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diff --git a/2724.txt b/2724.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0db268b --- /dev/null +++ b/2724.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5970 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Theodore Roosevelt and His Times, by Harold Howland + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Theodore Roosevelt and His Times + A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The + Chronicles Of America Series + +Author: Harold Howland + +Editor: Allen Johnson + +Posting Date: January 8, 2009 [EBook #2724] +[Last updated: April 18, 2015] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES *** + + + + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, and Dianne Bean + + + + + + +THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES, + +A CHRONICLE OF THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT + + +By Harold Howland + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE YOUNG FIGHTER + II. IN THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY + III. THE CHAMPION OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM + IV. HAROUN AL ROOSEVELT + V. FIGHTING AND BREAKFASTING WITH PLATT + VI. ROOSEVELT BECOMES PRESIDENT + VII. THE SQUARE DEAL FOR BUSINESS + VIII. THE SQUARE DEAL FOR LABOR + IX. RECLAMATION AND CONSERVATION + X. BEING WISE IN TIME + XI. RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND REVOLUTIONS + XII. THE TAFT ADMINISTRATION + XIII. THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY + XIV. THE GLORIOUS FAILURE + XV. THE FIGHTING EDGE + XVI. THE LAST FOUR YEARS + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + +THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES + + + +CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG FIGHTER + +There is a line of Browning's that should stand as epitaph for Theodore +Roosevelt: "I WAS EVER A FIGHTER." That was the essence of the man, that +the keynote of his career. He met everything in life with a challenge. +If it was righteous, he fought for it; if it was evil, he hurled the +full weight of his finality against it. He never capitulated, never +sidestepped, never fought foul. He carried the fight to the enemy. + +His first fight was for health and bodily vigor. It began at the age +of nine. Physically he was a weakling, his thin and ill-developed body +racked with asthma. But it was only the physical power that was wanting, +never the intellectual or the spiritual. He owed to his father, the +first Theodore, the wise counsel that launched him on his determined +contest against ill health. On the third floor of the house on East +Twentieth Street in New York where he was born, October 27, 1858, his +father had constructed an outdoor gymnasium, fitted with all the usual +paraphernalia. It was an impressive moment, Roosevelt used to say in +later years, when his father first led him into that gymnasium and said +to him, "Theodore, you have the brains, but brains are of comparatively +little use without the body; you have got to make your body, and it lies +with you to make it. It's dull, hard work, but you can do it." The boy +knew that his father was right; and he set those white, powerful teeth +of his and took up the drudgery of daily, monotonous exercise with bars +and rings and weights. "I can see him now," says his sister, "faithfully +going through various exercises, at different times of the day, to +broaden the chest narrowed by this terrible shortness of breath, to +make the limbs and back strong, and able to bear the weight of what was +coming to him later in life." + +All through his boyhood the young Theodore Roosevelt kept up his fight +for strength. He was too delicate to attend school, and was taught by +private tutors. He spent many of his summers, and sometimes some of +the winter months, in the woods of Maine. These outings he thoroughly +enjoyed, but it is certain that the main motive which sent him into the +rough life of the woods to hunt and tramp, to paddle and row and swing +an axe, was the obstinate determination to make himself physically fit. + +His fight for bodily power went on through his college course at Harvard +and during the years that he spent in ranch life in the West. He was +always intensely interested in boxing, although he was never of anything +like championship caliber in the ring. His first impulse to learn to +defend himself with his hands had a characteristic birth. + +During one of his periodical attacks of asthma he was sent alone to +Moosehead Lake in Maine. On the stagecoach that took him the last stage +of the journey he met two boys of about his own age. They quickly +found, he says, in his "Autobiography", that he was "a foreordained and +predestined victim" for their rough teasing, and they "industriously +proceeded to make life miserable" for their fellow traveler. At last +young Roosevelt could endure their persecutions no loner, and tried to +fight. Great was his discomfiture when he discovered that either of them +alone could handle him "with easy contempt." They hurt him little, but, +what was doubtless far more humiliating, they prevented him from doing +any damage whatever in return. + +The experience taught the boy, better than any good advice could have +done, that he must learn to defend himself. Since he had little natural +prowess, he realized that he must supply its place by training. He +secured his father's approval for a course of boxing lessons, upon which +he entered at once. He has described himself as a "painfully slow and +awkward pupil," who worked for two or three years before he made any +perceptible progress. + +In college Roosevelt kept at boxing practice. Even in those days no +antagonist, no matter how much his superior, ever made him "quit." In +his ranching days, that training with his fists stood him in good stead. +Those were still primitive days out in the Dakotas, though now, as +Roosevelt has said, that land of the West has "'gone, gone with the lost +Atlantis,' gone to the isle of ghosts and of strange dead memories." A +man needed to be able to take care of himself in that Wild West then. +Roosevelt had many stirring experiences but only one that he called +"serious trouble." + +He was out after lost horses and came to a primitive little hotel, +consisting of a bar-room, a dining-room, a lean-to kitchen, and above +a loft with fifteen or twenty beds in it. When he entered the bar-room +late in the evening--it was a cold night and there was nowhere else +to go--a would-be "bad man," with a cocked revolver in each hand, was +striding up and down the floor, talking with crude profanity. There were +several bullet holes in the clock face, at which he had evidently been +shooting. This bully greeted the newcomer as "Four Eyes," in reference +to his spectacles, and announced, "Four Eyes is going to treat." +Roosevelt joined in the laugh that followed and sat down behind the +stove, thinking to escape notice. But the "bad man" followed him, and +in spite of Roosevelt's attempt to pass the matter over as a joke, stood +over him, with a gun in each hand and using the foulest language. "He +was foolish," said Roosevelt, in describing the incident, "to stand so +near, and moreover, his heels were closer together, so that his position +was unstable." When he repeated his demand that Four Eyes should treat, +Roosevelt rose as if to comply. As he rose he struck quick and hard with +his right fist just to the left side of the point of the jaw, and, as he +straightened up hit with his left, and again with his right. The bully's +guns went off, whether intentionally or involuntarily no one ever knew. +His head struck the corner of the bar as he fell, and he lay senseless. +"When my assailant came to," said Roosevelt, "he went down to the +station and left on a freight." It was eminently characteristic of +Roosevelt that he tried his best to avoid trouble, but that, when he +could not avoid it honorably, he took care to make it "serious trouble" +for the other fellow. + +Even after he became President, Roosevelt liked to box, until an +accident, of which for many years only his intimate friends were aware, +convinced him of the unwisdom of the game for a man of his age and +optical disabilities. A young artillery captain, with whom he was boxing +in the White House, cross-countered him on the left eye, and the blow +broke the little blood-vessels. Ever afterward, the sight of that eye +was dim; and, as he said, "if it had been the right eye I should have +been entirely unable to shoot." To "a mighty hunter before the Lord" +like Theodore Roosevelt, such a result would have been a cardinal +calamity. + +By the time his experiences in the West were over, Roosevelt's fight +for health had achieved its purpose. Bill Sewall, the woodsman who had +introduced the young Roosevelt to the life of the out-of-doors in Maine, +and who afterward went out West with him to take up the cattle business, +offers this testimony: "He went to Dakota a frail young man, suffering +from asthma and stomach trouble. When he got back into the world again, +he was as husky as almost any man I have ever seen who wasn't dependent +on his arms for his livelihood. He weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, +and was clear bone, muscle, and grit." + +This battle won by the force of sheer determination, the young Roosevelt +never ceased fighting. He knew that the man who neglects exercise and +training, no matter how perfect his physical trim, is certain to "go +back." One day many years afterward on Twenty-third Street, on the way +back from an Outlook editorial luncheon, I ran against his shoulder, as +one often will with a companion on crowded city streets, and felt as if +it were a massive oak tree into which I had bumped. Roosevelt the grown +man of hardened physique was certainly a transformation from that "reed +shaken with the wind" of his boyhood days. + +When Theodore Roosevelt left Harvard in 1880, he plunged promptly into +a new fight--in the political arena. He had no need to earn his living; +his father had left him enough money to take care of that. But he had no +intention or desire to live a life of leisure. He always believed that +the first duty of a man was to "pull his own weight in the boat"; and +his irrepressible energy demanded an outlet in hard, constructive work. +So he took to politics, and as a good Republican ("at that day" he said, +"a young man of my bringing up and convictions, could only join the +Republican party") he knocked at the door of the Twenty-first District +Republican Association in the city of New York. His friends among the +New Yorkers of cultivated taste and comfortable life disapproved of his +desire to enter this new environment. They told him that politics were +"low"; that the political organizations were not run by "gentlemen," +and that he would find there saloonkeepers, horse-car conductors, +and similar persons, whose methods he would find rough and coarse and +unpleasant. Roosevelt merely replied that, if this were the case, it +was those men and not his "silk-stocking" friends who constituted the +governing class--and that he intended to be one of the governing class +himself. If he could not hold his own with those who were really in +practical politics, he supposed he would have to quit; but he did not +intend to quit without making the experiment. + +At every step in his career Theodore Roosevelt made friends. He made +them not "unadvisedly or lightly" but with the directness, the warmth, +and the permanence that were inseparable from the Roosevelt character. +One such friend he acquired at this stage of his progress. In that +District Association, from which his friends had warned him away, +he found a young Irishman who had been a gang leader in the +rough-and-tumble politics of the East Side. Driven by the winter wind +of man's ingratitude from Tammany Hall into the ranks of the opposite +party, Joe Murray was at this time one of the lesser captains in "the +Twenty-first." Roosevelt soon came to like him. He was "by nature as +straight a man, as fearless, and as staunchly loyal," said Roosevelt, +"as any one whom I have ever met, a man to be trusted in any position +demanding courage, integrity, and good faith." The liking was returned +by the eager and belligerent young Irishman, though he has confessed +that he was first led to consider Roosevelt as a political ally from the +point of view of his advantages as a vote-getter. + +The year after Roosevelt joined "the governing class" in Morton Hall, +"a large barn-like room over a saloon," with furniture "of the canonical +kind; dingy benches, spittoons, a dais at one end with a table and +chair, and a stout pitcher for iced water, and on the walls pictures +of General Grant, and of Levi P. Morton," Joe Murray was engaged in +a conflict with "the boss" and wanted a candidate of his own for the +Assembly. He picked out Roosevelt, because he thought that with him he +would be most likely to win. Win they did; the nomination was snatched +away from the boss's man, and election followed. The defeated boss +good-humoredly turned in to help elect the young silk-stocking who had +been the instrument of his discomfiture. + + + +CHAPTER II. IN THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY + +Roosevelt was twice reelected to the Assembly, the second time in 1883, +a year when a Republican success was an outstanding exception to the +general course of events in the State. His career at Albany was marked +by a series of fights for decency and honesty. Each new contest showed +him a fearless antagonist, a hard hitter, and a man of practical common +sense and growing political wisdom. Those were the days of the famous +"black horse cavalry" in the New York Legislature--a group of men whose +votes could always be counted on by the special interests and those +corporations whose managers proceeded on the theory that the way to get +the legislation they wanted, or to block the legislation they did not +want, was to buy the necessary votes. Perhaps one-third of the members +of the Legislature, according to Roosevelt's estimate, were purchasable. +Others were timid. Others again were either stupid or honestly so +convinced of the importance of "business" to the general welfare that +they were blind to corporate faults. But Theodore Roosevelt was neither +purchasable, nor timid, nor unable to distinguish between the legitimate +requirements of business and its unjustifiable demands. He developed as +a natural leader of the honest opposition to the "black horse cavalry." + +The situation was complicated by what were known as "strike bills." +These were bills which, if passed, might or might not have been in the +public interest, but would certainly have been highly embarrassing to +the private interests involved. The purpose of their introduction was, +of course, to compel the corporations to pay bribes to ensure their +defeat. Roosevelt had one interesting and illuminating experience with +the "black horse cavalry." He was Chairman of the Committee on Cities. +The representatives of one of the great railways brought to him a bill +to permit the extension of its terminal facilities in one of the big +cities of the State, and asked him to take charge of it. Roosevelt +looked into the proposed bill and found that it was a measure that ought +to be passed quite as much in the public interest as is the interest of +the railroad. He agreed to stand sponsor for the bill, provided he were +assured that no money would be used to push it. The assurance was given. +When the bill came before his committee for consideration, Roosevelt +found that he could not get it reported out either favorably or +unfavorably. So he decided to force matters. In accordance with +his life-long practice, he went into the decisive committee meeting +perfectly sure what he was going to do, and otherwise fully prepared. + +There was a broken chair in the room, and when he took his seat a leg of +that chair was unobtrusively ready to his hand. He moved that the bill +be reported favorably. + +The gang, without debate, voted "No." He moved that it be reported +unfavorably. Again the gang voted "No." Then he put the bill in his +pocket and announced that he proposed to report it anyhow. There was +almost a riot. He was warned that his conduct would be exposed on the +floor of the Assembly. He replied that in that case he would explain +publicly in the Assembly the reasons which made him believe that the +rest of the committee were trying, from motives of blackmail, to prevent +any report of the bill. The bill was reported without further protest, +and the threatened riot did not come off, partly, said Roosevelt, +"because of the opportune production of the chair-leg." But the young +fighter found that he was no farther along: the bill slumbered soundly +on the calendar, and nothing that he could do availed to secure +consideration of it. At last the representative of the railroad +suggested that some older and more experienced leader might be able to +get the bill passed where he had failed. Roosevelt could do nothing but +assent. The bill was put in charge of an "old Parliamentary hand," +and after a decent lapse of time, went through without opposition. The +complete change of heart on the part of the black horsemen under the +new leadership was vastly significant. Nothing could be proved; but much +could be surmised. + +Another incident of Roosevelt's legislative career reveals the bull-dog +tenacity of the man. Evidence had been procured that a State judge +had been guilty of improper, if not of corrupt, relations with certain +corporate interests. This judge had held court in a room of one of the +"big business" leaders of that time. He had written in a letter to this +financier, "I am willing to go to the very verge of judicial discretion +to serve your vast interests." There was strong evidence that he had +not stopped at the verge. The blood of the young Roosevelt boiled at the +thought of this stain on the judicial ermine. His party elders sought +patronizingly to reassure him; but he would have none of it. He rose in +the Assembly and demanded the impeachment of the unworthy judge. With +perfect candor and the naked vigor that in the years to come was to +become known the world around he said precisely what he meant. Under the +genial sardonic advice of the veteran Republican leader, who "wished to +give young Mr. Roosevelt time to think about the wisdom of his course," +the Assembly voted not to take up his "loose charges." It looked like +ignominious defeat. But the next day the young firebrand was back to the +attack again, and the next day, and the next. For eight days he kept up +the fight; each day the reputation of this contest for a forlorn hope +grew and spread throughout the State. On the eighth day he demanded that +the resolution be voted on again, and the opposition collapsed. Only six +votes were cast against his motion. It is true that the investigation +ended in a coat of whitewash. But the evidence was so strong that no +one could be in doubt that it WAS whitewash. The young legislator, whose +party mentors had seen before him nothing but a ruined career, had won a +smashing moral victory. + +Roosevelt was not only a fighter from his first day in public life +to the last, but he was a fighter always against the same evils. Two +incidents more than a quarter of a century apart illustrate this fact. +A bill was introduced in the Assembly in those earlier days to prohibit +the manufacture of cigars in tenement houses in New York City. It was +proposed by the Cigar-Makers' Union. Roosevelt was appointed one of a +committee of three to investigate the subject. Of the other two members, +one did not believe in the bill but confessed privately that he must +support it because the labor unions were strong in his district. The +other, with equal frankness, confessed that he had to oppose the bill +because certain interests who had a strong hold upon him disapproved it, +but declared his belief that if Roosevelt would look into the matter +he would find that the proposed legislation was good. Politics, and +politicians, were like that in those days--as perhaps they still are +in these. The young aristocrat, who was fast becoming a stalwart and +aggressive democrat, expected to find himself against the bill; for, +as he