The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  Tall, hook-nosed, flamboyantly scarfed even in the hottest weather, Chapman was a man of near-manic passions, both romantic and intellectual. As testimony to the former, he would brandish the stump of a missing left hand, which he had deliberately burned to a cinder as self-punishment during a stormy love affair.21 Like Theodore Roosevelt, his friend of many years, he was well-born, Harvard-educated, and drawn equally to politics and literature (his Emerson and Other Essays had won the high praises of Henry James).22 But there the resemblance ended. Chapman could neither compromise, nor join, nor lead; he was a savage loner, fated to work outside the party, a thinker whose pure ideology was unsmirched by practical considerations. Normally Roosevelt despised such people, but Chapman, four years his junior, had such courage and charm as to be permitted the supreme familiarity of “Teddy.”23

  It so happened that in August 1898 Chapman was for the first and only time in his life on the verge of real political power—if he could only persuade Roosevelt to run for Governor on an Independent ticket. The Colonel’s popularity, he reasoned, was so great as to seduce large numbers of Republican voters, and would force Boss Platt to nominate him as well, in order to keep those voters within the party. Roosevelt would thus head two tickets, followed on the one by a list of “decent, young Independents” and on the other by machine Republicans. The majority of the electorate, given such a choice, would surely prefer to send Roosevelt to Albany in virtuous company.24

  It was a beautiful plan, at least in Chapman’s enthusiastic opinion. Roosevelt would be almost assured the Governorship, with all voters who were not Democrats united in his favor; the Independents would at one stroke broaden their narrow power base (at present confined largely to the Citizens’ Union and Good Government Clubs in New York City) to encompass the whole state; and most important of all, Boss Platt’s machine would be destroyed.25

  Chapman was so sure of himself he allowed Roosevelt “a week to think it over.”26 The Colonel, who had everything to gain as a gubernatorial prospect by remaining silent, accepted this offer with the equanimity of one of his favorite fictional characters, Uncle Remus’s Tar Baby.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Lemuel Quigg arrived.27 Sleek, suave, prematurely gray on either side of his center parting, he made a noticeable contrast to his Independent rival. Yet the language he spoke was equally sweet to Roosevelt’s ears.

  Quigg “earnestly” hoped to see the Colonel nominated, “and believed that the great body of Republican voters so desired.” He and Odell were “pestering” Senator Platt to that effect, but before they pestered further they would have to have “a plain statement” as to whether or not Roosevelt wanted the nomination.28

  Roosevelt said that he did. But, in view of the fact that Quigg had made no formal offer, this should not be considered a formal reply. He promised, nevertheless, that once in power he would not “make war on Mr. Platt or anybody else if war could be avoided.” As a Republican Governor, he would naturally work with the Republican machine, “in the sincere hope that there might always result harmony of opinion and purpose.” He reserved the right, however, to consult with whom he pleased, and “act finally as my own judgment and conscience dictated.”

  Quigg replied that he had expected just such an answer, and would transmit it to Senator Platt.29

  HAVING THUS AUTHORIZED two secret nomination campaigns (and given tacit approval to the manufacture of ten thousand “Our Teddy for Our Governor” buttons), Roosevelt was free to leave Camp Wikoff on 20 August for a five-day reunion with his family.30 He smilingly refused to discuss his future with reporters. “Now stop it. I will not say a word about myself, but I will talk about the regiment forever.”31 As a result of this strategy he kept himself in the headlines, while avoiding all political complications. “He is playing the game of a pretty foxy man,” said a worried Democratic campaign official.32

  His trip to Oyster Bay was carefully timed to coincide with the Republican State Committee meeting in Manhattan. This preconvention assemblage enabled Senator Platt to weigh the relative strengths of Black, Roosevelt, and other potential candidates for the nomination. According to Quigg, the Easy Boss was impressed by reports of Roosevelt enthusiasm in Buffalo and Erie County, which traditionally acted as a pivot between Democratic New York City and the Republican remainder of the state. Informal polls of the thirty-four committeemen showed a large majority in favor of the Colonel.33 Platt was noncommittal after the meeting, but reporters were quick to infer that Roosevelt would be the party’s eventual choice.

