore Roosevelt to George Otto Trevelyan, October 1, Theodore Roosevelt (henceforth referred to as Letters of TR), 1911, Letters of TR, Vol. VII, 367. 8 volumes (Cambridge, MA: Press, 62 Theodore Roosevelt, “International Peace,” in American 1951-1954), Vol. IV, 1298. Problems, in Works of TR, XVI, 309. 63 45 For example see Roosevelt to George Otto Theodore Roosevelt, “Where there is a Sword for Offense Trevelyan, May 13, 1905, Letters of TR, Vol. IV, 1174- there must be a Sword for Defense,” in Fear God and Take Your Own Part in Works of TR, XVIII, 245. 1175; Roosevelt to Lyman Abbott, January 3, 1907, Letters 64 Theodore Roosevelt, “An International Posse Comitatus,” of TR, Vol. V, 536. 46 in America and the World War, in Works of TR, XVIII, 71-73. James F. Vivian, The Romance of My Life: Theodore Roosevelt’s Speeches in Dakota (Fargo, ND: Prairie House,

Inc., 1989), 19. 47 Ibid., 22. It’s not too late… 48 Theodore Roosevelt, “Free Silver, Trusts, and the to select a WWHA membership Philippines,” in Campaigns and Controversies, in Hermann for a Christmas present. Hagedorn, ed., The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: National Edition (henceforth referred to as Works of TR), 20 volumes Membership rates are shown on (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926), XIV, 353. the contents page. 49 Theodore Roosevelt, “First Annual Message,” in State Papers as Governor and President, in Works of TR, Send dues to: XV, 112-113. Roosevelt, who rejected violence in response Herb Marsh to various foreign crises during his presidency, condoned the WWHA Treasurer use of military force in the case of the Philippines. He seemed willing to compartmentalize this departure from his P.O. Box 114 restrained diplomacy by arguing that the Filipinos’ Lincoln, NM 88338 resistance represented an insurgency against American rule

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