Theodore Rex (4 page)

In rude contrast, other columns celebrated the “Tremendous Energy,” “Superb Health,” and “Strenuous Life” of McKinley’s successor. Roosevelt did not need to read these, nor the potted biographies listing his many qualifications for office. He was more interested in analyses of his political situation.

The New York
World
announced that he had already “definitely fixed in his mind the nomination for 1904.” His old foe Senator Hanna, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, would have to be gotten out of the way somehow. The newspaper was silent as to Roosevelt’s chances of election. No Vice President succeeding to the presidency through death had yet won another term in his own right.

The New York
Press
predicted that John Hay would resign as Secretary of State, followed by Treasury Secretary Lyman J. Gage. Roosevelt did not like this forecast. No matter how genuine the desire of both Secretaries—ailing, old, and bereaved—to retire, he could not afford to have them decamp before he reached the White House. It would look like a vote of no confidence. There might be serious repercussions on Wall Street, where Hay was seen as an aggressive promoter of American commercial interests abroad, and Gage as guardian of Republicanism’s holiest grail, the protective tariff.

A remarkable consensus of Democratic and Republican editorial writers
held that Roosevelt would be as “conservative” as McKinley. The very unanimity of this opinion seemed contrived, as if to soothe a nervous stock market. The financial pages reported that “Severe Shocks,” “Feverish Trading,” and “Heavy Declines” had hit Wall Street on Friday, when the Gold Dollar President began to die. Roosevelt knew little about money—it was one of the few subjects that bored him—but even he could see that one false move this weekend might bring about a real panic on Monday.

AS THE NEWS
of McKinley’s death flashed around the world, members of Roosevelt’s circle of acquaintance could reflect with grim satisfaction on the many times they had predicted the presidency for him. In Dresden, his German tutor claimed first honors. “He will surely one day be a great professor,” she remembered telling his mother. “Or who knows, he may even become President of the United States.”

In Albany, an old girlfriend mused on the “strange prophetic quality in Theodore.” Ever since her first crush on him, Fanny Parsons had felt a “mystical” certainty that he would lead his country to world power. In Dickinson, North Dakota, the editor of a cowboy newspaper recalled the young Roosevelt’s complete lack of surprise at being told that he was destined for the White House. In Indianapolis, Benjamin Harrison’s son reread a memo by the late President: “Should Mr. Roosevelt aspire to become President of the United States, I believe that he will be successful.” In London, a Member of Parliament checked his diary entry for the day Roosevelt had been elected Vice President: “This can only mean one thing—that the Almighty has decided to promote the good McKinley to the vale of tears.” And in arctic Norway, a traveling Henry Adams stared aghast at the wire dispatches from America. “So Teddy is President! Is not that stupendous! Before such a career as that, I have no observations to make.”

Minds less fatalistic could view Roosevelt’s career only as a crazy trajectory, like that of a bee smacking against many surfaces before buzzing into the open air. Some ward heeler’s notion to nominate the young aristocrat for the New York Assembly; the freak tragedy that drove him west; the chance encounter that brought him back; the overnight war that made him Governor; his entrapment into the vice presidency, his liberation by an assassin … Horatio Alger could not get away with such a story.

Yet there was no doubt that Theodore Roosevelt was peculiarly qualified to be President of all the people. Few, if any Americans could match the breadth of his intellect and the strength of his character. A random survey of his achievements might show him mastering German, French, and the contrasted dialects of Harvard and Dakota Territory; assembling fossil skeletons with paleontological skill; fighting for an amateur boxing championship; transcribing birdsong into a private system of phonetics; chasing boat thieves
with a star on his breast and Tolstoy in his pocket; founding a finance club, a stockmen’s association, and a hunting-conservation society; reading some twenty thousand books and writing fifteen of his own; climbing the Matterhorn; promulgating a flying machine; and becoming a world authority on North American game mammals. Any Roosevelt watcher could make up a different but equally varied list. If the sum of all these facets of experience added up to more than a geometric whole—implying excess construction somewhere, planes piling upon planes—then only he, presumably, could view the polygon entire.

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE
were milling on the platform of Exchange Street Station, Buffalo, when Roosevelt’s train approached at 1:30
P.M.
But the engineer, obeying security instructions, did not slacken speed. He continued west at full steam. Four minutes later, the train drew up at Terrace Station, where a private carriage and twelve mounted policemen stood waiting in the sunshine. Roosevelt was down the steps of his car before the wheels stopped rolling. An hour’s rest had cleared the tiredness from his face, but his eyes were troubled. Some onlookers shouted, “Hurrah for Teddy!” He silenced them with a glare, and climbed into the waiting carriage. One of the policemen reached after him. “Colonel, will you shake hands with me?” Roosevelt recognized, and briefly embraced, a veteran of his regiment. Within thirty seconds, the cavalcade was on its way.

