TWO DEFEATS
Although he was still under twenty-five when he left the New York
Assembly, Roosevelt was favorably known throughout the State. He
had been heard of, by those who keep up with politics, all over the
country. In 1884, the year of a Presidential election, he was one of
the four delegates-at-large from New York to the Republican convention
at Chicago. The leader for the Presidential nomination was James G.
Blaine, a brilliant man who had many warm admirers. Also, there were
many in his own party, who distrusted him, who thought that in the past
he had not been strictly honest. Good men differed on this question and
differ still.
Roosevelt favored Senator Edmunds of Vermont, but he had agreed
beforehand, with other young Republican delegates, that they would
support for the election the man named by the convention. Since, in
later years, Roosevelt refused to abide by the decision of a party
convention, and led one of the most extraordinary "bolts" in the
history of American politics, it is important to consider for a moment
the question of political parties and the attitude a man may take
toward them.
Because parties are responsible for a good many small, mean, and
sometimes dishonorable acts, we often hear parties and partisanship
denounced. People express the wish that there might be an end to
"party politics" and to "partisanship," and that "all good men might
get together" for the good of the whole country. This may happen when
there is Heaven on earth, but not before. Even the good and honest men
continue to differ about which is the wisest way to do things, and
so the people who think the same way about most matters get together
in a party. The suggestion, by the way, that people should give up
"partisanship" often comes from people who do not by any means intend
to give up their own partisanship,--they wish other folk to come over
to their own way of thinking. We are all apt to wish that others would
only be reasonable enough to agree with _us_.
Nor is it at all sure that everything would be fine if there were no
parties. Countries which have tried to do without parties, have not
made a great success of it. There must be some organized group to hold
responsible if men in office do badly; some people to warn that the
things they are doing are not approved by the majority of the people.
With parties in existence, as they have been for almost all of our
history as a nation, there are in the main, four ways in which a man
may act toward them. He may be a hidebound party man, always voting the
party ticket, and swallowing the party platforms whole. Such persons
often get into the newspapers when they are elderly, as having voted
for every candidate on this or that party ticket for fifty or sixty or
seventy years. It simply means, of course, that these men are proud of
the fact that they let other people do their thinking for them.
Or, a man may look upon a party as the means through which he may
secure better government. He is proud of its wise and good acts, and is
willing to forgive its mistakes, because he knows that no large group
of men can be perfect. He believes in remaining loyal to his party as
long as possible, but he does not set it above his country, nor agree
to follow it when it goes absolutely wrong, or falls into the hands of
men who hold party welfare above patriotism. Roosevelt was a party man
of this kind.
Furthermore, a man may be an Independent, one who will not join any
party for long. Many of these are highly honorable and wise citizens,
who are of great value to the country, although they can usually be
nothing but helpers in any good cause. Their position nearly always
prevents their becoming the chief actors in bringing about any good and
desirable reform.
The fourth class in which a man may find himself in regard to parties,
is that of the so-called independent, who mistakes his own fussiness
for nobility of character. He can find fault with everybody and every
party, but he can be loyal to none. He is strong on leaving a party for
the smallest excuse; never on staying with it. It is as if a member
of a foot-ball team, half an hour before the game, should refuse to
play, because some other member of the team had once cheated in an
examination. He satisfies his own conscience, but he fails in the
loyalty he owes to the team and its friends.
At the convention in 1884 Roosevelt took an important part for so
young a man. He made speeches and worked for Senator Edmunds, but Mr.
Blaine was nominated. This caused a split in the party, and many of
its members joined the Democrats. They were called by their opponents
"Mugwumps," and since they believed they were acting for the best, they
did not mind being called that or any other name.
So many prominent and able Republicans joined the Mugwumps it is
sometimes forgotten that many more equally good and wise Republicans
refused to "bolt," but stayed with the party and voted for Mr. Blaine.
Either they did not at all believe the charges which had been made
against him--and it is as impossible now as it was then to prove the
charges--or else they thought that the country would be far worse off
with the Democratic party in power than with the Republicans successful.
Mr. Roosevelt was disgusted with the result of the convention, but did
not believe that he was justified in leaving the party. He therefore
stayed in it, and supported Mr. Blaine.
The Democrats nominated the courageous Governor of New York, Grover
Cleveland. Both before and after this, he and Mr. Roosevelt worked
together for measures of good government, and respected each other,
while belonging to different parties. The presidential election turned
out to be close, and in the end several incidents besides the split in
the Republican party worked against Blaine. He was narrowly defeated.
The change of a few hundred votes in the State of New York would have
made Blaine the President. As in later years large election frauds were
discovered to have been going on in New York, some people contend
with good show of reason, that Blaine and not Cleveland was really the
choice of the voters.
Two years after this, in 1886, when Roosevelt was on his Dakota ranch,
the Republicans nominated him for Mayor of New York City. He was about
twenty-eight years old, and it is evident that he had made a mark in
politics. He came East, accepted the nomination, and made the campaign.
The opponents were, first, Abram S. Hewitt, a respectable candidate
nominated by Tammany Hall in its customary fashion of offering a good
man, now and then, to pull the wool over the eyes of persons who
naturally need some excuse for voting to put New York into the hands
of the political organization whose existence has always been one of
America's greatest disgraces.
The other candidate was Henry George, a man of high character,
nominated by the United Labor Party. Mr. Hewitt was elected, with Mr.
George second and Mr. Roosevelt third.
About a month after the election, Mr. Roosevelt went to England, where
he married Miss Edith Kermit Carow, of New York. She had been his
friend and playmate when he was a boy, and was his sister's friend. The
groomsman was a young Englishman, Mr. Cecil Spring-Rice. Years later
the groom and his "best man" came together again in Washington, when
the American was President Roosevelt, and the Englishman was Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador to the United States.