The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (8 page)

In his view, the law ruling transactions between sellers and consumers should have struck a balance between the two: both should have profited mutually. But what he heard from professors and what he read in law books weighted the balance in favor of the sellers, which to him was an injustice. That realization dampened his interest in becoming a lawyer.

TR did not want to engage in a curriculum or a profession that ran contrary to his personal beliefs. He transferred his energy from studying law to completing what was to become his first published book,
The Naval War of 1812
, and working on behalf of the consumers he believed were getting a raw deal instead of a fair deal.

At Columbia, TR became more interested in politics than the study of the law.
The Naval War of 1812
was published in 1882, the year he should have received his JD degree. He decided the law degree could wait. TR dropped out of law school to work for justice as it related to his vision of the law.

Becoming a Dropout

TR left Columbia in 1881. He did not walk away without a plan or because he had learned enough about the law in one year to make him an expert. TR had reached a point at which he wanted to engage in politics. TR may not have graduated from Columbia Law School with his class, but the
New York Times
reported he “studied law in the office of his uncle in this city, and was admitted to the bar.” It did not always require completion of formal studies to attain a goal.

Entering politics was not a new idea for TR. He had begun developing an interest in politics while he was at Harvard. By 1881, TR felt that the time was right to transfer his desire into action. Some of the things he learned while at Columbia, which had nothing to do with the study of law, pushed him in that direction.

In TR’s opinion, the job of “doing good” for others placed a lot of pressure on politicians who, at some point, would be forced to step aside at least temporarily and pursue another line of work. That belief was one of the reasons he entered Columbia in the first place.

TR bravely entered politics without another occupation to fall back on. Eventually, the pressure he talked about became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Before that happened, he threw himself into his first political job: New York state assemblyman.

Republican by Default

TR learned that the only political party open to him was the Republicans, due to two factors: He was considered an aristocrat and the Democrats were too rough for a young man of his upbringing. Consequently, he started attending meetings of the Twenty-First District Republican Association. He recalled, “At that day, a young man of my bringing up and convictions could only join the Republican party, and join it accordingly I did.” He may have been labeled a Republican, but he manifested democratic tendencies throughout his lifetime.

His friends looked at his dabbling in politics with disdain. Powerful businessmen and lawyers with whom he was acquainted scoffed at him because they considered politics beneath their dignity. Their role was to let rougher men do the grunt work while they used their influence to grease the wheels of government to get things done.

TR never forgot their cavalier attitude toward politicians and the general public in general, for whom he worked so diligently. TR may not have known much about the ins and outs of politics in 1881, but he did know how to ingratiate himself with the right people. He sensed that if he became close to the leaders at the lower levels of the party, they would think of him when the right opportunity came along. His strategy worked.

The more TR became embroiled in the machinations of politics, the more law school became a distant memory. Politics pushed the practice of law to the back of TR’s career path.

Turn Off the Machine

The lessons TR learned in his first foray into politics served him in good stead throughout his government career and justified his decision to leave law school. One of the first things he learned was that a politician could buck a machine and still come out ahead. He proved that when he became embroiled in an internal power struggle between his good friend and party stalwart Joe Murray and the Republican boss at the time, Jake Hess.

Murray was working his way up through the party structure at the time, and he “adopted” TR as his protégé. Hess also had a soft spot for TR. At the time, one of the few things Hess and Murray had in common was their recognition that the young Roosevelt was an up-and-coming star in the Republican Party. TR got caught in the power struggle between Hess and Murray, and played the game to perfection.

The issue that won Hess and Murray over to TR’s side was trivial. It concerned a nonpartisan approach to street cleaning. TR backed the method in defiance of the “machine.” He and the faction that was against the street cleaning practice, led by Hess and Murray, forced a vote on the idea. They all knew that TR did not have a chance of winning the vote.

As expected, his side drew about 6 votes of the 300 to 400 cast. TR recalled that he accepted the results in a good-humored fashion. But they did not change his attitude about bucking the machine to fight for something in which he believed. Murray in particular took note of that.

The First Step in TR’s Political Career

As the 1881 elections approached, the Republicans were looking for a candidate for assemblyman from their district. Murray saw an opportunity for TR to run for office. Hess did not agree with Murray’s proposal to nominate TR, who he believed was too young and inexperienced. Murray prevailed.

