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in the past, and as routinely thrown off by the city’s smoothly spinning machine.43 But Roosevelt felt sure that if he were put in charge of his own investigation, he would be able to jam at least some of the levers. Permission was granted almost immediately by the Assembly. It could not very well have refused, because venality, inefficiency, and waste in New York had again become a national scandal, and an embarrassment to both Democrats and Republicans in this presidential election year. On 15 January Roosevelt found himself chairman of a Special Committee to Investigate the Local Government of the City and County of New York. His colleagues consisted of two Roosevelt Republicans and two sympathetic Democrats, giving him, in effect, a free hand to choose his own witnesses and write his own report.44

The committee’s hearings began four days later, at the Metropolitan Hotel in New York. Roosevelt symbolically opened the proceedings by calling for a Bible, and in the same breath, for Hubert O. Thompson, Commissioner of Public Works. As a freshman Assemblyman, he had been both repelled and fascinated by Thompson, who seemed to spend most of his time in Albany, and was the successful machine politician par excellence. “He is a gross, enormously fleshy man,” Roosevelt wrote then, “with a full face and thick, sensual lips; wears a diamond shirt pin and an enormous seal ring on his little finger. He has several handsome parlors in the Delavan House, where there is always champagne and free lunch; they are crowded from morning to night with members of assembly, lobbyists, hangers-on, office holders, office seekers, and ‘bosses’ of greater or less degree.”45 For the last two years Roosevelt had looked on in dismay while Thompson’s department more than doubled its expenditures, without any noticeable increase in services.46 He had no doubt that much of the money was flowing directly into Thompson’s pockets.

Now the two men faced each other directly across a rectangular table, and Roosevelt plunged at once into his investigation. But for all the young man’s “sharp looks” and energy, it was evident to reporters that he was feeling his way. Thompson, a veteran of many investigations, handled him easily. No sooner had Roosevelt asked his first formal questions than the door opened and a messenger came in with a telegram for the witness. Thompson scanned it, laughed, then read it aloud to the committee. It was a summons to appear at an identical investigation, being conducted simultaneously by the Senate.

“Can I telephone that I am coming down?” he asked.

“Certainly,” said Roosevelt, nonplussed. With barely veiled insolence, Thompson turned to the messenger.

“Tell them I will leave here in five minutes,” he said, and sat back to enjoy the general laughter at Roosevelt’s expense.47

ROOSEVELT WAS FORCED to turn his attention to other areas of corruption, but they were so various, and his witnesses so infallible in their pleas of bad memory and reasons for non-appearance, that the investigation languished for several sessions without uncovering any important evidence. He began to fume with frustration, and on 26 January, when the city sheriff suggested a question regarding transportation costs was “going into a gentleman’s private affairs,”48 his anger exploded, and he shot forth a fusillade of angry ps.

“You are a public servant,” Roosevelt shouted, thumping the table. “You are not a private individual; we have a right to know what the expense of your plant is; we don’t ask for the expense of your private carriage that you use for your own conveyance; we ask what you, a public servant, pay for a van employed in the service of the public; we have a right to know; it is a perfectly proper question!”49

The sheriff meekly supplied the information. But at a subsequent hearing, on 2 February, he was so shocked by the chairman’s request to state “how much his office had cost him” that he again pleaded privacy. “This offer threw Mr. Roosevelt into a white heat of passion,” reported the World, “and he declared that the answer must be given.