A Necessary Defeat: Theodore Roosevelt and the New York Mayoral Election of 1886
Author(s): Edward P. Kohn
Source: New York History, Vol. 87, No. 2 (SPRING 2006), pp. 204-227
Published by: Fenimore Art Museum
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AGE BEFORE BEAUTY!"
Cartoon from cover of Puck, November 10, 1886. Courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library.
Theodore Roosevelt and the New York Mayoral Election
of 1886
Edward P. Kohn
til is of course a perfectly hopeless contest," twenty-seven-year-old ■ Theodore Roosevelt wrote after receiving the Republican nomi nation for mayor of New York in October 1886, "the chance for suc cess being so very small that it may be left out of account."1 Roosevelt proved absolutely right, finishing a distant third in a three-way race. The election has received attention from historians primarily due to the candidacy of the author of Progress and Poverty, Henry George.2 Because George ran on the ticket of the United Labor Party and received wide support among Irish Americans, the 1886 election has been portrayed as signifying the emergence of ethnic nationalism and organized labor in urban politics.3 Roosevelt's unsuccessful bid has usually been noted
1. Roosevelt to Henry Cabot Lodge, 20 October 1886, in Morison, Elting E., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, The Years of Preparation, 1868—98 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951), 112.
2. In his 1879 book, George had written against the prevailing economic wisdom of the time that American industrial progress benefited all classes. Instead George argued that industrial expan sion resulted in severe economic crises and widened the gulf between rich and poor. "Where the conditions to which material progress everywhere tends are most fully realized," George wrote, "we find the deepest poverty, and the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most of enforced idleness." Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1880; repr. 4th ed. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1987), 6. Although the book continues to receive attention due to George's advocacy of a single tax on land, it was George's sympathy with the laboring classes that made him a hero of the working man. As Nell Irvin Painter writes, "George freed the poor from the burden of hereditary sloth and infe riority." Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 26.
3. See David Scobey, "Boycotting the Politics Factory: Labor Radicalism and the New York City Mayoral Election of 1886," Radical History Review 28—30 (1984): 280—325; Robert E. Weir, "A Fragile Alliance: Henry George and the Knights of Labor," American Journal of Economics and Sociology 56, no. 4 (1997): 421-39; Edward T. O'Donnell, " 'Though Not an Irishman': Henry George and the American Irish," American Journal of Economics and Sociology 1997, 56 (4): 407—19; and O'Donnell, "Henry George and the 'New Political Forces': Ethnic Nationalism, Labor Radicalism, and Politics in Gilded Age New York City," Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1995.
2o6 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
as a mere curiosity. Even among Roosevelt historians, the election has attracted little notice, appearing only as an urban interlude during his four-year adventure out in the Dakota Territory.4 This may result from the fact that Roosevelt himself barely mentioned the race in his 1913 autobiography. Edmund Morris provides an entertaining narra tive of the election in his chapter "The Next Mayor of New York" in his The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Morris asserts that, after initial doubts, Roosevelt came to believe he had a good chance of winning the race, and in the end was bitterly disappointed at the defeat.5 Other Roosevelt biographers, such as Kathleen Dalton and Nathan Miller, have correctly noted the importance of the mayoral race in helping Roosevelt reestab lish himself in politics and enhance his party standing.6 Yet they fail to note why it was necessary for Roosevelt to do so in 1886.
4. G. Wallace Chessman dedicates a single paragraph to the election in his Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Power, reprint of 1969 edition, (Prospect Heights, 111.: Waveland Press, 1994.) Chessman notes correctly that Roosevelt accepted the nomination "for the good of the party" and left him with good standing in the party (Chessman, 46). Louis Auchincloss also gives a brief paragraph to the election, but only speculates that winning the election might have ended Roosevelt's political advancement as it has every New York mayor to date. (Auchincloss, Theodore Roosevelt, New York: Times Books, 2002), 21. David Burton ends his paragraph on the election by saying that Roosevelt "was made to realize afresh that the power which the frontier symbolized was in reality lodged in the political establishments of the East." Burton, Theodore Roosevelt, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972), 55. John Morton Blum depicts Roosevelt's decision to run as that of an inexperienced young politician who would never again "enter the lists without first carefully checking the intentions of his supporting entente." Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), 13. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, writing the year of Roosevelt's death, noted that both his nomina tion and campaign were based on Roosevelt's reforming inclinations. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time Shown in His Own Letters (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920), 42. David
McCullough ends his book Mornings on Horseback^ with the campaign and sees it mainly as an exam ple of Roosevelt's need to "Get action! Seize the momenti" McCullough, Mornings on Horseback,'■ The
Story of an Extraordinary Family, A Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore
Roosevelt, (New York: Simon and Schuster: 1981), 359. See also Thomas J. Condon, "Political Reform and the New York City Election of 1886," The New-Yor\ Historical Society Quarterly 44, no. 4, (Oct. 1960): 363—93. Condon believes that the election helped crystallize and define the reform issues of the day, yet dedicates little space to Roosevelt.
5. Morris believes Roosevelt doubted his chances only in the first few days of the campaign, asserting "there was that chance; he had taken on older men before, and beaten them: his pugnacious soul rejoiced at the overwhelming challenge." Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1979), 346-47. Moreover, Morris says Roosevelt was "deeply" disappointed at the result, even to the extent of flying into a rage years later when the election was mentioned in conversation (Morris, 357). Finally, Morris also notes that 1886 was Roosevelt's only loss at the polls before the 1912 presidential election (Morris, 64f, 800).
6. Of Roosevelt biographers, Nathan Miller, Kathleen Dalton, Henry Pringle, and Henry Harbaugh have best understood Roosevelt's attitude toward the "dubious" honor of the Republican nomination. "Under no illusions about the reason for his nomination or prospects for victory," Miller writes, "Roosevelt accepted anyway, mainly to reestablish himself in politics." Dalton states that Roosevelt ran to " 'earn a better party standing' by competing as a sacrifice candidate." Still, none places Roosevelt's campaign in the context of the 1884 Chicago convention, and only Pringle and Harbaugh note his reform platform. Instead, Pringle, Harbaugh, and Miller discuss Henry George at
The mayor's race was not simply a way for Roosevelt to reenter the New York political scene after his Dakota hiatus. Roosevelt knew from the beginning of the 1886 campaign that he had no chance of winning, and that he was being asked to run as a sacrifice for the Republican Party in order to build party unity. Moreover, Roosevelt knew that at that point in his career, it was a sacrifice he had to make. In 1884 Roosevelt had attended the Republican National Convention as a delegate from New York, and had worked vigorously against the choice of the party's leaders, the "Plumed Knight," James G. Blaine of Maine.7 At the convention, Roosevelt, along with his new friend and ally Massachusetts delegate Henry Cabot Lodge, had marked himself as one of the leaders of the independent Republicans by backing a more progressive candidate, Senator George Edmunds of Vermont. Blaine prevailed, however, placing Roosevelt in a difficult position. He could either follow Henry Cabot Lodge's example and campaign for Blaine as the party's clear choice, or follow independents in their bolt from the party. Roosevelt attempted a third way: he officially declared for Blaine, but in his East Coast campaign speeches he continually distanced him self from the nominee, making plain he was campaigning for the party, not for the candidate. Such actions alienated both party leaders and "mugwumps" who had bolted the party in 1884 and expected Roosevelt to follow. The result was that Roosevelt, as Nathan Miller has noted, "suffered defeat on all fronts."8 Blaine narrowly lost the election, while Roosevelt fled west to his Dakota ranch and appeared to retire from politics for the next two years.
