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Theodore Roosevelt and His Times
Chapter V. Fighting and Breakfasting with Platt
by Howland, Harold
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From the New York Police Department Roosevelt was called by
President McKinley to Washington in 1897, to become Assistant
Secretary of the Navy. After a year there--the story of which
belongs elsewhere in this volume--he resigned to go to Cuba as
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough Riders. He was just as prominent
in that war for liberty and justice as the dimensions of the
conflict permitted. He was accustomed in after years to say with
deprecating humor, when talking to veterans of the Civil War, "It
wasn't much of a war, but it was all the war we had." It made him
Governor of New York.
When he landed with his regiment at Montauk Point from Cuba, he
was met by two delegations. One consisted of friends from his own
State who were political independents; the other came from the
head of the Republican political machine.
Both wanted him as a candidate for Governor. The independents
were anxious to have him make a campaign against the Old Guard of
both the standard parties, fighting Richard Croker, the cynical
Tammany boss, on the one side, and Thomas C. Platt, the "easy
boss" of the Republicans, on the other. Tom Platt did not want
him at all. But he did want to win the election, and he knew that
he must have something superlatively fine to offer, if he was to
have any hope of carrying the discredited Republican party to
victory. So he swallowed whatever antipathy he may have had and
offered the nomination to Roosevelt. This was before the days
when the direct primary gave the plain voters an opportunity to
upset the calculations of a political boss.
Senator Platt's emissary, Lemuel Ely Quigg, in a two hours'
conversation in the tent at Montauk, asked some straight-
from-the-shoulder questions. The answers he received were just as
unequivocal. Mr. Quigg wanted a plain statement as to whether or
not Roosevelt wanted the nomination. He wanted to know what
Roosevelt's attitude would be toward the organization in the
event of his election, whether or not he would "make war" on Mr.
Platt and his friends, or whether he would confer with them and
give fair consideration to their point of view as to party policy
and public interest. In short, he wanted a frank definition of
Roosevelt's attitude towards existing party conditions. He got
precisely that. Here it is, in Roosevelt's own words:
"I replied that I should like to be nominated, and if nominated
would promise to throw myself into the campaign with all possible
energy. I said that I should not make war on Mr. Platt or anybody
else if war could be avoided; that what I wanted was to be
Governor and not a faction leader; that I certainly would confer
with the organization men, as with everybody else who seemed to
me to have knowledge of and interest in public affairs, and that
as to Mr. Platt and the organization leaders, I would do so in
the sincere hope that there might always result harmony of
opinion and purpose; but that while I would try to get on well
with the organization, the organization must with equal sincerity
strive to do what I regarded as essential for the public good;
and that in every case, after full consideration of what
everybody had to say who might possess real knowledge of the
matter, I should have to act finally as my own judgment and
conscience dictated and administer the State government as I
thought it ought to be administered . . . . I told him to tell
the Senator that while I would talk freely with him, and had no
intention of becoming a factional leader with a personal
organization, yet I must have direct personal relations with
everybody, and get their views at first hand whenever I so
desired, because I could not have one man speaking for all.*
[Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 271-72.]
This was straight Roosevelt talk. It was probably the first time
that the "easy boss" had received such a response to his
overtures. History does not record how he liked it; but at least
he accepted it. Subsequent events suggest that he was either
unwilling to believe or incapable of understanding that the
Colonel of the Rough Riders meant precisely what he said. But
Platt found out his mistake. He was not the first or the last
politician to have that experience.
So Roosevelt was nominated, made a gruelling campaign, was
elected by a small but sufficient majority, in a year when any
other Republican candidate would probably have been "snowed
under," and became Governor seventeen years after he entered
public life. He was now forty years old.
The governorship of Theodore Roosevelt was marked by a deal of
fine constructive legislation and administration. But it was even
more notable for the new standard which it set for the
relationship in which the executive of a great State should stand
to his office, to the public welfare, to private interests, and
to the leaders of his party. Before Roosevelt's election there
was need for a revision of the standard. In those days it was
accepted as a matter of course, at least in practice, that the
party boss was the overlord of the constitutional representatives
of the people. Appointments were made primarily for the good of
the party and only incidentally in the public interest. The
welfare of the party was closely bound up with the profit of
special interests, such as public service corporations and
insurance companies. The prevalent condition of affairs was
shrewdly summed up in a satiric paraphrase of Lincoln's
conception of the American ideal: "Government of the people, by
the bosses, for the special interests." The interests naturally
repaid this zealous care for their well-being by contributions to
the party funds.
