The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (88 page)
Read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Online
Authors: Edmund Morris
Roosevelt proved oddly coy. Although he did not say as much to Rose, he dreaded another contretemps with the Postmaster General—which would surely occur should he uncover further evidence of politicking in that gentleman’s department. Wanamaker had been smarting ever since the Paul/Shidy affair, and if stung once more could be expected to fight tooth and nail for Roosevelt’s removal.
Stalling for time, the Commissoner asked Rose to return to Baltimore and put his information in writing. When the letter arrived two days later he sent it on to Wanamaker, suggesting that as most of the allegations therein referred to the Post Office, the Postmaster General should perhaps investigate them himself. Wanamaker declined.
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Roosevelt felt he had done what he could to
protect the Administration, and must now do his duty. With his usual flair for the dramatic, he chose to arrive in Baltimore unannounced, on the morning of Election Day, 30 March.
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As he wandered through the noisy wards he saw enough evidence of wanton illegality by federal employees to fill a fleet of police wagons. He tried to maintain an air of official disapproval, but the writer in him could not help rejoicing in scenes and incidents straight out of
Pickwick Papers
. On every sidewalk fists flew and money—taxpayers’ money—changed hands, while in house-windows overlooking the street, election judges sat in impassive groups of three, like monkeys who saw, heard, and spoke no evil. Relays of furniture carts rumbled in from all points of the compass, bringing hundreds of rural voters with no apparent connections to the local Republican party. Ward-workers entertained these transients in saloons where the beer flowed freely, compliments of Postmaster Johnson and Marshal Airey. Countless “pudding” tickets (six or seven slips folded together as one) were deposited on behalf of both factions; when a judge objected to this, his two colleagues threw him bodily into the crowd. Elsewhere an anti-Administration worker eliminated three pro-Administration judges by the simple expedient of pulling a blind down over their window. “On account of this excessive zeal,” wrote Roosevelt admiringly, “he was taken to the watch-house and fined.”
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The polls closed at eight o’clock, and although there seemed to be three to four times as many votes as voters, the majority were clearly in favor of the anti-Administration forces. Roosevelt had no comment to make: he was busy interviewing federal employees who had contributed to, or participated in, the day’s proceedings.
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Not one of them saw anything wrong in influencing the course of a political election. “As far as I could find out,” Roosevelt recalled, “… there seemed to be no question of principle at stake at all, but one of offices merely … it was not a primary which particularly affected the interest of private citizens.” The civil servants of Baltimore, he added, “were as thorough believers in a system of oligarchical government as if they had lived in Venice or Sparta.”
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Party reaction to his visit was immediate and violent. On 1 April the Washington correspondent of the
Boston Post
reported: “The
removal of Theodore Roosevelt from the Civil Service Commission is among the possibilities of the near future.” The President, apparently, was “very mad” with him.
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Frank Hatton delightedly fanned the flames with a front-page story headlined “
TEDDY AT THE POLLS
—Helping To Hurt Mr. Harrison—He Is Hand-in-Glove with the Anti-Administration Men.” The article alleged that Roosevelt’s tour through the wards had caused many government employees to “desert the field,” resulting in a humiliating defeat for the Administration. “If the delegation sent to the next nominating convention is anti-Harrison, the President will have nobody to blame more than his Civil Service Commissioner.”
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On 4 April, an incensed party of Maryland spoilsmen visited the White House to demand Roosevelt’s dismissal.
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Harrison said he would wait for an official report of the investigation before deciding what to do. This was a clear warning to Roosevelt to modify, delay, or even suppress any embarrassing findings.
Aware that he had an ax hanging over him
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—an ax that threatened to split asunder not only the Civil Service Commission, but the entire Administration—Roosevelt drafted his report with extreme caution. He returned to Baltimore three times, on 6, 13, and 18 April, to gather extra material.
36
Every word of testimony was transcribed by a stenographer, lest the President doubt any of the evidence. Some interviews, despite his efforts to be severe, came out like music-hall dialogue:
Q. How do you do your cheating?
A. Well, we do our cheating honorably.
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Although Roosevelt quoted such non sequiturs with relish, the cheerful mendacity of witness after witness gradually sickened him. Out of their own mouths, he wrote, no fewer than twenty-five Harrison appointees stood convicted, and the President should dismiss them at once. His analysis of the evidence contained a typically aggressive plea for the abolition of the spoils system, on the grounds of pure political morality. “Resolved into its ultimate elements, the view of the spoils politician is that politics is a dirty game, which ought to be played solely by those who desire, by hook
or crook, to win pecuniary reward [in] the form of money or of office. Politics cannot possibly be put upon a healthy basis until this idea is absolutely eradicated … As for the Government officeholder, he must be taught in one way or another that his duty is to do the work of the Government for the whole people, and not to pervert his office for the use of any party or any faction.”
