Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography,

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CHAPTER VIII. GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK--VICE-PRESIDENT

While Roosevelt was at Montauk Point waiting with his regiment to
be mustered out, and cheering up the sick soldiers, he had direct
proof that every war breeds a President. For the politicians went
down to call on him and, although they did not propose that he
should be a candidate for the Presidency--that was not a
Presidential year--they looked him over to see how he would do
for Governor of New York. Since Cleveland set the fashion in
1882, the New York governorship was regarded as the easiest
stepping stone to the Presidency. Roosevelt's popularity was so
great that if the matter had been left in the hands of the
people, he would have been nominated with a rush; but the Empire
State was dominated by Bosses--Senator David B. Hill, the
Democratic State Boss, Senator Thomas C. Platt, the Republican
State Boss, and Richard Croker, Boss of Tammany,--who had
intimate relations with the wicked of both parties, and often
decided an election by throwing their votes or withholding them.

Senator Platt enjoyed, with Senator Quay of Pennsylvania, the
evil reputation of being the most unscrupulous Boss in the United
States. I do not undertake to say whether the palm should go to
him or to Quay, but no one disputes that Platt held New York
State in his hand, or that Quay held Pennsylvania in his. By the
year 1898, both were recognized as representing a type of Boss
that was becoming extinct.

The business-man type, of which Senator Aldrich was a perfect
exponent, was pushing to the front. Quay, greedy of money, had
never made a pretense of showing even a conventional respect for
the Eighth Commandment; Platt, on the other hand, seems not to
have enriched himself by his political deals, but to have taken
his pay in the gratification he enjoyed from wielding autocratic
power. Platt also betrayed that he dated from the last generation
by his religiosity. He used his piety as an elephant uses his
proboscis, to reach about and secure desired objects, large or
small, the trunk of a tree or a bag of peanuts. He was a
Sunday-School teacher and, I believe, a deacon of his church.
Roosevelt says that he occasionally interlarded his political
talk with theological discussion, but that his very dry theology
was wholly divorced from moral implications. The wonderful
chapter on "The New York Governorship," in Roosevelt's
"Autobiography," ought to be read by every American, because it
gives the most remarkable account of the actual working of the
political Machine in a great American State, the disguises that
Machine wore, its absolute unscrupulousness, its wickedness, its
purpose to destroy the ideals of democracy. And Roosevelt's
analysis of Platt may stand alongside of Machiavelli's portraits
of the Italian Bosses four hundred years before--they were not
called Bosses then.

Senator Platt did not wish to have Roosevelt hold the
governorship, or any other office in which the independent young
man might worry the wily old Senator.* But the Republican Party
in New York State happened to be in such a very bad condition
that the likelihood that it would carry the election that autumn
was slight: for the public had temporarily tired of Machine rule.
Platt's managers saw that they must pick out a really strong
candidate and they understood that nobody at that moment could
rival Roosevelt's popularity. So they impressed on Platt that he
must accept the Rough Rider Chief, and Mr. Lemuel Quigg, an
ex-Congressman, a journalist formerly on the New York Tribune, a
stanch Republican, who nevertheless recognized that discretion
and intelligence might sometimes be allowed a voice in Machine
dictation, journeyed to Montauk and had a friendly, frank
conversation with the Colonel.

* Platt and Quay were both born in 1833.

Quigg spoke for nobody but himself; he merely wished to sound
Roosevelt. Roosevelt made no pledges; he defined his general
attitude and wished to understand what the Platt Machine
proposed. Quigg said that Platt admitted that the present
Governor, Black, could not be reelected, but that he had doubts
as to Roosevelt's docility. Republican leaders and local chairmen
in all parts of the State, however, enthusiastically called for
Roosevelt, and Quigg did not wish to have the Republican Party
split into two factions. He believed that Platt would accede if
he could be convinced that Roosevelt would not "make war on him."
Roosevelt, without promising anything, replied that he had no
intention of making "war on Mr. Platt, or on anybody else, if war
could be avoided." He said:

'that what [he] wanted was to be Governor and not a faction
leader; that [he] certainly would confer with the organization
men, as with everybody else who seemed to [him] to have knowledge
of and interest in public affairs, and that as to Mr. Platt and
the organization leaders, [he] would do so in the sincere hope
that there might always result harmony of opinion and purpose;
but that while [he] would try to get on well with the
organization, the organization must with equal sincerity strive
to do what [he] 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, [he]
should have to act finally as [his] own judgment and conscience
dictated, and administer the State Government as [he] thought it
ought to be administered.' *

* Autobiography, 295.

