CHAPTER FIVE
On Thursday, April 22, British naval expert Fred T. Jane revealed in Liverpool that the Germans had attempted to land an expeditionary force in England and been beaten back by the Royal Navy. In Detroit, Michigan, the Ford Motor Company announced an increase in the minimum wage for its Canadian workers to 50 cents an hour or $4 a day, while reducing working hours to 48 hours weekly, bringing them closer to the $5 daily minimum wage for American workers. While New York City sweltered under record-setting temperatures, more than 1,200,000 shares traded on the Stock Exchange, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing at 71.26.
In the city of Syracuse, business went on as usual. More than a thousand employees turned out seventy-five luxury Franklin automobiles with its unique air-cooled engine. In factories scattered throughout the city, workers assembled the various brands of typewriters that had established Syracuse as “The Typewriter Capital of the World,” proudly producing more than half the standard typing machines in use in America. For five cents patrons could see Chaplin in a rip-roaring comedy as well as European war pictures in the “delightfully cool” Hippodrome theater. But the attention of the city remained focused on the courthouse, where William Ivins would begin his cross-examination of Theodore Roosevelt.
Thus far, Ivins had been on the defensive, limited to being a disrupter; but now he would have his opportunity to go at the Colonel with all of the skills in his kit bag. Roosevelt had made his case. Ivins’s task was to rip it to shreds, and the only way possible to accomplish that was to prove the Colonel was a hollow man.
One minor change had been made in the courtroom: the small American flags reporters had been waving to attract a messenger had been disappearing, having become desirable souvenirs, and push buttons that flashed a light had been installed in front of each chair overnight.
When Judge Andrews opened the proceedings at precisely 10:00 a.m., the only empty seat in the otherwise packed courtroom was the front row chair reserved exclusively for Francis Hendricks, the revered Syracuse octogenarian, former mayor and state legislator. Guards turned away several spectators who sought to fill it.
Trial days almost always begin with legal bookkeeping; exhibits are entered into evidence, motions are made, procedural problems are discussed. On this morning the defense submitted the articles and reports previously proposed as evidence, to which Ivins objected and mostly was overruled. When all that was done, Bowers recalled Roosevelt to the stand to ask two questions he admittedly had neglected to ask. Most important was the Colonel’s personal response to Barnes’s plea not to open a State printing house.
Roosevelt retook the stand and smiled toothily at the jury. When he was ready, he jutted his jaw at Bowers, as if giving him permission to ask his question. Yes, he said, he had met personally with Barnes to talk about the fear he had expressed in his letter, but rather than Barnes complaining about the possibility of financial disaster or ruin, the man had argued that “the establishment of a State printing office would be in the line of a populistic or socialistic propaganda that would interfere with private initiative in business, and ought not to be done.”
And second, T.R. admitted readily that he had wanted his article spread throughout the state, admitting, “I wrote it out carefully so that it should be carried in full...
“I believed that it would receive some publication outside the state, but as to that I was entirely indifferent...my aim was solely the publication in New York State, so it might be read by the voters of the state.”
His questions done, Bowers sat down, and the much anticipated Ivins cross-examination of Teddy Roosevelt began.
The courtroom was silent as Ivins moved into the spotlight, carefully placing his chair a few feet in front of the Colonel, forcing the witness to look at him rather than the jury, and speaking in a normal, almost conciliatory voice, a tone that suggested no rancor at all, that this was simply a conversation intended to clear up some pesky disagreements. His carefully tailored dark suit was set off by his silk skullcap and dapper white spats.
Roosevelt waited; crossing his right leg over his left, and perhaps displaying some element of nervousness as his right foot began wiggling. In preparation for this encounter, he had given his counsel one specific instruction: they were not to object at all during this phase; he needed no assistance, he would take on Ivins himself.
It was a significant pairing, two men who had reached the top of their professions, bringing their decades of experience to this moment. As pugilists might begin an epic fight, there was some feeling each other out. Like Bowers, Ivins led the Colonel through his personal history: He had graduated from Harvard in 1880. He had studied a year at Columbia Law School but was never admitted to the bar. He was a ranchman on the Little Missouri River. And had spent his life following three vocations or avocations: “An author and a ranchman and a naturalist or explorer.” And, when prompted by Ivins, “I have also been an office holder,” beginning in 1881 when he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature.
During your years in the legislature, Ivins wondered aloud, “(Did you) familiarize yourself with the Constitution of the state?” For example, he followed up, “Did you...have to consider the constitutionality of provisions with regard to the eligibility of the Governor?”
His initial foray had begun.
“No,” the Colonel answered. “Never heard of it.”
As Ivins had the witness recount the several governmental investigative committees on which he had served, the inevitable clash of two such massive personalities began. Ivins was attempting to show that rather than adhering piously to the law, when it suited his needs Roosevelt had been a lawless rogue. During an investigation of the sheriff’s office, Ivins queried, “Did you see any representative of Sheriff Davidson, permit him to appear before you or call your attention to any of the facts of his administration or that office?”
“Why, our senior counsel was Wheeler H. Peckham...”
Ivins interrupted and demanded loudly, “You can answer my question yes or no, can’t you?”
Roosevelt smiled as he responded, “I can answer to this extent, it is a great many years ago.”
“Just as many for me as it is for you?” Ivins responded with a bit of sarcasm dripping into his voice.
“Just as many for you as it is for me,” the Colonel agreed, as the spectators laughed loudly at this exchange, “and I can only say I employed Mr. Peckham because I believed him to be incapable of doing injustice to any man.”
During these investigations, Ivins asked, “Did you as Chairman regard in any way the rules of law with regard to the competency or relevancy or materiality of testimony?”
Roosevelt responded that he took the advice of his counsel, because “I was not a lawyer!”
“Then,” Ivins suggested, “you have no recollection whatever at this present time as to whether or not any of the rules of law were applied in the reception of testimony in the matter of this investigation?”
The art of being an effective witness requires not only answering each question to your own benefit, it also means not leaving opposing counsel any openings or falling into any traps. Roosevelt, perhaps not certain where Ivins was heading, was wary. “I have not,” he responded, “because I trusted Messrs. Peckham and Miller as to that. I know that substantial justice was done.”
Ivins smiled pleasantly. “How do you know that substantial justice was done?”
The Colonel literally yelled out his answer with delight, “Because I did it!” The courtroom rocked in appreciation of this repartee as the witness added, “Because I was conducting the investigation and doing my best...”
The battle was joined; Ivins was a ready match for him, turning his words back on him, “You mean thereby to say that when you do a thing that you thereby know that substantial justice is done?”
“I do. And when I do a thing I do it to do substantial justice; I mean just that.”
For an attorney the art of being an effective interrogator requires listening to words rather than sentences, and instantly being able to infer their meaning and slip them seamlessly into your strategy. “You didn’t say that you did it to do substantial justice; you said you knew substantial justice was done.”
“I said I knew in that case that substantial justice was done.”
Ivins moved on to Roosevelt’s unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York, ironically, something these two had in common. Ivins attempted to show that the Colonel had worked with the Republican machine in that effort, asking, “Isn’t it a fact that the only nomination which you received was the Republican nomination, Mr. Roosevelt, isn’t that a fact?”
“I think not!” T.R. responded, adding, “There was an independent citizen’s movement of me and it was prior to the Republican nomination to office.”
“Your memory is good,” Ivins complimented.
Compliments, of course, are a fine weapon during an examination. “It is pretty good,” the Colonel agreed.
“It has been especially good with reference to certain matters you have testified to, has it not?”
“It has.”
“Can you make it more specifically good as regards to the so-called Independents who nominated or supported you in that campaign?”
“I cannot,” he conceded, then naming only two of the many men involved in the citizens movement.
Ivins pressed him on his reluctance to admit he was dependent on the Republican Party, asking, “Isn’t it a fact that your speeches were made as a Republican?”
“My speeches were made as a Citizens and Republican candidate; I could not be more specific than that.”
Eventually Ivins got to the result. “That was one of the campaigns in which you were not successful, isn’t it?”
“I was beaten.”
Ivins began playing his man as he might a fine instrument, bridging his strongest movements with seemingly pleasant interludes. He allowed the Colonel to talk about his ranch, where he had spent “a great part of the time” for almost six years writing there. “I think I wrote The Winning of the West in the year 1887; now I cannot be definite about that Mr. Ivins because many of the books I have written chapters and parts that would appeal to me and then I would put them aside and take them up years afterwards.”
“Just like the rest of us authors,” Ivins agreed. Ivins was the author of several books and articles, among them the 1887 book Machine Politics & Money in Elections in New York City, as well as coauthoring the article “Rosicrucianism,” which was published in the Spiritual Scientist and led to his professional and personal relationship with the Mother of the Occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky.
After a pleasant sounding exchange, Ivins made his first direct assault on Roosevelt’s character by suggesting this prominent man may have been a tax dodger: “From the Spring of 1889 until your retirement from the Civil Service Commissionership where did you live?”
“I lived the summer at Oyster Bay and in the winter and part of the summer at Washington.”
“Your residence was at Oyster Bay?”
The Colonel steeled himself for the charge that was coming, his face turning serious, grim even as he replied, “My residence (was) at Oyster Bay.”
Ivins asked evenly, “Did you pay taxes in Oyster Bay?”
Roosevelt was firm in his response, “I paid taxes in Oyster Bay. It may have been that for a year or two I paid taxes in New York.”
Ivins established that the Colonel did not own real estate in New York City, and wondered, “If you lived in Oyster Bay or in Washington or at the Ranch, why did you pay any taxes in New York City?”
For the first time T.R. faltered, realizing Ivins was scoring points. “I don’t think I did; but I can’t be sure, Mr. Ivins.”
The federal income tax had been instituted by a constitutional amendment in 1913, and after years of debate remained a very sensitive subject. The possibility that a former president had avoided taxes would be scandalous and seriously damage Roosevelt’s reputation for honesty. “Did you during these years pay any personal taxes in Oyster Bay?”
“My memory is that I did.”
“Do you remember if there was a time came in which you did not pay personal taxes in Oyster Bay?”
“When I was Police Commissioner I resided in New York City and I believe I paid personal taxes in New York City.”
From there Ivins launched a second attack on Roosevelt’s credibility. “You testified that the purpose of your residence in the city of Washington in 1898 was in preparation for your war service in the army?”
“No sir,” the Colonel responded firmly. The easy banter that marked the beginning of this testimony was gone now. “The purpose of my residence there was because I was to carry on my duties as assistant Secretary of the Navy.”
“When did you receive your commission to organize the regiment as Lieutenant Colonel?”
“About May 1, 1898.”
“So that your residence in Washington covered a period of about a year?”
Roosevelt agreed.
“Did you pay any taxes in Oyster Bay in the year 1897 other than real estate taxes?”
The courtroom was silent. Now Roosevelt was on the defensive. “That I can’t tell you,” T.R. responded.
“Do you remember having made an affidavit in 1897?”
“No, I don’t remember.” Having testified previously with great confidence about the strength of his memory, his failure to recall these things seemed curious.
“With the authorities at Oyster Bay to the effect that you were a resident of the City of New York?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
Ivins pressed his advantage but did so calmly, which made it even more effective. “Are you prepared to swear affirmatively that you did pay taxes on your personal property as a resident of Oyster Bay in 1897?”
The spectators shifted uneasily in their seats. “I am not.”
“Are you prepared to swear that you did pay taxes as a resident of the City of New York on your personal property in 1897?”
Again, “I am not; I don’t remember anything about it.”
“Do you remember having received notice of assessment on personal property for purposes of taxation in the City of New York at any time in 1898?”
“Yes, I remember having received a notice.” He sent it on to his lawyers, he added. And no, he did not remember appearing before the tax commissioners concerning this assessment.
Roosevelt had held sway in the courtroom, but now Ivins had turned it round on him. “Do you remember having made an affidavit on the 21st of March, 1898 in regard to your residence and the question as to whether or not you were subject to taxation in the City of New York.”
The confident timbre was gone from Roosevelt’s voice as he admitted, with a resigned calmness, “I do... I think it was made in Washington.”
Ivins produced a copy of that affidavit and read it for the court. The key elements of it read, “Since 1897 I have not had any domicile or residence in New York City and have not or do not own or lease any dwelling house there whatsoever... In October last my family came on here from Oyster Bay, Long Island and since then I have been and now am a resident of Washington.” It was then entered as evidence.
The attorney then sprung the trap he had so carefully prepared. This was about much more than just possible tax dodging; it was about Roosevelt’s eligibility for office. In the same carefully modulated tone, Ivins asked, “Mr. Roosevelt, I call your attention to Section 2 of Article 4 of the Constitution of this State: ‘No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor...except a citizen of the United States of the age of not less than thirty years, who shall have been five years next preceding a resident of this State.’
“When did you first become acquainted with that qualification on the eligibility for Governorship?”
“On my return from the Spanish War; after I came back and the Regiment was disbanded at Wyckoff.”
In complete control now, Ivins made his point; Roosevelt had not been eligible to run for the governorship. By doing so, Ivins inferred, he was no different than those politicians he had called dishonest. “So that when you made this affidavit you had no knowledge whatever that the Constitution of the State of New York required a previous five-year residence in the State for eligibility for the Governorship?”
Roosevelt maintained his calm demeanor, although there was a little fight in his response. “I don’t believe I did; I may have, but my attention hadn’t been called to it.”
Ivins then put into evidence several certificates from the War Department dated May 1898 stating that Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt was a resident of Washington.
In slightly more than two hours, William Ivins had proved his mettle, demonstrating beyond any doubt why he was so widely acclaimed. He had brought together great preparation, incisive questioning and a calm courtroom manner to shake the underpinnings of one of the most respected and admired men in the world. It had been the star turn the people had anticipated. “His reputation for sagacity is nationwide,” reported the Syracuse Journal, “and he lives up to his reputation. His tongue is quick, his accents are vitriolic, he is a master of the art of retort.”
And it was only the beginning. But to the relief of Teddy Roosevelt’s supporters, Judge Andrews recessed the court for lunch.
The instant court resumed, Roosevelt launched his counterattack. He had been busy during the break, arming himself with the documents he needed to refute Ivins’s claims. Rather than taking his seat in the witness box, the Colonel stood defiantly. “Mr. Ivins,” he began in a booming voice, “you asked me about my paying the taxes at Oyster Bay in 1897. I told you I could not answer. Since then I have found—I have been handed the tax receipts. I did pay them in Oyster Bay for that and the preceding years on real and personal property.”
Then he took a broad step forward and literally shoved the pile of documents into Ivins’s hands. With that he took his seat on the stand, turned to face the jury to share this victory with the men, and smiled broadly.
Ivins was seated; he seemed barely ruffled by the Colonel’s display. As he glanced at the papers he said, “You have handed me papers which apparently show that you drew a check to the Town of Oyster Bay for $412.57 on the 19th of January, 1898. That does not indicate, does it, whether it was for real or personal property?”
Roosevelt had regained some of his lost prestige; he responded so there could be no mistaking his submission, “I believe that that was for real and personal property precisely like the preceding receipts. I had receipts which said it was for real and personal property for 1897, 1896, 1895 and 1894, but in 1898 there is only a check, but for a larger sum than any of the preceding payments.”
After a brief discussion Ivins regained his footing. “The endorsement shows where it was endorsed by the collector of taxes. Now Mr. Roosevelt had produced tax receipts for the years 1896, 1895, 1894 and 1893. The matter I asked about was the taxes in Oyster Bay for the year 1897.”
“I have nothing,” Roosevelt responded. “I have only that check showing that taxes were paid in 1897.”
The two men went back and forth for several minutes, each of them playing far more to the jury than each other, until Ivins took a different tack, wondering, “When did you first hear of the discussion of your name as a possible candidate for the Governorship?”
“As well as I remember, beyond anything but the merest gossip, it was at Camp Wyckoff after I returned from the Santiago campaign... I don’t remember who first spoke to me about it, but the first man of any prominence in politics whom I remember having spoken to me about it was Mr. Quigg.” Lemuel Quigg was a Republican member of Congress from New York, or in Ivins’s words, “A local Republican boss of New York City.”
Ivins then introduced correspondence between Quigg and Roosevelt into the record, letters that were read to the jury. In his letter to the Colonel, Quigg informed him that Senator Thomas C. Platt, the so-called “easy boss” of the state, wanted to meet with him. He then wrote that the current governor, Frank Black, had angrily complained that Roosevelt “was not fit to be nominated because you are impulsive and erratic, that your military record, however it may attest to your personal bravery, displays your characteristic rashness and impetuosity and foolishness, and that as Governor you would play the devil with the organization and get the party into all tangles and ridiculous positions.”
Platt had responded, Quigg wrote, that “he would prevent your nomination if he could see any fair reason your administration would be injurious to the organization.” After explaining that party delegates were committed to supporting Platt’s choice, Quigg related his recent conversation with the senator in which he had pledged “that you were not the sort of man who would accept a nomination directly out of the hands of the organization without realization of the obligation thereby assumed. To sustain the organization and promote and uphold it and you were prepared to meet the obligation and discharge it justly...you would take the office intending in good faith to act the part of his friend both personally and politically...that you would consult with the Senator freely and fully on all important matters, that you would adopt no line of policy and agree to no important matter or nomination without previous consultation...
“I told him,” Quigg wrote to Roosevelt, “that you said you did not mean by this that you would do everything as it was wanted precisely as it was originally suggested, but you did mean in good faith and honest friendship to enter with him upon the consideration of all manners proposed without prejudice and with the intention to reach a conclusion which the Senator, no less than yourself would deem wisest and best.”
As it was being read to the jury the Colonel listened intently, a hard scowl on his face, occasionally shaking his head apparently in disbelief, but of what no spectator could be certain.
The next letter from Quigg was even more shocking. “It was agreed that the ‘hero of San Juan hill and the idol of the country’ was to be the Republican nominee for governor, but there were other considerations. Far be it from Senator Platt to expect of Colonel Roosevelt any action that would trouble the conscience of an honest man or any promise binding him to acquiesce in any or all demands that the organization might make or deliver to hand over the reins of government to the senator, but if Colonel Roosevelt wants to be governor he must be governor and nothing more...”
Roosevelt scowled and bobbed his head as this letter was read, not looking at the jury.
“...without the endorsement and support of Senator Pratt he could not be governor. And that as a matter of fact he was a handmade governor and Senator Pratt was the artisan and that at all times the interest of the organization of the whole Republican Party and of the people, in that order, were to be concerned.”
In addition to being potentially devastating to Roosevelt’s reputation, these letters, read aloud, appeared to confirm the public’s worst held opinions of politicians. They said flatly that the interests of the party were superior to the good of the people. It was exactly what the Colonel had railed about in his article, but now implicated him as someone who, rather than standing up against this corruption had embraced it for personal gain. The Herald characterized these letters “to be among the most sensational political documents that have come to light in the history of New York State.”
The letters appeared to strip Roosevelt of his heroic aura and reveal a hard truth to those who idolized him. The impression left by the reading of them was still hanging in the air when Roosevelt’s response was delivered. “I know that you did not in any way wish to represent me as willing to consent to act otherwise than in accordance with my conscience...
“I want to make it clear that there was no question of pledges or promises least of all a question of bargaining for the nomination... I was not making any agreement as to what I would do on consideration that I would receive the nomination.”
Ivins established that in addition to conferring with Quigg, Roosevelt had met with other party leaders, among them the leader of the New York Republican Party, Senator Platt. When Roosevelt met with Platt, Ivins asked, were you aware of his position as leader of the party? Yes, Roosevelt was. Then, the attorney continued, “You deliberately, by agreement, met him for the purpose of discussing your nomination by the Republican Party?” Yes.
A subsequent meeting with Platt, where the question of Roosevelt’s eligibility to become governor was discussed at length also had been attended by Elihu Root, a party leader who later would become President Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize–winning secretary of state and a US senator. The overall consensus in the meeting was that he was not eligible, and the question would be raised before the election. To counter that challenge, Roosevelt admitted, “When I got back from the war I tried to pay (my taxes) in Oyster Bay and found that the books were closed and found that they were to have been paid by my uncle, James A. Roosevelt, who had died just prior to the time of paying them and in consequence they had not been paid... they were then paid in New York.”
This discussion continued for some time, and Roosevelt insisted, “I was residing in Washington but I did not intend the fact that I was residing in Washington should be used by my lawyers to get me out of paying or cause me to lose my vote... I did not know the legal technicalities of the question, but I was not going to be put in a position of seeming to escape paying my taxes.”
When confronted by Ivins with forms he had signed that listed his residence as Washington, DC, the Colonel insisted that someone else had filled out that portion of the form and he had never seen it, but ended firmly, “I don’t believe I ever saw that blank until this morning when you showed it to me. I knew nothing about it. My only part of that was my oath of allegiance to the United States.”
The goal of every lawyer or witness in a courtroom is to connect on an emotional basis with members of the jury. Ivins had successfully raised a real but legalistic concern about Roosevelt’s eligibility for a position he had held more than fifteen years prior. He had paid his taxes; the only issue was where and when. Regardless, he had been away from home, serving the country, risking his life. That was something every juryman might understand. This whole question of his residence, where he lived while fighting for America, fulfilling that oath to serve and protect the United States, might be seen as little more than a nuisance. Roosevelt hoped that any honest man would understand the situation. But the other question of how he actually got the position for which he may have been ineligible, went more directly to the heart of the case.
Ivins came back to the nomination, asking, “You know what a boss is?”
“I do.”
“Is it not a fact they dictated those nominations?”
“Unquestionably.”
Roosevelt’s libelous article had raged against boss-control of the political process, claiming that system robbed citizens of a fair opportunity to participate in the political process; and Ivins was determined to prove that T.R. had knowingly and willingly been part of it. After showing that the Colonel had turned down the Independent Party’s offer of its nomination for governor to accept the Republican nomination—without knowing who would be sharing the ticket with him—he wondered, “You did not know who you were going to stand by when you said you were going to stand by them?” In other words, Colonel, he inferred, you are no different than any other ambitious politician?
Roosevelt jutted his jaw and told him, “I did not know who I was going to stand by—excepting that they knew perfectly well if I thought a man was a dishonest man I would not stand by him.”
Ivins appealed to Judge Andrews. “I move to strike that out.” He wanted it out of the official record. The judge agreed it was not responsive. “It may go out.”
But the reality of the courtroom was that it could not be unheard. If a man believed that Roosevelt was honest, this would strike him as true, that was the Teddy they knew; but if he had found him boorish, this would have little impact. In or out of the record, the point was made.
Ivins resorted to his noted sarcasm, pointing out, “You don’t know what they knew perfectly well.” His tone of voice suggested to the jury that he found Roosevelt’s statement less than convincing. “You took for granted that they (the bosses Platt and Odell) would go straight, did you not?”
“At the time they showed every symptom of it,” T.R. responded, and mild laughter rippled through the courtroom.
Ivins wouldn’t let him get away with that. “Did you during that campaign in any way in any of your speeches attack machine politics or boss rule?”
“Not at all.”
“Not at all?”
“It was not an issue.”
Ivins was skilled at coloring his questions with multiple meanings. “Why was it not an issue if there was a machine and there was boss rule?”
“Because there was no feeling against it at that time.”
“Then you do not attack anything unless there is a feeling against it, is that what you mean to say?”
“I attack!” Roosevelt said, reinforcing that by slapping down his hand on the bench in a by-golly punctuation. This was the Teddy of his best fighting days: “I attack iniquities, I attack wrong doing. I try to choose the time for an attack when I can get the bulk of the people to accept the principles for which I stand!”
“I think you have answered the question. You stand by righteousness, do you not?”
“I do... I stand by righteousness always.”
Ivins made his doubt clear. “With due regard to opportunism.”
“No, Sir! Not when it comes to righteousness... But you must, for righteousness you must stand, whether you are going to be supported or not.” Adding confidently, “Just exactly as I did while I was Governor.”
Ivins was now prepared to turn up the heat on the Colonel with a philosophical musing, wondering, “Did that rule apply to Mr. Barnes in 1912...with regard to righteousness and the opportunities for its expression as well as it does to you?...
“Has not every man an equal right to determine his own rule of righteousness and his own time of applying it?”
It was becoming clear to observers that Roosevelt was again enjoying this interplay. Rather than shrinking from the question and finding an acceptable answer, Roosevelt brought forth his principles: “He has if he has got the root of righteousness in him. If he is a wrong doer, he has not.”
“Who is the judge, you or he?”
Throwing his arms up high, as if to proclaim the obviousness of it, he said, “It may be that I have to be the judge, of him. If I had to be the judge... I will give you an exact example, Senator Burton...”
Ivins stopped him. “You need not...”
Bowers stood. “Why not?”
Ivins turned to him. “Mr. Bowers, I do not object to his answering. I object to his manner.”
Even Bowers smiled at that.
“I do not want to be eaten up right here now,” Ivins added.
The Colonel objected to the objection, saying firmly, “I will gesticulate to the jury.”
Ivins suggested, “You can say it to the jury without being so emphatic.”
Even that caused titters in the courtroom, which became outright laughter as the chastised Colonel said, “I feel emphatic about it but I will try not to be emphatic. For example, two of my earliest associates and supporters when I became president...”
An increasingly frustrated Ivins again objected.
Although seemingly relaxed on the stand as Ivins began his cross-examination on April 22, the Post-Standard reported he spent most of the day sitting “canted over an angle of forty-five degrees, which enabled him to get a look at each juror, and when he caught the eyes of the talesman he looked fixedly at them with the old gaze” that had captured audiences.
Onondaga Historical Association
Roosevelt was on a roll and not about to be stopped. “It is, sir, if you will let me answer about the ruling of righteousness.”
And the debate resumed with Ivins quoting him, “It may be that I have to be the judge, of him.”
“No,” T.R. snapped, “I have...yes! I have to be the judge of misconduct.”
Ivins was no shrinking violet (a phrase that first had been used in America to describe the notorious nineteenth-century political legend, Boss Tweed), and he snapped right back at the witness, “Is it not possible that somebody else may have to be the judge of your misconduct?”
“It is possible.”
“It is not impossible that you should be guilty of misconduct beyond criticism or comment, is it?”
The Colonel found a clever path. “It is not impossible that I should be guilty of conduct that would cause criticism and comment.”
Ivins then returned to a discussion of the bosses with whom the Colonel had worked, Platt being the ultimate or “easy boss” followed by Benjamin Odell and then Barnes, endeavoring to demonstrate that the defendant had cooperated with the bosses throughout his career. Roosevelt didn’t deny it, admitting, “I conferred and consulted with Mr. Platt with a genuine purpose to what he wished whenever I honorably could with regard to the interest of the party, with a genuine desire to keep the Republican Party together and minimize the centrifugal influences within the Republican Party to prevent it from flying asunder.”
“I congratulate you upon you...” Ivins began, his trademark sarcasm springing up, but before he might complete his thought Bowers objected. Ivins then asked if Roosevelt had any differences with Platt.
“You congratulate me?” the Colonel came back with his own disdain. He used the word centrifugal, he explained, because it was an expression he had used in a letter to a colleague.
That too intrigued Ivins, who offered, “As a matter of fact you have used phrases, built them up, formulated them, finally got them into ultimate shape which was satisfactory to you, have you not?”
Like seasoned duelists, they thrust and parried, searching for an opening to exploit, while fending off the bothersome probes. “Sometimes,” the Colonel agreed, a finger to his lips, his eyes raised to the ceiling in thought, and then added, “sometimes I have struck them off by accident.”
Late in the afternoon the battering in the street became so loud that it became almost impossible to hear the testimony. Judge Andrews finally paused the proceedings and pleaded with Sheriff Mathews to do whatever was necessary to stop it. The burly sheriff nodded and said he would do his best.
