The man Roosevelt, a portrait sketch

Author's Preface

When I was asked to write a book about Theodore Roosevelt I consented, with the stipulation that it should not be a biography. All I was willing to attempt was an unpretentious portrait sketch of a man as he had revealed himself to me not only under the lights of an exceptionally brilliant public career, but by a long period of pretty close personal contact. The delicacy of such an undertaking I did not realize till several chapters had taken shape and I began to feel misgivings as to my right to put to literary use a knowledge which, though it was legitimately mine, had come to me through an intercourse untrammeled by any thought of type or printer's ink. But I persisted and finished my task, in the hope that a friendship which had survived so many years of storm and stress, such differences of opinion, and so much plain speech on both sides might be trusted to save me from any very grave sins,

v and insure forgiveness of my lesser shortcomings.

In justice to all concerned it should be noted that no one but myself is responsible for the contents of this volume. Not a line of it has been submitted to Mr. Roosevelt for his approval; he is not my authority for a single statement about himself or anybody else except where I have tried to quote him, and even my citations of his words are wholly from memory. If he has been misrepresented anywhere the fault is mine, not his, since I have scrupulously avoided consulting him on subjects which I could treat frankly on my own account, but which it might embarrass him to discuss. Moreover, in trying to state his position on public questions with absolute fairness, I would not be understood as always sharing it. The sole point kept in view has been to write facts, leaving the morals to draw themselves. Knowing that it is the subject, and not the author, in whom the public is interested, I have striven to keep my picture as free as possible from didactic color.

This series of disclaimers would be incomplete if I did not forestall the solicitude of sundry critics by absolving the New York Evening

vi

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Post from all accountability for my treatment of Mr. Roosevelt, his ideas and his methods. As the fruit of thirty years' association with that journal editorially and as correspondent, I can pay it no higher tribute than to say that it is wholly sincere in its desire to give all sides a fair hearing, and that it looks to the trusted members of its staff for the same freedom of thought and candor of expression which it demands as a right for itself.

No one could be more sensible of the inadequacy of this book than he who wrote it at brief notice, and in the intervals of a most absorbing calling. That he has been able to turn out even so imperfect a product under such conditions, his thanks are due to a little home circle whose members vied with each other in protecting him from needless interruptions and smoothing in their several ways the rough places in the path of authorship.

F. E. L.

Washington, January 1 , 1904.

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CHRONOLOGY

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, was descended from Claes Martenzoon Van Rosevelt, who migrated from Holland to America in 1 649 ; through other ancestors acquired Scotch-Irish blood ; was the son of Theodore Roosevelt of New York city, and Martha Bulloch of Roswell, Ga.

Born in New York city, October 27, 1858.

Graduated at Harvard University, 1880.

Served in the New York State Assembly, 1882, 1883, 1884.

Chairman of New York delegation to Republican National Convention, 1884.

Defeated as Republican candidate for Mayor of New York city, 1886.

United States Civil-Service Commissioner, 1889 to 1895.

President of Board of Police Commissioners, New York city, 1895 to 1897.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1897—98. Lieutenant- Colonel and Colonel of the First Volunteer Cavalry ("Rough Riders") Regiment in the war with Spain, 1898. Governor of New York, 1 899-1 900. Vice-President of the United States, 1901.

President of the United States since the death of President McKinley, September 14, 1901.

Chapter I The Key To A Remarkable Career

PAGE

Reversing the tide of fate — A good use for disappointments — "Going ahead" — The Isthmian imbroglio — One of four alternatives — Warning to Turkey — A recipe for success 3

Chapter II At The Parting Of The Ways

Republican crisis of 1884 — First break with the Independents — A party man still — Running for Governor — Why a program failed — Second break with the Independents — A hitherto unpublished letter 16

Chapter VII "the Larger Good " And "the Best He Could "

The Cuban reciprocity fight — Buying coalers for the navy — An attorney rebuked — New York liquor law enforcement — The Shidy case — Keeping faith with a scamp . .103

xii

Chapter VIII

OUR BOSS SYSTEM AND MR. PLATT

PAGE

Overgrowth of Senate influence — A middle course — Typical cases — How bad selections are foisted on a President — New York custom-house changes — The Immigration Service controversy — A clean sweep 121

Conclusion

Unique feature of Mr. Roosevelt's career — Purpose of this

review — The future 3 2 5

XV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Theodore Roosevelt to-day ....

