Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [78]
ONLY THE MOST rabid pro-Bryan supporters claimed victory after the Garden speech. Certainly many blamed the extreme temperature inside the auditorium, a killer heat that had claimed hundreds of lives in New York by the time Bryan addressed his audience. Others blamed his choice to read from a manuscript or his exhaustion from his long, hot train trip east. Still others blamed the entrenched hostility of the East to Bryan’s brand of rural populism. Probably all of these conclusions were correct, and they combined to leave Madison Square Garden half-empty at the end of a speech Bryan himself had called his “greatest opportunity.”
The glee among Republicans was almost transparent as they discussed the speech in their letters. Joseph Foraker, the former governor of Ohio who would win a seat in the U.S. Senate in this election, said, “Mr. Bryan made himself by one speech, and now he has unmade himself by one speech.” Mark Hanna relished the fact that Bryan had talked only of silver during the speech. “He’s talking silver all the time and that’s where we’ve got him,” he said.
To his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, Roosevelt wrote that Bryan “fell perfectly flat here in New York, his big notification meeting has simply hurt him.” To his sister Roosevelt wrote a longer evaluation:
Bryan fell with a bang . . . In his speech he tried to do the “dignified statesman” business, and he merely lost what little renown he had as a wild-eyed popular orator; his only chance was with the people who care for neither dignity nor statesmanship, and this he threw away. He not only hurt himself very much here in the east, but also in the west. I believe the tide has begun to flow against him. The educational work done about finance by the distribution of pamphlets has been enormous, and it is telling. It is hard to reach the slow, obstinate farmer; but all who can be reached are being reached.
The police commissioner’s letter reveals as much about Roosevelt as it does about Bryan’s speech. For Roosevelt, Bryan was a classic demagogue, a “wild-eyed popular orator” who could manipulate the ignorant masses. Yet Roosevelt, despite his anti-Bryan bias, remained a keen observer of American politics. He rightly noted that by going the “dignified” route Bryan had thrown away his advantage as a skilled orator. He was correct that the New York speech marked the exact moment when the tide began to flow against him. Roosevelt was no admirer of Bryan, but he respected the threat that Bryan represented to Republicans that year. After the Garden speech, that threat appeared to have significantly diminished.
As Roosevelt remained out on Long Island during Bryan’s meeting, he must have gleaned most of his information from the newspapers. This included how well the police performed that evening. In fact, the police preparations were recounted by every New York paper, with mixed evaluations. Most papers gave the police good reviews, noting that they were out in force, well-prepared, and “good-natured.” The fact that a fatal crush did not ensue was directly credited to the police, as was the absence of any heat-related fatalities. The New York Tribune said, “Rarely before in the history of anything belonging to earth and demanding police protection has there been such elaborateness and perfection of detail as were plainly manifested at this meeting.” Many observers noted the wise decision to cordon off the Garden at a two-block radius to prevent a deadly crush at the doors. Only ticket holders, then, would be able to pass this first line of 1,000 policemen still two blocks from the Garden.
The shabby treatment of some reporters resulted in bad marks for Roosevelt’s police. Chief of Police Conlin himself had personally signed entry orders for the benefit of newspapermen, but not every policeman received the message clearly. When the Tribune reporter showed a “burly sergeant” the order signed by his chief, the sergeant asked, “Who the divil’s that?” It took the reporter an hour to cross the police line and enter the Garden. The