Roosevelt’s best friends in the capital were still Isaac Hunt and Billy O’Neil, plus a new young Republican from Brooklyn, Walter Howe. Together they formed what their leader called “a pleasant quartette.” With George Spinney acting as a non-legislative fifth member, they would occasionally play hookey from the Assembly for a night on the town. By modern standards, these spells of wild abandon were laughably sedate; Roosevelt’s disdain for “low drinking and dancing saloons” was marked even in 1883.25 Since discovering at Harvard that wine made him truculent, he had begun a lifetime policy of near-total abstinence. However an extract from the Hunt/Spinney interviews suggests that a little could go a long way:
SPINNEY They concluded that I was worthy of a dinner, and we had … a damned good dinner. Of course we talked and we sang.
HAGEDORN He did?
SPINNEY You never heard Theodore sing?
HAGEDORN No, I never did.
HUNT Well, he sang that night.
SPINNEY On top of the table, too.
HUNT With the water bottle, do you remember that?26
Here Spinney changes the subject. But he moves on to another anecdote, which indicates that the forces of corruption were still out to besmirch Roosevelt’s public image.
SPINNEY What was that story about the cockfight? … They put up a job on Roosevelt. Roosevelt liked all sort of athletic sports, and cockfighting was something new to him.… Some of them had arranged for a cockfight in Troy, and I think the place was to be pulled by the police. Well … the place was pulled, but Roosevelt beat it for Albany, and came in puffing and panting into the Delavan House, and telling that he had escaped being pulled in up there …
HUNT Next morning some of the fellows had feathers on their coats.27
THERE WERE TIMES, during the early months of the session, when Roosevelt seemed not unlike a fighting cock himself. His raucous, repetitive calls of “Mister Spee-kar!,” his straining neck, wobbly spectacle ribbons, and rooster-red face were combined with increasing aggressiveness and a fondness for murderous, pecking adjectives. If his opponents were tough, and big enough to fight back, these adjectives could be effective and amusing—as when he denounced Jay Gould’s newspaper the World as “a local, stockjobbing sheet of limited circulation and versatile mendacity, owned by the arch thief of Wall Street and edited by a rancorous kleptomaniac with a penchant for trousers.”28 (The paper often lampooned Roosevelt’s fashionable attire.) But at other times, and on a more personal level, his words left wounds. As party leader in the Assembly, he admitted to no patience with “that large class of men whose intentions are excellent, but whose intellects are foggy,” and attacked them openly on the floor. An Irish Democrat was dismissed as “the highly improbable, perfectly futile, altogether unnecessary, and totally impossible statesman from Ulster.”29 One seventy-year-old Assemblyman, hurt beyond endurance by Roosevelt’s incessant vituperation, took the floor, on a point of personal privilege, to defend himself. His refutations were so eloquent that Roosevelt was moved to make a tearful apology. “Mr. Brooks, I surrender. I beg your pardon.”30
Many of the young man’s early gaucheries can be ascribed to that most powerful of political temptations, the desire to see one’s name on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. Ever since the Westbrook affair, reporters had clustered flatteringly around him. They had discovered that the noticeable word ROOSEVELT, besprinkled over a column of otherwise dull copy, was a guarantee of readership. And so, hypnotized by the scratching of shorthand pencils, he talked on. He was unaware that some of his remarks were causing experienced politicians to shake their heads. “There is a great sense in a lot that he says,” Grover Cleveland allowed, “but there is such a cocksuredness about him that he stirs up doubt in me all the time.”31
It was clear that Roosevelt was enjoying himself, and equally clear that he would soon come a cropper. He showed a dangerous tendency to see even the most complicated issues simply in terms of good and evil. As a result, his speeches often sounded insufferably pious. “There is an increasing suspicion,” wrote one Albany correspondent, “that Mr. Roosevelt keeps a pulpit concealed on his person.”32 Heretics noted with amusement that, in his theology, God always resided with the Republicans, while the Devil was a Democrat. “The difference between your party and ours,” he angrily yelled across the floor one day, “is that your bad men throw out your good ones, while with us the good throw out the bad!” Nor was this enough: “There is good and bad in each party, but while the bad largely predominates in yours, it is the good which predominates in ours!” Such oversimplifications always made him seem rather ridiculous. “When Mr. Roosevelt had finished his affecting oration,” the New York Observer reported, “the House was in tears—of uncontrollable laughter.”33