Theodore Roosevelt at twenty-four

Colonel of the Rough Riders

The President's home, Oyster Bay, Long Island

The gun room at Sagamore Hill

An afternoon gallop .....

Speaking to the people from a car platform .

The Roosevelt family ....

Frontispiece

Chapter I The Key To A Remarkable Career

Reversing the tide of rate — A good use for disappointments — "Going ahead" — The Isthmian imbroglio — One of four alternatives — Warning to Turkey — A recipe for success.

WHEN Senator Depew, in his speech nominating Theodore Roosevelt for Vice-President, called him "an Eastern man with Western characteristics," he stated only a half-truth. He might have described his candidate as the greatest living all-around antithesis. Reared amid conditions which pointed to a life of leisure, Theodore Roosevelt voluntarily chose a life of hard work. Educated in a social atmosphere in which practical politics is numbered among the vices, he deliberately elected to become a politician. Physically a weakling in his boyhood, he has acquired, by Spartan training, a body like spring steel. Born with the mental and moral equipment of an independent, he has made of himself, by unremitting endeavor, ? pretty good partizan.

Let it be noted that these changes have been wrought by the sheer exercise of will. The man has conquered nature. Every fresh victory has strengthened his self-confidence, and this confidence has furnished the propulsive force for his next assault. It is said that Heaven helps him who helps himself. Heaven has certainly been very kind to Theodore Roosevelt; for in those few instances where he has helped himself to the best of his ability and failed, some other power has intervened to turn defeat into a surprising success. Had he been elected Mayor of the city of New York when he ran in 1886, he would undoubtedly have followed the local fashion of the day and sought a reelection at the end of his term, and thus been carried too far out of the track of Federal politics to have become a candidate for Assistant Secretary of State under President Harrison. Had Secretary Blaine favored his appointment as Assistant Secretary of State, the President would undoubtedly have appointed him, with the result that he would have been kept in perpetual eclipse by the greater luminary at the head of the department, as Mr. Wharton was; instead, a Civil-Service commissionership was offered him and he accepted it, and the free swing he

GOOD USE FOR DISAPPOINTMENTS

had in that place enabled him to become a national character and paved the way for his later promotions. His old thirst to have a hand in the government of his native city came back to him after he had passed six years at Washington, and he yielded to Mayor Strong's solicitation to become a member of the reorganized Police Commission. The result was disappointing, however; for, in spite of a series of notable reforms, the influence of one of his colleagues blocked so many of his projects for improvement that he was glad of the chance afforded by President McKinley's election to go to Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In this position he was largely instrumental in bringing the Cuban controversy to a head and making ready for his experience as a soldier. Again observe the part played by mischance. If, when war came, he had obtained the place on the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee for which he originally applied, he would not have organized the Rough Riders and become the most picturesque figure in the volunteer army; and it was on his war record that he made his campaign for the governorship of New York.

Then came another bitter disappointment. He craved a second term as Governor. The

Republican managers in the State at large were resolved that he should not have it; for this reason, and in defiance of his protests, they persisted in pressing him for the vice-presidency. Never was honor forced upon an unwilling recipient as that was. He pleaded with his friends not to let him be sacrificed; he fought off every suggestion with declarations that he could not and would not accept the nomination; it was an open secret that neither Mr. McKinley nor the recognized leaders in the convention wished him on the ticket at the outset. But the New York delegation, for reasons of self-interest, were bound that he should be nominated; and delegation after delegation from the Mississippi Valley — where, report said, Bryanism had taken a fresh lease of life — seconded the efforts of New York on the ground that Roosevelt's was the only name they could conjure with in this emergency. He was elected to the office he did not wish, and had used every device except flight to avoid. Once more, though through a tragic and abhorrent medium, the hand of destiny performed its work, raising him to the highest place in a nation of eighty million people.

