The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  A small boy named Thomas Beer happened to be standing in Grand Army Plaza as the parade came round the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and began its descent of the avenue. When Beer wrote the concluding pages of The Mauve Decade a quarter of a century later, Roosevelt rode in his impressionistic memory as a figure of strength and promise, great yet uncorrupted by the “disease of greatness,” looming head and shoulders above the fin de siècle pageantry all around him:

  A bright dust of confetti, endless snakes of tinted paper began to float from hotels that watched the street … Why, you could see everything from here! … Brass of parading bandsmen and columns wheeled, turning at the red house to the south. Balconies and windows showered down confetti, and roses were blown. The very generous dropped bottles of champagne … The little admiral was a blue and gold blot in a carriage. The President, and the plump senator from Ohio, and all these great were tiny images of black and flesh in the buff shells of carriages in a whirling rain of paper ribbons, flowers, and flakes of the incessant confetti blown everlastingly, twinkling from the high blue of the sky. How they roared! Theodore Roosevelt! The increasing yell came from up the street. A dark horse showed and slowly paced until it turned where now the gilded general stares down the silly city. A blue streamer, infinitely descending from above, curled all around his coat and he shook it from the hat that he kept lifting. Theodore Roosevelt! The figure on its charger passed, and a roar went plunging before him while the bands shocked ears and drunken soldiers struggled out of line, and these dead great, remembered with a grin, went filing by.110

  And then, on 21 November 1899, Vice-President Hobart died.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Man of Destiny

  Round and round the house they go

  Weaving slow

  Magic circles to encumber

  And imprison in their ring

  Olaf the King

  As he helpless lies in slumber.

  THE PASSING OF Garret Augustus Hobart had several immediate political effects. One was to strengthen Henry Cabot Lodge’s strange conviction that Roosevelt should run with McKinley in 1900, in the hope of succeeding him in 1904. He was adamant: “I have thought it over a great deal and I am sure I am right.”1 Most people, including Roosevelt, were puzzled by this attitude. Henry Adams interpreted it cynically. “You may well believe,” he wrote Mrs. Cameron, “that Teddy’s presidential aspirations are not altogether to Cabot’s taste, and that the chapter now opening there, may have its dark adjectives.”2

  Roosevelt’s own reaction, now that he was firmly back in office at Albany, was that the Vice-Presidency was “about the last thing for which I would care.”3 When Lodge first mentioned the idea it had admittedly seemed attractive. He loved Washington, loved the largeness of its politics in contrast to Albany’s “parochial affairs.” At that time, too, Platt had been meditating revenge over his sponsorship of the Ford Franchise Tax Bill, and Roosevelt had begun to feel insecure as Governor. But things seemed to be changing for the better. On 11 December 1899, Roosevelt wrote Lodge: “Platt told me definitely that of course he was for me for renomination—that everybody was.”4

  “Don’t any of you realize there’s only one life between this madman and the Presidency?”

  Governor Theodore Roosevelt at the time of his election to the Vice-Presidency. (Illustration 28.1)

  But everybody was not. Even as Platt made his assurances to Roosevelt, representatives of the franchise corporations were urging that the Governor be forced out of Albany and onto the national ticket.5 They had heard rumors that Roosevelt was plotting further “altruistic” legislation, to do with the limitation of trusts and the preservation of the state’s natural resources. Clearly, if the man were permitted to serve another term, he would destroy the economy of New York State.

