The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  Theodore reacted with predictable anger:

  I answered that if this were so it merely meant that the people I knew did not belong to the governing class, and that the other people did—and that I intended to be one of the governing class; and if they proved too hard-bit for me I supposed I would have to quit, but that I certainly would not quit until I had made the effort and found out whether I really was too weak to hold my own in the rough and tumble.38

  He could, of course, have entered the government the respectable way—by cultivating the society of men in leather armchairs, qualifying as a lawyer himself, and, in ten years or so, running for a seat in the United States Senate. But some instinct told him that if he desired raw political power—and from this winter on, for the rest of his life, he never ceased to desire it—he must start on the shop floor, learn to work those greasy levers one by one.39 Besides, he had a private score to settle. It had been the New York State Republican machine, still controlled by Boss Roscoe Conkling, that had destroyed Theodore Senior; might not Theodore Junior, by mastering its techniques, use that same machine to avenge him? Among his father’s letters, which he kept about him as “talismans against evil,”40 was one dated 16 December 1877, after Conkling’s victory in the Senate. In the tired hand of a dying man, Theodore Senior had written: “The ‘Machine politicians’ have shown their colors … I feel sorry for the country however as it shows the power of partisan politicians who think of nothing higher than their own interests, and I feel for your future. We cannot stand so corrupt a government for any great length of time.”41

  So the budding socialite turned his back on privilege, and spent more and more time at Morton Hall.42 Despite the glory he later attained, the clubby set never quite forgave him. He was considered “a traitor to his caste,” a man who “should have been on the side of capital.”43 Long after his death, when builders began to convert the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace into a national shrine, a family elder exclaimed, “I don’t know why you are making such a fuss. I used to hate to see him coming down the street.”44

  THE STOUT MAN WHO chaired meetings at Morton Hall, from behind a stout pitcher of iced water, was scarcely more pleased to hear Theodore’s feet drumming up the stairs. “Jake” Hess was a self-made, professional politician, and had little use for amateurs in evening clothes.45 His German-Jewish heritage had not prevented him from elbowing aside many Irish Catholic challengers to win control of the Twenty-first District. A loyal servant of the upstate Republican machine, Hess regularly supplied Albany with loyal, machine-minded Assemblymen. Since the Twenty-first was one of the few “safe” Republican districts in New York City, he was a man of unusual influence, and pompously aware of it.46

  At first Theodore tried to cultivate Hess, but his efforts were received only with “rather distant affability.” The newcomer was forced to mingle instead with the rank and file of the party—and some were rank indeed—acquiring “the political habit” at the very lowest level. For most of the winter of 1880–81 he seemed content with this society.

  I went around there often enough to have the men get accustomed to me and to have me get accustomed to them, so that we began to speak the same language, and so that each could begin to live down what Bret Harte has called “the defective moral quality of being a stranger.” It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them.47

  By March he was taking a more active role in party politics, attending a series of primaries in addition to regular meetings, working his way up into the executive committee of the Young Republicans, and presuming to address the association on its new charter.48

  An opportunity for advancement, he thought, arose early in April. Theodore’s only reference to it in his diary was: “Went to Republican Primary; grand row; very hopeless.” The story behind this cryptic entry is interesting, since it indicates that his very first political maneuver was in the direction of rebellion and reform. A citizens’ movement was under way to introduce a non-partisan Street Cleaning Bill into the State Legislature—then, as always, the cleanliness of New York’s streets varied according to who represented which district—and Theodore backed it. He made a speech on behalf of the bill at Morton Hall, and spoke with such force that he won several rounds of applause. By the time he sat down he was the object of at least one man’s thoughtful gaze.49 But the party machine was opposed to the measure; and on 5 May Theodore found himself with only six or seven votes out of three or four hundred.50

