The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [370]
NOT SURPRISINGLY, Roosevelt’s flying visit to the capital prompted instant speculation that McKinley, gratified by his recent announcement of support, intended to name him Secretary of War after all.99 The secretaryship was indeed discussed at the White House that night—at such length as to lend credence to the rumors—but Roosevelt, showing remarkable self-control, assumed that if the President wanted his advice on War Department management of the Philippine situation, “he should regard me as wholly disinterested.” He therefore announced as soon as he stepped into McKinley’s office “that I was not a candidate for the position of Secretary of War and could not leave the Governorship of New York now.”100 This protestation seems to have increased McKinley’s respect for Roosevelt as a man, if not as an ambitious politician. On 31 July, Secretary Alger stepped down, and the President named Elihu Root to succeed him. Then Vice-President Hobart, though ailing, let it be known that he would like to remain in office indefinitely, so another of Roosevelt’s avenues for advancement closed off.101
The Governor, setting off for a fall tour of state county fairs, decided to let the kaleidoscope shift for itself for a while.102 In the New Year, once the legislative season was fairly under way, he would gaze through the prisms again and see if any new perspectives had opened up. For the first time in his adult life he felt no desire to hurry. He was, after all, nearly forty-one, with a growing family (Alice was almost as tall as he was now), a decent income, and a job that he loved. “I do not believe,” he told Lodge, “that any other man has ever had as good a time as Governor of New York.”103 Here, within certain geographical and political limits, was the supreme power he had always craved, and the events of last April had shown how well that power became him. Senator Platt, fortunately, had recovered from the Ford Franchise Tax Bill, and was disposed to be “cordial.”104 This augured well for their working partnership through the next session. Roosevelt would live out the nineteenth century in Albany—1900 was not, as so many of his constituents seemed to think, the first year of the twentieth—and try to persuade Platt that he was worth renominating for a second term. “I should be quite willing to barter the certainty of it for all the possibilities of the future.”105
NIAGARA FALLS. Silver Lake. Chatauqua. Watertown. River-head. Otsego City. Mineola. In fair after fair, all through September, Roosevelt waved, spoke, pumped hands, tasted prize-winning pumpkin pies, and basked in the admiration of the public. Whenever he emerged from his train, whenever he walked past an apple tree full of children, he was greeted with shrieks of “Hello, Teddy, you’re all right!” or, “Three cheers for the next President!” He had a stock response to the latter: “No, no, none of that, Dewey’s not here.”106
This invariably brought laughter and applause. The hero of Manila Bay, now steaming homeward in glory, had indeed emerged as a dark-horse candidate, despite his own protest, “I would rather be an admiral ten times over.” Few professional politicians, Roosevelt included, took the phenomenon seriously.107
The Olympia was scheduled to enter New York Harbor on 28 September, and cruise up the Hudson next morning, to a welcoming thunder of more ammunition than had been expended to destroy the Spanish fleet. On Saturday, 30 September, Admiral Dewey, President McKinley, Senator Hanna, and thirty-five thousand marchers would proceed down Fifth Avenue to Twenty-third Street, where a seventy-foot triumphal arch, modeled after that of Titus in Rome, gleamed white as a symbol of America’s entry into world power. It was to be “the greatest parade since the Civil War,” and Roosevelt, as Governor of the Empire State, would ride at its head in top hat and tails.108
“I am sorry for I happen to have