TR was surprised to get the nomination for assemblyman. He recalled, “I had at that time neither the reputation nor the ability to have won the nomination for myself, and indeed never would have thought of trying for it.” If Murray had not nominated him, the course of history might have been altered.

Hess joined Murray in the effort to get TR elected. Once the campaign began, TR injected himself into it full bore, which was the only way he knew to accomplish something he wanted. The law degree he had sought was deferred—for 127 years.

Two Law Degrees Are Better than One

Eventually, TR received his law degree—several, in fact. Harvard granted him an honorary LLD in 1902. The University of California, Berkeley, followed suit a year later. He did not waste the trip to California.

The day after he accepted the degree, TR departed for a tour of Yosemite Park with John Muir. The two men would work together afterward on conservation issues.

The honorary degrees TR received from Harvard and Berkeley were among a handful he gathered over the years. He was not a great fan of honorary degrees. Sometimes he could not turn them down without offending his friends, which TR was always loath to do.

A Bit of Chicanery

In 1918, TR’s longtime friend, Flavel S. Luther, the president of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, invited TR to deliver the commencement address at the school. Luther was aware of the former president’s bias against honorary degrees, but he was sure TR would not turn one down from Trinity. So he offered a two-for-one deal.

TR suggested that Flavel confer an honorary degree on his friend Russell Jordan Coles, a naturalist and sportsman from Virginia. Flavel agreed to present Coles with the requested degree at the June 1918 commencement, as long as TR would deliver an address the day before. Even though TR was not in the best of health at the time, he agreed to the deal.

Not only did Flavel award Coles with an honorary degree, but he conferred one on TR as well. Still, TR did not have a law degree, honorary or otherwise. He received one in 2008.

A Law Degree 127 Years Later

Columbia finally got around to presenting TR with a law degree—almost a century after his death. At a September 25, 2008, reception ceremony in New York City, the school presented an LLD to its former student. It also granted one to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the same day.

TR and his distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt had one thing in common: both left Columbia Law School before they completed their degrees. The school conferred JD degrees on both Roosevelts posthumously. They became official members of the classes of 1882 and 1907, respectively.

There is no telling how TR would have felt about receiving a law degree. He was never fond of receiving honors that he had not earned. He felt that a young man should set his sights on something he truly wanted and believed in, and that using law school as a stop-gap measure was a wasted opportunity. His ambivalence was apparent when his son Theodore Jr. was deliberating between entering the Army or Naval academy or pursuing a civilian profession.

TR wrote to his son in a January 21, 1904 letter:

The result would be that at twenty-five you would leave the Army or Navy without having gone through any law school or any special technical school of any kind, and would start your life work three or four years later than your schoolfellows of to-day, who go to work immediately after leaving college. Of course, under such circumstances, you might study law, for instance, during the four years after graduation; but my own feeling is that a man does good work chiefly when he is in something which he intends to make his permanent work, and in which he is deeply interested
.

Those words came straight from TR’s heart—and from his own experience of using law school as a time filler. He might not have agreed with the administrators at Columbia when they got around to granting a law degree.

A Few Kind Words

Columbia Law School Dean David M. Schizer had kind words to say about the Roosevelts in 2008. “We are pleased to commemorate the Presidents Roosevelts, two of the most remarkable and distinguished lawyers ever to train at Columbia Law School, and celebrate their connection to our storied history,” he said. The honor came too late for TR to appreciate.

Even though TR had never completed his law studies, he had learned some valuable studies in the pursuit of his degree. He proved that not all law has to be learned from textbooks—especially as it pertains to the administration of social justice.

QUIZ

3-1 TR graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard. Phi Beta Kappa is:

A. a type of hat he wore at graduation.

B. a term derived from the Greek initials of the motto “Love of learning is the guide of life.”

C. the easiest award for a college student to earn.

D. restricted to Harvard University students only.

3-2 Franklin Delano Roosevelt suffered from what debilitating disease?

A. measles

B. malaria

C. polio

D. mumps

3-3 How many terms did Franklin Delano Roosevelt serve as president of the United States?