38
In conclusion, Roosevelt noted that Postmaster Johnson had weakly disclaimed responsibility for the politicking of his employees. Such men were loyal, not to him, but to their ward leaders, who had ordered Johnson to hire them in the first place. “This testimony,” Roosevelt remarked contemptuously, “… shows the utter nonsense of the talk that under the spoils system the appointing officers themselves make the appointments. They do nothing of the kind … outside politicians make the appointments for them.” There was not enough evidence to warrant indictment of either Johnson or Marshal Airey—although the latter had been seen tearing the coat-buttons off a recalcitrant judge. In an obvious attempt to placate the President, Roosevelt avoided direct censure of either official, but suggested that in future any such politicking by senior civil servants “shall be treated as furnishing cause for dismissal.”
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T
HE
R
EPORT OF
C
OMMISSIONER
Roosevelt Concerning Political Assessments and the Use of Official Influence to Control Elections in the Federal Offices at Baltimore, Maryland
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was, and remains, a masterpiece in its genre. It was short (146 pages), dense with relevant information, yet so clearly written as to speed both reader and author irresistibly to the same conclusion. Indeed the document was so seductive, not to say seditious, in its indictment of Old Guard Republicanism that Roosevelt himself seems to have had second thoughts about sending it in, or at least to have yielded to the suggestions of Commissioners Lyman and Thompson that he delay its release until the summer vacations, when negative publicity would do the Administration least harm.
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As a result, he enjoyed a temporary lull in his “warfare with the ungodly,” and drifted into “the pleasant life one can lead in Washington in the spring, if there are several tolerably intimate families.”
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The Roosevelts dined the Reeds; the Reeds responded with lunch; the Hays dined the Roosevelts; and “good, futile, pathetic Springy” entertained everybody at the country club. Theodore and Edith made side trips to Senator Cameron’s estate in Pennsylvania, and to William Merritt Chase’s art studio in New York, where Carmencita performed the new dance sensation,
flamenco
. April was effulgent, “clear as a bell … the flowers in bloom, and the trees a fresh and feathery green.” There were moonlight drives along the Potomac, followed by dinner; receptions for “various Dago diplomats,” followed by dinner; lazy Saturday lunches and lingering Sunday teas, followed by yet more dinners.
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Roosevelt, whose body was thickening steadily with age, attempted to lose weight by trotting up Rock Creek in heavy flannels. His Dutch Reformed conscience began to bother him. “I have been going out too much … I wish I had more chance to work at my books … I don’t feel as if I were working to lasting effect.”
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S
OMETIME THAT SPRING
he was overjoyed to receive a “temperate, natural, truthful” letter from his brother, whom Bamie had at last told about Katy Mann. It amounted to a total rejection of the girl’s story.
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Naively reassured, Theodore wondered if he should call her bluff. “It is a ticklish business,” he told Bamie. “I hate the idea of [a] public scandal; and yet I never believe in yielding a hair’s breadth to a case of simple blackmail.”
46
But Katy Mann—who had given birth to a son—was not in the least deterred from pressing her suit. She claimed that Elliott had given her a locket and some compromising letters, which she would be happy to produce in court. Other servants, moreover, were willing to testify that he had been infatuated with her, and that his voice had been heard in her room. “Of course she is lying,” Theodore wrote uneasily.
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He was still wondering how to proceed when the reports from Europe took on a sudden, alarming turn. Elliott had quit the sanitarium in Graz on some wild impulse, and had dragged Anna, Bamie, and the children to Paris. There he had taken on an American mistress, a Mrs. Evans, begun to drink again, and was occasionally
so violent as to frighten Anna into hysterics.
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Theodore chafed with frustration. Were it not for the fact that his own wife was heavily pregnant, he would have taken the next ship to Paris. He insisted, in a brutally decisive letter dated 7 June, that Elliott must be left to drink himself to death, if necessary, the moment Anna’s confinement was over.
Anna must be made to understand that it is both maudlin and criminal—I am choosing my words with scientific exactness—to continue living with Elliott … Do everything to persuade her to come home at once, unless Elliott will put himself in an asylum for a term of years, or unless, better still, he will come too. Once here I’ll guarantee to see that he is shut up …
Make up your mind to one dreadful scene. Use this letter if you like. Tell him that he is either responsible or irresponsible. If responsible then he must go where he can be cured; if irresponsible he is simply a selfish brutal and vicious criminal, and Anna ought not to stay with him an hour.
Do not care an atom for his threats of going off alone. Let him go … What happens to him is of purely minor importance now; and the chance of public scandal must not be weighed for a moment against the welfare, the life, of Anna and the children …
If he can’t be shut up, and will neither go of his own accord, nor let Anna depart of his free will, then make your plans and go off some day in his absence. If you need me telegraph me, and I (or Douglas [Robinson] if it is impossible for me to go on account of Edith) will come at once. But remember, I come on one condition. I come to settle the thing once and for all … You can tell him that Anna has a perfect right to a divorce; she or you or I have but to express belief in the Katy Mann story and no jury in the country would refuse a divorce.
Notwithstanding his threat to uphold Katy Mann in court, Theodore still wanted to believe that the girl was lying.
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As a
gentleman he had to accept his brother’s denial until it was proved false. He therefore ordered his representatives “to tell her to go on with her law suit … she will get nothing from us.” Senior members of the family were alerted to the likelihood of “some pretty ugly matters” surfacing in the press.
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