The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (105 page)

Platt was then in his sixty-third year, and moved (when he moved at all) with the painful majesty of arthritis. Tall, stooped, bearded, and murmuring, he looked like some political Rip van Winkle who had fallen asleep in a more leisurely age, and had woken to find the new one not much to his liking. His handshake was loose, his jaw slack, even his skin seemed tired; it creased down on either side of his nose, and drooped in parchment-like folds over his large sad eyes. Oddly enough, for a man whose desk was always piled with dusty papers and pamphlets, Platt was the perfection of elegance in dress. His suit rippled into place as he rose on his cane, a pearl pin glowed in his silk cravat, and high starched collars scratched against his silvery jowls.
¹¹

Roosevelt was not deceived by this world-weary image, for Platt was known to be as tough in mind as he was frail in body.
¹²
After some brief discussion of national affairs—the equivalent, among state politicians, of talk about the weather—the Commissioner asked point-blank if he was to be “kicked out by supplementary legislation after the Greater New York Bill had passed.” Platt’s reply was equally direct. “Yes.” Roosevelt could expect to be unemployed in about sixty days.
¹³

Afterward, Roosevelt searched for adjectives to describe the interview. It was, he decided, “entirely pleasant and cold-blooded.”
¹⁴

H
E ALSO DECIDED
that since he was now in “a fair fight” for survival, he would pick up Platt’s gauntlet in public.
¹⁵
It so happened that the following morning, 20 January, he was due to address the New York Methodist Ministers’ Association at 150 Fifth Avenue. Knowing they were sympathetic to his crusade against the saloons, Roosevelt shrewdly presented himself as Christianity’s last hope in Gomorrah:

If he had unveiled a giant effigy of Boss Platt with horns and a tail, he could not have more effectively mobilized the ministers. Convinced that Armageddon was at hand, they hurried off to denounce the Easy Boss from pulpits all over the city. The Methodist lobby in Albany warned legislators of “disastrous consequences politically” if they pursued the “foolish and wicked course” of punishing a public servant for doing his duty. Other ecclesiastical, liberal, and independent Republican organizations added their voices, and within forty-eight hours the popular outcry against Platt was deafening. “Roosevelt’s a nervy fellow, isn’t he?” said Mayor Strong admiringly.
¹⁷
Strong was beginning to regret his earlier jibes and threats against Roosevelt, perhaps because he realized that the Commissioner, however controversial, was his only really distinguished appointment. He may also have pondered Richard Croker’s widely quoted remark, “Roosevelt is all there is to the Strong Administration, and Roosevelt will make it or break it.” At any rate the Mayor was effusive in his approval of Roosevelt’s speech, and announced that he would resist any moves against the present Police Board.
¹⁸

On 23 and 24 January
The New York Times
published full details of “the Republican Plot to Oust Roosevelt,” identifying Platt and his lieutenants by name, and denouncing them as
“contemptible … sneaking cowards and hypocrites.” The effect of these front-page, double-column articles was to give chapter and verse to Roosevelt’s allegations, and draw national attention to the threat of a party split in New York. Platt was severely embarrassed. If he wished to be a force at the upcoming Republican National Convention, he must at all costs preside over a united delegation. His anti-Roosevelt bill was accordingly withdrawn from the Legislature, although it was understood it could be revived at any time.
¹⁹

Roosevelt said he was “delighted” to have been reprieved, but carefully refrained from making any further attacks on Boss Platt. “I shall not break with the party,” he confided to Lodge. “The Presidential contest is too important.”
²⁰

Commissioner Andrews also expressed “very great pleasure,” and Commissioner Grant rumbled something to the same effect.
²¹
Only Commissioner Parker was silent.

C
OINCIDENTALLY OR NOT
, Roosevelt now discovered that he had an open enemy on the Police Board. A friendly newspaper editor had long ago warned that Andrew D. Parker was “a snake in the grass, and sooner or later he will smite you,”
²²
but Roosevelt was so taken in by the man’s “sinister efficiency” he had never really believed it. A Republican ward worker had also informed him that “Parker could not be trusted … that he was not loyal to him as head of the Commission.” Roosevelt laughed. “Not loyal to me? Impossible. Why, only yesterday I boxed with him, and he boxes like a gentleman!”
²³
True, there had been an occasion in October 1895 when he heard rumors that Parker was criticizing the dry-Sunday campaign behind his back, while praising it to his face. More recently, Parker had several times lied to him with such “brazen effrontery” as to leave Roosevelt speechless. Yet there had been no direct hostility at Board meetings—not that Parker attended many—and the department continued to operate smoothly well into the New Year.
²⁴
Not until five weeks after Roosevelt’s successful appeal to the Methodist ministers did the snake rear up and strike for the first time.

