Joseph Bucklin Bishop
Encyclopedia
Joseph Bucklin Bishop was an American newspaper editor (1870–1905), Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission
in Washington, D.C.
and Panama
(1905–1914), and authorized biographer and close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt
. Bishop was the author of 13 books and dozens of magazine articles, and he edited the 1920 best-seller, Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children.
, today the village of Rumford
in East Providence
, Rhode Island
. He was the sixth of seven children of James Madison Bishop (1812–1864), a farmer, and Elzada Balcom Bishop (1808–1892), a homemaker. His ancestors were early New England
settlers, arriving in Salem, Massachusetts
from England
in 1639. Bridget Bishop, his great, grandmother via marriage, was the first woman executed during the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s. Shortly after Bridget’s death on June 10, 1692, the family escaped to Rehobeth, Massachusetts where many later generations of Bishops lived and worked. Joseph’s great grandfather, Phanuel Bishop, a wealthy innkeeper in Rehobeth, led a company of Minutemen that marched on the alarm of the “shot heard ‘round the world” at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts
. Phanuel Bishop was a Member of the United States Congress
from Massachusetts (1799–1807) and a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in Boston (1788).
Joseph grew up on his family farm, graduated from Pawtucket
(R.I.) High School in 1866 and from Brown University
, with a Bachelor of Arts
degree, in 1870. An early Providence Journal profile recorded that he was “a genial, companionable fellow” but “did not rank high in his class (of ‘53)... as a matter of fact he was not a brilliant scholar.” He supported himself through college by working on the editorial staff of the Providence Morning Herald, a short-lived Democratic voice in local politics.
Joseph married Harriet Louisa Hartwell (1848–1917) in the Newman Congregational Church
in Rehobeth, December 14, 1872. Raised on a New Hampshire
farm, Harriet was the fourth of five children of Samuel Estabrook Hartwell and Lucy King Hartwell. She was orphaned at age 11 and sent to live with relatives, John and Harriet Hartwell in Providence. Harriet’s great-great grandfather, Ephraim, owned a popular tavern in Concord, Massachusetts during the early days of the Revolution. Hartwell’s Tavern is now an historic landmark, situated along Concord’s Battle Road, and managed as a visitor attraction by the National Park Service
.
, edited by the legendary but eccentric Horace Greeley
. It was, arguably, the nation’s leading newspaper of the time. Bishop recorded that in spite of a shabby work environment on Printing House Square in lower Manhattan
, the Tribune’s offices “harbored a moral and intellectual spirit that I met nowhere else in my 35 years of journalistic experience.” After just six months, he was promoted to the paper’s editorial staff where he came under the tutelage of a senior editor, John Milton Hay, former assistant secretary to President Abraham Lincoln
and future United States Secretary of State
under President Theodore Roosevelt
. To supplement his meager income, Bishop moonlighted as an American correspondent for the London Daily News
. His historically-significant dispatches included reports of the assassination of President James A. Garfield and the grand opening of the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge
.
, Bishop thrived professionally under Godkin’s tutelage. He recalled his years there as “the most enjoyable and profitable” of his 35-year journalistic career. Bishop’s advocacy led to the institutionalization of the paper’s groundbreaking Voter’s Guide (to counter Tammany Hall
propaganda) and the adoption in New York
of the novel Australia
n paper ballot by which voters selected candidates for office in private, on impartial, state-produced forms. His determined investigative research helped to uncover and publicize incriminating letters by James G. Blaine
, the 1884 Republican presidential nominee. The so-called Mulligan Letters played a critical role in the candidate’s eventual defeat. Later on, Bishop helped Godkin publish a series of “biographies” of leading Tammany Hall figures that exposed their roles in crime and corruption in New York City Hall
.
president, was radically reforming the corrupt and patronage
-laden force. Roosevelt welcomed the editorial support he received from Bishop at the Evening Post, and they began a correspondence that would number more than 600 letters over 25 years. Early on, when Bishop’s loyalty was questioned, Roosevelt put his journalist friend to a stern personal test, challenging his allegiance in an eyeballs-to-eyeballs confrontation. Bishop passed without flinching, and Roosevelt declared, “What I value in you is that you give me the advice you think I need rather than the advice you think I’d like to have.”
