The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (142 page)
Read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Online
Authors: Edmund Morris
“Thus far,” Henry Adams wrote on 22 January, “Teddy seems to sail with fair wind. What we want to know is whether Platt will cut his throat when the time comes, as he has cut the throat of every man whom he has ever put forward.” Roosevelt, meanwhile, protested that Platt was “treating me perfectly squarely … I think everyone realizes that the Governorship is not in commission.”
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He conferred frequently and openly with the old man, traveling down to New York to breakfast with him on Saturday mornings, and lunching or dining as often with organization men like Odell, Quigg, and Root. This, to “silk-stocking” reformers and the
Evening Post
, was the equivalent of “breaking bread with the devil,”
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but Roosevelt shrugged off their criticism.
The worthy creatures never took the trouble to follow the sequence of facts and events for themselves. If they had done so they would have seen that any series of breakfasts with Platt always meant that I was going to do something that he did not like, and that I was trying, courteously and frankly, to reconcile him to it. My object was to make it as easy as possible for him to come with me … A series of breakfasts was always the prelude to some act of warfare.
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The first clash came in March.
O
N THE EIGHTEENTH DAY
of that month, Governor Roosevelt told reporters that he would like to see “the adoption of a system whereby corporations in this State shall be taxed on the public franchises which they control.”
31
There were, as it happened, four bills in the legislature to do with franchises—three of them awarding rich concessions to gas, tunnel, and rapid-transit companies in Manhattan, and one proposing a general state tax on all such power and traction privileges, in order to replenish the state treasury.
32
It was to the last bill, a measure of Senator John Ford’s then languishing in committee, that Roosevelt seemed to be referring. Although his remark was casual, the committee chairman took the hint, and within three days sent the bill to the House with a favorable report.
Roosevelt, delighted, began to push for its passage at once. Here was a measure designed to siphon off some of the money flowing through the politico-corporate machine and return it to the community in the form of increased values for property owners and, possibly, reduced taxes. The organization might be persuaded to agree—Platt himself had suggested that a tax-reform committee be appointed to send some proposals “to the next Legislature.” But Roosevelt saw no reason to wait until 1900. Hurrying to New York on 24 March, he invited the Easy Boss to breakfast with him at his pied-à-terre on Madison Avenue next morning.
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“I was hardly prepared for the storm of protest and anger which my proposal aroused,” Roosevelt wrote afterward.
34
Platt considered the Ford Bill dangerous in the extreme: in its sweeping generalities
and “radical” ideas it was “a shot into the heart of the business community” and an “extreme concession to Bryanism.”
35
If Roosevelt wished to push such a measure through, the organization would block it. The whole question of tax reform, Platt explained, was too complicated to rush. He repeated his suggestion that a joint legislative committee investigate at leisure, and report in the session of 1900. If Roosevelt agreed to this, Platt promised that some “serious effort would be made to tax franchises.”
36
The Governor capitulated, with real or feigned humility, and on 27 March sent a message to the Legislature recommending that Platt’s committee be appointed. He took the opportunity to complain that farmers, market gardeners, tradesmen, and smallholders were bearing a disproportionate burden of taxation in New York State, while franchise-holding syndicates kept every dollar of their profits. “A corporation which derives its power from the State,” he declared, “should pay the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys.” Then, in a conclusion which struck many commentators as weakly deferential to Platt, he left it to the proposed committee to decide just how franchises should be taxed, and who should do the taxing.
37
Since the Ford Bill had specific suggestions on both these points, it was assumed that Roosevelt had given up on the measure. Actually he liked it more and more,
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although he had one reservation: it empowered local county boards to make assessments, rather than the state. This “obnoxious” clause (which played directly into the hands of Tammany Hall) was sufficient to prevent him speaking out publicly in the bill’s favor. But he hinted to various reporters that he would not be sorry to see it pass anyway. On 7 April he risked another Platt “explosion” by telling the editor of the
Sun
, “I shall sign the bill if it comes to me, gladly.”
39
O
N 12
A
PRIL HE WAS
surprised to hear that the Senate had mysteriously passed the Ford Bill by a vote of 33 to 11.
