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Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography
Chapter II. Breaking into Politics
by Thayer, William Roscoe
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Roosevelt was a few months less than twenty-two years old when he
graduated from Harvard. His career in college had wrought several
important changes in him. First of all, his strength was
confirmed. Although he still suffered occasionally from asthma,
he was no longer handicapped. In business, or in pleasure, he did
not need to consider his health. Next, he had come to some
definite decision as to what he would do. His earlier dream of
becoming a professor of natural history had faded away. With the
inpouring of vigor into his constitution the ideal of an academic
life, often sedentary in mind as well as in body, ceased to lure
him. He craved activity, and this craving was bound to grow more
urgent as he acquired more strength. Next, and this consideration
must not be neglected, he was free to choose. His father's death
left him the possessor of a sufficient fortune to live on
comfortably without need of working to earn his bread and
butter--the motive which determines most young men when they
start in life. Finally, his father's example, reinforced by
wholesome advice, quickened in Theodore his sense of obligation
to the community. Having money, he must use it, not for mere
personal gratification, but in ways which would benefit those who
were deprived, or outcast, or bereft. But Theodore was too young
and too energetic to be contented with the life of a
philanthropist, no matter how noble and necessary its objects
might be. He had already accepted Emerson's dictum:
"He who feeds men, serves a few;
He serves all who dares be true."
Young as he was, he divined that much of the charitable work, to
which good people devote them selves in order to lighten or
relieve the ills which the sins and errors of mankind beget,
would be needless if the remedy were applied, as it ought to be,
to fundamental social conditions. These, he believed, could be
reached in many cases through political agency, and he resolved,
therefore, to make a trial of his talents in political life. The
point at which he decided to "break into politics, " as he
expressed it, was the Assembly, or Lower House of the New York
State Legislature. Most of his friends and classmates, on hearing
of his plan, regarded it as a proof of his eccentricity; a few of
them, the more discerning, would not prejudge him, but were
rather inclined to hope. By tradition and instinct, he was a
Republican, and in order to learn the political ropes he joined
the Twenty-first District Republican Association of New York
City. The district consisted chiefly of rich, respectable, and
socially conspicuous inhabitants of the vortex metropolis, with a
leaven of the "masses." The "classes" had no real zeal for
discharging their political duty. They subscribed to the campaign
fund, but had too delicate a sense of propriety to ask how their
money was spent. A few of them--and these seemed to be endowed
with a special modicum of patriotism--even attended the party
primaries in which candidates were named. The majority went to
the polls and cast their vote on election day, if it did not rain
or snow. For a young man of Roosevelt's position to desire to
take up politics seemed to his friends almost comic. Politics
were low and corrupt; politics were not for "gentlemen"; they
were the business and pastime of liquor-dealers, and of the
degenerates and loafers who frequented the saloons, of horse-car
conductors, and of many others whose ties with "respectability"
were slight.
To join the organization, Roosevelt had to be elected to the
Twenty-first District Republican Club, for the politicians of
those days kept their organization close, not to say exclusive,
and in this way they secured the docility of their members. The
Twenty first District Club met in Morton Hall, a dingy, barnlike
room situated over a saloon, and furnished severely with wooden
benches, many spittoons, and a speaker's table decorated with a
large pitcher for ice-water. The regular meetings came once a
month and Roosevelt attended them faithfully, because he never
did things by halves, and having made up his mind to learn the
mechanism of politics, he would not neglect any detail.
Despite the shyness which ill health caused him in his youth, he
was really a good "mixer," and, growing to feel more sure of
himself, he met men on equal terms. More than that, he had the
art of inspiring confidence in persons of divers sorts and, as he
was really interested in knowing their thoughts and desires, it
never took him long to strike up friendly relations with them.
Jake Hess, the Republican "Boss" of the Twenty-first District,
evidently eyed Roosevelt with some suspicion, for the newcomer
belonged to a class which Jake did not desire to see largely
represented in the business of "practical politics," and so he
treated Roosevelt with a "rather distant affability." The young
man, however, got on well enough with the heelers--the immediate
trusty followers of the Boss--and with the ordinary members. They
probably marveled to see him so unlike what they believed a youth
of the "kid-glove" and "silkstocking" set would be, and they
accepted him as a "good fellow."
