The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  American politics are kaleidoscopic, and long before the next five years are out, the kaleidoscope is certain to have been many times shaken and some new men to have turned up.… Now the thing to decide at the moment is whether I shall try for the Governorship again, or accept the Vice-Presidency, if offered. I have been pretty successful as Governor … There is ample work left for me to do in another term—work that will need all of my energy and capacity—in short, work well worth any man’s doing … But in the Vice-Presidency I could do nothing. I am a comparatively young man yet and I like to work. I do not like to be a figurehead. It would not entertain me to preside in the Senate … I could not do anything; and yet I would be seeing continually things I would like to do … Finally the personal element comes in. Though I am a little better off than the Sun correspondent believes, I have not sufficient means to run the social side of the Vice-Presidency as it ought to be run. I should have to live very simply, and would be always in the position of “poor man at a frolic.” … So, old man, I am going to declare decisively that I want to be Governor and do not want to be Vice President.35

  Lodge’s reaction to this flat refusal was ambiguous, while Senator Platt proved deaf to Roosevelt’s heavy hint, “Now, I should like to be Governor for another term.…”36 On 3 February, Roosevelt discovered why. The big insurance companies of New York, furious over his ouster of Payn, had “to a man” joined the franchise corporations already prevailing upon Platt to kick the Governor upstairs. This represented a combined lobbying power of approximately one billion dollars.37

  After a less-than-reverent meeting in the Amen Corner on 10 February, during which Platt cynically inquired what Roosevelt would do if the convention nominated him by unanimous vote (“I would not accept!” the Governor shot back), Roosevelt made the first public statement of his views two days later. It was both a rejection of the vice-presidential nomination and a plea for renomination as Governor. “And I am happy to say,” he concluded, to the puzzlement of many reporters, “that Senator Platt cordially acquiesces in my views in the matter.”38

  If by that he meant the dry statement of support which Platt issued a little later, the Governor showed surprising ignorance of the fine art of political equivocation.

  THE STORY OF THE next two months, culminating in the Governor’s election as a delegate-at-large to Philadelphia on 17 April, is best expressed in the incomparable image of Thomas Collier Platt: “Roosevelt might as well stand under Niagara Falls and try to spit water back as to stop his nomination by this convention.”39

  President McKinley remained studiously neutral amidst the frantic lobbying for Roosevelt against such minor candidates as Cornelius Bliss, Timothy Woodruff, and John D. Long. Mark Hanna soon emerged as the Governor’s principal opponent in Washington, swearing and thumping dramatically on his desk whenever the name Roosevelt was mentioned.40 Friends were puzzled by the violence of Hanna’s antipathy: there was something almost of terror in it. The National Chairman still clung to his massive administrative and patronage powers, augmented by the dignity of his Senate seat, but age and ill health were making him increasingly unstable. Fits of roaring, blind anger alternated with childlike querulousness; the famous warmth seemed to have faded along with the light in his eyes. The truth was that Hanna was no longer sure of his influence on McKinley. His adoration for the podgy little President was such that the slightest hint of coolness depressed him. Recently McKinley had found it necessary to withdraw somewhat from Hanna, who had a habit of trying to run the White House, and he would not even say whether or not he would allow him to remain National Chairman through the convention. Hanna promptly suffered a heart attack.41

  Roosevelt was neither involved nor particularly interested in the McKinley-Hanna relationship. But Nicholas Murray Butler’s news that neither man appeared to favor him for the Vice-Presidency left him oddly “chagrined.”42 He thought the office unsuitable for himself, but did not like to have eminent persons think him unsuitable for the office.

