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Roosevelt, Hay, and Gage
T
following telegram was received as the train halted at Harrisburg:
Washington, D. C. September 16, 1901.
H. H. K,
Care Funeral Train,
Harrisburg,
Penna.
Will come to Arlington Hotel to
see you as soon as I can after your arrival.
L J. G.
I bought the evening
papers in Harrisburg, and read to Roosevelt a despatch from New
York stating that his announcement made through the Associated Press
that he would retain Hay and Gage in his cabinet had had a good
effect in Wall Street.
“I don’t care a damn about stocks
and bonds,” said Roosevelt, “but I don’t want to see them go down
the first day I am President!”
Secretaries Hay and Gage met us at
the depot and rode with Roosevelt to the White House. Later in the
evening Mr. Gage came to the Arlington Hotel, and told me he had
promised Roosevelt to remain for a while. Four months later he resigned,
and was succeeded by Leslie M. Shaw, of Iowa. [105][106]
That Secretary of State Hay was uncertain
whether he would remain in the cabinet is shown by the following
letter in William Roscoe Thayer’s admirable “Life of Hay,” written
to his intimate friend Henry Adams, September 19, 1901:
I have just received your letter
from Stockholm and shudder at the awful clairvoyance of your
last phrase about Teddy’s luck.
Well, he is here in the saddle
again. That is, he is in Canton to attend President McKinley’s
funeral, and will have his first Cabinet meeting in the White
House tomorrow. He came down from Buffalo Monday night and in
the station, without waiting an instant, told me I must stay
with him, that I could not decline or even consider. I saw,
of course, it was best for me to start off that way, and so
I said I would stay, forever, of course, for it would be worse
to say I would stay awhile, than it would be to go out at once.
I can still go at any moment he gets tired of me, or when I
collapse.
John Hay remained as
Secretary of State in Roosevelt’s cabinet until his death, July
1, 1905.
Elihu Root succeeded him July 6, 1905.
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