Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
But, doubtless chiefly through my own fault, some of the teaching of the
law books and of the classroom seemed to me to be against justice.
The _caveat emptor_ side of the law, like the _caveat emptor_ side
of business, seemed to me repellent; it did not make for social fair
dealing. The "let the buyer beware" maxim, when translated into actual
practice, whether in law or business, tends to translate itself further
into the seller making his profit at the expense of the buyer, instead
of by a bargain which shall be to the profit of both. It did not seem
to me that the law was framed to discourage as it should sharp practice,
and all other kinds of bargains except those which are fair and of
benefit to both sides. I was young; there was much in the judgment which
I then formed on this matter which I should now revise; but, then as
now, many of the big corporation lawyers, to whom the ordinary members
of the bar then as now looked up, held certain standards which were
difficult to recognize as compatible with the idealism I suppose every
high-minded young man is apt to feel. If I had been obliged to earn
every cent I spent, I should have gone whole-heartedly into the business
of making both ends meet, and should have taken up the law or any other
respectable occupation--for I then held, and now hold, the belief that
a man's first duty is to pull his own weight and to take care of those
dependent upon him; and I then believed, and now believe, that the
greatest privilege and greatest duty for any man is to be happily
married, and that no other form of success or service, for either man
or woman, can be wisely accepted as a substitute or alternative. But it
happened that I had been left enough money by my father not to make
it necessary for me to think solely of earning bread for myself and my
family. I had enough to get bread. What I had to do, if I wanted butter
and jam, was to provide the butter and jam, but to count their cost
as compared with other things. In other words, I made up my mind that,
while I must earn money, I could afford to make earning money the
secondary instead of the primary object of my career. If I had had
no money at all, then my first duty would have been to earn it in any
honest fashion. As I had some money I felt that my need for more money
was to be treated as a secondary need, and that while it was my business
to make more money where I legitimately and properly could, yet that it
was also my business to treat other kinds of work as more important than
money-making.
Almost immediately after leaving Harvard in 1880 I began to take an
interest in politics. I did not then believe, and I do not now believe,
that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It
is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole
livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such
a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while
in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to
barter his convictions for the sake of holding office. A man should have
some other occupation--I had several other occupations--to which he can
resort if at any time he is thrown out of office, or if at any time he
finds it necessary to choose a course which will probably result in
his being thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his
conscience.
At that day, in 1880, a young man of my bringing up and convictions
could join only the Republican party, and join it I accordingly did.
It was no simple thing to join it then. That was long before the era of
ballot reform and the control of primaries; long before the era when we
realized that the Government must take official notice of the deeds and
acts of party organizations. The party was still treated as a private
corporation, and in each district the organization formed a kind of
social and political club. A man had to be regularly proposed for and
elected into this club, just as into any other club. As a friend of mine
picturesquely phrased it, I "had to break into the organization with a
jimmy."
Under these circumstances there was some difficulty in joining the local
organization, and considerable amusement and excitement to be obtained
out of it after I had joined.
It was over thirty-three years ago that I thus became a member of the
Twenty-first District Republican Association in the city of New York.
The men I knew best were the men in the clubs of social pretension
and the men of cultivated taste and easy life. When I began to make
inquiries as to the whereabouts of the local Republican Association and
the means of joining it, these men--and the big business men and lawyers
also--laughed at me, and told me that politics were "low"; that the
organizations were not controlled by "gentlemen"; that I would find them
run by saloon-keepers, horse-car conductors, and the like, and not by
men with any of whom I would come in contact outside; and, moreover,
they assured me that the men I met would be rough and brutal and
unpleasant to deal with. I answered that if this were so it merely meant
that the people I knew did not belong to the governing class, and that
the other people did--and that I intended to be one of the governing
class; that if they proved too hard-bit for me I supposed I would have
to quit, but that I certainly would not quit until I had made the effort
and found out whether I really was too weak to hold my own in the rough
and tumble.
