Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [57]
An adherent of social Darwinist notions of the “survival of the fittest,” Roosevelt saw New York as the place where only the brightest and strongest would survive. While New York could not take the lead in all respects of American life and politics, nevertheless, “its life is so intense and so varied,” he wrote, “and so full of manifold possibilities, that it has a special fascination for ambitious and high-spirited men of every kind, whether they wish to enjoy the fruits of past toil, or whether they have yet their fortunes to make, and feel confident that they can swim in troubled waters—for weaklings have small chance of forging to the front against the turbulent tide of our city life. The truth is that every man worth his salt has open to him in New York a career of boundless usefulness and interest.”
Indeed, according to Roosevelt’s vision of America, cities might be seen as a mark of civilization itself and engines of progress for all nations. If William Jennings Bryan resembled Thomas Jefferson, then Theodore Roosevelt might well be compared to Jefferson’s ideological nemesis, Alexander Hamilton.
Bringing together a varied population in a small and dense island such as Manhattan might create its own unique problems, but it also bred art, ideas, innovation, and wealth. Americans were living increasingly in cities, Roosevelt noted, making the United States largely an urban, not a rural, nation. He foresaw a time when most Americans would live in cities and large towns, and that this would present the country with both unique problems and opportunities. Roosevelt saw that, for better or ill, the American future was an urban one.
Over the next few days Roosevelt would move easily and comfortably from the shores of Oyster Bay to the crowds of Manhattan. Not so Bryan, who having crossed the Mississippi had already entered hostile terrain and was approaching one of his greatest defeats.
IV.
INFERNO OF BRICK AND STONE
THE CITIZENS OF New York had already suffered a week of killer temperatures. There was no relief on Monday, August 10, a day when the thermometer failed to dip below 90 until 9:00 PM. The tortured inhabitants of the city’s tenement districts gasped for breath in the brick and mortar ovens they called home.
The New York Herald described how, as the day dawned, people desperate for a cool place to sleep were found virtually everywhere. “The sidewalks were lined with men, women, and children. Cellar doors were their mattresses and beds were made in trucks and wagons.” The rising sun revealed a wretched scene: “From block to block long rows of baby carriages filled the gutters, and from street to street there went a wail of misery and discomfort.”
Had he seen them, such sights would have only confirmed for Bryan the hellish nature of American cities. In both Chicago and New York people spoke of little other than the weather, while the cities’ newspapers ran apocalyptic headlines describing the widespread suffering and death. It would be Bryan’s monumentally bad luck that his New York arrival coincided exactly with the height of the heat wave.
MEANWHILE, MCKINLEY’S hometown received an unexpected group of visitors on Monday. With Bryan’s train due to arrive in Canton later that day, about sixty members of the Pittsburgh reception committee traveled to the Ohio town to escort the Democratic nominee into Pennsylvania. While at the train station someone suggested they call on McKinley, since his house was just a short walk away. Forming a line, the Bryan supporters marched to the McKinley home on Market Street.
A surprised McKinley greeted his visitors on the veranda. A spokesman for the Bryan men said, “Major McKinley, we believe that every candidate for the Presidency is worthy of the highest respect, regardless of his political affiliations. The members of the committee, therefore, have called to pay their respects to you as an American citizen.