The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (53 page)
Read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Online
Authors: Edmund Morris
“Niggers,” growls one Arthur lieutenant, “come higher at this convention than any since the war.”
69
10:00 A.M.
, T
UESDAY
, 3 J
UNE
.
Warm, radiant spring weather.
70
The lake “velvety-violet,” the trees along Michigan Avenue dense with new leaves. Atop the arched glass roof of Exposition Hall, a hundred flags flutter and snap. Ten thousand people mill excitedly about: spectator tickets are selling at $40 each.
71
Inside the hall, an immense, luminous space, so bright with red, white, and blue bunting that at first it sends a tiny stab of pain into the eyes. An acre or more of light cane chairs, banked up row upon row like the seats of a Roman amphitheater. Parterres, galleries, even the high, wide-open windows are already packed with human flesh. Somewhere a band is playing Gilbert and Sullivan. In the
distance, at the focal point of the hall, the chairman’s podium is a pyramid of flags and flowers. In front of it hangs a portrait of the assassinated Garfield, replacing the traditional martyr’s image of Lincoln.
72
George William Curtis enters on Theodore Roosevelt’s arm, at the head of the New York delegation. He is gloomily pleased to note Lincoln’s absence. “Those weary eyes … are not to see the work that is to be done here,” he grunts.
73
After thirty-six hours of intensive lobbying, the Edmunds men know that they have little chance of preventing the nomination of James G. Blaine. For all his shabby past, for all his two previous failures to capture the nomination, and for all his sincere protestations that the Presidency is not for him, the “Plumed Knight” has an inexplicable hold upon both party and public. The mere sight of his boozy, silver-bearded features in a train window is enough to make women weep with adoration, and men vow to God that they will never vote for any other Republican. These same features are now ubiquitous on badges and banners and transparencies all over Chicago—and all over Exposition Hall, as the delegates stream in.
The Independents have one slender hope of averting a Blaine landslide. Late yesterday the news reached them that the Republican National Committee had designated Powell Clayton, a flagrant supporter of Blaine, to be temporary chairman of the convention. Working through the night, Roosevelt and Lodge have built up enough opposition, among Arthur men as well as their own delegates, to defeat Clayton and elect, instead, John R. Lynch, an honorable black Congressman from Mississippi. Should this opposition hold through today’s balloting, the convention will at least be assured of neutral guidance from the Chair.
74
At twenty minutes past noon the enormous building is at last full. The band plays “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and the convention is rapped to order. A chaplain drones the opening prayer. The first item on the agenda is the election of a chairman, and Powell Clayton’s name is duly announced. Then, in pin-drop silence, the skinny figure of Henry Cabot Lodge stands up. His grating voice fills the hall. “I move you, Mr. Chairman, to substitute the name of the Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi.”
75
There is a buzz of indignation. Members of the Old Guard protest Lodge’s motion. For forty years, roars one delegate, the party has automatically endorsed the National Committee’s choice for convention chairman; to suggest somebody else is an act of rank disloyalty. Finally Roosevelt has a chance to rise in support of his friend. Leaping onto a chair and squashing down his wayward spectacles, he begins to speak—with such obvious effort that his body shakes.
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Mr. Chairman, it has been said by the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania that it is without precedent to reverse the action of the National Committee … there are, as I understand it, but two delegates to this convention who have seats on the National Committee; and I hold it to be derogatory to our honor, to our capacity for self-government, to say that we must accept the nomination of a presiding officer by another body …
It is now, Mr. Chairman, less than a quarter of a century since, in this city, the great Republican party organized for victory and nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who broke the fetters of the slaves and rent them asunder forever. It is a fitting thing for us to choose to preside over this convention one of that race whose right to sit within these walls is due to the blood and the treasure so lavishly spent by the founders of the Republican party.
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This brief speech, interrupted six times by applause, is his only attempt at oratory during the convention. It is praised as “neat and effective,” “blunt and manly.” But the significance of the fact that Roosevelt, in his maiden speech before a national audience, has sought to elevate a black man will not be fully appreciated for many years.
78
Lynch is elected by 424 votes to Clayton’s 384, a narrow but dramatic victory. Roosevelt, bobbing up and down nervously, accepts congratulations from all over the floor. Judge Joseph Foraker of Ohio is seen engaging him in long and friendly discourse. “I found Mr. Roosevelt to be a young man of rather peculiar qualities,” Foraker notes later. “He is a little bit young, and on that
account has not quite so much discretion as he will have after a while.”
79
At midnight Roosevelt is still strenuously “booming” for Edmunds. His estimates of the Senator’s strength are noticeably larger than anybody else’s.
