The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [275]
ROOSEVELT ADMITTED TO hours of deep depression in his job, together with much nervous fatigue as he struggled to break the deadlock at Mulberry Street. “What can I have done? What can I have done? That any man should imagine I could succumb to this hell-born lure?” Commissioners Grant and Andrews were also anxious to promote the two acting inspectors, but Parker continued to object, and Chief Conlin continued to side with him. The deadlock began to look like permanent paralysis. There was no hope of getting remedial legislation through Boss Platt. Grant went to beg his aid, and was politely refused. “I would like to please you, Colonel Grant, but I don’t care nearly as much to please you as I do to worry Roosevelt.”48 The old man was obviously looking forward to Roosevelt’s early resignation. Grant angrily declared that he would vote for no further promotions until Brooks and McCullagh were confirmed. This only worsened the strain on the president of the Board. “Though I have the constitution of a bull moose,” he wrote on 30 March, “it is beginning to wear on me a little.”49
Later that same day he, Grant, and Andrews made a sudden move to bypass Boss Platt. They jointly petitioned the New York State Legislature to scrap the Bipartisan Act. In its place, the Commissioners proposed a bill that would first, enable a majority of three to override a minority of two, and, second, restore to the Board the independent rights of assignment now enjoyed by Chief Conlin. Roosevelt still had plenty of contacts in Albany, and the new Police Bill came up for consideration within forty-eight hours. Machine Republicans were too slow to organize against it, and a favorable vote was recorded in the Assembly.50
Parker moved at once to work up opposition in the Senate. He wrote to warn Boss Platt that Roosevelt was an incorrigible promoter of Democratic policemen. To give the president of the Police Board more power, therefore, would actually reduce Platt’s chances of patronage in the upper ranks. Parker went on to say that he himself was just the opposite: a Democratic Commissioner who happened to recommend Republican officers. In proof of this statement he enclosed a list of recent promotions, showing that Roosevelt had favored every Democratic candidate to date.51
The list was forwarded to Albany, and Platt’s faithful lieutenant, “Smooth Ed” Lauterbach, circulated it among Republican members of the Senate. Roosevelt did not see a copy until 9 April, when he arrived to testify on behalf of his bill before the Senate Committee on Cities. He boggled at the neatly typed document: it was “unqualifiedly false” in almost every particular. Worse still was Parker’s insinuation that politics played a part in the advancement process at Mulberry Street. Roosevelt neither knew nor cared which party any policeman he liked belonged to; he conceived of promotion strictly in terms of merit.52
Pouncing upon Lauterbach in the Senate corridor, he began to tick off the list’s falsehoods, one by one, whereupon Parker (who had also been invited to testify) joined them and insisted they were all true. Both Commissioners were quivering with anger when they adjourned to the nearby hearing room.53
In their respective testimonies for and against the Police Bill, they made a study of opposites: Roosevelt barking like a nervous bulldog, Parker feline and purringly sarcastic. The effect of some of his remarks was such that Roosevelt several times leaped up and paced around the room in a vain effort to stay calm. “Of course,” Parker drawled after quoting a newspaper attack on himself, given out by some unidentified source at Mulberry Street, “I don’t attribute that part of the article to Mr. Roosevelt.” “Oh, you may, you may,” Roosevelt shot back.54
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