IN FAIRNESS TO ROOSEVELT, it must be admitted that he was under considerable strain when he made the above-quoted remark, on 9 March 1883. A few days before he had reversed his public position on a bill of major importance, and had unleashed an avalanche of bitter personal criticism. For the first time in his career, both friends and enemies seemed genuinely outraged. Even the faithful Billy O’Neil (whose philosophy had always been “If Teddy says it’s all right, it is all right”) split with him on this issue.34
The bill was one which proposed to reduce the Manhattan Elevated Railroad fare from ten cents to five. Its grounds were that Jay Gould, owner of the corporation, earned far too much profit—profit which he unscrupulously concealed for the purposes of tax evasion. Any such fare-reducing measure was bound to be enormously popular with the masses, and Roosevelt had given “the Five-Cent Bill” his full support, right from the beginning of the session. If a fellow member had not introduced it, he told the press, he would have done so himself, “for the measure is one deserving of support of every legislator in this city.” Both the Assembly and Senate had concurred, and passed the bill by overwhelming majorities. By 1 March it was ready for Grover Cleveland’s signature.35
But the bill’s backers, Roosevelt included, reckoned without the deep and laborious scrutiny that the Governor gave to every measure, no matter how public-spirited it might seem on the surface. Lights in the Executive Office, which rarely went off before midnight, burned into the small hours of 2 March as Cleveland agonized over the Five-Cent Bill. He found it unconstitutional. The state had entered into a contract with Gould allowing the elevated railroad to charge ten cents a ride, and it was honor bound to that contract. If the financier fattened on it, that was the state’s fault. Aware that he was risking his political future, the Governor wrote a firm veto. He went to bed muttering, “Grover Cleveland, you’ve done the business for yourself tonight.”36
Next day, much to his surprise, he discovered that he was an instant hero. Both press and public praised him for an inspiring act of courage. His veto message declaring that “the State must not only be strictly just, but scrupulously fair” shocked the Assembly into applause.37 Roosevelt was the first to rise in support of the veto. Full of admiration for Cleveland, he spoke with unusual humility:
I have to say with shame that when I voted for this bill I did not act as I think I ought to have acted … I have to confess that I weakly yielded, partly to a vindictive spirit toward the infernal thieves who have the Elevated Railroad in charge, and partly in answer to the popular voice of New York.
For the managers of the Elevated Railroad I have as little feeling as any man here, and I would willingly pass a bill of attainder on Jay Gould and all of his associates, if it were possible. They have done all possible harm to this community, with their hired newspapers, with their corruption of the judiciary and of this House. Nevertheless … I question whether the bill is constitutional … it is not a question of doing right to them. They are common thieves … they belong to that most dangerous of all classes, the wealthy criminal class.38
That acid phrase, “the wealthy criminal class,” etched itself into the public consciousness.39 Long after other details of the young Assemblyman’s career were f
orgotten, it survived as an early example of his gift for political invective. For the moment, its sting was such that Roosevelt’s audience took little notice of his concluding peroration, in which the future President spoke loud and clear.
We have heard a great deal about the people demanding the passage of this bill. Now anything the people demand that is right it is most clearly and most emphatically the duty of this Legislature to do; but we should never yield to what they demand if it is wrong … I would rather go out of politics having the feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I have acted as I ought not to.
