The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [75]
By March he was taking a more active role in party politics, attending a series of primaries in addition to regular meetings, working his way up into the executive committee of the Young Republicans, and presuming to address the association on its new charter.48
An opportunity for advancement, he thought, arose early in April. Theodore’s only reference to it in his diary was: “Went to Republican Primary; grand row; very hopeless.” The story behind this cryptic entry is interesting, since it indicates that his very first political maneuver was in the direction of rebellion and reform. A citizens’ movement was under way to introduce a non-partisan Street Cleaning Bill into the State Legislature—then, as always, the cleanliness of New York’s streets varied according to who represented which district—and Theodore backed it. He made a speech on behalf of the bill at Morton Hall, and spoke with such force that he won several rounds of applause. By the time he sat down he was the object of at least one man’s thoughtful gaze.49 But the party machine was opposed to the measure; and on 5 May Theodore found himself with only six or seven votes out of three or four hundred.50
The young opportunist retired to lick his wounds. He did not go back to Morton Hall that spring. A few days later the law school broke up, Lightfoot was dispatched to the country, and Mittie Roosevelt ordered the blinds drawn at 6 West Fifty-seventh Street. Pausing only to dictate his will, and pack a thousand pounds of luggage, Theodore escorted Alice up the gangplank of the steamship Celtic on 12 May 1881. “Hurrah! for a summer abroad with the darling little wife.”51
HIS EUPHORIA DWINDLED before they were halfway across the Atlantic. “Confound a European trip, say I!” he wrote in his diary. Alice, who had never been overseas before, was so consistently seasick that Theodore exhausted himself taking care of her.52 But Ireland, which they reached on 21 May, exerted its usual calming influence.53 They sailed smoothly up the River Lee to Cork, and awoke the following morning, Sunday, to the sound of the Bells of Shandon. Alice recovered immediately, and was able to endure ten days of riding on jaunting cars, ancient trains, and shaggy ponies with sweet equanimity. Meanwhile, Theodore reacted to everything with ears as well as eyes. He praised the birdsong and wildflowers at Castle Blarney, enjoyed the silence and “many-colored mountains” around Killarney, and thrilled to the echoing cliffs of Dunloe’s Gap. Unlike most visitors, he investigated some of the uglier aspects of life on the Emerald Isle. A heap of dirty rags on the road to Cork turned out to be a tramp, “insensible from sheer hunger.” With the help of some peasants, he revived the man, fed him, and sent him on his way with ten shillings. “A beautiful country,” Theodore concluded, “but with a terrible understratum of wretchedness.”54
By the end of the month, when they embarked on a glassy sea for England, Alice had become the best travelling companion he had ever known. Being athletically inclined, she was game for the most arduous excursions, yet was feminine enough to pretend helplessness while he juggled with suitcases, tickets, and hack-drivers. “Baby enjoys everything immensely,” he wrote after a marathon tour of the London galleries, “and has a far keener appreciation of most of the pictures than I have.”
Theodore’s own taste, on this third exposure to the art of Europe, was cheerfully unsophisticated: “Turner—idiotic.” He preferred such sentimental artists as Murillo and Gustave Doré, despite the latter’s tendency “to paint by the square mile.”55 A week in Paris, dining deliciously and exploring the caverns of the Louvre; five days in a Venetian palace, with evening rides through the “water-streets,” and balcony breakfasts shared