Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [196]
A few days later, word came that Sultan Abd al-Aziz was not interested in bargaining for foreign hostages. Raisuli promptly had the imperial messenger’s throat slit.
ROOSEVELT’S REDEFINITION OF the Monroe Doctrine and his dispatch of warships to the Mediterranean were the gestures of a palpably confident executive. “I had much rather be a real President for three years and a half,” he told George Otto Trevelyan, “than a figurehead for seven years and a half.” The odds on renewed “real” power were in his favor: with 708 out of 988 convention delegates pledged to him, his nomination was now a certainty. Democrat campaign planners were in such despair over his popularity that, having failed to persuade Grover Cleveland to run, they seemed likely to settle for Alton B. Parker—a New York State judge who, as Elihu Root remarked, “has never opened his mouth on any national question.”
Reticence and its political cousin, caginess, were in Roosevelt’s opinion weaknesses to be taken advantage of. When a deputation of conservative senators, including Aldrich and Spooner, visited the White House to protest his selection of the “inexperienced” Cortelyou as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, he was unsympathetic. “I held this matter open for months, and allowed plenty of time to make selections, and none of you had a word to say.”
Ironically, he was quite capable of being closemouthed himself, but only when the sensibilities of other people or governments had to be considered, or important announcements delayed. And sometimes—as now—he preferred the quick efficiency of a news leak. A White House “source” informed reporters that George B. Cortelyou would become Postmaster General after the election, in place of Henry Clay Payne. This was a strategic move aimed at enhancing the former’s authority as party chairman. Campaign workers were sure to obey Cortelyou if they knew he would soon inherit the government’s richest patronage agency.
Roosevelt assembled the rest of his second-term Cabinet at leisure and mostly in secret. “He wants us all to resign—” John Hay noted in his diary, “but he wants to reappoint me.” Agriculture Secretary James Wilson might be kept on, Hay thought; Treasury Secretary Leslie Shaw, who had presidential ambitions for 1908, probably not. “Taft he wants to keep either where he is, or as Attorney-General if Knox goes.”
This was the first recorded indication that Knox’s astigmatic gaze had begun to focus beyond the Administration. Like Taft, his dearest wish was to sit at center bench on the Supreme Court. But Chief Justice Fuller, at seventy-one, remained annoyingly healthy. Meanwhile, the passing of Matthew Quay gave Knox an irresistible chance to represent his home state in the Senate.
In any case, the President’s latest preference for a Supreme Court appointment was William H. Moody. To that end, Roosevelt decided definitely to shift Moody to the Justice Department as soon as Knox resigned. He had other, long-range plans for Taft.
With less than a month to go before the convention in Chicago, he became obsessive about controlling every last detail. He plotted the Coliseum’s seating plan, insisting that “every Republican editor in the country” be accommodated. He selected the speakers and edited the speeches. “For all we know,” the New York Evening Post jibed, “he may have designated the men who are to lead the cheering.” Representatives of state committees were amazed at his knowledge of what they were doing and whom they were hiring.
“Mr. President, I have come for your final answer,” Albert J. Beveridge said one day, crowding his desk like an earnest schoolboy. “Am I, or am I not, to be temporary chairman of the Chicago convention?”
As tactfully as possible, Roosevelt mentioned the name of somebody taller. Beveridge stiffened. “Root? Elihu Root! What can he say that the country will listen to?”
Unconsoled, the little Hoosier performed one of his imitations of Napoleon retiring to Elba.