The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (81 page)

Laughing loudly, the Cabinet filed into Harrison’s office, leaving Roosevelt alone with his thoughts. He was aware (as was an unobtrusive reporter) that much cold hostility lurked behind the warm
handshakes he had received. John Wanamaker, undoubtedly, would be his major opponent in the fight to enforce Civil Service rules. Wanamaker was a man of charm, pious habits, and magnificent administrative ability; he was also a Republican of the old school, and a staunch defender of the spoils system.
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The President had rewarded him for his lavish campaign contributions, and Wanamaker believed that all loyal Republicans, great or humble, who had given time and money to the party were entitled to similar recognition. As such he had emerged as the leading “spoilsman” in the Cabinet and a benign foe of all “Snivel Service Reformers.”

Roosevelt was already too late to prevent the wholesale looting of Postal Service jobs which had taken place in the first six weeks of the new Republican Administration. (Some said that Harrison had purposely delayed his appointment to allow the Postmaster General a free hand.) The scramble for office was, according to one horrified reformer, “universal and almost unbelievable.”
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Wanamaker’s assistant, James S. Clarkson, had been replacing Democratic Fourth-Class postmasters at the rate of one every five minutes. Thousands of newspaper editors who had supported Harrison were put on the government payroll. Even ex-jailbirds whose services had been of the “dirty tricks” variety were rewarded with minor positions. Other Cabinet officers, caught up in the fever, also dispensed largesse. Attorney General William H. Miller was reported to have announced that any aspirant to a federal job must be “first a good man, second a good Republican.”
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An extension of the Civil Service Law on 1 May—ordered by Cleveland and executed by Harrison—had slowed the pace of looting, but only in the classified quarter of the service. Over the other three-quarters, comprising some 112,000 jobs, Roosevelt had no power whatsoever. His Commission’s mandate extended to a mere 28,000 subordinate positions in the departmental, customs, postal, railway mail, and Indian services.
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Its powers, moreover, were slight. A Commissioner might personally investigate cases of examination fraud in Kansas, or political blackmail in Maine (providing he could find enough money in the budget to get there), but even if the evidence uncovered was flagrant, he could do little more than recommend prosecution to the Cabinet officer responsible. And if
that officer were a Wanamaker or a Miller, he might as well save his breath.

Such, at least, had been the attitude of Roosevelt’s eight predecessors, who had all been sedentary bureaucrats, content to supervise the marking of countless examination papers. The Civil Service Commission was a pleasant place to drowse, with its large, quiet offices and views of lawns and trees; there was an excellent fried-oyster restaurant across Louisiana Avenue; and if one did not offend any political bigwigs, one was invited to some decent receptions.
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Roosevelt would have none of this laissez-faire policy. From the moment he returned from the White House on 14 May, he became a blur of high-speed activity. He mastered the Commission’s complex operations within days, throwing off a wealth of new ideas, devouring documents at the rate of a page a glance, dictating hundreds of letters with such hissing emphasis that the stenographer did not need to ask for punctuation marks. Staff and visitors alike were dazed by his energy, exuberance, and ruthless outmaneuvering. “He is a wonderful man,” said one caller. “When I went to see him, he got up, shook hands with me, and said, ‘So glad to see you. Delighted. Good day, sir, good day.’ Then he ushered me to the door. I wonder what I wanted to see him about.”
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The new Commissioner was not interested in audiences of one. Experience had taught him that he had in abundance the power of mass publicity,
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that it could be as effective, if not more so, than regular political clout. He intended so to dramatize the good gray cause of Civil Service Reform that the electorate would be forced to take notice of it—and if of himself as well, why, so much the better.

