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.BySeptember 10, the vice president had returned to his re-treat.But McKinley took a bad turn and died on Friday,September 13.Called back to Buffalo for a second time and129 0465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 130lion in the white houseunder grievous strain, Roosevelt was sworn in as presidentof the United States the next day.At age forty-two, he wasthe youngest man ever to hold the office. Now that damned cowboy is in the White House! bel-lowed an anti-Roosevelt Republican.But Roosevelt wouldsoon demonstrate that his several and varied careers hadbeen a preparation, an education, for a larger and more sig-nificant political role.The aspects of his experience offamily, class, eastern and western exposure, wartime service,a set of principles, tested policies would join in a headyconcoction that became Republican progressivism.In noth-ing less than a revolution, Roosevelt would make reform andcharacter, which had been the polestars of his hero, Abra-ham Lincoln, acceptable once more to the Republican Party.The new president never doubted that progressive Republi-cans were Lincoln s heirs, and he would use the martyr s her-itage to exhort, challenge, and change the nation.He wouldbe midwife to a new birth of Republicanism.130 0465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 131chapter 6The Accidental PresidentThe two great fundamental internal problems withwhich we have to deal (aside from the problem of merehonesty, social and governmental.) are the negro problemin the South, and the relations of capital and labor.to oneanother and to the community at large.All thoughtful men must feel the gravest alarm over thegrowth of lynching in this country, and especially over thepeculiarly hideous forms so often taken by mob violencewhen colored men are the victims on which occasions themob seems to lay most weight, not on the crime but on thecolor of the criminal.It is of course inevitable thatwhere vengeance is taken by the mob it should frequentlylight on innocent people.But even when the real criminal isreached, the wrong done by the mob to the community it-self is well-nigh as great.Especially is this true where thelynching is accompanied with torture.Whoever in anypart of the country has ever taken part in lawlessly puttingto death a criminal by the dreadful torture of fire must for-ever have the awful spectacle of his own handiwork searedinto his brain and soul.He can never be the same man.131 0465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 132lion in the white houseI have won my leadership purely by an appeal to what Ithink I may, without priggishness, call the conscience andthe imagination of the people.I depend for my nominationand election upon there being a general sentiment that thecharacter I have shown in handling the Panama business,the post-office scandals, Cuban reciprocity, the Philippines,the anthracite coal strike.the Northern Securities case,the Alaska boundary case.the upbuilding of the navy,etc., etc., entitles me to leadership and to popular confidenceand support.t is a dreadful thing to come into theIPresidency this way, Roosevelt wrote to hisfriend Henry Cabot Lodge, the Boston Brahmin senator. Here is the task, and I have got to do it to the best of myability. Roosevelt had become president after McKinleywas assassinated on September 14, 1901.This was the thirdpresidential assassination in less than fifty years.The mur-derer was an anarchist called Leon Czolgosz.Roosevelt took the oath of office in borrowed clothes,looking sartorially splendid nevertheless, having traveledby carriage and special train through rain and mud fromhis mountain retreat to Buffalo.He was sober-looking anddignified but nervous and tense, as he stepped up to thepresidency.After taking some food, visiting, then consult-ing with cabinet members and others, he fell into bed, ex-hausted.When he revived he announced, I feel bully. The colonel was probably the best-known politician inthe country, having been a military hero and in public lifesince the age of twenty-three.His ebullient personality,132 0465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 133The Accidental Presidentvaried talents, war record, and reputation as a reformeralthough a not wholly successful one in an age of acuteconservatism made him a popular figure.Roosevelt publicly and properly mourned McKinley sdemise, and he pledged to Republican leaders that fatefulday in Buffalo that he would follow in the martyr s foot-steps.In his private letters he referred to himself as an acci-dental president, and he knew he had no mandate of hisown.Roosevelt calibrated his initial decisions so that thegreat and powerful Republicans, who ran the country,would give him a chance.When Senator Mark Hanna ofOhio reached out to him on October 12, for example, Roo-sevelt responded, It would not be possible to get wiser ad-vice than that contained in your letter of the 12th and Ishall act exactly upon it.I shall go slow, and do nothinguntil I have had a chance to consult you. Everyone knew Roosevelt was a man of action, how-ever, and the new president, although trotting in McKin-ley s path, had polestars of his own to guide him innational politics and in world affairs.In his private letters,public writings, and actions, Roosevelt began setting out aclear vision of how he intended to be president.He meantto govern.He would establish the presidency as a vitalforce and make it the equal of the then all-dominatingCongress.And he wished to update the Supreme Court tomake it more responsive to people and less attentive toproperty rights.His presidential model was Lincoln:I must not only be as resolute as Abraham Lincoln in seekingto achieve decent ends, but as patient, as uncomplaining and aseven-tempered in dealing, not only with knaves, but with thewell-meaning foolish people, educated and uneducated.133 0465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 134lion in the white houseAnd I must show the same spirit in painfully groping to findout the right course
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