Call these reversals "luck," if you will; the 6

GOING AHEAD"

fact remains that had Theodore Roosevelt, at any stage, been discouraged by a rebuff, he would never have reached his journey's end. It was by plunging ahead after every stumble, refusing to halt even long enough to count the stones in his path, and doing the best he could wherever he happened to be, that he gave opportunity its perfect play and lent himself to fortune. This is the epic value of his course through life. Its more commonplace interpretation was unconsciously stated by him in his testimony before the Commission to Investigate the Conduct of the War with Spain. He had been describing an incident which ended in his finding himself suddenly alone in the midst of a forward movement, with nobody from whom to take orders. At this point he paused.

"Well," said one of his inquisitors, who had been following the story with interest, "what then?"

"Why," answered the witness, "I have always found it a good rule, when in doubt what to do, to go ahead. I went ahead."

Within a few weeks we have witnessed an incident illustrative of this trait of directness in the President. I refer to the Panama episode.

It is not in my province to discuss this affair on either its moral or its legal side. Its only usefulness here is for the example it affords of the operation of a certain mental characteristic which has played a dominant part in shaping Mr. Roosevelt's career.

We may dismiss at the outset the idea that the secession of Panama was a surprise to the rest of the world. For years the tie between this state and the main body of the republic of Colombia had been drawn so tense as to be liable to snap at any moment. The failure of the canal negotiations between Washington and Bogota was simply the last straw thrown upon an already perilous burden of discontent. Any one could have forecast the result, though without being able to fix the precise date for the revolution. As long ago as the signing of the Hay-Herran treaty it was so well understood that either Colombia must ratify that instrument or Panama would take the canal business into her own hands, that the diplomatists in Washington even discussed the impracticability of the Bogota Government's sending reenforcements overland to its army on the isthmus. President Marroquin knew what the alternative was; so did Minister Herran. That is the

THE ISTHMIAN IMBROGLIO

reason both worked so hard to push the treaty through.

When their efforts failed the expected happened. Panama set up in business for herself. Nobody in the administration at Washington made any pretense of regretting this turn of affairs. There were no hypocritical tears, no perfunctory messages of condolence. On the contrary, the President lost no time in recognizing the new republic, which in its turn lost no time in entering upon treaty negotiations with the United States. Perhaps, as his critics assert, he showed indecent haste in warming over the funeral-baked meats to furnish forth the marriage tables. Be that as it may, what he did he did without concealment, without hesitancy, without quibbling, without apology. There was no secret plotting, no clandestine correspondence for his enemies to bring to light later. He was as little concerned in the revolution as disconcerted by it. As President he had always refused to discuss the likelihood of its occurrence; as a man, in the freedom of intercourse with his personal friends, he had never ignored the possibility that it would come. Every act of his in other emergencies had made it plain in advance how he would act in this one.

"If the Colombian Government had held its own on the isthmus," said a member of the administration to me after the overturn, "and the revolutionists had made the disorder, that disorder would have been suppressed forcibly and at once by the United States. As the Colombian army disintegrated, however, and the part that remained loyal to the Bogota Government embarked for home without so much as an exchange of shots, one of four courses lay open to the President. He might have done nothing, let events drift till our Congress had convened in special session, and then referred the whole subject to that body in a message; that would have satisfied the demands of decorum, but it would also have shifted responsibility from his shoulders to others. He might have put down the rebellion and restored to Colombia the authority her representatives had tamely surrendered; that course would have fulfilled the letter of the guaranty in the treaty of 1846, but would have been open to the same line of attack as the retention of the Philippines — the maintenance by force of a government without the consent of the governed. He might have taken our war-ships out of isthmian waters, and left the Bogota Government to send in its troops by

THE EXPECTED THAT HAPPENED

sea and handle the rebellion as best it could; but that would have been the signal for a riot of bloodshed, the interruption of a transit as well guaranteed as the sovereignty of Colombia, and an added complication from French intervention. Finally, he might have recognized any government that was for the time in peaceable possession of the isthmus and in a position to transact business; and this is precisely what he did."

