The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (113 page)

He returned to Mulberry Street on 30 December for the year’s final Board meeting, and found Commissioner Parker as tricky and obstructive as ever. After adjournment Roosevelt was moved to an admission of weary respect: “Parker, I feel to you as Tommy Atkins did toward Fuzzy-Wuzzy in Kipling’s poem … ‘To fight ’im ’arf an hour will last me ’arf a year.’ I’m going out of town tonight, but I suppose we’ll have another row next Wednesday.” Parker laughed. “I’ll be glad to see you when you get back, Roosevelt.”
⁷⁹

I
N THE
N
EW
Y
EAR
, Roosevelt’s longing to be appointed Assistant Secretary was spurred by renewed press criticism of the deadlock at Police Headquarters. Most complaints were directed at Parker, but they also reflected unfavorably on the president of the Board. Editors of all political persuasions agreed that the quarreling between Commissioners was “a discredit” to the department, and “a detriment to public welfare.” It was enough, remarked the
Herald
, to make citizens nostalgic for the corrupt but superefficient force of yesteryear. “The simple fact is that this much-heralded ‘Reform Board’ has proved a public disappointment and a failure.”
⁸⁰
The Society for the Prevention of Crime, which had strongly supported Roosevelt in the past, condemned the Commissioners for “lack of executive vigor” and “indignity of demeanor,” while the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, in a clear reference to Roosevelt’s courtship of Boss Platt, scorned “those who consent, spaniel-like, to lick the hand of their master.”
⁸¹

Afraid that some of this publicity would reach the ears of the President-elect, Roosevelt announced on 8 January, “I shall hereafter refuse to take part in any wranglings or bickerings on this Board. They are not only unseemly, but detrimental to the discipline of the force.”
⁸²
Commissioner Parker affably agreed to do the same, and a measure of peace returned to Mulberry Street.

Thomas Collier Platt was nominated for the Senate on 14 January 1897, by a Republican caucus vote of 147 to 7. His first reaction, on hearing the news, was to ask for a list of the seven Choate supporters
and put it in his pocket. This suggests that Roosevelt had been prudent, if nothing else, in deserting Choate the month before.
⁸³
Platt was duly elected on 20 January, and immediately became a major, if inscrutable factor in Roosevelt’s campaign for office.

The Police Commissioner, meanwhile, optimistically prepared himself for his future responsibilities, inviting Alfred Thayer Mahan back to Sagamore Hill, addressing the U.S. Naval Academy on 23 January, and working with concentrated speed on a revised version of his
Naval War of 1812
.
⁸⁴
The manuscript had been commissioned by Sir William Laird Clowes, naval correspondent of the London
Times
and editor of the official history of the British Navy, then in preparation.
⁸⁵
Roosevelt inserted “a pretty strong plea for a powerful navy” into his text.
⁸⁶

February came and went, with no encouraging news—McKinley was preoccupied with Cabinet appointments and pre-Inaugural arrangements, and Platt remained silent—but Roosevelt continued to hope. “I shall probably take it,” he told Bamie, “because I am intensely interested in our navy, and know a good deal about it, and it would mean four years work.” He did not see himself surviving a year in his present job, even if obliged to remain.
⁸⁷

His truce with “cunning, unscrupulous, shifty”
⁸⁸
Parker lasted less than five weeks, and by the end of February he was complaining of “almost intolerable difficulty” at Mulberry Street.
⁸⁹
Commissioner Grant was now firmly allied with Parker, and Roosevelt paused, in a moment of bitter humor, to wonder how so great a general could have produced so lumpish a son. “Grant is one of the most interesting studies that I know of, from the point of view of atavism. I am sure his brain must reproduce that of some long-lost arboreal ancestor.”
⁹⁰

By 4 March, when William McKinley was inaugurated, the situation at Police Headquarters had become an open scandal. Newspapers that day carried reports of an almost total breakdown of discipline in the force, new outbreaks of corruption, tearful threats of resignation by Chief Conlin, and rabid partisan squabbles between Democratic and Republican officers—echoing those among the four Commissioners, who seemed scarcely able to stand the sight of one another anymore.
⁹¹

“I am very sorry that I ever appointed Andrew D. Parker,” Mayor Strong commented sadly. “I am just as sorry that it is beyond my power to remove him from office.”
⁹²
A reporter pointed out that he had, nevertheless, the power to find Parker guilty of the charges leveled against him last summer. Strong hesitated for two weeks, then at last, on 17 March, dismissed Parker for proven neglect of duty.
⁹³
But the sentence was subject to gubernatorial approval; so in the meantime Parker smilingly stayed on.