length and place the election in the context of the May 4, 1886, Haymarket bombing in Chicago that killed eight policemen. Miller does note that at the end of his unsuccessful mayoral bid, Roosevelt "had paid his dues and the Republicans now owed him." Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (New York: William Morrow, 1992), 183—85; Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 107; Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), 110-15; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961), 67—68.
7. Although prior to 1884 the Republican Party had been divided into "Stalwarts" and "Half Breeds," these terms had become largely obsolete by the time of the Republican convention that year. By early 1884, the New Yor\ Tribune had consigned both terms to "the lumber-room of political his tory." New YorJ{ Tribune, 3 Jan. 1884, cited in Allan Peskin, "Who Were the Stalwarts? Who Were Their Rivals? Republican Factions in the Gilded Age," Political Science Quarterly 99, no. 4 (Winter,
1984-85): 706.
8. Miller, 160. Like the 1886 mayoral election, the 1884 Republican convention has been given limited significance by most Roosevelt historians, who have attributed only limited significance to the 1884 Republican Convention, mainly viewing Roosevelt's actions as alienating the "mugwump" vote and neglecting the damage it did to him among Republican party leaders. Blum sees Roosevelt's
2o8 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
By 1886, New York party leaders sought a reform candidate who could stand as the nominee of a united Republican party, thus heal ing the split of 1884 that had cost Blaine the election. It was widely
understood that any Republican nominee that year would be a "sacrifice candidate." During the election, Republican leaders continually stressed party unity with an eye toward the 1888 presidential election. The 1886 mayoral election allowed Roosevelt to return to the party's good graces, while campaigning on the reform issues that would mark his entire political career. The election resulted in defeat for Roosevelt, true, but it was a necessary defeat that reestablished him in the city and state from which he would launch his career. Moreover, the election illustrated the kind of Republican Roosevelt would be until his split with the party in 1912: both a loyal party man and a progressive reformer. It was this ability to bridge the great divide in the Republican Party that made Roosevelt a successful politician over the next quarter century.
From his earliest days in the New York Assembly, Roosevelt—elect ed for the first time in 1881 at age twenty-three—marked himself as a reformer acting independently of the party bosses. "I am a Republican, pure and simple," Roosevelt wrote to a fellow member of the Assembly in 1883, "neither a 'half breed' nor a 'stalwart'; and certainly no man, nor yet any ring or clique, can do my thinking for me."9 Roosevelt's
championing of reform legislation and his reputation for stubborn inde pendence did not endear him to his party's leaders. When in late 1883 Roosevelt emerged as the favorite to become Speaker of the Assembly, Republican Party leader Senator Warner Miller worked to engineer a Roosevelt defeat. Roosevelt's becoming Speaker would certainly have eventual backing of the party choice as a measure of his "professionalism" and confirmation of the need to work within the Republican Party. (Blum, 11) Chessman comes to largely the same conclu sion. (Chessman, 42) Morris notes that both Lodge and Roosevelt made it known during the conven tion that as loyal Republicans they would back the eventual nominee. (Morris, 261). Interestingly, Lodge's biographers have taken a graver view of the convention. Karl Schriftgiesser notes that the split in the Republican party that year ended a number of Lodge's close friendships, including that with his mentor Carl Schurz. Schriftgiesser, The Gentleman from Massachusetts: Henry Cabot Lodge (Boston: Little, Brown, 1944), 86. John A. Garraty refers to the convention as part of "the great crisis of Lodge's political life." Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1953), 75. For a more complete account of Roosevelt and the 1884 convention, see Edward P. Kohn, "Crossing the Rubicon: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the 1884 Republican National Convention," journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 5, no. 1, (Jan. 2006): 19—45.
undermined Miller's authority in the party; moreover, as leader of the New York Blaine forces on the eve of the presidential election, Miller could not allow an independent assemblyman hostile to both Blaine and President Chester Arthur to hold such a prominent Republican position.10 Although Roosevelt represented the choice of the majority of Republicans in the Assembly, had they been allowed to vote freely, Miller arranged Roosevelt's defeat by bringing to bear pressure from the state party machine and city bosses. In his Autobiography, Roosevelt later noted that he was defeated for the Speakership by "the bosses," both
Stalwart and Half-Breed: "Neither side cared for me."11 Roosevelt's
defeat at the hands of his own party leaders engendered in him "a strong animosity toward Miller" that would influence events both at the state party convention in April, and the national convention in June.12
In planning for the 1884 national convention, New York Republicans met in Utica to name delegates for Chicago. The state party conven tion reflected many of the national divisions among Republicans, split mainly between supporters of President Arthur and supporters of James Blaine. Arthur had ascended to the presidency only after the assassina tion of James Garfield, and his reputation as a New York spoilsman hardly made him a possible choice for independent Republicans.^ At the same time, Blaine's reputation had long been tainted by accusations that in 1869, while Speaker, he had engineered legislation favorable to a railroad company and then received the company's stock as a reward. By the time of the New York State convention at Utica, Roosevelt had emerged as the leader of a small group of independents who vowed to stand against these two choices of the party leaders. In New York, as in
10. Carleton Putnam speculates that Miller likely knew Roosevelt's position regarding Blaine and Arthur before Roosevelt made it public a month later. Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, The Formative Years, 1858—86 (New York, 1958), 370.
11. Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (1913; New York, 1985), 87. 12. Putnam, 373.
