Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 77 - 57: Questioning

"You foolish boy."

Roosevelt sighed.

"The promises you made to him, while useful, are all replaceable."

"What he wants is you."

Leo was stunned. "Me?"

"That’s right," Roosevelt explained. "Do you think he cares whether you made a deal with Morganfield? No. He cares about who was on your mind when you made that deal."

"Through this silence, he’s asking you a question."

"He’s asking: when the day comes that the local interests of Pittsburgh must be sacrificed for the grand strategic interests of the entire Progressive movement; or when he launches a difficult charge in Washington and needs someone on the local level to take the heat, to shield him from the cannon fire, to even die for him..."

"Will you be the so-called ally who still haggles with him, calculating your gains and losses?"

"Or will you be the soldier who follows orders unconditionally, who fights for his banner?"

Roosevelt’s words were a splash of cold water, waking Leo completely.

This wasn’t a simple exchange of interests. This was a pledge of political allegiance.

’Does this mean I have to completely surrender my independence?’ he asked himself. ’Am I to become his vassal? A pawn on his chessboard? What if his decision is wrong? What if he really does sacrifice Pittsburgh for his struggles in Washington?’

"Independence?"

Roosevelt let out a cold laugh.

"In the world of politics, independence is the epitaph of the powerless."

"One-man politics isn’t politics. It’s performance art. It’s a suicide act."

But Leo didn’t yield immediately. His stubborn streak flared up.

"But, Mr. President, didn’t you stand your ground back in the day?"

"Facing the Economic Royalists of Wall Street, facing the old conservative men on the Supreme Court, even facing the conservative forces within the Democratic Party, you never bowed your head."

"Even when you were isolated, you didn’t just go with the flow. Since you could possess that pride of charging forward though thousands stood against you, why are you demanding that I become someone’s vassal now?"

Roosevelt scolded him harshly, "You studied me for four years, wrote a dissertation hundreds of pages long, and *this* is the foolish conclusion you’ve reached?" 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"Leo, have your recent successes blinded you? Or has the praise from Sarah and the others clouded your judgment?"

"What do you think supports my independence? Courage? Conviction? Or some vague, ethereal sense of justice?"

Roosevelt’s voice grew low, laced with an almost cruel honesty.

"My mother, Sarah Delano, came from the prominent Delano Family, a commercial dynasty that amassed a massive fortune through trade with the Far East."

"My father, James Roosevelt, was a director in the railroad and coal industries."

"Not to mention my cousin, Theodore Roosevelt. While I was still studying at Harvard, he was already in the White House, governing this country."

"I was born at Hyde Park Manor on the Hudson Riverfront, on an estate so vast you could ride a horse all day and never reach its edge."

"From a young age, I received an elite education at the Groton School. My classmates were the heirs to the Whitney and Morgan families. I studied at Harvard and learned law at Columbia."

"When I first entered the political arena, I didn’t need to worry about next month’s rent. I didn’t have to wonder if I’d starve to death if my campaign failed. I had a family trust fund. I had a network of relatives throughout New York’s high society."

"I could point my finger in the faces of those Wall Street bankers and call them ’organized money’ because I had been eating at the same dinner tables with them since I was a child. I knew their secrets, and I didn’t need their handouts."

"I could ignore the threats from the party bosses because, in the United States of that era, the name Roosevelt signified a political bloodline of the highest order."

"My independence was built upon a century of accumulated family wealth, a complex web of blood ties, and an extremely high social standing."

"That is the kind of confidence forged from real gold and silver, from an aristocratic lineage."

Roosevelt paused. Then, his tone shifted, becoming sharp and piercing, striking directly at Leo’s most painful scar.

"But what about you, Leo Wallace?"

"What do you have?"