Ivins eventually continued in his effort to paint Roosevelt as a different kind of political boss, but still a boss, wondering if in all his dealings with the bosses the defendant had any differences with them at all? Indeed he had, Roosevelt said. “I can’t tell you all of them but for instance they wanted to pass the Astoria Gas Bill and I wouldn’t consent save under conditions that made them abandon it. They wanted me to pass a bi-partisan State Constabulary Bill...but I became convinced that the people as a whole were against it so I declined to put it through... I had a disagreement with Mr. Platt about the appointment of a Superintendent of Public Works...
“I regarded the appointment of a Superintendent of Public Works who had charge of the canal as being the most important appointment that I had to make.” Additionally, as governor he had to appoint the legal counsel for the canals, and as there was some question about the conduct of the canal management, that also was an extremely sensitive appointment. “Mr. Platt wished me to make the senior counsel a Republican and I declined to; I said I wished to appoint both of them Democrats so that there would be no question of party influence preventing the prosecution of any man who had done wrong...
“I had my own way on a number of those things. The point where I had to ask (Mr. Platt) to use his influence, where he of his own accord used his influence and where I thanked him for it, it would not have gotten through without his influence, was the passage of the Civil Service Reform. I remember that because I got one Democrat to vote for it and there were 25 Republicans and a good number of those 25 would not have voted for it if Mr. Platt had not asked them to do so.”
Circling back once again Mr. Ivins chided, “You did not have an attack of righteousness...for his influence with the legislature?”
Heaven forbid, was the Colonel’s attitude, who responded as if he were taken aback. “On the contrary I praised him for his righteousness in passing the bill. Mr. Ivins, I did my best to get on with Mr. Platt and all the other members of the organization; I in good faith endeavored to keep the organization intact and to make it the responsive servant of the rank and file of the party and of the people as a whole, and I never broke with Mr. Platt or Mr. Barnes until I could not help doing so in order to serve decency as I regarded it. I regarded myself as an organization man.”
Hearing the echo of a self-serving political speech, Ivins dismissed it, telling him, “You need not treat me as a mass meeting because I am not.”
Bowers felt a need to interrupt. “No,” he said, “he is doing you good.”
Ivins said drolly, “He is not getting me very much excited.”
Bowers agreed with that, as the Colonel grinned. “No, you are sleeping.” And once again the courtroom burst into appreciative laughter.
Persisting in finding those issues on which the defendant had disagreed with the bosses, Ivins asked if the Colonel recalled correspondence about a series of proposed bills or appointments. Roosevelt responded that he did not, explaining that “since 1898 I have answered in writing from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand letters.”
This was an amazing claim, causing Ivins to note with a bit of dramatic awe, “Since then you have probably written more than any other man in the United States, haven’t you?”
Roosevelt supported his claim, “I don’t know,” he said. “But I have written from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand letters. I have had to deal as Governor and President with thousands of bills. I remember many of them and there are many of those that I don’t remember.”
After a spirited and detailed discussion of several of those bills without either side making much gain, Ivins entered four letters into the record. Written in 1900, they concerned the search for Roosevelt’s successor as governor. The Colonel and the boss had very different views on this; Roosevelt suggested an Independent would fit the bill, Platt insisted on a Republican. T.R. responded that the right Republican would be satisfactory to him and suggested either Root or former chief judge Charles Andrews, the father of the presiding judge who had just been in court yesterday. In what clearly was an uncomfortable few moments, this letter challenged Platt’s statement that either of those men would lower the standard; rather, Roosevelt wrote, they would raise that standard. Roosevelt was positively giddy as that letter was read to its end. “The organization should strive to give wise and upright government to the State.”
The afternoon session closed with Ivins reading a telegram the defendant had sent to Platt after the Republican Party’s watered down version of the Franchise Tax Bill, which Roosevelt had fought strongly against, had been passed. “Three cheers,” the telegram read. Asked if he remembered sending it, he replied that he did not, but admitted with a booming laugh that resonated from wall-to-wall, “It is a characteristic telegram,” then added in his truly characteristic high falsetto voice, “I have no doubt I sent it.”
As the Times reported, “Court adjourned for the day in a gale of laughter.”