The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (136 page)

Platt weighed his alternatives, and chose the second, seeing it as the only way he might avoid a Democratic landslide in November. He agreed to let Quigg sound Roosevelt out, but made it clear that the Rough Rider was not his preference for the nomination. “If he becomes Governor of New York, sooner or later, with his personality, he will have to be President of the United States … I am afraid to start that thing going.”
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Q
UIGG, HOWEVER
, was not the first kingmaker to visit Roosevelt at Montauk. On Thursday, 18 August, John Jay Chapman, one of
the Independent party’s fiercest and brightest idealists, walked up Camp Wikoff’s Rough Rider Street in search of the Colonel.
²⁰

Tall, hook-nosed, flamboyantly scarfed even in the hottest weather, Chapman was a man of near-manic passions, both romantic and intellectual. As testimony to the former, he would brandish the stump of a missing left hand, which he had deliberately burned to a cinder as self-punishment during a stormy love affair.
²¹
Like Theodore Roosevelt, his friend of many years, he was well-born, Harvard-educated, and drawn equally to politics and literature (his
Emerson and Other Essays
had won the high praises of Henry James).
²²
But there the resemblance ended. Chapman could neither compromise, nor join, nor lead; he was a savage loner, fated to work outside the party, a thinker whose pure ideology was unsmirched by practical considerations. Normally Roosevelt despised such people, but Chapman, four years his junior, had such courage and charm as to be permitted the supreme familiarity of “Teddy.”
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It so happened that in August 1898 Chapman was for the first and only time in his life on the verge of real political power—if he could only persuade Roosevelt to run for Governor on an Independent ticket. The Colonel’s popularity, he reasoned, was so great as to seduce large numbers of Republican voters, and would force Boss Platt to nominate him as well, in order to keep those voters within the party. Roosevelt would thus head two tickets, followed on the one by a list of “decent, young Independents” and on the other by machine Republicans. The majority of the electorate, given such a choice, would surely prefer to send Roosevelt to Albany in virtuous company.
²⁴

It was a beautiful plan, at least in Chapman’s enthusiastic opinion. Roosevelt would be almost assured the Governorship, with all voters who were not Democrats united in his favor; the Independents would at one stroke broaden their narrow power base (at present confined largely to the Citizens’ Union and Good Government Clubs in New York City) to encompass the whole state; and most important of all, Boss Platt’s machine would be destroyed.
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Chapman was so sure of himself he allowed Roosevelt “a week to think it over.”
²⁶
The Colonel, who had everything to gain as a gubernatorial prospect by remaining silent, accepted this offer with
the equanimity of one of his favorite fictional characters, Uncle Remus’s Tar Baby.

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
Lemuel Quigg arrived.
²⁷
Sleek, suave, prematurely gray on either side of his center parting, he made a noticeable contrast to his Independent rival. Yet the language he spoke was equally sweet to Roosevelt’s ears.

Quigg “earnestly” hoped to see the Colonel nominated, “and believed that the great body of Republican voters so desired.” He and Odell were “pestering” Senator Platt to that effect, but before they pestered further they would have to have “a plain statement” as to whether or not Roosevelt wanted the nomination.
²⁸

Roosevelt said that he did. But, in view of the fact that Quigg had made no formal offer, this should not be considered a formal reply. He promised, nevertheless, that once in power he would not “make war on Mr. Platt or anybody else if war could be avoided.” As a Republican Governor, he would naturally work with the Republican machine, “in the sincere hope that there might always result harmony of opinion and purpose.” He reserved the right, however, to consult with whom he pleased, and “act finally as my own judgment and conscience dictated.”

Quigg replied that he had expected just such an answer, and would transmit it to Senator Platt.
²⁹

H
AVING THUS AUTHORIZED
two secret nomination campaigns (and given tacit approval to the manufacture of ten thousand “Our Teddy for Our Governor” buttons), Roosevelt was free to leave Camp Wikoff on 20 August for a five-day reunion with his family.
³⁰
He smilingly refused to discuss his future with reporters. “Now stop it. I will not say a word about myself, but I will talk about the regiment forever.”
³¹
As a result of this strategy he kept himself in the headlines, while avoiding all political complications. “He is playing the game of a pretty foxy man,” said a worried Democratic campaign official.
³²

His trip to Oyster Bay was carefully timed to coincide with the
Republican State Committee meeting in Manhattan. This preconvention assemblage enabled Senator Platt to weigh the relative strengths of Black, Roosevelt, and other potential candidates for the nomination. According to Quigg, the Easy Boss was impressed by reports of Roosevelt enthusiasm in Buffalo and Erie County, which traditionally acted as a pivot between Democratic New York City and the Republican remainder of the state. Informal polls of the thirty-four committeemen showed a large majority in favor of the Colonel.
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Platt was noncommittal after the meeting, but reporters were quick to infer that Roosevelt would be the party’s eventual choice.

