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appearing. For nearly a quarter of an hour, the Cabinet waited in a semicircle around his car, and anticipation mounted on the platform and in the street. At last, a few minutes before nine, he came down the steps, jaw set sternly. The military guard presented arms. Roosevelt shook hands with Hay and Gage, and whispered the urgent word stay in the former’s ear. He made it clear this was an order: Hay “could not decline, nor even consider.” Then he marched on, his Cabinet following in double file. Five Secret Service men appeared from nowhere and clustered about him. Ignoring the crowd at the station entrance, he took command with the natural ease of a colonel of cavalry. “Divide off, divide off!” He waved a black-gloved hand at the Cabinet officers. They formed two facing ranks. Roosevelt joined Hay on the right-hand side. There was a pause, and onlookers barricaded behind the gates were able to contrast his features with those of Senator Hanna. Roosevelt’s face was lined with fatigue, but looked harsh and strong. Hanna’s was pitiful, full of despair.

Soldiers and sailors approached with the coffin on their shoulders. The crowd uncovered, and “Taps” broke the silence. Then, just as the coffin was sliding into the hearse, there was a flash from a window across the street, accompanied by a revolver-like crack. Roosevelt flinched. “What was that?”

“A photographer,” said Commander Cowles.

“Something should be done with that fellow,” Roosevelt muttered savagely. For a moment, in his nervousness, he forgot he was President, and gestured Hay and Gage into his carriage ahead of him. They demurred. He climbed in, taking the rear right seat. The Secretaries followed, with Commander Cowles. A little colonel jumped up on the box, yellow plumes waving. Ahead, to the sound of trumpets, the hearse began its journey to the White House. Roosevelt’s carriage rolled off a few seconds later. Thousands of spectators watched it disappear into the warm Washington night.

The epigraphs at the head of every chapter are by “Mr. Dooley,” Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite social commentator.

CHAPTER 1

The Shadow of the Crown

I see that Tiddy, Prisidint Tiddy—here’s his health—is th’ youngest prisidint we’ve iver had, an’ some iv th’ pa-apers ar-re wondherin’ whether he’s old enough f’r th’ raysponsibilities iv’ th’ office.

ON THE MORNING after McKinley’s interment, Friday, 20 September 1901, a stocky figure in a frock coat sprang up the front steps of the White House. A policeman, recognizing the new President of the United States, jerked to attention, but Roosevelt, trailed by Commander Cowles, was already on his way into the vestibule. Nodding at a pair of attachés, he hurried into the elevator and rose to the second floor. His rapid footsteps sought out the executive office over the East Room. Within seconds of arrival he was leaning back in McKinley’s chair, dictating letters to William Loeb. He looked as if he had sat there for years. It was, a veteran observer marveled, “quite the strangest introduction of a Chief Magistrate … in our national history.”

As the President worked, squads of cleaners, painters, and varnishers hastened to refurbish the private apartments down the hall. He sent word that he and Mrs. Roosevelt would occupy the sunny river-view suite on the south corner. Not for them the northern exposure favored by their predecessors, with its cold white light and panorama of countless chimney pots.

A pall of death and invalidism hung over the fusty building. Roosevelt decided to remain at his brother-in-law’s house until after the weekend. It was as if he wanted the White House to ventilate itself of the sad fragrance of the nineteenth century. Edith and the children would breeze in soon enough, bringing what he called “the Oyster Bay atmosphere.”

At eleven o’clock he held his first Cabinet meeting. There was a moment of strangeness when he took his place at the head of McKinley’s table. Ghostly responsibility sat on his shoulders. “A very heavy weight,” James Wilson mused, “for anyone so young as he is.”

“A STOCKY