  Another unsettling influence was the flinty resolution of his best friend to nominate him at Philadelphia, whether he liked it or not. “The qualities that make Cabot invaluable … as a public servant also make him quite unchangeable when he has determined that a certain course is right,” Roosevelt complained to Bamie. “There is no possible use in trying to make him see the affair as I look at it, because our points of view are different. He regards me as a man with a political career.”43

  During the last week of April the Governor’s intransigence toward the nomination began to show subtle signs of change. “By the way,” he wrote suddenly to Lodge, “I did not say on February 12 that I would not under any circumstances accept the vice-presidency.” (Lodge must have been puzzled by this remark, for Roosevelt’s exact words to the press had been It is proper for me to state that under no circumstances could I or would I accept the nomination for the vice-presidency.) Then, on 26 April, he delivered himself of another public statement, which was markedly looser. “I would rather be in private life than be Vice-President. I believe I can be of more service to my country as Governor of the State of New York.”44

  He explained somewhat shamefacedly to Paul Dana of the Sun that he must leave certain avenues open “simply because if it were vital for me to help the ticket by going in, I would feel that the situation was changed.”

  Dana’s own opinion was “If they want you you had better take it.”45

  BY THE END of the legislative session on 8 May, the Governor was having such doubts he decided to visit Washington and check the vice-presidential opinions of various eminent men in the capital. These dignitaries included Senators Foraker and Chandler, Secretaries Root and Long, and President McKinley himself, who gave a dinner in Roosevelt’s honor on 11 May.46

  Accounts vary as to what Roosevelt was told and what he said in reply. Foraker remembered him asking for help in suppressing the nomination at Philadelphia, then returning next day to complain furiously that McKinley and his aides did not want him to run. “There is no reason why they should not want me, and I will not allow them to discredit me. If the Convention wants me, I shall accept.”47

  On the other hand, John D. Long (whom Roosevelt discovered typically taking a postprandial stroll) got the impression that the Governor of New York wished to remain in Albany. This may well have been wishful thinking, because Long badly wanted the nomination himself.48

  By far the best account of Roosevelt’s visit was written by Secretary of State John Hay, to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, after Roosevelt had returned north:

  Teddy has been here: have you heard of it? It was more fun than a goat. He came down with a sombre resolution thrown on his strenuous brow to let McKinley and Hanna know once and for all that he would not be Vice President, and found to his stupefaction that nobody in Washington except Platt had ever dreamed of such a thing. He did not even have a chance to launch his nolo episcopari at the Major [McKinley]. That statesman said he did not want him on the ticket—that he would be far more valuable in New York—and Root said, with his frank and murderous smile, “Of course not—you’re not fit for it.” And so he went back quite eased in his mind, but considerably bruised in his amour propre.49

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S BEHAVIOR at the Republican National Convention in June 1900, while entirely characteristic, was so puzzling as to defy logical analysis. Notwithstanding his genuine repugnance for the Vice-Presidency—it is impossible to read his private letters and not feel it palpably—he seems to have courted the nomination from the moment he stepped off the train in Philadelphia on Saturday the fifteenth. His very presence at the convention was a positive gesture. It would have been easy for him, as Governor, to prevent his nomination as a delegate-at-large, two months before; Lodge had mockingly warned him that to accept delegation was to be nominated; but he had responded that “I would be looked upon as rather a coward if I didn’t go.”50

  By this reasoning, mere token attendance would have shown courage enough. Roosevelt could
have then sought to deflate his boom by remaining as inconspicuous as possible, in order to avoid attracting the attention of delegates and reporters. But he chose to arrive in town wearing a large, soft, black, wide-rimmed hat, which stood out among Philadelphia’s countless straw boaters like a tent in a wheat-field. His fellow delegates-at-large, Senator Platt, Chairman Odell, and Chauncey Depew, noted with amusement how en route to the Hotel Walton he coveted the recognition of the crowd, and kept up a running conversation with the inevitable train of reporters.51

  Nicholas Murray Butler, who had been sent ahead with express orders to nip any draft-Roosevelt movement in the bud, remembered the galvanic effect of his entrance into the Walton’s main lobby. “He walked in … with his quick nervous stride and at once the crowd waked up. T.R.’s name was on every lip and the question as to whether or not he should be forced to take the Vice-Presidency pushed every other question into the background … All Saturday evening the delegations kept coming and it was perfectly evident to me on Sunday morning that only the most drastic steps would prevent T.R.’s nomination.”52

  The run began with the Kansas delegation, who had been reading William Allen White editorials for a year, and were anxious for the honor of being first to declare in Roosevelt’s favor. But the Governor heard they were coming, and ducked out of his suite, leaving word that he would be back “in a few minutes.” An hour later the leader of the Kansans, J. R. Burton, traced Roosevelt to Platt’s room.