Platt was one of the most nearly absolute party bosses that the
American system of machine politics has produced. In spite of the
fair warning which he had already received, both directly from
Roosevelt's own words, and indirectly from his whole previous
career, he was apparently surprised and unquestionably annoyed
when he found that he was not to be the new Governor's master.
The trouble began before Roosevelt took office. At a conference
one day Platt asked Roosevelt if there were any members of the
Assembly whom he would like to have assigned to special
committees. Roosevelt was surprised at the question, as he had
not known that the Speaker of the Assembly, who appoints the
committees, had yet been agreed upon by the Assemblymen-elect. He
expressed his surprise. But Mr. Platt enlightened him, saying,
"Of course, whoever we choose as Speaker will agree beforehand to
make the appointments we wish." Roosevelt has recorded the mental
note which he thereupon made, that if they tried the same process
with the Governor-elect they would find themselves mistaken. In a
few days they did try it--and discovered their mistake.
Platt asked Roosevelt to come to see him. The Senator being an
old and physically feeble man, Roosevelt went. Platt handed him a
telegram from a certain man, accepting with pleasure his
appointment as Superintendent of Public Works. This was one of
the most important appointive offices in the State
Administration. It was especially so at this time in view of the
scandals which had arisen under the previous Administration over
the Erie Canal, the most important responsibility of this
department. Now, the man whom the boss had picked out was an
excellent fellow, whom Roosevelt liked and whom, incidentally, he
later appointed to an office which he filled in admirable
fashion. But Roosevelt had no intention of having any one but
himself select the members of his Administration. He said so
frankly and simply. The Senator raged. He was unaccustomed to
such independence of spirit. Roosevelt was courteous but firm.
The irresistible force had met the immovable obstacle--and the
force capitulated. The telegraphic acceptance was not accepted.
The appointment was not made.
Mr. Platt was a wise man, even if he was arrogant. He knew when
he had met one whom he could not drive. So he did not break with
the new Governor. Roosevelt was wise, too, although he was
honest. So he did not break with the "easy boss." His failure to
do so was a disappointment to his impractical friends and
supporters, who were more concerned with theoretical goodness
than with achievement.
Roosevelt worked with Platt and the party machine whenever he
could. He fought only when he must. When he fought, he won. In
Senator Platt's "Autobiography", the old boss paid this tribute
to the young fighter whom he had made Governor: "Roosevelt had
from the first agreed that he would consult me on all questions
of appointments, Legislature or party policy. He religiously
fulfilled this pledge, although he frequently did just what he
pleased."
One of the things that particularly grieved the theoretical
idealists and the chronic objectors was the fact that Roosevelt
used on occasion to take breakfast with Senator Platt. They did
not seem to think it possible that a Governor could accept the
hospitality of a boss without taking orders from him. But Mr.
Platt knew better, if they did not. He was never under any
illusions as to the extent of his influence with Roosevelt. It
vanished precisely at the point where the selfish interests of
the party and the wishes of the boss collided with the public
welfare. The facts about the famous breakfasts are plain enough.
The Governor was in Albany, the Senator in Washington. Both found
it easy to get to New York on Saturday. It was natural that they
should from time to time have matters to discuss for both were
leaders in their party. Mr. Platt was a feeble man, who found it
difficult to get about. Roosevelt was a chivalrous man, who
believed that courtesy and consideration were due to age and
weakness. In addition, he liked to make every minute count. So he
used to go, frankly and openly, to the Senator's hotel for
breakfast. He was not one of that class which he has described
as composed of "solemn reformers of the tom-fool variety, who,
according to their custom, paid attention to the name and not the
thing." He cared only for the reality; the appearance mattered
little to him.
The tom-fool reformers who criticized Roosevelt for meeting Platt
at breakfast were not even good observers. If they had been, they
would have realized that when Roosevelt breakfasted with Platt,
it generally meant that he was trying to reconcile the Senator to
something he was going to do which the worthy boss did not like.
