The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (33 page)

Some older members of the Legislature were less and less taken with Roosevelt. Time, as the deadlock dragged on, hung heavy on their hands, and they began to plot his humiliation. Chief among the bullies was “Big John” MacManus, the ex-prizefighter and Tammany lieutenant whom Roosevelt had so contemptuously characterized in his diary. One day MacManus proposed to toss “that damned dude” in a blanket, for reasons having vaguely to do with the dude’s side-whiskers. Fortunately Roosevelt got advance warning. His feelings, with Alice newly installed in Albany, may well be imagined. Marching straight up to MacManus, who towered over him, he hissed, “I hear you are going to toss me in a blanket. By God! if you try anything like that, I’ll kick you, I’ll bite you, I’ll kick you in the balls, I’ll do anything to you—you’d better leave me alone.” This speech had the desired effect.
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There was a second ugly incident, which proved conclusively that Roosevelt was not to be trifled with. Sporting a cane, doeskin gloves, and the style of short pea jacket popularly known in England as a “bum-freezer,” he went walking along Washington Avenue with Hunt and William O’Neil, another young Republican Assemblyman. They stopped at a saloon for refreshments, and were confronted by the tall, taunting figure of J. J. Costello, a Tammany member. Some insult to do with the pea jacket (legend quotes it as “Won’t Mamma’s boy catch cold?”) caused Roosevelt to flare up. “Teddy knocked him down,” Hunt recalled admiringly, “and he got up and he hit him again, and when he got up he hit him again, and he said, ‘Now you go over there and wash yourself. When you are in the presence of gentlemen, conduct yourself like a gentleman.’ ”

“I’m not going to have an Irishman or anybody else insult me,” Roosevelt said later, still bristling.
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Now that he and Alice were cozily settled in Albany, his impatience over the deadlock dwindled. It occurred to him that, on the whole, the situation was politically profitable. Since only the infighting of Tammany Hall and regular Democrats prevented the election of a Speaker, nobody could blame the Republicans for holding up legislation. The longer the deadlock persisted, he reasoned, the better his party would look, and the more likely its chances of
winning a majority in the next election. On 24 January 1882, he had an opportunity to present this view in the Assembly Chamber. A well-meaning colleague was suggesting that the minority compromise with the majority, and so overwhelm the maverick vote of Tammany Hall. Roosevelt leaped up in silent protest, and the Clerk, acting in lieu of a Speaker, recognized him for the first time.

N
O FUTURE
P
RESIDENT
has made his maiden speech in surroundings as inspiring as those framing Theodore Roosevelt that afternoon. Since its completion only three years before, the New York State Assembly Chamber had been acclaimed as the most magnificent legislative hall in the world. Its splendors surpassed even those of the Golden Corridor. “What a great thing to have done in this country!” John Hay had marveled, gazing up at the fabulous vaulted ceiling, a dizzy canopy of vermilion and blue and gold, cleft by ribs of soaring stone. Fifty feet above Roosevelt’s head, as he prepared to speak, hung a three-ton ring of granite, keystone of the largest groined arch ever built. Behind him, on the north wall, loomed a vast allegorical mural by William Morris Hunt,
The Flight of Evil Before Good
. With pleasing symbolism it depicted the Queen of Night on a chariot of dark clouds, being driven away by the radiance of Dawn.
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Roosevelt’s words were, in contrast to this majestic auditorium, deliberately informal, even prosaic. He did not forget that his audience consisted largely of farmers, liquor sellers, bricklayers, butchers, tobacconists, pawnbrokers, compositors, and carpenters.
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His voice was thin and squeaky as he struggled against the chamber’s notorious acoustics, and a general hum of bored conversation.
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A newspaperman was struck by Roosevelt’s “novel way of inflating his lungs.” Between phrases he would open his mouth in a
convulsive gasp, dragging the air in by main force.
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Clearly his asthma was troubling him. At times the slight stammer which friends had noticed at Harvard intruded, and his teeth would knock together as the words fought their way out.
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“He spoke as if he had an impediment in his speech,” said Hunt. “He would open his mouth and run out his tongue … but what he said was all right.”
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There were some scattered bursts of applause, and Roosevelt began to relax.

