The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  Unassuming as Roosevelt’s press-relations policy may seem in an age of mass communications, it was unprecedented for a Governor of New York State in 1899. “At that time,” he wrote in his Autobiography, “neither the parties nor the public had any realization that publicity was necessary, or any adequate understanding of the dangers of the ‘invisible empire’ which throve by what was done in secrecy.”20

  His particular concern in these press conferences was to make the electorate aware of what he considered the most ominous of “the great fundamental questions looming before us,”21 namely, the unnatural alliance of politics and corporations. It was personified by Thomas C. Platt and Mark Hanna—distinguished, generally admirable individuals, yet afflicted with the curious amorality of big businessmen. Both were corporate executives, both were Senators of the United States. To them, capital was king; the corporation was society in microcosm; government was the oil which made industry throb. Just as tycoons were necessary to control the efficiency of labor, so were bosses required to supervise the writing of laws. If tycoon and boss could be combined in one person, so much the better for the gross national product.

  The fact that both Hanna and Platt were personally incorrupt did not reassure Roosevelt at all. Their very asceticism, the impartiality with which they distributed corporate contributions for good or ill, disturbed him. Often as not Platt would finance the campaign of some decent young candidate in a doubtful district, and thus prevent the election of an inferior person. But the decent candidate, once in office, would be tempted to show his gratitude by voting along with other beneficiaries of Platt’s generosity (or rather, the generosity of the corporations behind Platt); and so, inexorably, the machine grew.22

  What worried Roosevelt was the inability of ordinary people to see the danger of this proliferation of cogs and cylinders and coins in American life.23 The corrupt power of corporations was increasing at an alarming rate, directly related to the “rush toward industrial monopoly.” In the twenty-five years between the Civil War and 1890, 26 industrial mergers had been announced; in the next seven years there were 156; in the single year 1898 a record $900,000,000 of capital was incorporated; yet in the first two months of 1899—Roosevelt’s initiation period as Governor—that record was already broken.24 What chance did women, children, cowboys, and immigrants have in a world governed by machinery? Clearly, if flesh and blood were to survive, all this cold hardness must be grappled and brought under control.

  Roosevelt, of course, had been aware since his days as an Assemblyman of the existence of a “wealthy criminal class” both inside and outside politics, but he had never had the legislative clout to do much damage to it. Not until his election as Governor of New York State could he take up really weighty cudgels, and aim his blows shrewdly against “the combination of business with politics and the judiciary which has done so much to enthrone privilege in the economic world.”25 And not until his third month in office would he feel the real power of the organization to resist change.

  In the meantime he busied himself with routine gubernatorial matters, making further appointments, discussing labor legislation with union representatives, reviewing the case of a convicted female murderer,26 approving a minor act or two, and mastering all the administrative details of his job. This was not difficult, thanks to his massive experience of both state and municipal politics. “I am going to make a pretty decent Governor,” he assured Winthrop Chanler, adding defensively, “I do not try to tell you about all my political work, for the details would only bother you. It is absorbingly interesting to me, though it is of course more or less parochial.”27 This last adjective was to become obsessive in his correspondence for 1899—almost as if he were ashamed of enjoying legislation to do with the amount of flax threads in folded linen, or the sale of artificially colored oleomargarine.

  “Thus far,” Henry Adams wrote on 22 January, “Teddy seems to sail with fair wind. What we want to know is whether Platt will cut his throat when the time comes, as he has cut the throat of every man whom he has ever put forward.” Roosevelt, meanwhile, protested that Platt was “treating me perfectly squarely … I think everyone realizes that the Governorship is not in commission.”28

  He conferred frequently and openly with the old man, traveling down to New York to breakfast with him on Saturday mornings, and lunching or dining as often with organization men like Odell, Quigg, and Root. This, to “silk-stocking” reformers and the Evening Post, was the equivalent of “breaking bread with the devil,”29 but Roosevelt shrugged off their criticism.

  The worthy creatures never took the trouble to follow the sequence of facts and events for themselves. If they had done so they would have seen that any series of breakfasts with Platt always meant that I was going to do something that he did not like, and that I was trying, courteously and frankly, to reconcile him to it. My object was to make it as easy as possible for him to come with me … A series of breakfasts was always the prelude to some act of warfare.30

  The first clash came in March.

  ON THE EIGHTEENTH DAY of that month, Governor Roosevelt told reporters that he would like to see “the adoption of a system whereby corporations in this State shall be taxed on the public franchises which they control.”31 There were, as it happened, four bills in the legislature to do with franchises—three of them awarding rich concessions to gas, tunnel, and rapid-transit companies in Manhattan, and one proposing a general state tax on all such power and traction privileges, in order to replenish the state treasury.32 It was to the last bill, a measure of Senator John Ford’s then languishing in committee, that Roosevelt seemed to be referring. Although his remark was casual, the committee chairman took the hint, and within three days sent the bill to the House with a favorable report.

