The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [373]
ROOSEVELT’S SECOND Annual Message was greeted by most Republican newspapers as “statesmanlike” in its attitude to trusts (thanks to judicious modification of the original text by Elihu Root).16 Strangely, the conservation section, with revolutionary pleas for a “system of forestry gradually developed and conducted along scientific principles,” passed largely unnoticed. Here the Governor was reflecting the views of another expert adviser—Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester of the United States. Tall, lithe, dreamy-eyed, irresistibly attractive to women, the thirty-four-year-old Pinchot had for years been Roosevelt’s main source of ecological information. His theory that “controlled, conservative lumbering” of state and national forests would improve not only the economy, but the forests themselves was enthusiastically pro-pounded in the gubernatorial message.17 Roosevelt also hinted that a bill to scrap the present five-man Forest, Fish, and Game Board and replace it with a single, progressive commissioner would be forthcoming early in the session.
The Governor disclaimed any personal responsibility for the measure, but its opponents, headed by Senator Platt, were quick to note that it had been prepared by the Boone & Crockett Club, and that both Pinchot and the proposed commissioner, W. Austin Wadsworth, were members of that Rooseveltian organization.18
WITHIN A FEW DAYS of his message Roosevelt received word that Judge Charles T. Saxton, another “independent organization man of the best type,” was willing to accept the post of Superintendent of Insurance, providing Senator Platt and Charles Odell could be persuaded to forsake Payn. Roosevelt was optimistic. “While I did not intend to make an ugly fight unless they forced me to it, yet if they do force me the fight shall be had.”19
UNEXPECTED AMMUNITION fell into his hands on 11 January 1900, when a stockholder of the State Trust Company of New York, one of Payn’s strongest backers, came to Albany with evidence calculated to embarrass the superintendent and liquidate the company. According to the stockholder’s figures, Payn had received $435,000 in loans based on “various unsaleable industrial securities of uncertain and doubtful value, together with what purports to be a certified bank check for $100,000.” He petitioned for an immediate investigation of State Trust’s books by the Superintendent of Banking, Frederick D. Kilburn.20
Roosevelt, showing his usual disregard for niceties of protocol in an emergency, ignored Kilburn and ordered Adjutant General Andrews to conduct the investigation within twenty-four hours. “I had to act at once,” he explained to a doubtful Supreme Court Justice.21 The unspoken implication was that Kilburn, a holdover from the Black Administration, might be rather less willing than Andrews to involve the Superintendent of Insurance in a major scandal.
Andrews had his report ready the next day, 13 January. Although it betrayed signs of hasty and superficial analysis, there was enough evidence of Laocoön-like entanglements between the directors of State Trust and Louis F. Payn for Roosevelt to proceed well-armed to a “bloody breakfast” with Senator Platt. “When I go to war,” the Governor confided to a friend, “I try to arrange it so that all the shooting is not on one side.”22
THE BREAKFAST, which was also attended by Chairman Odell (parchment-pale, glowering and watchful, secretly ambitious to supplant Platt as boss of the party), took place on Saturday, 20 January.23 It proved to be less of a war than a series of brief preparatory skirmishes. Roosevelt insisted that Payn must be replaced. Platt insisted that Payn would stay. The Governor was sure that Judge Saxton would be an acceptable substitute. The Boss was equally sure he would not. Retreating slightly, Roosevelt produced his usual list of names, “most of whom are straight organization Republicans … who would administer the office in a perfectly clean and businesslike manner.” Platt waved the list aside with loathing,