Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [43]
At this, the spell over the listening representatives broke. The sound of their applause rolled after Pruden as he hurried down the corridor to make his second delivery.
THE SENATE, in contrast to the brilliantly lit House, was not yet illuminated for business. Dull winter sunshine seeped through the glass roof, too faint to reach the floor. Pruden hesitated in the doorway while senators settled like shadows into their chairs. A page relieved the messenger of his burden. Not until it was placed on the chief clerk’s lectern did somebody throw a switch; Roosevelt’s first words were heralded by a flood of incandescent light.
For a quarter of an hour, the seated company listened silently. Paperbound offprints of the Message—another novelty—were distributed, and senators began following the text like dutiful pupils.
“During the last five years business confidence has been restored, and the nation is to be congratulated because of its present abounding prosperity.”
Mark Hanna sat nodding solemnly at his own revisions. Henry Cabot Lodge, the President’s best friend, lounged nearby, looking, as usual, as if he was about to go to sleep. But every now and again he unscrewed his fountain pen and endorsed a passage that appealed to him.
“The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people.”
As Roosevelt swung into his much-edited subsection on trusts, Senator John Coit Spooner (R., Wisconsin) got up and walked across the room. Spectators in the press gallery watched the small, pigeon-toed figure, guessing that it would stop at one of three desks. These, and Spooner’s own, were the four corners of Republican power on Capitol Hill.
SPOONER, AT FIFTY-EIGHT, had the fastest mind, best constitutional knowledge, and most lethal wit in Congress. No senator could match him in debate; he was a scholar of classical rhetoric, and when short of a riposte—which was seldom—he could quote from Cicero or John Wilkes. He was equally dangerous as a listener, specializing in gadfly questions that stung ponderous orators. His very appearance stamped him as unique. In a chamber luxuriant with beards and mustaches, Spooner’s clean, chiseled features glowed pale as stone. It was an arresting, almost shocking face, with an imperious twitch to the nostrils. Great waves of hair, polished pince-nez, and oversize cravats softened the cold sculpture. They suggested a frustrated actor. If so, the part Spooner most longed to play was that of President of the United States. But he had always been too spontaneous, and too impatient, for campaign teamwork. Solo improvisation suited him better.
His perambulation ended at the desk of William Boyd Allison (R., Iowa). Stooping, he began to whisper in the old man’s ear. Rooseveltian rhetoric continued to echo over their heads:
“Many of those who have made it their vocation to denounce the great industrial combinations … known as ‘trusts,’ appeal especially to hatred and fear.… The whole history of the world shows that legislation will generally be both unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm enquiry and with sober self-restraint.”
Here were cautious words to appeal to Senator Allison—if Spooner’s whispering allowed him to hear them. Throughout his political career, “the Old Fox” had counseled due process in lawmaking. His genius was the resolution of discord; his vanity was to affect humility. Not once in his seventy-two years had he expressed a public point of view. Colleagues joked that if the road from Des Moines to Washington was a piano keyboard, “Allison could run all the way without ever striking a note.”
This legerdepied kept him from being beholden to anybody, while gratifying everybody. When legislation arose to favor