With the retirement of Godkin in 1899 and anti-Roosevelt sentiment rising among new Evening Post managers, Bishop joined an exodus of writers to the rival New York Commercial Advertiser (later the Globe and Commercial Advertiser) where he became chief of editorial writers. Working alongside editor, John Henry Wright
, Bishop helped evolve the scrawny weakling of a paper into a dignified, readable journal – a clear alternative to the “yellow” rags of William R. Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer
. Bishop editorialized vigorously against a scheme by New York State power brokers to kick Governor Theodore Roosevelt “upstairs” to the Vice Presidency on the William McKinley
ticket. But when Roosevelt was nominated by the Republicans, Bishop fell into line, helping to strategize his New York general election campaign. When Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1901, on McKinley’s assassination, Bishop editorialized, “Nobody who has followed Theodore Roosevelt’s public career or has had the privilege of personal acquaintance with him has any doubt about his ability to fill with honor to himself and usefulness to the country the high office upon which he has entered.”
, linking the Atlantic and Pacific, and his vigorous advocacy of Roosevelt’s election as President in 1904, won him Roosevelt’s nod to become Executive Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission
in Washington, D.C. the following year. Bishop was tasked with managing the Commission’s day-to-day matters but also with ensuring public support for the canal through press agentry and by keeping the project’s official history.
Bishop’s promised $10,000 annual salary was relentlessly criticized by Roosevelt’s opponents in Congress, mostly because it was twice what each of them made. Opposition newspapers joined in the criticism. When, in the summer of 1907, escalating allegations of cronyism surrounding Bishop’s appointment threatened appropriations for Panama Canal construction, Secretary of War, William Howard Taft
, surely with Roosevelt’s quiet consent, ordered Bishop out of Washington to Panama where the partisan political heat would be less intense. “I accept your decision without reluctance,” Bishop informed Taft, “and shall go to the Isthmus, not sadly but cheerfully.” It would not be his first trip to Panama. In the fall of the previous year, Bishop had gone ahead to advance Roosevelt’s historic inspection tour, the first time a sitting President had journeyed outside the U.S.
Joseph Bucklin Bishop would, except for month-long summer breaks, remain on the isthmus for seven years, serving clandestinely at first as Theodore Roosevelt’s “eyes and ears.” He reported back on the “astonishing” progress that Army Corps of Engineers Colonel George Washington Goethals
and his team were making excavating the “big ditch” and building dams and locks. Before long, Bishop became Goethals’s trusted aide, serving as his first line of defense against workers with complaints and grievances. But Bishop’s greatest achievement in Panama would be as founding editor of The Canal Record, a weekly newspaper for the thousands of workers in Panama. His regular reports of cubic yards dug by rival work divisions, and the competitive baseball games they played created a spirit of healthy competition that lifted worker morale and productivity. The “good news” of The Canal Record also built vital public support on newspaper editorial pages back home and in the halls of the United States Congress
where annual appropriation
s required to keep the canal project moving forward.
Orphans, a philanthropic organization based in New York.
It was during Theodore Roosevelt’s hospitalization in late 1918, near the end of his life, that Bishop disclosed that he wanted to publish examples of letters TR had written to his children when they were young. Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to his Children, released in 1919, became a national best seller and made Bishop economically self-sufficient for the remainder of his life.
Shortly after Roosevelt's return from his near-death expedition to Brazil 1914 he startled Bishop by declaring, "I know what I wish you would do - write the story of my public life. You know it almost as well as I know it myself." To ensure that Bishop had the resources to accurately tell the story, TR pledged, "I will turn all my official and private correspondence over to you for your exclusive control.". Events leading to World War I
delayed the project until late 1918 when Roosevelt directed the Library of Congress
to give Bishop full access to his papers. Bishop worked resolutely on the authorized biography, as told through Roosevelt's letters, previewing the early chapters with the subject himself. It wasn't until the fall of 1920 that the work was published in two volumes. The New York Times reviewer concluded that the book "has been carried to completion with... delicate discretion, with instinctive tact and a high courage which Roosevelt would be the first to recognize.". Later, Edith Roosevelt
would tell Bishop, "I do not wish to flatter, but who else could have done it?".
when he retired to his solitary room at the University Club of New York. Sometime during the early-morning hours of the 18th, he took gravely ill. He was found dead when he did not come down to breakfast. The official cause of death was Carditis
. Following a service at the Church of the Incarnation (New York City)
Bishop's remains were cremated
, and he was laid to rest alongside his wife, Harriet, and two of his children, Alice and Hartwell, at Kensico Cemetery
in Valhalla, New York
.
. The book makes use of published and unpublished sources on Bishop's life including hundreds of letters exchanged with Roosevelt and materials from the Bishop family archives.
