remember the porcupine!
Theodore (upper left) and Edith (far left, partially hidden) Roosevelt and R.C. Pruyn (upper right) at Camp Santanoni, May 1899.
remember the porcupine!
By Robert Engel
Great Camp Sagamore’s Historian
Would you rather do homework or chase porcupines?
It’s not a trick question. This same epic conundrum confronted the most powerful man in New York State, who was about to become the most powerful man in the world.
In May 1899, Gov. Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith visited their friends, Robert and Anna Pruyn, at Pruyn’s Adirondack great camp, Santanoni.
The state legislature in Albany was about to vote on the Ford Franchise Tax Bill. The law would force large businesses to pay a higher tax rate in order to ease the tax burden on ordinary New Yorkers. Roosevelt regarded it as the most important piece of reform legislation of his governorship.
Corporate owners hated the idea, and the bill’s chances in the legislature were still uncertain. Governor Roosevelt needed to make a rousing speech to help pass the bill.
It was Friday, the vote and the speech were scheduled for Monday, and Roosevelt told reporters that he was headed to Camp Santanoni for the weekend to work in peace and quiet.
Now it’s Saturday, the Roosevelts are in camp, and over there is a writing desk with a fountain pen and a blank piece of paper. Outside someone yells, “Look, in the tree, is that a porcupine?” (Well, something like that.)
The Pruyns had several other guests in camp, so peace-and-quiet wasn’t necessarily in the cards.
Less than a year before, Roosevelt had led his band of volunteer soldiers who called themselves the Rough Riders, on a valiant charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. Bullets flew and bombs burst all around. The brutal battle (hundreds died or were wounded) made Roosevelt America’s most famous and fearsome gladiator.
“Porcupine, you say? Show me!”
Governor Theodore Roosevelt “molesting” a porcupine, in the words of one of R.D. Pruyn’s granddaughters. Camp Santanoni, May 1899.
Governor Roosevelt (you understand that, right, he was the governor!) climbed a skinny hardwood tree up to bone-breaking heights in pursuit of the frightened rodent. Let’s just imagine a dozen or so of his constituents – men, women, and children – cheering from below. Anna Pruyn had the good sense to go grab her camera.
Sometime before they departed, the Roosevelts signed the camp’s guest book, a thing expected of any guest to Santanoni.
“Remember the Porcupine!” Teddy wrote below his signature, an amusing reference to the headline “Remember the Maine,” that a year earlier started the war that had brought Roosevelt to Cuba and made him famous.
Signatures of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt, Saturday, May 20, 1899, Camp Santanoni guestbook. Don’t miss the tiny notation below his signature: “(remember the porcupine!)”
That Monday, back in Albany, Roosevelt gave his speech and the Ford Franchise Tax Bill passed into law. But two days before, high in a tree, with a crowd cheering below, Teddy had his moment with the “thorny porker.”
Please don’t say that history is boring.
Learn more . . .
In what war did the Battle of San Juan Hill take place?
What’s a franchise?
What’s the story behind “Remember the Maine”?
FYI:
In just four years, 1897-1901, Roosevelt was New York City police commissioner, assistant secretary of the Navy, commander of the Rough Riders, governor of New York State, vice president of the United States, and the 26th president of the United States.
You can visit Camp Santanoni any time and sit on the exact spot on the porch where the Roosevelts sat. It’s your guess which tree Teddy climbed.