At a routine Board meeting on 28 February 1896, Roosevelt
brought up the routine subject of promotions.
²⁵
Due to mass resignations over the past nine months, by corrupt officers anxious to escape criminal investigation, the force was studded with “acting” inspectors, captains, sergeants, and roundsmen.
²⁶
The Commissioners acted periodically to make at least some of these promotions permanent, and there had been little dissent as to which officers deserved full rank and pay.

Thus, when Roosevelt moved the promotions of Acting Inspectors Nicholas Brooks and John McCullagh, two men known for their decency and efficiency, he doubtless expected the usual unanimous vote. But Commissioner Parker demurred. There were other officers, he said, just as worthy of advancement; for example, an excellent man in the Detective Bureau, which he, Parker, had just finished reorganizing.
²⁷

Roosevelt protested in dismay. Brooks and McCullagh had been “acting” now for nine months; the force was expecting their immediate promotion; “it was not keeping faith with the men” to delay matters any longer. He insisted that the motion be voted on. Commissioners Andrews and Grant added their ayes to his. Commissioner Parker refused to vote at all.

Had the motion been on some trivial item of agenda, such as the issuance of a mask ball license, or the sale of a police horse, Parker would have been overruled by the majority. But on matters of promotion the Board’s “Polish” constitution required a full vote of four—or, three votes plus the written approval of Chief Conlin.
²⁸
Roosevelt was puzzled and frustrated. He did not like to resolve a Board dispute by enlisting the aid of a man in the ranks. However, since Parker was adamant—and remained absent from the next few meetings—the other Commissioners had no choice but to summon Conlin before them on 12 March. They were confident that he would be agreeable. Unlike his formidable predecessor, Chief Byrnes, Conlin was a quiet, unassuming officer who generally did what he was told.
²⁹
Roosevelt asked bluntly if he would recommend the promotion of Brooks and McCullagh. Conlin replied that he would not.
³⁰

What was more, the Chief went on, he would no longer tolerate promotions or assignments within the force unless they were
submitted to him in advance. He had not exercised this, his legal right, in the past, but in future he would insist upon it.

It was evident to the three flabbergasted Commissioners that they were listening to the voice, not of Peter Conlin, but of their absent colleague. For some reason, Parker wished to stop the reorganization of the force, and by some power he had been able to recruit Conlin as his ally. Whatever his motives, the consequences threatened to be serious. Already the failure of Roosevelt’s 28 February motion was having its effect on police morale. Some “acting” officers, pessimistic of advancement under a deadlocked Board, refused to act at all until they got job security. Those who did try to give orders found the lack of gold on their sleeves acutely embarrassing. The Commissioners were obliged to pass a resolution on 13 March ordering Conlin to make a formal reply to their request in writing, as required by law.
³¹

That very evening Parker was due to dine with Roosevelt at 689 Madison Avenue, in response to a long-standing invitation.
³²
Under the circumstances a note expressing polite regrets might have been understandable, but none was forthcoming, and at the appointed hour Parker coolly showed up. It is unlikely either he or his host so much as mentioned the Brooks-McCullagh affair. Their social relations were still cordial,
³³
and both men were too well-bred to argue over the dinner table. Besides, there were four other guests, including the Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, and Roosevelt’s good friend Joseph Bucklin Bishop, an editor of the
Evening Post
. The subjects discussed were mainly political—“Platt, Tammany, reorganization, political treachery, the German vote, etc.”
³⁴
Roosevelt must have hogged the conversation as usual, for Parker was in an ill humor by the end of the evening. Walking home with Bishop, he suddenly said, “I wish you would stop him talking so much in the newspapers. He talks, talks, talks all the time. Scarcely a day passes that there is not something from him in the papers … and the public is getting tired of it. It injures our work.”

Bishop laughed. “Stop Roosevelt talking! Why, you would kill him. He has to talk. The peculiarity about him is that he has what is essentially a boy’s mind. What he thinks he says at once, says aloud.
It is his distinguishing characteristic, and I don’t know as he will ever outgrow it. But with it he has great qualities which make him an invaluable public servant—inflexible honesty, absolute fearlessness, and devotion to good government which amounts to religion. We must let him work his way, for nobody can induce him to change it.”

Parker received this speech in cold silence.
³⁵