has said, the "respectable people" and the "business men" whom +he knew did not believe in such intrusions upon the right even of +workingmen to do what they would with their own. The laissez faire +doctrine of economic life was good form in those days. + +But the only member of that committee that approached the question with +an open mind found that his first impressions were wrong. He went down +into the tenement houses to see for himself. He found cigars being made +under conditions that were appalling. For example, he discovered +an apartment of one room in which three men, two women, and several +children--the members of two families and a male boarder--ate, slept, +lived, and made cigars. "The tobacco was stowed about everywhere, +alongside the foul bedding, and in a corner where there were scraps of +food." These conditions were not exceptional; they were only a little +worse than was usual. + +Roosevelt did not oppose the bill; he fought for it and it passed. Then +he appeared before Governor Cleveland to argue for it on behalf of the +Cigar-Makers' Union. The Governor hesitated, but finally signed it. The +Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional, in a smug and well-fed +decision, which spoke unctuously of the "hallowed" influences of the +"home." It was a wicked decision, because it was purely academic, and +was removed as far as the fixed stars from the actual facts of life. But +it had one good result. It began the making of Theodore Roosevelt into +a champion of social justice, for, as he himself said, it was this case +which first waked him "to a dim and partial understanding of the fact +that the courts were not necessarily the best judges of what should be +done to better social and industrial conditions." + +When, a quarter of a century later, Roosevelt left the Presidency and +became Contributing Editor of The Outlook, almost his first contribution +to that journal was entitled "A Judicial Experience." It told the story +of this law and its annulment by the court. Mr. William Travers Jerome +wrote a letter to The Outlook, taking Roosevelt sharply to task for his +criticism of the court. It fell to the happy lot of the writer as a cub +editor to reply editorially to Mr. Jerome. I did so with gusto and +with particularity. As Mr. Roosevelt left the office on his way to the +steamer that was to take him to Africa to hunt non-political big game, +he said to me, who had seen him only once before: "That was bully. You +have done just what my Cabinet members used to do for me in Washington. +When a question rose that demanded action, I used to act. Then I would +tell Root or Taft to find out and tell me why what I had done was legal +and justified. Well done, coworker." Is it any wonder that Theodore +Roosevelt had made in that moment another ardent supporter? + +Those first years in the political arena were not only a fighting +time, they were a formative time. The young Roosevelt had to discover +a philosophy of political action which would satisfy him. He speedily +found one that suited his temperament and his keen sense of reality. +He found no reason to depart from it to the day of his death. Long +afterward he told his good friend Jacob Riis how he arrived at it. This +was the way of it: + +"I suppose that my head was swelled. It would not be strange if it was. +I stood out for my own opinion, alone. I took the best mugwump stand: my +own conscience, my own judgment, were to decide in all things. I would +listen to no argument, no advice. I took the isolated peak on every +issue, and my people left me. When I looked around, before the session +was well under way, I found myself alone. I was absolutely deserted. +The people didn't understand. The men from Erie, from Suffolk, from +anywhere, would not work with me. 'He won't listen to anybody,' they +said, and I would not. My isolated peak had become a valley; every bit +of influence I had was gone. The things I wanted to do I was powerless +to accomplish. What did I do? I looked the ground over and made up my +mind that there were several other excellent people there, with honest +opinions of the right, even though they differed from me. I turned in to +help them, and they turned to and gave me a hand. And so we were able to +get things done. We did not agree in all things, but we did in some, and +those we pulled at together. That was my first lesson in real politics. +It is just this: if you are cast on a desert island with only a +screw-driver, a hatchet, and a chisel to make a boat with, why, go +make the best one you can. It would be better if you had a saw, but you +haven't. So with men. Here is my friend in Congress who is a good man, a +strong man, but cannot be made to believe in some things which I trust. +It is too bad that he doesn't look at it as I do, but he DOES NOT, and +we have to work together as we can. There is a point, of course, where +a man must take the isolated peak and break with it all for clear +principle, but until it comes he must work, if he would be of use, with +men as they are. As long as the good in them overbalances the evil, let +him work with that for the best that can be got." + +From the moment that he had learned this valuable lesson--and Roosevelt +never needed to learn a lesson twice--he had his course in public life +marked out before him. He believed ardently in getting things done. He +was no theoretical reformer. He would never take the wrong road; but, if +he could not go as far as he wanted to along the right road, he would +go as far as he could, and bide his time for the rest. He would +not compromise a hair's breadth on a principle; he would compromise +cheerfully on a method which did not mean surrender of the principle. +He perceived that there were in political life many bad men who +were thoroughly efficient and many good men who would have liked to +accomplish high results but who were thoroughly inefficient. He realized +that if he wished to accomplish anything for the country his business +was to combine decency and efficiency; to be a thoroughly practical +man of high ideals who did his best to reduce those ideals to actual +practice. This was the choice that he made in those first days, the +companionable road of practical idealism rather than the isolated peak +of idealistic ineffectiveness. + +A hard test of his political philosophy came in 1884 just after he had +left the Legislature. He was selected as one of the four delegates at +large from New York to the Republican National Convention. There he +advocated vigorously the nomination of Senator George F. Edmunds for the +Presidency. But the more popular candidate with the delegates was James +G. Blaine. Roosevelt did not believe in Blaine, who was a politician of +the professional type and who had a reputation that was not