The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [231]
Part of the agreement was that Elliott, in exchange for the withdrawal of the writ of insanity, would return to the United States and undergo a five-week “cure” for alcoholism at the Keeley Center in Dwight, Illinois. This, coming after his six-month drying-out period at Suresnes, should enable him to start working again and reenter society by degrees. Should he prove himself sober and responsible, he might resume family life sometime in 1894.89
Theodore remained in Paris another full week before sailing from Le Havre on 27 January. It seems he wanted to punch every last ounce of immorality out of Elliott. Having done so, he left him to follow one day later, alone on a separate steamer.90 On 28 January, Elliott’s mistress, Mrs. Evans, made the following entry in her diary:
This morning, with his silk hat, his overcoat, gloves and cigar, E. came to my room to say goodbye. It is all over … Now my love was swallowed up in pity—for he looks so bruised, so beaten down by the past week with his brother. How could they treat so generous and noble a man as they have. He is more noble a figure in my eyes, with all his confessed faults, than either his wife or brother.…91
ROOSEVELT RETURNED HOME on 7 Feburary92 to find the Civil Service Commission pondering yet another case of political assessments, this time at federal offices in Owensboro, Kentucky.93 His presence was required in that state as soon as possible, but with the social season at its height he did not feel like immediately embarking on another journey. Elliott had expressed a desire to go south with him at the end of March, after the “Keeley cure” was complete; until then the Owensboro district attorney would simply have to muddle along.
Besides, the Kentucky case served as an exasperating reminder that nothing whatsoever had been done in Baltimore. It was now almost a year since his investigation, and the twenty-five lawbreakers were all still in office, drawing government salaries. John Wanamaker’s inspectors had filed their report the previous November, but the Postmaster General would not say whether it confirmed or denied Roosevelt’s findings. He also refused to send a copy to the Civil Service Commission, saying that it was an internal document, for his eyes only.94
On 8 March, Roosevelt made a special trip to New York in order to shout “Damn John Wanamaker!” at an executive meeting of the City Civil Service Reform Association.95 Crimson with rage, he launched into an account of the whole case, accusing Wanamaker and Harrison of obstruction of justice. He was sure that the postal inspectors’ report would corroborate his own—but how could its findings be made public?
The veteran reformer Carl Schurz made a simple suggestion. Roosevelt must demand a House investigation into the undeniable fact that twenty-five federal employees recommended for dismissal in July 1891 were still on the federal payroll in March 1892. It would be difficult for the House to refuse such a request. Wanamaker would then be obliged to present the inspectors’ report as grounds for his inaction; it would become part of the public record, and the Civil Service Reform League would see to it that millions of copies were distributed around the nation. If the document turned out to be a whitewash job, Wanamaker would be humiliated; if it duplicated Roosevelt’s original findings, Wanamaker would be destroyed. Either way, the cause of Civil Service Reform would benefit.96
ROOSEVELT LOST NO TIME in following Schurz’s advice. While awaiting the verdict of the House, he made his planned trip to the South with Elliott, who had agreed to manage Douglas Robinson’s estates in Virginia. The two brothers parted affectionately; Elliott declared he was completely cured, and anxious to atone for his misdeeds. Theodore went on to Kentucky, relieved that the long family crisis was over. “It is most inadvisable, on every account, that you and I should have any leading part in Elliott’s affairs hereafter,” he wrote Bamie, “especially as regards