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1798, Aaron Burr transformed it into a political organization. Eventually, Irish immigrants seized control, and trading votes for benefits became a standard practice. When William Tweed took over in 1868, he began a statewide reign of extreme corruption that lasted into the early 1900s.

CHAPTER 5
    A Significant Person Exits Theodore’s Life
“The light has gone out of my life.”
    TR met the first love of his life, Alice Hathaway Lee, in October 1878 while he was a junior at Harvard. She delayed their marriage plans, at least until he graduated. But the star-crossed lovers married on October 27, 1880. The happy couple moved to New York City, where they lived while he started his career and won a seat as a New York state assemblyman. Sadly, Alice died after giving birth to their daughter. Her death sent him into a deep depression, and instigated a major life change.

Thank You, Richard Saltonstall
    Near the beginning of his junior year at Harvard, TR visited the home of his classmate Richard Saltonstall in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He always remembered the exact date: October 18, 1878. Saltonstall’s cousin and next-door neighbor, Alice Hathaway Lee, was there. Later, TR wrote, “As long as I live, I shall never forget how sweetly she looked, and how prettily she greeted me.” This love was a new experience for him.
    Their meeting would change his life dramatically. It affected everything he did from then on—at least for the next four years.

Alice Hathaway Lee
    What caught TR’s eye was a statuesque young lady about five feet seven inches tall, an inch or so shorter than him, with light brown hair and blue eyes. She had barely turned seventeen when they first met. Within a month of meeting Alice, TR decided he was going to marry her.

    Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
    Alice possessed both inner and outer beauty and intelligence to match. Her nickname, “Sunshine,” captured her demeanor perfectly as far as TR was concerned. She certainly brought a lot of sunshine into his life.
    Like TR, Alice came from a large family. She was the second of six children. The first five were girls. Her only brother, George Jr., was not born until 1871. (He, too, graduated from Harvard, with the class of 1894.) TR and Alice Lee had anything but a whirlwind courtship. She dragged it out much longer than TR preferred.

A Long Courtship
    Although TR had fallen in love immediately, Alice took her time deciding how she felt about him. It may have been because of her youth. He was almost three years older than Alice. Or it might have been because of his somewhat odd appearance at the time. He was thin, pale, sported long hair and a mustache, and wore eyeglasses.
    The real reason she demurred is anyone’s guess. But, while she “shined,” he pined.

TR filled pages of his diary with accounts of his love, their activities, and the lengths to which he would go to see her. He wrote in his diary on February 3, 1880, “Snowing heavily, but I drove over in my sleigh to Chestnut Hill, the horse plunging to his belly in great drifts, and the wind cutting my face like a knife.”
    TR just could not believe his luck. He wrote in his diary a few months after he met her, “It seems hardly possible that I can kiss her and hold her in my arms; she is so pure and so innocent, and is very, very pretty. I have never done anything to deserve such great fortune.” He decided to push his luck and her, too. TR did everything he could to get her to marry him.
    As soon as TR met Alice his interest in his studies and campus activities dwindled. There were two pieces of solid evidence that he was in love: he let Alice call him “Teddy” and he interrupted his naturalist expeditions.
    Most of TR’s family members called him “Teedie” when he was a child. The nickname did not follow him to Harvard. Alice started calling him “Teddy.” He confessed later that he was never fond of that nickname, but she could have gotten away with calling him a lot worse