13. Moreover, in 1877 Arthur had featured prominently in an intra-party conflict involv ing Roosevelt's father. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., had become a pawn in a power struggle between President Rutherford Hayes and Roscoe Conkling s New York machine when Hayes named the elder Roosevelt to replace Arthur as collector of the customshouse for the Port of New York. Conkling attacked the nomination, and used his position as chair of the Senate's Commerce Committee to have the Senate reject Roosevelt. This was seen as a victory for Conkling's machine over the forces of reform, and the elder Roosevelt died only two months later at age 46. Thomas C. Reeves, Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur (Newtown, Conn., 1975), 125—31; Ari Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President (Lawrence, Kans.: 1995), 352—55.
m NEW YORK HISTORY
much of the country, Republican support for Blaine seemed destined to give him the nomination; at Utica, Blaine's men were only a half-dozen votes short of a majority.^
Roosevelt chose instead to back Edmunds of Vermont. While no
reformer, Edmunds's sole advantages seemed to be his personal honesty and his independence from any state machine.1? Although Roosevelt's group of Edmunds supporters at Utica was small, only 70 of the 500 or so delegates, it held the balance of power between the Blaine and Arthur forces. At the state convention, Roosevelt scored a notable vic tory by convincing the Arthur men to throw in their lot with him and the Edmunds group in opposing Blaine and sending New York's four delegates-at-large to Chicago as independents. By his victory, Roosevelt had overnight gained national prominence and "single-handedly made Senator Edmunds a serious candidate for the Presidency."1^ At the same time he had helped rend asunder the plans of his own party lead ers for the national convention in Chicago, which many Republicans assumed would be a simple coronation ceremony for Blaine. Roosevelt even took one of the delegate-at-large positions away from Senator Miller, the leader of New York's Blaine forces and the party boss who had engineered Roosevelt's defeat for the Speaker's post only a few months before. When the motion passed naming Roosevelt and the other Edmunds men as the four delegates-at-large, he and Miller were sitting just across the aisle from each other. Roosevelt jumped across the aisle and shook his fists in Miller's face, saying, "There, that pays you for what you did last year!"1?
Before the national convention in June, Roosevelt worked to orga nize Edmunds supporters in the Northeast and Midwest, and became acquainted with Massachusetts delegate Henry Cabot Lodge.^ Once
14. Summers, Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, 132.
15. As John M. Dobson notes, Vermont was so completely loyal to the Republican Party that a state machine was unnecessary. Dobson, Politics in the Gilded Age: A New Perspective on Reform (New York: Praeger, 1972), 96.
16. Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 255.
17. Hermann Hagedorns interview with Isaac Hunt, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University (TRC). The other three Independent delegates-at-large were Andrew White, President of Cornell University, State Senator John J. Gilbert, and millionaire Edwin Packard, a Brooklyn merchant.
18. Roosevelt corresponded with Louis Theodore Michener, who was secretary of the Indiana Republican State Committee, as well a political manager for Benjamin Harrison (Morison, 69). In his comments to Michener, Roosevelt implied he was in contact with delegates from Minnesota,
in Chicago, Roosevelt and Lodge became identified as leaders of the "revolt" within the party against Blaine.*9 Their first significant act was to engineer the defeat of the Blaine forces' choice for temporary chairman, Powell Clayton. Lodge stood to nominate instead former congressman John R. Lynch, a black delegate from Mississippi and an Arthur man.20 The motion was seconded by a New York delegate by the name of Dutcher, and Roosevelt rose before the 10,000 in atten dance to give his first speech to a national audience. "Why should we be forced to accept a Chairman chosen for us by an outside body?" Roosevelt asked, referring to the Republican National Committee. "Let each man stand accountable ... let each man stand up here and cast his vote, and then go home and abide by what he has done."21 The New Yorf{ Times called the speech "forcible, brief, and devoid of the flow ers of rhetoric." Moreover, the speech gave Roosevelt "a place among the leaders of the convention." Lodge and Roosevelt's candidate beat Blaine's man on the first vote. "Blaine's Boom Badly Damaged in the Convention," the Times declared, and left no doubt as to those respon sible for the "revolt" in the Republican Party. "If it had not been for the hard work done by Lodge and Roosevelt," the paper asserted, "the nom Michigan, and Wisconsin. He also told Lodge he had "written to the western Edmunds men." See TR to Michener, 23 May 1884, Morison, 69; and TR to Lodge, 25 May 1884, Morison, 69—70. In 1876 Roosevelt entered Harvard as ari undergraduate while Lodge, almost eight years Roosevelt's senior, began teaching United States History, having received one of the first Harvard Ph.D.s. While Roosevelt never took Lodge's classes, they apparently met on a couple of occasions at their common club, the Porcellian. Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918, 1: 25.
19. For accounts of the convention, see Report of the National Executive Committee of Republicans and Independents. Presidential Campaign of 1884 (New York, 1885); T. B. Boyd, The Blaine and Logan Campaign of 1884 (Chicago, 1884); H. J. Ramsdell, Life and Public Service of Hon. James Blaine (Philadelphia, 1884); and especially Republican National Committee, Proceedings of the Eighth Republican National Convention (Chicago, 1884). James C. Matlin's "Roosevelt and the Elections of
1884 and 1888," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, June 1927: 25—38, does not address the convention itself.
20. While one can speculate as to the significance of Roosevelt backing a black man for this posi tion, given his later invitation of Booker T. Washington to the White House and his concern over securing the black Republican vote in the South, the backing of Lynch for temporary chair was prob ably a mere political expedient. See Thomas Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 96—97.
21. New Yorl( Times, 4 June 1884. See also Morris, 264, and McCullough, 300, for accounts of the speech. Fellow New York delegate and Cornell University president Andrew D. White later called the speech "very courageous," and remembered that the galleries attempted to "howl down" Roosevelt: "As he stood upon a bench and addressed the president, there came from the galler ies on all sides a howl and yell, 'Sit down! Sit down!' with whistling and cat-calls." White, The Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White, (New York, 1905), 1: 205.
■ NEW YORK HISTORY
ination [of Clayton] would not have been seriously opposed." Through his actions at the convention, Roosevelt was gaining national attention for his opposition to the party leaders, dubious notoriety for any young man with political ambitions.
