Theodore Rex (18 page)

Actually, the content of Roosevelt’s Message was the worst-kept secret since the Declaration of Independence. For at least six weeks, White House guests had been treated to stentorian readings of the author’s favorite passages. Newspaper presses across the country held every word in cold type, and in Britain and Europe the Message was already being published and commented on.

Even so, Congress was tense with anticipation when Pruden appeared at the door of the House and announced, “A message from the President of the United States.” Speaker David B. Henderson took delivery of the first volume and broke its seal. He was surprised to see printed text, instead of the traditional formal copperplate. A reading clerk took it from him, and flicked through to the end. “Yes, sir, it is signed.” Henderson shrugged. The clerk in-toned
Roosevelt’s opening sentence:
“
The Congress assembles this year in the shadow of a great calamity.”

There was an immediate reaction. Presidential messages were supposed to begin blandly, with hackneyed phrases about the United States being at peace with mankind. But as the clerk continued to read, it was clear that Roosevelt was all business.

William McKinley, he said, was the victim of a chillingly modern breed of assassin. Lincoln and Garfield had been martyrs for the kind of government they stood for; today’s political killer wanted to destroy government itself. Roosevelt began to eulogize his predecessor, but rage against Czolgosz diverted him into a magnificent six-minute tirade against anarchism, and those who abused the First Amendment by inciting it. The reading clerk could not help but perform histrionically:
“The wind is sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they cannot escape their responsibility for the whirlwind that is reaped.… If ever anarchy is triumphant, its triumph will last for but one red moment, to be succeeded for ages by the gloomy night of despotism.”

The House sat rapt as Roosevelt demanded federal jurisdiction over attacks on the presidential line of succession, and a ban on all politically violent immigrants.
“They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provision should be made for the punishment of those who stay.… The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is kindled it burns like a consuming flame.”

At this, the spell over the listening representatives broke. The sound of their applause rolled after Pruden as he hurried down the corridor to make his second delivery.

THE SENATE
, in contrast to the brilliantly lit House, was not yet illuminated for business. Dull winter sunshine seeped through the glass roof, too faint to reach the floor. Pruden hesitated in the doorway while senators settled like shadows into their chairs. A page relieved the messenger of his burden. Not until it was placed on the chief clerk’s lectern did somebody throw a switch; Roosevelt’s first words were heralded by a flood of incandescent light.

For a quarter of an hour, the seated company listened silently. Paperbound offprints of the Message—another novelty—were distributed, and senators began following the text like dutiful pupils.

“During the last five years business confidence has been restored, and the nation is to be congratulated because of its present abounding prosperity.”

Mark Hanna sat nodding solemnly at his own revisions. Henry Cabot Lodge, the President’s best friend, lounged nearby, looking, as usual, as if he
was about to go to sleep. But every now and again he unscrewed his fountain pen and endorsed a passage that appealed to him.

“The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across
this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people.”

As Roosevelt swung into his much-edited subsection on trusts, Senator John Coit Spooner (R., Wisconsin) got up and walked across the room. Spectators in the press gallery watched the small, pigeon-toed figure, guessing that it would stop at one of three desks. These, and Spooner’s own, were the four corners of Republican power on Capitol Hill.

SPOONER, AT FIFTY-EIGHT
, had the fastest mind, best constitutional knowledge, and most lethal wit in Congress. No senator could match him in debate; he was a scholar of classical rhetoric, and when short of a riposte—which was seldom—he could quote from Cicero or John Wilkes.
He was equally dangerous as a listener, specializing in gadfly questions that stung ponderous orators. His very appearance stamped him as unique. In a chamber luxuriant with beards and mustaches, Spooner’s clean, chiseled features glowed pale as stone. It was an arresting, almost shocking face, with an imperious twitch to the nostrils. Great waves of hair, polished pince-nez, and oversize cravats softened the cold sculpture. They suggested a frustrated actor. If so, the part Spooner most longed to play was that of President of the United States.
But he had always been too spontaneous, and too impatient, for campaign teamwork. Solo improvisation suited him better.

His perambulation ended at the desk of William Boyd Allison (R., Iowa). Stooping, he began to whisper in the old man’s ear. Rooseveltian rhetoric continued to echo over their heads:

“Many of those who have made it their vocation to denounce the great industrial combinations … known as ‘trusts,’ appeal especially to hatred and fear.… The whole history of the world shows that legislation will generally be both unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm enquiry and with sober self-restraint.”