It was, according to this statement, the only direct course that offered, and the President followed it. There were no precedents, so he established one. Whether his conclusion was sober or ill digested may be open to dispute between honest men and patriots; it was at least absolutely characteristic. Anybody who knows the President must have foreseen just what would happen under such conditions as confronted him. Equally, no one who knows him need be told that he would not have lifted one of his fingers to bring the situation about. The end always in view was a canal through the isthmus; the revolution placed a fresh instrumentality next his hand, and he laid hold of it;Where most others would have halted for caution's sake, he

n

"went ahead." Posterity will be able to study this episode in the light of its remoter results. But, in any event, the President's directness and candor leave no mysteries for the historian to uncover, and when his own generation passes judgment on his conduct for good or ill it will do so with the full knowledge of the facts.

Last summer a rumor reached this country that Mr. Magelssen, the vice-consul of the United States at Beirut, Syria, had been assassinated. Without waiting for particulars, which are proverbially long in coming when anything happens in the Turkish dominions, President Roosevelt ordered a squadron of American war-ships to the scene of the supposed crime. The suddenness of this move astonished every one. Representatives of European powers had been assaulted and murdered without so quick action on the part of the governments concerned. Abroad, the President's course was set down to his impulsiveness; at home, to his jingoism. The friends of peace were alarmed lest it should bring on war. Others condemned it as a bluster which he would not attempt with a strong power, but which he felt he could safely try on poor, broken-down Turkey.

WARNING TO TURKEY

No war followed. Fortunately, the original rumor was found to be almost groundless, so there would have been no cause for active hostilities. It is true, moreover, that the same tactics would not have been tried with England or France or Germany. But why? Because we could have got from either of those countries in three days' time fuller details of the incident than we could get in three months from Turkey. England or France or Germany, if found in the wrong, would have apologized at once and offered such other and more substantial reparation as the occasion seemed to call for. Turkey would have postponed as long as possible the investigation of the affair, and then the apology; and, when it came to money damages, she would have tried to make promises pass for piastres. We should have haggled and worried over this debt for five or six years, served a series of quasi-ultimata upon the Sultan, scaled down the principal a little when he drew a poor mouth, consented to waive interest charges in consideration of prompt settlement of the remainder, and finally received — as nearly nothing as he could squeeze or coddle us into accepting. Here was where the President's directness came into play again. He

l 3 knew that with such a debtor the creditor who acts quickly acts twice. The Turk was doubtless as much surprised as any of the disinterested outsiders when he discovered that the United States Government was not deliberating what to do, but had already done it — that its war-ships were where they could begin business without a moment's delay if a needless hitch occurred in the diplomatic correspondence.

Granted that no other government has acted with such startling suddenness in a similar case; it is also true that no other government could have done so. The Sultan knew, and all the rest of mankind knew, that the errand of that squadron was precisely what it purported to be — to support the American minister in his demand for immediate satisfaction for the murder of the vice-consul, if it had occurred as reported; that behind this lay no ulterior purpose on the part of the United States to find an excuse for a war or the seizure of Turkish territory. The motives of any other strong power would have been under suspicion. Possibly the order of the war-ships to Beirut was a hasty step ; of that, every critic must be his own judge. The best test of its wisdom, however, will be the comparative security of foreign lives

A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

and property in Turkey for the rest of the present administration.