For instance, Roosevelt once wrote to Platt, who was trying to
get him to promote a certain judge over the head of another
judge: "There is a strong feeling among the judges and the
leading members of the bar that Judge Y ought not to have Judge X
jumped over his head, and I do not see my way clear to doing it.
I am inclined to think that the solution I mentioned to you is
the solution I shall have to adopt. Remember the breakfast at
Douglas Robinson's at 8:30." It is probable that the Governor
enjoyed that breakfast more than did the Senator. So it usually
was with the famous breakfasts. "A series of breakfasts was
always the prelude to some active warfare."
For Roosevelt and Platt still had their pitched battles. The most
epic of them all was fought over the reappointment of the State
Superintendent of Insurance. The incumbent was Louis F. Payn, a
veteran petty boss from a country district and one of Platt's
right-hand men. Roosevelt discovered that Payn had been involved
in compromising relations with certain financiers in New York
with whom he "did not deem it expedient that the Superintendent
of Insurance, while such, should have any intimate and
money-making relations." The Governor therefore decided not to
reappoint him. Platt issued an ultimatum that Payn must be
reappointed or he would fight. He pointed out that in case of a
fight Payn would stay in anyway, since the consent of the State
Senate was necessary not only to appoint a man to office but to
remove him from office. The Governor replied cheerfully that he
had made up his mind and that Payn would not be retained. If he
could not get his successor confirmed, he would make the
appointment as soon as the Legislature adjourned, and the
appointment would stand at least until the Legislature met again.
Platt declared in turn that Payn would be reinstated as soon as
the Legislature reconvened. Roosevelt admitted the possibility,
but assured his opponent that the process would be repeated as
soon as that session came to an end. He added his conviction
that, while he might have an uncomfortable time himself, he would
guarantee that his opponents would be made more uncomfortable
still. Thus the matter stood in the weeks before final action
could be taken. Platt was sure that Roosevelt must yield. But
once more he did not know his man. It is curious how long it
takes feudal overlords to get the measure of a fearless free man.
The political power which the boss wielded was reinforced by
pressure from big business interests in New York. Officials of
the large insurance companies adopted resolutions asking for
Payn's reappointment. But some of them privately and hastily
assured the Governor that these resolutions were for public
consumption only, and that they would be delighted to have Payn
superseded. Roosevelt strove to make it clear again and again
that he was not fighting the organization as such, and announced
his readiness to appoint any one of several men who were good
organization men--only he would not retain Lou Payn nor appoint
any man of his type. The matter moved along to the final scene,
which took place at the Union League Club in New York.
Mr. Platt's chief lieutenant asked for a meeting with the
Governor. The request was granted. The emissary went over the
ground thoroughly. He declared that Platt would never yield. He
explained that he was certain to win the fight, and that he
wished to save Roosevelt from such a lamentable disaster as the
end of his political career. Roosevelt again explained at length
his position. After half an hour he rose to go. The "subsequent
proceedings" he described as follows:
"My visitor repeated that I had this last chance, and that ruin
was ahead of me if I refused it; whereas, if I accepted,
everything would be made easy. I shook my head and answered,
'There is nothing to add to what I have already said.' He
responded, 'You have made up your mind?' and I said, 'I have." He
then said, 'You know it means your ruin?' and I answered, 'Well,
we will see about that,' and walked toward the door. He said,
'You understand, the fight will begin tomorrow and will be
carried on to the bitter end.' I said, 'Yes,' and added, as I
reached the door, 'Good night.' Then, as the door opened my
opponent, or visitor, whichever one chooses to call him, whose
face was as impassive and as inscrutable as that of Mr. John
Hamlin in a poker game, said: 'Hold on! We accept. Send in
so-and-so (the man I had named). The Senator is very sorry, but
he will make no further opposition!" I never saw a bluff carried
more resolutely through to the final limit."*
[Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 293-94.]
One other Homeric fight with the machine was Roosevelt's portion
during his Governorship. This time it was not directly with the
boss himself but with the boss's liegemen in the Legislature. But
the kernel of the whole matter was the same--the selfish
interests of big corporations against the public good.
