Theodore Rex (11 page)

Far-flung and lonely as these voices might sound to a trainload of Old Guard politicians en route to Washington, one passenger, at least, was acute enough to pay attention. He sensed that they might some day swell into a chorus, the first great political outcry of the twentieth century. He must soon respond to it, or the farmer in the red shirt would vote for somebody else in 1904, and Theodore Roosevelt would go down in history as a President unworthy of power, forcibly retired at forty-six.

ROOSEVELT’S REVERIE WAS
disturbed by Senator Hanna arriving for supper. While the two men ate and talked, the funeral train crossed the Mason-Dixon Line. Black faces began to flash by, lit by the glare of watch fires. Up North, earlier in the day, there had been few such faces—maybe one in fifty. Here in Maryland the ratio was one in five; across the South as a whole, one in three.

Census statistics such as these meant various things to marketers, sociologists, and geographers. To Roosevelt and Hanna they reduced down to one vital political fact: whoever commanded the loyalty of Southern blacks commanded the Republican presidential nomination.

The South was Hanna’s chief source of political strength. No matter that he himself represented Ohio. No matter either that the Republican Party in Dixie was so weak that in some state legislatures it had no seats at all. What did matter was that the South was disproportionately rich in delegates to national conventions. Hanna’s expert cultivation of these delegates, and his control of party funds as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, had guaranteed the two nominations of William McKinley. In his other role as
Senator in charge of White House patronage, he had been a rewarding boss, showering offices and stipends upon the faithful. As long as the South continued to send delegations of these blacks north every four years, Mark Hanna would remain party kingmaker. For a moment—just one moment, two days ago—Hanna had seemed vulnerable. But Roosevelt’s vow of fidelity to McKinley’s policies reconfirmed his power. The new President must continue to consult him on matters of Southern patronage, as the old had done. And consultation, given Hanna’s mastery of the system, implied consent, rather than advice.

Such a partnership might be good for a party weakened by assassination, but it was hardly desirable for Roosevelt as a presidential candidate in 1904. Grotesquely, the next Republican nominee could be Hanna himself. “Uncle Mark” did not look like a vote-getter at sixty-three, with his arthritic limp and huge, melancholy eyes. Yet he was loved and respected by both business and labor. Even Roosevelt found Hanna’s “
burly, coarse-fibered honesty” attractive.

To consolidate his Presidency, therefore, he must quietly build up a Southern organization of his own. He had in fact already sent an urgent summons to the nation’s most influential black leader, Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee, Alabama, asking him to come north for patronage consultations.

“
Theodore,” said Hanna, perhaps reading his mind, “do not think anything about a second term.”

AT TWENTY PAST SEVEN
, the train pulled into Baltimore. Flowers, handkerchiefs, gloves, and Bible pages cushioned the sound of its slowing wheels. The catafalque was gently detached from the rear of Mrs. McKinley’s car and shunted forward for the last stage of the journey. As soon as it was coupled, the train began to move again, serenaded by a choir of two thousand Negroes. They sang the inevitable dirge, but the tenderness of their voices was such that both words and melody regained full poignance. At least one passenger felt that it was the sweetest music he had ever heard.

An hour later, the lights of Washington came into view. Loeb helped Roosevelt into a dark Prince Albert coat, and gave him the black kid gloves and silk hat he had worn in Buffalo. Crape was tied around the Presidential sleeve.

There was neither clanging of bells nor singing when the locomotive nosed under the shed of Sixth Street Station at 8:38. Silence filled the cavernous space. Even the crowd outside stood hushed, listening for the final groan of brakes. All personnel on the platform were military or naval, with the exception of two elderly gentlemen in top hats: John Hay and Lyman Gage. Their black clothes made a somber contrast with the glitter of braid and swords all around them. Beside them paced the portly figure of Commander
William Sheffield Cowles, Roosevelt’s brother-in-law, and host, until such time as Mrs. McKinley vacated the White House.

As usual in moments of high drama, Roosevelt delayed 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
.

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 FIGURE IN A FROCK COAT.”
Theodore Roosevelt walks to work, 20 September 1901
(photo credit 1.1)

But the President was not looking for sympathy. “
I need your advice and counsel,” he said. He also needed their resignations, but for legal reasons only. Every man must accept reappointment. “I cannot accept a declination.”

This assertion of authority went unchallenged. Relaxing, Roosevelt asked for briefings on every department of the Administration. His officers complied in order of seniority.
He interrupted them often with questions, and they were astonished by the rapidity with which he embraced and sorted information. His curiosity and apparent lack of guile charmed them.