Having assured Roosevelt that his statements were exactly what
Quigg expected, Quigg returned to New York City, reported his
conversation to Platt, and, in due season, the free citizens of
New York learned that, with Platt's consent, the Colonel of the
Rough Riders would be nominated by the Republican State
Convention for the governorship of New York.

During the campaign, Roosevelt stumped the State at a pace
unknown till then. It was his first real campaign, and he went
from place to place in a special train speaking at every stop
from his car platform or, in the larger towns, staying long
enough to address great audiences out of doors or in the local
theatre. In November, he was elected by a majority of 18,000, a
slender margin as it looks now, but sufficient for its purpose,
and representing a really notable victory, because it had been
expected that the Democrats would beat any other Republican
candidate but him by overwhelming odds. So, after an absence of
fifteen years, he returned to dwell in Albany.

Before he was sworn in as Governor, he had already measured
strength with Senator Platt. The Senator asked him with amiable
condescension whether he had any special friends he would like to
have appointed on the committees. Roosevelt expressed surprise,
supposing that the Speaker appointed committees. Then Platt told
him that the Speaker had not been agreed upon yet, but that of
course he would name the list given to him. Roosevelt understood
the situation, but said nothing. A week later, however, at
another conference, Platt handed him a telegram, in which the
sender accepted with pleasure his appointment as Superintendent
of Public Works. Roosevelt liked this man and thought him honest,
but he did not think him the best person for that particular
work, and he did not intend as Governor to have his appointments
dictated to him, because he would naturally be held responsible
for his appointees. When he told Platt that that man would not
do, the Senator flew into a passion; he had never met such
insubordination before in any public official, and he decided to
fight the issue from the start. Roosevelt did not allow himself
to lose his temper; he was perfectly polite while Platt let loose
his fury; and before they parted Platt understood which was
master. The Governor appointed Colonel Partridge to the position
and, as it had chiefly to do with the canals of the State, it was
most important. In deed, the canal scandals under Roosevelt's
predecessor, Governor Black, had so roused the popular conscience
that it threatened to break down the supremacy of the Republican
Party.

Jacob Riis describes Roosevelt's administration as introducing
the Ten Commandments into the government at Albany, and we need
hardly be told that the young Governor applied his usual methods
and promoted his favorite reforms. Finding the Civil Service
encrusted with abuses, he pushed legislation which established a
high standard of reform. The starch which had been taken out of
the Civil Service Law under Governor Black was put back,
stiffened. He insisted on enforcing the Factory Law, for the
protection of operatives; and the law regulating sweat-shops,
which he inspected himself, with Riis for his companion.

Perhaps his hottest battle was over the law to tax corporations
which held public franchises. This touched the owners of street
railways in the cities and towns, and many other corporations
which enjoyed a monopoly in managing quasi-public utilities. "In
politics there is no politics," said that elderly early mentor of
Roosevelt when he first sat in the Assembly. Legislatures existed
simply to do the bidding of Big Business, was the creed of the
men who controlled Big Business. They contributed impartially to
the Republican and Democratic campaign funds. They had Republican
Assemblymen and Democratic Assemblymen in their service, and
their lobbyists worked harmoniously with either party. Merely to
suggest that the special privileges of the corporations might be
open to discussion was sacrilege. No wonder, therefore, that the
holders of public franchises marshaled all their forces against
the Governor.

