The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [79]
On 28 October 1881, the Assembly Convention met at Morton Hall. Murray sat patiently through a forty-five-minute speech nominating Assemblyman Trimble. Then he rose and simply said, “Mr. Chairman, I nominate Theodore Roosevelt.” The convention voted in his favor on the first ballot, with a majority of sixteen to nine.77 Theodore was just twenty-three years and one day old.
Late that night the nominee wrote in his diary, “My platform is: strong Republican on State matters, but independent on local and municipal affairs.” Thus, at the very outset of his political career, he managed to balance party loyalty with personal freedom. The platform he chose was an unstable one, yet he had already found its center of gravity. For the next four decades he would occupy that motionless spot, while the rest of the platform tipped giddily backward and forward, Left and Right.
CONFRONTED WITH Theodore’s nomination as a fait accompli, the Roosevelt family rallied to his support with varying degrees of enthusiasm.78 Wealthy friends of his father offered to help with campaign expenses and published an open letter testifying to his “high character … honesty and integrity.” The list of signatures on this document, which read like a combination of the Social Register and Banker’s Directory, included that of the eminent lawyer Elihu Root, yet another of Theodore’s future Secretaries of State.79
Press comment on the nomination was mostly favorable. “Every good citizen has cause for rejoicing,” declared The New York Times, “that the Republicans of the Twenty-first Assembly District have united upon so admirable a candidate for the Assembly as Mr. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.… Mr. Roosevelt needs no introduction to his constituency. His family has been long and honorably known as one of the foremost in this city, and Mr. Roosevelt himself is a public-spirited citizen, not an office-seeker, but one of the men who should be sought for office.”
The newspaper went on to note that as Theodore’s district was “naturally Republican,” he could look forward to “a handsome majority” in the election.80 This fact may also have been realized by the Democrats. Their candidate was a Dr. W. W. Strew, recently fired from the directorship of Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum.81
Theodore himself had no doubt that he would be elected. His campaign circular, dated 1 November 1881, was so brief, and bare of promises, as to seem almost arrogant:
Dear Sir,
Having been nominated as a candidate for member of Assembly for this District, I would esteem it as a compliment if you honor me with your vote and personal influence on Election Day.
Very respectfully,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT82
After decades of flowery political appeals, this simple message came as a welcome surprise to the electorate.
For all the favorable trends, Theodore’s eight-day campaign was not without its anxious moments. Joe Murray and Jake Hess (who had philosophically agreed to support the Assembly Convention’s decision) soon discovered that their candidate had an alarming tendency to speak his mind. It was fortunate that they accompanied him on a personal canvass of the saloons of Sixth Avenue, or, as Theodore recalled in his autobiography, the “liquor vote” might have been lost.
The canvass … did not last beyond the first saloon. I was introduced with proper solemnity to the saloon-keeper—a very important personage, for this was before the days when saloon-keepers became merely the mortgaged chattels of the brewers—and he began to cross-examine me, a little too much in the tone of one who was dealing with a suppliant for his favor. He said that he expected that I would of course treat the liquor business fairly; to which I answered, none too cordially, that I hoped I should treat all interests fairly. He then said that he regarded the licenses as too high; to which I responded that I believed that they were really