  He found the Governor in the act of thumping a table and saying, “I can’t do it!” Platt was lying on the sofa, while his son Frank, Benjamin Odell, and “Smooth Ed” Lauterbach sat nearby. Nobody except Roosevelt seemed to mind Burton’s intrusion. “Colonel Roosevelt,… the delegation from the Imperial State of Kansas is waiting upstairs for you to keep your promise to see them,” said the delegate. His colleagues were prepared to forgive his discourtesy, having “the utmost admiration” for him, and were determined to place him before the convention; but if he did not meet with them at once, and choose his own nominator from among them, Burton would take charge of the nomination himself. At this, reported a bystander, Platt looked “friendly.” Odell said, “Well, that settles it.” And Roosevelt, with a melodramatic sigh, headed upstairs.53

  Next morning a committee of the still more important Pennsylvania delegation called and also expressed unanimous support for Roosevelt. The California delegation followed on; all day long, as the excitement of conscripting a popular candidate spread through the convention hotels, the flattering flood continued.54 Roosevelt greeted all comers with expressions of regret that they had ignored his wishes, but he grinned so widely that his complaints lacked somewhat in force. His “resolve” to stand firm began to weaken during the afternoon, and by nightfall it was all but swept away. At 10:30 P.M. a White House observer telephoned McKinley’s private secretary, George B. Cortelyou. “The feeling is that the thing is going pell-mell like a tidal wave. I think up to this moment Roosevelt was against it, but they have turned his head.” If Senator Mark Hanna had not been spending the weekend out of town, wrote a Tribune reporter, the Governor might have withdrawn his statements of non-acceptance there and then.55

  More calls flashed over the wires—to Haverford, Pennsylvania, where Hanna was dining with a shipping tycoon, and thence to the White House with a plea for McKinley to abandon his neutrality and come out in favor of some other candidate. About midnight a cold reply came back: “The President has no choice for Vice-President. Any of the distinguished names suggested would be satisfactory to him. The choice of the Convention will be his choice; he has no advice to give.”56

  HANNA WAS IN A rage when he returned to the Hotel Walton on Monday, 17 June. McKinley’s refusal to advise him on the choice of a running mate was a blow to his prestige, and the first deliberately hostile act of their twenty-four-year-old friendship. All things considered, this was not a good morning for Professor Nicholas Murray Butler to approach the Chairman with what can only be described as an academic piece of advice. The only way to stop the nomination going to Roosevelt, Butler lectured, was to present the convention with another candidate of equally compelling personality. “You cannot beat somebody with nobody.” Hanna responded to this epigram with an outburst of profanity, and assured Butler that his precious Governor would not be nominated. He, Hanna, simply would not permit it. When Butler asked whom the Chairman might prefer, Hanna growled something about John D. Long.57

  The Chairman’s mood worsened all morning. “Do whatever you damn please!” he bellowed in response to a routine question. “I’m through! I won’t have anything more to do with the Convention! I won’t take charge of the campaign!” Somebody tried to soothe him by pointing out that he still controlled the party. “I am not in control! McKinley won’t let me use the power of the Administration to defeat Roosevelt. He is blind, or afraid, or something!”58

  Observers wondered again at the Chairman’s strange fear of Roosevelt. Hanna had never liked the man, and his dislike had deepened into something like hatred after the fist-shaking incident at the Gridiron Club in the spring of 1898. But this terror, this premonition of a national disaster should Roosevelt be allowed to stand at McKinley’s side, was entirely new. At last Hanna, losing all self-control, blurted it out.

