Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [113]
Behind his frustration lay the embarrassing fact—harped on in many newspapers—that about a hundred of the delegates he needed to seat were no more legitimate than the machine men on Taft’s list. The kind of progressives-for-hire rounded up by Ormsby McHarg would have sold themselves quite as willingly to the Socialist candidate for the presidency, had Eugene V. Debs reached them first. Roosevelt remained convinced, however, that bona fide claimants were being discriminated against. Asked by a reporter whether he intended to barnstorm the convention, he said, “If circumstances demand, of course I’ll go!”
That was as good as a threat to the Republican National Committee, which proceeded to throw out all but 19 of his delegates, and seat 235 of Taft’s.
TWO FACTS WERE clear in the aftermath of the Committee’s action: first, that Roosevelt no longer had a credible chance of being nominated, and second (what he was prevented by blind rage from seeing) that most of the contests had been decided fairly. Perhaps thirty to thirty-five had not. But there would have been as much bias in favor of himself, had Taft been the challenging candidate, and he the Party leader. An impartial observer might conclude that neither man had enough honestly elected delegates to nominate him.
All the same, Roosevelt had reason to accuse the Committee of being out of touch with current Republican sentiment. Penrose, Crane, Rosewater, and a dozen other members were themselves ineligible to serve as delegates, having been defeated in their home primaries. Ten further members hailed from Southern states in the grip of the Democratic Party, and four from “territorial possessions” (including the District of Columbia) that could not vote in November. These eunuchs, comprising more than two-thirds of the Committee, had power before the convention to defeat a candidate who was overwhelmingly the people’s choice.
“The Taft leaders speak as if they were regular Republicans,” Roosevelt said in an icy public statement. “I do not concede that theft is a test of party regularity.” He had never deluded himself that he could be elected in the fall, even if nominated in the spring. But the pugilist in him, so bruisingly evident on the stage of the Boston Arena, was now aroused beyond control. It was the phenomenon Root had seen coming: When he gets into a fight he is completely dominated by the desire to destroy his adversary. There was nothing for him now but to go to Chicago and beat the convention into submission—or else bolt through the ropes and precipitate a riot.
Specifically, Roosevelt intended to use his huge primary vote to persuade the Party as a whole not to ratify the exclusion of his delegates, and to accept that progressivism was a natural, desirable evolution of Republican doctrine. Root, whose gavel would probably determine the issue, sent out word that any attempt by the Colonel to rewrite convention rules would lead to “confusion and comparative anarchy.”
EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Nicholas Roosevelt, one of the Oyster Bay cousins who had grown up as virtually a member of the Colonel’s own brood, visited Sagamore Hill on Friday, 14 June. He found Roosevelt unusually silent over breakfast, and “Cousin Edith” exuding frosty disapproval of whatever was brewing in the house beside coffee. Later, without saying why, she insisted on accompanying her husband into town.
“Well, Nick,” Roosevelt called out, as their automobile started down the driveway, “I guess we’ll meet at a lot of Philippics soon.”
This was a clear hint to the young man to pack his bags for Chicago—and maybe other cities as well. Nicholas was ardently interested in politics. Confirmation came by telephone at noon that Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt were booked on the Lake Shore Limited, departing New York at 5:30 P.M. When Nicholas arrived at Grand Central, he found Kermit and two other cousins, George Roosevelt and Theodore Douglas Robinson, also ready to go. Word had also