In those days corporations were by common practice privileged
creatures. They were accustomed to special treatment from
legislatures and administrations. But when Roosevelt was elected
Governor, he was determined that no corporation should get a
valuable privilege from the State without paying for it. Before
long he had become convinced that they ought also to pay for
those which they already had, free gifts of the State in those
purblind days when corporations were young and coddled. He
proposed that public service corporations doing business on
franchises granted by the State and by municipalities should be
taxed upon the value of the privileges they enjoyed. The
corporations naturally enough did not like the proposal. But it
was made in no spirit or tone of antagonism to business or of
demagogic outcry against those who were prosperous. All that the
Governor demanded was a square deal. In his message to the
Legislature, he wrote as follows:
"There is evident injustice in the light taxation of
corporations. I have not the slightest sympathy with the outcry
against corporations as such, or against prosperous men of
business. Most of the great material works by which the entire
country benefits have been due to the action of individual men,
or of aggregates of men, who made money for themselves by doing
that which was in the interest of the people as a whole. From an
armor plant to a street railway, no work which is really
beneficial to the public can be performed to the best advantage
of the public save by men of such business capacity that they
will not do the work unless they themselves receive ample reward
for doing it. The effort to deprive them of an ample reward
merely means that they will turn their energies in some other
direction; and the public will be just so much the loser . . . .
But while I freely admit all this, it yet remains true that a
corporation which derives its powers from the State should pay to
the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the
privileges it enjoys."
This was quietly reasonable and uninflammatory doctrine. But the
corporations would have none of it. The Republican machine, which
had a majority in the Legislature, promptly repudiated it as
well. The campaign contributions from the corporations were too
precious to be jeopardized by legislation which the corporations
did not want. The Governor argued, pleasantly and cheerfully. The
organization balked sullenly. The corporations grinned knowingly.
They had plenty of money with which to kill the bill, but they
did not need to use it. The machine was working smoothly in their
behalf. The bill was introduced and referred to a committee, and
there it lay. No amount of argument and persuasion that the
Governor could bring to bear availed to bring the bill out of
hiding. So he sent in a special message, on almost the last day
of the session. According to the rules of the New York Assembly,
when the Governor sends in a special message on a given measure,
the bill must be reported out and given consideration. But the
machine was dazzled with its own arrogance. The Speaker would not
have the message read. Some one actually tore it up.
This was more than a crime--it was a blunder. The wise ones in
the organization realized it. They had no desire to have the
Governor appeal to the people with his torn message in his hand.
Roosevelt saw the error too, and laughed happily. He wrote
another message and sent it over with the curt statement that, if
it were not read forthwith, he would come over and read it
himself. They knew that he would! So the Speaker read the
message, and the bill was reported and hastily passed on the last
day of the session.
Then the complacent corporations woke up. They had trusted the
machine too far. What was more, they had underestimated the
Governor's striking power. Now they came to him, hat in hand, and
suggested some fault in the bill. He agreed with them. They asked
if he would not call a special session to amend the bill. Again
he agreed. The session was called, and the amendments were
proposed. In addition, however, certain amendments that would
have frustrated the whole purpose of the bill were suggested. The
organization, still at its old tricks, tried to get back into its
possession the bill already passed. But the Governor was not
easily caught napping. He knew as well as they did that
possession of the bill gave him the whip hand. He served notice
that the second bill would contain precisely the amendments
agreed upon and no others. Otherwise he would sign the first bill
and let it become law, with all its imperfections on its head.
Once more the organization and the corporations emulated Davy
Crockett's coon and begged him not to shoot, for they would come
down. The amended bill was passed and became law. But there was
an epilogue to this little drama. The corporations proceeded to
attack the constitutionality of the law on the ground of the very
amendment for which they had so clamorously pleaded. But they
failed. The Supreme Court of the United States, after Roosevelt
had become President, affirmed the constitutionality of the law.
The spectacular events of Roosevelt's governorship were incidents
in this conflict between two political philosophies, the one held
by Platt and his tribe, the other by Roosevelt. Extracts from two
letters exchanged by the Senator and the Governor bring the
contrast between these philosophies into clear relief. Platt
wrote as follows:
"When the subject of your nomination was under consideration,
there was one matter that gave me real anxiety . . . . I had
heard from a good many sources that you were a little loose on
the relations of capital and labor, on trusts and combinations,
and, indeed, on those numerous questions which have recently
arisen in politics affecting the security of earnings and the
right of a man to run his business in his own way, with due
respect, of course, to the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code.