  The young opportunist retired to lick his wounds. He did not go back to Morton Hall that spring. A few days later the law school broke up, Lightfoot was dispatched to the country, and Mittie Roosevelt ordered the blinds drawn at 6 West Fifty-seventh Street. Pausing only to dictate his will, and pack a thousand pounds of luggage, Theodore escorted Alice up the gangplank of the steamship Celtic on 12 May 1881. “Hurrah! for a summer abroad with the darling little wife.”51

  HIS EUPHORIA DWINDLED before they were halfway across the Atlantic. “Confound a European trip, say I!” he wrote in his diary. Alice, who had never been overseas before, was so consistently seasick that Theodore exhausted himself taking care of her.52 But Ireland, which they reached on 21 May, exerted its usual calming influence.53 They sailed smoothly up the River Lee to Cork, and awoke the following morning, Sunday, to the sound of the Bells of Shandon. Alice recovered immediately, and was able to endure ten days of riding on jaunting cars, ancient trains, and shaggy ponies with sweet equanimity. Meanwhile, Theodore reacted to everything with ears as well as eyes. He praised the birdsong and wildflowers at Castle Blarney, enjoyed the silence and “many-colored mountains” around Killarney, and thrilled to the echoing cliffs of Dunloe’s Gap. Unlike most visitors, he investigated some of the uglier aspects of life on the Emerald Isle. A heap of dirty rags on the road to Cork turned out to be a tramp, “insensible from sheer hunger.” With the help of some peasants, he revived the man, fed him, and sent him on his way with ten shillings. “A beautiful country,” Theodore concluded, “but with a terrible understratum of wretchedness.”54

  By the end of the month, when they embarked on a glassy sea for England, Alice had become the best travelling companion he had ever known. Being athletically inclined, she was game for the most arduous excursions, yet was feminine enough to pretend helplessness while he juggled with suitcases, tickets, and hack-drivers. “Baby enjoys everything immensely,” he wrote after a marathon tour of the London galleries, “and has a far keener appreciation of most of the pictures than I have.”

  Theodore’s own taste, on this third exposure to the art of Europe, was cheerfully unsophisticated: “Turner—idiotic.” He preferred such sentimental artists as Murillo and Gustave Doré, despite the latter’s tendency “to paint by the square mile.”55 A week in Paris, dining deliciously and exploring the caverns of the Louvre; five days in a Venetian palace, with evening rides through the “water-streets,” and balcony breakfasts shared with pigeons; an afternoon spent under the “immense, cool, vaulted arches” of Milan Cathedral; four days in the marbled splendor of the Villa d’Este on Lake Como; then north in a rented carriage for a tour of the Alps. Alice, riding on horseback, accompanied Theodore up “a fair-sized mountain” near Samaden, and in consequence spent the next several days nursing various tender areas of her person.56

  During this lull, early in July, news came that President Garfield had been shot, and was lying in a coma from which he was unlikely to recover. “Frightful calamity for America,” wrote Theodore in his diary, adding, “… this means work in the future for those who wish their country well.”57

  The assassination of President Garfield was only the latest in a series of political explosions that shook America in the spring and summer of 1881, and whose rumblings followed Theodore across the Atlantic. Fuses had been lit the year before at the Republican National Convention, when the party went into deadlock over the nomination of its
presidential candidate. Senator Conkling’s machine-minded “Stalwarts,” who had grown rich on patronage under Grant, and suffered under the righteous Hayes, wanted the general back in the White House. More independent (but equally corrupt) “Half-Breeds” were united in support of James G. Blaine. It had taken twenty-six ballots before James A. Garfield was nominated as an unpopular compromise. Both factions smoldered in resentment through his election and inauguration in March 1881.58 Then the first explosion occurred.

  IN AN UNCANNY REPETITION of the events of 1877, Garfield named a reform Republican to the Collectorship of Customs for the Port of New York, just as Hayes before him had named Theodore Senior. Boss Conkling was so enraged by this second Presidential slap in the face that on 16 May he resigned his Senate seat, confident that his lieutenants in the New York State Legislature would reelect him and shame Garfield into withdrawing the appointment. No Senator had ever offered so dramatic a challenge to a President, and Theodore, anxiously devouring French and Italian newspapers, kept abreast of developments as best he could.