At eight o’clock that evening, just as New Yorkers were reading the first reports of Platt’s conference, Roosevelt arrived in Oyster Bay amid such bedlam as the little village had never known in its two and a half centuries of existence. Church bells pealed, rockets shot up, cannons and musketry exploded in salute as his train pulled into the station with whistle wide open. The war hero hung out of his window waving his Rough Rider hat, grinning and glowing in the light of a celebratory bonfire. A red, white, and blue banner slung across Audrey Avenue proclaimed the words
WELCOME, COLONEL!
and fifteen hundred people yelled greetings to “Teddy.”
³⁴

When Roosevelt stepped out onto the platform he was seen to be accompanied by his wife. Edith had gone to Montauk to greet him privately beforehand, and she stood flinching now as the crowd surged forward. This coarse grabbing and grasping, these howls of the detested nickname, presaged ill for whatever hopes she may have had for a quiet return to domestic life at Sagamore Hill. Like it or not, she had to accept that Theodore was now public property. Dreadful as the prospect might have seemed to her, she braced herself for it with all her considerable strength. Smiling and outwardly calm, she followed the Rough Rider as he fought toward their waiting two-seater. Not a few admiring glances followed her. For the rest of his life Roosevelt would have to suffer a ritual greeting whenever he returned to Oyster Bay: “Teddy, how’s your ’oman?”
³⁵

H
E SPENT THE NEXT FEW DAYS
enjoying the forgotten delights of civilization: cool summer clothes, good food, the conversation of
women and children, hot water, clean sheets, green lawns, birdsong. Every night he changed into a tuxedo for dinner and joined his family and guests on the piazza overlooking Long Island Sound. Toying with a glass of Edith’s old Madeira, he gazed at the passing lights of pleasure craft and Fall River steamers, and told over and over again to all who would listen the stories of Las Guásimas and San Juan Hill.
³⁶

A particularly interested auditor was Robert Bridges, editor of
Scribner’s
. Four months before, when the Rough Riders were still organizing at San Antonio, Roosevelt had offered Bridges “first chance,” ahead of
Century
and
Atlantic
, for the publication of his war memoirs. He suggested that this “permanent historical work” should appear first as a six-part magazine series, beginning in the New Year of 1899.
³⁷
Bridges had accepted with alacrity. Now the editor was pleased to discover that Roosevelt already had the book “blocked out.” Not a line had been written, but the Colonel’s diary contained scraps of choice dialogue, and the stories he was telling on the piazza were obviously being tested for popular appeal. Bridges expressed concern that politics might delay Roosevelt’s reentry into literature, but the author was supremely confident. “Not at all—you shall have the various chapters at the time promised.”
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On the morning of 24 August, Roosevelt’s last before returning to Camp Wikoff, he was waited upon a second time by John Jay Chapman. The Independent leader, who was accompanied by Isaac Klein of the Citizens’ Union, requested an answer to his proposal of 18 August. Roosevelt, feeling his power, said he would run as a party regular or not at all. But if the Republicans did honor him with their nomination on 27 September, he would be happy to accept that of the Independents afterward as an “endorsement.” He had no objections to the Independents making a preliminary announcement of his acceptance, as long as it was accompanied by a statement of his own making clear the stipulations involved.
³⁹

This, of course, was all that Chapman and Klein wanted. They happily returned to New York to begin work on a provisional ticket. Chapman had always admired Roosevelt, in the way thinkers follow doers, but now the admiration deepened into reverence.
“I shall never forget the lustre that shone about him … my companion accused me of being in love with him, and indeed I was. I never before nor since have felt that glorious touch of hero worship.… Lo, there, it says, Behold the way! You have only to worship, trust, and support him.”
⁴⁰

Every day brought new indications that Roosevelt was the coming man of Republican politics, not only in New York State, but across the country as well. National committeemen, Senators, and representatives of far-flung party organizations urged him to run for Governor, and begged his services as a campaign speaker.
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An envelope adorned with nothing but a crude sketch of him in military uniform was delivered to Oyster Bay, along with sackfuls of other mail.
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In Chicago several Union Leaguers announced the formation of the “Roosevelt 1904 Club,” proclaiming him as the natural successor to President McKinley when that popular executive stepped down after another term. There were some who whispered that he might run, and win, against the President in 1900.
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