Or, to get at it even more clearly, I understood from a number of
business men, and among them many of your own personal friends,
that you entertained various altruistic ideas, all very well in
their way, but which before they could safely be put into law
needed very profound consideration." *
[Roosevelt, "Autobiography" (Scribner), p. 299.]
Roosevelt replied that he had known very well that the Senator
had just these feelings about him, and then proceeded to set
forth his own view of the matter. With his usual almost uncanny
wisdom in human relations, he based his argument on party
expediency, which he knew Platt would comprehend, rather than on
abstract considerations of right and wrong, in which realm the
boss would be sure to feel rather at sea. He wrote thus:
"I know that when parties divide on such issues [as Bryanism] the
tendency is to force everybody into one of two camps, and to
throw out entirely men like myself, who are as strongly opposed
to Populism in every stage as the greatest representative of
corporate wealth but who also feel strongly that many of these
representatives of enormous corporate wealth have themselves been
responsible for a portion of the conditions against which
Bryanism is in ignorant revolt. I do not believe that it is wise
or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to
say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that
our attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby
showing that whereas the Populists, Socialists, and others do not
correct the evils at all, or else do so at the expense of
producing others in aggravated form, on the contrary we
Republicans hold the just balance and set ourselves as resolutely
against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against
demagogy and mob rule on the other."*
[Roosevelt, Autobiography (Scribner), p. 300.]
This was the fight that Roosevelt was waging in every hour of his
political career. It was a middle-of-the-road fight, not because
of any timidity or slack-fibered thinking which prevented a
committal to one extreme or the other, but because of a stern
conviction that in the golden middle course was to be found truth
and the right. It was an inevitable consequence that first one
side and then the other--and sometimes both at once--should
attack him as a champion of the other. It became a commonplace of
his experience to be inveighed against by reformers as a
reactionary and to be assailed by conservatives as a radical. But
this paradoxical experience did not disturb him at all. He was
concerned only to have the testimony of his own mind and
conscience that he was right.
The contests which he had as Governor were spectacular and
exhilarating; but they did not fill all the hours of his working
days. A tremendous amount of spade work was actually
accomplished. For example, he brought about the reenactment of
the Civil Service Law, which under his predecessor had been
repealed, and put through a mass of labor legislation for the
betterment of conditions under which the workers carried on their
daily lives. This legislation included laws to increase the
number of factory inspectors, to create a tenement-house
commission, to regulate sweatshop labor, to make the eight-hour
and prevailing rate of wages law effective, to compel railways to
equip freight trains with air brakes, to regulate the working
hours of women, to protect women and children from dangerous
machinery, to enforce good scaffolding provisions for workmen on
buildings, to provide seats for the use of waitresses in hotels
and restaurants, to reduce the hours of labor for drug-store
clerks, to provide for the registration of laborers for municipal
employment. He worked hard to secure an employers' liability law,
but the time for this was not yet come.
Many of these reforms are now matters of course that no employer
would think of attempting to eliminate. But they were new ideas
then; and it took vision and courage to fight for them.
Roosevelt would have been glad to be elected Governor for a
second term. But destiny, working through curious instruments,
would not have it so. He left behind him in the Empire State, not
only a splendid record of concrete achievement but something more
than that. Jacob Riis has told how, some time after, an old State
official at Albany, who had seen many Governors come and go,
revealed this intangible something. Mr. Riis had said to him that
he did not care much for Albany since Roosevelt had gone, and his
friend replied: "Yes, we think so, many of us. The place seemed
dreary when he was gone. But I know now that he left something
behind that was worth our losing him to get. This past winter,
for the first time, I heard the question spring up spontaneously,
as it seemed, when a measure was up in the Legislature 'Is it
right?' Not 'Is it expedient?' not 'How is it going to help me?'
not 'What is it worth to the party?' Not any of these, but 'Is it
right?' That is Roosevelt's legacy to Albany. And it was worth
his coming and his going to have that."
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