Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
In the latter case my chief opponents and critics were local politicians
who were truckling to the labor vote; but in all cases coming under the
first two categories I had serious trouble with the State leaders of the
machine. I always did my best, in good faith, to get Mr. Platt and the
other heads of the machine to accept my views, and to convince them,
by repeated private conversations, that I was right. I never wantonly
antagonized or humiliated them. I did not wish to humiliate them or to
seem victorious over them; what I wished was to secure the things that
I thought it essential to the men and women of the State to secure. If I
could finally persuade them to support me, well and good; in such case I
continued to work with them in the friendliest manner.
If after repeated and persistent effort I failed to get them to support
me, then I made a fair fight in the open, and in a majority of cases I
carried my point and succeeded in getting through the legislation which
I wished. In theory the Executive has nothing to do with legislation. In
practice, as things now are, the Executive is or ought to be peculiarly
representative of the people as a whole. As often as not the action
of the Executive offers the only means by which the people can get the
legislation they demand and ought to have. Therefore a good executive
under the present conditions of American political life must take a very
active interest in getting the right kind of legislation, in addition
to performing his executive duties with an eye single to the public
welfare. More than half of my work as Governor was in the direction of
getting needed and important legislation. I accomplished this only by
arousing the people, and riveting their attention on what was done.
Gradually the people began to wake up more and more to the fact that the
machine politicians were not giving them the kind of government which
they wished. As this waking up grew more general, not merely in New York
or any other one State, but throughout most of the Nation, the power
of the bosses waned. Then a curious thing happened. The professional
reformers who had most loudly criticized these bosses began to change
toward them. Newspaper editors, college presidents, corporation lawyers,
and big business men, all alike, had denounced the bosses and had taken
part in reform movements against them so long as these reforms dealt
only with things that were superficial, or with fundamental things that
did not affect themselves and their associates. But the majority
of these men turned to the support of the bosses when the great new
movement began clearly to make itself evident as one against privilege
in business no less than against privilege in politics, as one for
social and industrial no less than for political righteousness and fair
dealing. The big corporation lawyer who had antagonized the boss in
matters which he regarded as purely political stood shoulder to shoulder
with the boss when the movement for betterment took shape in direct
attack on the combination of business with politics and with the
judiciary which has done so much to enthrone privilege in the economic
world.
The reformers who denounced political corruption and fraud when shown
at the expense of their own candidates by machine ward heelers of a low
type hysterically applauded similar corrupt trickery when practiced by
these same politicians against men with whose political and industrial
programme the reformers were not in sympathy. I had always been
instinctively and by nature a democrat, but if I had needed conversion
to the democratic ideal here in America the stimulus would have been
supplied by what I saw of the attitude, not merely of the bulk of the
men of greatest wealth, but of the bulk of the men who most prided
themselves upon their education and culture, when we began in good faith
to grapple with the wrong and injustice of our social and industrial
system, and to hit at the men responsible for the wrong, no matter how
high they stood in business or in politics, at the bar or on the bench.
It was while I was Governor, and especially in connection with the
franchise tax legislation, that I first became thoroughly aware of the
real causes of this attitude among the men of great wealth and among the
men who took their tone from the men of great wealth.
Very soon after my victory in the race for Governor I had one or two
experiences with Senator Platt which showed in amusing fashion how
absolute the rule of the boss was in the politics of that day. Senator
Platt, who was always most kind and friendly in his personal relations
with me, asked me in one day to talk over what was to be done at Albany.
He had the two or three nominal heads of the organization with him. They
were his lieutenants, who counseled and influenced him, whose advice he
often followed, but who, when he had finally made up his mind, merely
registered and carried out his decrees. After a little conversation the
Senator asked if I had any member of the Assembly whom I wished to
have put on any committee, explaining that the committees were being
arranged. I answered no, and expressed my surprise at what he had said,
because I had not understood the Speaker who appointed the committees
had himself been agreed upon by the members-elect. "Oh!" responded the
Senator, with a tolerant smile, "He has not been chosen yet, but of
course whoever we choose as Speaker will agree beforehand to make the
appointments we wish." I made a mental note to the effect that if they
attempted the same process with the Governor-elect they would find
themselves mistaken.
