THE COWBOY PRESIDENT

by Michael F. Blake

  At the age of twenty-three, Theodore Roosevelt entered the political arena.

  Because Theodore was a complete unknown on the ticket, Murray quickly went to work securing endorsements to vouch for his ability. Murray obtained Joseph Choate and Elihu Root, of the Fifth Avenue population, to sing Theodore’s praises.26 “Having been nominated as a candidate for member of the Assembly for this District, I would esteem it a compliment if you honor me with your vote and personal influence on Election day,” Theodore wrote in a letter distributed to voters of the Twenty-First Assembly District.27

  That was only half of the work that needed to be done. Saloon owners were very important in getting the word out to vote for a certain candidate. Theodore’s first visit to a saloon showed his handlers he was very much his own man. Reportedly, Murray and another associate took Theodore to press the flesh in saloons within the district. One saloon owner complained to Theodore that, at $200 a year, liquor licenses were too high. If the candidate was elected, the owner expected him to treat liquor interests fairly. Theodore replied that he intended to treat all interests fairly— adding that he believed all liquor license fees should be doubled! Murray and his colleague quickly hustled their candidate out of the saloon.28 It was Theodore’s only visit to a saloon during his campaign.

  On November 5, 1881, Theodore defeated his Democratic opponent with a majority of 2,200 votes, twice the typical Republican returns. “As far as I can judge the next House will contain a rare set of scoundrels,” he wrote fellow assemblyman William O’Neill, “and we Republicans will be in such a hopeless minority that I do not see very clearly what we can accomplish, even in checking bad legislation. But at least we will do our best.”29

  The youngest member of the New York State Assembly arrived in Albany on January 2, 1882. A New York Times correspondent recounted his first meeting with the new assemblyman, noting that he had “a good, honest laugh . . . his teeth seemed to be all over his face. He was genial, emphatic, earnest, but green as grass.” Another reporter, for the New York Sun, noted that despite the cold weather, Theodore wore “an expansive smile” in place of an overcoat. However, not all were impressed with him. His high-pitched voice, glasses, and his first name (which many felt was as ridiculous as Algernon, Seymour, or Percy) added to his difficulty in being taken seriously as an elected official. “What on earth will New York send us next?” a New York Tribune reporter wailed.30

  It wasn’t only the news reporters who looked disdainfully at Theodore. His colleagues often mocked him, referring to him as “college boy,” “dude,” or “society man.” Theodore was equally critical of his brethren, based on their actions, ethics, and intelligence—or lack of them. The Democrats were quick to earn his abhorrence, noting that the chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Cities “adds a great deal of stupidity” to his position, while another politician was “either dumb or an idiot—probably both.” Nor did he spare chastising members of his own party, observing that one Republican’s intelligence was “equal to an average balloon.”31

  Assemblymen William O’Neill and Mike Costello were two men Theodore not only liked but with whom he shared similar political views. O’Neill, a Republican from upstate, was a strong admirer, as was Theodore, of Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln. Costello, an Irish Tammany Hall Democrat, was more of an independent than a politician who towed the party line. “He and I worked hand in hand with equal indifference to our local machines,” Theodore said of his association with Costello.32

  Jay Gould, one of the most reviled of the nineteenth-century “robber barons,” was known for his tactics in driving a specific market up or down at will. On September 29, 1869, he was the major influence which caused the “Black Friday” collapse of the gold market, when the premium over face value on a gold Double Eagle fell 27 percent. While he managed to make a small profit from the panic, he eventually lost it all in ensuing lawsuits. In 1882, Gould owned controlling interests in four major railroads (including Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific), as well as nearly 15 percent of all railroad tracks in the United States. He also maintained controlling interest in Western Union, which gave him bragging rights in that he could quickly learn what his competitors were doing. Having recently acquired the New York World newspaper, Gould set his sights on the elevated trains in New York City. Using his newspaper, Gould floated rumors about Manhattan Elevated, one of the major carriers. The tactic worked, ultimately driving down the company’s stock price; then, with his typical modus operandi, Gould swept in and bought controlling interest of the company. Once that was done, Manhattan Elevated’s stock price doubled, and Gould raised fares. To make certain that he would not have to pay a heavy tax burden, he used his connections in the State Assembly and Tammany Hall to amend a completely unrelated bill, inserting a clause that would remit one-third of the taxes paid by elevated lines. The amended bill would be included during the eleventh-hour end of the Assembly session, where it would easily pass in the confusion and be overlooked by the press.33

  Costello and Roosevelt made it a habit of checking bills to “find out what the authors really had in mind.” They discovered this addition, which technically made it a new bill and open to discussion. However, the “Black Horse Cavalry” moved to see that the amended proposal was quickly passed. (“The Black Horse Cavalry” was the nickname of party hacks that loyally did the bidding of the party machine.) When Costello and Theodore stepped out of the chamber, the speaker pro tem jumped into action, ordering the bill to be read and voted on. Costello quickly returned and launched into a filibuster, despite the continuing slams of the speaker’s gavel and his declarations that the assemblyman was out of order. Finally, as the sergeant at arms dragged Costello out of the chamber, Theodore rose up to continue the filibuster, which erupted into a maelstrom. Slamming his gavel and yelling “Out of order!” to no avail, the speaker declared the bill passed and sent it on to the governor. Newspapers reported the entire mess, as well as what the amended bill actually contained, unleashing a public uproar. With all the negative press and opinion the amended bill attracted, Governor Grover Cleveland refused to sign it. Theodore called the whole incident “the most openly crooked measure” during his time in the Assembly. (For his heroic actions, Mike Costello was repaid by Tammany Hall with defeat in the next election.)

  Theodore’s first book, The Naval War of 1812, was released in May of 1883. Reviews were generally positive, and his work served as a textbook in many colleges. Probably the highest praise for his book came from the Navy Department, which ordered every ship’s library to carry a copy. For nearly a century, The Naval War of 1812 stood as the definitive work in its field.

  Clark’s Tavern, located on West Twenty-Third Street, held its annual dinner for the New York Free Trade Club on May 28, 1883. As one of many speakers, Theodore spoke out against possessive tariffs in the United States, which was well received by those in attendance. One of the attendees was Henry Gorringe, a lieutenant commander in the US Navy, who had recently resigned after a dispute with the secretary of the navy. Gorringe’s biggest claim to fame was bringing the obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle from Alexandria, Egypt, to New York City in 1880.34

  Gorringe was a man always working an angle. He had tried to raise capital for a shipbuilding company, but failed. Now he was on to a new business opportunity, running a hotel and hunting lodge in the Dakota Territory. The lodge was located in the Badlands along the Little Missouri River, right near the tracks of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Gorringe sought out Theodore, and no doubt their interest in naval dominance sparked a conversation. It soon gave way to discussion of Gorringe’s new efforts in the Dakota Territory, with tales of hunting various wild game, including buffalo. The former naval officer may have been sizing up Theodore, as he did others, as a potential investor for his operation. He offered to escort him on a hunting trip.

  Theodore was hooked, and quickly made plans to go west.

  The Badlands

  I grow very fond of thi
s place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me.

  DURING A MILITARY CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SIOUX IN 1864, US ARMY brigadier general Alfred Sully described the Badlands in the eastern Dakota Territory as “hell with the fires out . . . grand, dismal and majestic.”1 French trappers who roamed the area in the 1820s and 1830s labeled it Mauvais Terres. To the Spanish it was known as Malpaís, while the Sioux called it Mako Shika. No matter the language, it all meant the same thing—the “Bad Lands.”2 (Located in the western end of North Dakota, it should not to be confused with the Badlands National Park in South Dakota.)

  It is a harsh land. Unforgiving. Blistering hot in the summer. Bone-chillingly cold in the winter, when temperatures can dive well below zero. One does not conquer this land. No human bests this environment. The most one can do is adapt to it and live with it. Theodore once described the Badlands as “so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth.”3

  No words can adequately portray this forlorn, bleak, windswept terrain, with its odd formations and colorful landscapes. Yet there is a seductive beauty to the land. “I heartily enjoy this life, with its perfect freedom . . . and there are few sensations I prefer to that of galloping over these rolling limitless prairies, rifle in hand, or winding my way among the barren, fantastic and grimly picturesque deserts of the so-called Bad Lands,” Theodore wrote to his friend Henry Cabot Lodge.4 The Badlands cast an intoxicating hold on anyone who visits, including Theodore, who felt that “the desolate, grim beauty” held a “curious fascination” for him.

  The landscape of the Badlands one visits today was millions of years in the making.

  A scant sixty-five million years ago (just after the extinction of the dinosaurs), the western half of North America began to buckle, twist, and fold to create what is now the Rocky Mountains. Sediments (such as sand, silt, and mud) were carried from the eastern slopes by ancient rivers, ultimately depositing in layers in what is now the Badlands of North Dakota. At the same time, erupting volcanoes sent out huge clouds of ash. (Many of these volcanoes were located in present-day South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, as well as elsewhere in western North America.) Carried by the wind and rivers, the ash deposited itself into standing water in present-day North Dakota. As time went on, the sediments from the mountains turned into sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone layers, while the tiers of ash transformed into bentonite clay.

  With the beginning of the Pliocene Epoch (roughly five to two and a half million years ago), natural erosion began, as rivers drifted through the wide valleys of the plains of the western Dakotas and eastern Montana. Many of these rivers changed their courses, although, at the end of the epoch (about 2 million years ago), one of these rivers existed in nearly the identical location of the current Little Missouri River.5 This era also experienced three glacier periods, the last one being 640,000 years ago. One of these massive continental ice sheets made its way from what is now Canada, reaching as far south as the North Unit boundary of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Boulders carried by that massive ice sheet still remain in one area of the park’s northern unit, ripped out by the glacier from Canadian bedrock four hundred miles north.6 Because of this ice blockage, rivers flowing north were suddenly forced into forming a new course that moved east and south. The Little Missouri River’s new path (which still moved north before being diverted eastward) was steeper, giving it a faster flow that allowed the river to carve into the land. Torrential downpours followed by dry periods made quick work of the soft sedimentary rocks and began to create the unique, colorful landscape that exists today.7

  Scientific evidence reveals that much of this area was once part of a flat, swampy area with rivers. Trees found in this area included sequoia, bald cypress, and magnolia, and their leaves and branches fell into the still waters of the swamps and eventually built up a heavy layer of vegetation called peat. Pressure from sediments overlying the peat caused it to compress, which eventually led to a chemical change that turned the peat into a soft, woody-textured coal known as lignite, the lowest, poorest grade of coal. The areas that had lignite would often catch fire and burn for years; these were known as burning coal veins.8 The majority of coal veins self-ignite, hidden from view underground, while the few visible burning veins emit smoke from the ground, accompanied by a strong sulfur odor. (An exposed burning vein will burn off any nearby trees or sagebrush.) The overlying sediments are literally baked into a natural brick known as scoria, which is much more resistant to erosion than the soft sedimentary rock.

  Two of the odder formations found within this area are called hoodoos and cannonballs. Hoodoos are composed of a soft sedimentary rock at its base capped with a harder stone (such as well-cemented sandstone, limestone, or basalt) that resists erosion. They take on a unique form when water wears away the softer underlying layer, leaving the resistant layer cap to act as an umbrella for the base. Eventually water erodes and destroys the soft layer, causing the cap to fall off.9 Cannonballs are formed by the deposits of a mineral around a core, which can form in any shape but generally take on a round appearance; hence, the name. (Visitors to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park find a concentration of cannonballs, while the South Unit has the majority of hoodoos.)

  As the centuries went on, numerous animals found the area a comfortable refuge, either on a temporary or permanent basis. Buffalo, elk, white-tailed and mule deer, pronghorns, and prairie dogs were attracted to the grasses populating the area, which provided an ample food source. The river and its small tributaries allowed cottonwood trees to thrive, offering not just another food source but also shelter from the heat and cold. The water thoroughfare served as a habitat for almost 186 species of birds that either called the area home or used it as a migration stop. Long before these creatures, dinosaurs had populated the Badlands; although numerous fossils have been uncovered, nothing compares to the 1999 discovery of a dinosaur mummy, named “Dakota” by the scientists, in the Hell Creek Formation.10 This rare find, which wasn’t officially announced until 2007, provided not only bones but also fossilized soft tissue (i.e., skin, tendons, and ligaments).

  Few humans chose to live in this area. The land is covered with bentonite clay that is hard to navigate when dry and impassable when it rains. Other than the Little Missouri River and the subsequent creeks, most water in the area, when it was found, had a strong alkaline content. Indications of humans inhabiting the western Badlands date to only 5,500 to 500 BC. It is possible humans might have inhabited the area earlier, but any supporting evidence would have been lost to erosion. The Historic Period (AD 1742–1880s) offers richer evidence that the Badlands were used, if not permanently inhabited, by humans. The Mandan and Hidatsa tribes hunted in the area, as did the Crow, Blackfeet, Gros Ventre, Chippewa, Cree, and Sioux.11 There is no record of when the first European explorers sighted the Badlands, although many believe Jean Baptiste LePage may hold that distinction. In 1804, LePage came down the Little Missouri River to meet with the Lewis and Clark Expedition at their winter camp, Fort Mandan. Historians surmise that he would have seen some, if not all, of the area. The increase in fur trapping, as well as steamboat travel, on the Missouri by the mid-1830s makes it very likely that trappers scouted and hunted in the Badlands area.

  The Northern Pacific Railroad Act of 1864 was intended to link the Great Lakes to Puget Sound of the Pacific. Construction, which was plagued by several problems, did not begin until 1870. The first significant difficulty, aside from the underestimated cost of construction, was that the proposed railroad tracks would run across land that had been given to the Sioux under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. This 1868 treaty gave a large swath of land (roughly the western portion of the state of South Dakota) to the Sioux, forbidding any non-Indians from entering the area—except the US government.

  Between the arrival of the Iron Horse and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills (including a town named Deadwood), t
he stage was set for a deadly confrontation between the tribes of the Great Plains and the US Army. Until the “Indian problem” was eliminated, the Northern Pacific Railroad could not advance safely over the contested land. Victory against the US Army at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, ultimately led to the defeat of the Great Plains tribes. (Lt. Col. George Custer and his Seventh Cavalry, heading to their destiny, passed through the Badlands, making camp five miles south of present-day Medora.) After the Little Bighorn defeat, the military launched an aggressive and unrelenting campaign known as the Great Sioux War of 1876, which eventually forced Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes onto reservations.

  Then there was the American buffalo.*

  The buffalo’s ancestors had migrated to North American from Siberia, across the Bering land bridge, more than 600,000 years ago, making their way into Canada and the United States.12 The buffalo we know today evolved from its relatives roughly 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. The majority of these herds, in what is referred to as “primitive North America” (circa AD 1500), ranged from Alberta and Saskatchewan in the north to central Texas in the South, the Rocky Mountains in the West, and the Mississippi River in the East. (Some were found as distant as California, northern Mexico, and even parts of Florida.) It is estimated that, during this primitive period, thirty million buffalo ranged across the North American continent. By 1885, the population was down to nearly a thousand.13