80
W
EDNESDAY,
4
JUNE
.
A dreary, drizzly day. Routine business in Exposition Hall does not disguise the fact that more and more delegates are pledging themselves to Blaine. The Independents cannot hide their weariness and disillusionment. Only Roosevelt, says the
New York Sun
, is still “bubbling with martial ardor” as he dashes to and fro on behalf of his candidate.
81
All day long, through the evening session, and on into the early hours of Thursday morning, he continues his hopeless battle. He has long since realized that ninety Edmunds men cannot stop the Plumed Knight; their only hope now is to join ranks with those supporting some other reform candidate, such as John Sherman or Robert Lincoln. Meanwhile, both he and Lodge are plotting to delay the final ballot as long as possible, in the hope that Blaine’s men will eventually begin to fight each other out of sheer frustration.
T
HURSDAY,
5
JUNE
.
Solid rain and sullen tempers. The delay strategy seems to be working: there are rumors that balloting will not begin until tomorrow, maybe even Saturday. Sporadic fistfights and cane-whackings break out in the Grand Pacific Hotel.
82
By the time Exposition Hall opens its doors, even Roosevelt is too tired to vault to his seat. He plods purposefully down the aisle, surrounded by an anxious crowd of Independents. Later, he is glimpsed “with his arm around some Ohio delegate’s neck,” tugging restlessly at his mustache and “looking out of the corner of his eyeglasses at the ladies in the east box.”
83
During the long, tension-filled reading of the party platform, and through the hours of irascible debate that follow, Congressman William McKinley of Ohio suddenly emerges as a leading figure in the convention. With unctuous smile and soothing voice, he moves
about the floor, quelling arguments before they spread. In the words of Andrew D. White, he is “calm, substantial, quick … strong … evidently a born leader of men.” As McKinley’s star brightens, Roosevelt’s begins to fade. Exhaustion is setting in. He rises to question a point of procedure, and is crushed by the retort that the point has already been made clear. As he apologizes (“I did not distinctly hear”) and sits down, some sparrows fly in from outside and squat mockingly on the gas fixture above his head.
84
The nominating speeches begin at
7:30 P.M
. and continue long past midnight. Twelve thousand pairs of lungs, and forty gas chandeliers, suck more oxygen out of the air than the windows can replenish. Yet Roosevelt remains wide awake throughout the evening’s interminable oratory. He writes Bamie afterward:
Some of the nominating speeches were very fine, notably that of Governor Long of Massachusetts [for Edmunds], which was the most masterly and scholarly effort I have ever listened to. Blaine was nominated by Judge West, the blind orator of Ohio. It was a most impressive scene. The speaker, a feeble old man of shrunk but gigantic frame, stood looking with his sightless eyes toward the vast throng that filled the huge hall. As he became excited his voice rang like a trumpet, and the audience became worked up to a condition of absolutely uncontrollable excitement and enthusiasm. For a quarter of an hour at a time they cheered and shouted so that the brass bands could not be heard at all, and we were nearly deafened by the noise.
85
If
The New York Times
is to be believed, Roosevelt and Lodge begin another stop-Blaine movement immediately after adjournment, and work right through the night trying to marshal uncommitted delegates “behind some candidate new or old” whom everybody can support.
86
F
RIDAY,
6
JUNE
.
“Black Friday with the reformers in the Republican party,” as one correspondent puts it
87
—begins at
11:30 A.M.
with the slam of Chairman Lynch’s gold-ringed gavel. There can be no more delays; the first ballot is called. Amid cheers, hisses, and boos, the secretary announces the tally. With 411 votes required for nomination, James G. Blaine has 334½; Chester A. Arthur, 278; George F. Edmunds, 93.
88
On the second ballot, Blaine’s support increases while that of Edmunds declines. The third ballot brings Blaine within thirty-six votes of the nomination. Even now, Roosevelt will not give up. He starts rushing frantically from delegation to delegation, while Judge Foraker moves to adjourn, so that a final line of defense against Blaine can be organized. The motion is shouted down, but Roosevelt jumps into his chair, yelling for a roll call until he is red in the face. By now the entire hall is reverberating with whistles and catcalls; he continues to shout and gesticulate; when a delegate from New Jersey tells him to “sit down and stop your noise,” his temper cracks. “Shut up your own head, you damned scoundrel you!”
89
The Chair rejects his point of order on a technicality. However Roosevelt does succeed, says the
Chicago Tribune
, “in rousing the admiring remarks of the fair sex, who enthused over his 28
[sic]
years and glasses.”
90