The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (143 page)

Roosevelt also congratulated himself, justifiably, on his labor record.
⁵³
He had supported, fought for, and signed several bills aimed at improving the working conditions in tenement sweatshops; at strengthening state factory-inspection procedures; at limiting the maximum hours to be worked by employed women and children; and at imposing a stricter eight-hour day law upon the state work force, as an example to other large corporations.
⁵⁴
He consulted widely with union officials—far more than any of his predecessors—and greatly strengthened the state supervisory board to protect industrial workers from exploitation. Fortunately there had been no violent demonstrations to strain his good humor—yet.
⁵⁵

There had been one or two blots on Roosevelt’s record which time would darken, notably his decision in late February to send a woman to the electric chair for the first time in the history of New York State.
⁵⁶
This was in spite of the anguished pleas of humanitarians and warnings that the execution would destroy his Presidential chances.
⁵⁷
The Governor justified his decision by saying that the woman had been fairly convicted of murder, and that in any case sex had nothing to do with the law.
⁵⁸

Roosevelt’s only major inherited problem, the Erie Canal scandal, was for the time being dormant, thanks to his appointment of Superintendent Partridge and courageous selection of two Democrats to reinvestigate. Critics might complain that the delay was unnecessary, given last year’s proof of Republican malfeasance, but few observers doubted that the Governor would prosecute fearlessly if the evidence was upheld.
⁵⁹

“All together I am pretty well satisfied with what I have accomplished,” wrote Roosevelt. “I do not misunderstand in the least
what it means—or rather, how little it may mean. New York politics are kaleidoscopic and 18 months hence I may be so much out of kilter with the machine that there may be no possibility of my renomination.…”
⁶⁰

Along with
parochial
, the adjective
kaleidoscopic
was increasingly a part of his vocabulary, as he contemplated the rapid shifts of fortune which had marked his recent career. The kaleidoscope continued to shift, ever more rapidly, in the days and months ahead, disclosing sometimes a dazzling perspective to infinity, sometimes dark visions of chaos.

Thus within a month of his boast to Lodge he was confessing to Bamie that he felt “a wee bit depressed”
⁶¹
—a Rooseveltian euphemism for submersion in the Slough of Despond. Having had time to reflect, he realized that his early reservations about the Ford Franchise Tax Bill, now lying on his desk for signature, had been well-founded. The local assessment clause was indeed an alarming problem. In New York City, for instance, it meant that Tammany Hall would have the power to tax all the traction companies—or demand vast bribes for leniency. No wonder his oldest corporate friends, including Chauncey Depew, were incensed at his stand.
⁶²
In addition the stock market was down,
The New York Times
accusing him of opportunism, and, worst of all, Senator Platt had hurled the organization’s ultimate obscenity at him, albeit in a gentlemanly letter, dated 6 May 1899.

“When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was one matter that gave me real anxiety,” the Senator wrote. “… I had heard from a good many sources that you were a little loose on the relations of capital and labor, on trusts and combinations, and, indeed, on those numerous questions which have recently arisen in politics affecting the security of earnings and the right of a man to run his own business in his own way, with due respect of course to the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code.” Now came the imprecation: “I understood from a number of business men, and among them many of your own personal friends, that you entertained various
altruistic
ideas, all very well in their way, but which before they could be put into law needed very profound consideration.”
⁶³
Roosevelt knew that in Platt’s vocabulary
altruistic
meant
socialistic
or worse.
⁶⁴
“You have just adjourned a Legislature which created a good opinion throughout the State,” the Easy Boss went on loftily. “I congratulate you heartily upon this fact, because I sincerely believe, as everybody else does, that this good impression exists very largely as a result of your personal influence in the legislative chambers. But at the last moment and to my very great surprise, you did a thing which has caused the business community of New York to wonder how far the notions of Populism, as laid down in Kansas and Nebraska, have taken hold upon the Republican party of the State of New York.” The letter began to ramble, and concluded with an almost fatherly appeal to the young Governor’s discretion. “I sincerely believe you will make the mistake of your life if you allow the bill to become a law,” wrote Platt, advising him “with a political experience that runs back nearly half a century”
⁶⁵
not to sign the bill.

Roosevelt deliberated for twenty-four hours before dictating a reply. He wryly thanked the Senator for the “frankness, courtesy, and delicacy” of his letter, not to mention his cooperation during the legislative season. “I am peculiarly sorry that the most serious cause of disagreement should come in this way right at the end of the session.” With tongue firmly in cheek, he assured Platt that he was not “what you term ‘altruistic’ … to any improper degree.” As regards the Ford Bill, “pray do not believe that I have gone off half-cocked in this matter.” Then he launched into a classic statement of his political philosophy.

