Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [61]
Democrats at the Bartholdi were so absorbed with the planning of the meeting, and so intent on keeping away from the throng of perspiring ticket-seekers, that they overlooked the arrival in town of the vice presidential nominee. To Sewall’s surprise, no reception committee was on hand, and not even a carriage awaited him as he stepped off the train from Boston at Grand Central Station. A solitary figure among the crowd at the busy station, he made sure his luggage was claimed from the train before hailing a hack to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. At the hotel, nobody looked twice at the man with a face begrimed with soot and ash from his five-hour train ride into the city. He wore the common summer wear for gentlemen of the day: light trousers, tan shoes, a yellow alpaca coat, a straw hat, and, like Bryan, a handkerchief tied loosely around his throat. After handing his coat to a bellboy, he registered and then gently put off the newspapermen who approached him. “Wait till I get a bath and a shave, and I’ll be glad to see you,” he said as he headed toward the hotel’s barbershop.
An hour later he sat smoking a cigar, discussing some details of the campaign with reporters, and admitted knowing little of the following night’s meeting. The vice presidential nominee said he did not know who would preside over the meeting, New York senator David Hill having already declined. Sewall said he had not even finished his speech. He did not know when the Democratic presidential candidate would come to Sewall’s home state of Maine, nor how many speeches Bryan would give there if he did. He did not know if Bryan would accept the Populist nomination. He did not know where Democrats planned to establish their permanent national headquarters for the campaign, and he expressed no preference. The only thing Sewall seemed certain of was that he planned to leave the city and return to Maine as soon as possible, probably the day after the speech. With the temperature just outside his hotel room a balmy 90, even at 5:00 PM, such a sentiment was understandable.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT HAD already fled the heat. As of Monday, August 10, he planned to stay out at Oyster Bay on Long Island for the duration of Bryan’s stay in the city. Both the heat and party politics probably contributed to this decision, although as police commissioner he certainly would have had his fair share of work to do the evening of Bryan’s speech. Even so, with the Police Board deadlocked, and his sights set on a McKinley victory and subsequent appointment out of New York, the president of the Board of Police Commissioners stayed home to conduct a letter-writing campaign.
His targets, as ever, were the Storers, the friends of McKinley who had bailed the Ohioan out of financial trouble after the 1893 Panic. Just a week before, Roosevelt had rowed Maria Longworth Storer across Long Island Sound, almost pleading for her to use her influence with McKinley on his behalf. Now he addressed letters to both Bellamy and Maria Storer, noting his own efforts to secure for McKinley’s close friend a cabinet post or ambassadorship to France.
Roosevelt also gently reminded them of his own ambition. Both Bellamy Storer and Henry Cabot Lodge had discussed his taking the position of assistant secretary of the navy in a McKinley cabinet, perhaps even in a Navy Department led by Bellamy Storer. To Mr. Storer Roosevelt reiterated his willingness to accept such a post but at the same time demurred that “the really important thing is to get you in the Cabinet or at Paris. This is what we must strive to accomplish.” To Maria Storer Roosevelt composed a longer note explaining in detail the way he had pressed Mark Hanna on her husband’s behalf. “I spoke of Bellamy as the man for the Cabinet, either for War or Navy, or else to go to France,” he wrote, saying that “my personal feelings did not influence me, but that for various reasons, ranging from his vote on the Gold Bond Bill to his whole record in Congress and his standing with Catholics, I felt no appointment would do more to strengthen