The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [379]
“Don’t any of you realize that there’s only one life between this madman and the Presidency?”59
MAD OR NOT, Roosevelt now posed such a serious threat to all the declared vice-presidential candidates that Hanna was forced to limp into his suite shortly before lunch and ask, once and for all, if he intended to run or not. The Governor would not say. He wondered how he could risk his political future by refusing a popular call. Hanna contemptuously replied that the Roosevelt boom had little to do with popularity. Senator Platt was simply using him as a tool. If Roosevelt really wished to show his so-called independence, he should withdraw promptly, publicly, and finally. That would effectively block any attempt to draft him.
Roosevelt hesitated, then agreed to write a statement of withdrawal at once.60
AN HOUR OR SO LATER, while Hanna was alerting the leaders of state delegations to the imminent announcement, Roosevelt sat at lunch with his wife, aides, and a few close friends. Henry Cabot Lodge was there, silent and embarrassed behind an enormous blue silk badge reading “FOR VICE PRESIDENT JOHN D. LONG.”61 It was his duty to wear the emblem, as a member of the Massachusetts delegation, but the irony of the slogan must have grated on the sensibilities of all present.
Butler’s account of the luncheon implies that Roosevelt said nothing about his recent decision to issue a final statement of denial. He merely sat and listened while everybody except Lodge pressed him to do just that. Edith Roosevelt was outspoken in her insistence that the Vice-Presidency was wrong for him. Not until after Lodge had left, with a bitter “I must go back and be loyal to Long,” did the Governor allow Butler to draft a statement.
The draft was appropriately terse and uncompromising. Edith approved it, and Butler handed it to Roosevelt. “If you will sign that paper and give it out this afternoon, you will not be nominated.”
Roosevelt stared at the document, contorting his face, as was his habit in moments of perplexity. He thought he could “improve its phrasing,” and crossed over to the desk. Somehow the draft became a new statement entirely in his own handwriting. “Theodore, if that is all you will say, you will certainly be nominated,” said Butler, aggrieved. “You have taken out of the statement all the finality and definiteness that was in mine.”
At four o’clock Roosevelt’s statement obstinately went forth.62 Thousands of eyes scrutinized it to the last conditional clause, and found nowhere the least hint of a refusal to accept the will of the convention. As far as staving off a draft was concerned, he might as effectively have written the single word “Yes.”
In view of the revival of the talk of myself as a Vice-Presidential candidate, I have this to say. It is impossible too deeply to express how touched I am by the attitude of those delegates, who have wished me to take the nomination.… I understand the high honor and dignity of the office, an office so high and so honorable that it is well worthy of the ambition of any man in the United States. But while appreciating all this to the full, I nevertheless feel most deeply that the field of my best usefulness to the public and to the party is in New York State; and that, if the party should see fit to renominate me for Governor, I can in that position help the National ticket as in no other way. I very earnestly hope and ask that every friend of mine in this Convention respect my wish and my judgment in this matter.63
“It’s a cinch,” chuckled one delegate. “All we have to do is go ahead and nominate him.”
“And then four years from now—” said another delegate.
“Quite so,” said a third.64
CHAIRMAN HANNA GAVELED the convention to order