FIGHTING OFFICE-SEEKERS
To tell the story of Roosevelt's life it is necessary to talk much
about politics, and that to some people is a dull subject. But he was
in political office over twenty years of his life, always interested
and active in politics, and the vigor which he brought to his duties
made public affairs attractive to thousands of Americans who had felt
little concern about them.
This alone was a great service. If a man is going the wrong way in
political life, if he is trying to do unwise or evil things, he is a
danger, but a danger which may be corrected. He may be made to turn
his efforts in useful directions. But the man who takes no interest at
all in the government of his city, state or nation, who is so feeble
that he cannot even take the time to vote on election day, but goes
hunting or fishing instead,--this man is a hopeless nuisance, who does
not deserve the liberty which he enjoys, nor the protection which his
government gives him.
Politics, when Mr. Roosevelt was active, were not dull. Few men have
ever made them so lively and interesting. Every activity in life meant
something to him, a chance for useful work or for good fun. He had
a perfectly "corking time," he said, when he was President, and the
words shocked a number of good people who had pardoned or overlooked
dirty actions by other public men, so long as these other men kept up a
certain copy-book behavior which they thought was "dignity."
It is a question if any man ever had a better time, ever had more real
fun in his life, than did Mr. Roosevelt. In spite of the hard work he
put in, in spite of long days and weeks of drudgery he knew how to
get happiness out of every minute. He did not engage in drinking and
gambling for his amusements. He did not adopt a priggish attitude on
these matters,--he simply knew that there were other things which were
better sport. He was a religious man, a member all his life of his
father's church, but religion did not sour him, make him gloomy, or
cause him to interfere with other people about their belief or lack of
it.
He got an immense amount of pleasure in his family life, in half a
dozen kinds of athletic sports, especially the ones which led him
outdoors, and in books. In these things he was marvelously wise or
marvelously fortunate. Some men's lives are spent indoors, in an
office or in a study among books. Their amusements are indoor games,
and they come to despise or secretly to envy, the more fortunate men
who live outdoors.
Some of the outdoors men, on the other hand, become almost as
one-sided. Knowing nothing of the good fun that is in books they deny
themselves much pleasure, and take refuge in calling "high-brows" the
men who have simply more common sense and capacity for enjoyment than
themselves.
Mr. Roosevelt, more than most men of his time, certainly more than any
other public man, could enjoy to the utmost the best things the world
has in it. He knew the joy of the hard and active life in the open,
and he knew the keen pleasure of books. So when he returned to America
after his marriage in 1886, he built a house on Sagamore Hill at Oyster
Bay on Long Island. Here he could ride, shoot, row, look after his
farm, and here in the next year or two he wrote two books. One was the
life of Gouverneur Morris, American minister to France in the early
years of our nation; the other a life of Senator Thomas H. Benton of
Missouri.
But he was not long to stay out of political office. In 1888 President
Cleveland had been defeated for reelection by the Republican
candidate, Benjamin Harrison. The new President appointed Mr.
Roosevelt as one of the Civil Service Commissioners, with his office in
Washington.
Most politicians are charged, certainly Mr. Roosevelt was sometimes
charged, with being a selfish seeker after personal advancement.
There is not much on which to base this argument in Mr. Roosevelt's
acceptance of this office. For the man who is looking out merely for
his own ambitions, for his own success in politics, is careful of the
position he takes, careful to keep out of offices where there are many
chances to make enemies. The Civil Service Commission was, of all
places at that time, the last where a selfish politician would like to
be. Nobody could do his duties there and avoid making enemies. It was
a thankless job, consisting of trying to protect the public interests
against a swarm of office-seekers and their friends in Congress.
It is ridiculous now to remember what a fight had to be waged to set
up the merit system of the Civil Service in this country. The old
system, by which a good public servant was turned out to make room for
a hungry office-seeker of the successful political party, was firmly
established. Men and women were not appointed to office because they
knew anything about the work they were to do, but because they were
cousins of a Congressman's wife, or political heelers who had helped
to get the Congressman elected. Nobody thought of the offices as places
where, for the good of the whole country, it was necessary to have the
best men. Instead, the offices were looked on as delicious slices of
pie to be grabbed and devoured by the greediest and strongest person in
sight.
The Civil Service Commission, when Mr. Roosevelt became a member, had
been established by Congress, but it was hated and opposed by Congress
and the Commission was still fought, secretly or openly. Congressmen
tried to ridicule it, to hamper it by denials of money, and to overrule
it in every possible way. A powerful Republican Congressman and a
powerful Democratic Senator tried to browbeat Roosevelt, and were both
caught by him in particularly mean lies. Naturally they did not enjoy
the experience.
At the end of his term, President Harrison was defeated by Mr.
Cleveland, who came back again to the Presidency. He re-appointed Mr.
Roosevelt, who thus spent six years in the Commission. When he retired
he had made a good many enemies among the crooked politicians, and some
friends and admirers among well-informed men who watch the progress of
good government. He was still unknown to the great body of citizens
throughout the country, although he had been fighting their fight for
six years.
[Illustration: Mr. Roosevelt as a Hunter in his Ranching Days]
He went from Washington to accept another thankless and still more
difficult position in New York City. It was one which had been fatal to
political ambitions, and was almost certain to end the career of any
man who accepted it. This was the Presidency of the Board of Police
Commissioners.