Of all Roosevelt's comrades during this first year of initiation,
a young Irishman named Joe Murray was nearest to him, an honest
fellow, fearless and stanch, who remained his loyal friend for
forty years. Murray began as a Democrat of the Tammany Hall
tribe, but having been left in the lurch by his Boss at an
election, he determined to punish the Boss, and this he did at
the first opportunity by throwing his influence on the side of
the Republican candidate. The Republicans won, although the
district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and Murray joined the
Republican Party. He worked in the district where Jake Hess
ruled. Like other even greater men, Jake became arrogant and
treated the gang under him with condescension. Murray resented
this and resolved that he would humble the Boss by supporting
Roosevelt as a candidate for the Assembly. Hess protested, but
could not prevent the nomination and during the campaign he seems
to have supported the candidate whom he had not chosen.
Roosevelt sent the following laconic appeal to some of the voters
of his district:
New York, November 1, 1881.
Dear Sir:
Having been nominated as a candidate for member of Assembly for
this District, I would esteem it a compliment if you honor me
with your vote and personal influence on Election day.
Very respectfully
Theodore Roosevelt
Certainly, nothing could be simpler than this card, which
contains no puff of either the party or the candidate, or no
promise. It drew a cordial response.
Twenty-first Assembly District.
40th to 86th Sts., Lexington to 7th Aves.
We cordially recommend the voters of the Twenty-first Assembly
District to cast their ballots for
Theodore Roosevelt
for member of Assembly
and take much pleasure in testifying to our appreciation of his
high character and standing in the community. He is conspicuous
for his honesty and integrity, and eminently qualified to
represent the District in the Assembly.
New York November 1, 1881
F. A. P. Barnard, William T. Black, Willard Bullard, Joseph H.
Choate, William A. Darling, Henry E. Davies, Theodore W. Dwight,
Jacob Hess, Morris K. Jesup, Edward Mitchell, William F. Morgan,
Chas. S. Robinson, Elihu Root, Jackson S. Shultz, Elliott F.
Shepard, Gustavus Tuckerman, S. H. Wales, W. H. Webb.
This list bears the names of at least two men who will be long
remembered. There are also several others which were doubtless of
more political value to the aspirant to office in 1881.
Just after the election Roosevelt wrote to his classmate, Charles
G. Washburn:
'Too true, too true; I have become a "political hack." Finding it
would not interfere much with my law, I accepted the nomination
to the Assembly and was elected by 1500 majority, leading the
ticket by 600 votes. But don't think I am going to go into
politics after this year, for I am not.'
Roosevelt's allusion to the law requires the statement that in
the autumn of 1880 he had begun to read law in the office of his
uncle, Robert Roosevelt; not that he had a strong leaning to the
legal profession, but that he believed that every one, no matter
how well off he might be, ought to be able to support himself by
some occupation or profession. Also, he could not endure being
idle, and he knew that the slight political work on which he
embarked when he joined the Twenty-first District Republican Club
would take but little of his time. During that first year out of
college he established himself as a citizen, not merely
politically, but socially. On his birthday in 1880 he married
Miss Lee and they set up their home at 6 West Fifty-seventh
Street; he joined social and literary clubs and extended his
athletic interests beyond wrestling and boxing to hunting, rifle
practice, and polo.
His law studies seem to have absorbed him less than anything else
that he undertook during all his life. He could not fail to be
interested in them, but he never plunged into them with all his
might and main as if he intended to make them his chief concern.
For a while he had a desk in the office of the publishers, G. P.
Putnam's Sons: but Major George Putnam recalls that he did little
except suggest wonderful projects, which "had to be sat down
upon." Already a love of writing infected him. Even before he
left Harvard he had begun "A History of the Naval War of 1812,"
and this he worked on eagerly. The Putnams published it in 1882.
One incident of Roosevelt's canvass must not be overlooked. The
Red Indians of old used to make their captives run the gauntlet
between two lines of warriors: political bosses in New York in
1880 made their nominee run the gauntlet of all the saloonkeepers
in their district. Accordingly, Jake Hess and Joe Murray
proceeded to introduce Roosevelt to the rum-sellers of Sixth
Avenue. The first they visited received Theodore with injudicious
condescension almost as if he were a suppliant. He said he hoped
that the young candidate, if elected, would treat the liquor men
fairly, to which the "suppliant" replied that he intended to
treat all interests fairly. The suggestion that liquor licenses
were too high brought the retort that they were not high enough.
Thereupon, the wary Hess and the discreet Joe Murray found an
excuse for hurrying Roosevelt out of the saloon, and they told
him that he had better look after his friends on Fifth Avenue and
that they would look after the saloon-keepers on Sixth Avenue.
