Even at this early point in his career, Roosevelt fashioned himself as a take-no-prisoners reformer, a man who would sink his impressive teeth into any worthy cause. Among his rookie-term targets: railroad monopolies, police corruption, civil-service patronage, undertaxed saloon owners, cigar sweatshops, water pollution, and one particularly venal state supreme court justice, who only escaped Roosevelt’s impeachment campaign after three key Democratic politicians received $2,500 to vote for the judge. In one of his most celebrated campaigns, Roosevelt went after the robber baron Jay Gould’s Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company, which had a monopoly on building New York City train stations.

Gould had enough politicians in his pocket that Assemblyman Roosevelt felt compelled to bring reinforcements to a potentially hostile hearing in 1882. “There was a broken chair in the room, and I got a leg of it loose and put it down beside me where it was not visible, but where I might get at it in a hurry if necessary,” he said. “The riot did not come off; partly, I think, because the opportune production of the chairleg had a sedative effect, and partly owing to wise counsels from one or two of my opponents.”  TR wasn’t being metaphorical when he advocated speaking softly and carrying a big stick.

Hissing Cousins: The Untold Story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth by Marc Peyser, Timothy Dwyer  
(via gruntledandhinged)