  At eight o’clock that evening, just as New Yorkers were reading the first reports of Platt’s conference, Roosevelt arrived in Oyster Bay amid such bedlam as the little village had never known in its two and a half centuries of existence. Church bells pealed, rockets shot up, cannons and musketry exploded in salute as his train pulled into the station with whistle wide open. The war hero hung out of his window waving his Rough Rider hat, grinning and glowing in the light of a celebratory bonfire. A red, white, and blue banner slung across Audrey Avenue proclaimed the words WELCOME, COLONEL! and fifteen hundred people yelled greetings to “Teddy.”34

  When Roosevelt stepped out onto the platform he was seen to be accompanied by his wife. Edith had gone to Montauk to greet him privately beforehand, and she stood flinching now as the crowd surged forward. This coarse grabbing and grasping, these howls of the detested nickname, presaged ill for whatever hopes she may have had for a quiet return to domestic life at Sagamore Hill. Like it or not, she had to accept that Theodore was now public property. Dreadful as the prospect might have seemed to her, she braced herself for it with all her considerable strength. Smiling and outwardly calm, she followed the Rough Rider as he fought toward their waiting two-seater. Not a few admiring glances followed her. For the rest of his life Roosevelt would have to suffer a ritual greeting whenever he returned to Oyster Bay: “Teddy, how’s your ’oman?”35

  HE SPENT THE NEXT FEW DAYS enjoying the forgotten delights of civilization: cool summer clothes, good food, the conversation of women and children, hot water, clean sheets, green lawns, birdsong. Every night he changed into a tuxedo for dinner and joined his family and guests on the piazza overlooking Long Island Sound. Toying with a glass of Edith’s old Madeira, he gazed at the passing lights of pleasure craft and Fall River steamers, and told over and over again to all who would listen the stories of Las Guásimas and San Juan Hill.36

  A particularly interested auditor was Robert Bridges, editor of Scribner’s. Four months before, when the Rough Riders were still organizing at San Antonio, Roosevelt had offered Bridges “first chance,” ahead of Century and Atlantic, for the publication of his war memoirs. He suggested that this “permanent historical work” should appear first as a six-part magazine series, beginning in the New Year of 1899.37 Bridges had accepted with alacrity. Now the editor was pleased to discover that Roosevelt already had the book “blocked out.” Not a line had been written, but the Colonel’s diary contained scraps of choice dialogue, and the stories he was telling on the piazza were obviously being tested for popular appeal. Bridges expressed concern that politics might delay Roosevelt’s reentry into literature, but the author was supremely confident. “Not at all—you shall have the various chapters at the time promised.”38

  On the morning of 24 August, Roosevelt’s last before returning to Camp Wikoff, he was waited upon a second time by John Jay Chapman. The Independent leader, who was accompanied by Isaac Klein of the Citizens’ Union, requested an answer to his proposal of 18 August. Roosevelt, feeling his power, said he would run as a party regular or not at all. But if the Republicans did honor him with their nomination on 27 September, he would be happy to accept that of the Independents afterward as an “endorsement.” He had no objections to the Independents making a preliminary announcement of his acceptance, as long as it was accompanied by a statement of his own making clear the stipulations involved.39

  This, of course, was all that Chapman and Klein wanted. They happily returned to Ne
w York to begin work on a provisional ticket. Chapman had always admired Roosevelt, in the way thinkers follow doers, but now the admiration deepened into reverence. “I shall never forget the lustre that shone about him … my companion accused me of being in love with him, and indeed I was. I never before nor since have felt that glorious touch of hero worship.… Lo, there, it says, Behold the way! You have only to worship, trust, and support him.”40

  Every day brought new indications that Roosevelt was the coming man of Republican politics, not only in New York State, but across the country as well. National committeemen, Senators, and representatives of far-flung party organizations urged him to run for Governor, and begged his services as a campaign speaker.41 An envelope adorned with nothing but a crude sketch of him in military uniform was delivered to Oyster Bay, along with sackfuls of other mail.42 In Chicago several Union Leaguers announced the formation of the “Roosevelt 1904 Club,” proclaiming him as the natural successor to President McKinley when that popular executive stepped down after another term. There were some who whispered that he might run, and win, against the President in 1900.43

