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on 31 May, rumors began to circulate in the small hours of the morning that the majority was prepared to recommend impeachment. Roosevelt and Hunt took a straw poll of their colleagues around 3:00 A.M., which indicated that the Assembly would accept this recommendation; yet even at so late an hour, “mysterious influences” were working against them. There was a frantic burst of last-minute bribery, and three pivotal members of the committee agreed to withdraw their signatures from the majority report, to the tune of $2,500 each.99 Thus in the nine hours preceding the committee’s reports to the House, its majority for impeachment was changed to a majority against. The chairman conceded that Judge Westbrook had occasionally been “indiscreet and unwise,” but said that he was merely guilty of “excessive zeal” in trying to save the Manhattan Elevated from destruction.100

During the reading of this report, Roosevelt was seen writhing with impotent rage.101 At the first opportunity he jumped to his feet and urged the House to vote nay. He kept his temper well in check, speaking slowly and clearly in a trembling voice, but his choice of words was vituperative. “You cannot by your votes clear the Judge … you cannot cleanse the leper. Beware lest you taint yourself with his leprosy!”102

He lost control of himself only once in the ensuing debate, when a speaker referred to him as “the reputed father” of the Westbrook Resolution. “Does the gentleman mean to say,” Roosevelt yelled, “that the resolution is a bastard?”103 His anger was to no avail, and the House accepted the committee’s findings by a vote of 77 to 35.104

Two days later, on 2 June, what The New York Times called “the most corrupt Assembly since the days of Boss Tweed”105 went out of existence. Roosevelt took a rueful farewell of Isaac Hunt, Billy O’Neil, and his other legislative friends, and caught the 7:00 P.M. train to New York, where Alice had already preceded him. Interviewed at Grand Central, he agreed that the session had been a bad one for the Republican party. “There seem to have been no leaders,” he said thoughtfully.106

Early next morning he and Alice joined the other Roosevelts on the blossoming shores of Oyster Bay.

REVIEWING THE SESSION AT LEISURE that summer (if a schedule including ninety-one games of tennis in a single day can be described as leisurely),107 Roosevelt had little to regret, and much to look forward to. True, Westbrook and Ward had slipped through his fingers at the last moment, but their venality had been exposed, and his political reputation made. Republican newspapers were loud in his praise, and the one national magazine, Harper’s Weekly, had congratulated him on “public service worthy of high commendation.”108 Less than two years out of college, still five months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, he was already a powerful man, knowing more about New York State politics, in expert opinion, than 90 percent of his fellow Assemblymen. A testimonial dinner in his honor was scheduled at Delmonico’s; his renomination in the fall was certain, and his reelection probable. Already there were rumors that his name might be put up for party leader.109 Should the Republicans win a clear majority in the House, that would automatically put him in line for Speaker.

These were pleasant thoughts for a young man to dwell on in hot, lazy weather, as the sun burned his body hickory-brown, and Alice, a vision of white lace and ribbons, snoozed gracefully in the stern of his rowboat, a volume of Swinburne in her lap.

“All huddled close to the glowing youth in their midst.”

Alice, Corinne, and Bamie Roosevelt, about 1882. (Illustration 6.2)

CHAPTER 7

The Fighting Cock

He was quarrelsome and loud,

And impatient of control.

ON NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1883, Isaac Hunt stood up at the Republican Assembly caucus in Albany and offered the name of Theodore Roosevelt for Speaker.1 The nomination was approved by acclamation, and Roosevelt could congratulate himself on a political ascent without parallel in American history.2 To use his own phrase, “I rose