President Roosevelt is not a genius. He is a man of no extraordinary natural capacity. As author, lawmaker, administrator, huntsman, athlete, soldier, what you will, his record contains nothing that might not have been accomplished by any man of sound physique and good intelligence. Such prestige as he enjoys above his fellows he has acquired partly by hard work and partly by using his mother-wit in his choice of tasks and his method of tackling them. He has simply taken up and completed what others have dropped in discouragement, sought better ways of doing what others have done before, labored always in the open, and remembered that the world moves.

Chapter II At The Parting Of The Ways

Republican crisis of 1884 — First break with the Independents — A party man still — Running for Governor — Why a program failed — Second break with the Independents — A hitherto unpublished letter.

In the summer of 1884 a man not yet twenty-six years old was faced with a problem the solution of which might affect the whole current of his life. Though still a mere youth, he had acquired a reputation as wide as the country by his record as a reform legislator in his native State, New York. He had risen to the leadership of the Republican side in the Assembly at Albany. His ability, his pluck, and, above all, his honest independence, had not only fixed the eyes of his fellow countrymen upon him, but forced his recognition by the party managers, so that he had been sent to the Republican national convention at Chicago as the head of the State delegation to take his first active part in the task of President-making. In

PARTING OF THE WAYS

the convention he had fought hard for his candidate, George F. Edmunds, then regarded as the special champion of the independent element in Republican politics, and had been defeated; James G. Blaine, the candidate against whom the whole weight of the reformers had been hurled, had been nominated. Not a few of Mr. Blaine's other opponents had declared in advance that in no event would they support him for President — they would sooner go out of their party. The convention had accepted their challenge; the crucial hour had come, and they must now retreat or make good their threats. Already the press was bulging with manifestoes and open letters and interviews, put forth by lifelong Republicans who were abandoning the ticket to its fate.

The young man was Theodore Roosevelt, and he was at the parting of the ways. On one side he saw George William Curtis, Carl Schurz — in short, nearly all the prominent men on whose support he had most steadfastly counted — taking the road that led toward the Democratic party, at least for the time. Behind him lay the fruits of two years' work in the New York Legislature — hard work, sincere work, which had told its story for good government. It had been done not by the sole power of his own speech and vote, but by the combinations he had been able to form with others who thought and felt as he did, or who, lacking both logic and sentiment, were ready to follow him for discipline's sake or motives of expediency. Although individual initiative, direction, force, were essential to such undertakings, and the successful combination was after all only a group of individual factors, yet he realized that his personal efforts could not have accomplished anything of themselves. Should he now turn his back upon the past, step out of the ranks of the political army in which he had been trained, and become an unattached sharpshooter? He could not go over to the enemy; in principles and spirit they had practically nothing in common; there was no bond of sympathy between them except objection to one candidate.

It was a serious dilemma. Though accustomed to act on instinct in most emergencies, he hesitated just a little in the presence of this one. There were Republican dogmas which he had not yet digested. One of these which would probably figure largely in the campaign was the dogma of high protection, while his

WEIGHING THE REASONS

Harvard schooling had been all in the direction of free trade. He was fully conscious that an administration brought into power by Republican votes had carried the Union safely through the civil war, and molded a group of sovereign States into a solid unit, yet he was far from accepting the extreme views of a large element in the Republican party as to the continued penance which should be demanded of the South for the sin of secession. Nevertheless, the general tendencies of the party, its national aspirations, its disposition to test new measures in statecraft instead of rejecting them because they were new, appealed strongly to him on both his temperamental and his practical sides. It was the only party in which he felt at home, and with which, in spite of some differences in detail, he could work out his projects for the public advantage.

