Colonel Roosevelt (22 page)

“
Our governor,” he announced at a luncheon for Hughes following the commencement ceremony in Sanders, “has a very persuasive way with him. I had intended to keep absolutely clear from any kind of public or political question after coming home, and I could carry my resolution out all right until I met the governor this morning, and he then explained to me that I had come back to live in New York now; that I had to help him out, and after a very brief conversation I put up my hands and agreed to help him.”

AFTER COFFEE, ROOSEVELT
seemed to want to retract his pledge. William N. Chadbourne, a Hughes lieutenant from New York County, said that party members who had gotten into politics because of him would be deeply disillusioned if “the old group” reasserted machine control in Albany.

The Colonel hesitated. “
What shall I do?”

“You’d better send a telegram to Lloyd Griscom.”

Griscom was chairman of the New York County Committee. Roosevelt sat down and scribbled the brief message that was to reinvolve him in politics. “
I believe the people demand it,” he wrote of the direct primary bill. “I most earnestly hope that it will be enacted into law.”

EXHILARATED AS ALWAYS
by the prospect of a fight, he went on to stay with Henry Cabot and Nanny Cabot Lodge at their summer home in Nahant, Massachusetts. Old mutual friends, the Winthrop Chanlers, were there too. Margaret Chanler wrote:

Lodge was doubtful about Roosevelt’s New York venture, but pleased to hear that he was cooperating with the President on something.

Taft happened to be vacationing nearby on the North Shore. That made it impossible to put off their reunion any longer. So the following afternoon, with Lodge for company, Roosevelt donned a panama hat and motored up the coast to the “summer White House” in Beverly. It was a large rented cottage overlooking the surf at Burgess Point. Taft liked it more for the proximity of the Myopia golf links than for its ozone.

“
I know this man better than you do,” a secret service agent, James Sloan, said to Archie Butt as they stood looking out for the Colonel’s automobile. “He will come to see the President today and bite his leg off tomorrow.”

Sloan despised Taft. He claimed he had once heard Roosevelt say, “
Jimmy, I may have to come back in four years to carry out my policies.” Butt was ambivalent. He had become fond of his boss, finding him to be essentially good-natured and high-minded. When convinced of the rightness of a course of action, Taft pushed all obstacles out of his way, like an elephant rolling logs. However, again like an elephant, he had a tendency to listen to whichever trainer whispered in his ear.

He came out of the house now, as Roosevelt arrived. “Ah, Theodore, it is good to see you.”

“How are you, Mr. President? This is simply bully.”

“See here now, drop the ‘Mr. President.’ ”

“Not at all. You must be Mr. President and I am Theodore. It must be that way.”

They affected male exuberance, with shoulder punches reminiscent of their old friendship. But the strain between them was palpable. Taft led the way to a group of wicker chairs on the breezy side of the porch. Roosevelt said that he “needed rather than wanted” a Scotch and soda. Nobody else drank. Lodge and Butt puffed cigars.

To get a dialogue going, Taft raised the subject of Hughes’s primary bill. He confirmed that he would do all he could to help its passage. Roosevelt said that as a citizen of New York, he supported it too. This lame exchange went nowhere, and a telephone message from Lloyd Griscom gave them no encouragement. The chairman advised that every member of his committee looked on the fight as “hopeless.”

Taft and Roosevelt were clearly cast down. The President blustered that he would continue to issue appeals for votes.

“I wish they had both remained out of it,” Lodge muttered to Butt.

The arrival on the porch of Mrs. Taft, still half mute from her stroke, put a further damp on the proceedings. Roosevelt was sensitive enough not to force her into conversation. He rambled politely until she relaxed.

“Now, Mr. President,” Taft said, “tell me about cabbages and kings.”

Roosevelt was willing to oblige, but protested being called by his old title.

“The force of habit is very strong in me,” Taft said, with the simplicity that was a large part of his charm. “I can never think of you save as ‘Mr. President.’ ”

“T
AFT LED THE WAY TO A GROUP OF WICKER CHAIRS ON THE BREEZY SIDE OF THE PORCH
.”
The summer White House in Beverly, Massachusetts
.
(photo credit i4.4)

For an hour, Roosevelt told royal stories, and was funny enough about M. Pichon and “the poor little Persian” to get everyone laughing.

When he got up to go, Lodge informed him that there were about two hundred newsmen and photographers waiting outside the gates. Roosevelt asked Taft for permission to say that their visit had been personal, and delightful. “Which is true as far as I am concerned.”

“And more than true as far as I am concerned,” Taft answered. “This has taken me back to some of those dear old afternoons when I was Will and you were Mr. President.”

They parted with tacit acknowledgment that whatever remained of their friendship, “dearness” was no longer an option.

BEFORE LEAVING BOSTON
for New York, Roosevelt paid a visit to Corey Hospital in Brookline, where Justice William Henry Moody lay bent and emaciated with rheumatoid arthritis. Only fifty-six, Moody was the last, and to some minds the most distinguished of his three appointments to the Supreme Court. Yet after four short terms, the justice had been felled by a streptococcal storm that left him unable to walk and deeply depressed.

It was a poignant reunion for both, and Roosevelt was mute about it afterward.
He had looked to Moody to serve for many years as his representative
on the bench, whenever cases arose that tested the constitutionality of his presidential policies. Back when nobody quite knew what
progressive
meant, Moody had been his most forward-looking cabinet officer, first as secretary of the navy, then as a resolutely antitrust attorney general—along with Root and Taft, one of the administration’s famous “Three Musketeers.”

Now that happy trio was disbanded. Aramis was bedridden for life, Athos intellectually stifled in the Senate, and Porthos no longer the jovial giant. Bereft of their company, whither D’Artagnan?

ROOSEVELT RETURNED HOME
on the evening of 1 July to news that despite his advocacy, Hughes’s direct-primary bill had been defeated by a combination of machine Republicans and Tammany Hall Democrats.

This was exactly the kind of political “trust” he had battled as a young assemblyman in Albany. But then, legislative disappointments were to be expected. Nearly three decades later, a former president and toast of foreign monarchs could ill afford such a rebuff. Senator Gore had to be laughing. Roosevelt’s ancient scourge, the New York
Sun
, printed a one-line wisecrack: “
And the ‘Hundred Days’ lasted just thirteen.”

The question now was whether he should nurse the bruise William Barnes, Jr., had inflicted on him, and wait for sympathetic critics to point out that he had merely tried to help out his governor and his President. Or, seek revenge on Barnes for humbling all three of them?

Lloyd Griscom came to see him in a funk. At all costs, the triumphant boss must be stopped from bulldozing the New York Republican convention at Saratoga Springs in September. If Barnes prevailed, his machine would write the platform, nominate whom it pleased to local, state, and federal offices, and advertise to the world that the Old Guard was back in control of Party affairs. The result was bound to be a Democratic sweep in November. Griscom suggested that Roosevelt run, with White House support, for
chairman of the convention. Barnes doubtless had a conservative candidate in mind, so the contest would pit the forces of moderation against those of reaction, and maybe compensate for the primary-bill debacle.

Roosevelt listened without committing himself. He was not fooled that Griscom—a Taft man—wanted to do anything other than serve the administration.
But here was a chance to influence the nomination of a decent man for governor, and push for a moderately progressive state delegation to the national convention in 1912. At the very least, cooperation with Griscom would signal that Roosevelt and Taft were not drifting apart.