The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (36 page)

He even opposed a bill which sought to abolish the private manufacture of cigars in immigrant tenements—an abuse which turned slummy apartments into even slummier “factories.” But in this case Roosevelt proved he was not inflexible: a tour of some of the tenements involved revealed such horrors of dirt and overcrowding that he promptly came out in favor of the measure. “As a matter of practical common sense,” he afterward wrote, “I could not conscientiously vote for the continuation of the conditions which I saw.”
⁹⁷

It should be understood that Roosevelt’s attitude toward labor in 1882 was not unusual for a man of his class. Enlightened as he may have been on various outdated aspects of the American dream, he adhered to the classic credo that every citizen is master of his fate.
⁹⁸
His own fate had been an opulent one, in contrast to that of the average tenement-dweller, but he did not think this unfair. After all, his ancestors had worked their way up from a pig-farm in Old Manhattan.

T
HE
J
UDICIARY
C
OMMITTEE
did not conclude its investigation of Westbrook and Ward until 30 May, only days before the session of 1882 came to an end. Although the committee’s reports were not due to be made public until noon on 31 May, rumors began to circulate in the small hours of the morning that the majority was prepared to recommend impeachment. Roosevelt and Hunt took a straw poll of their colleagues around
3:00 A.M.
, which indicated that the Assembly would accept this recommendation; yet even at so late an hour, “mysterious influences” were working against them. There was a frantic burst of last-minute bribery, and three pivotal members of the committee agreed to withdraw their signatures from the majority report, to the tune of $2,500 each.
⁹⁹
Thus in the nine hours preceding the committee’s reports to the House, its majority for impeachment was changed to a majority against. The chairman
conceded that Judge Westbrook had occasionally been “indiscreet and unwise,” but said that he was merely guilty of “excessive zeal” in trying to save the Manhattan Elevated from destruction.
¹⁰⁰

During the reading of this report, Roosevelt was seen writhing with impotent rage.
¹⁰¹
At the first opportunity he jumped to his feet and urged the House to vote nay. He kept his temper well in check, speaking slowly and clearly in a trembling voice, but his choice of words was vituperative. “You cannot by your votes clear the Judge … you cannot cleanse the leper. Beware lest you taint yourself with his leprosy!”
¹⁰²

He lost control of himself only once in the ensuing debate, when a speaker referred to him as “the reputed father” of the Westbrook Resolution. “Does the gentleman mean to say,” Roosevelt yelled, “that the resolution is a bastard?”
¹⁰³
His anger was to no avail, and the House accepted the committee’s findings by a vote of 77 to 35.
¹⁰⁴

Two days later, on 2 June, what
The New York Times
called “the most corrupt Assembly since the days of Boss Tweed”
¹⁰⁵
went out of existence. Roosevelt took a rueful farewell of Isaac Hunt, Billy O’Neil, and his other legislative friends, and caught the
7:00 P.M
. train to New York, where Alice had already preceded him. Interviewed at Grand Central, he agreed that the session had been a bad one for the Republican party. “There seem to have been no
leaders,”
he said thoughtfully.
¹⁰⁶

Early next morning he and Alice joined the other Roosevelts on the blossoming shores of Oyster Bay.

R
EVIEWING THE SESSION AT LEISURE
that summer (if a schedule including ninety-one games of tennis in a single day can be described as leisurely),
¹⁰⁷
Roosevelt had little to regret, and much to look forward to. True, Westbrook and Ward had slipped through his fingers at the last moment, but their venality had been exposed, and his political reputation made. Republican newspapers were loud in his praise, and the one national magazine,
Harper’s Weekly
, had congratulated him on “public service worthy of high commendation.”
¹⁰⁸
Less than two years out of college, still five months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, he was already a powerful man,
knowing more about New York State politics, in expert opinion, than 90 percent of his fellow Assemblymen. A testimonial dinner in his honor was scheduled at Delmonico’s; his renomination in the fall was certain, and his reelection probable. Already there were rumors that his name might be put up for party leader.
¹⁰⁹
Should the Republicans win a clear majority in the House, that would automatically put him in line for Speaker.

