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."