Roosevelt’s companion in the carriage was Ansley Wilcox, a Buffalo friend who had put him up on earlier, happier visits. Wilcox suggested that they go to his home at 641 Delaware Avenue for a quick lunch. McKinley’s body, attended by a quorum of the Cabinet, lay in the Milburn House, one mile farther uptown.

The cavalcade moved too fast for crowds to form, so the sidewalks of Delaware Avenue were practically empty when they reached number 641. Roosevelt remembered the Wilcox Mansion as one of Buffalo’s most elegant houses, but today its white pillars were hideously swathed in black, drapes blinded every window, and veils of fading wisteria hung from the walls like widow’s weeds. Averting his gaze, he hurried inside.

Over lunch, he said that he had decided where he wanted to be sworn in: “Here.” Wilcox protested that arrangements had been made to hold the ceremony at the Milburn House, in a room below McKinley’s corpse. “Don’t you think it would be far better to do as the Cabinet has decided?” Roosevelt was adamant. “No. It would be far worse.”

He would go there, he said, only to pay his respects. First he must make himself presentable. By a fortunate coincidence, Wilcox was of similar size and build, so Roosevelt was able to borrow a frock coat, waistcoat, and striped trousers. His bull-like neck presented no problem, as he had brought
a fresh shirt and collar. The Rooseveltian head, however, proved too large for any of Wilcox’s tall silk hats. John S. Scatchard, a macrocephalic neighbor, entered the annals of history by lending his own capacious topper. A satin tie, fine watch chain, gloves, and gold-topped cane completed Roosevelt’s furnishings. Bootblacks polished away the last traces of Adirondack mud from his person, and he emerged onto the porch at 2:30, lustrous from head to foot.

“ITS WHITE PILLARS WERE HIDEOUSLY SWATHED IN BLACK.”
The Wilcox Mansion, Buffalo, September 1901
(photo credit prl.2)

Even now, the only spectators in Delaware Avenue were two platoons of mounted police, a knot of reporters, and a teenage girl. Roosevelt exploded with rage at the sight of the troopers. “I told you I did not want an escort!” he roared at the State Inspector General. He was clearly overwrought, and had to be coaxed to accept a few troopers around his carriage.

To swelling cries of “Roosevelt is coming! Roosevelt is coming!” the carriage sped north to Milburn House. He jumped out in precipitate fashion, then, recollecting himself, advanced across the lawn with bowed head. The dapper figure of George Bruce Cortelyou, McKinley’s secretary, came out to meet him. Roosevelt removed his hat. They talked gravely for a few seconds. Cortelyou, whose normally sleek, fortyish features were ravaged with grief and exhaustion, explained that an autopsy was being performed upstairs. Roosevelt would not be able to see the body. Mrs. McKinley was too prostrated
to receive him. Senator Hanna was nowhere to be seen—he had limped off mumbling something about possible “misconstruction” if he attended the inaugural ceremony. Secretaries Hay and Gage were in Washington, looking after the government. The rest of the Cabinet was waiting in the parlor. Hat in hand, Roosevelt followed Cortelyou inside.

SIX SOLEMN FIGURES
rose to greet him.
A voice called out, “The President of the United States.” It was the first time he had heard the phrase in reference to himself. But its drama did not register, so intent was he upon behaving correctly.

After formal handshakes, he stood listening to the familiar hoarse murmur of Elihu Root, Secretary of War.
How often had this authoritative figure, this severe face under the ridiculous fringe, bent over him in fatherly advice! Root—“the brutal friend to whom I pay the most attention”—had been one of the group of eminent New Yorkers that supported his entry into politics, seventeen years ago. Root, lawyer without peer, had hornswoggled the Saratoga convention into overlooking his technical ineligibility for the gubernatorial nomination. Time and again, the rising politician had submitted hot speeches to Root’s icy scrutiny, always with bracing results. He even enjoyed the deadly Root wit, though it bruised his ego.

Now, however, Roosevelt was senior. He politely rejected Root’s recommendation of an inauguration on the spot, saying it would be “more appropriate” elsewhere. The Secretary bowed assent.

Returning to his carriage, Roosevelt was driven back the way he had come. Root and the other Cabinet officers followed in separate carriages, with reporters running behind them.