These were pleasant thoughts for a young man to dwell on in hot, lazy weather, as the sun burned his body hickory-brown, and Alice, a vision of white lace and ribbons, snoozed gracefully in the stern of his rowboat, a volume of Swinburne in her lap.

“All huddled close to the glowing youth in their midst.”
Alice, Corinne, and Bamie Roosevelt, about 1882
. (
Illustration 6.2
)

O
N
N
EW
Y
EAR’S
D
AY, 1883
, Isaac Hunt stood up at the Republican Assembly caucus in Albany and offered the name of Theodore Roosevelt for Speaker.
¹
The nomination was approved by acclamation, and Roosevelt could congratulate himself on a political ascent without parallel in American history.
²
To use his own phrase, “I rose like a rocket.”
³
A year ago he had been “that damn dude”; now, reelected by a record two-to-one majority, he was his party’s choice for the most prestigious office in New York State, other than that of Governor. Yet he was still the youngest man in the Legislature.
⁴
Already, in scattered corners of the country, his name was being dropped by political prophets. In Brooklyn, the columnist William C. Hudson reportedly wrote that he was destined for “the upper regions of politics.” In Iowa, Roosevelt was hailed as “the rising hope and chosen leader of a new generation.” At Cornell University, the eminent Dr. Andrew D. White stopped a history lecture to remark, “Young gentlemen, some of you will enter public life. I call your attention to Theodore Roosevelt, now in our Legislature. He is on the right road to success … If any man of his age was
ever pointed straight at the Presidency, that man is Theodore Roosevelt.”
⁵

“If Teddy says it’s all right, it
is
all right.”
(Clockwise) Theodore Roosevelt, Walter Howe, George Spinney, Isaac Hunt,
and William O’Neil
. (
Illustration 7.1
)

Such predictions were, of course, as farfetched as they were far-flung. Roosevelt dismissed even his nomination for Speaker as “complimentary.”
⁶
He knew he had no chance of winning. The last state election had been a general disaster for his party. Democrats had captured not only the Assembly, but the Senate and Governorship too. This landslide, in the nation’s most powerful legislature, was seen as an omen that the White House, occupied by Republicans since the Civil War, might fall to the opposition in 1884.

The result of the Speakership contest on 2 January emphasized just how much Republican strength in the Assembly had eroded. Voting along party lines, members gave Chapin (D) 84 votes, Roosevelt (R) 41. “I do not see clearly what we can accomplish, even in checking bad legislation,” Roosevelt told Billy O’Neil. Still, he had to admit that the title of party leader was preferable to some of the names he had been called in the last session.
⁷

There was another future President in Albany that January, and a more likely one, in serious opinion, than the foppish young New Yorker. Two years before, Grover Cleveland had been an obscure upstate lawyer, fortyish, unmarried, Democratic, remarkable only for his ability to work thirty-six hours at a stretch without fatigue. Then, in quick succession, he had served eighteen scandal-free months as Mayor of Buffalo, been nominated for Governor, and been elected to that office with the biggest plurality in the history of New York State. The message of the vote was clear: people wanted clean politicians in Albany, irrespective of party. All this made Roosevelt anxious to see “the Big One,” as he was known,
⁸
in the flesh.

There was plenty of flesh to see. Cleveland, at forty-five, was a man of formidable size, weighing well over three hundred pounds.
⁹
Although he moved with surprising grace, his bulk, once wheezily settled on a chair, seemed as unlikely to budge as a sack of cement. Interviewers were reassured by the stillness of the massive head, the steady gaze, the spread of immaculate suiting. The Governor was invariably patient and courteous; his first official announcement had been that his door was open to all comers. Yet the slightest appeal to
favor, as opposed to justice, would cause the dark eyes to narrow, and evoke a menacing rumble from somewhere behind the walrus mustache: “I don’t know that I understand you.”
¹⁰
Should a foolhardy petitioner blunder on, the sack of cement would suddenly heave and sway, and a ponderous fist crash down on the nearest surface, signifying that the interview was over. Often as not, the nearest surface happened to be Cleveland’s arthritic knee. On such occasions everybody in his vicinity scattered.
¹¹