  “Don’t any of you realize that there’s only one life between this madman and the Presidency?”59

  MAD OR NOT, Roosevelt now posed such a serious threat to all the declared vice-presidential candidates that Hanna was forced to limp into his suite shortly before lunch and ask, once and for all, if he intended to run or not. The Governor would not say. He wondered how he could risk his political future by refusing a popular call. Hanna contemptuously replied that the Roosevelt boom had little to do with popularity. Senator Platt was simply using him as a tool. If Roosevelt really wished to show his so-called independence, he should withdraw promptly, publicly, and finally. That would effectively block any attempt to draft him.

  Roosevelt hesitated, then agreed to write a statement of withdrawal at once.60

  AN HOUR OR SO LATER, while Hanna was alerting the leaders of state delegations to the imminent announcement, Roosevelt sat at lunch with his wife, aides, and a few close friends. Henry Cabot Lodge was there, silent and embarrassed behind an enormous blue silk badge reading “FOR VICE PRESIDENT JOHN D. LONG.”61 It was his duty to wear the emblem, as a member of the Massachusetts delegation, but the irony of the slogan must have grated on the sensibilities of all present.

  Butler’s account of the luncheon implies that Roosevelt said nothing about his recent decision to issue a final statement of denial. He merely sat and listened while everybody except Lodge pressed him to do just that. Edith Roosevelt was outspoken in her insistence that the Vice-Presidency was wrong for him. Not until after Lodge had left, with a bitter “I must go back and be loyal to Long,” did the Governor allow Butler to draft a statement.

  The draft was appropriately terse and uncompromising. Edith approved it, and Butler handed it to Roosevelt. “If you will sign that paper and give it out this afternoon, you will not be nominated.”

  Roosevelt stared at the document, contorting his face, as was his habit in moments of perplexity. He thought he could “improve its phrasing,” and crossed over to the desk. Somehow the draft became a new statement entirely in his own handwriting. “Theodore, if that is all you will say, you will certainly be nominated,” said Butler, aggrieved. “You have taken out of the statement all the finality and definiteness that was in mine.”

  At four o’clock Roosevelt’s statement obstinately went forth.62 Thousands of eyes scrutinized it to the last conditional clause, and found nowhere the least hint of a refusal to accept the will of the convention. As far as staving off a draft was concerned, he might as effectively have written the single word “Yes.”

  In view of the revival of the talk of myself as a Vice-Presidential candidate, I have this to say. It is impossible too deeply to express how touched I am by the attitud
e of those delegates, who have wished me to take the nomination.… I understand the high honor and dignity of the office, an office so high and so honorable that it is well worthy of the ambition of any man in the United States. But while appreciating all this to the full, I nevertheless feel most deeply that the field of my best usefulness to the public and to the party is in New York State; and that, if the party should see fit to renominate me for Governor, I can in that position help the National ticket as in no other way. I very earnestly hope and ask that every friend of mine in this Convention respect my wish and my judgment in this matter.63

  “It’s a cinch,” chuckled one delegate. “All we have to do is go ahead and nominate him.”

  “And then four years from now—” said another delegate.

  “Quite so,” said a third.64

  CHAIRMAN HANNA GAVELED the convention to order in Exposition Hall shortly after noon on Tuesday, 19 June. As the thwacking echoes died away and the band prepared to strike up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Theodore Roosevelt made the most famous of all his delayed entrances. Marching with military purposefulness, but not too quickly, he advanced down the aisle toward the New York delegation, his jaw clenched firm against floating spectacle-ribbons, looking neither to right nor left. Fifteen thousand pairs of eyes admired his broad black hat, so irresistibly reminiscent of Cuba (“that’s an Acceptance Hat,” somebody quipped),65 and at least ten thousand pairs of hands applauded him as yells of “We Want Teddy!” swept around the auditorium. Roosevelt took fully two minutes to reach his seat; only then did he stand to attention for the beginning of the anthem. From the podium, Mark Hanna, a temporarily forgotten man, gazed down with disgust. Roosevelt was holding the Acceptance Hat over his heart.66