Boss Platt wrote Roosevelt a letter--one of the sort inspired
more by sorrow than by anger--to the effect that he had been
warned that the Governor was a little loose on the relations of
capital and labor, on trusts and combinations, and, in general,
on the right of a man to run his business as he chose, always
respecting, of course, the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code.
The Senator was shocked and pained to perceive that this warning
had a real basis, and that the Governor's "altruism" in behalf of
the people had led him to urge curtailing the rights of
corporations. Roosevelt, instead of feeling contrite at this
chiding, redoubled his energy. The party managers buried the
bill. Roosevelt then sent a special message, as the New York
Governors are empowered to do. It was laid on the Speaker's desk,
but no notice was taken of it. The next morning he sent this
second message to the Speaker:

'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. I need not impress upon
the Assembly the need of passing this bill at once .... It
establishes the principle that hereafter corporations holding
franchises from the public shall pay their just share of the
public burden.'*

* Riis, 221.

The Speaker, the Assembly, and the Machine now gave heed. The
corporations saw that it would be suicidal to bring down on
themselves the avalanche of fury which was accumulating. The bill
passed. Roosevelt had set a precedent for controlling corporate
truculence.

While Roosevelt was accomplishing these very real triumphs for
justice and popular welfare, the professional critics went on
finding fault with him. Although the passage of one bill after
another gave tangible proof that, far from being Platt's "man,"
or the slave of the Machine, he followed his own ideals, did not
satisfy these critics. They suspected that there was some
wickedness behind it, and they professed to be greatly disturbed
that Roosevelt frequently breakfasted or dined with Platt. What
could this mean except that he took his instructions from the
Boss? How could he, who made a pretense of righteousness, consent
to visit the Sunday School political teacher, much less to sit at
the table with him? The doubts and anxieties of these
self-appointed defenders of public morals, and of the Republic
even, found a spokesman in a young journalist who had then come
recently from college. This person, whom we will call X., met Mr.
Roosevelt at a public reception and with the brusqueness, to put
it mildly, of a hereditary reformer, he demanded to know why the
Governor breakfasted and dined with Boss Platt. Mr. Roosevelt
replied, with that courtesy of his which was never more complete
than when it conveyed his sarcasm, that a person in public
office, like himself, was obliged to meet officially all kinds of
men and women, and he added: "Why, Mr. X., I have even dined with
your father." X. did not pursue his investigation, and the
bystanders, who had vague recollections of the father's
misfortunes in Wall Street, thought that the son was a little
indiscreet even for a hereditary reformer. The truth about
Roosevelt's going to Platt and breakfasting with him was very
simple. The Senator spent the week till Friday afternoon in
Washington, then he came to New York for Saturday and Sunday.
Being somewhat infirm, although he was not, as we now reckon, an
old man, he did not care to extend his trip to Albany, and so the
young and vigorous Governor ran down from Albany and, at
breakfast with Platt, discussed New York State affairs. What I
have already quoted indicates, I think, that no body knew better
than the Boss himself that Roosevelt was not his "man."

One other example is too good to omit. The Superintendent of
Insurance was really one of Platt's men, and a person most
grateful to the insurance companies. Governor Roosevelt,
regarding him as unfit, not only declined to reappoint him, but
actually appointed in his stead a superintendent whom Platt and
the insurance companies could not manage, and so hated. Platt
remonstrated. Finding his arguments futile, he broke out in
threats that if his man was not reappointed, he would fight. He
would forbid the Assembly to confirm Roosevelt's candidate.
Roosevelt replied that as soon as the Assembly adjourned, he
should appoint his candidate temporarily. Platt declared that
when it reconvened, the Assembly would throw him out. This did
not, however, frighten Roosevelt, who remarked that, although he
foresaw he should have an uncomfortable time himself, he would
"guarantee to make his opponents more uncomfortable still."

Later that day Platt sent one of his henchmen to deliver an
ultimatum to the Governor. He repeated Platt's threats, but was
unable to make an impression. Roosevelt got up to go. "You know
it means your ruin?" said the henchman solemnly. "Well, we will
see about that," Roosevelt replied, and had nearly reached the
door when the henchman, anxious to give the prospective victim a
last chance, warned him that the Senator would open the fight on
the next day, and keep it up to the bitter end. "Yes," replied
the Governor; "good-night." And he was just going out, when the
henchman rushed after him, calling, "Hold on! We accept. Send in
your nomination. The Senator is very sorry, but will make no
further opposition."* Roosevelt adds that the bluff was carried
through to the limit, but that after it failed, Platt did not
renew his attempt to interfere with him.

* Autobiography, 317.