  For a while it seemed that the Boss might win. But then a madman’s bullet shattered both Garfield’s spine and Conkling’s chances.59 While the President lay dying, Conkling became, by popular consent, the archvillain who had plotted his assassination. This rumor was false. Party leaders in Albany, however, were forced to elect another Senator.

  A final stroke of irony, which Theodore had leisure to ponder in his Alpine retreat, was that Garfield’s heir apparent was Vice President Chester A. Arthur—the very man whom Theodore Senior had been groomed to replace in 1877. Boss Conkling might be out of power, but as long as his father’s old rival sat in the White House, Theodore would be reminded of the uninterrupted power of the machine.

  MOVING ON THROUGH Austria and Bavaria, the young man had opportunity to exercise his linguistic abilities, translating German into Italian for the benefit of the carriage driver, and both into English for the benefit of Alice.60 They found the summer heat of the Bavarian lowlands stifling, and by mid-July Theodore was climbing mountains again. In a period of ten days he “walked up” Pilatus (leaving an exhausted guide halfway down), the Rigi-Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau, confessing only that he felt “rather tired” after the latter. Then, having refreshed himself with a twenty-one-mile hike from Visp to Zermatt, he focused his eager spectacles on the Matterhorn.61

  The notorious fifteen-thousand-foot peak curved into the sky like a giant scimitar, so steeply pointed that snow either slid off it or blew away in Alpine gales. Unconquered until 1865, the Matterhorn possessed for Theodore “a certain sombre interest from the number of people that have lost their lives on it.” This, plus the prestige he would win as one of the few unskilled climbers to ascend it, was enough to tempt him, and the presence of two British mountaineers in his hotel acted as a further goad.62 Determined to prove that he could climb as well as they could, he set off with two guides on the morning of 5 August.

  At six o’clock in the evening we reached the small hut, half a cavern, where we spent the night; it was on the face of a cliff, up which we climbed by a rope forty feet long, and the floor was covered with ice a foot deep … We left the hut at three-forty [A.M.] and, after seeing a most glorious sunrise, which crowned the countless snow peaks and billowy, white clouds with a strange, crimson irradescence, reached the summit at seven, and were down at the foot of the Matterhorn proper by one. It was like going up and down enormous stairs on your hands and knees for nine hours … during the journey I was nearer giving out than on the Jungfrau, but I was not nearly so tired afterwards.63

  HAVING HAD HIS FILL of exercise for a while, Theodore turned now to mental activity. The manuscript of “that favorite chateau-en-espagne of mine,” The Naval War of 1812 formed a bulky part of the Roosevelt luggage, and he worked at it doggedly during his last month in Europe. “You would be amused,” he told Bamie from the Hague, “to see me writing it here. I have plenty of information now, but I can’t get it into words; I am afraid it is too big a task for me. I wonder if I won’t find everything in life too big for my abilities. Well, time will tell.”64

  On 10 September the travelers reached Liverpool,65 laden with Parisian fashions and presents from the best London shops. Here Theodore’s “blessed old sea-captain” uncle, Irvine Bulloch, helped untangle some of the nautical knots in his manuscript.66 The young author’s confidence returned, and he found himself looking forward to the resumption of his legal, literary, and political work in New York.

