The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [138]
At midnight Roosevelt is still strenuously “booming” for Edmunds. His estimates of the Senator’s strength are noticeably larger than anybody else’s.80
WEDNESDAY, 4 JUNE. A dreary, drizzly day. Routine business in Exposition Hall does not disguise the fact that more and more delegates are pledging themselves to Blaine. The Independents cannot hide their weariness and disillusionment. Only Roosevelt, says the New York Sun, is still “bubbling with martial ardor” as he dashes to and fro on behalf of his candidate.81 All day long, through the evening session, and on into the early hours of Thursday morning, he continues his hopeless battle. He has long since realized that ninety Edmunds men cannot stop the Plumed Knight; their only hope now is to join ranks with those supporting some other reform candidate, such as John Sherman or Robert Lincoln. Meanwhile, both he and Lodge are plotting to delay the final ballot as long as possible, in the hope that Blaine’s men will eventually begin to fight each other out of sheer frustration.
THURSDAY, 5 JUNE. Solid rain and sullen tempers. The delay strategy seems to be working: there are rumors that balloting will not begin until tomorrow, maybe even Saturday. Sporadic fistfights and cane-whackings break out in the Grand Pacific Hotel.82 By the time Exposition Hall opens its doors, even Roosevelt is too tired to vault to his seat. He plods purposefully down the aisle, surrounded by an anxious crowd of Independents. Later, he is glimpsed “with his arm around some Ohio delegate’s neck,” tugging restlessly at his mustache and “looking out of the corner of his eyeglasses at the ladies in the east box.”83
During the long, tension-filled reading of the party platform, and through the hours of irascible debate that follow, Congressman William McKinley of Ohio suddenly emerges as a leading figure in the convention. With unctuous smile and soothing voice, he moves about the floor, quelling arguments before they spread. In the words of Andrew D. White, he is “calm, substantial, quick … strong … evidently a born leader of men.” As McKinley’s star brightens, Roosevelt’s begins to fade. Exhaustion is setting in. He rises to question a point of procedure, and is crushed by the retort that the point has already been made clear. As he apologizes (“I did not distinctly hear”) and sits down, some sparrows fly in from outside and squat mockingly on the gas fixture above his head.84
The nominating speeches begin at 7:30 P.M. and continue long past midnight. Twelve thousand pairs of lungs, and forty gas chandeliers, suck more oxygen out of the air than the windows can replenish. Yet Roosevelt remains wide awake throughout the evening’s interminable oratory. He writes Bamie afterward:
Some of the nominating speeches were very fine, notably that of Governor Long of Massachusetts [for Edmunds], which was the most masterly and scholarly effort I have ever listened to. Blaine was nominated by Judge West, the blind orator of Ohio. It was a most impressive scene. The speaker, a feeble old man of shrunk but gigantic frame, stood looking with his sightless eyes toward the vast throng that filled the huge hall. As he became excited his voice rang like a trumpet, and the audience became worked up to a condition of absolutely uncontrollable excitement and enthusiasm. For a quarter of an hour at a time they cheered and shouted so that the brass bands could not be heard at all, and we were nearly deafened by the noise.85
If The New York Times is to be believed, Roosevelt and Lodge begin another stop-Blaine movement immediately after adjournment, and work right through the night trying to marshal uncommitted delegates “behind some candidate new or old” whom everybody can support.86
FRIDAY, 6 JUNE. “Black