The best Roosevelt and Lodge could do, however, was to fight a delaying action, and Blaine received the nomination on only the fourth ballot. Considering that in 1880 the previous Republican nominee had received the nomination after thirty-six votes, this constituted a fairly resounding defeat for Roosevelt. A bitter and exhausted Roosevelt could not hide his displeasure. Despite Roosevelt's previous avowal to support the eventual nominee, he began a pattern of distancing himself from Blaine that he would repeat throughout that fall. When approached by Ohio congressman William McKinley to second a motion making the nomination unanimous, Roosevelt refused. He continually brushed off questions about Blaine's nomination, telling the Washington Post reporter, "It is a matter for grave consideration, for reflection. Come
and see me a week hence."22 Roosevelt did not tell the man that a week
hence he would be in the Dakota Territory. Even with Blaine's nomina tion Roosevelt continued to be identified with a revolt in the party. "An Independent Movement," one headline declared. "The Anti-Blaine Republicans to Organize Against the Chicago Ticket," the paper contin ued, identifying Lodge and Roosevelt as "leaders" of the "rebellion."23 Most damning of all, Roosevelt told New York Evening Post correspon dent Horace White that "any proper Democratic nomination will have our hearty support," and that governor of New York Grover Cleveland
would be the best choice.24
Roosevelt left almost immediately for his Dakota ranch, and declared for the Republican nominee in July. Although at first advis ing his friend Lodge, who was running for a seat in Congress, that they should not actively campaign for Blaine, Roosevelt returned to the East to campaign for Lodge and the Republican Party.25 In his cam paign speeches that fall, Roosevelt made plain that he was campaigning
22. Washington Post, 8 June 1884. 23. Ibid., 9 June 1884.
24. McCullough, 307.
for the party, and not for Blaine.2^ Indeed, Roosevelt not only made clear that Blaine was nominated "against my wishes and against my efforts," but that the party's choice was "nominated against the wishes of the most intellectual, and the most virtuous and honorable men of the great seaboard cities."27 Roosevelt seemed to have found a middle way between bolting the party, as many independent Republicans did that fall, and actively backing the unsavory Blaine. In doing so, he and Lodge suffered different consequences of their convention battle. By actively campaigning for Blaine, even appearing with him on the eve of the election, Lodge lost the support of Boston mugwumps and lost his race for Congress. Roosevelt, on the other hand, was thought by independents to be held in "moral thralldom" to the "evil genius" of the savvier Lodge.2^ Moreover, the independent Republicans constituted a much smaller share of the party in New York than in Boston. It is important to remember that at the Utica state convention Roosevelt had become a delegate-at-large only because he controlled a small swing vote. Even Roosevelt himself saw his Utica victory as "largely an acci dent."29 Instead, by his rebellious actions at Utica and Chicago, and his lukewarm campaign speeches that fall, Roosevelt risked alienating the Republican leaders of New York, the operators of the political machine upon which any young man's political career depended.
Blaine lost the race for president to Democrat Grover Cleveland in one of the closest elections in American history. Cleveland won New York's thirty-six electoral votes, and thus the election, by a margin of 1,149 votes out of almost 1.2 million cast. If 600 New Yorkers had voted for Blaine rather than Cleveland, Blaine would have been elected president. One popular view of the 1884 election is that Blaine lost the 26. See Roosevelt's Massachusetts speeches reprinted in Lodge, Selections, 12—25. In an interest ing footnote, Morris quotes historian John Gable, who recognizes that Roosevelt campaigned for the party rather for the nominee. Morris, 791, 88n.
27. Boston Daily Advertiser, 21 Oct. 1884, in Lodge, Selections, 15.
28. TR to Lodge, 12 Aug. 1884, Morison, 76. Roosevelt's friend and biographer Owen Wister called Lodge "his evil genius." He also overheard old Henry Lee remark to Roosevelt's former father in-law George Cabot Lee, "As for Cabot Lodge, nobody's surprised at him; but you can tell that young whippersnapper in New York from me that his independence was the only thing in him we cared for, and if he has gone back on that, we don't care to hear anything more about him." Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship (New York, 1930), 26.
■ NEW YORK HISTORY
race only in the last days of the campaign because of comments made in his presence about the Democrats representing "rum, Romanism, and rebellion," thus losing votes among anti-prohibitionists, Catholics, and Southerners. However, this ignores the months of activity by New York Independents. As John Dobson writes, "If the Independents had not revolted, Cleveland would not have won."3° It was this very razor-thin margin in New York that Republican leaders hoped to swing their way in 1888 by fostering party unity.
Retreating again to his Dakota ranch, Roosevelt's future political career seemed uncertain. After the 1884 election, Roosevelt had com miserated with Lodge on the latter's defeat, telling his friend, "Of course it may be that we have had our day; it is far more likely that this is true in my case than in yours, for I have no hold on the party managers in New York."31 Returning to the Republican fold in New York did not seem very urgent to Roosevelt during the remainder of 1884 and early
1885. He appeared quite content to make for himself the dual career
of rancher and writer out in the Bad Lands. One result of his new
friendship with Lodge, however, was that his Massachusetts friend kept him apprised of political doings back East, and as politics was one of the bonds the two shared, politics inevitably found their way into their correspondence. Letters to Lodge in March and May discussed Cleveland's new administration and the composition of his cabinet.32 In June Roosevelt was asked by a New York assemblyman if he was con sidering a position on the state ticket that fall.33 Later the same month, New York City Mayor William R. Grace offered Roosevelt the position of President of the Board of Health. A one-time Tammany Democrat elected mayor in 1880, Grace had split with Tammany boss "Honest" John Kelly, and in 1884 had been elected as a reform Democrat of the "Country Democracy." Roosevelt had also crossed swords with John Kelly in 1884, calling the boss before his Assembly City Investigating Committee and offering legislation to undermine Kelly's power over city patronage. That Grace was asking Republican Roosevelt to replace
30. Dobson, 161—62.
31. TR to Lodge, 11 Nov. 1884, Morison, 132.
32. TR to Lodge, 8 March and 15 May, 1885, ibid., 89-91. 33. TR to Walter Sage Hubbell, 8 June 1885, ibid., 91.
an indicted bribe-taker illustrates the political value the Roosevelt name had in New York City, a name that appeared to stand for independence and good government.34
In October Roosevelt wrote congratulations to Lodge for his drafting of the Republican Party platform for Massachusetts, and referred to it as Lodge's "political reappearance."35 With Lodge considering another run for Congress the following year, perhaps Roosevelt considered his own political reappearance. After Lodge's loss in November 1884, Roosevelt had written to him that the Republican Party in Massachusetts "will feel thoroughly that it owes its success in the immediate past more to you than to any other one man, and that you have sacrificed yourself to save it."36 Roosevelt, then, characterized Lodge's 1884 election loss as the very means by which Lodge would reestablish himself in state politics after that divisive political year. In Roosevelt's mind, Lodge had made the necessary "sacrifice" to the political gods of Massachusetts. This letter may reveal his thoughts concerning his own position; perhaps he had come to realize that reestablishing his reputation with his own state party machine would require a similar political sacrifice.
