The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [88]
SPINNEY You will remember that he was the leader, and he started over the hill and here his army was following him, trying to keep sight of him.
HUNT Yes, to keep him from rushing into destruction …
HAGEDORN He must have been an entertaining person to have around.
HUNT He was a perfect nuisance in that House, sir!54
Roosevelt’s behavior on the floor, to say nothing of his high voice and Harvard accent, exasperated the more dignified members of his party. When wishing to obtain the attention of the Chair, he would pipe “Mister Spee-kar! Mister Spee-kar!” and lean so far across his desk as to be in danger of falling over it. Should Patterson affect not to hear, he would march down the aisle and continue yelling “Mister Spee-kar!” for forty minutes, if necessary, until he was recognized.55
By the third week of the session proper—his eighth in Albany—Roosevelt had put on a considerable amount of political weight. Actually this weight was an illusion, caused by the delicate balance of power in the House. But he did not hesitate to throw it around. On 21 February he again rose to protest a suggested deal with the opposite side, confident “that enough Independent Republicans would act with me to insure the defeat of the scheme by ‘bolting’ if necessary.” His senior colleagues were aware of this, and the matter was hastily referred to a party caucus that evening. For the next eight hours Roosevelt was besieged by deputations promising him rich rewards if he would withdraw his objections. He declined.56
At the caucus a machine Republican spoke eloquently on behalf of the deal. It involved an alliance with the Tammany members (breathing vengeance, now, upon the regular Democrats for denying them committee seats) to take away the Speaker’s power of appointment. But this Roosevelt considered to be constitutionally irresponsible and politically demeaning. He wrote afterwards that “as no one seemed disposed to take up the cudgels I responded … we had rather a fiery dialogue.” His objections were upheld by a narrow vote.
Next morning he woke to find himself, if not famous, at least the hero of some liberal newspapers in New York. “Rarely in the history of legislation here,” declared the Herald, “has the moral force of individual honor and political honesty been more forcibly displayed.” Privately, Roosevelt took pride in the fact that he had managed to impose his will on his party, without embarrassing it on the floor of the House. “I hate to bolt if I can help it,” he informed his diary.57
AS THE TEMPO of legislation picked up, the young reformer became aware of the full extent of corruption in New York State politics. About a third of the entire Legislature was venal, he calculated. He was shocked to see members of the “black horse cavalry” openly trading in the lobbies with corporate backers, and paid particular attention to the bills they were bribed to sponsor—bills worded so ambiguously as to deceive well-meaning legislators. But for every such bill there were at least ten whose corruptive power was all but impossible to monitor in advance.58 These “strike” bills were introduced to restrict, not favor corporations. They seemed to be in the public interest, and redounded greatly to the credit of their sponsors—who, as Roosevelt succinctly put it, “had not the slightest intention of passing them, but who wished to be paid not to pass them.”59 In other words blackmail, not bribery, was the principal form of corruption in the Assembly.
Roosevelt was confronted with a prime example of such legislation early in March. Representatives of the Manhattan Elevated Railroad asked him to sponsor a bill granting their corporation monopolistic control over the construction of terminal facilities in New York City. Since the sums involved in such construction were huge, the lobbyists said they were “well aware that