That any decent candidate should have to pass in review before
the saloon-keepers and receive their approval, is so monstrous as
to be grotesque. That a possible President of the United States
should be the victim needs no comment. It was thoroughly
characteristic of Roosevelt that he balked at the first trial.
He says in his "Autobiography" that he was not conscious of going
into politics to benefit other people, but to secure for himself
a privilege to which every one was entitled. That privilege was
self-government. When his "kid-glove" friends laughed at him for
deliberately choosing to leap into the political mire, he told
them that the governing class ought to govern, and that not they
themselves but the bosses and "heelers" were the real governors
of New York City. Not the altruistic desire to reform, but the
perfectly practical resolve to enjoy the political rights to
which he had a claim was his leading motive. It is important to
understand this because it will explain much of his action as a
statesman. Roosevelt is the greatest idealist in American public
life since Lincoln; but his idealism, like Lincoln's, always had
a firm, intelligent, practical footing. Roosevelt himself thus
describes his work during his first year in the New York
Assembly:
I paid attention chiefly while in the Legislature to laws for the
reformation of Primaries and of the Civil Service and endeavored
to have a certain Judge Westbrook impeached, on the ground of
corrupt collusion with Jay Gould and the prostitution of his high
judicial office to serve the purpose of wealthy and unscrupulous
stock gamblers, but was voted down.
This brief statement gives no idea of either the magnitude or
quality of his work in which, like young David, he went forth to
smite Goliath, the Giant Corruption, entrenched for years in the
Albany State House. I do not believe that in at tacking the
monster, Roosevelt thought that he was displaying unusual
courage, much less that he was winning the crown of a moral hero.
He simply saw a mass of abuse and wickedness which every decent
person ought to repudiate. Most decent persons saw it, too, but
convention, or self-interest, party affiliation, or unromantic,
every-day cowardice, made them hold their tongues. Being assigned
to committees which had some of the most important concerns of
New York City in charge, Roosevelt had the advantage given by his
initiation into political methods as practiced in the
Twenty-first District of knowing a little more than his
colleagues knew about the local issues. Three months of the
session elapsed before he stood up in the Chamber and attacked
point-blank,one formidable champion of corruption. Listen to an
anonymous writer in the Saturday Evening Post:
It was on April 6, 1882, that Roosevelt took the floor in the
Assembly and demanded that Judge Westbrook, of Newbury, be
impeached. And for sheer moral courage that act is probably
supreme in Roosevelt's life thus far. He must have expected
failure. Even his youth and idealism and ignorance of public
affairs could not blind him to the apparently inevitable
consequences. Yet he drew his sword and rushed apparently to
destruction--alone, and at the very outset of his career, and in
disregard of the pleadings of his closest friends and the plain
dictates of political wisdom. That speech--the deciding act in
Roosevelt's career--is not remarkable for eloquence. But it is
remarkable for fear less candor. He called thieves thieves,
regardless of their millions; he slashed savagely at the judge
and the Attorney General; he told the plain unvarnished truth as
his indignant eyes saw it.*
[ Riis, 54-55.]
Astonishment verging on consternation filled the Assemblymen,
who, through long experience, were convinced that Truth was too
precious to be exhibited in public. Worldly wisdom came to the
aid of the veteran Republican leader who wished to treat the
assault as if it were the unripe explosion of youth. The
callowness of his young friend must excuse him. He doubtless
meant well, but his inexperience prevented him from realizing
that many a reputation in public life had been shattered by just
such loose charges. He felt sure that when the young man had time
to think it over, he would modify his language. It would be
fitting, therefore, for that body to show its kindliness by
giving the new member from New York City leisure to think it
over.
Little did this official defender of corruption understand Mr.
Roosevelt, whose business it was then to uphold Right. That was a
question in which expediency could have no voice. He regarded
neither the harm he might possibly do to his political future nor
to the standing of the Republican Party. I suspect that he
smarted under the leader's attempt to treat him as a young man
whose breaks instead of causing surprise must be condoned.
Although the magnates of the party pleaded with him and urged him
not to throw away his usefulness, he rose again in the Assembly
next day and renewed his demand for an investigation of Judge
Westbrook. Day after day he repeated his demand. The newspapers
throughout the State began to give more and more attention to
him. The public applauded, and the legislators, who had sat and
listened to him with contemptuous indifference, heard from their
constituents. At last, on the eighth day, by a vote of 104 to 6
the Assembly adopted Roosevelt's resolution and appointed an
investigating committee. The evidence taken amply justified
Roosevelt's charges, in spite of which the committee gave a
whitewashing verdict. Nevertheless the "young reformer" had not
only proved his case, but had suddenly made a name for himself in
the State and in the Country.