Isthmian Canal Commission
The Isthmian Canal Commission was an American administration commission set up to oversee the construction of the Panama Canal in the early years of American involvement. Established in 1904, it was given control of the Panama Canal Zone over which the United States exercised sovereignty...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
(1905–1914), and authorized biographer and close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
. Bishop was the author of 13 books and dozens of magazine articles, and he edited the 1920 best-seller, Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children.
Childhood, family and education
Bishop was born September 5, 1847 in Seekonk, MassachusettsSeekonk, Massachusetts
Seekonk is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, on the Massachusetts border. It was incorporated in 1812 from the western half of Rehoboth. The population was 13,722 at the 2010 census. Until 1862, the town of Seekonk also included what is now the City of East Providence, Rhode...
, today the village of Rumford
Rumford, Rhode Island
Rumford, Rhode Island, is the northern section of the city of East Providence. It borders Seekonk, Massachusetts, Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay....
in East Providence
East Providence, Rhode Island
East Providence is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 47,037 at the 2010 census, making it the fifth largest city in the state.-Geography:East Providence is located at ....
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
. He was the sixth of seven children of James Madison Bishop (1812–1864), a farmer, and Elzada Balcom Bishop (1808–1892), a homemaker. His ancestors were early New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
settlers, arriving in Salem, Massachusetts
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1639. Bridget Bishop, his great, grandmother via marriage, was the first woman executed during the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s. Shortly after Bridget’s death on June 10, 1692, the family escaped to Rehobeth, Massachusetts where many later generations of Bishops lived and worked. Joseph’s great grandfather, Phanuel Bishop, a wealthy innkeeper in Rehobeth, led a company of Minutemen that marched on the alarm of the “shot heard ‘round the world” at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
. Phanuel Bishop was a Member of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
from Massachusetts (1799–1807) and a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in Boston (1788).
Joseph grew up on his family farm, graduated from Pawtucket
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 71,148 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:...
(R.I.) High School in 1866 and from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree, in 1870. An early Providence Journal profile recorded that he was “a genial, companionable fellow” but “did not rank high in his class (of ‘53)... as a matter of fact he was not a brilliant scholar.” He supported himself through college by working on the editorial staff of the Providence Morning Herald, a short-lived Democratic voice in local politics.
Joseph married Harriet Louisa Hartwell (1848–1917) in the Newman Congregational Church
Newman Congregational Church
Newman Congregational Church is an historic church at 100 Newman Avenue in East Providence, Rhode Island.The church was built in 1810 and added to the National Historic Register in 1980.-External links:*...
in Rehobeth, December 14, 1872. Raised on a New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
farm, Harriet was the fourth of five children of Samuel Estabrook Hartwell and Lucy King Hartwell. She was orphaned at age 11 and sent to live with relatives, John and Harriet Hartwell in Providence. Harriet’s great-great grandfather, Ephraim, owned a popular tavern in Concord, Massachusetts during the early days of the Revolution. Hartwell’s Tavern is now an historic landmark, situated along Concord’s Battle Road, and managed as a visitor attraction by the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
.
Early career
At the time of his marriage, Bishop was working on the city staff of the venerable New York TribuneNew York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, edited by the legendary but eccentric Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
. It was, arguably, the nation’s leading newspaper of the time. Bishop recorded that in spite of a shabby work environment on Printing House Square in lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
, the Tribune’s offices “harbored a moral and intellectual spirit that I met nowhere else in my 35 years of journalistic experience.” After just six months, he was promoted to the paper’s editorial staff where he came under the tutelage of a senior editor, John Milton Hay, former assistant secretary to President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
and future United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
under President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
. To supplement his meager income, Bishop moonlighted as an American correspondent for the London Daily News
London Daily News
The London Daily News was a short-lived London newspaper owned by Robert Maxwell.-1987:The London Daily News was published from 24 February to 24 July 1987. It was intended to be a "24-hour" paper challenging the local dominance of the Evening Standard."For the city that never sleeps, the paper...
. His historically-significant dispatches included reports of the assassination of President James A. Garfield and the grand opening of the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
.
Mid career
In July 1883, Bishop departed the Tribune for Edwin Godkin’s New York Evening Post, “the home of absolute intellectual freedom, intellectual courage and intellectual honesty.” For more than a decade and a half, from the waning days of Reconstruction to the close of the Industrial RevolutionIndustrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, Bishop thrived professionally under Godkin’s tutelage. He recalled his years there as “the most enjoyable and profitable” of his 35-year journalistic career. Bishop’s advocacy led to the institutionalization of the paper’s groundbreaking Voter’s Guide (to counter Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
propaganda) and the adoption in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
of the novel Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n paper ballot by which voters selected candidates for office in private, on impartial, state-produced forms. His determined investigative research helped to uncover and publicize incriminating letters by James G. Blaine
James G. Blaine
James Gillespie Blaine was a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State...