  Roosevelt, delighted, began to push for its passage at once. Here was a measure designed to siphon off some of the money flowing through the politico-corporate machine and return it to the community in the form of increased values for property owners and, possibly, reduced taxes. The organization might be persuaded to agree—Platt himself had suggested that a tax-reform committee be appointed to send some proposals “to the next Legislature.” But Roosevelt saw no reason to wait until 1900. Hurrying to New York on 24 March, he invited the Easy Boss to breakfast with him at his pied-à-terre on Madison Avenue next morning.33

  “I was hardly prepared for the storm of protest and anger which my proposal aroused,” Roosevelt wrote afterward.34 Platt considered the Ford Bill dangerous in the extreme: in its sweeping generalities and “radical” ideas it was “a shot into the heart of the business community” and an “extreme concession to Bryanism.”35 If Roosevelt wished to push such a measure through, the organization would block it. The whole question of tax reform, Platt explained, was too complicated to rush. He repeated his suggestion that a joint legislative committee investigate at leisure, and report in the session of 1900. If Roosevelt agreed to this, Platt promised that some “serious effort would be made to tax franchises.”36

  The Governor capitulated, with real or feigned humility, and on 27 March sent a message to the Legislature recommending that Platt’s committee be appointed. He took the opportunity to complain that farmers, market gardeners, tradesmen, and smallholders were bearing a disproportionate burden of taxation in New York State, while franchise-holding syndicates kept every dollar of their profits. “A corporation which derives its power from the State,” he declared, “should pay the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys.” Then, in a conclusion which struck many commentators as weakly deferential to Platt, he left it to the proposed committee to decide just how franchises should be taxed, and who should do the taxing.37

  Since the Ford Bill had specific suggestions on both these points, it was assumed that Roosevelt had given up on the measure. Actually he liked it more and more,38 although he had one reservation: it empowered local county boards to make assessments, rather than the state. This “obnoxious” c
lause (which played directly into the hands of Tammany Hall) was sufficient to prevent him speaking out publicly in the bill’s favor. But he hinted to various reporters that he would not be sorry to see it pass anyway. On 7 April he risked another Platt “explosion” by telling the editor of the Sun, “I shall sign the bill if it comes to me, gladly.”39

  ON 12 APRIL HE WAS surprised to hear that the Senate had mysteriously passed the Ford Bill by a vote of 33 to 11.40 Whatever Platt’s motive in letting Republican members vote for it (perhaps he was making a gesture to placate tax reformers, while still intending to block the measure in the Assembly), Roosevelt now had an excuse to take a public stand. On 14 April he announced that the bill, however imperfect, was beneficial to the community; the Assembly should send it on to him at once for signing.41 To Platt he guilelessly explained that he had broken silence simply at the request of the Senate Majority Leader, who felt the reputation of the Republican party was at stake. Platt’s response was to employ dilatory tactics. The House Taxation Committee promptly pigeonholed the bill and nothing more was heard of it. Meanwhile a rival measure appeared on the floor and was subject to lengthy debate, obviously for purposes of delay.42

  The end of the session, scheduled for 28 April, was fast approaching, and Roosevelt grew impatient. After four months in office he felt sure enough of his strength to challenge Platt directly. He made up his mind “that if I could get a show in the Legislature the bill would pass, because the people had become interested and the representatives would scarcely dare to vote the wrong way.”43 Accordingly he set to work on individual Assemblymen (a task in which he had acquired expertise during his own term as Minority Leader) and used his tame press corps to take daily polls of the increase of likely votes in the House. By noon on 27 April there was a reported majority of twelve in favor of the Ford Bill.44 All that remained now was to persuade Platt’s leaders to bring it out of committee.

  As Governor, Roosevelt possessed one formidable weapon which he had hitherto refrained from using: the Special Emergency Message. Under the rules of the Legislature he could use such a ploy to take up any bill out of turn and force it onto the floor.45 At five o’clock, therefore, when pressure in behalf of the Ford Bill had built up to a maximum in the Assembly, Roosevelt dictated his message demanding its immediate passage.

  Speaker S. Fred Nixon, who had received direct orders from Platt “not to pass,” simply tore the message up without reading it to the House. He then retired to an anteroom and suffered a nervous collapse.46

  ROOSEVELT HEARD THE NEWS at seven o’clock next morning, the final day of the session. He reacted much as he had when the Mausers were heard at Las Guásimas. Whether he advanced or retreated now, his political life was in danger. Nixon’s rejection of his message, if allowed to go unchallenged, would mean fatal humiliation at the critical moment of his Governorship. What was left of his strength would waste away through the non-legislative months of 1899; when the session of 1900 opened he would be a dead duck, with little hope of renomination by a contemptuous Senator Platt. Meanwhile lobbyists for the big franchise-holders in New York City were warning him that if he sent another message he would “under no circumstances … ever again be nominated for any public office,” as “no corporation would subscribe” to any future Roosevelt campaign.47

  Stepping through the barbed wire, the Governor fired off another, more peremptory message:

  I learn that the emergency message which I sent last evening to the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill has not been read. I therefore send hereby another message upon the subject. I need not impress upon the Assembly the need of passing this bill at once. It has been passed by an overwhelming vote through the Senate.… It establishes the principle that hereafter corporations holding franchises from the public shall pay their just share of the public burden … It is one of the most important measures (I am tempted to say the most important measure) that has been before the Legislature this year. I cannot too strongly urge its immediate passage.48

  This time he entrusted his personal secretary, William J. Youngs, with delivery, and sent an added threat that if the message were not promptly read he would come over and read it himself. Platt’s lieutenants surrendered at once. The Ford Franchise Bill was passed by a landslide vote of 109 to 35, and the Legislature adjourned.49

  LOOKING BACK OVER the session in the first flush of his victory, Roosevelt felt some relief and no little pride in what he had accomplished as Governor.50 There had been, beside this recent spectacular achievement, a good deal of progressive legislation,51 which made up in historical significance what it lacked in contemporary drama. “I got an excellent Civil Service law passed,” he boasted, by way of example. This was true enough. The original law which he and Grover Cleveland had engineered in 1883 had been repealed in 1897, for no other reason apparently than to increase Republican spoilsmanship. Cooperating with his old friends at the Civil Service Reform Association, Roosevelt had succeeded in getting a stiff new bill through the Legislature, but only after “herculean labor,” and some spontaneous assistance from Senator Platt. The resultant Act was the most advanced for any state in the nation.52

  Roosevelt also congratulated himself, justifiably, on his labor record.53 He had supported, fought for, and signed several bills aimed at improving the working conditions in tenement sweatshops; at strengthening state factory-inspection procedures; at limiting the maximum hours to be worked by employed women and children; and at imposing a stricter eight-hour day law upon the state work force, as an example to other large corporations.54 He consulted widely with union officials—far more than any of his predecessors—and greatly strengthened the state supervisory board to protect industrial workers from exploitation. Fortunately there had been no violent demonstrations to strain his good humor—yet.55

  There had been one or two blots on Roosevelt’s record which time would darken, notably his decision in late February to send a woman to the electric chair for the first time in the history of New York State.56 This was in spite of the anguished pleas of humanitarians and warnings that the execution would destroy his Presidential chances.57 The Governor justified his decision by saying that the woman had been fairly convicted of murder, and that in any case sex had nothing to do with the law.58

  Roosevelt’s only major inherited problem, the Erie Canal scandal, was for the time being dormant, thanks to his appointment of Superintendent Partridge and courageous selection of two Democrats to reinvestigate. Critics might complain that the delay was unnecessary, given last year’s proof of Republican malfeasance, but few observers doubted that the Governor would prosecute fearlessly if the evidence was upheld.59

  “All together I am pretty well satisfied with what I have accomplished,” wrote Roosevelt. “I do not misunderstand in the least what it means—or rather, how little it may mean. New York politics are kaleidoscopic and 18 months hence I may be so much out of kilter with the machine that there may be no possibility of my renomination.…”60

  Along with parochial, the adjective kaleidoscopic was increasingly a part of his vocabulary, as he contemplated the rapid shifts of fortune which had marked his recent career. The kaleidoscope continued to shift, ever more rapidly, in the days and months ahead, disclosing sometimes a dazzling perspective to infinity, sometimes dark visions of chaos.

  Thus within a month of his boast to Lodge he was confessing to Bamie that he felt “a wee bit depressed”61—a Rooseveltian euphemism for submersion in the Slough of Despond. Having had time to reflect, he realized that his early reservations about the Ford Franchise Tax Bill, now lying on his desk for signature, had been well-founded. The local assessment clause was indeed an alarming problem. In New York City, for instance, it meant that Tammany Hall would have the power to tax all the traction companies—or demand vast bribes for leniency. No wonder his oldest corporate friends, including Chauncey Depew, were incensed at his stand.62 In addition the stock market was down, The New York Times accusing him of opportunism, and,
worst of all, Senator Platt had hurled the organization’s ultimate obscenity at him, albeit in a gentlemanly letter, dated 6 May 1899.

  “When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was one matter that gave me real anxiety,” the Senator wrote. “… 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 own business in his own way, with due respect of course to the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code.” Now came the imprecation: “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 be put into law needed very profound consideration.”63 Roosevelt knew that in Platt’s vocabulary altruistic meant socialistic or worse.64 “You have just adjourned a Legislature which created a good opinion throughout the State,” the Easy Boss went on loftily. “I congratulate you heartily upon this fact, because I sincerely believe, as everybody else does, that this good impression exists very largely as a result of your personal influence in the legislative chambers. But at the last moment and to my very great surprise, you did a thing which has caused the business community of New York to wonder how far the notions of Populism, as laid down in Kansas and Nebraska, have taken hold upon the Republican party of the State of New York.” The letter began to ramble, and concluded with an almost fatherly appeal to the young Governor’s discretion. “I sincerely believe you will make the mistake of your life if you allow the bill to become a law,” wrote Platt, advising him “with a political experience that runs back nearly half a century”65 not to sign the bill.