Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [40]
RESTRAINED AS HE might have become on matters of trust policy, Roosevelt remained outspoken on the subject of appointments. His daily public reception, held at noon in George Cortelyou’s antechamber, amounted to a patronage mart, and he reveled in the opportunity to show off the decisive speed of his mind. “Tell me what you have to say, quickly, quickly!” No matter how concise the request, he was always ready with a reply—and not always the one hoped for:
SENATOR DEBOE Mr. President, I have Collector Sapp’s resignation in my pocket, but—
ROOSEVELT You have? I’ll take it. Here, Mr. Cortelyou; wire Mr. Sapp that his resignation has been accepted and ask him to turn the office over to his first deputy at once. Have someone telephone the Treasury.… (Over his shoulder, moving on) That’s all right, Senator; everything will be promptly attended to.
He would whirl on round the room, pumping hands and grinning, ejaculating his automatic “Glad to see you!” and “Dee-lighted!” like snorts from a steam engine. Office-seekers learned not to trifle with his memory (“Haven’t you a jail record?”), nor to present him with trumped-up dossiers of support (“Petition? I could get a petition to have you hanged!”).
Those other White House pests, the murmurers of special requests, found Roosevelt impossible to buttonhole. Like an actor, he projected his voice past them, at the crowd. The more furtive his interlocutor, the louder he responded, and he took care to repeat, fortissimo, any request that he deemed improper. The effect was of salt poured on slugs. Even as the supplicants melted away, Roosevelt’s voice would follow: “Senator Depew, do you know that man going out? Well, he is a crook.”
There were days when the visitors besieging him were so numerous that Cortelyou had to empty the antechamber five times before lunch. On such occasions the President could be overstimulated, and his frankness coarsened to rudeness. “I don’t give a damn for the Legislature of Texas!” he roared at Senator Joseph Bailey, making a lasting Democratic enemy. He called to an aide, over the heads of Representative John Dalzell and Senator Julius Caesar Burrows: “Come here, Mr. McAneny, and help me with these two gentlemen. They are boring me about appointments.” Burrows left the White House angrily, muttering, “This young man won’t last long.”
Monitors of Roosevelt’s Western patronage noticed that an ability to shoot straight seemed to appeal to him more than strict fidelity to the Bill of Rights. Civil Service Commissioner William Dudley Foulke recorded his interview with Pat Garrett, slayer of Billy the Kid and candidate for Customs Collectorship of El Paso, Texas:
ROOSEVELT How many men have you killed?
GARRETT Three.
ROOSEVELT How did you come to do it?
GARRETT In the discharge of my duty as a public officer.
ROOSEVELT (looking pleased) Have you ever played poker?
GARRETT Yes.
ROOSEVELT Are you going to do it when you are in office?
GARRETT No.
ROOSEVELT All right, I am going to appoint you. But see you observe the civil service law.
The appointment dismayed many Texans, not because of Garrett’s bloody record but because he was an agnostic. “In El Paso,” the President said approvingly, “the people are homicidal but orthodox.”
ON 18 NOVEMBER 1901, Secretary of State Hay and the British Ambassador, Lord Pauncefote, signed their long-negotiated treaty granting the United States exclusive right to build an interoceanic waterway in Central America. Two days later, the Isthmian Canal Commission, appointed by President McKinley to recommend the “most practicable and feasible” route, reported in favor of Nicaragua. This news was held for release after the opening of Congress, but William Randolph Hearst got