The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (31 page)

And so on, for dozens of pages. Clearly he is out to inform, not entertain. And it must be admitted that his own criticism of it as “dry” is justified. The first two chapters, however masterly in their compilation and assortment of figures, are unreadable by all except the most dedicated naval strategists, and the other eight are almost as severe. There is something almost inhuman about the young
author’s refusal to swashbuckle, taste the triumphs of victory and the pain of defeat, and dramatize character where well he might. Yet there twinkles, every now and again in its gray pages, a flash of sarcastic humor, usually at the expense of historians less scholarly than he:

Elsewhere he observes that James’s remark on the similarity of language spoken by both sides is “an interesting philological discovery that but few will attempt to controvert.”
⁹⁰

In his search for truth, he does not hesitate to crush such sentimental legends as that of the Battle of Lake Erie. “The ‘glory’ acquired by it most certainly has been estimated at more than its own worth,” he declares, in the course of a long and brilliantly detailed analysis. “The simple truth is … the side which possessed the superiority in force, in the proportion of three to two, could not well help winning.” Dismissing “stereotyped” arguments that the United States fleet was underarmed and undermanned, he went on to prove, with incontestable figures, that its
weight
of ammunition—i.e., fighting effectiveness—was superior, “as the battle was fought under very short sail, and decided purely by gunnery.”
⁹¹

Theodore’s very scrupulousness, however, led him to the conclusion that the Naval War of 1812 was a deserved victory for America. Having so decided, he felt no desire to gloat, for a far more important theme preoccupied him: that if the conflict were to be repeated in 1882 the result would undoubtedly be the reverse. The small, efficient, and technically advanced Navy of 1812 was now large, unwieldy, and obsolescent. Writing his preface to the first edition, the young author suddenly cast aside his cloak of academic impartiality and revealed that he was wearing military uniform underneath.

“It is folly,” thundered Theodore, “for the great English-speaking
Republic to rely for defense upon a navy composed partly of antiquated hulks and partly of new vessels rather more worthless than the old.” He urged his compatriots “to study with some care that period of our history during which our navy stood at the highest pitch of its fame … to learn anything from the past it is necessary to know, as near as may be, the exact truth—if only from the narrowest motives.”
⁹²

Strategic experts pondered his message at least as far away as Washington, D.C.
The Naval War of 1812
was to have a profound effect upon the attitude of the country to its Navy, not to mention Theodore’s future career.
⁹³

W
ITHIN THREE DAYS
after delivering his manuscript to Putnam’s, Theodore was caught up in the whirl and glitter of the new social season. “The going out has fairly begun,” he noted on 6 December. “All are at it, from dinners to Balls.” He saw that Alice, who had no doubt felt rather neglected in recent months, had her fill of the festivities. She would be seeing even less of him in the New Year, when the legislative session began at Albany. Until his election, they had been thinking of moving into their own house sometime that winter; but now the prospect of leaving her alone for weeks at a time (although he would try to get married digs in Albany, so she could come north occasionally) convinced him they should stay on at 6 West Fifty-seventh Street. The session would be over in the spring, and they could look for a new home then.
⁹⁴
As to his future beyond that, Theodore professed to be as vague as ever. “Too true, too true; I have become a political ‘hack’,” he wrote to an ex-classmate. “But don’t think I am going into politics after this year, for I am not.”
⁹⁵

“I intended to be one of the governing class.”
Theodore Roosevelt at the time of his election to the New York State Assembly
. (
Illustration 5.1
)

A
SSEMBLYMAN
T
HEODORE
R
OOSEVELT
arrived in Albany in 17-degree weather, late on the afternoon of Monday, 2 January 1882.
¹
Alice had gone to Montreal with a party of friends, and would not be joining him for another two weeks. They could look for lodgings then. In the meantime he checked into the Delavan House, a rambling old hotel with whistly radiators, immediately opposite the railroad station. Apart from the fact that it was conveniently located, and boasted one of the few good restaurants in town, the Delavan was honeycombed with seedy private rooms, of the kind that politicians love to fill with smoke; hence it functioned as the unofficial headquarters of both Republicans and Democrats during the legislative season.
²

The Assembly was not due to open until the following morning, but Roosevelt had been asked to attend a preliminary caucus of Republicans in the Capitol that evening, for the purpose of nominating their candidate for Speaker.
³
He thus had only an hour or two to unpack, change, and prepare to meet his colleagues.

