The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [191]
Every day saw a further strengthening of the opposition’s grip upon every lever of government.33 Quietly, ruthlessly, the Civil Service was being purged. Cleveland had promised, upon assuming office, that only those Republicans who were “offensive, indolent, and corrupt” would be dismissed. But the President’s aides saw fit to interpret such adjectives loosely: already two-thirds of the entire federal bureaucracy had been replaced.34
Although Cleveland was as stiff as ever in public, and openly contemptuous of the press, he had to a certain degree become popular. Labor respected him as the most industrious Chief Executive in living memory. Often as not his was the last light burning on Pennsylvania Avenue, as many a night watchman could testify. Capital admired his conservative attitude to all legislation, from multimillion-dollar appropriations to private pension bills; every Cleveland veto (and there were literally hundreds)35 meant more wealth in the nation’s coffers. Meanwhile that largest and most powerful voting bloc in America, Parlor Sentiment, had canonized the President for his sudden marriage to a pretty debutante half his age—and about one-third of his weight.36 Mrs. Cleveland was now the country’s sweetheart, and would undoubtedly prove a formidable campaign asset in 1888.
Indeed, at this midway point in Cleveland’s Administration, the Democratic party seemed assured of another six years in power. For an impatient and idealistic young Republican like Roosevelt, the spring of 1887 was a time of complete frustration.
The message was clear: he must once again forget about politics and seek surcease in literature. For the foreseeable future, he would have to earn a living with his pen.
ONE FINAL POLITICAL HURRAH was permitted him, at Delmonico’s Restaurant on 11 May, and he made the most of it. The occasion was the Inaugural Banquet of the New York Federal Club. This organization had been founded in the New Year by some of Roosevelt’s mayoral campaign supporters, with the object of keeping Reform Republicanism alive. Its membership consisted largely of young “dudes” from his old brownstone district.37 They were men he had, on the whole, grown away from, but he could not ignore their support, nor their invitation to be guest of honor.
Originally the dinner was planned as a semiprivate affair of some fifty covers, but when it was announced in the papers an unusual number of ticket applications poured in from Republicans all over the state. The event, remarked The New York Times, “bade fair to assume as wide political significance as any this year.”38 A limit was set at 150 admissions, but when Roosevelt arrived at Delmonico’s he found over 200 guests sitting at six lavishly appointed tables. The company was, in the words of a Sun reporter, “brilliant and distinguished enough to have been a compliment to a veteran statesman.”39
Roosevelt was introduced after the coffee and cigars as “the man who, had the Republicans stood to their guns last fall, would now be the Mayor of this city.” Loud cheers greeted him as he stood up—looking, as he always did when preparing to speak, grim, resolute, tense as a bundle of wire.40 The knowledge that Edith was watching from the Ladies’ Gallery no doubt made him extra conscious of his dignity.
If his fellow diners expected a relaxed and humorous speech—for Charles Delmonico had not stinted on the champagne, and they were in a convivial mood—Roosevelt soon disillusioned them. He began by remarking sardonically that during the mayoralty campaign he had been praised as a party faithful; now, however, he was regarded as a member “of the extreme left.” (Here there was some uneasy laughter among senior Republicans.) He proceeded to attack such a wide variety of targets that his listeners must have wondered if there was anything in the State of the Union that he approved of. President Cleveland was castigated for his clumsy English and “sheer hypocrisy” in the cause of Civil Service Reform;41 the Independent press for its “thoroughly