, the 1884 Republican presidential nominee. The so-called Mulligan Letters played a critical role in the candidate’s eventual defeat. Later on, Bishop helped Godkin publish a series of “biographies” of leading Tammany Hall figures that exposed their roles in crime and corruption in New York City Hall
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. The building is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as...
.
Initial work with Theodore Roosevelt
Bishop’s association with Theodore Roosevelt began in the spring of 1895 when TR, as New York City Police CommissionNew York City Police Commissioner
The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department, appointed by the Mayor of New York City. Governor Theodore Roosevelt, in one of his final acts before becoming Vice President of the United States in March 1901, signed legislation replacing the Police Board...
president, was radically reforming the corrupt and patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
-laden force. Roosevelt welcomed the editorial support he received from Bishop at the Evening Post, and they began a correspondence that would number more than 600 letters over 25 years. Early on, when Bishop’s loyalty was questioned, Roosevelt put his journalist friend to a stern personal test, challenging his allegiance in an eyeballs-to-eyeballs confrontation. Bishop passed without flinching, and Roosevelt declared, “What I value in you is that you give me the advice you think I need rather than the advice you think I’d like to have.”
With the retirement of Godkin in 1899 and anti-Roosevelt sentiment rising among new Evening Post managers, Bishop joined an exodus of writers to the rival New York Commercial Advertiser (later the Globe and Commercial Advertiser) where he became chief of editorial writers. Working alongside editor, John Henry Wright
John Henry Wright
John Henry Wright was an American classical scholar, born at Urumiah, Persia. He was the son of missionary and oriental scholar Austin Hazen Wright, the brother of classical archaeologist Lucy Wright Mitchell, the husband of author Mary Tappan Wright and the father of legal scholar and utopian...
, Bishop helped evolve the scrawny weakling of a paper into a dignified, readable journal – a clear alternative to the “yellow” rags of William R. Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
. Bishop editorialized vigorously against a scheme by New York State power brokers to kick Governor Theodore Roosevelt “upstairs” to the Vice Presidency on the William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
ticket. But when Roosevelt was nominated by the Republicans, Bishop fell into line, helping to strategize his New York general election campaign. When Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1901, on McKinley’s assassination, Bishop editorialized, “Nobody who has followed Theodore Roosevelt’s public career or has had the privilege of personal acquaintance with him has any doubt about his ability to fill with honor to himself and usefulness to the country the high office upon which he has entered.”
The Panama years
Bishop’s strong editorial backing of Roosevelt’s armed support of the 1903 Panamanian revolution and the subsequent construction of the Panama CanalPanama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, linking the Atlantic and Pacific, and his vigorous advocacy of Roosevelt’s election as President in 1904, won him Roosevelt’s nod to become Executive Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission
Isthmian Canal Commission
The Isthmian Canal Commission was an American administration commission set up to oversee the construction of the Panama Canal in the early years of American involvement. Established in 1904, it was given control of the Panama Canal Zone over which the United States exercised sovereignty...
in Washington, D.C. the following year. Bishop was tasked with managing the Commission’s day-to-day matters but also with ensuring public support for the canal through press agentry and by keeping the project’s official history.
Bishop’s promised $10,000 annual salary was relentlessly criticized by Roosevelt’s opponents in Congress, mostly because it was twice what each of them made. Opposition newspapers joined in the criticism. When, in the summer of 1907, escalating allegations of cronyism surrounding Bishop’s appointment threatened appropriations for Panama Canal construction, Secretary of War, William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
, surely with Roosevelt’s quiet consent, ordered Bishop out of Washington to Panama where the partisan political heat would be less intense. “I accept your decision without reluctance,” Bishop informed Taft, “and shall go to the Isthmus, not sadly but cheerfully.” It would not be his first trip to Panama. In the fall of the previous year, Bishop had gone ahead to advance Roosevelt’s historic inspection tour, the first time a sitting President had journeyed outside the U.S.