Before his first term ended he discovered that there were enemies
of honest government quite as dangerous as the open supporters of
corruption. These were the demagogues who, under the pretense of
attacking the wicked interests, introduced bills for the sole
purpose of being bought off. Sly fellows they were and sneaks.
Against their "strike" legislation Roosevelt had also to fight.
His chief friend at Albany was Billy O'Neil, who kept a little
crossroads grocery up in the Adirondacks; had thought for himself
on American politics; had secured his election to the Assembly
without the favor of the Machine; and now acted there with as
much independence as his young colleague of the Twenty first
District. Roosevelt remarks that the fact that two persons,
sprung from such totally different surroundings, should come
together in the Legislature was an example of the fine result
which American democracy could achieve.
The session came to a close, and although Roosevelt had protested
the year before that he was not going into politics as a career,
he allowed himself to be renominated. Naturally, his desire to
continue in and complete the task in which he had already
accomplished much was whetted. He would have been a fool if he
had not known, what every one else knew, that he had made a very
brilliant record during his first year. A false standard which
comes very near hypocrisy imposes a ridiculous mock modesty on
great men in modern times: as if Shakespeare alone should be
unaware that he was Shakespeare or that Napoleon or Darwin or
Lincoln or Cavour should each be ignorant of his worth. Better
vanity, if you will, than sham modesty. There was no harm done
that Roosevelt at twenty-three felt proud of being recognized as
a power in the Assembly. We must never forget also that he was a
fighter, and that his first contests in Albany had so roused his
blood that he longed to fight those battles to a finish, that is,
to victory. We must make a distinction also in his motives. He
did not strain every nerve to win a cause because it was his
cause; but having adopted a cause which his heart and mind told
him was good, he strove to make that cause triumph because he
believed it to be good.
So he allowed himself to be renominated and he was reelected by
2000 majority, although in that autumn of 1882 the Democratic
candidate for Governor, Grover Cleveland, swept New York State by
192,000 and carried into office by the momentum of his success
many of the minor candidates on the Democratic ticket.
The year 1883 opened with the cheer of dawn in New York politics.
Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself
fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt,
the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a
Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty
and righteousness above their party platforms.
Roosevelt pursued in this session the methods which had made him
famous and feared in the preceding. He admits that he may have
had for a while a "swelled head," for in the chaos of conflicting
principles and no-principles in which his life was thrown, he
decided to act independently and to let his conscience determine
his action on each question which arose. He flocked by himself on
a peak. He was too practical, however, to hold this course long.
Experience had already taught him that under a constitutional
government parties which advocate or oppose issues must rule, and
that in order to make your issues win you must secure a majority
of the votes. Not by playing solitaire, therefore, not by
standing aloof as one crying in the wilderness, but by honestly
persuading as many as you could to support you, could you promote
the causes which you had at heart. The professional politicians
and the Machine leaders still thought that he was stubborn and
too conceited to listen to reason, but in reality he had a few
intimates like Billy O'Neil and Mike Costello with whom he took
counsel, and a group of thirty or forty others, both Republican
and Democratic, with whom he acted harmoniously on many
questions.
They all united to fight the Black-Horse Cavalry, as the gang of
"strike" legislators was called. One of the most insidious bills
pushed by these rascals aimed at reducing the fares on the New
York Elevated Railway from ten cents to five cents. It seemed so
plausible! So entirely in the interest of the poor man! Indeed,
the affairs of the Elevated took up much of Roosevelt's attention
and enriched for years the Black-Horse Cavalrymen and the
lobbyists. He also forced the Assembly to appoint a commission to
investigate the New York City police officials, the police
department being at that time notoriously corrupt. They employed
as their counsel George Bliss, a lawyer of prominence, with a
sharp tongue and a contempt for self-constituted reformers. While
Roosevelt was cross-examining one of the officials, Bliss, who
little understood the man he was dealing with, interrupted with a
scornful and impertinent remark. "Of course you do not mean that,
Mr. Bliss," said the young reformer with impressive politeness,
"for if you did we should have to put you out in the street."
Even in those early days, when Roosevelt was in dead earnest, he
had a way of pointing his forefinger and of fixing his under jaw
which the person whom he addressed could not mistake. That
forefinger was as menacing as a seven shooter. Mr. Bliss, with
all the prestige of a successful career at the bar behind him,
quickly understood the meaning of the look, the gesture, and the
studied courtesy. He deemed it best to retract and apologize at
once; and it was.