By June 1886, Roosevelt was finishing his biography of Thomas Hart Benton, and apparently still waiting for Mayor Grace to come through with his offer of the Board of Health's presidency.37 For Roosevelt this appeared an avenue to reenter his life in the east. His letters indicated that he missed his acquaintance with Lodge and his wife Nannie, not to mention his sisters Anna and Corrine, the latter giving birth to a daughter that summer.^ Moreover, he began mentioning his daughter
34 In June 1885 Roosevelt replied to and inquiry from Walter Sage Hubbell, saying, "I really have not given a single thought to my taking a place on the state ticket this fall." TR to Hubbell, 8 June 1885, ibid., 91.
35. TR to Lodge, 7 Oct. 1885, ibid., 92. 36. TR to Lodge, 11 Nov. 1884, ibid., 88.
37. Grace was trying to replace Alexander Shaler, who was indicted for bribe-taking in December 1885. The case lasted until 1891, when Shaler was removed from office. Ibid., 91n2. However, in June 1886, Roosevelt wrote his brother-in-law Douglass Robinson asking "how long the fight will last" and when it would "be necessary for me to come back to New York." TR to Douglass Robinson, 28 June 1886, ibid., 105. Also Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard
University.
38. For example, see TR to Lodge, 7 Feb. 1886, "I really can not say how I have missed you and your 'cara sposa,' " and Roosevelt's gushing letter to Corrine upon the birth of her daughter, 5 July 1886, "How I shall love and pet and prize the little thing! It will be very, very dear to Uncle Ted's heart." Ibid., 93 and 106. Also Theodore Roosevelt Collection.
2i6 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
Alice in his letters to his sister Anna, which he had not done in the two years since her mother's death.39 Lodge had warned his friend that the Board of Health position was beneath Roosevelt's dignity, but Roosevelt feared that if he did not come back to New York, "I should very soon get to practically give up the east entirely."4° When the position in New York did not materialize, Roosevelt seemed to despair, writing Lodge: "It is no use saying that I would like a chance at something I thought I could really do; at present I see nothing whatever ahead."41 A final factor weighing in favor of Roosevelt incorporating himself once again in the political affairs of the East may have been a simple personal one: he had become secretly engaged to childhood friend Edith Carow, whom he planned to wed in England before Christmas and with whom he planned to make a home at his estate at Sagamore Hill. Roosevelt's western sojourn was over, as both the personal and the political pulled him back home to New York.
Whatever the reason, Roosevelt returned to New York in early October. He decided to attend the Republican County Convention being held in the Grand Opera House on October 15. While
Roosevelt may have attended because he was "curious" as to whom the Republicans would nominate to run for mayor against Henry George, attending the convention also marked the first time in two years he had rubbed shoulders with the party leaders.42 As he was welcomed by his loving family out in Oyster Bay on Long Island, this was also Roosevelt's political homecoming. Much to his surprise, he was asked by party lead ers to be their candidate. The 1886 New York City Republican Party divided power between machine politicians like Thomas Piatt and wealthy "Swallowtail" Republicans like Elihu Root, an old Roosevelt
39. "Do kiss the darling for me and tell her her father thinks of her and you very often." Roosevelt referred to his daughter as "baby Lee," apparently as a way of avoiding referring to her as Alice, the name she shared with her dead mother. TR to Anna Roosevelt, 7 Aug. 1886, ibid., 107. Also Theodore Roosevelt Collection. In February 1884 Roosevelt's mother and wife had died on the same day. His mother, Mittie Bulloch, died of typhoid fever. His wife Alice died of Bright's disease, an inflammation of the kidneys, soon after giving birth to a baby girl, also named Alice. Bright's disease featured prominently in 1884. Blaine was accused by his opponents of suffering from the disease, when in reality it was President Arthur who was dying from it, a fact not publicly known. Summers, Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, 4.
40. TR to Corrine Roosevelt, 5 July 1886, ibid., 107. 41. TR to Lodge, 20 Aug. 1886, ibid., 109.
family friend who had first backed Theodore for his Assembly seat. Republican reformers tended to stay aloof from the party machine, preferring instead to influence city politics through citizens' commit tees and reform clubs.43 In 1886 Roosevelt received the backing of both the district managers, controlled by party boss Thomas Piatt, and a Citizens' Committee of One Hundred that represented the reform wing of the party, thus serving the function of uniting the party behind a single candidate. Reformers were pleased at Roosevelt's nomination, but surprised. As The Nation noted of Roosevelt's selection by the party bosses, "How is it possible for him to think the 'Johnnies' and 'Jakes' and 'Mikes' sincere, when the investigations and reformatory legisla tion which he carried through were bitterly opposed and resisted by these very men."44 Probably the party bosses were not sincere, and saw Roosevelt's nomination as a mere convenience serving a larger purpose. Just as Roosevelt barely mentioned the mayoral race in his autobiogra phy, Republican boss Piatt made no mention of Roosevelt's nomination in his own autobiography. Apparently this was a compromise neither
man wanted to remember.
As Elihu Root, chairman of the county Republicans, had turned down the nomination, it seemed an open secret that the Republican nominee's chances were slim that year. In September Henry George had been overwhelmingly nominated as the United Labor candidate at a trades union meeting that represented over 40,000 workingmen. A black engineer named James Ferrol seconded the nomination, warn ing that if the people did not do their duty and vote for George, "shame be on their own heads for making their children slaves." Even the Republican New Yor\ Times admitted that the labor candidate could "express himself with enough originality and vigor to give him a good status before any audience."45 Labor enthusiasm aside, the story came down to numbers: if George could secure the workingman's vote, he stood a chance at being elected. To answer his nomination, the
43. David Hammack, Power and Society: Greater New Yor\ at the Turn of the Century (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1982), 140.
44. The Nation quoted in DeAlva Stanwood Alexander, Four Famous New Yorkers: The Political Careers of Cleveland, Piatt, Hill and Roosevelt (New York: Henry Holt, 1923), 79.
■ NEW YORK HISTORY
Democrats put forward Abram Hewitt, a popular and progressive for mer congressman whom reform-minded Republicans could support with a clear conscience, all the more so in that he was not a Tammany man.46
Roosevelt was aware of the reality of the race from the very begin ning, and had no illusions why he had been asked to run. He had not been asked "to reward him for his support of James G. Blaine in 1884," as Edmund Morris has speculated.47 Instead, Roosevelt was being asked to run as a sacrifice in the name of party unity. As he wrote to Lodge almost immediately, he faced "a perfectly hopeless contest," but that the party wanted "to get a united republican party in this city and to make a good record before the people." Roosevelt also indicated that he was not the party's first choice, but only "the strongest they could get" in the circumstances. Time and again Roosevelt asserted that he felt he had to accept the nomination, noting his "genuine reluctance." "I did not well see how I could refuse," he told a perhaps skeptical Lodge, the same person who had advised against taking the Board of Health posi tion because of the damage it might do to his friend's career. "If I could have kept out I would never have been in the contest," Roosevelt stated again, implying that politically he really did not have a choice: to con tinue in New York politics, Roosevelt had to do the bidding of the party leaders.^ If this meant sacrificing himself in the process, as Lodge had done in 1884, then so be it. By the time Roosevelt officially accepted the nomination for mayor on October 15, only two weeks before the election, he had missed the momentum of the campaign. Reports of his nomination were overshadowed by a public debate between Hewitt
46. Hewitt was a wealthy steel baron who during the depression of 1873—78 had run his plants at a loss to protect his workers' jobs (Morris, 346). See also Allan Nevins, Abram Hewitt: With Some Account of Peter Cooper (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935), esp. 460—69. Hewitt was also a founder of the anti-Tammany County Democracy that had backed Grace for mayor in 1884, and a one-time Gramercy Park neighbor of the Roosevelts.