Roosevelt’s speech, undoubtedly the best he ever made at Albany, earned him widespread scorn. He was denounced by both hostile and friendly newspapers as a “weakling,” “hoodlum,” and “bogus reformer.”40 Very few commentators realized that, in openly admitting he was wrong, Roosevelt was in fact a braver man than the Governor. He need not have said anything at all: any fool in the Assembly that morning could see that the majority would accept Cleveland’s veto. Roosevelt, as Minority Leader, merely had to record a token vote against it, and his political honor would be intact. Both Hunt and O’Neil urged him to do this, but he was more concerned with personal honor. So it was that on 7 March 1883 he found himself voting, along with Democrats and the hated members of Tammany Hall, to accept the Governor’s veto, while members of his “quartette” voted the other way.41
On top of this humiliation came the House’s decision, on 8 March, to unseat a Roosevelt associate named Sprague, on the suspicion of election irregularities. Roosevelt himself was a member of the Committee of Privileges and Elections, which had recommended that Sprague be allowed to stay. The House rejected its report. At once Roosevelt’s self-control cracked, and he furiously announced that he was resigning from the committee. As for the Democratic majority, he waxed Biblical in his wrath. “No good thing will come out of Nazareth … Exactly as ten men could have saved the ‘cities of the plains,’ so these twelve men [who had voted for Sprague] will not save the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Democracy. The small leaven of righteousness that is within it will not be able to leaven the whole sodden lump …”42
He went on, for almost fifteen minutes. This was the speech which reportedly left his audience “in tears—of uncontrollable laughter.” The House refused to accept Roosevelt’s resignation, and, ignoring his strident protests, went about its business.43
IF ROOSEVELT HAD BEEN a hero to the press before, he now found himself its favorite clown. Democratic newspapers joyfully quoted his “silly and scandalous gabble” and intimated that he, too, was a member of “the wealthy criminal class.” He was dubbed “The Chief of the Dudes,” and satirized as a tight-trousered snob, given to sucking the knob of an ivory cane. Some of these editorials were undeniably comic.44 What he read in the World, however, was not so funny. Jay Gould’s editors cruelly invoked a precious memory: “The friends who have so long deplored the untimely death of Theodore Roosevelt [Senior] cannot but be thankful that he has been spared the pain of a spectacle which would have wounded to the quick his gracious and honorable nature.” A short quotation followed:
His sons grow up that bear his name,
Some grow to honor, some to shame—
But he is chill to praise or blame.45
Grover Cleveland came to the rescue. Glowing with the praise that had been heaped on him since the veto of the Five-Cent Bill, the Governor could not help being touched by the fate of his innocent Republican ally. Another summons came for Roosevelt to visit the Executive Office and discuss pending Civil Service legislation.46
He reported that his Civil Service Bill, long stuck in the Judiciary Committee, was back on the Assembly table at last. (Isaac Hunt had sneaked it out of the committee when the chairman was absent.) Cleveland made him a flattering offer and promise. If the “Roosevelt Republicans” would move the bill off the table, “Cleveland Democrats” would ensure its passage.47
Both men were aware that much larger issues were at stake than the mere movement of a bill they happened to care for. Cleveland’s victory as Governor had been achieved with the help of Tammany Hall, and for the first few months of his administration he had allowed that corrupt institution to think that he was beholden to it.48 Yet now he was proposing to force through the Assembly a bill that was anathema to machine politicians, and, what was more, enlisting the aid of Tammany’s bitterest enemy in the House. In other words, the Governor was about to destroy the unity he had so recently created in the Democratic party. Roosevelt cannot but have been fascinated by his motives. Did Cleveland, too, feel the groundswell of reform sentiment building up across the land?
