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5 1 The Birth of a Friendship One evening in late-June 1897, Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood met at a stag party in Washington. Their paths may or may not have crossed before—they were both visible men on the Washington scene—but this was the first time they took real notice of each other. In their own ways, they were both important men. Roosevelt, as the assistant secretary of the Navy, far outranked Wood, who was only a captain in the Army Medical Corps. But Wood was no ordinary medical officer; he was the personal physician to President William McKinley. As such, he was the man who presumably had the president’s ear. Despite the disparity in their ranks, therefore, no gap in status stood between them. For some mysterious reason—call it chemistry—Roosevelt and Wood bonded instantly. At the end of the evening’s event, therefore, they decided to walk home together. The distances were not great and the weather pleasant . As they talked, they discovered that they shared personal characteristics. Both were highly ambitious, and both were dedicated to physical strength and vitality. Roosevelt was impressed by Wood’s manliness. Tall and muscular, he walked at an extremely fast pace, easily outdistancing Roosevelt, who had taken pride in the speed with which he could cover the streets of New York as police commissioner. Roosevelt was also aware of Wood’s distinguished record in battle against the Apache chieftain Geronimo ten years earlier. In light of Roosevelt’s mind-set, it is not surprising that he, though two years older, developed something of a hero worship for Wood. Aside from personal compatibility, however, the two men thought alike regarding the burning issue of the day: the current Caribbean crisis. There the Cubans, who had suffered under Spanish rule for about three centuries, had finally risen in rebellion. The recently appointed Spanish governor, Valeriano 6 Teddy Roosevelt and Leonard Wood Weyler, had just established a set of concentration camps, and it was estimated that three hundred thousand rebels were incarcerated in these closed-off areas. It was reported that as many as one hundred thousand had died.1 The question was, what role should the United States play? The public at that time was divided on the issue. Most Americans were probably inclined to a hands-off policy. Some, however, were now beginning to feel that the United States had an obligation for a military intervention. Goaded on by two newspaper magnates, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, the issue was becoming a topic of intense discussion. It is not surprising that Roosevelt and Wood viewed this situation alike, because both were ardent expansionists whose imperialist ambitions reached even beyond the Cuban situation. Both, for example, were foreseeing an occupation of the Hawaiian Islands far beyond the elimination of Spain from all the Caribbean. The construction of a canal across Central America to join the Atlantic and Pacific was still in the future. By the time the two men reached their respective destinations, an association , both an alliance and a friendship, had been born. 1. David F. Trask, The War with Spain in 1898, 9. ...

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