  Senator Platt became sympathetic to these arguments when he saw the proofs of Roosevelt’s Annual Message for 1900.6 Here was provocative language about the need for “increasing a more rigorous control” of public utility companies that had acquired wealth “by means which are utterly inconsistent with the highest laws of morality.” The state should be given power to inspect and examine thoroughly “all the workings of great corporations”—where necessary publishing its findings in the newspapers.7

  Here, too, were suggestions that New York’s “defective” lumbering laws should be changed so as to prohibit the dumping of wood-dyes, sawdust, and other industrial products “in any amount whatsoever” into Adirondack streams. There were pleas for the protection of birds, “especially song birds,” and eccentric remarks like “a live deer in the woods will attract to the neighborhood ten times the money that could be obtained for the deer’s dead carcass.” In addition Roosevelt recommended that the liability of management for labor accidents should be increased, and he had harsh things to say about Republican corruption in last year’s “canal steal.”8

  The message was, in short, alarmingly radical to a man of Platt’s conservative temperament. Even so, he would be inclined to tolerate it (in the knowledge that his lieutenants in the Legislature would not) were Roosevelt not also contemplating the dismissal of Superintendent of Insurance Louis F. Payn. This official, an aging, rattoothed defender of corrupt businessmen, had once been described by Elihu Root as “a stench in the nostrils of the people of the State of New York.”9

  The Governor was entitled to plenty of animosity toward him, since Payn, a Black supporter, had been responsible for the publication of his embarrassing tax affidavit during the campaign of 1898.10 There had been little opportunity for revenge during 1899, for Payn’s three-year-term appointment was not due to expire until January 1900. But Roosevelt had been marshaling evidence against him for months. He found that the Superintendent had “intimate and secret money-making relations” with New York’s biggest insurance companies. Moreover, in the matter of appointments, Payn “represented the straitest sect of the old-time spoils politician.” While the evidence was not enough to warrant criminal prosecution, it at least justified the Governor’s decision to displace him.11

  The problem was that the big insurance companies wished Payn reappointed. So, in consequence, did Senator Platt, and so did a majority of the Senate. This practically guaranteed Payn tenure, because until the Senate confirmed Roosevelt’s choice of a successor, the superintendent would remain in office under the state constitution.12

  Roosevelt tried to mollify the Easy Boss by suggesting Francis J. Hendricks as a replacement. Hendricks was the very man Platt had ordered him to appoint as Superintendent of Public Works, back in the fall of 1898. The Senator, as was his wont, listened impassively and said nothing, but when Roosevelt offered the job directly, Hendricks declined “for business reasons.”13 The inference was he had been told not to accept.

  Payn, meanwhile, declared his determination to stay, at a press conference on 12 December. “No one has ever charged that I have not performed my duties successfully,” he exclaimed in aggrieved tones.14 During the next couple of weeks the relative positions of Governor and Boss hardened on the issue. “Platt does not want me to fight Payn and feels pretty bitterly about it,” Roosevelt told Lodge on 29 December. More ominously, Platt had stopped making promises to protect him from the Vice-Presidency. He now merely quoted other people’s opinions that “it would not be a wise move … personally.” Then, as Albany filled up for the New Year’s opening of the Legislature, Roosevelt heard that Platt was telling intimates “that I would undoubtedly have to accept the Vice-Presidency; that events were shaping themselves so that this was inevitable.”15

  ROOSEVELT’S SECOND Annual Message was greeted by most Republican newspapers as “statesmanlike” in its attitude to trusts (thanks to judicious modification of the original text by Elihu Root).16 Strangely, the conservation section, with revolutionary pleas for a “system of forestry gradually developed and conducted along scientific principles,” passed largely unnoticed. Here the Governor was reflecting the views of another expert adviser—Gifford Pinc
hot, Chief Forester of the United States. Tall, lithe, dreamy-eyed, irresistibly attractive to women, the thirty-four-year-old Pinchot had for years been Roosevelt’s main source of ecological information. His theory that “controlled, conservative lumbering” of state and national forests would improve not only the economy, but the forests themselves was enthusiastically pro-pounded in the gubernatorial message.17 Roosevelt also hinted that a bill to scrap the present five-man Forest, Fish, and Game Board and replace it with a single, progressive commissioner would be forthcoming early in the session.

