This period of writing and hunting was broken by two important events. He was defeated as candidate for mayor of New York and he married again. The second wife of the Vice President elect was Miss Edith Kermit Carow, daughter of an old New York family. They have five children—three sons and two daughters. The marriage took place in 1886, and in the same year Theodore Roosevelt was the Republican nominee for mayor of his native city. Opposed to him were Abram S. Hewitt, the Democratic candidate, and Henry George, the apostle of single tax. So great an enthusiasm had been created by Mr. George’s book, “[Progress and Poverty],” and so quickly did he attach to himself all the floating element dissatisfied with the regime of both the old parties and without the vested wealth threatened by the theories of their leader that both of the old parties were alarmed. It was said that fear that George would be elected sent thousands of Republican votes to Hewitt, whose chances of success seemed greatly better than those of his young Republican opponent. Hewitt was elected, but Mr. Roosevelt received a larger proportion of the votes cast than had any other Republican candidate for mayor up to that time.
For years after this Mr. Roosevelt was not prominent in politics. He spent his time in writing and hunting trips to the West. Never an idle man, he accomplished an immense amount of research in the preparation of his historical works.
President Harrison appointed Theodore Roosevelt a member of the United States Civil Service Commission May 13, 1889. While in the New York Legislature much of his efforts had been directed to the improvement of the public service. He was one of the most noted advocates in the country of the merit system, and his enmity to the spoilsman had won him objurgations of press and party on numberless occasions. To his new duties he brought enthusiastic faith in the righteousness and the expediency of a civil-service system, and he at once embarked on a campaign for establishing its permanency and for its extension, which again made him the butt of almost daily attacks. In Congress and in the ranks of the leaders of his party hundreds of opponents sprang up to attack him, but he held to his way and eventually won to his own way of thinking many public men. Though always determined and aggressive, Mr. Roosevelt is a man of great tact, and to this no less than to the resolute assurance of his methods was due the success of his efforts for the extension of the civil service in the national service.
He served for six years, two of them under President Harrison’s successor, Mr. Cleveland. In that time the number of persons who were made subject to the civil-service law was increased from 12,000 to nearly 40,000, and the still further great increase made by the orders of President Cleveland in the late years of his first administration was largely due to Mr. Roosevelt’s efforts. He was not a member of the commission when they were promulgated, but they had been considered by the commission and were favorably regarded by the President almost a year before they were made law by the President’s order.
In the years he then spent in Washington Mr. Roosevelt made many strong friends. In the commission he was loved and respected by every one, from his fellow commissioners to the laborers. He declined to be president of the commission, though the place was offered him more than once, but he was the acknowledged force and head of its work. When the great extensions afterward made by the President were first proposed to Mr. Cleveland he suggested that it would be better to codify the rules of the commission before taking such action. This was done, though it took some time, and shortly after it had been accomplished the chief examiner of the commission, Mr. Webster, died, which again put affairs in such shape that it was regarded as inexpedient to add greatly to the duties of the commission at that time.
As a result, the order for the large extension of the operation of the civil-service law, which had been in contemplation by the President and the commission for more than a year, and with which Mr. Roosevelt had much to do, was not promulgated until after he had resigned from the commission to accept the appointment as police commissioner of the city of New York under Mayor Strong. President Cleveland, who had reappointed Mr. Roosevelt as civil-service commissioner, though he had been originally named for the place as a Republican by President Harrison, strongly advised Mr. Roosevelt not to leave the commission and not to take the New York place. The President’s letter to Mr. Roosevelt on his resignation is full of expressions of the highest esteem and appreciation of his services.
In the wave of reform which swept over New York in 1894–95 the men, including Mayor Strong, who were borne into power were something of the same stamp as the civil-service commissioner. They were of the class which fought political rings, and they turned to Mr. Roosevelt to take a hand in purifying the police force of New York City, which was alleged to be a sink of political rottenness and studied inefficiency. Mr. Roosevelt resigned as civil-service commissioner May 5, 1895, and was appointed police commissioner of New York City May 24 following.
The uproar that followed the introduction of Roosevelt methods in the conduct of the New York police force has never been equaled as a police sensation in that city. Within a month after his appointment the whole force was in a state of fright. The new commissioner made night rounds himself, and, being unknown to the men, he caught scores of them in dereliction of duty. He dismissed and promoted and punished entirely on a plane of his own. Politics ceased to save or help the men, and the bosses were up in arms. In this emergency an attempt was made to have Roosevelt’s appointment by Mayor Strong vetoed by the city council, and it was discovered that an act of the Legislature, passed some twelve years prior, had taken the power of veto from the city council. Theodore Roosevelt was the author of this act, and its passage had been secured after one of the strongest fights he had made when a member of the State Legislature.
Commissioner Roosevelt announced that he would enforce the laws as he found them. He gave special attention to the operations of the excise law on Sunday, and after severe measures had been used on some of the more hardy saloon-keepers, New York at last had, in June, 1895, for the first time within the memory of living man, a “dry” Sunday. A great deal of good was done by Commissioner Roosevelt in breaking up much of the blackmail which had been levied by policemen; in transferring and degrading officers who were notoriously responsible for the bad name the force had, and in making promotions for merit, fidelity, and courage, Mr. Roosevelt’s career as a police commissioner made him extremely unpopular with the class at which his crusade was aimed.
The fierce crusade against the saloon-keepers was brief, and its effect lasted but a few weeks. The new commissioner gave his attention to more important matters, and really made the force cleaner than it had been before. He undoubtedly gained the hearty devotion of the better class of policemen. He was most careful of their comfort, and quick to see and reward merit. He was also quick to punish, and this kept the worse half of the men on their good behavior.