immaculate. +The better element among the delegates fought hard against Blaine's +nomination, with Roosevelt wherever the blows were shrewdest. But +their efforts were of no avail. Too many party hacks had come to the +Convention, determined to nominate Blaine, and they put the slate +through with a whoop. + +Then, every Republican in active politics who was anything but a rubber +stamp politician had a difficult problem to face. Should he support +Blaine, in whom he could have no confidence and for whom he could have +no respect, or should he "bolt"? A large group decided to bolt. They +organized the Mugwump party--the epithet was flung at them with no +friendly intent by Charles A. Dana of the New York Sun, but they made of +it an honorable title--under the leadership of George William Curtis and +Carl Schurz. Their announced purpose was to defeat the Republicans, from +whose ranks they had seceded, and in this attempt they were successful. + +Roosevelt, however, made the opposite decision. Indeed, he had made the +decision before he entered the Convention. It was characteristic of him +not to wait until the choice was upon him but to look ahead and make +up his mind just which course he would take if and when a certain +contingency arose. I remember that once in the later days at Oyster Bay +he said to me, "They say I am impulsive. It isn't true. The fact is that +on all the important things that may come up for decision in my life, I +have thought the thing out in advance and know what I will do. So when +the moment comes, I don't have to stop to work it out then. My decision +is already made. I have only to put it into action. It looks like +impulsiveness. It is nothing of the sort." + +So, in 1884, when Roosevelt met his first problem in national politics, +he already knew what he would do. He would support Blaine, for he was +a party man. The decision wounded many of his friends. But it was the +natural result of his political philosophy. He believed in political +parties as instruments for securing the translation into action of the +popular will. He perceived that the party system, as distinguished from +the group system of the continental peoples, was the Anglo-Saxon, the +American way of doing things. He wanted to get things done. There was +only one thing that he valued more than achievement and that was the +right. Therefore, until it became a clean issue between right and wrong, +he would stick to the instrument which seemed to him the most efficient +for getting things done. So he stuck to his party, in spite of his +distaste for its candidate, and saw it go down in defeat. + +Roosevelt never changed his mind about this important matter. He was a +party man to the end. In 1912 he left his old party on what he believed +to be--and what was--a naked moral issue. But he did not become an +independent. He created a new party. + + + +CHAPTER III. THE CHAMPION OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM + +The four years after the Cleveland-Blaine campaign were divided into two +parts for Roosevelt by another political experience, which also +resulted in defeat. He was nominated by the Republicans and a group +of independents for Mayor of New York. His two opponents were Abram S. +Hewitt, a business man of standing who had been inveigled, no one knows +how, into lending respectability to the Tammany ticket in a critical +moment, and Henry George, the father of the Single Tax doctrine, who +had been nominated by a conference of some one hundred and seventy-five +labor organizations. Roosevelt fought his best on a personal platform of +"no class or caste" but "honest and economical government on behalf of +the general wellbeing." But the inevitable happened. Tammany slipped in +between its divided enemies and made off with the victory. + +The rest of the four years he spent partly in ranch life out in the +Dakotas, partly in writing history and biography at home and in travel. +The life on the ranch and in the hunting camps finished the business, +so resolutely begun in the outdoor gymnasium on Twentieth Street, of +developing a physical equipment adequate for any call he could make upon +it. This sojourn on the plains gave him, too, an intimate knowledge of +the frontier type of American. Theodore Roosevelt loved his fellow men. +What is more, he was always interested in them, not abstractly and in +the mass, but concretely and in the individual. He believed in them. +He knew their strength and their virtues, and he rejoiced in them. He +realized their weaknesses and their softnesses and fought them hard. It +was all this that made him the thoroughgoing democrat that he was. "The +average American," I have heard him say a hundred times to all kinds +of audiences, "is a pretty good fellow, and his wife is a still better +fellow." He not only enjoyed those years in the West to the full, but he +profited by them as well. They broadened and deepened his knowledge +of what the American people were and meant. They made vivid to him +the value of the simple, robust virtues of self-reliance, courage, +self-denial, tolerance, and justice. The influence of those hard-riding +years was with him as a great asset to the end of his life. + +In the Presidential campaign of 1888, Roosevelt was on the firing line +again, fighting for the Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison. +When Mr. Harrison was elected, he would have liked to put the young +campaigner into the State Department. But Mr. Blaine, who became +Secretary of State, did not care to have his plain-spoken opponent and +critic under him. So the President offered Roosevelt the post of Civil +Service Commissioner. + +The spoils system had become habitual and traditional in American public +life by sixty years of practice. It had received its first high sanction +in the cynical words of a New York politician, "To the victor belong the +spoils." Politicians looked upon it as a normal accompaniment of their +activities. The public looked upon it with indifference. But finally a +group of irrepressible reformers succeeded in getting the camel's nose +under the flap of the tent. A law was passed establishing a Commission +which was to introduce the merit system. But even then neither the +politicians nor the public, nor the Commission itself, took the matter +very seriously. The Commission was in the habit of carrying on its +functions perfunctorily and unobtrusively. But nothing could be +perfunctory where Roosevelt was. He would never permit things to be +done--or left undone unobtrusively, when what was needed was to obtrude +the matter forcibly on the public mind. He was a profound believer in +the value of publicity. + +When Roosevelt became Commissioner things began swiftly to happen. He +had two firm convictions: that laws were made to be