Should he go out of the party and stay till the present storm had blown over, and then come back again? A good many men could have figured out such a program and deliberately entered upon it; with him it would have been impossible. The only question he had to decide was: Stay in, or stay out? He had pledged himself to no course; he had raised not a hand, uttered not a word, to prevent any of his colleagues from following their own consciences. When an old friend and fellow Republican said, "I can not remain in the party and vote for Blaine; if the Democrats nominate such a man as Grover Cleveland I must vote for him," Mr. Roosevelt, he tells me, not only made no effort to restrain him, but answered: "Cleveland would be the best man the Democrats could name; still, if I felt as you do, I should support any proper Democratic nomination." All this was apart from the question of what he should ultimately do himself; he felt very sure what that would be, but he wished to think it over before making an irrevocable decision. The agitated atmosphere surrounding him was not conducive to calm judgment. Away, therefore, he hastened for a brief interval of quiet, and on his Dakota ranch reviewed the whole situation in his mind; then he made an authoritative statement:

"I intend to vote the Republican presidential ticket. A man can not act both without and within the party; he can do either, but he can not possibly do both. Each course has its advantages and each has its disadvantages, and one can not take the advantages or the disad-

THEODOEE EOOSEVELT AT TWENTY-FOUR.

A REPUBLICAN STILL vantages separately. I went in with my eyes open to do what I could within the party; I did my best and got beaten, and I propose to stand by the result. It is impossible to combine the functions of a guerrilla chief with those of a colonel in the regular army; one has greater independence of action, the other is able to make what action he does take vastly more effective. In certain contingencies the one can do most good, in certain contingencies the other; but there is no use in accepting a commission and then trying to play the game out on a lone hand. During the entire canvass for the nomination Mr. Blaine received but two checks. I had a hand in both, and I could have had a hand in neither had not those Republicans who elected me the head of the New York State delegation supposed that I would in good faith support the man who was fairly made the Republican nominee. I am by inheritance and by education a Republican; whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public life has been accomplished through the Republican party; I have acted with it in the past, and wish to act with it in the future."

After his summer's recreation he was called upon for a few speeches. He had little to say, and nothing that was not kindly in purport, of his former associates who had parted company with him at Chicago, but one of his utterances should be quoted as throwing further light upon his attitude: "It has always been my luck in politics, and I suppose always will be, to offend some wing of the party — generally the machine, but sometimes the independents. I should think little of myself should I permit the independents to dictate to me any more than the machine."

On his return from Cuba, after the Spanish War, a second crisis occurred in the career of Mr. Roosevelt. Politics in New York were in a state of upheaval. It was plain that Governor Black's administration would be followed by a Democratic sweep at the polls unless the Republicans could find a candidate so popular on his own account as to pull the whole ticket through. There must be a stirring campaign, with plenty of cannon, cheers, flag-waving and red fire, but above all there must be some one to shout for. Apathetic quiet, or even halfhearted noise, meant sure defeat. This was a contingency too serious to be calmly contemplated, for the party was split, and was only holding itself together by main force to con-

ANOTHER PARTY CRISIS

ceal the rift from the public. Defeat at this juncture would compel the abdication of the old management and assure the installation of a new one, which had been waiting for some time for such a chance. There was a general settlement of the shrewder party lieutenants upon Roosevelt as their man, and they made no secret of it. Piatt, Roosevelt's opposite pole in sentiment and methods, agreed with the lieutenants, but was too old a campaigner to advertise his opinion prematurely. On the other hand, the fact that this was a critical year for the Republicans had stimulated the independents to put up a candidate. If they could nominate an ideal man — one of the right character as well as the right running qualities — they could drive Piatt out of business as a boss, and this was the end toward which they had been working as long as most of them had been interested in politics at all. Roosevelt seemed to be the very man they were seeking. With him as a candidate, backed by evidence of a large uprising of independent voters in his support throughout the State, they reasoned that the Piatt machine would be forced into accepting him also as the Republican candidate, without pledges of any sort such as candidates are expected to give to the parties who nominate them; that the Republican indorsement of an independent candidate for Governor would leave the rest of the Republican ticket with no support except the strict party vote; that, under these conditions, some or all of the machine nominees would be defeated by the Democrats, to the further demoralization of the machine; and that as Governor Mr. Roosevelt would have an unhampered initiative and a fine opportunity to break up certain abuses immemorially entrenched in the State government at Albany.