JACKSON HENSEN, the harried senior personal assistant to the president, entered the Oval Office with a bloodred leather folder under his arm. He took one look at the president and dropped the folder. The morning’s correspondence scattered all over the carpet—telegrams and official greetings from the king of England, the shah of Persia, and the Japanese ambassador, letters from congressmen, ordinary citizens, and all manner of federal bureaucrats.
“Har-de-har-har!” The president was laughing and singing. Also, he was dancing a jig. He was waving a golden Western Union telegram in the air as he capered in a circle behind his desk.
“Is anything the matter, sir?” Jackson Hensen asked.
“Does it look like there’s anything the matter, Hensen?”
“Well, sir, I’ve never actually seen you dancing, except at state dinners. Never at your desk.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever been happy enough to dance at my desk,” Roosevelt said. “Read this.” He thrust the telegram at Hensen and collapsed onto a sofa, out of breath, but still chuckling and congratulating himself.
Hensen scanned the telegram. It was stamped 11:50 p.m. of the previous night, signed CROSS AND CORBETT, and originated from a telegraph station in McComb, Mississippi. The report described in detail events that had occurred during the previous several days—lynchings, Klan meetings, the attack of the White Raiders, the gun battle, the arrest of three Raiders on charges of first-degree murder.
It was this last piece of information that so delighted the president.
“There it is!” Roosevelt shouted. “White men charged for killing black men, right down there in the heart of Dixie. Now let Du Bois and that Wells-Barnett woman try to tell me I have ignored the Negro problem!”
Hensen’s eyes came up from the telegram. “It is excellent news, sir.”
“Worth dancing about, Hensen?”
“Well, sir… certainly.”
For a moment Jackson Hensen feared that President Roosevelt was going to make him dance.
“Do you know why I am fortunate enough to receive this most excellent news, Mr. Hensen?”
“Why is that, sir?”
Roosevelt peered around the sofa. “Where’d you go, Hensen?”
“I’m here, sir. Picking up the mail.”
“Never mind that, Hensen. Get your pad, will you? I gave Margaret the afternoon off. I want to send my congratulations to Abraham Cross and Ben Corbett. What shall it be, then, a letter or a wire?”
Hensen took a little notebook and pencil from his vest pocket.
“Those men must have thought I’d forgotten all about them.” He laughed, a big booming Roosevelt laugh. “I think I showed great wisdom not to respond to their first report, but to let them draw their own conclusions as to what should be done.”
“Yes, sir, it most certainly was wise of you.” Hensen was often amazed at the depth and breadth of the president’s self-regard. He licked the point of his pencil. Roosevelt perched on the edge of his desk, mindful of the fine figure he cut as he dictated his message of congratulations.
“What a magnificent ending to this project!” the president exclaimed.