Here were cautious words to appeal to Senator Allison—if Spooner’s whispering allowed him to hear them. Throughout his political career, “the Old Fox” had counseled due process in lawmaking. His genius was the resolution of discord; his vanity was to affect humility. Not once in his seventy-two years had he expressed a public point of view. Colleagues joked that if the road from Des Moines to Washington was a piano keyboard, “
Allison could run all the way without ever striking a note.”

This
legerdepied
kept him from being beholden to anybody, while gratifying everybody. When legislation arose to favor the urban East, Senator Allison modified it so as not to alienate the rural West. If Southern Democrats
forced bills upon him to benefit their poorer constituents, he attached innocent-looking amendments and profited Wall Street as well. But his moderating did not make him moderate. Like Spooner, Allison was a Hamiltonian fiscal conservative.

Poised in his equilibrium, he was upset by any shock, and could lash out with the sudden bitchiness of old age. Friends forgave him these outbursts. They knew he was tormented by a swelling prostate. Allison’s weary shuffle, his dark-brown, nicotinous smell—the very breath of the antebellum—guaranteed deference in a chamber worshipful of seniority.

“
All this is true, and yet it is also true that there are real and grave evils.”

In the front row of the chamber, beneath the reading clerk, sat a senator even hoarier than Allison. At seventy-four, Orville H. Platt (R., Connecticut) was the é
minence grise
of the Republican leadership. No relation to Thomas C. Platt of New York (Roosevelt’s ancient enemy, senescent now in a forgotten corner), he served as the Senate’s spiritual mentor, its legislative and ethical conscience.

There was something Lincolnesque about Platt’s grooved, bearded face, and the awkwardness of his six-foot-four-inch frame. Scholarly, mild, logical, and reclusive, Platt was almost a caricature of New England bookishness; his idea of an amusing evening was to read Greek to his wife. But the mildness was deceptive. Few senators worked more aggressively on behalf of big business.

“
There is a widespread conviction,”
the clerk declaimed, “
 … that combination and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right.”

Spooner returned to his seat. The outburst that none of Roosevelt’s advisers had been able to suppress was coming.
“
It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form … they shall do so upon absolutely truthful representations.… Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.”

If Nelson W. Aldrich (R., Rhode Island) deduced that Roosevelt was sounding the keynote of his presidency, he showed no sign. The sixty-year-old “Manager of the United States” looked as he always did: big, handsome, placid, nonchalantly powerful. His brow was calm, his silvery mustache stiff, his black eyes steady on the page before him.

“The first essential in determining how to deal with the great industrial corporations is knowledge of the facts—publicity.”

Aldrich’s was a classic poker face. Indeed, he was champion of a private poker game at which he, Spooner, Allison, and Platt formulated policy. So
elite was this little circle, so doubly dedicated to cards and politics, that its interests tended to fuse; the house would deal tariff schedules, pension bills, and aces of clubs interchangeably. Most evenings, Aldrich collected.

His power derived in part from natural authority, in part from pure memory. Spooner was quicker, and the two senior members were perhaps wiser, but none could match Aldrich’s command of information. No matter how raw the data—ore piles of statistics, a rubble of currency regulations—he processed them with the silent efficiency of a kiln. Consequently, he was the Senate’s ranking expert on such subjects as paper-money circulation, railroad bonds, and free wool. His actions on these issues did not usually make headlines, but Aldrich never cared for publicity.

Roosevelt, in contrast, seemed to equate it with democracy.
“In the interest of the public, the government should have the right to inspect and examine the workings of the great corporations.”

As far as Aldrich was concerned, news was noise, an intrusive bedlam that disturbed the quiet condominium of government and economy. The more attention public servants enjoyed, the more they would want to be
seen
to be doing, at the expense of free entrepreneurs.

“
The nation should, without interfering with the power of the States in the matter itself, also assume power of supervision and regulation over all corporations doing interstate business.”

Aldrich believed that, on the contrary, the nation could do with a little “supervision and regulation” by businessmen. He was himself a successful railroad executive. “I would undertake to run this government for three hundred million a year less than it is now run for,” he said.
Since this was not constitutionally possible, he could at least control the United States Senate to a greater degree than it had ever known. With a majority of 55 to 31, and a supplementary majority of 187 to 151 in the House, he might even manage to control Theodore Roosevelt as well.

“
I believe that a law can be framed …”