  Roosevelt, perhaps remembering his too-rapid boom in the New York mayoralty campaign, announced that he would return to Montauk twelve hours early, on 25 August. He was still an Army officer, not a politician, and “I feel that my place is with the boys.”44

  There followed a week of silence and secrecy while the Colonel nursed his regiment back to health and strength, and Boss Platt’s pollsters sounded out opinions on Roosevelt v. Black. One of these pollsters was Isaac Hunt, the gangling reformer of Roosevelt’s Assembly days. He reported that only one Republican delegate in three would vote for Black. “Ike,” said Platt, “I have sent men all over this state; your report and theirs correspond.”45

  On 1 September, the Easy Boss allowed the first news leaks indicating that he personally favored Roosevelt’s nomination. E. L. Godkin of the Post chortled over the prospect of two such ill-matched bedfellows coyly climbing into their pajamas. “The humorous possibilities of such a situation are infinite.”46

  Chapman and Klein hurried to Montauk for reassurances that Roosevelt would not “take our nomination and then later throw us down by withdrawing from the ticket.” The Colonel’s response appears to have been guarded, yet positive enough for Chapman to write on Sunday, 4 September: “We expect to put Roosevelt in the field [soon] at the head of a straight Independent ticket.”47

  ON THE SAME DAY at Camp Wikoff there occurred a symbolic incident highly pleasing, no doubt, to the Roosevelt 1904 Club. President McKinley arrived at Montauk railroad station on a mission of thanks to Shafter’s victorious army. As he settled into his carriage with Secretary Alger, he caught sight of a mounted man grinning at him some twenty yards away. “Why, there’s Colonel Roosevelt,” exclaimed McKinley, and called out, “Colonel! I’m glad to see you!”

  Secretary Alger manifestly was not, but this did not prevent the President from making an extraordinary public gesture. He jumped out of the carriage and walked toward Roosevelt, who simultaneously tumbled off his horse with the ease of a cowboy. In the words of one observer:

  The President held out his hand; Col. Roosevelt struggled to pull off his right glove. He yanked at it desperately and finally inserted the ends of his fingers in his teeth and gave a mighty tug. Off came the glove and a beatific smile came over the Colonel’s face as he grasped the President’s hand. The crowd which had watched the performance tittered audibly. Nothing more cordial than the greeting between the President and Col. Roosevelt could be imagined. The President just grinned all over.

  “Col. Roosevelt,” he said, “I’m glad indeed to see you looking so well.”

  Before McKinley reentered the carriage Roosevelt made him promise to visit “my boys.”48

  THE COLONEL CONTINUED to juggle, expertly but dangerously, with the two balls tossed him by Chapman and Quigg. When, on 10 September, the former publicly praised Roosevelt as one “who in his person represents independence and reform,” Roosevelt himself announced, by proxy, that he was “a Republican in the broadest sense of the word.” He confirmed for the first time that he would accept, but not seek, nomination by his regular party colleagues. Any subsequent nomination by the Independents would of course be “most flattering and gratifying.”49

  To make his position doubly clear, at least to himself, he wrote two letters on 12 September, one to Quigg defining the conditions on which he would accept nomination, the other to the Citizens’ Union saying that a new statement that he was still available as an Independent candidate was “all right.” The warmth and length of the first letter (thirty-six lines) compared with the curt brevity (two lines) of the second left no doubt as to where his true hopes and sympathies lay.50 However neither recipient could make this comparison at the time, and both continued to work for Roosevelt’s nomination.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Tuesday, 13 September, was a poignant one for Roosevelt. Demobilization work was complete, and the Rough Riders prepared to muster out, troop by troop. Although the regiment’s life had been short—a mere 133 days from formation to dissolution—its rise had been meteoric, leaving an incandescent glow in the hearts of its nine hundred surviving members. Civilian life seemed a dull, even dismal prospect to those who had clerkships and ranch jobs and law school to return to. Yet the glory had to come to an end. At one o’clock bugles rang through the grassy streets of Camp Wikoff, summoning the Rough Riders to their last assembly.51

  Roosevelt, writing in his tent, was surprised to hear his men lining up outside. He had not expected the mustering out to begin until a little later in the afternoon. But now a group of deferential troopers ducked in out of the sunshine and requested his attendance at a short open-air ceremony.