In hopes of achieving a “just balance” with Senator Platt, the Governor now made a dramatic offer. He was willing to reconvene the Legislature for a special session, in the hope that the Ford Bill’s “obnoxious” assessment clause might be amended. It must be clear to both houses, however, that the essential principle of taxing franchise privileges must stand.
⁶⁷

Organization and corporate lawyers welcomed the idea of an amended bill. They obviously intended to shoot it so full of holes that it would hang limp in any breeze of reform. But Roosevelt had a final ultimatum to make to Platt before sending out his summons to the legislators: “Of course it must be understood … that I will sign the present bill, if the [amended] bill … fails to pass.”
⁶⁸

The Easy Boss remained silent, and on 22 May the Assemblymen and Senators were back at their desks in the Capitol.

L
EAVING NOTHING TO CHANCE
, the Governor delivered copies of his ultimatum to the Leader of the Senate and to Chairman Odell, and recruited two of the finest legal consultants in New York State to scrutinize every semicolon that came out of either House. He even arranged for delaying tactics in the event of a recall move, so that he could sign the Ford Bill into law before the pageboys reached his office.
⁶⁹

So short, indeed, was the distance between his pen and the document lying open before him that Platt’s leaders gave up the attempt to write a new bill more favorable to corporations. All they could do was to insert various strengthening clauses into the original bill, exactly as Roosevelt had intended. No amendment was made without his approval, and the revised measure cleared both Houses in three days. The Governor proudly and accurately described it as “the most important law passed in recent times by any State Legislature.” He signed it with a flourish on 27 May, and sat back to enjoy the sweetness of his victory.
⁷⁰

Whether he tasted the fruits to the full is doubtful. For all the
praise that poured in from the anti-organization press (“Governor Roosevelt,” declared the
Herald
, “has given the finest exhibition of civic courage witnessed in this State in many a day”),
⁷¹
he only knew that he was tired to his bones. “I have had four years of exceedingly hard work without a break, save by changing from one kind of work to another. This summer I shall hope to lie off as much as possible.…”
⁷²

B
UT PRESSURE OF
speaking engagements up and down the Hudson Valley kept him away from Oyster Bay until the middle of June. Even then he had only a week at home before setting off West to attend the first Rough Riders reunion in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The two-day celebration, “which I would not miss for anything in the world,” was timed to begin on the first anniversary of the Battle of Las Guásimas.
⁷³

As he journeyed West he pondered again “the relations of capital and labor … trusts and combinations.”
⁷⁴
Platt might think him “loose” on these subjects, but they preoccupied him more and more as he contemplated America’s entry into the twentieth century. The Ford Bill had been but a step, admittedly a pioneering one, toward resolving the giant inequities of the capitalist system; some future Chief Executive more powerful and visionary than William McKinley must bring about similar legislation on a national scale.

The thought of McKinley made Roosevelt slightly uneasy at present. Ever since taking the oath at Albany he had been receiving demands from the pesky Mrs. Bellamy Storer that he campaign for the promotion to Cardinal of her favorite Archbishop, John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota.
⁷⁵
She imagined that as Governor of New York State he could prevail upon the President to prevail upon the Pope. But Roosevelt was aware of various stately squabbles within the Church, and knew that Ireland was
persona non grata
at the Vatican. He had therefore hedged repeatedly, pleading lack of knowledge, lack of influence, and lack of propriety; but Mrs. Storer would not be put off, and he at last wrote the President a less than enthusiastic plea on her behalf. McKinley’s reply, which had arrived a few days before his departure for the West, was a polite refusal to intervene in the affairs of another State.
⁷⁶

Behind the politeness lurked a hostility that probably went back to the round-robin incident at the end of the war. (The final installment of
The Rough Riders
, containing Roosevelt’s own account of the affair, along with many hints of Administration mismanagement, was currently on the newsstands.) Roosevelt had long since given up hope of being awarded the Medal of Honor: no War Department board was going to recommend his controversial name to the President.
⁷⁷
But the fact remained that McKinley would probably win a second term in 1900—the election was only eighteen months off—and Roosevelt, if he wished to emerge as a possibility in 1904, must at all costs preserve amiable relations with the White House. On the same day he received McKinley’s rejection of his Storer appeal, he had written querulously to Secretary of State John Hay, “I do not suppose the President ever goes to the seaside. It is not necessary to say how I should enjoy having him at Oyster Bay, if possible.…”
⁷⁸

But as the Governor proceeded west and southwest through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas, he realized that he must offer McKinley something more than sea air as an assurance of loyalty. For the embarrassing fact was that huge crowds were waiting to greet him at every station, “exactly as if I had been a presidential candidate.”
⁷⁹