Joseph Bucklin Bishop would, except for month-long summer breaks, remain on the isthmus for seven years, serving clandestinely at first as Theodore Roosevelt’s “eyes and ears.” He reported back on the “astonishing” progress that Army Corps of Engineers Colonel George Washington Goethals
George Washington Goethals
George Washington Goethals was a United States Army officer and civil engineer, best known for his supervision of construction and the opening of the Panama Canal...
and his team were making excavating the “big ditch” and building dams and locks. Before long, Bishop became Goethals’s trusted aide, serving as his first line of defense against workers with complaints and grievances. But Bishop’s greatest achievement in Panama would be as founding editor of The Canal Record, a weekly newspaper for the thousands of workers in Panama. His regular reports of cubic yards dug by rival work divisions, and the competitive baseball games they played created a spirit of healthy competition that lifted worker morale and productivity. The “good news” of The Canal Record also built vital public support on newspaper editorial pages back home and in the halls of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
where annual appropriation
Appropriation (law)
In law and government, appropriation is the act of setting apart something for its application to a particular usage, to the exclusion of all other uses....
s required to keep the canal project moving forward.
Legacy
Bishop departed Panama a few weeks before the official opening of the canal in August 1914 to resume his literary career in New York. His book, The Panama Gateway, a comprehensive history of the canal, won wide and favorable reviews. Bishop’s contribution to the nation’s war effort, at age 70, was in service as general manager, in charge of day-to-day administration of the American Society for the Relief of French WarFranco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
Orphans, a philanthropic organization based in New York.
It was during Theodore Roosevelt’s hospitalization in late 1918, near the end of his life, that Bishop disclosed that he wanted to publish examples of letters TR had written to his children when they were young. Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to his Children, released in 1919, became a national best seller and made Bishop economically self-sufficient for the remainder of his life.
Shortly after Roosevelt's return from his near-death expedition to Brazil 1914 he startled Bishop by declaring, "I know what I wish you would do - write the story of my public life. You know it almost as well as I know it myself." To ensure that Bishop had the resources to accurately tell the story, TR pledged, "I will turn all my official and private correspondence over to you for your exclusive control.". Events leading to World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
delayed the project until late 1918 when Roosevelt directed the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
to give Bishop full access to his papers. Bishop worked resolutely on the authorized biography, as told through Roosevelt's letters, previewing the early chapters with the subject himself. It wasn't until the fall of 1920 that the work was published in two volumes. The New York Times reviewer concluded that the book "has been carried to completion with... delicate discretion, with instinctive tact and a high courage which Roosevelt would be the first to recognize.". Later, Edith Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.-Early life:...
would tell Bishop, "I do not wish to flatter, but who else could have done it?".
Death
On December 17, 1928, 81-year-old Joseph Bucklin Bishop had finished the first four chapters of his biography of George Washington GoethalsGeorge Washington Goethals
George Washington Goethals was a United States Army officer and civil engineer, best known for his supervision of construction and the opening of the Panama Canal...
when he retired to his solitary room at the University Club of New York. Sometime during the early-morning hours of the 18th, he took gravely ill. He was found dead when he did not come down to breakfast. The official cause of death was Carditis
Carditis
Carditis is the inflammation of the heart or its surroundings.It is usually studied and treated by specifying it as:*Pericarditis is the inflammation of the pericardium*Myocarditis is the inflammation of the heart muscle...
. Following a service at the Church of the Incarnation (New York City)
Church of the Incarnation (New York City)
There are at least two churches dedicated to the Incarnation in New York City.*Incarnation Episcopal Church , the Episcopal church *Church of the Incarnation , the Roman Catholic church...
Bishop's remains were cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
, and he was laid to rest alongside his wife, Harriet, and two of his children, Alice and Hartwell, at Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads which served the city...
in Valhalla, New York
Valhalla, New York
Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
.
New biography on Bishop in 2011
A new book on Joseph Bucklin Bishop and his quarter-century friendship with Theodore Roosevelt will be published in fall 2011. "The Lion and the Journalist," was authored by Bishop's great-great nephew, Chip Bishop of Cape CodCape Cod
Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...
. The book makes use of published and unpublished sources on Bishop's life including hundreds of letters exchanged with Roosevelt and materials from the Bishop family archives.
Further reading
- Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, The Panama Gateway 1913
- Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time 1920
- Bishop, Joseph Bucklin (ed), Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children 1919
- Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, Notes and Anecdotes of Many Years 1925
- Bishop, Joseph Bucklin and Bishop, Farnham, Goethals: Genius of the Panama Canal 1930
- Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
- Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex (2003)
- Morris, Edmund. Colonel Roosevelt (2010)
External links
- The Panama Gateway by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 1913, Charles Scribner and Sons, Online Edition by Google Books.
- http://www.eclipse.co.uk/~sl5763/panama.htm Article on the Panama Canal by Eclipse International IT Services
- http://www.canalmuseum.com/ Panama Canal Museum
- http://www.panamarailroad.org/history2.html The Panama Canal Railroad - Article References Joseph Bucklin Bishop's book, The Panama Gateway