In a few days the opportunity to prove this arrived. Under the preceding
Administration there had been grave scandals about the Erie Canal, the
trans-State Canal, and these scandals had been one of the chief issues
in the campaign for the Governorship. The construction of this work was
under the control of the Superintendent of Public Works. In the actual
state of affairs his office was by far the most important office under
me, and I intended to appoint to it some man of high character and
capacity who could be trusted to do the work not merely honestly and
efficiently, but without regard to politics. A week or so after the
Speakership incident Senator Platt asked me to come and see him (he was
an old and physically feeble man, able to move about only with extreme
difficulty).
On arrival I found the Lieutenant-Governor elect, Mr. Woodruff, who had
also been asked to come. The Senator informed me that he was glad to
say that I would have a most admirable man as Superintendent of Public
Works, as he had just received a telegram from a certain gentleman, whom
he named, saying that he would accept the position! He handed me the
telegram. The man in question was a man I liked; later I appointed him
to an important office in which he did well. But he came from a city
along the line of the canal, so that I did not think it best that he
should be appointed anyhow; and, moreover, what was far more important,
it was necessary to have it understood at the very outset that the
Administration was my Administration and was no one else's but mine. So
I told the Senator very politely that I was sorry, but that I could not
appoint his man. This produced an explosion, but I declined to lose my
temper, merely repeating that I must decline to accept any man chosen
for me, and that I must choose the man myself. Although I was very
polite, I was also very firm, and Mr. Platt and his friends finally
abandoned their position.
I appointed an engineer from Brooklyn, a veteran of the Civil War,
Colonel Partridge, who had served in Mayor Low's administration. He was
an excellent man in every way. He chose as his assistant, actively to
superintend the work, a Cornell graduate named Elon Hooker, a man with
no political backing at all, picked simply because he was the best
equipped man for the place. The office, the most important office under
me, was run in admirable fashion throughout my Administration; I
doubt if there ever was an important department of the New York State
Government run with a higher standard of efficiency and integrity.
But this was not all that had to be done about the canals. Evidently
the whole policy hitherto pursued had been foolish and inadequate. I
appointed a first-class non-partisan commission of business men and
expert engineers who went into the matter exhaustively, and their report
served as the basis upon which our entire present canal system is based.
There remained the question of determining whether the canal officials
who were in office before I became Governor, and whom I had declined to
reappoint, had been guilty of any action because of which it would be
possible to proceed against them criminally or otherwise under the law.
Such criminal action had been freely charged against them during the
campaign by the Democratic (including the so-called mugwump) press. To
determine this matter I appointed two Democratic lawyers, Messrs. Fox
and MacFarlane (the latter Federal District Attorney for New York under
President Cleveland), and put the whole investigation in their hands.
These gentlemen made an exhaustive investigation lasting several months.
They reported that there had been grave delinquency in the prosecution
of the work, delinquency which justified public condemnation of those
responsible for it (who were out of office), but that there was
no ground for criminal prosecution. I laid their report before the
Legislature with a message in which I said: "There is probably no lawyer
of high standing in the State who, after studying the report of counsel
in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission,
would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful
prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough
change in the methods and management. This change has been made."
When my successor in the Governorship took office, Colonel Partridge
retired, and Elon Hooker, finding that he could no longer act with
entire disregard of politics and with an eye single to the efficiency of
the work, also left. A dozen years later--having in the meantime made
a marked success in a business career--he became the Treasurer of the
National Progressive party.
My action in regard to the canals, and the management of his office,
the most important office under me, by Colonel Partridge, established
my relations with Mr. Platt from the outset on pretty nearly the right
basis. But, besides various small difficulties, we had one or two
serious bits of trouble before my duties as Governor ceased. It must be
remembered that Mr. Platt was to all intents and purposes a large part
of, and sometimes a majority of, the Legislature. There were a few
entirely independent men such as Nathaniel Elsberg, Regis Post, and
Alford Cooley, in each of the two houses; the remainder were under the
control of the Republican and Democratic bosses, but could also be more
or less influenced by an aroused public opinion. The two machines were
apt to make common cause if their vital interests were touched. It was
my business to devise methods by which either the two machines could be
kept apart or else overthrown if they came together.
My desire was to achieve results, and not merely to issue manifestoes
of virtue. It is very easy to be efficient if the efficiency is based
on unscrupulousness, and it is still easier to be virtuous if one is
content with the purely negative virtue which consists in not doing
anything wrong, but being wholly unable to accomplish anything positive
for good. My favorite quotation from Josh Billings again applies: It is
so much easier to be a harmless dove than a wise serpent. My duty was to