enforced, in the +letter and in the spirit; and that the only thing worth while in the +world was to get things done. He believed with a hot conviction in +decency, honesty, and efficiency in public as in private life. + +For six years he fought and infused his fellow Commissioners with some +of his fighting spirit. They were good men but easy-going until the +right leadership came along. The first effort of the Commission under +the new leadership was to secure the genuine enforcement of the law. The +backbone of the merit system was the competitive examination. This was +not because such examinations are the infallible way to get good public +servants, but because they are the best way that has yet been devised +to keep out bad public servants, selected for private reasons having +nothing to do with the public welfare. The effort to make these +examinations and the subsequent appointments of real service to the +nation rather than to the politicians naturally brought the Commission +into conflict with many men of low ideals, both in Congress and without. +Roosevelt found a number of men in Congress--like Senator Lodge, Senator +Davis of Minnesota, Senator Platt of Connecticut, and Congressman +(afterward President) McKinley--who were sincerely and vigorously +opposed to the spoils system. But there were numbers of other Senators +and Congressmen who hated the whole reform--everything connected with +it and everybody who championed it. "Sometimes," Roosevelt said of these +men, "to use a legal phrase, their hatred was for cause, and sometimes +it was peremptory--that is, sometimes the Commission interfered with +their most efficient, and incidentally most corrupt and unscrupulous +supporters, and at other times, where there was no such interference, +a man nevertheless had an innate dislike of anything that tended to +decency in government." + +Conflict with these men was inevitable. Sometimes their opposition took +the form of trying to cut down the appropriation for the Commission. + +Then the Commission, on Roosevelt's suggestion, would try the effect of +holding no examinations in the districts of the Senators or Congressmen +who had voted against the appropriation. The response from the districts +was instantaneous. Frantic appeals came to the Commission from aspirants +for office. The reply would be suave and courteous. One can imagine +Roosevelt dictating it with a glint in his eye and a snap of the jaw, +and when it was typed, inserting a sting in the tail in the form of an +interpolated sentence in his own vigorous and rugged script. Those added +sentences, without which any typewritten Roosevelt letter might almost +be declared to be a forgery, so uniformly did the impulse to add them +seize him, were always the most interesting feature of a communication +from him. The letter would inform the protesting one that unfortunately +the appropriation had been cut, so that examinations could not be held +in every district, and that obviously the Commission could not neglect +the districts of those Congressmen who believed in the reform and +therefore in the examinations. The logical next step for the hungry +aspirant was to transfer the attack to his Congressman or Senator. In +the long run, by this simple device of backfiring, which may well have +been a reminiscence of prairie fire days in the West, the Commission +obtained enough money to carry on. + +There were other forms of attack tried by the spoils-loving legislators. +One was investigation by a congressional committee. But the appearance +of Roosevelt before such an investigating body invariably resulted in +a "bully time" for him and a peculiarly disconcerting time for his +opponents. + +One of the Republican floor leaders in the House in those days was +Congressman Grosvenor from Ohio. In an unwary moment Mr. Grosvenor +attacked the Commission on the floor of the House in picturesque +fashion. Roosevelt promptly asked that Mr. Grosvenor be invited to +meet him before a congressional committee which was at that moment +investigating the activities of the Commission. The Congressman did +not accept the invitation until he heard that Roosevelt was leaving +Washington for his ranch in the West. Then he notified the committee +that he would be glad to meet Commissioner Roosevelt at one of its +sessions. Roosevelt immediately postponed his journey and met him. Mr. +Grosvenor, says Roosevelt in his Autobiography, "proved to be a person +of happily treacherous memory, so that the simple expedient of arranging +his statements in pairs was sufficient to reduce him to confusion." He +declared to the committee, for instance, that he did not want to repeal +the Civil Service Law and had never said so. Roosevelt produced one of +Mr. Grosvenor's speeches in which he had said, "I will not only vote +to strike out this provision, but I will vote to repeal the whole law." +Grosvenor declared that there was no inconsistency between these two +statements. At another point in his testimony, he asserted that a +certain applicant for office, who had, as he put it, been fraudulently +credited to his congressional district, had never lived in that district +or in Ohio, so far as he knew. Roosevelt brought forth a letter in +which the Congressman himself had categorically stated that the man in +question was not only a legal resident of his district but was actually +living there then. He explained, says Roosevelt, "first, that he had +not written the letter; second, that he had forgotten he had written +the letter; and, third, that he was grossly deceived when he wrote +it." Grosvenor at length accused Roosevelt of a lack of humor in not +appreciating that his statements were made "in a jesting way," and +declared that "a Congressman making a speech on the floor of the House +of Representatives was perhaps in a little different position from +a witness on the witness stand." Finally he rose with dignity and, +asserting his constitutional right not to be questioned elsewhere as to +what he said on the floor of the House, withdrew, leaving Roosevelt and +the Committee equally delighted with the opera bouffe in which he had +played the leading part. + +In the Roosevelt days the Commission carried on its work, as of course +it should, without thought of party. It can be imagined how it made +the "good" Republicans rage when one of the results of the impartial +application system was to put into office from the Southern States a +hundred or two Democrats. The critics of the Commission were equally +non-partisan; there was no politics in spoilsmanship. The case of +Mr. Grosvenor was matched by that of Senator Gorman of Maryland, the +Democratic leader in the Senate. Mr. Gorman told upon the floor of the +Senate the affecting story of "a bright young man from Baltimore," a +Sunday School