  Summarizing his third trip abroad in twelve years, Theodore wrote Bill Sewall: “I have enjoyed it greatly, yet the more I see the better satisfied I am that I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”67

  IN THIS HEALTHY FRAME of mind, and feeling superbly healthy in body, the conqueror of the Matterhorn arrived back in New York on 2 October 1881. He lost no time in resuming his tripartite life, although a diary entry for 17 October indicates that his priorities had changed. “Am working fairly hard at my law, hard at politics, and hardest of all at my book.” Indeed, Theodore’s interest in the first of these activities was steadily waning. He would continue to attend Columbia Law School lectures, on and off, for at least another year, and acquire, almost against his will, a semiprofessional mastery of civil and criminal procedure, corporate and constitutional law, labor contracts, and cross-examination techniques—all highly useful to him in later life. But he found his current ambitions better served (and his soul more soothed) by the contrasted pleasures of politicking and writing.68

  From 6 October to 8 November it was the former activity that prevailed, since the Twenty-first District was going through its annual throes of returning an Assemblyman to Albany. Theodore did not want to miss a moment of the “rough and tumble.” He plunged aggressively into primary work, resolved “to kill our last year’s legislator,” who was up for renomination.69 The legislator’s name was William Trimble. Like all of Jake Hess’s hand-picked Assemblymen, he was a loyal servant of the machine, and a Stalwart through and through. This alone would have been enough to prejudice Theodore against him. The fact that Trimble had voted to oppose his pet cause, the Street Cleaning Bill, added a personal zest to the fight. Accordingly Theodore worked energetically on behalf of independent delegates, and on 24 October, at the preconvention meeting in Morton Hall, he stood up to make a formal protest against Trimble’s renomination.70 Hess listened from behind his pitcher of iced water with the bland patience of a leader who is sure of his delegates. Neither he nor the speaker was aware that the same thoughtful eyes which had rested on Theodore earlier in the year were resting on him again, and that by now their gaze was beady.

  The eyes belonged to Joe Murray, one of Hess’s Irish lieutenants. Burly, red-faced, taciturn, and shrewd,71 Murray had his own reasons to stop Trimble, more complex ones than Theodore’s. He had been raised in barefoot poverty on First Avenue, and emerged in his teens as the leader of a street gang. In this capacity he had been employed, on a freelance basis, to influence the course of local elections with his fists. Although he worked, in alternate years, for both Republicans and Democrats, his blows on behalf of the former party carried more conviction, so to speak, than those for the latter, and in his early twenties he had been rewarded with the job of ward heeler at Morton Hall. Having thus literally punched his way into politics, Murray revealed unexpected gifts for party organization, and moved up quietly through the ranks until now, in his midthirties, he stood at Hess’s elbow. Being a philosophical man, he tolerated his leader’s arrogance and vanity, content to build up support within the association until the time was ripe to “make a drive” at him.72

  It had been too early to do that in the spring, when Murray had joined Hess in crushing Theodore’s support of the Street Cleaning Bill, but he had not forgotten the young man’s courage and outspokenness. During the summer, events had conspired to keep Roosevelt in his mind. Th
e resignation of Boss Conkling, and the assassination of President Garfield, caused a public outcry against machine politicians in general, and Stalwarts in particular. Since Assemblyman Trimble was both, he had been tainted by this unpopularity, and Murray’s street instinct warned that if Trimble stood for reelection, the Twenty-first might fall to the Democrats. But when the Irishman expressed his misgivings, Hess had reacted contemptuously. “He’ll be nominated anyway. You don’t amount to anything.”73

  This was one insult too many for Murray. Unknown to Hess, he had already lined up enough delegates to nominate anybody he chose. All he lacked was a candidate. Two nights later, as he sat listening to Theodore speak at the preconvention meeting, he realized that he had found one. Here was a candidate to beat Trimble, humiliate Hess, and convince the electorate that the bad old days of Republicanism were over. This boy bore the name of one of New York’s most revered philanthropists. As an Ivy League man, he could be counted on to bring in “the swells and the Columbia crowd”; as a Knickerbocker, he would generate funds along Fifth Avenue. He was obviously naive and untrained in politics, but that should prove an advantage on the hustings. His manners were pleasing, his face open and ingenuous, and he positively glowed with righteousness. He would be independent of any machine, immune to all bribes; he was honest, elegant, humorous, and a born fighter. What was more, he obviously enjoyed getting up on a chair and shouting at people. Murray decided “it was Theodore Roosevelt or no one.”74