“He was a perfect nuisance in that House, sir!”
The New York State Assembly Chamber in 1882
. (
Illustration 6.1
)

Dusk came early, as always in Albany, for the little city straggles up the right bank of the Hudson, and is screened off from the plateau above by a two-hundred-foot escarpment of blue clay. But the western sky was clear, and lit by a rising full moon, when Roosevelt emerged from the Delavan House, and began his walk to the Capitol.
⁴

At first he could not see “that building,” as it was locally known, for he had to walk south along the river for a block or two before ascending State Street. Yet already he was moving in its monstrous shadow. Roosevelt had probably read, in his
Albany Hand Book
, that the new Capitol was, by common consent, “one of the architectural wonders of the nineteenth century.”
⁵
Whether it was a thing of beauty or not was questionable, but there was no doubt, as the
Hand Book
said, that it was “the grandest legislative building of modern times.” Roosevelt’s first glimpse of the eleven-million-dollar structure, as he rounded the corner of State and Broadway, and focused his pince-nez uptown, was a thrilling one.

Still not quite finished, the stupendous pile of white granite towered out of mounds of construction rubble at the very top of the hill. The Old Capitol, a Greek Revival hall awaiting demolition, stood a little farther down, obscuring some of Roosevelt’s view, yet its dark silhouette merely accentuated the brilliantly lit massiveness looming behind. Jagged against the skyline rose an improbable forest of steeples, turrets, dormers, and gables, all gleaming in the moonlight, for a snowfall the day before had exquisitely etched them out.
⁶
An architect surveying the Capitol’s five stories could successively trace the influence of Romanesque, Italian Renaissance, and French Renaissance styles, with layers of arabesque in between; but to an untutored eye, such as Roosevelt’s, the overall effect was of Imperial Indian majesty.
⁷
Perhaps for the first time the young Assemblyman realized that, as a New York State legislator, he now represented a commonwealth more populous than most of Europe’s kingdoms, rich enough and industrious enough to rank alongside any great power.
⁸

Inspiring as the sight of his destination was, Roosevelt had to concentrate, for the moment, on the tricky business of getting up there without falling down. The steep sidewalks of State Street,
when slicked with frozen snow, were notoriously dangerous, and that night blasts of icy air over the escarpment made them doubly so. All sane Assemblymen, of course, were taking horsecars in this weather, but any such indulgence was abhorrent to Roosevelt. Although the wind-chill factor was well below zero, he wore no overcoat.
⁹
A man thus unprotected, yet well stoked with Delavan House coffee, might be able to negotiate two or three blocks of State Street without pain; but he will begin to throb before he is halfway to the top, and Roosevelt was undoubtedly hurting in every extremity by the time he crested the hill and ducked into the warmth of the Capitol lobby.
¹⁰

As the pain faded to a glow, and his lenses defrosted, he could make out a labyrinth of stone passages and ground-glass doors through which came the busy clacking of typewriting machines. He was standing on the clerical floor. The halls of power, presumably, were somewhere overhead. To his left the Assembly staircase beckoned. One hundred rapid steps elevated him to the second floor, and the famous Golden Corridor opened out before him. Unquestionably the most sumptuous stretch of interior design in the United States, it formed a dwindling perspective of gilded arches and gorgeously painted pillars. High gas globes picked out the filigree on walls of crimson, umber, yellow, and deep blue, and cast pockets of violet shadow into every alcove. Jardinieres of “exotics,” freshly planted to mark the beginning of the legislative season, perfumed the air.
¹¹
Roosevelt might well have imagined himself in Moorish Granada, were it not for a very American hubbub coming from a door at the far end of the corridor. Here fifty-two other Republican Assemblymen awaited him in caucus.
¹²