Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [58]
Deep in his soul, Hanna did not want the job. He was sixty-four and ailing. Every ascent of the Capitol steps in the March wind worsened his bursitis and packed more calcium around his knees. Grief for McKinley still tormented him, as did remorse over their occasional quarrels. He was prone to periods of melancholy, lasting weeks at a time; during these fits, he could not recognize his own son in the street. As for ambition, he had only to watch Roosevelt lustily working the crowd at White House receptions to realize that his senatorial seat suited him much better than the Presidency.
That chair, which he filled so amply it seemed a polished, creaking part of him, emanated prestige rather than power. Hanna had been in the Senate only five years, and was thus junior to more than half of his colleagues. Senator Spooner made more brilliant speeches in a week than Hanna had in his whole career. He could never hope to match the parliamentary skills of an Aldrich or an Allison. Henry Cabot Lodge’s orations sounded like Greek to him, and indeed some phrases were.
Yet Hanna’s web of influence stretched in so many directions—to the grass roots of party politics, to labor unions and trade associations and countless loyal offices in the civil service—that the Senate leaders granted him extraordinary privileges. They could hardly slight a man whom four out of five voters (according to a recent poll) believed to be “the greatest living American.” It was understood that “Uncle Mark” called upon nobody, except the President of the United States. He received callers in the Capitol’s vice-presidential suite. When he rose to speak on one of the issues he had made his own—shipping subsidies, labor relations, immigration reform—the Senate always filled, and he was listened to with a hush that sounded louder than applause.
Such eminence, plus a fat portfolio and a box of honor in Cleveland’s Hanna Theater, were all that he asked from life. But he must soon campaign for re-election. Clearly, presidential rumors would be to his advantage in rallying the Ohio Republican Party; he should not deny them too vehemently. His disclaimer, when it came, was mild: “I am not in any sense a candidate, and trust my friends will discourage any movement looking toward that end.”
The newspapers published this statement in small print, while they headlined a more immediate threat to Roosevelt’s authority.
AFTER THREE MONTHS, Nelson A. Miles still bore on his cheek the angry red of reprimand. He wanted revenge on the President and the Secretary of War. Thanks to continued access to War Department materials, he thought he now had a lethal weapon: secret reports of atrocities perpetrated by American forces against the insurrectos in the Philippines. Here was an issue which could embarrass Roosevelt and Root, rally all anti-imperialists, and make a political hero of himself. Miles took care, however, not to raise the issue in such a way as to risk further charges of insubordination. As a preliminary move, he granted an interview to Henry Watterson.
The Commanding General, Watterson reported, had been refused permission to visit the Philippines, where he wanted to conduct an inquiry into the insurrection, now more than three years old. Watterson did not state what, exactly, Miles supposed the inquiry might reveal. But he implied that dark truths were being suppressed, to Roosevelt’s likely political cost. “As events are lining up in Congress, the paramount issue, the issue of issues, in 1904 will be the Philippines.”
The White House remained silent as amplifications of the story spread nationwide on 17 March. Then a furious denunciation of Miles appeared in the Boston Herald. Nobody familiar with Rooseveltian invective could doubt who was the “very highest possible authority” cited:
General Miles’s most recent effort to recall himself to public attention … is so palpably an effort in his own behalf that the