47. Morris, 345. Morris also speculates that Roosevelt was asked to run to "lure Independents back into the fold," or because people wrongly assumed him a millionaire who could contribute to Republican coffers, or so party bosses would have a few thousand votes to trade on election day. Yet Morris does not speculate why Roosevelt accepted the nomination, saying only it was an "honor" he could not refuse as "a loyal party man." Ibid., 345-46.
48. TR to Lodge, 17 Oct. 1886, Morison, 111-12.
49. See Louis F. Post and Fred C. Leubuscher, Henry George's 1886 Campaign: An Account of the George-Hewitt Campaign in the New YorJ( Municipal Election of 1886, (New York: John W. Lovell Company, 1887; repr. Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1976.)
and George appearing in the city's newspapers.49 Indeed, George and Hewitt largely ignored Roosevelt's candidacy, as did the city's labor party press.5° By the end of Roosevelt's first week as a candidate, even the New Yor\ Herald, which supported Hewitt, ignored Roosevelt and focused on George as Hewitt's main opponent.51 This phenomenon led the authors of the first account of the campaign to write in 1887, "Mr. Roosevelt was, not only with respect to his vote, but also with respect to the importance of his candidacy, only a third party candidate."52
Even at the convention that nominated Roosevelt, a Republican speaker had told those gathered, "I do not think there are half-a-dozen men in this body who believe that Theodore Roosevelt can be elected or who will honestly support him for Mayor of this city."53 Perhaps accepting his inevitable defeat, Roosevelt contributed to his own margin alization by running a lackluster campaign. He avoided attacking either of his opponents, including George's radical philosophy, and did not try to attract voters from outside of the party.54 Instead, Roosevelt spoke to groups of Republicans, and vowed to reform the municipal govern ment. Moreover, party leaders such as Elihu Root and Joseph Choate, as well as the New Yor\ Times, which supported Roosevelt, continually emphasized the unity of the party in backing Roosevelt. While the elec tion results would clearly show that many Republicans must have voted for Hewitt, Roosevelt nonetheless enjoyed the support of an officially united Republican party in New York City—something that did not exist during the 1884 election. By speaking to gatherings of Republican regulars, emphasizing his reform platform, and with the backing of the party machine, Roosevelt not only reestablished himself as a party man, one who was palatable to party regulars and independents alike, but he helped to reunite a Republican party that he had helped to divide in
1884.
50. Howard Lawrence Hurwitz, Theodore Roosevelt and Labor in New Yor\ State, 1880—1900 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 126. Hurwitz examined The Leader, the daily paper created for George's campaign, Oct. to Nov. 1886.
51. New Yorf( Herald, 20 Oct.—3 Nov. 1886. 52. Post and Leubuscher, v.
53. New Yorf{ Evening Post, in Hurwitz, 133.
54. This is reflected in Roosevelt's rather dry letter of acceptance addressed to the Republican County Convention. TR to Elihu Root and William H. Bellamy, "Letter of Acceptance," 16 Oct. 1886, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, National Edition, 14: 68—69.
220 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
As noted before, aside from receiving the County Republican nomi nation for mayor, Roosevelt also received the nomination of the Citizens' Committee of One Hundred, a group named at a mass reform meet ing held at the Academy of Music on October 2. According to the nominating letter, Roosevelt's nomination represented "a systematic effort to reform our city government," and his election would guaran tee a city administered in the "true spirit of reform."55 That same day the Republican leaders of each Assembly district signed a public letter endorsing Roosevelt, thus, according to the Times, erasing any "doubts [as] to the sincerity of the Republican leaders" in nominating him.56
Receiving the support of both the machine politicians and the indepen dent reformers resulted in a Tribune headline declaring "United for
Roosevelt." Ironically, the same paper also included a small notice from Montpelier, Vermont, declaring "Re-Election of Senator Edmunds"—an uncomfortable reminder of the divisions of 188457
On October 20 Roosevelt addressed the Republican Club of the City of New York, and was introduced as "a man of national reputation, noted for his independence and aggressiveness." Elihu Root seemed more concerned with the Republican organization than the candidate, remarking that the meeting of the club represented the "grand spirit of organized Republicanism ... It makes a difference between the break ing up of the party and the building up of the party."58 Roosevelt, char acteristically for this campaign, spoke briefly, noting his Assembly career and the need to register Republicans. He barely mentioned George and Hewitt, leaving it to others such as Root to attack the George move ment and the Democratic machine.59 The following day the Republican Union League endorsed Roosevelt, with Joseph Choate calling him "the one man . . . who will reform our municipal government."^0 Over the
55. New Yor¡( Tribune, 20 Oct. 1886. 56. New Yorf{ Times, 20 Oct. 1886. 57. Tribune, 20 Oct. 1886.
58. Tribune, 21 Oct. 1886.
59. "I'm no believer in Mr. George's land theories," Root said, "but if the moneys paid for taxes in this great city and its vast properties are to be distributed, I would rather see them distributed among the workingmen than in salaries and in stealings among the followers and associates of Spinola and Croker and Power and Murphy, as Mr. Hewitt has promised these men they should be." Times, 21
Oct. 1886.
next several days, the same themes of a united Republican Party back ing a reform candidate were repeated throughout the city and in news papers that backed Roosevelt. A Business Men's Roosevelt Club was organized, noted the election involved "the great question of municipal reform," and asserted: "If there is a full registration of independent vot ers, Mr. Roosevelt, who has the assured support of the rank and file of his own party, will be elected beyond question."61
Roosevelt himself stressed the importance of his candidacy in fos tering party unity. Speaking to the Executive Committee of his party, Roosevelt stated his belief that "whatever the result of the election might be, he was satisfied that the party would be more firmly unified for the active work of the present campaign."62 Expressing public doubt over the outcome of the election is usually anathema for any candidate. Certainly Roosevelt expressed such doubts privately to his friends. Not only had he told Lodge there existed "not the slightest chance of my election," but he also wrote longtime friend Frances Theodora Dana:
I took the nomination with extreme reluctance, and only because the prominent party men fairly implored me. There is no chance of success (this you must be sure not to breathe as coming from me); the best I can hope for is to make a decent run; and the chances are even that my defeat will be over whelming to a degree. The simple fact is that I had to play Curtius and leap into the gulf that was yawning before the Republican party; had the chances been better I would prob ably not have been asked.63
In this letter Roosevelt repeated what he had written to Lodge just after
his nomination. That he characterized himself as "Curtius" is interest
ing. Curtius was the Roman youth who, according to myth, rode his horse into a chasm that appeared in the middle of Rome, thus saving the city. Clearly Roosevelt saw himself in the same vein, helping to end the divide in the Republican Party, and sacrificing himself in the process.
