GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK
When the Rough Riders were disbanded at Montauk Point in September
1898, Theodore Roosevelt was the most popular man in America. This is
the judgment of his best historian, Mr. Thayer, and it is undoubtedly
correct. The war had made known to the country a number of professional
soldiers or sailors--especially Admiral Dewey and Admiral Sampson,
whose conduct had been splendid. It had also created some popular
"heroes," whose fame was brief. But Colonel Roosevelt was first and
foremost a _citizen_, his career as a soldier was for a few months only.
Behind that was a solid foundation of service in civil office. Ahead of
it were still finer achievements, also in civil life. He felt the pride
which all men feel--despite much pretense and humbug--to have had the
chance to lead men in battle for a just cause, to have put his life in
danger when his country needed such offer of sacrifice.
But the Santiago campaign, the charge up San Juan hill, did not "make"
Roosevelt. It was a dramatic episode in his history; it attracted
attention to him. Such are the peculiar conditions of politics, it
proved a short cut to the White House. He said, frankly, that he would
never have been President if the Rough Riders had not gone to Cuba.
In this he underestimated himself, as he often did. He had too much
ability in politics, too much courage in fighting for the cause of
better government, at a time when courage was badly needed, to have
failed to rise to the highest office. Back in the days when he was
Civil Service Commissioner two visitors in the White House, saw him,
also a visitor, looking about the rooms.
"There is a young man," said one of them, who knew him, "who is going
to move into this house himself, before long."
After Cuba, the next step was the Governorship of New York State.
Before he was out of uniform, the politicians began talking about him
for the place. The Republican party in New York was in a bad way. They
had quarreled among themselves; the Democrats had just beaten them in
an election. They knew they must have a strong candidate for Governor,
or the Democrats, (that is, Tammany Hall) would get control at Albany.
This was the great day of the political Bosses. Perhaps at no time
since have they been quite as powerful as they were then. A man named
Croker was the Boss of the Democratic Party; a man named Platt, the
Boss of the Republicans. Men called the Boss of their own party the
"Leader," but they referred to the "Leader" of the other party as
the Boss, without wasting any politeness. Most men do not pay much
attention to politics; a Boss is a man who pays too much attention to
them. He exists because the average citizen thinks he has done his
whole duty if he votes on election day. A Boss works at his business,
which is politics, night and day, all the year round. He might be very
useful if he could be kept honest. He manages to get a great deal of
power, in ways that are shady, if not actually criminal. Then, if he
is one kind of a Boss, greedy for money, he sells this power to the
highest bidder. Men are nominated for office, because the Boss has
picked them out, as a poultryman might select a fat goose. Usually he
selects a man who will obey orders. But another kind of Boss does not
especially care for money. He likes the power which his position gives
him, he likes to be able to move men about as if they were toy-soldiers.
Such apparently was Senator Platt, the Republican Boss of New York.
People had so neglected their duty of managing their own affairs in
politics, that he had seized the reins, and could say who should be
nominated. In the same way Croker was the ruler of the Democratic party
in New York, and could say who should be nominated in his party.
Now, in such a situation, what was an honest man to do? The best men in
the Republican party believed that Roosevelt was the only one who could
be elected, that the people believed so firmly in his honor and courage
that they would vote for him. Senator Platt did not want him, did not
like him, but he came to see that they could win with him, and with no
one else. So Roosevelt was nominated, and elected, by a narrow lead of
18,000 votes. So far, the people could rule with Roosevelt as their
servant. But the Governor can do little alone; he must have the support
of the Legislature and the other State officers. The Boss hoped to rule
through them, to say who should be appointed to office, to decide which
bill should pass and which be defeated.
There were people who would have had Governor Roosevelt declare war on
Platt; refuse to have anything to do with him; refuse even to speak to
him. In that way he could have done nothing for the good of the State;
he could have spent his term in fighting Platt, made a great show of
independence and reform, but, in point of fact, advanced the cause
of good government not an inch. All of his proposals would have been
blocked by Platt's men in the Legislature.
Instead, he acted in accord with the facts as they were; not as if they
were the way he would have liked them to be. If Platt could not rule he
could ruin. So the Governor treated him politely, and only disagreed
with him when the Boss proposed something actually bad. For instance,
there was a most important officer, the Superintendent of Public Works,
to be appointed. Senator Platt informed Governor Roosevelt that a
certain man had been chosen; he showed him the telegram with the man's
acceptance. Roosevelt said, quietly, something like this:
"I think not, Senator. The Governor appoints that officer, and I am the
Governor."
Platt was very angry; Roosevelt refused to get angry, but stuck to his
decision, and made his own choice. Things like this happened again and
again, during the two years while Roosevelt was Governor of New York.
Every honorable man in American politics has to fight against this evil
of the Boss. Officeholders, Presidents and Governors, come and go, but
the Bosses hold their power for a long time. So long as they exist it
is not wise for us to talk too much about Kings and their tyranny. For
a Boss is very like a King. Platt and Croker thought that the people
were not fit to rule; theirs was much the same idea that King George
the Third and the German Kaiser had. The best and wisest men have had
to admit the strength of the Boss and try to deal with him as well as
they could; Abraham Lincoln even had to appoint one to his Cabinet. The
Boss creeps into power while the people are asleep.