  The Governor disclaimed any personal responsibility for the measure, but its opponents, headed by Senator Platt, were quick to note that it had been prepared by the Boone & Crockett Club, and that both Pinchot and the proposed commissioner, W. Austin Wadsworth, were members of that Rooseveltian organization.18

  WITHIN A FEW DAYS of his message Roosevelt received word that Judge Charles T. Saxton, another “independent organization man of the best type,” was willing to accept the post of Superintendent of Insurance, providing Senator Platt and Charles Odell could be persuaded to forsake Payn. Roosevelt was optimistic. “While I did not intend to make an ugly fight unless they forced me to it, yet if they do force me the fight shall be had.”19

  UNEXPECTED AMMUNITION fell into his hands on 11 January 1900, when a stockholder of the State Trust Company of New York, one of Payn’s strongest backers, came to Albany with evidence calculated to embarrass the superintendent and liquidate the company. According to the stockholder’s figures, Payn had received $435,000 in loans based on “various unsaleable industrial securities of uncertain and doubtful value, together with what purports to be a certified bank check for $100,000.” He petitioned for an immediate investigation of State Trust’s books by the Superintendent of Banking, Frederick D. Kilburn.20

  Roosevelt, showing his usual disregard for niceties of protocol in an emergency, ignored Kilburn and ordered Adjutant General Andrews to conduct the investigation within twenty-four hours. “I had to act at once,” he explained to a doubtful Supreme Court Justice.21 The unspoken implication was that Kilburn, a holdover from the Black Administration, might be rather less willing than Andrews to involve the Superintendent of Insurance in a major scandal.

  Andrews had his report ready the next day, 13 January. Although it betrayed signs of hasty and superficial analysis, there was enough evidence of Laocoön-like entanglements between the directors of State Trust and Louis F. Payn for Roosevelt to proceed well-armed to a “bloody breakfast” with Senator Platt. “When I go to war,” the Governor confided to a friend, “I try to arrange it so that all the shooting is not on one side.”22

  THE BREAKFAST, which was also attended by Chairman Odell (parchment-pale, glowering and watchful, secretly ambitious to supplant Platt as boss of the party), took place on Saturday, 20 January.23 It proved to be less of a war than a series of brief preparatory skirmishes. Roosevelt insisted that Payn must be replaced. Platt insisted that Payn would stay. The Governor was sure that Judge Saxton would be an acceptable substitute. The Boss was equally sure he would not. Retreating slightly, Roosevelt produced his usual list of names, “most of whom are straight organization Republicans … who would administer the office in a perfectly clean and businesslike manner.” Platt waved the list aside with loathing, but allowed Odell to pocket it. Then Roosevelt delivered his ultimatum: the organization had until Tuesday, 23 January, to approve one of the names. If no word was received by then, he would pick his own candidate and send the nomination in as soon as the Legislature opened for business on Wednesday morning.24 Thanks to the Payn scandal, he felt quite confident there would be enough votes in the Senate to ratify his choice.

  Platt’s response was to make a public announcement shortly afterward that he believed Roosevelt “ought to take the Vice-Presidency both for National and State reasons.”25

  Judge Saxton gracefully withdrew his conditional acceptance of the nomination, and suggested the Governor again approach Francis J. Hendricks. Roosevelt did so, but had yet to receive a reply when he encountered Platt on the afternoon of the twenty-third. The Senator still refused to consider any other Superintendent of Insurance but Payn, and threatened “war to the knife” if Roosevelt tried to oust him. With only hours to go before his self-imposed deadline expired, the Governor threw caution to the winds. He politely informed Platt that he would send in Hendricks’s name in the morning without fail—a massive bluff, considering that Hendricks had not yet given him formal permission to do so.26

  A little later in the day Odell asked for a final, prewar conference with the Governor. Roosevelt said he could be found at the Union League Club that evening.

  If he hoped that Odell would arrive with conciliatory messages, he was soon disillusioned. Platt, he was told, “would under no circumstances yield.” If Roosevelt insisted on opposing him, his “reputation would be destroyed,” and there would be “a lamentable smash-up” from which he would never recover politically. At this, the Governor got up to go, saying there was nothing to be gained from further talk.