61. New Yorl\ Times, 22 Oct. 1886. 62. Tribune, 23 Oct. 1886.
63. TR to Frances Theodora Smith Dana, 21 Oct. 1886, Morison, 111. Also Theodore Roosevelt
222 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
The climax of Roosevelt's campaign came on October 27, his twenty-eighth birthday, at a large meeting of Republicans at Cooper
Union Hall. Drawing on comments that Democratic mayor Grace had made in supporting Hewitt, Roosevelt referred to himself as a "radi cal reformer," and promised, "No honest and no competent city official need fear my election . . . All sinecurists, dishonest and incompetent city officials have cause—very great cause—to fear my election." Yet in addition to underscoring his reforming tendencies, Roosevelt made plain that he was "a strong party man," even repeating at the end of his speech, "I will remain strong for my own party."64 As had happened at large Republican meetings during the campaign, someone inevitably called out, "Three Cheers for James G. Blaine!" Only the day before at a meeting of Ninth District Republicans, the cry had been answered by cheers that shook the building.65 The mention of Blaine, still seen as a possible presidential candidate in 1888, was a double-edged sword for Roosevelt. On the one hand, it reminded party regulars of Roosevelt's divisive actions during the 1884 Republican National Convention. On the other hand, it reminded independents that Roosevelt, both in the 1884 and current campaigns, had opted for the party machine. The New York, Herald sought to exploit the latter sentiment, frequently declaring that Roosevelt was the "Blaine candidate for mayor" or: "The republican vote is not to be a vote for New York, but a vote for Blaine."66 The only time Roosevelt touched upon the 1884 campaign was at a meeting of black Republicans held at the Grand Opera House on October 29. There Roosevelt mentioned the convention only to note his backing of Lynch for temporary chairman over Powell Clayton.67
Despite the optimistic headlines of the New Yor\ Times ("Roosevelt's Great Army," "Flocking to Roosevelt"), and Elihu Root's assertion that Roosevelt might attract as many as 100,000 votes, Election Day
64. Speech to Cooper Union Hall, Worfe, 14, 72—74. The National Edition mistakenly dates this speech October 15, when in reality the Cooper Union meeting took place on October 27.
65. Tribune, 26 Oct. 1886.
66. New Yor\ Herald, 23 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1886.
67. Tribune, 30 Oct. 1886. Historians appear to have overlooked this Roosevelt speech to a black audience, in particular Thomas Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, and Robert Wallace Gardner, "A Frustrated Minority: The Negro and New York City Politics of the 1880s," Negro History Bulletin 29, no. 4, (Jan. 1966), 83—84,94. Gardner says Republicans "made no obvious effort" to retain the traditionally black Republican vote.
saw the Republican nominee come in a distant third place with only about 60,000 votes, and Hewitt the victor.^ Despite Morris's belief to the contrary, Roosevelt seems to have taken the loss in stride. He took great delight in Lodge's winning a seat in Congress, and busied himself with his travel plans to England for his coming nuptials. Indeed, the day before the election Roosevelt seemed more concerned with wish ing Lodge luck and finally telling his closest friend of his engagement, since they had not been able to arrange a meeting during their respec tive campaigns.^ Roosevelt claimed "Here, I have but little chance," and placed the blame on independents who would vote for Hewitt. This was the common understanding of the election results, that
Roosevelt in 1886 was being punished the same way Lodge had been by Massachusetts independents in 1884. Roosevelt's friend Joseph Bucklin Bishop would later write that Roosevelt lost the election because inde pendent Republicans were "unable to forgive Roosevelt for his advocacy of Blaine" in 1884.7° A telling illustration of this came on election night, when Roosevelt's Uncle Robert, a former Democratic congressman, came to the Republican headquarters in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He was accosted by Republican leader Thomas Acton, a banker and former assistant treasury secretary, saying, "Ah, you did it, you Democrats who were going to vote for Roosevelt this time." Robert Roosevelt replied, "No, you Republicans did it, who were going to vote for your candi
date.'^1
True, many independents must have voted for Hewitt, yet Roosevelt and other observers probably overstated their defection in 1886.
Previous mayoral elections in New York had shown that in a three-way contest involving a reforming Democrat, the Republican candidate stood little chance. In 1886 Roosevelt won 16,000 fewer seats than Republican Alan Campbell had in 1882 in a two-way contest again Democrat Franklin Edson, a mid-term election marked by low voter turnout. Yet Roosevelt won 16,000 more votes than Republican Frederick Gibbs had in 1884 in a three-way contest with Tammany candidate Hugh Grant
68. New Yor¡( Times, 30 and 31 Oct. 1886; New Yor\ Tribune, 2 Nov. 1886. 69. TR to Lodge, 1 Nov. 1886, Morison, 115.
70. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, TR and his Times (New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1920), 42. 71. Tribune, 3 Nov. 1886.
224 ■ ΝΒΛ/YORK HISTORY
and County Democrat William Grace.72 Those 16,000 votes were crucial in a state that had swung to the Democrats in 1884 by fewer than 1,200 votes. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace recognize this in their history of New York City, Gotham·. "Given the equilibrium between Democrats and Republicans at the federal level, New York State was often the most important swing state in a presidential election, and with New York City casting a larger proportion of its state's vote than any other American city, it had provided the margin of national victory in 1880 and 1884, had come close to doing so in 1876, and would again in 1888 and 1892." With only one statewide election in New York that year, the city's 1886 mayoral race took on extra importance as an indication of Republican voting for 1888.
