America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (4 page)

Teddy’s mother, on the other hand, was not a Roosevelt by birth.  In fact, she was a polar opposite. Though born in Hartford, Connecticut, Martha “Mittie” Bulloch grew up in Savannah, Georgia, on a slave-owning plantation.  Bulloch's relatives were among the elite in Georgia and were of mostly Scotch-Irish descent, with some Huguenot and English ancestry as well.  Much like the Roosevelts, the Bulloch family had a long history of influence in Georgia politics, and a number of Teddy’s relatives on his mother’s side fought with or aided the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Chapter 2: Early Political Career and Ranching

New York Assemblyman

Law school had left Roosevelt uninspired; in many respects, he thought the law did not pursue justice, but was itself unjust. During his brief time in law school, however, Roosevelt flowered into a Republican activist. Thus, in 1881, Roosevelt dropped out of Columbia Law to pursue a seat in the New York Assembly. 

Although one might think Roosevelt’s entry into politics would be helped by his family background, it was actually not made easier by his family prominence.  He quickly discovered that local political institutions were controlled by “low” members of society and were not considered fitting for a gentleman, but Teddy was a versatile person and quickly made friends with local leaders.

Roosevelt first decided upon a seat in the New York State Assembly.  Representing Oyster Bay, Roosevelt won his seat overwhelming, garnering almost twice as many votes as his Democratic opponent.  He won reelection three times, rising through the ranks to serve as Minority Leader during his final year in office.

Assemblyman Roosevelt

His time in the legislature proved that Roosevelt was both a hard worker and a flexible partisan.  He became closest friends with a representative from the Adirondacks, and tended to favor representatives from New York's more rural districts.  Roosevelt's biggest enemies in office were those who represented the Irish Democratic political machine in New York's Tammany Hall. By the late 19
^th
century, political machines were fueled by rising immigration rates, with the influx of Irish immigrants in New York City helping propel the notorious Tammany Hall.  A generation later, Teddy’s distant cousin Franklin would engage in heated political battles with the Tammany machine, sometimes to his own detriment. 

Tammany Hall in 1915

Among his most important actions as a legislator was his involvement in the national Republican Convention in 1884.  There, he opposed the eventual Republican nominee, former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine, but he refused to join some of the “Mugwump” Republicans who bolted the GOP ticket in favor of Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland.  Roosevelt was a dutiful Republican, quietly swallowing his pride and supporting Blaine despite his reservations.  Still, Roosevelt was not severely disappointed when Blaine lost the election in the fall.

Marriage and Tragedy

In 1880, Roosevelt married a woman named Alice Hathaway Lee, who he had actively courted for over a year. Teddy married 19 year old Alice on his 22
^nd
birthday, and the young couple was smitten, with Teddy writing in his diary the day before announcing the engagement that he could now "hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose".  Fittingly, Alice was a Boston banking heiress from a very wealthy family.

Alice

The couple had one child, Alice Lee Roosevelt.  Sadly, however, Roosevelt's wife died shortly after the daughter's birth on February 14, 1884, 4 years to the day they had announced their engagement.  On the very same day, in the very same house, Theodore's mother died of typhoid. Roosevelt would simply write in his diary, “The light has gone out of my life.”

It was a tragic and terrible day for the young adult Roosevelt.  He felt he was not capable of caring for his infant daughter, named Alice after his wife, so he left the baby to the care of his sister, Anna.  The daughter Alice, while mostly removed from Theodore's life, would come back in a big way during Roosevelt's Presidency and life thereafter.  Her odd and often reckless lifestyle came to fascinate the American media, much to Roosevelt's chagrin.

Roosevelt would later write, "Only if you've been to the lowest valley can you know how great it is to be on the highest mountain top", a quote that would later infamously make its way into Richard Nixon’s resignation speech. But at the time, understandably, Roosevelt felt a piece of his life had dimmed.  He decided to leave New York and politics behind; besides, he had always believed politics was a career unsuitable to maintaining a livelihood.  With his love for the country over the city at the forefront of his mind, Roosevelt decided to leave the big city, and the West was the perfect place to do it.

North Dakota

Having made up his mind to pursue life outside of the city, Roosevelt set out for North Dakota.  He did not, however, make a total break with life in New York. As he was preparing to leave, he also began constructing a large home in Oyster Bay that he could return to.

Roosevelt chartered two ranches in the then-Dakota Territory: the Chimney Butte and the Elhorn.  The former aristocrat Assemblyman from midtown Manhattan was now a self-avowed cowboy.  His existence would depend on ranching cattle, not corralling votes for legislation.

Teddy in 1885

Life in the Wild West was no less wild for Roosevelt than for anyone else.  He served as Deputy Sheriff of the northern part of his country under Sheriff “Hell Roaring” Bill Jones.  His relationship with the Sheriff and all other members of his tiny frontier society were thoroughly democratic.  This was, of course, in stark contrast to the rigorously classist Victorian society of New York City.  Although Roosevelt was the Sheriff's inferior in law enforcement, Jones nonetheless worked as a cattle hand on Roosevelt's ranch. 

Roosevelt's time in the Dakotas proved to be a very formidable one in his political development.  Having grown up among wealth and privilege, Roosevelt could have easily continued to isolate and alienate himself from mainstream American society.  Moving West, however, gave him the opportunity to leave his roots behind and befriend a class of Americans he otherwise would never have known. Roosevelt tried to inform his fellow Easterners of life on the frontier by authoring a few books on subjects related to the West, including
Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail
and
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman
.  In the former, Roosevelt discussed life on the ranch in the Dakota Territory, and in the latter, he described the different kinds of animals he encountered and hunted on the Great Plains. Teddy’s accounts of his hunting expeditions and success as a cattle rancher naturally became popular descriptions of the frontier when their author became more celebrated himself.

Return to New York and Second Marriage

Although Roosevelt wrote about his success on the ranch, his time in the Dakotas was abruptly ended during the winter of 1886-1887, a particularly severe one for the center of the country.  His entire cattle herd was wiped out by the cold, and he was forced to give up on his life as a rancher. Teddy thus returned East to the home he had constructed in Oyster Bay called Sagamore Hill, which remained Teddy’s house until his death. 

Sagamore Hill

With his return to New York, Roosevelt rushed right back into politics by running for Mayor of New York City.  His campaign advertised Roosevelt as a “cowboy from the Dakotas,” which evidently didn't sell in America's largest city. He lost the race, badly, coming in third.

Regardless of the political setback, Roosevelt's personal life improved considerably in 1886.  In 1884, he had gotten reacquainted with a woman named Edith Carow, who was his childhood neighbor. Ironically, Edith had been a guest at Teddy’s and Alice’s wedding reception years earlier. Upon his return to New York, the two quickly began dating and went to London in late 1886 after the mayoral election. The couple got married overseas and toured Europe for 15 weeks on their honeymoon.  They would eventually have five children.