Nevertheless, Roosevelt made no war on Platt or anybody else,
merely for the fun of it. "We must use the tools we have," said
Lincoln to John Hay; and Lincoln also had many tools which he did
not choose, but which he had to work with. Roosevelt differed
from the doctrinaire reformer, who would sit still and do nothing
unless he had perfectly clean tools and pure conditions to work
with. To do nothing until the millennium came would mean, of
course, that the Machine would pursue its methods undisturbed.
Roosevelt, on the contrary, knew that by cooperating with the
Machine, as far as his conscience permitted, he could reach
results much better than it aimed at.

Here are three of his letters to Platt, written at a time when
the young journalist and the reformers of his stripe shed tears
at the thought that Theodore Roosevelt was the obsequious servant
of Boss Platt.

The first letter refers to Roosevelt's nomination to the Vice
Presidency, a possibility which the public was already
discussing. The last two letters, written after he had been
nominated by the Republicans, relate to the person whom he wished
to see succeed himself as Governor of New York.

ROOSEVELT TO PLATT

February 1, 1900

First, and least important. If you happened to have seen the
Evening Post recently, you ought to be amused, for it is
moralizing with lofty indignation over the cringing servility I
have displayed in the matter of the insurance superintendent. I
fear it will soon take the view that it cannot possibly support
you as long as you associate with me!

Now as to serious matters. I have, of course, done a great deal
of thinking about the Vice-Presidency since the talk I had with
you followed by the letter from Lodge and the visit from Payne,
of Wisconsin. I have been reserving the matter to talk over with
you, but in view of the publication in the Sun this morning, I
would like to begin the conversation, as it were, by just a line
or two now. I need not speak of the confidence I have in the
judgment of you and Lodge, yet I can't help feeling more and more
that the Vice Presidency is not an office in which I could do
anything and not an office in which a man who is still vigorous
and not past middle life has much chance of doing anything. As
you know, I am of an active nature. In spite of all the work and
all the worry, and very largely because of your own constant
courtesy and consideration, my dear Senator,--I have thoroughly
enjoyed being Governor. I have kept every promise, express or
implied, I made on the stump, and I feel that the Republican
Party is stronger before the State because of my incumbency.
Certainly everything is being managed now on a perfectly straight
basis and every office is as clean as a whistle.

Now, I should like to be Governor for another term, especially if
we are able to take hold of the canals in serious shape. But as
Vice President, I don't see there is anything I can do. I would
simply be a presiding officer, and that I should find a bore. As
you know, I am a man of moderate means (although I am a little
better off than the Sun's article would indicate) and I should
have to live very simply in Washington and could not entertain in
any way as Mr. Hobart and Mr. Morton entertained. My children are
all growing up and I find the burden of their education
constantly heavier, so that I am by no means sure that I ought to
go into public life at all, provided some remunerative work
offered itself. The only reason I would like to go on is that as
I have not been a money maker I feel rather in honor bound to
leave my children the equivalent in a way of a substantial sum of
actual achievement in politics or letters. Now, as Governor, I
can achieve something, but as Vice-President I should achieve
nothing. The more I look at it, the less I feel as if the
Vice-Presidency offered anything to me that would warrant my
taking it.

Of course, I shall not say anything until I hear from you, and
possibly not until I see you, but I did want you to know just how
I felt.

ROOSEVELT TO PLATT

Oyster Bay, August 13, 1900

I noticed in Saturday's paper that you had spoken of my
suggesting Judge Andrews. I did not intend to make the suggestion
public, and I wrote you with entire freedom, hoping that perhaps
I could suggest some man who would commend himself to your
judgment as being acceptable generally to the Republican Party. I
am an organization Republican of a very strong type, as I
understand the word "organization," but in trying to suggest a
candidate for Governor, I am not seeking either to put up an
organization or a non-organization man, but simply a first-class
Republican, who will commend himself to all Republicans, and, for
the matter of that, to all citizens who wish good government.
Judge Andrews needs no endorsement from any man living as to his
Republicanism. From the time he was Mayor of Syracuse through his
long and distinguished service on the bench he has been
recognized as a Republican and a citizen of the highest type. I
write this because your interview seems to convey the impression,
which I am sure you did not mean to convey, that in some way my
suggestions are antagonistic to the organization. I do not
understand quite what you mean by the suggestion of my friends,
for I do not know who the men are to whom you thus refer, nor why
they are singled out for reference as making any suggestions
about the Governorship.