Having said his piece, he abruptly sat down, and was inundated with “many hearty congratulations from the older members.”
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Among these, to his intense amusement, were several representatives of Tammany Hall, who apparently thought he had been speaking on their behalf.
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That night the
New York Evening Post
reported that he had made “a very favorable impression,” an opinion which Roosevelt himself modestly shared.
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He was less flattered with the
Sun’s
characterization of him next morning as “a blond young man with eyeglasses, English side-whiskers, and a Dundreary drawl.” The paper noted sarcastically that Roosevelt’s “maiden effort as an orator” had been applauded by his political opponents;
there was a reference to his “quaint” pronunciation of the words “r-a-w-t-h-e-r r-e-l-i-e-v-e-d.”
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Nevertheless the speech was successful. Roosevelt’s advice was accepted by his party, and the deadlock continued.
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E
ARLY IN
F
EBRUARY
the Tammany holdouts finally gave in, and Charles Patterson, Democratic candidate for Speaker, was elected. Announcing his committees on 14 February, Patterson gave Roosevelt a position on Cities. “Just where I wished to be,” the young Republican exulted. He was not charmed with his mostly Democratic companions on the committee, one of whom was “Big John” MacManus. “Altogether the Committee is just about as bad as it could possibly be,” he decided, with the wisdom of his twenty-three years. “Most of the members are positively corrupt, and the others are really singularly incompetent.”
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Roosevelt lost no time in making his presence felt on the floor of the House. Within forty-eight hours of his committee appointment he had introduced four bills, one to purify New York’s water supply, another to purify its election of aldermen, a third to cancel all stocks and bonds in the city’s “sinking fund,” and a fourth to lighten the judicial burden on the Court of Appeals.
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The fact that only one of these—the Aldermanic Bill—ever achieved passage, and in a severely modified form, did not discourage him. He wanted quickly to create the image of a knight in shining armor opposing the “black horse cavalry,” his term for machine politicians.
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As such, he attracted to his banner a tiny group of independent freshman Republicans, like Isaac Hunt and “Billy” O’Neil, who shared his crusading instincts but lacked his flamboyance. The group’s efforts were given wide coverage by George Spinney, legislative correspondent of
The New York Times
, the first of many thousands of journalists to discover that Roosevelt made marvelous copy. The young reformers supplied their leader with research into suspicious legislation, advised him on correct parliamentary procedure, and attempted to suppress his more embarrassing displays of righteousness. Roosevelt’s ebullience was amusingly recalled forty years later by Hunt and Spinney, in an interview with the worshipful Hermann Hagedorn:

Roosevelt’s behavior on the floor, to say nothing of his high voice and Harvard accent, exasperated the more dignified members of his party. When wishing to obtain the attention of the Chair, he would pipe “Mister Spee-kar! Mister Spee-kar!” and lean so far across his desk as to be in danger of falling over it. Should Patterson affect not to hear, he would march down the aisle and continue yelling “Mister Spee-kar!” for forty minutes, if necessary, until he was recognized.
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By the third week of the session proper—his eighth in Albany—Roosevelt had put on a considerable amount of political weight. Actually this weight was an illusion, caused by the delicate balance of power in the House. But he did not hesitate to throw it around. On 21 February he again rose to protest a suggested deal with the opposite side, confident “that enough Independent Republicans would act with me to insure the defeat of the scheme by ‘bolting’ if necessary.” His senior colleagues were aware of this, and the matter was hastily referred to a party caucus that evening. For the next eight hours Roosevelt was besieged by deputations promising him rich rewards if he would withdraw his objections. He declined.
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At the caucus a machine Republican spoke eloquently on behalf
of the deal. It involved an alliance with the Tammany members (breathing vengeance, now, upon the regular Democrats for denying them committee seats) to take away the Speaker’s power of appointment. But this Roosevelt considered to be constitutionally irresponsible and politically demeaning. He wrote afterwards that “as no one seemed disposed to take up the cudgels I responded … we had rather a fiery dialogue.” His objections were upheld by a narrow vote.

Next morning he woke to find himself, if not famous, at least the hero of some liberal newspapers in New York. “Rarely in the history of legislation here,” declared the
Herald
, “has the moral force of individual honor and political honesty been more forcibly displayed.” Privately, Roosevelt took pride in the fact that he had managed to impose his will on his party, without embarrassing it on the floor of the House. “I hate to bolt if I can help it,” he informed his diary.
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