  Emerging, the Colonel found his entire regiment arranged in a square on the plain, around a table shrouded with a lumpy blanket. Nine hundred arms snapped in salute as he stood with brown face flushing. He looked around him and saw tears starting in many eyes; his own dimmed too.52 Then Private Murphy of M Troop stepped forward and announced in a choking voice that the 1st Volunteer Cavalry wished to present their commanding officer with “a very slight token of admiration, love, and esteem.” Murphy struggled to summarize the “glorious deeds accomplished and hardships endured” by the Rough Riders under Roosevelt, while the sound of sobbing grew louder on all sides of the square. “In conclusion allow me to say that one and all, from the highest to the lowest … will carry back to their hearths a pleasant remembrance of all your acts, for they have always been of the kindest.”53

  The blanket was whipped away to disclose a bronze bronco-buster, sculpted by Frederic Remington. From thumping hooves to insolently waving sombrero, it was the solid remembrance of a sight seen thousands of times in camp at San Antonio and Tampa, again in Cuba when there were native horses to be rustled, and yet again in Wikoff for the benefit of visitors and envious infantrymen. Roosevelt was so overcome he could only step forward and pat the bronco’s coldly gleaming mane.54 He found his voice with difficulty, forcing the words out:

  Officers and men, I really do not know what to say. Nothing could possibly happen that would touch and please me as this has … I would have been most deeply touched if the officers had given me this testimonial, but coming from you, my men, I appreciate it tenfold. It comes to me from you who shared the hardships of the campaign with me, who gave me a piece of your hardtack when I had none, and who gave me your blankets when I had none to lie upon. To have such a gift come from this peculiarly American regiment touches me more than I can say. This is something I shall hand down to my children, and I shall value it more than the weapons I carried through the campaign.55

  “Three cheers for the next Governor of New York,” yelled a voice.

  “Wish we could vote for him,” came the answering shout.

  Roosevelt asked the men to come forward and shake his hand. “I want to say goodbye to each one of you in person.”

  Company ranks were fo
rmed, and the Rough Riders began to pass by their Colonel in single file. Many cried openly as they walked away.56 “He was the only man I ever came in contact with,” confessed one private, “that when bidding farewell, I felt a handshake was but poor expression. I wanted to hug him.”57 Roosevelt had a compliment, joke, recognition, or a ready identification for every man. As he shook the slender fingers of Ivy Leaguers, the rough paws of Idaho lumberjacks, the heavy dark hands of Indian cowpunchers, Roosevelt doubtless reflected, for the umpteenth time, what a microcosm of America this regiment was—or, to use the World’s metaphor, what “an elaborate photograph of the character of its founder.”58 Here were game, bristling Micah Jenkins, “on whom danger acted like wine”; Ben Daniels of Dodge City, with half an ear bitten off; languid Woodbury Kane, looking somehow elegant in battle-stained khaki; poker-faced Pollock the Pawnee, smiling for the first and only time in the history of the regiment; and Rockpicker Smith, who had stood up in the trenches outside Santiago and bombarded “them —— Spaniels” with stones. Here, too, were dozens of troopers whom Roosevelt knew only by their contradictory nicknames: “Metropolitan Bill” the frontiersman, “Nigger” the near-albino, “Pork Chop” the Jew, jocular “Weeping Dutchman,” foul-mouthed “Prayerful James,” and “Rubber Shoe Andy,” the noisiest scout in Cuba.59

  After the last tearful good-bye and promise of everlasting comradeship, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders marched off to be paid $77 apiece and discharged. By early evening the first of them were trooping into New York with wild cowboy yells. Within twenty-four hours the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry was dissolved. “So all things pass away,” Roosevelt sighed to his old friend Jacob Riis. “But they were beautiful days.”60