The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (104 page)

He reacted with oblique rage. On 5 November, the same night the returns came in, he wrote to one of his Civil War heroes, General James Harrison Wilson:

Next morning he called in his precinct captains and told them that “The Board will not tolerate the slightest relaxation of the enforcement of the laws, and notably of the Excise Law.” But for all this bluster, it was plain his authority had been dealt a mortal blow. Even the loyal
New York Times
doubted that he would ever again mobilize the police as effectively as he had during the long dry summer of 1895.
¹⁵⁰

T
HE YEAR DREW
to a close amid rumors that Mayor Strong had formally asked for Roosevelt’s resignation. Both men denied the stories, but Strong was heard to complain at a public banquet, “I thought I would have a pretty easy time until the Police Board came along and tried to make a Puritan out of a Dutchman.” The remark was supposed to be jocular—Strong fancied himself as an amateur comedian—but Roosevelt, sitting at the same table, did not find it at all funny.
¹⁵¹

The pace of his “grinding labor” at Police Headquarters did not slacken. If anything it increased, for he was trying to finish the neglected fourth volume of
The Winning of the West
in between appointments, as well as working full-time on it at weekends. “I should very much like to take a holiday,” he confessed, but felt too insecure in his job to leave town for long.

Friends worried about his health, emotional and physical. “He has grown several years older in the last month,” William Sturgis Bigelow wrote Henry Cabot Lodge. “At this rate it is only a question of time when he has a breakdown, and when he does it will be a bad one.… We shall lose one of the very few really first-class men in the country.”
¹⁵²

Roosevelt’s spirits sank lower as his reserves of physical strength dwindled. “It really seems that there
must
be some fearful short-coming
on my side to account for the fact that I have not one New York City newspaper, nor one New York City politician of note on my side. Don’t think,” he reassured Lodge, “that I even for a moment dream of abandoning my fight; I shall continue absolutely unmoved from my present course and shall accept philosophically whatever violent end may be put to my political career.”
¹⁵³

One person who met him during these dark days was Bram Stoker, the author of
Dracula
. After watching Roosevelt in action at a literary dinner table, and afterward dispensing summary justice in the police courts, Stoker wrote in his diary: “Must be President some day. A man you can’t cajole, can’t frighten, can’t buy.”
¹⁵⁴

“A man you can’t cajole, can’t frighten, can’t buy.”
Theodore Roosevelt as president of the New York City Police Board
. (
Illustration 19.2
)

T
HE ELECTION OF 1895
, which cast such sudden shadows over Theodore Roosevelt, threw contrasting beams of light on an old man he had long managed to ignore, but would have to reckon with in future. Thomas Collier Platt was now, after years of powerful obscurity, the undisputed Republican manager of New York State,
¹
and a major force in the upcoming Presidential contest.

“The Easy Boss”—as Platt was known for his patient, courteous manner—had entered politics before Roosevelt was born. In 1856 he had been a “campaign troubadour” for John Charles Frémont, the Republican party’s first Presidential candidate.
²
He had become a Congressman in 1872, when little Teedie was still stuffing birds on the Nile; he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1881, about the same time young Theodore first ran up the steps of Morton Hall. Since then the careers of the two men—a quarter of a century apart in age, and diametrically opposed in personality—had intertwined with a closeness remarkable for the fact that they seem never to have actually
met.
³
Fortune spotlighted now one, now the other after Roosevelt’s election to the New York State Legislature in 1881. Platt was then suffering his darkest hour, having resigned from the Senate in support of Boss Roscoe Conkling’s patronage stand against President Garfield. He had failed at reelection, and withdrew into the wings just as Roosevelt took his bow in the Assembly. During the years that followed, Platt worked quietly offstage to assume control of the state Republican organization. In 1884 he had been one of the New York delegates to the Chicago Convention. While Roosevelt campaigned for Edmunds, Platt campaigned for Blaine, seconding his nomination and disbursing large amounts of “boodle” on his behalf. He and Roosevelt had joined forces in making Blaine’s nomination unanimous on the final day, but the older man’s triumph was the younger man’s humiliation. Then it was Roosevelt’s turn to retire from public life, while Platt continued his takeover of the organization. Two years later, when Roosevelt ran for Mayor, Platt reluctantly put his machine to work for him. He was disgusted at the “boy” candidate’s defeat: like Roosevelt, he preferred not to recall that disaster in later years.
⁴

“A decent man
must
oppose him.”
Thomas Collier Platt in the 1890s
. (
Illustration 20.1
)

Platt’s political luster faded again in 1888, when Benjamin Harrison allegedly promised him a Cabinet post in return for campaign help, only to forget about it after the election. Instead, the Easy Boss had the chagrin of seeing Roosevelt made Civil Service Commissioner, and go on to publicize a cause for which he, Platt, had nothing but contempt.
⁵
For the next six years he had watched Roosevelt’s progress with disapproval, tempered by a certain amount of professional respect.

It had been Platt’s organization that swept William Strong into office in 1894, and he was none too pleased when the Mayor appointed Theodore Roosevelt as Police Commissioner. Platt wished to use the Police Board (in its capacity as Board of Elections) to gerrymander the city, as he already had the state; but Roosevelt’s gritty idealism began to interfere with the smooth workings of his machine. Roosevelt, in turn, declared that he was “astounded” at Platt’s success “in identifying himself with the worst men and worst forces in every struggle, so that a decent man
must
oppose him.”
⁶

A confrontation between Boss and Commissioner was therefore
inevitable. Both men, in effect, had been preparing for it for eleven years,
⁷
but they waited until the 1895 election to determine who would have the upper hand. Even then, Platt bided his time. With both houses of the Legislature now firmly under control, he was gearing up his organization for the most massive gerrymander in American history—in which the eradication of a Theodore Roosevelt would be merely incidental. Platt’s ambition was to combine old New York (Manhattan and the Bronx) with Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island into the metropolis of Greater New York. This would automatically double his powers of patronage. The present Police Department would be abolished, along with those of Fire and Health, and replaced by metropolitan commissions, which he would pack with organization appointees. It went without saying that under such legislation the “side-door saloons” would flourish once more—but on behalf of the Republican party for a change.
⁸

Roosevelt had no immediate doom to fear from the Greater New York Bill, for the earliest consolidation date would be 1 January
, 1898
. But then he began to hear rumors that Platt was drawing up a supplementary bill which would legislate him out of office long before that. Unable to stand the suspense, he asked his old friend and organization contact, Joe Murray, to arrange an interview with the Easy Boss.
⁹
Early in the New Year word came back that Platt would see him in the Fifth Avenue Hotel on Sunday, 19 January 1896.

L
IKE THE
L
ORD
, Platt was wont to receive the faithful, and hear their supplications, on the Sabbath. This was not due to any messiah complex on his part: Sunday was simply the most convenient day for out-of-town legislators, big businessmen, and overworked Police Commissioners to visit him. Still, there was something quaintly religious about the little knot of worshipers that gathered every seventh day outside his sanctuary; regular attendants like Quigg, “Smooth Ed” Lauterbach, and Chauncey Depew were nicknamed “Platt’s Sunday School Class.” After seeing the old man they settled on plush sofas at the end of the corridor to await his decisions. This niche was called the “Amen” corner, on the grounds that no other
response was possible once Platt had made up his mind. Presidents Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, and Harrison had all sat here, as well as James G. Blaine, who, in Platt’s opinion, “ought to have been President.”
¹⁰
Roosevelt might have been excused some feeling of trepidation in following such august predecessors. If not, the sight of the Easy Boss was enough to give any young man pause.