Dan’s Papers January 27, 2012 danshamptons.com Page 7
TR at Montauk
TR as President
The Rough Riders in Cuba
Teddy Roosevelt TR’s Montauk Summer Vacation in 1898 with Rough Riders By Dan Rattiner Probably the most famous person ever to spend the summer in the Hamptons was Teddy Roosevelt, who lived in modest circumstances in a tent in Montauk during August of 1898. That he was here was so important to the country that while he was here, he was visited by the President of the United States, William McKinley. Two years later, McKinley was running for re-election for President with Teddy Roosevelt by his side as Vice President. Six months after that, McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo by a mentally ill man with a gun and Roosevelt, at age 42, was elevated to the Presidency. Historians consider him to be one of the greatest Presidents this country has ever had. Teddy Roosevelt was born a sickly child into an upper class family that owned a townhouse in Manhattan. The family had wealth. Teddy’s father owned a company that imported and exported glass. Soon it was found Teddy had severe asthma, and the family doctor said he would need to be home schooled and warned that he never would be able to participate in sports or other events Dan Rattiner’s second memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS TOO: Further Encounters with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities, is available in hardcover wherever books are sold. The first memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS, published by Random House, is available in paperback. A third memoir, STILL IN THE HAMPTONS, will be published in May.
that required exertion or strenuous exercise. With his father’s permission, young Teddy did exactly the opposite of what the doctor told him to do. He went on camping trips, went hunting and fishing, developed an interest in animals and the natural world, actually creating a “zoo” of small animals in his parent’s home at the age of 12, and later, at Harvard, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, he was on the boxing team. Young Roosevelt ran successfully for public office directly after graduation to become New York Stats’s youngest Assemblyman. He was very outspoken and led a successful effort to seek the resignation of a corrupt judge. He was soon considered by many to be the most reform-minded politician in State government. When he was 26, however, both his mother and his young wife died on the same day. In his grief, he decided to leave New York, buy a ranch out in the Badlands of North Dakota and move there to spend the rest of his life raising cattle. After a year, however, a flood destroyed his herd and with his father’s urging, he returned to New York, remarried, built a big mansion in Oyster Bay and ran for Mayor as a candidate who was expected to lose to a popular incumbent. He did lose, but it was by a narrow margin, and with this popularity and reputation as a corruption buster, he was appointed the Police Commisioner of the City with the charge of cleaning up police corruption in that department, which was exactly what he did. In his spare time, he also wrote a history book about a topic that interested him—the ships of the U. S. Navy and their role during the War of 1812.
Perhaps because of this, in early 1897, he was appointed the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was 39 years old at this time. On February 15, 1898, the Maine, an American Warship, blew up in Havana Harbor in Cuba killing 266 American servicemen. This ship had been sent down there to try to mediate an ongoing conflict between Cuban rebels and their Spanish dictators. It was widely believed that the Spanish had blown up the ship. The Secretary of the Navy dithered and went into consultation with the Presidential Cabinet. Roosevelt, on his own authority ordered all warships in the Navy to load up with ammunition and prepare for war with Spain, which, soon enough came. Over 50,000 men volunteered to join the army and become an expeditionary force to clear the Spanish out of Cuba. These men went off by train to Florida to assemble, at which time McKinley ordered the U. S. Navy to attack the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in the Phillipines to prevent their intervention in this planned invasion. The attack in Manila Bay was a complete surprise to the Spanish. Their entire Navy was either sunk or run aground without the loss of a single American ship in that engagement. Spain was now unable to support its army in Cuba. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt resigned his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in order to put together a regiment of men to go to war in Cuba under his command. He contacted some of his friends from Harvard and some of his friends from the ranchlands in the Dakotas and he formed the 1st Cavalry Regiment, a (continued on page 10)