The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [440]
151. Journal, Nov. 22, 1895; Sun, Dec. 14. Mor.500.
152. TR to B, Dec. 1, 1895; Bigelow to HCL, Nov. 23, 1895, qu. in Murakata, Akiko, “Selected Letters of Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow,” Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1971, 84. Notwithstanding Bigelow’s fears, TR avoided collapse, and Volume IV of WW was finished by Dec. 23. See Mor.499–504.
153. Ib., 503.
154. Stoker, Bram, Reminiscences of Sir Henry Irving (NY, 1906) II, 236. Charles Eliot Norton used similar words, about this time, to the English journalist David Alec Wilson. “I’ll tell you what, if Roosevelt lives, he’ll be President of the United States … He is a strong and able man, who is not to be bought.” Wilson, East and West (Methuen, 1911) 262.
20: THE SNAKE IN THE GRASS
1. Pla.295; Gos.48–59.
2. Pla.8.
3. Gos.1 says Platt and TR had political relations with each other since the mideos, but does not specify any actual meetings. Pla. 178, 193 says essentially the same, again without mentioning any personal contact. The unreliable Louis J. Lang in his appendix to ib. (522) says without documentation that TR, George F. Edmunds, and George W. Curtis met with Platt in New York “a few days before the Republican National Convention” in 1884. This is possible, but improbable, since TR and HCL made a special journey to Washington at that time to meet Edmunds there; no contemporary letters or newspapers mention the New York meeting. TR’s letters to HCL in 1895 give the strong impression that Platt was a personal stranger to him. The best account of their early relationship remains Gos.29–72.
4. Ib., 29–30, 32–3; see Chs. 10, 14.
5. Gos.34.
6. Ib. 230; Ber. 36; Lod.I.144.
7. See Pla.178, 183; Gos.229–31; AND.18–19; Pla.527.
8. See Mor.482, 476; Pla.300 ff.; New York Times, Jan. 24, 1896; AND.78.
9. Mor.499; N.Y.T., July 8, 1896. Murray was now Excise Commissioner of New York.
10. Gos.57; TR.Auto.294; Pla.488.
11. Description of Platt based on pors. in Pla., passim, and Library of Congress; Sto.168; un. clip by EGR, Sep. 7, 1919, in TRB; White, William Allen, “Platt,” in McLure’s 18.146 (Dec. 1901); Thompson, Charles Willis, Party Leaders of the Time (NY, 1906) 105; Chessman, G. Wallace, Governor TR (Harvard, 1965) 7 ff.
12. See, e.g., his open letter to Governor Levi P. Morton, dated Jan. 3, 1896, in which he dresses the Governor down with the assurance of a headmaster punishing a schoolboy. (Pla.307–10.)
13. N.Y.T., July 8, 1896; Mor.509. This legislation proposed to transfer from Mayor Strong to Governor Morton the power to hire and fire Police Commissioners. Morton was then in Platt’s debt, as the latter had undertaken to secure him the Presidential nomination in July. He could thus be relied on to dismiss TR promptly—and with a certain amount of satisfaction, for Morton was irked by the Commissioner’s support of Thomas B. Reed for the Presidency. See N.Y.T., Jan. 23, 1896; Mor.499.
14. Mor.509.
15. N.Y.T., July 8, 1896.
16. Ib., Jan. 23, 1895; text in TR.Wks.XIV.215–6.
17. Igl.115–6; Journal, Jan. 21, 1896. See Sun, Jan. 23, 1896. Connable, Alfred, and Silverfarb, Edward, Tigers of Tammany Hall (NY, 1967) 215; N.Y.T., Jan. 24, 1896.
18. Herald, Jan. 22, 1896. A letter from TR to Strong dated Jan. 21, 1896, confirms that their relations were “cordial” again. (Municipal Archives, Strong Mss.)
19. AND. 186. Brant, Donald Birtley, “TR as New York City Police Commissioner” (unpublished dissertation, Princeton, 1964), reports it surfacing again in March.
20. N.Y.T., Jan. 24, 1896; Mor.509.
21. N.Y.T., Jan. 23, 1896.
22. Bis.I.62.
23. Sun, June 27, 1896, quoting TR. John J. Milholland, a Republican yard worker, also warned TR that “Parker could not be trusted … that he was not loyal to him as head of the Commission.” “Not loyal to me?” TR exclaimed. “Impossible!” (Int. FRE.)
24. N.Y.T., July 8, 1896; Mor.504–5; see World, Feb. 18, 1896.
25. Sun, Mar. 29, 1896. The account of the police promotions crisis of 1896, which begins here and occupies much of the chapter, is distilled from so many sources, and is itself so simplified