The Republican Association of which I became a member held its meetings
in Morton Hall, a large, barn-like room over a saloon. Its furniture was
of the canonical kind: dingy benches, spittoons, a dais at one end with
a table and chair and a stout pitcher for iced water, and on the walls
pictures of General Grant, and of Levi P. Morton, to whose generosity
we owed the room. We had regular meetings once or twice a month, and
between times the place was treated, at least on certain nights, as a
kind of club-room. I went around there often enough to have the men get
accustomed to me and to have me get accustomed to them, so that we began
to speak the same language, and so that each could begin to live down in
the other's mind what Bret Harte has called "the defective moral quality
of being a stranger." It is not often that a man can make opportunities
for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the
opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them. This was what
happened to me in connection with my experiences in Morton Hall. I soon
became on good terms with a number of the ordinary "heelers" and even
some of the minor leaders. The big leader was Jake Hess, who treated
me with rather distant affability. There were prominent lawyers and
business men who belonged, but they took little part in the actual
meetings. What they did was done elsewhere. The running of the machine
was left to Jake Hess and his captains of tens and of hundreds.
Among these lesser captains I soon struck up a friendship with Joe
Murray, a friendship which is as strong now as it was thirty-three years
ago. He had been born in Ireland, but brought to New York by his parents
when he was three or four years old, and, as he expressed it, "raised as
a barefooted boy on First Avenue." When not eighteen he had enlisted in
the Army of the Potomac and taken part in the campaign that closed the
Civil War. Then he came back to First Avenue, and, being a fearless,
powerful, energetic young fellow, careless and reckless, speedily grew
to some prominence as leader of a gang. In that district, and at that
time, politics was a rough business, and Tammany Hall held unquestioned
sway. The district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and Joe and his
friends were Democrats who on election day performed the usual gang
work for the local Democratic leader, whose business it was to favor and
reward them in return. This same local leader, like many other greater
leaders, became puffed up by prosperity, and forgot the instruments
through which he had achieved prosperity. After one election he showed a
callous indifference to the hard work of the gang and complete disregard
of his before-election promises. He counted upon the resentment wearing
itself out, as usual, in threats and bluster.
But Joe Murray was not a man who forgot. He explained to his gang his
purposes and the necessity of being quiet. Accordingly they waited for
their revenge until the next election day. They then, as Joe expressed
it, decided "to vote furdest away from the leader"--I am using the
language of Joe's youth--and the best way to do this was to vote
the Republican ticket. In those days each party had a booth near the
polling-place in each election district, where the party representative
dispensed the party ballots. This had been a district in which, as a
rule, very early in the day the Republican election leader had his
hat knocked over his eyes and his booth kicked over and his ballots
scattered; and then the size of the Democratic majority depended on an
elastic appreciation of exactly how much was demanded from headquarters.
But on this day things went differently. The gang, with a Roman sense
of duty, took an active interest in seeing that the Republican was given
his full rights. Moreover, they made the most energetic reprisals on
their opponents, and as they were distinctly the tough and fighting
element, justice came to her own with a whoop. Would-be repeaters were
thrown out on their heads. Every person who could be cajoled or, I fear,
intimidated, was given the Republican ticket, and the upshot was that at
the end of the day a district which had never hitherto polled more than
two or three per cent of its vote Republican broke about even between
the two parties.
To Joe it had been merely an act of retribution in so far as it was not
simply a spree. But the leaders at the Republican headquarters did not
know this, and when they got over their paralyzed astonishment at the
returns, they investigated to find out what it meant. Somebody told
them that it represented the work of a young man named Joseph Murray.
Accordingly they sent for him. The room in which they received him was
doubtless some place like Morton Hall, and the men who received him were
akin to those who had leadership in Morton Hall; but in Joe's eyes
they stood for a higher civilization, for opportunity, for generous
recognition of successful effort--in short, for all the things that an
eager young man desires. He was received and patted on the back by a man
who was a great man to the world in which he lived. He was introduced
to the audience as a young man whose achievement was such as to
promise much for the future, and moreover he was given a place in the
post-office--as I have said, this was long before the day of Civil
Service Reform.
Now, to the wrong kind of man all this might have meant nothing at
all. But in Joe Murray's case it meant everything. He was by nature as
straight a man, as fearless and as stanchly loyal, as any one whom I
have ever met, a man to be trusted in any position demanding courage,
integrity, and good faith. He did his duty in the public service, and
became devotedly attached to the organization which he felt had given
him his chance in life. When I knew him he was already making his
way up; one of the proofs and evidences of which was that he owned a
first-class racing trotter--"Alice Lane"--behind which he gave me more
than one spin. During this first winter I grew to like Joe and his
particular cronies. But I had no idea that they especially returned the
liking, and in the first row we had in the organization (which arose
over a movement, that I backed, to stand by a non-partisan method of