Roosevelt consented to run for a third term and he was elected in
spite of the opposition of the various elements which united to
defeat him. Such a man was too. dangerous to be acceptable to Jay
Gould and the "interests," to Black-Horse Cavalry, and to gangs
of all kinds who made a living, directly or indirectly, by
office-holding. His friends urged him for the speakership; but
this was asking too much of the Democratic majority, and besides,
there were Republicans who had winced under his scourge the year
before and were glad enough to defeat him now. Occasionally, some
kind elderly friend would still attempt to show him the folly of
his ways, and we hear reports of one gentleman, a member of the
Assembly and an "old friend," who told him that the great concern
in life was Business, and that lawyers and judges, legislators
and Congressmen, existed to serve the ends of Business. "There is
no politics in politics," said this moral guide and sage. But he
could not budge the young man, who believed that there are many
considerations more important than the political.
During this third year, he made a straight and gallant fight to
improve the condition under which cigars were made in New York
City. By his own investigation, he found that the cigar makers
lived in tenements, in one room, perhaps two, with their families
and often a boarder; these made the cigars which the public
bought, in ignorance of the facts. Roosevelt proposed that, as a
health measure which would benefit alike the cigar-makers and the
public, this evil practice be prohibited and that the police put
a stop to it. His bill passed in 1884, but the next year the
Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional, because it
deprived the tenement-house people of their liberty and would
injure the owners of the tenements if they were not allowed to
rent their property to these tenants. In its decision, the court
indulged in nauseating sanctimony of this sort: " It cannot be
perceived how the cigar-maker is to be improved in his health, or
his morals, by forcing him from his home and its hallowed
associations and beneficent influences to ply his trade
elsewhere." This was probably not the first time when Roosevelt
was enraged to find the courts of justice sleekly upholding
hot-beds of disease and vice, on the pretense that they were
protecting liberty. Commenting on this episode, Mr. Washburn well
says: "As applied to the kind of tenement I have referred to,
this reference to the 'home and its hallowed associations' seems
grotesque or tragic depending upon the point of view."*
[ Washburn, 11.]
Amid work of this kind, fighting and fearless, constantly adding
to his reputation among the good as a high type of reformer, and
adding to the detestation in which the bad held him, he completed
his third term. He resolutely refused to serve again and declined
the offers which were pressed upon him to run for Congress; nor
did he accept a place on the Republican National Committee.
The death of his mother on February 12, 1884, followed in
twenty-four hours by that of his wife, who died after the birth
of a daughter, brought sorrow upon Roosevelt which made the
burden of his political work heavier and caused him to consider
how he should readjust his life, for he was first of all a man of
deep family affections and the loss of his wife left him adrift.
To S. N. D. North, editor of the Utica Herald and a well-wisher
of his, he wrote from Albany on April 30, 1884:
Dear Mr. North: I wish to write you a few words just to thank you
for your kindness towards me, and to assure you that my head will
not be turned by what I well know was a mainly accidental
success. Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great
deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too
keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more
than a very brief period over success or defeat.
I have very little expectation of being able to keep on in
politics; my success so far has only been won by absolute
indifference to my future career; for I doubt if any one can
realize the bitter and venomous hatred with which I am regarded
by the very politicians who at Utica supported me, under
dictation from masters who were influenced by political
considerations that were national and not local in their scope. I
realize very thoroughly the absolutely ephemeral nature of the
hold I have upon the people, and the very real and positive
hostility I have excited among the politicians. I will not stay
in public life unless I can do so on my own terms; and my ideal,
whether lived up to or not, is rather a high one. For very many
reasons I will not mind going back into private life for a few
years. My work this winter has been very harassing, and I feel
both tired and restless; for the next few months I shall probably
be in Dakota, and I think I shall spend the next two or three
years in making shooting trips, either in the Far West or in the
Northern woods--and there will be plenty of work to do writing.*
[ Douglas, 41-42.]
This letter is a striking revelation of the inmost intentions of
the man of twenty-five, who already stood on a pinnacle where
hard heads and mature might well have been dizzy. Evidently he
knew him self, and even in his brief experience with the world he
understood how uncertain and evanescent are the winds of Fame. If
he had ever suffered from a "swelled head," he was now cured. He
felt the emptiness of life's prizes when the dearest who should
have shared them with him were dead.
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