Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [203]
Roosevelt had foreseen the judge’s candidacy for years. He knew Parker from gubernatorial days, and feared him precisely because he was colorless. “The neutral-tinted individual,” he wrote George Otto Trevelyan, “is very apt to win against the man of pronounced views and active life.”
Personally, he liked Parker very much. The judge was attractive on close acquaintance. Big and solid as an upstate lumberman, he exuded healthy, untroubled self-confidence. No furrow of doubt marred the smooth brow; his jaw was forceful; and his mustache (graying, but still tinged with auburn) curved easily and often into a thick-lipped grin. If his conversation was bland, tending toward boring, that was no novelty in a politician—and Parker was a politician, for all his judicial demeanor.
Eighteen years of public nonpartisanship had not erased Republican memories of Parker managing David B. Hill’s landslide campaign for Governor in 1884. Even Hill, the arch-Democrat, had jibbed against supporting Bryan in 1896; yet Parker had tranquilly voted for Free Silver and “toilers everywhere” before accepting the most privileged seat on the New York bench. As a result, he could look Western miners in the eye and say that he had never deserted them, and behave with equal complacency at Gold Dollar banquets hosted by August P. Belmont. No wonder Hill—still state boss, and anxious to return old favors—saw him as the potential unifier of the Democratic Party.
And so did most of the 962 other delegates who took their seats in St. Louis on Wednesday, 6 July. About one hundred conservatives would have supported Grover Cleveland, had the former President agreed to run, and about two hundred radicals were pledged or beholden to William Randolph Hearst. All Hill had to do was marshal a majority that was two thirds greater than these minorities to nominate Parker. But first, all factions had to agree on a platform.
ON FRIDAY, a little knot of newsmen gathered outside Parker’s house in Esopus, New York, waiting for the hall telephone to ring with good news for him. It remained silent all day. Around sunset, a press dispatch arrived, saying that ideological squabbling in St. Louis was preventing any progress toward the judge’s nomination. William Jennings Bryan had waged such a fanatic battle against any mention of gold in the platform that the Committee on Resolutions might recommend no currency plank at all.
There was an instant clamor for Parker. He came onto the porch, genial and impassive, and listened to the dispatch. “I thank you, gentlemen, for the opportunity to comment.” Pencils bristled eagerly, and he pointed at a sailboat on the Hudson. “It’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?”
With this witticism he retired for the evening. A reporter called after him, asking sarcastically when he would be available, if more news came. “The usual hour,” said Parker, and waved good-night.
That meant early the next morning, when he took his regular swim. Fog rolled up from the river and blanketed the moon. The newsmen smoked and dozed in rocking chairs. Eventually the fog began to whiten, but it did not burn away with dawn. Dew dripped from three thousand apple trees.
At 6:35 A.M., the New York Times man saw Parker slip out of the back of the house bare-legged, in an old rubber raincoat. He was tempted to follow him downhill, but decided to stick near the telephone. It shrilled just thirteen minutes later. Parker’s secretary came out to announce that the judge had been nominated unanimously, on the first ballot.
Only one reporter knew where Parker was. He ran down the slope and encountered a big wet man at the water’s edge. “Judge, you’ve got it!”
“Oh, is that so?”
A foghorn bleated