  ODELL (impassive and inscrutable) You have made up your mind?

  ROOSEVELT I have.

  ODELL You know it means your ruin?

  ROOSEVELT (walking to the door) Well, we will see about that.

  ODELL You understand, the fight will begin tomorrow and will be carried on to the bitter end.

  ROOSEVELT Yes. (At the door.) Good night.

  ODELL (as door opens) Hold on! We accept. Send in Hendricks. The Senator … will make no further opposition.

  Recollecting this dialogue in his Autobiography, Roosevelt commented, “I never saw a bluff carried more resolutely to the final limit.”27 It is not certain whether by this he meant Odell’s or his own.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Wednesday, Hendricks telephoned acceptance, and on Friday afternoon Roosevelt joyfully released news of the nomination to the press. Privately, to his old Assembly colleague Henry L. Sprague, he wrote: “I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.’ ”28

  IN THIS CASE, the Big Stick took him as far as the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Although the proceedings there did not open until 19 June 1900, Theodore Roosevelt’s trajectory toward the vice-presidential nomination began to accelerate from the moment the New York State Senate confirmed Hendricks as Superintendent of Insurance on 31 January. The very next morning a mysteriously planted article appeared in the Sun saying that “representatives of the Republican National Committee” had visited Roosevelt in Albany and urged him to consider acceptance of the nomination. Another mysterious article in the same paper, date-lined from Washington, reported that many of the most influential Republicans in the capital, “including probably a majority of Senators and Representatives,” believed him to be “the logical candidate of the party for Vice-President.”29

  It was not difficult for Roosevelt to guess which persons might have provided the Sun with this information. “I need not speak of the confidence I have in you and Lodge,” the Governor wrote plaintively to Platt that morning, “yet I can’t help feeling more and more that the Vice-Presidency is not an office in which I could do anything.…”30 Unfortunately, as he well knew, the newspaper articles were for the most part accurate. He had indeed been visited in Albany by a national committeeman from Wisconsin, who told him that “most of the Western friends of McKinley” thought his name would strengthen the ticket, and that he would be nominated “substantially without opposition” if he agreed to run. The committeeman added that he would be “extremely lucky” to get through 1900 without alienating either the organization men or the Independents forever, and that “it would be tempting Providence to try for two terms.”31

  It was also true that there was a growing vice-presidential boom for the Governor in Washington. Lodge had intensified his efforts to swing the nomination for Roosevelt, to the extent of going to the White House and asking McKinley point-blank for the chair
manship of the convention. The President, taken aback, agreed at once. Lodge also got the impression that McKinley was “perfectly content” to have Roosevelt on the ticket.32 But then McKinley also seemed to be perfectly content with everything.

  Lodge’s own correspondence with Roosevelt dangled a tempting bait, conditional on his acceptance of the nomination: the chance to become the first Governor-General of the Philippines. He informed his friend, with what truth one cannot tell, that McKinley would be favorable to the appointment, once the current native insurrection against U.S. rule was crushed.33 That might take another year or two, during which time Roosevelt, as Vice-President, would remain close to McKinley’s elbow, and be available for instant nomination whenever the insurgent general, Emilio Aguinaldo, surrendered.

  It so happened that no job, short of the Presidency itself, so appealed to Roosevelt. Convinced as he might be that Cuba deserved its freedom from Spanish rule, he was equally convinced that the Philippines needed the benison of an American colonial administration. “I … feel sure that we can ultimately help our brethren so far forward on the path of self-government and orderly liberty that that beautiful archipelago shall become a center of civilization for all eastern Asia and the islands round about.…”34

  However, this bright vision was, he sensed, altogether too remote to pursue by the devious route Lodge recommended. Pressed to give his friend a decision on the Vice-Presidency, he wrote on 2 February: “With the utmost reluctance I have come to a conclusion that is against your judgment.” Then, with recourse to his favorite metaphor: