Great Heart The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt 18

Great Heart The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt 18

This opposition overcome, Roosevelt found another obstacle in his way.

He had transferred his citizenship from Oyster Bay, where he cast his

first vote, to the fashionable Murray Hill district. He therefore was

handicapped by a “silk stocking” reputation. Immediately he went to

work to show the politicians that, while he had associated with wearers

of silk hose, he knew how to wear a slouch hat and how to get down to

a shirt-sleeves basis if by doing so he could make those with whom he

mingled feel easier. Joe Murray, Roosevelt’s first political sponsor,

was won to him by the genuine spirit of democracy he saw in the young

aspirant.

 

Murray was in need of friends just at that time. He had rebelled

against the rule of “Jake” Hess, the Republican boss of the district.

Jake had his own special candidate for the next Assemblyman from the

21st District. Murray had become the leader of the anti-Hess faction,

but had no worth-while candidate for the Legislature. He observed that

Roosevelt was popular with the crowd.

 

“Look here men,” Murray said to his adherents, “what this district

wants is a swell candidate who can go as a guest to the drawing room

and at the same time be man enough to shake hands with the butler.

Teddy Roosevelt is the one!”

 

He asked Roosevelt to become a candidate. Roosevelt refused. Instead

he suggested the names of several men; but Murray kept on persuading,

until at last he drew from Roosevelt a promise to be his candidate if

he could not secure a better one. Joe at once stopped searching.

 

“I can’t find any better nor as good!” was his verdict. The matter

ended in the nomination of the youthful-looking collegiate “Teddy,”

now thoroughly warm to the campaign. He plunged into the battle with

an intensity that was earnest of the ardor with which he went into his

later and more important political conflicts.

 

The next barrier that rose before the candidate was high license.

A trip to the saloons was said by his political sponsors to be a

necessary part of the campaign. At Valentine Young’s saloon on Sixth

Avenue, Roosevelt opened his campaign. Mr. Young was against high

license. He expressed the hope that Roosevelt was also opposed to it.

Roosevelt promptly replied that he was for it, and would advocate

it as hard as he could. The argument became hot; the saloon-keeper

made personal remarks. Then and there Roosevelt quitted the saloon

canvass. Murray and his friends were dismayed, but Roosevelt appealed

to his neighbors. The silk-stocking vote joined that of the footmen

and shopkeepers, who had become enthusiastic over the scrappy and

democratic young candidate. Roosevelt was elected and became the

youngest member of the Legislature.

 

 

ROOSEVELT AND THE GRAFTERS

 

The next obstruction that confronted young Roosevelt was the attitude

of his party associates in the Legislature. Many of these men were

in politics for purely commercial reasons. They frowned on crusaders

and tried to squelch any tendency in Roosevelt toward independence of

thought and action. His part, as they saw it, was to be merely the

smallest cog in the political machine, moving only when a man higher up

applied the power.

 

Though none of these men realized it at the time, the appearance of

this ardent young man in the Legislature marked an epoch. The sun was

beginning to set for the spoilsmen. The better elements of the state

needed a force behind which they could rally. Roosevelt was that man.

 

An elevated railroad company had been exposed in a scandal that

involved the Attorney General of the state and a judge of the Supreme

Court. The public conscience was aroused. The people grew indignant

when the legislators shelved their petitions. Roosevelt stood waiting

for his elders to act. He could not believe that, when such charges had

been preferred against one of the judiciary, his associates would seek

to dodge the issue. Convinced at last that nothing would be done unless

he acted, on April 6, 1882, he demanded from the floor that Judge

Westbrook, of Newburgh, be impeached by the Assembly. He was a David

going up against a Goliath of graft and obstruction, yet he attacked

fearlessly.

 

It took splendid moral courage for Roosevelt to take this step. Young,

idealistic and untrained in politics as he was, he could not have been

blind to the fact that he was facing consequences that would probably

be the ruin of his political career.

 

His speech was distinguished by its boldness and candor. Before he

finished, men with millions had been branded as thieves and bribers. A

judge and an attorney general were denounced in terms that startled the

public--terms that nevertheless were potent with truth.

 

The Republican leader, with huge contempt for the raw young legislator,

answered the charge patronizingly and with sneers. “I have seen,” he

said, “many reputations in the state broken down by loose charges made

in the Legislature.” He recommended to the Assembly that this reckless

young man be given time to think, by voting to refuse to act on his

loose charges. The legislators obeyed the whip. Mainly through his own

party Roosevelt went down to defeat.

 

The Roosevelt teeth came into evidence then. Roosevelt’s associates

actually heard him gritting them. In spite of the ridicule and sneers

of the previous day Roosevelt returned the next day to the charge.

 

The press interviewed him. Moved half by admiration of the courage of

this puny young chap, half by a desire to furnish amusement for their

readers, they told the public of his fight. Then, all of a sudden the

young David found himself vigorously supported. Public opinion came

to his help in no uncertain way. The state was aroused. Roosevelt

kept up the fight with renewed vigor. Assemblymen began to hear from

the folks back home. The party leaders trembled before the man they

could not “gum shoe.” The Legislature yielded. By a vote of 104 to 6

Roosevelt carried the day. The committee whitewashed the accused, but

the testimony had more than vindicated Roosevelt’s position. Debauchery

in politics had received a setback. What was worse for the corrupt

politicians, they were now at war against an adversary who was not to

stop fighting until the whole nation had been won to his ideals of

clean politics.

 

Back to Albany Roosevelt was sent as an Assemblyman in 1882 and again

in 1883. In the latter year he became minority leader of the Assembly,

which had now become Democratic. With the coming into power of Grover

Cleveland the Republicans had gone into retirement as a state force

until they could put their house in order.

 

In Roosevelt’s last two terms in the Assembly he came into close touch

with Grover Cleveland, then Governor. Representing opposite political

faiths, there was nevertheless a bond of sympathy between the two

men in their independence of thought. Cleveland grew to rely on his

young opponent even more than he did on some of the leaders of his own

party. The two fought shoulder to shoulder in behalf of civil service.

Roosevelt, after recommendations for civil service improvements had

appeared in the Governor’s message, pushed through the Legislature a

state civil service act which was almost parallel to the Federal act

which went into effect about that time.

 

Roosevelt’s next political fight came in 1884. Roosevelt was made

chairman of the state delegation to the Republican convention at

Chicago which nominated Blaine, “The Plumed Knight,” as opponent

to Cleveland in the Presidential campaign. Roosevelt, with typical

independence of thought, opposed the nomination of Blaine and placed in

nomination United States Senator George F. Edmunds.

 

Then came a crucial point in Roosevelt’s career. He had been classed as

a reformer in politics and as one that would not work with the party

organization. Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, a great personal

friend, conferred with him as to what they should do. They decided that

their proper course was to stay with their party; to endeavor by fair

means to influence its decision, but when its nominations were made to

stand by the candidates.

 

When the Blaine campaign was over Roosevelt retired to his Dakota

ranch, where he spent the next two years. He was called from his ranch

to become a candidate for Mayor of New York City. Opposed to him was

Abraham S. Hewitt. Roosevelt, because of conditions apart from his own

popularity and standing, met one of his few defeats.

 

Next followed Roosevelt’s membership in the National Civil Service

Commission under Presidents Harrison and Cleveland. Roosevelt’s six

years in Washington as Civil Service Commissioner opened up for him a

broader field than he had up to that time entered. Here he began that

friendship with public men that later was to encircle the nation.

 

Little did he expect, however, that there were coming events that would

make him an occupant of the White House. It would be wrong to say

that he never thought of such a possibility. Every American is born a

potential resident of the Executive Mansion, and Roosevelt admitted to

Henry L. Stoddard that when he was Civil Service Commissioner his heart

would beat a little faster as he walked by the White House and thought

that possibly--with emphasis on the “possibly”--he would some day

occupy it as President.

 

Then came his appointment in 1895 as president of the New York Police

Board. In 1897 he received his appointment as Assistant Secretary of

the Navy. The stirring episodes that came to him during these periods

are related elsewhere in this narrative. Out of them he emerged

Governor of the State of New York.

 

 

PLATT KEEPS HIS EYE ON ROOSEVELT

 

In 1898 Senator Platt was asked if there was any doubt as to the

renomination of Frank S. Black as Governor of New York. “Yes, there

is,” was his response. “McKinley and Congress are liable to declare war

on Spain at any moment. That war may develop a hero. Theodore Roosevelt

has just resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and is drilling

his Rough Riders in the West. He may come out of the war adorned with

such laurels as to compel his nomination.”

 

Platt was a true prophet. Roosevelt crowned with military glory, came

back from the Battle of San Juan Hill. Chauncey Depew and others

suggested to Platt that Roosevelt would be an ideal candidate for

Governor. Platt sent Lemuel Eli Quigg, known as “the Accelerator,”

to Roosevelt at Montauk Point, where he was camped with his troops.

Quigg’s mission was to sound the Colonel as to his willingness to run

for Governor.

 

Roosevelt was in a receptive mood. He accepted the Republican

nomination unconditionally, but he took pains to announce during the

campaign that on all important questions of policy and legislation he

would consult with the Republican state leader, Senator Platt. He made

it clear that he would not act on Platt’s advice if it were not in

accordance with his own ideas of what was right.

 

Roosevelt made a dramatic campaign. He made Richard Croker, the Tammany

boss, who had been pilloried by the Lexow committee, an issue. The

Rough Rider won by over 17,000 plurality.

 

 

THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO BE SHELVED

 

Now Roosevelt came to the crisis of his career. The events of the next

few years made him later President of the United States. Politicians

conspired against him, but Fate fought with him. He was indeed a “Man of Destiny.”