The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [278]
He followed up with an open attack on Roosevelt, for the benefit of a Recorder interviewer. “Ever since his appointment as a Police Commissioner … he has assumed that he is the Alpha and Omega of the Department … For eleven months I have patiently endured this arbitrary assumption of authority … Colonel Grant and myself finally decided that, unless Mr. Roosevelt recognized us as possessing equal authority to himself, we would take steps for protecting ourselves.”69
Mayor Strong allowed the seven-day deadline to pass without releasing the McMorrow statement, but let it be known that Parker had been asked to resign. The news broke on 28 May, just as Chief Conlin returned from Europe to lead the annual parade of New York’s Finest.70
ROOSEVELT HAD CANCELED last year’s event, saying that “we will parade again when we have something to boast about.”71 He was not feeling particularly boastful in the spring of 1896 either, yet there was a lot to be said, psychologically speaking, for a show of unity in the ranks. Despite reports of discontent and renewed corruption from various precincts, he was convinced that “the bulk of the men were heartily desirous of being honest.”72 And if Parker was to be fired (as the Mayor kept promising), the department’s moral regeneration would surely continue.
On the first day of June he found himself gripping the rails of a reviewing stand at Fortieth Street and Fifth Avenue. Magnificent sunshine warmed his tails and top hat, and he enjoyed a rare moment of repose as the drumbeats grew louder downtown.73 His fellow Commissioners were on their best behavior; Mayor Strong beamed kindly upon him; he, in turn, grinned wider and wider at his first sight of the force en masse.
More than two thousand men came up the avenue in wave after wave of blue serge, their white gloves rising and falling like lines of foam, their helmets and brass buttons coruscating. Chief Conlin led the way on an immense bay horse whose coat was rubbed and curried to the sheen of satin. The crowd gave him a thunderous ovation, but saved its biggest roar for the “bicycle squad”—an innovation of Commissioner Andrews—twenty-four burly patrolmen wobbling determinedly along on wheels.74
The parade was adjudged a smashing success, and redounded greatly to the credit of “President Roosevelt.”75 At its conclusion he was mobbed by cheering well-wishers, and horses had to be brought in to clear an escape route for him.
BUT THE SOUND OF marching bands had hardly died away before public attention was drawn to renewed hostility between the Commissioners. Amid rumors that Strong had again demanded Parker’s resignation, and again been refused,76 the Police Board assembled for a regular meeting on Wednesday, 3 June. It proceeded to give the most convincing demonstration yet of its inability to function as an administrative body.
Roosevelt listened stonily while Commissioner Grant offered as a “treaty of peace” a new set of rules governing promotions. He was willing to approve the rules—anything to get the department moving again—but was in no mood to tolerate any more obstructionism from across the table. Only that morning the Herald had published a humiliating cartoon of himself being crushed by Parker, in the form of a great, smiling weight, while the caption enquired, “Will the ‘Strong’ Man Lift It?”77
Predictably, Parker waited until both Roosevelt and Andrews had expressed their approval of the rules before subjecting every one to destructive legal analysis. Roosevelt’s face darkened to deep red, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as the maddening voice droned on, stinging him with insults that passed too quickly for retort. The two