Topic 17 
PERKINS AND T.  R

GEORGE W.  PERKINS, if the politicians who opposed Colonel Roosevelt in 1912 and again in 1916 are to be believed, was to have been the Mark Hanna of the Administration in the event of Colonel Roosevelt returning to the White House.  According to them, there was a perfect understanding.  On this they were unanimous.  They differed only when it came to naming the place Perkins would reserve for himself.

The truth, as I had it from Colonel Roosevelt on several occasions, was that Perkins asked for nothing and was promised nothing for himself or anybody else.

"Perkins," said the Colonel at Sagamore Hill one day, "has been mentioned many times as the probable recipient of some office were I reelected President, but there never has been any promise or understanding, direct or implied, and these predictions have been without any authority whatever from me.  The newspaper boys — have just been guessing.  They knew that nobody ever did anything for me that I did not repay if and when I properly could.

"Of course, I would have had to do something for Perkins.  I would have made him Secretary of the Treasury or of Commerce.  He would be entitled to something and would be an extremely valuable man in either place.  Perkins is eminently fitted for either of those places.  In either place he would have made a record hard to equal."

Mr.  Perkins ceased to be Colonel Roosevelt's political manager soon after the 1916 campaign, John T.  King, Republican National Committeeman from Connecticut, taking on the work formerly done by Perkins.  There was, however, no break in the intimate social relations of the two.  Nor was there any break politically.  There was need for none, for at the end of the 1916 campaign there was little or nothing "to do in a political way, and Perkins, in consequence, ceased to function as a politician.

In the 1916 campaign Colonel Roosevelt had become well acquainted with King.  King had turned Bridgeport, which had been so hopelessly Democratic that the Republicans cast fewer votes than the Socialists, into a banner Republican community.  In 1916 it saved the State for Hughes.  Alone of the National Committee early that year he sensed the party danger in California, but was unable to make those in charge of the campaign see things as he did.  As the campaign ended, he and Colonel Roosevelt agreed something must be done to bring the party together.  Colonel Roosevelt had been much impressed by King's personality and the method by which he had built up the party in Bridgeport.  The organization there, he found, was made up largely of men who worked in the factories; it was close to the people and it was clean.  The well-to-do and the wealthy were represented on, but did not dominate, it, and campaign funds were not welcomed from questionable sources.  Moreover, King was persona grata to all elements in the party, and, a tireless worker himself, he had the faculty of making others work.

Perkins, on the other hand, was persona non grata with many.  Those who had stuck with the " Old Guard" resented his prominence in party affairs, and ex-Progressives who had returned to the party frankly distrusted him.  Most of the "Old Guardsmen" were willing to forget everything connected with 1912 but Perkins, and the ex-Progressives everything in 1916 but Perkins.

This was the situation in February, 1917, when the time came for the National Committee to select a successor to Chairman Wilcox, who had resigned.  King, as the representative of Connecticut, was going to the meeting in St.  Louis, and was, in fact, Colonel Roosevelt's first choice for Chairman.  Perkins was also going, against the wishes of Colonel Roosevelt.  Better than Perkins he realized that as a peacemaker, Perkins would be about as useful as an orange flag at an outing of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  In consequence, he said, he made it clear to Perkins that, while he could not prevent his attending the conference, he must go there representing no one but himself.

At the same time, as a means of satisfying any doubting Thomas, he gave King a letter designating him as the only person authorized to speak for him in St.  Louis.  This document was the last he signed, by the way, before entering St.  Luke's Hospital for the operations that so nearly proved fatal.

" I am," he told me, "giving John King credentials that I think will satisfy anybody as to who's who in our set.  This I believe a wise precaution, for Perkins insists on going out there, and there are sure to be some doubting Thomas’s.  Perkins won't misrepresent the situation, but others may; there are some who will insist on misunderstanding the exact status of things, and others who may misrepresent matters.  You know" — this with a laugh — "there are some persons who dislike Perkins even more than they dislike Roosevelt, and there are others who seem to lack faith in all George says.

" I have tried to make him see things as I see them but he insists on going there."

Before the St.  Louis conference was under way, Colonel Roosevelt was in the hospital a very sick man.  Through it all he was in ignorance of what was developing, and the conference was a closed incident before he was sufficiently recovered to be told the result.  He at once wired congratulations to Will H.  Hays, the new Chairman of the Committee, an invitation to call accompanying the congratulations.  Hays called within a few days, as did King and Perkjns.

All this time the replacement of Perkins by King had escaped popular notice.  Inadvertently, a reporter for a news agency was the cause of its becoming public.  In a ten line story he described Mr.  King as "the Colonel's personal representative at St.  Louis" without a thought of, and in fact without knowing, the significance of this statement to persons whose habit it is to read their papers closely.

The description impressed John H.  Gavin, city editor of the New York World, as something worth looking into.  If, as seemed likely, there was a real break between the Colonel and Perkins, it was page I news, particularly for a Democratic organ that for years had had its own private feud with the Colonel.  Those in possession of all the facts were too close lipped to allow them to escape, so the best that could be done was an elaboration of the original statement plus King's admission that he had been "the Colonel's representative at St.  Louis."

Perkins, on his part, avoided the real issue by declaring he knew "of no man less in need of a political manager than Colonel Roosevelt."

Colonel Roosevelt chuckled when he heard of the World's attempt to develop the story, at the same time recognizing Gavin's astuteness in smelling it out.

"Wouldn't the World just enjoy a real knock-down-and-drag-out fight between Perkins and me!" he said.  "Well, there will be none.

"Perkins does not like John King.  I am sorry for that, but his opposition to King cannot change my relations with him.  There is no change in the social relations with Perkins and myself.  I look for none.  But as a matter of fact, he has not represented me politically since 1916.  So that, so far as he is concerned, there really is no change in our relations.  They remain the same as ever, and they will so remain if I have anything to say about it.

"Those who know of our relations know that George Perkins never asked anything of me and was never promised anything, directly or indirectly.  Had I been elected in 1912, I would have made him Secretary of the Treasury or Commerce, if he would have taken a place.  In either place he'd reflect credit on any Administration.

" Many foolish persons — mainly politicians, who at times are the most foolish people on earth — imagined Perkins planned to play Mark Hanna to my McKinley.  Perkins had no such thought.  He knew better."