ROOSEVELT PROMPTLY MOVED for passage of his Civil Service Reform Bill, and made the principal speech in its behalf on 9 April. His humilitation of the previous month had reminded him of the value of brevity, but he spoke as forcefully as ever: “My object in pushing this measure is … to take out of politics the vast band of hired mercenaries whose very existence depends on their success, and who can almost always in the end overcome the efforts of them whose only care is to secure a pure and honest government.”49
The immediate reaction to his speech was predictable. A representative of the “black horse cavalry” stood up to say that Roosevelt had “prated a good deal of nonsense.” But Governor Cleveland’s promise held good: only three Democrats voiced any objection to the bill, to the great mystification of Tammany Hall. However they did so at such length that no action was taken that evening.50 Tammany mustered its forces somewhat in the days that followed, and was able to delay any progress for several weeks, but the Roosevelt/Cleveland coalition of independents finally triumphed. The Civil Service Reform Bill was sent to the Senate, which passed it on 4 May, the last day of the session.51
“And do you know,” said Isaac Hunt long afterward, “that bill had much to do with the election of Grover Cleveland. When he came to run for President, the non-partisan liberal-minded citizens, who were not affiliated very strongly with either party, voted for Cleveland.” But, Hunt added, “Mr. Roosevelt was as much responsible for that law as any human being.”52
ROOSEVELT’S OWN RECOLLECTION of his political performance as Minority Leader was that, having risen like a rocket, “I came an awful cropper, and had to pick myself up after learning by bitter experience the lesson that I was not all-important.”53 On another occasion he remarked, “My isolated peak had become a valley; every bit of influence I had was gone. The things I wanted to do I was powerless to accomplish.”54
The facts do not entirely support this negative view. Although he certainly “came an awful cropper” two-thirds of the way through the session, his legislative record was better than it had been in 1882. His activities on behalf of Civil Service Reform have already been noted. In addition, he helped resurrect the lost Cigar Bill, pushed it through the Assembly, and persuaded a doubtful Governor to sign it into law.55 During the customary flow of legislation just before adjournment, Roosevelt and his “quartette” were successful in killing many corrupt measures.
He did suffer many defeats during the session, but they were on the whole honorable ones, proving that he was a man who fought for his principles. The fact that the House majority was heavily Irish did not prevent him attacking a bill to appropriate money to a Catholic protectory, on the grounds that church and state must be separate. He fought reform of the New York City Charter, saying that the suggested changes were more corrupt than the status quo; he attempted to raise public-house license fees “to regulate the growing evil in the sale of intoxicating liquors.” He objected to bills designed to end the unfair competition of prison and free labor, which he believed preferable to having criminals live in idleness; he even introduced a bill “to provide for the infliction of corporal punishment upon [certain] male persons” at a public whipping-post. (One commentator mischievously predicted that, if this bill became law, Roosevelt would wish to restore “the thumbscrew and rack.�
��)56
As for losing “every bit” of his influence, he actually retained all of it, in the opinion of The New York Times. “The rugged independence of Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt and his disposition to deal with all public measures in a liberal spirit have given him a controlling force on the floor superior to that of any member of his party,” the paper reported. “Whatever boldness the minority has exhibited in the Assembly is due to his influence, and whatever weakness and cowardice it has displayed is attributable to its unwillingness to follow where he led.”57 Other reform-minded periodicals complimented him, if not quite so fulsomely.58
The most interesting appraisal of Roosevelt in the session of 1883 remained unspoken for a quarter of a century. “It was clear to me, even thus early,” Grover Cleveland remembered, “that he was looking to a public career, that he was studying political conditions with a care that I have never known any man to show, and that he was firmly convinced that he would some day reach prominence.”59
ON 28 MAY 1883, three weeks after the Legislature adjourned, the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt was a guest of honor at a bibulous party at Clark’s Tavern, New York City. The occasion was a meeting of the Free Trade Club; and although Roosevelt spoke seriously on “The Tariff in Politics,” the evening quickly became social. Bumpers of red and white wine and “sparkling amber” flowed freely, as the mostly young and fashionable audience toasted vague chimeras of future reform.60 Free Trade was in those days a doctrine almost as controversial as Civil Service Reform, and Roosevelt admitted that he was risking “political death” by espousing it.61 Although he indeed came to regret his speech, he never regretted going to Clark’s that hot spring night, for a chance meeting occurred which directly influenced the future course of his life.
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Page 22