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of political discontent, all seemingly directed at Roosevelt. His anticorruption crusade had been tolerated by the state Republican organization as long as it contributed to the decline of Tammany Hall, but now it began to look as if the reverse effect might be true. There was an ominous contrast between rural and metropolitan voter registrations, the former promising a statewide sweep for the GOP, the latter indicating a Democratic backlash in New York City. Evidently the World’s constant presentation of Roosevelt as a reformer gone mad was having its effect. The Staats-Zeitung, ignoring his happy appearance at the Liberal Laws parade, accused him of having “a grudge against Irish-Americans and German-Americans.” Republican pollsters computed the potential vote loss in each of these communities and blanched. They were not encouraged by Roosevelt’s announced intention to police the election fairly. A less virtuous Commissioner might have been persuaded to influence the voting by a combination of intimidation and selective arrests, but that kind of loyal assistance could hardly be expected from “the Patron Saint of Dry Sundays.”142

Accordingly the Republican Convention at Saratoga endorsed the Excise Law in the vaguest possible terms, hoping to offend neither upstate rural prohibitionists nor thirsty urban workers. Pressure began to build on Roosevelt to moderate his crusade, at least through Election Day. His response was unequivocal and publicly expressed. “The implication is that for the sake of the Republican party, a party of which I am a very earnest member, I should violate my oath of office and connive at lawbreaking … Personally, I think I can best serve the Republican party by taking the police force absolutely out of politics. Our duty is to preserve order, to protect life and property, to arrest criminals, and to secure honest elections.”143

“I shall not alter my course one handsbreadth,” he wrote a worried Cabot Lodge, “even though Tammany carries the city by 50,000.”144

This intransigent attitude had immediate personal consequences. Edward Lauterbach, chairman of the Republican County Committee, issued a statement that the party “was not in any way responsible for Rooseveltism.” Lemuel Quigg, who had backed him for Mayor the year before, reproached him for “base ingratitude” and said their friendship was at an end. “He is a goose,” Roosevelt commented indifferently. Even Mayor Strong, anxious to placate the German-American lobby, said he should either “let up on the saloon” or quit his post. Roosevelt replied that he would do neither. Strong was enraged but powerless.145

Roosevelt put on a cheery front in public, but privately he was depressed by the sudden downturn of his political fortunes. It became increasingly apparent that the city’s Republican voters were going to “bolt” in droves, and that he would be held to blame. His support on the Police Board began to erode. “There is considerable irritation,” the World reported, “because Messrs. Parker, Grant, and Andrews have seemingly lost their identity, and … merged into the great and only Theodore Roosevelt.” He admitted having some “rough times” with his colleagues. “It has only been by a mixture of tact, good humor, and occasional heavy hitting that I have kept each one in line.”146

With the abnormal self-control that always restrained his abnormal pugnacity, Roosevelt managed to avoid an open fight with state party leaders. He knew that the organization could not do without his unique talents as a campaigner. Anxious to reaffirm his party loyalty, he stumped for Republican candidates all over the city, speaking two or three times a night, and made side-trips to local hustings in Boston and Baltimore. “I am almost worn out,” he wrote on his thirty-seventh birthday. “Thank heaven there is only a week more, and then the exhausting six months will be over, and I can ease up a little, no matter which way the battle goes.”147

THE BATTLE WENT to the enemy. Although Republicans won overwhelmingly elsewhere in the state, Tammany Hall saw its full slate of