the swearing comes later
Teddy Roosevelt, crossing a lake. Alas, the photo was faked for his 1912 presidential campaign.
the swearing comes later
By Robert Engel
Great Camp Sagamore’s Historian
Article two, clause six of the United States Constitution states that if the president dies in office “The Powers and Duties (of the President) shall devolve on the Vice President.” The moment the president dies, the vice president is president. The swearing-in ceremony comes later.
That’s how on September 14, 1901, at 2:15 a.m., Theodore Roosevelt, while careening at breakneck speed down a muddy Adirondack road on a dark rainy night in a surrey and pair became the 26th president of the United States. Only, he didn’t know it at the time. A brass plaque marks the spot along Rte. 28N, now the Roosevelt-Marcy Memorial Highway.
Eight days earlier, Roosevelt had been staying on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain. His boss, President McKinley, was shaking hands at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Politicians call that “pressing the flesh.” One of those hands held a gun and the president was shot in the chest. Roosevelt, the vice president, heard the news and rushed by train to Buffalo to the president’s bedside.
McKinley appeared to be recovering. Roosevelt’s rivals in the cabinet (he wanted to reform big business; a lot of powerful people didn’t like him) accused the vice president of appearing too eager for the big job. The president’s surgeon assured Roosevelt that McKinley would likely recover, so he rode a train back across the state, this time to the Adirondacks for a planned family vacation. On September 13th, he and several others were climbing Mt. Marcy in the rain. A young guide from the Tahawus Club rushed up the mountain and found the party eating their lunch (canned pickled ox tongue) next to Lake Tear of the Clouds. He handed the VP a message that said McKinley’s wound had become infected, and he should return quickly to Buffalo.
It took three sets of horses and drivers to deliver Roosevelt down that muddy road to the North Creek train station. The drivers claim that the trip was done in record time. Perhaps the horses would agree. The third driver, Mike Cronin (my mother’s father’s sister’s husband’s mother’s sister’s husband, in case anybody cares) was waiting at Aiden Lair Lodge for Roosevelt to arrive when he heard by telephone that McKinley had died. So Cronin knew he was transporting the president, but since he didn’t tell, Roosevelt still assumed he was vice president. Roosevelt heard the news when he arrived in North Creek, just as dawn was breaking. When Roosevelt took the oath of office in Buffalo later that afternoon, he had already been the president for 11 hours.
A brass plaque marks the spot along Rte. 28N, now the Roosevelt-Marcy Memorial Highway.
Learn more . . .
Can you find and recite the presidential oath of office?
Eight U.S. presidents died in office. How many can you name?
Lake Tear of the Clouds, high on Mt. Marcy, is famously the source of…what?
What’s a surrey and pair?
Do you have a mother’s father’s sister’s husband’s mother’s sister’s husband?