If privately Roosevelt blamed the same independent Republicans who had turned against him and Lodge in 1884, publicly he characterized his defeat in the same terms as he had when he accepted the nomination, as a Curtius-like sacrifice for party unity. He even gave an interview to this effect the very night of his defeat: "The result is not a surprise to me, by any means. When I accepted the nomination I thought I was entering a hopeless fight, but I have worked just as hard as though success was easily attainable, and if I have been the means of holding the Republican party in the city together I am satisfied and gratified. The party has certainly stood by me nobly and I have no complaints."73 Just as he had told Lodge after his nomination that despite his poor chances at winning, "I have a better party standing than ever before," here again Roosevelt seemed to underscore the real significance of his failed candidacy.74 He had been defeated in a greater cause, that of reuniting the Republican factions behind a single candidate. Moreover, he had campaigned both as a loyal party man, and as a "radical reformer" promising to clean up municipal politics. Appealing both to machine and independent Republicans in this way contributed to Roosevelt's later political success, as Republican nomi nee for governor of New York in 1898, and vice president in 1900.
72. Compiled by James Bradley for Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New Yor^ City (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uuniversity Press, 1995), 736.
73. Ibid.
Roosevelt would have to wait until 1888 to reap the reward for his 1886 sacrifice. That year, he campaigned vigorously for the Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison, giving speeches in Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. Arguably, though, Roosevelt had already undertaken his most valuable work for the party in 1886 by helping unite a Republican party divided after the 1884 election. In 1888 New York remained a pivotal state in an equally close election. That year, Cleveland won the nationwide popular vote by 100,000 votes, but lost the electoral vote. Harrison won his home state of Indiana by only 2,000 votes, and a united Republican Party in New York State delivered its thirty-two electoral votes to Harrison by a margin of 13,000 votes. Certainly the Republicans were aided by the divisive Blaine's decision not to run, and by President Cleveland's seemingly making the election a referendum on the tariff.75 Yet, if a divided New York Republican Party had given the presidency to Cleveland in 1884, a party that Roosevelt had united in 1886 helped give the presidency to Harrison in 1888.
Not every Republican was ready to welcome Roosevelt back into the fold, however. In early 1889 the secretary of state in the new Republican administration of Benjamin Harrison, James G. Blaine of Maine, asked Henry Cabot Lodge's wife, Nannie, to suggest "a young gentleman" for the position of assistant secretary of state.7^ As Roosevelt had cam paigned for Harrison and seemed to fit Blaine's needs well, Lodge had Nannie suggest their close friend Theodore. Blaine, however, replied, "I do somehow fear that my sleep [while vacationing] at Augusta or Bar Harbor would not quite be so easy and refreshing if so brilliant and aggressive a man had hold of the helm. Matters are constantly occur ring which require the most thoughtful concentration and inaction. Do you think that Mr. T.R.'s temperament would give guaranty of that course?""" Sensitive to his friend's feelings, Lodge did not relate to
75. Francis Curtis, The Republican Party, 1854-1904, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904), 2:
204.
76. Blaine wrote: "Do you happen to know a young gentleman—-gentleman strongly accented— not over forty-five, well-educated, speaking French well, preferably German also (with an accom plished wife thoroughly accustomed to society) and able to spend ten to fifteen thousand, twenty still better, beyond the salary he might receive?" This seemed an apt description of the wealthy, multilin gual Roosevelt, who had married Edith Carow in 1886. Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge, 103—04.
77. Richard D. White, Jr., Roosevelt the Reformer: Theodore Roosevelt as Civil Service Commissioner,
226 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
Roosevelt this part of Blaine's letter. Instead, Lodge noted Blaine's "kind expressions" for Roosevelt, including his "loyal character"—a double edged phrase the Plumed Knight wielded with incisive skill.7^
Roosevelt had to be content with the post of Civil Service
Commissioner, a good match for both Roosevelt and the new president: Harrison could placate the reformers within the party, while Roosevelt could confirm his reform credentials from with the Republican fold.79 Yet Roosevelt had his doubts. "I hated to take the place," he wrote to Charles Joseph Bonaparte after arriving in Washington, "but I hardly thought I ought to refuse."®0 While civil service reform concerned Roosevelt, he worried that challenging the spoils system would end his political career. Perhaps the post was yet another indication of Roosevelt opting to work for change from within the party.®1
Although he had dutifully campaigned for Harrison, he soon viewed the president's political appointments with some contempt. Before tak ing his position at the Civil Service Commission, Roosevelt wrote to the president of the Indiana Civil Service Reform Association, "I am going to struggle 'mighty hard' to stay in the Republican party, and it is rather discouraging to see our President in the New York appointments do, on the whole, rather worse than Cleavland \sic]. He has deliberately set to work to build up a Piatt machine, he has utterly ignored the progressive wing of the party, and he has distinctly lowered the standard of appoint ments."^2 The temporary truce of 1886 between Piatt's party machine and Roosevelt appeared over, as long as Roosevelt stayed in Washington. This he did for six years, returning to New York as police commissioner in 1895, then securing the nomination for governor in 1898. Piatt sup
78. TR to Lodge, March 25, 1889, Morison, 154; Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge, 104.
79. White, Roosevelt the Reformer, 11. See also Homer E. Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter, The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison (Lawrence, Kans., 1987), 40.
80. TR to Charles Joseph Bonaparte, 27 Jan. 1889, Morison, 161. Bonaparte was one of the founders of the National Civil Service Reform League, and was later secretary of the navy and attor ney-general during Roosevelt's presidency. He was also a grand-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. Morison, If., 151.
81. See Kohn, "Crossing the Rubicon." The irony of the 1884 campaign is that, despite Roosevelt's opposition to the party leaders over Blaine's nomination, Roosevelt's failure to bolt the party with other independents confirmed that his rightful place, in his own mind, was securely within the Republican fold.
82. TR to William Dudley Foulke, 17 April 1889, Morison, 157. As president, Roosevelt appoint
ported the nomination, not only because of Roosevelt's famed service in the Spanish-American War, but also his long public service as a Republican. However, had Roosevelt publicly vowed in 1898 to battle Piatt and his machine, Roosevelt would probably have had to seek pub lic office elsewhere. Instead, Roosevelt told the New Yor\ Herald that he would not make war on the Republican machine, and would "consult" Piatt. "Besides, it was remembered that Roosevelt had always been 'regular.' No doubt the 1886 mayoral election served the important purpose of establishing Roosevelt as a "regular" Republican. Yet when Piatt and Roosevelt inevitably clashed over New York patronage, in 1900, the Republican boss worked to place Roosevelt in a position from which the former Rough Rider could do no harm—the vice presidency. And from there, Roosevelt was only an assassin's bullet away from the
White House.
83. Harold F. Gosnell, Boss Platt and His New Yor\ Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Piatt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Others (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 96.
