The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [137]
George William Curtis enters on Theodore Roosevelt’s arm, at the head of the New York delegation. He is gloomily pleased to note Lincoln’s absence. “Those weary eyes … are not to see the work that is to be done here,” he grunts.73 After thirty-six hours of intensive lobbying, the Edmunds men know that they have little chance of preventing the nomination of James G. Blaine. For all his shabby past, for all his two previous failures to capture the nomination, and for all his sincere protestations that the Presidency is not for him, the “Plumed Knight” has an inexplicable hold upon both party and public. The mere sight of his boozy, silver-bearded features in a train window is enough to make women weep with adoration, and men vow to God that they will never vote for any other Republican. These same features are now ubiquitous on badges and banners and transparencies all over Chicago—and all over Exposition Hall, as the delegates stream in.
The Independents have one slender hope of averting a Blaine landslide. Late yesterday the news reached them that the Republican National Committee had designated Powell Clayton, a flagrant supporter of Blaine, to be temporary chairman of the convention. Working through the night, Roosevelt and Lodge have built up enough opposition, among Arthur men as well as their own delegates, to defeat Clayton and elect, instead, John R. Lynch, an honorable black Congressman from Mississippi. Should this opposition hold through today’s balloting, the convention will at least be assured of neutral guidance from the Chair.74
At twenty minutes past noon the enormous building is at last full. The band plays “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and the convention is rapped to order. A chaplain drones the opening prayer. The first item on the agenda is the election of a chairman, and Powell Clayton’s name is duly announced. Then, in pin-drop silence, the skinny figure of Henry Cabot Lodge stands up. His grating voice fills the hall. “I move you, Mr. Chairman, to substitute the name of the Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi.”75
There is a buzz of indignation. Members of the Old Guard protest Lodge’s motion. For forty years, roars one delegate, the party has automatically endorsed the National Committee’s choice for convention chairman; to suggest somebody else is an act of rank disloyalty. Finally Roosevelt has a chance to rise in support of his friend. Leaping onto a chair and squashing down his wayward spectacles, he begins to speak—with such obvious effort that his body shakes.76
Mr. Chairman, it has been said by the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania that it is without precedent to reverse the action of the National Committee … there are, as I understand it, but two delegates to this convention who have seats on the National Committee; and I hold it to be derogatory to our honor, to our capacity for self-government, to say that we must accept the nomination of a presiding officer by another body …
It is now, Mr. Chairman, less than a quarter of a century since, in this city, the great Republican party organized for victory and nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who broke the fetters of the slaves and rent them asunder forever. It is a fitting thing for us to choose to preside over this convention one of that race whose right to sit within these walls is due to the blood and the treasure so lavishly spent by the founders of the Republican party.77
This brief speech, interrupted six times by applause, is his only attempt at oratory during the convention. It is praised as “neat and effective,” “blunt and manly.” But the significance of the fact that Roosevelt, in his maiden speech before a national audience, has sought to elevate a black man will not be fully appreciated for many years.78
Lynch is elected by 424 votes to Clayton’s 384, a narrow but dramatic victory. Roosevelt, bobbing up and down nervously, accepts congratulations