D
URING THE REST OF
M
ARCH
, and on through the first five days of April, a cast of some twenty-five characters lobbied, fought, bartered, bullied, and pleaded for and against Roosevelt’s appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Lodge acted as coordinator of the pro-Roosevelt group, whose ranks included John Hay, Speaker Reed, Secretary of the Interior Cornelius Bliss, Judge William Howard Taft of Ohio, and even Vice-President Hobart. Mrs. Storer haughtily withdrew when McKinley, who disliked being beholden to anybody, gave her husband the second-rate ambassadorship to Belgium. Mark Hanna was reported favorable to Roosevelt’s nomination immediately after the Inauguration, but was so plagued by other rivals for McKinley’s favor that Lodge hesitated to approach him.
⁹⁴
The Chairman had been seen slinging a pebble at a skunk in a Georgetown garden and growling, “By God, he looks like an office-seeker!”
⁹⁵

Lodge was at a loss to explain the delay in appointing his deserving young friend. “The only, absolutely the only thing I can hear adverse,” he wrote, “is that there is a fear that you will want to fight somebody at once.”
⁹⁶

This, indeed, was the essence of the problem. In all the welter of contradictory reports, rumors, and ambiguous memoirs surrounding the Navy Department negotiations, one rock constantly breaks the surface: McKinley’s belief that once Roosevelt came to Washington he would seek to involve the United States in war. The President wanted nothing so much as four years of peace and stability, so that the corporate interests he represented could continue their growth. He was by nature a small-town son of the Middle West, who shied away from large schemes and foreign entanglements.
(The French Ambassador in Washington found him defensively aware of his own provincialism, “ignorant of the wide world.”)
⁹⁷
But as a Civil War veteran, he had a genuine horror of bloodshed. On the eve of his Inauguration he had told Grover Cleveland that if he could avert the “terrible calamity” of war while in office, he would be “the happiest man in the world.” Mark Hanna felt the same. “The United States must not have any damn trouble with anybody.”
⁹⁸

Roosevelt’s response was to send sweet assurances via Lodge to the Secretary of the Navy, that if appointed, he would faithfully execute Administration policies. What was more, “I shall stay in Washington, hot weather or any other weather, whenever he wants me to stay there …”
⁹⁹
No message could have been more shrewdly calculated to appeal to the Secretary, especially the heavy hint about looking after the department in summer. John D. Long, whom Roosevelt knew well from Civil Service Commission days, was a comfortable old Yankee, mildly hypochondriac, who liked nothing so much as to potter around his country home in Hingham Harbor, Massachusetts, and write little books of poetry with titles like
At the Fireside
and
Bites of a Cherry.
¹⁰⁰
Long had been reported nervous about Roosevelt’s appointment. “If he becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy he will dominate the Department within six months!” But now he told Lodge that he would be happy to have the young man aboard, and the pressure on McKinley redoubled.
¹⁰¹

Senator Platt capitulated in early April, when he was persuaded by his lieutenants that Roosevelt in Washington would be much less of a nuisance to the organization than Roosevelt in New York. The Easy Boss grudgingly told McKinley to go ahead with the appointment, as long as nobody thought that
he
had suggested it. “He hates Roosevelt like poison,” remarked a Presidential aide.
¹⁰²

And so, on 6 April 1897, Theodore Roosevelt was nominated as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, at a salary of $4,500 a year. Moved almost to tears by the loyalty of his friends, he telegraphed congratulations:

Two days later the Senate confirmed the appointment. Senator Platt was a noticeable absentee from the floor when the vote was called.
¹⁰³

A
NDREW
D. P
ARKER
was greatly amused when news of Roosevelt’s imminent departure circulated through Headquarters. “What a glorious retreat!” he exclaimed, and laughed for a long time.
¹⁰⁴
Contemptuous to the last, he stayed away from Roosevelt’s last Board meeting on Saturday, 17 April. So, too, did Grant, leaving only Avery Andrews to stare across the big table and express polite regrets on behalf of the Police Department. Since there was no quorum, a resolution thanking Roosevelt for his services could not be entered into the minutes. They waited until noon, and then, as Headquarters began to close down for the half-holiday, Roosevelt declared the meeting adjourned. “I am sorry,” he said wistfully. “There were matters of importance which I wished to bring up.” He shook a few hands, then went into his office to pack up his papers.
¹⁰⁵
Chief Conlin did not come in to say good-bye. Later, when Roosevelt walked down the main corridor for the last time, a guard on duty outside Conlin’s office threw the door open for him. “No,” said Roosevelt, with a gesture of disgust, “I am not going in there.” The guard hesitated. “Well, good-bye, Mr. President.” “Good-bye,” Roosevelt responded, taking his hand. Then, apparently as an afterthought: “I shall be sorry for you when I am gone.”
¹⁰⁶