40
Whatever Platt’s motive in letting Republican members vote for it (perhaps he was making a gesture to placate tax reformers, while still intending to block the measure in the Assembly), Roosevelt now had an excuse to take a public stand. On 14 April he announced that the
bill, however imperfect, was beneficial to the community; the Assembly should send it on to him at once for signing.
41
To Platt he guilelessly explained that he had broken silence simply at the request of the Senate Majority Leader, who felt the reputation of the Republican party was at stake. Platt’s response was to employ dilatory tactics. The House Taxation Committee promptly pigeonholed the bill and nothing more was heard of it. Meanwhile a rival measure appeared on the floor and was subject to lengthy debate, obviously for purposes of delay.
42
The end of the session, scheduled for 28 April, was fast approaching, and Roosevelt grew impatient. After four months in office he felt sure enough of his strength to challenge Platt directly. He made up his mind “that if I could get a show in the Legislature the bill would pass,
because the people had become interested
and the representatives would scarcely dare to vote the wrong way.”
43
Accordingly he set to work on individual Assemblymen (a task in which he had acquired expertise during his own term as Minority Leader) and used his tame press corps to take daily polls of the increase of likely votes in the House. By noon on 27 April there was a reported majority of twelve in favor of the Ford Bill.
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All that remained now was to persuade Platt’s leaders to bring it out of committee.
As Governor, Roosevelt possessed one formidable weapon which he had hitherto refrained from using: the Special Emergency Message. Under the rules of the Legislature he could use such a ploy to take up any bill out of turn and force it onto the floor.
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At five o’clock, therefore, when pressure in behalf of the Ford Bill had built up to a maximum in the Assembly, Roosevelt dictated his message demanding its immediate passage.
Speaker S. Fred Nixon, who had received direct orders from Platt “not to pass,” simply tore the message up without reading it to the House. He then retired to an anteroom and suffered a nervous collapse.
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R
OOSEVELT HEARD THE NEWS
at seven o’clock next morning, the final day of the session. He reacted much as he had when the Mausers were heard at Las Guásimas. Whether he advanced or
retreated now, his political life was in danger. Nixon’s rejection of his message, if allowed to go unchallenged, would mean fatal humiliation at the critical moment of his Governorship. What was left of his strength would waste away through the non-legislative months of 1899; when the session of 1900 opened he would be a dead duck, with little hope of renomination by a contemptuous Senator Platt. Meanwhile lobbyists for the big franchise-holders in New York City were warning him that if he sent another message he would “under no circumstances … ever again be nominated for any public office,” as “no corporation would subscribe” to any future Roosevelt campaign.
47
Stepping through the barbed wire, the Governor fired off another, more peremptory message:
I learn that the emergency message which I sent last evening to the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill has not been read. I therefore send hereby another message upon the subject. I need not impress upon the Assembly the need of passing this bill at once. It has been passed by an overwhelming vote through the Senate.… It establishes the principle that hereafter corporations holding franchises from the public shall pay their just share of the public burden … It is one of the most important measures (I am tempted to say the most important measure) that has been before the Legislature this year. I cannot too strongly urge its immediate passage.
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This time he entrusted his personal secretary, William J. Youngs, with delivery, and sent an added threat that if the message were not promptly read he would come over and read it himself. Platt’s lieutenants surrendered at once. The Ford Franchise Bill was passed by a landslide vote of 109 to 35, and the Legislature adjourned.
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L
OOKING BACK OVER
the session in the first flush of his victory, Roosevelt felt some relief and no little pride in what he had accomplished as Governor.
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There had been, beside this recent spectacular achievement, a good deal of progressive legislation,
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which
made up in historical significance what it lacked in contemporary drama. “I got an excellent Civil Service law passed,” he boasted, by way of example. This was true enough. The original law which he and Grover Cleveland had engineered in 1883 had been repealed in 1897, for no other reason apparently than to increase Republican spoilsmanship. Cooperating with his old friends at the Civil Service Reform Association, Roosevelt had succeeded in getting a stiff new bill through the Legislature, but only after “herculean labor,” and some spontaneous assistance from Senator Platt. The resultant Act was the most advanced for any state in the nation.
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