In your last interview, I understood that you wished me to be
back in the State at the time of the convention. As I wish to be
able to give the nominee hearty and effective support, this
necessarily means that I do have a great interest in whom is
nominated.

ROOSEVELT TO PLATT

Oyster Bay, August 20, 1900

I have your letter of the 16th. I wish to see a straight
Republican nomination for the governorship. The men whom I have
mentioned, such as ex-Judge Andrews and Secretary Root, are as
good Republicans as can be found in the State, and I confess I
haven't the slightest idea what you mean when you say, "if we are
to lower the standard and nominate such men as you suggest, we
might as well die first as last." To nominate such. a man as
either of these is to raise the standard; to speak of it as
lowering the standard is an utter misuse of words.

You say that we must nominate some Republican who "will carry out
the wishes of the organization," and add that "I have not yet
made up my mind who that man is." Of one thing I am certain,
that, to have it publicly known that the candidate, whoever he
may be, "will carry out the wishes of the organization," would
insure his defeat; for such a statement implies that he would
merely register the decrees of a small body of men inside the
Republican Party, instead of trying to work for the success of
the party as a whole and of good citizenship generally. It is not
the business of a Governor to "carry out the wishes of the
organization" unless these wishes coincide with the good of the
Party and of the State. If they do, then he ought to have them
put into effect; if they do not, then as a matter of course he
ought to disregard them. To pursue any other course would be to
show servility; and a servile man is always an undesirable--not
to say a contemptible--public servant. A Governor should, of
course, try in good faith to work with the organization; but
under no circumstances should he be servile to it, or "carry out
its wishes" unless his own best judgment is that they ought to be
carried out. I am a good organization man myself, as I understand
the word "organization," but it is in the highest degree foolish
to make a fetish of the word "organization" and to treat any man
or any small group of men as embodying the organization. The
organization should strive to give effective, intelligent, and
honest leadership to and representation of the Republican Party,
just as the Republican Party strives to give wise and upright
government to the State. When what I have said ceases to be true
of either organization or party, it means that the organization
or party is not performing its duty, and is losing the reason for
its existence.*

* Washburn, 34-38.

Roosevelt's independence as Governor of New York, and the very
important reforms which, in spite of the Machine, he had driven
through, greatly increased his personal popularity throughout the
country. To citizens, East and West, who knew nothing about the
condition of the factories, canals, and insurance institutions in
New York State, the name "Roosevelt" stood for a man as honest as
he was energetic, and as fearless as he was true. Platt and the
Machine naturally wished to get rid of this marplot, who could
not be manipulated, who held strange and subversive ideas as to
the extent to which the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code
should be allowed to encroach on politics and Big Business, and
who was hopelessly "altruistic" in caring for the poor and down
trodden and outcast. Even Platt knew that, while it would not be
safe for him to try to dominate the popular hero against his own
preference and that of the public, still to shelve Roosevelt in
the office of Vice-President would bring peace to the sadly
disturbed Boss, and would restore jobs to many of his greedy
followers. So he talked up the Vice-Presidency for Roosevelt, and
he let the impression circulate that in the autumn there would be
a new Governor.

Roosevelt, however, repeated to many persons the views he wrote
to Platt in the letter quoted above, and his friends and
opponents both understood that he wished to continue as Governor
for another two years, to carry on the fight against corruption,
and to save himself from being laid away in the Vice
Presidency--the receiving-tomb of many ambitious politicians. In
spite of the fact that within thirty-five years, by the
assassination of two Presidents, two Vice-Presidents had
succeeded to the highest office in the Nation, Vice-Presidents
were popularly regarded as being mere phantoms without any real
power or influence as long as their term lasted, and cut off from
all hopes in the future. Roosevelt himself had this notion. But
the Presidential conventions, with criminal disregard of the
qualifications of a candidate to perform the duties of President
if accident thrust them upon him, went on recklessly nominating
nonentities for Vice-President.

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