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.Hemeant to be a strong executive who would make policyand manage the government, who would tackle the newindustrial order.He knew that he had to create a new kindof politics to succeed.In his words, he would strive for ef-ficiency, honesty, morality, principle, duty, courage, char-acter above all, and common sense.He planned to bringto his tasks, additionally, persuasion and publicity.A for-eign observer saw Roosevelt at the time as  reason madehot by passion.Jacob Riis, the preeminent reform journalist in NewYork and a great admirer of Roosevelt, was ecstatic uponthe new governor s arrival in Albany. The whole big stateshouted with us, he wrote. Theodore Roosevelt wasGovernor, elected upon the pledge that he would rule bythe Ten Commandments. The new chief executive did1120465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 113Man of the Hournot disappoint his admirers, as he delivered a short andmemorable inaugural address to the legislature on January2, 1899.Roosevelt intended to get done all the things thatwere left undone by a recalcitrant legislature when he was athree-term assemblyman.Roosevelt s annual message, delivered on the heels ofhis inaugural, was more specific and expansive.Hetouched on the excesses of the new capitalism of large cor-porations and their financial benefactors, whose synergyamassed immense wealth, some of which bought politicalfavors.He wanted to assist the laboring man caught up inwhat seemed a social Darwinism, a survival of the fittest.He intended to protect watersheds and the environmentfrom pollution and keep lands pristine for wildlife.Roose-velt wanted to make taxation more equitable, clean uppolitics by uncoupling party machinery from businesstribute, and replace an incompetent judiciary.A uniformcivil service was also a goal.Roosevelt s language in this first message revealed theman thinking out loud on governing:There is much less need of genius or of any special brilliancy inthe administration of our government than there is suchhomely virtues and qualities as common sense, honesty, andcourage.All that can be done is to face the facts as we find them, tomeet each difficulty in practical fashion, and to strive steadilyfor the betterment both of our civic and our social conditions.In the long run, he serves his party best who most helps tomake it instantly responsive to every need of the people, and tothe highest demands of that spirit which tends to drive us on-ward and upward.1130465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 114lion in the white houseRoosevelt got along well with Boss Platt, who oftenmet him in New York City to hash out goals and proce-dures.Platt liked to think of himself as a schoolmaster topoliticians.If Henry Adams, distant heir to two presidents,thought Platt would  cut Roosevelt s throat, the lamb wasnot brought to slaughter.Roosevelt reveled in being in Al-bany, which he saw as a  little English cathedral town.  Itis rather good to be here, he wrote.He viewed himself as aregular  republican. He worked with his party when hecould, or slid out from under it when necessary.He at-tracted new followers with his inspired publicity.He usedhis popularity as a force within and outside his party andalways spoke plainly.He began coining memorable phrases as spurs to ambi-tion:  Let us live in the harness.Let us rather run the riskof wearing out than rusting out.The virtue worth having isthe virtue that can sustain the rough shock of actual liv-ing. All his life, words would be weapons for a peopleyearning for the great romances of their history, which, af-ter the Civil War, were fading.How did the young governor think of his progress? Hewrote to a follower:So far things have gone along very smoothly.Senator Platt[who had made himself U.S.senator] and I have had to step onseveral matters in which he, on behalf of the organization, wasgreatly interested; but he has been most kind and most consid-erate.In return I have been scrupulously careful to tell him ex-actly what I intend to do and not to go back one hair s breadthon my word in any case.For the first five weeks, therefore, wehave gotten along very well.Of course I shall have difficulties1140465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 115Man of the Hourahead of me with the machine on one side and the idiot inde-pendents on the other, but I am fortunate in the fact that I amnot trying to build up a machine for myself and that I am let-ting the question of a re-nomination take care of itself.Roosevelt s two-year term was for him a period of ex-hortation and continual thinking about the proper contentof politics.One thousand bills were passed by the legisla-ture and signed by the governor, and five hundred lan-guished or were rejected.He said he was often exhaustedby the work because nothing escaped his attention.He wastireless in talking to legislators, leaders, and prominentpersonages.He brokered arrangements, traveled the state,held press conferences twice a day of fifteen minutes each,and sought advice from stellar academic experts.He wrotehundreds of letters, many even on international affairs,which he never slighted.Roosevelt s signature battle was for a bill that would, forthe first time, tax franchises that had received grants fromthe state, at no cost to them, to provide public utilitiesgas, electric, water, and transportation.These lucrativegrants soon became immense engines of personal for-tunes as well as of political bribes.After a titanic fight us-ing shrewd politics, Roosevelt was successful, much to theinfinite dismay of financiers like J.P.Morgan and machinepoliticians.The franchises were now taxed as real estate bythe state, the taxes on them yielding $11.5 million that couldbe spent on state needs.Roosevelt knew a great triumphwhen he won it. We have on the statute books the mostimportant law passed in recent times by any AmericanState legislature, he recorded.1150465010240-Donald [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]