Roosevelt pointed out that it is not hard for a man to be good if he
lives entirely by himself. Nor is it difficult for him to get things
done, if he is careless about right and wrong. The hard thing, yet the
one which must be demanded of the public man, is to get useful things
done, and to keep straight all the while. When Roosevelt was elected
Governor, John Hay, the Secretary of State, wrote to him:
"You have already shown that a man may be absolutely honest and yet
practical; a reformer by instinct and a wise politician; brave,
bold and uncompromising, and yet not a wild ass of the desert. The
exhibition made by the professional independents in voting against you
for no reason on earth except that somebody else was voting for you, is
a lesson that is worth its cost."[10]
[10] "Autobiography," p. 296.
The year 1900 was the year of a Presidential election. Mr. McKinley
was to run again on the Republican ticket, and later it appeared that
Mr. Bryan would oppose him again, as he had in 1896. The Republican
Vice-President, Mr. Hobart, had died in office, so the Republicans had
to find someone to go on the ticket with President McKinley. Roosevelt
was mentioned for the office, and Platt warmly agreed, hoping to get
him out of New York politics. Roosevelt, at first, refused to consider
an office which has more dignity than usefulness about it. Another
utterance of Secretary of State John Hay is interesting. He wrote to a
friend:
"Teddy has been here: have you heard of it? It was more fun than a
goat. He came down with a somber resolution thrown on his strenuous
brow to let McKinley and Hanna know once for all that he would not
be Vice-President, and found to his stupefaction that nobody in
Washington, except Platt, had ever dreamed of such a thing."[11]
[11] Thayer, p. 148.
Mr. Hay was one of the wisest of our statesmen; one of the most
polished and agreeable men in public life. Yet this letter shows how
the older men often mistook Roosevelt. For, in less than a year after
Mr. Hay had gently poked fun at "Teddy" for thinking that he might be
made Vice-President, and said that there was not the slightest danger
of such a thing happening, Roosevelt had been elected to that office.
His enjoyment of his work, his bubbling merriment, his lack of the
old-fashioned, pompous manners which used to be supposed proper for
a statesman, made many older men inclined to treat him with a sort
of fatherly amusement. They looked at his acts as an older man might
look at the pranks of a boy. And then, suddenly, they found themselves
serving under this "youngster," in the Government! It was a surprise
from which they never recovered.
I have said that the reporters, the makers of funny pictures in the
newspapers, and others, exaggerated Roosevelt's traits, and created a
false idea about him. This is true. But it is also true that there was
a great deal of real and honest fun poked at him throughout his life,
and that it added to the public enjoyment of his career. The writers
of comic rhymes, the cartoonists, and the writers of political satire
had a chance which no other President has ever given them. Many of our
Presidents--wise and good men--and many Senators, Governors, Cabinet
officers and others, have gone about as if they were all ready to pose
for their statues. Roosevelt never did this. He bore himself in public
with dignity, and respect for the high offices to which the people
elected him. But he did not suggest the old style of portrait, in which
a statesman is standing stiffly, hand in the breast of his coat, a
distant view of the Capitol in the background. He had too keen a sense
of fun for anything of the sort.
Nobody laughed at the jokes about him more heartily than he did
himself. When "Mr. Dooley" described his adventures as a Rough Rider,
and spoke of him as "Alone in Cubia," as if he thought he had won the
war all by himself, he wrote to the author:
"Three cheers Mr. Dooley! Do come on and let me see you soon. I am by
no means so much alone as in Cubia. ..."
"Let me repeat that Dooley, especially when he writes about Teddy
Rosenfelt has no more interested and amused reader than said
Rosenfelt himself."[12]
[12] Scribner's Magazine, December, 1919, p. 658.
* * * * *
Mr. McKinley was reelected President of the United States and Mr.
Roosevelt was elected Vice-President in November 1900. Roosevelt had
taken part in the campaign before election, and of this Mr. Thayer
writes:
He spoke in the East and in the West, and for the first time the
people of many of the States heard him speak and saw his actual
presence. His attitude as a speaker, his gestures, the way in which
his pent up thoughts seemed almost to strangle him before he could
utter them, his smile showing the white rows of teeth, his fist
clenched as if to strike an invisible adversary, the sudden dropping
of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger as he became almost
conversational in tone, and seemed to address special individuals
in the crowd before him, the strokes of sarcasm, stern and cutting,
and the swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude in
a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions of
his countrymen; and the cartoonists made his features and gestures
familiar to many other millions.[13]
[13] Thayer, p. 51.
In the following March he was sworn in as Vice-President. His duties
as presiding officer of the Senate were not severe, and he went on a
cougar hunt in Colorado in the winter before inauguration to enable him
to bear the physical inactivity of his new work.
When he came back to Washington again, to hold the second highest place
in the national government, it troubled him to think that he had never
finished the study of law, begun in New York many years before. He
asked his friend, Justice White of the Supreme Court, if it would be
wrong for him to take a legal course in a Washington law school. The
Justice told him that it would hardly be proper for the Vice-President
to do that, but offered to tutor him in law. They agreed to study
together the following winter.
But Roosevelt's term as Vice-President was coming to an end. He only
occupied the office for six months. He was soon to succeed to the
highest office of all.
[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood and Underwood.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT SPEAKING IN ATLANTA]