As a preliminary attention-getting exercise, Roosevelt went on 20 May to New York, where the press knew him, to check some recent examinations in the Custom House. He found that various questions had been leaked to favored candidates, at $50 a head, and issued a fiery report accusing the local examinations board of “great laxity and negligence,” “positive fraud,” and mismanagement for “personal, political, or pecuniary” reasons. The report called for the dismissal of three officials and the criminal prosecution of at least one of them. “This report astonished the spoilsmen,” wrote one
prominent reformer. “It was the first emphatic notice that the Civil Service Act was a real law and was to be enforced.”
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Roosevelt returned to the capital and pondered his next move. The Eastern press was watching him now; it was time to get Western newspapers to do the same. On 17 June, therefore, he set off on an investigatory tour of some Great Lakes post offices with Commissioners Lyman and Thompson. Their first scheduled stop, he innocently announced, would be Indianapolis, where there were rumors of incompetence and partisanship involving the local postmaster, William Wallace. It did not take reporters long to realize that Wallace was the close personal friend, and Indianapolis the home city, of the President of the United States.
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L
UCIUS
B
URRIE
S
WIFT
, Indianapolis editor of the
Civil Service Chronicle
, was walking downtown on the morning of 18 June when “I saw Theodore Roosevelt coming towards me, his smile of recognition visible half a block away.”
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The two men knew each other well: it had been Swift who originally asked the Civil Service Commission to investigate Postmaster Wallace. While Roosevelt completed his postbreakfast “constitutional,” Swift went over the main facts of the case again. Three venal ex-employees of the Post Office, fired some years before by Wallace’s Democratic predecessor, had been given their jobs back simply because they were Republicans. One was rumored to be the operator of an illegal gambling den—clearly not the sort of civil servant the Commission should favor.
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The investigation, held that afternoon in the Indianapolis Post Office, confirmed the truth of Swift’s allegations. “These men must be removed today,” Roosevelt exclaimed. Wallace strenuously objected, but Commissioners Lyman and Thompson backed their young colleague up. The postmaster had no choice but to capitulate. He agreed to dismiss the offending employees, and promised that in future he would scrupulously observe the Civil Service law.
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Later, when Roosevelt was celebrating at Swift’s house, Wallace visited Lyman and Thompson at their hotel. He asked if he might
produce “new evidence” exonerating himself before they wrote their final report. The Commissioners agreed, much to Roosevelt’s irritation, for he considered Wallace “a well-meaning, weak old fellow,” and suspected that he was merely stalling.
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The evidence, in any case, proved to be worthless. Postmaster Wallace’s humiliation was duly headlined in the Indianapolis and Washington newspapers. “We stirred things up well,” Roosevelt boasted to Lodge. As for President Harrison, “we have administered a galvanic shock that will reinforce his virtue for the future.”
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Whether Harrison would relish this shock remained to be seen.

T
WO DAYS LATER
the Commissioners were in Milwaukee, where the evidence of Post Office corruption was so overwhelming as to make Indianapolis seem trivial. Roosevelt got off the train convinced, on the basis of advance information, that Postmaster George H. Paul was “guilty beyond all reasonable doubt,”
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and as soon as he laid eyes on the man his suspicions were confirmed. “About as thorough-paced a scoundrel as I ever saw,” Roosevelt declared. “An oily-Gammon, churchgoing specimen.”
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The principal testimony against Paul was supplied that afternoon by Hamilton Shidy, a Post Office superintendent and secretary of the Milwaukee Civil Service Board. Before taking the stand, Shidy said he was a poor man, entirely dependent on his job for support. He asked for a promise of protection, which Roosevelt promptly—and rashly—gave.
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Shidy then went on to describe how Paul had for years “appointed whomsoever he chose” to lucrative Post Office positions. After every such appointment, Shidy was told to “torture” the lists of eligibles so as to make it seem that Paul’s men had won their jobs in open examination. On one occasion the postmaster had actually stood looking over his shoulder while Shidy re-marked an examination paper downward. To substantiate his charges, Shidy handed over a sheaf of illegal orders in Paul’s own handwriting.
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Next morning Roosevelt confronted the fat little postmaster with Shidy’s evidence. “Mr. Paul, these are very grave charges, and we should like to hear any explanation you have to make.” As he
handed them over, item by item, Paul (examining each one disdainfully through his glasses, at arm’s length) protested he did not know, or could not remember. “Shidy was the man who was doing all that—you will have to see Shidy.” “We are not talking of Shidy,” said Roosevelt, “but of what
you
did. Why did you make this appointment? Why did you make that appointment?” “You must ask Shidy,” was the nonchalant reply.
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The Commissioners did not bother to question Paul at length, for they had more than enough hard evidence to prove his guilt. It would give President Harrison no alternative but to fire him upon their recommendation. A dramatic, high-level dismissal, followed if possible by criminal prosecution, was just the sort of publicity coup Roosevelt wanted in the Midwest. But then Paul blandly announced that his letter of appointment, signed by President Cleveland four years before, had expired. “My term is out. I am simply waiting for my successor to qualify.”
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At this there was nothing for the Commissioners to do but leave town on the next train. On the way back to Washington they drafted an impotent report. Not until after they had returned, and sent it in, did they discover that Postmaster Paul was a liar. His term of office still had several months to run. A supplemental report was accordingly rushed to the White House—and to the Associated Press.
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Although the document bore three signatures, its language was unmistakably Rooseveltian.