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The First Shock Wave 13<br />
cover his tracks he followed this up with a second letter in which he<br />
indirectly withdrew the invitation and threw on Harriman the initiative<br />
for the call. He wrote:<br />
Personal<br />
My dear Mr. Harriman:<br />
White House<br />
October 14, 1904<br />
A suggestion has come to me in a roundabout way that you do not think it<br />
wise to come on to see me in the closing weeks ofthe campaign, but that you<br />
are reluctant to refuse, inasmuch as I have asked you. Now, my dear sir, you<br />
and I are practical men, and you are on the ground and know the conditions<br />
better than I do. If you think there is any danger ofyour visit to me causing<br />
trouble, or if you think there is nothing special I should be informed about,<br />
or no matter in which I could give aid, ofcourse give up the visit for the time<br />
being, and then, a few weeks hence, before I write my message, I shall get<br />
you to come down to discuss certain government matters not connected with<br />
the campaign.<br />
With great regard,<br />
Sincerely yours,<br />
Theodore Roosevelt<br />
Harriman, no stickler for form, went to Washington and on his return<br />
to New York set about raising the $250,000 needed to meet the campaign<br />
deficit-contributing $50,000 of this sum himself.<br />
Between 1904 and 1906 the relations between Harriman and Roosevelt<br />
cooled to the point of distrust, and Harriman practically withdrew from<br />
party politics by refusing to contribute to the mid-term Congressional<br />
campaign. The reason offered by Harriman's biographers is that Roosevelt<br />
reneged on his promise to Harriman, for his 1904 rescue, to appoint<br />
Chauncey Depew as ambassador to France, but it may have been Roosevelt's<br />
increasing hostility to big business.*<br />
Roosevelt's reaction to Harriman's political defection was prompt and<br />
ferocious. When it was reported to him he sat down and wrote a letter<br />
to James S. Sherman, chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee,<br />
in which he charged Harriman with having attempted improper<br />
influence on the White House, called him "an undesirable citizen," "an<br />
*Depew was chairman of the board of the New York Central System and also Senator<br />
from New York. It is said that Harriman's interest in obtaining the ambassadorship for<br />
Depew was to get him out of New York State politics, because of his growing unpopularity<br />
(he lost the election in 1910); but it may have also been for reasons of railway politics.
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