scholar, well recommended by his pastor, who aspired to +be a letter carrier. He appeared before the Commission for examination, +and, according to Mr. Gorman, he was first asked to describe the +shortest route from Baltimore to China. The "bright young man" replied +brightly, according to Mr. Gorman, that he didn't want to go from +Baltimore to China, and therefore had never concerned himself about the +choice of routes. He was then asked, according to Mr. Gorman, all about +the steamship lines from America to Europe; then came questions in +geology, and finally in chemistry. The Commission thereupon turned the +bright young applicant down. The Senator's speech was masterly. It must +have made the spoilsmen chuckle and the friends of civil service reform +squirm. It had neither of these effects on Roosevelt. It merely exploded +him into action like a finger on a hair-trigger. First of all, he set +about hunting down the facts. Facts were his favorite ammunition in a +fight. They have such a powerful punch. A careful investigation of +all the examination papers which the Commission had set revealed not a +single question like those from which the "bright young man," according +to Mr. Gorman, had suffered. So Roosevelt wrote to the Senator asking +for the name of the "bright young man." There was no response. He also +asked, in case Mr. Gorman did not care to reveal his identity, the date +of the examination. Still no reply. Roosevelt offered to give to any +representative whom Mr. Gorman would send to the Commission's offices +all the aid he could in discovering in the files any such questions. The +offer was ignored. But the Senator expressed himself as so shocked at +this doubting of the word of his brilliant protege that he was unable to +answer the letter at all. + +Roosevelt thereupon announced publicly that no such questions had ever +been asked. Mr. Gorman was gravely injured by the whole incident. Later +he declared in the Senate that he had received a "very impudent letter" +from the young Commissioner, and that he had been "cruelly" called +to account because he had tried to right a "great wrong" which the +Commission had committed. Roosevelt's retort was to tell the whole story +publicly, closing with this delightful passage: + +"High-minded, sensitive Mr. Gorman. Clinging, trustful Mr. Gorman. +Nothing could shake his belief in the "bright young man." Apparently he +did not even try to find out his name--if he had a name; in fact, his +name like everything else about him, remains to this day wrapped in the +Stygian mantle of an abysmal mystery. Still less has Mr. Gorman tried to +verify the statements made to him. It is enough for him that they were +made. No harsh suspicion, no stern demand for evidence or proof, appeals +to his artless and unspoiled soul. He believes whatever he is told, even +when he has forgotten the name of the teller, or never knew it. It would +indeed be difficult to find an instance of a more abiding confidence in +human nature--even in anonymous human nature. And this is the end of the +tale of the Arcadian Mr. Gorman and his elusive friend, the bright young +man without a name." + +Even so near the beginning of his career, Roosevelt showed himself +perfectly fearless in attack. He would as soon enter the lists against a +Senator as a Congressman, as soon challenge a Cabinet member as either. +He did not even hesitate to make it uncomfortable for the President to +whom he owed his continuance in office. His only concern was for the +honor of the public service which he was in office to defend. + +One day he appeared at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Civil +Service Reform Association. George William Curtis was presiding, and +Roosevelt's old friend, George Haven Putnam, who tells the story, was +also present. Roosevelt began by hurling a solemn but hearty imprecation +at the head of the Postmaster General. He went on to explain that his +explosive wrath was due to the fact that that particular gentleman was +the most pernicious of all the enemies of the merit system. It was one +of the functions of the Civil Service Commission, as Roosevelt saw it, +to put a stop to improper political activities by Federal employees. +Such activities were among the things that the Civil Service law was +intended to prevent. They strengthened the hands of the political +machines and the bosses, and at the same time weakened the efficiency of +the service. Roosevelt had from time to time reported to the Postmaster +General what some of the Post Office employees were doing in political +ways to the detriment of the service. His account of what happened was +this: + +"I placed before the Postmaster-General sworn statements in regard to +these political activities and the only reply I could secure was, +'This is all second-hand evidence.' Then I went up to Baltimore at +the invitation of our good friend, a member of the National Committee, +Charles J. Bonaparte. Bonaparte said that he could bring me into direct +touch with some of the matters complained about. He took me to the +primary meetings with some associate who knew by name the carriers and +the customs officials. I was able to see going on the work of political +assessments, and I heard the instructions given to the carriers and +others in regard to the moneys that they were to collect. I got the +names of some of these men recorded in my memorandum book. I then +went back to Washington, swore myself in as a witness before myself as +Commissioner, and sent the sworn statement to the Postmaster-General +with the word, 'This at least is firsthand evidence.' I still got no +reply, and after waiting a few days, I put the whole material before +the President with a report. This report has been pigeonholed by the +President, and I have now come to New York to see what can be done to +get the evidence before the public. You will understand that the head +of a department, having made a report to the President, can do nothing +further with the material until the President permits." + +Roosevelt went back to Washington with the sage advice to ask the Civil +Service Committee of the House to call upon him to give evidence in +regard to the working of the Civil Service Act. He could then get into +the record his first-hand evidence as well as a general statement of +the bad practices which were going on. This evidence, when printed as +a report of the congressional committee, could be circulated by the +Association. Roosevelt bettered the advice by asking to have the +Postmaster General called before the committee at the same time as +himself. This was done, but that timid politician replied to the +Chairman of the committee that "he would hold himself at the service +of the Committee for any date on which Mr. Roosevelt was not to be +present." The politicians with uneasy consciences were getting a little +wary about face-to-face encounters with the young fighter. Nevertheless +Roosevelt's testimony was given and circulated broadcast, as Major +Putnam writes, "much to the dissatisfaction of the Postmaster General +and probably of the President." + +The six years which Roosevelt spent on the Civil Service Commission +were for him years of splendid training in the methods and practices +of political life. What he learned then stood him in good stead when he +came to the Presidency. Those years of Roosevelt's gave an impetus to +the cause of civil reform which far surpassed anything it had received +until his time. Indeed, it is probably not unfair to say that it has +received no greater impulse since. + + + +CHAPTER IV. HAROUN AL ROOSEVELT + +In 1895, at the age of thirty-six, Roosevelt was asked by Mayor Strong +of New York City, who had just been elected on an anti-Tammany ticket, +to become a member of his Administration. Mayor Strong wanted him for +Street Cleaning Commissioner. Roosevelt definitely refused that office, +on the ground that he had no special fitness for it, but accepted +readily the Mayor's subsequent proposal that he should become President +of the Police Commission, knowing that there was a job that he could do. + +There was plenty of work to be done in the Police Department. The +conditions under which it must be done were dishearteningly unfavorable. +In the first place, the whole scheme of things was wrong. The Police +Department was governed by one of those bi-partisan commissions which +well-meaning theorists are wont sometimes to set up when they think that +the important thing in government is to have things arranged so that +nobody can do anything harmful. The result often is that nobody can do +anything at all. There were four Commissioners, two supposed to belong +to one party and two to the other. There was also a Chief of Police, +appointed by the Commission, who could not be removed without a trial +subject to review by the courts. The scheme put a premium on intriguing +and obstruction. It was far inferior to the present plan of a single +Commissioner with full power, subject only to the Mayor who appoints +him. + +But there is an interesting lesson to be learned from a comparison +between the New York Police Department as it is today and as it was +twenty-five years ago. Then the scheme of organization was thoroughly +bad--and the department was at its high-water mark of honest and +effective activity. Now the scheme of organization is excellent--but the +less said about the way it works the better. The answer to the riddle is +this: today the New York police force is headed by Tammany; the name of +the particular Tammany man who is Commissioner does not matter. In those +days the head was Roosevelt. + +There were many good men on the force then as now. What Roosevelt +said of the men of his time is as true today: "There are no better men +anywhere than the men of the New York police force; and when they go bad +it is because the system is wrong, and because they are not given the +chance to do the good work they can do and would rather do." The first +fight that Roosevelt found on his hands was to keep politics and every +kind of favoritism absolutely out of the force. During his six years as +Civil Service Commissioner he had learned much about the way to get good +men into the public service. He was now able to put his own theories +into practice. His method was utterly simple and incontestably right. +"As far as was humanly possible, the appointments and promotions were +made without regard to any question except the fitness of the man and +the needs of the service." That was all. "We paid," he said, "not the +slightest attention to a man's politics or creed, or where he was born, +so long as he was an American citizen." But it was not easy to convince +either the politicians or the public that the Commission really meant +what it said. In view of the long record of unblushing corruption in +connection with every activity in the Police Department, and of the +existence, which was a matter of common knowledge, of a regular tariff +for appointments and promotions, it is little wonder that the news that +every one on, or desiring to get on, the force would have a square deal +was received with scepticism. But such was the fact. Roosevelt brought +the whole situation out into the open, gave the widest possible +publicity to what the Commission was doing, and went hotly after any +intimation of corruption. + +One secret of his success here as everywhere else was that he did things +himself. He knew things of his own knowledge. One evening he went +down to the Bowery to speak at a branch of the Young Men's Christian +Association. There he met a young Jew, named Raphael, who had recently +displayed unusual courage and physical prowess in rescuing women and +children from a burning building. Roosevelt suggested that he try +the examination for entrance to the force. Young Raphael did so, was +successful, and became a policeman of the best type. He and his family, +said Roosevelt, "have been close friends of mine ever since." Another +comment which he added is delicious and illuminating: "To show our +community of feeling and our grasp of the facts of life, I may mention +that we were almost the only men in the Police Department who picked +Fitzsimmons as a winner against Corbett." There is doubtless much in +this little incident shocking to the susceptibilities of many who would +consider themselves among the "best" people. But Roosevelt would care +little for that. He was a real democrat; and to his great soul there was +nothing either incongruous or undesirable in having--and in admitting +that he had--close friends in an East Side Jewish family just over from +Russia. He believed, too, in "the strenuous life," in boxing and in +prize fighting when it was clean. He could meet a subordinate as man to +man on the basis of such a personal matter as their respective judgment +of two prize fighters, without relaxing in the slightest degree their +official relations. He was a man of realities, who knew how to preserve +the real distinctions of life without insisting on the artificial ones. + +One of the best allies that Roosevelt had was Jacob A. Riis, that +extraordinary man with the heart of a child, the courage of a lion, and +the spirit of a crusader, who came from Denmark as an immigrant, tramped +the streets of New York and the country roads without a place to lay his +head, became one of the best police reporters New York ever knew, +and grew to be a flaming force for righteousness in the city of his +adoption. His book, "How the Other Half Lives", did more to clean up +the worst slums of the city than any other single thing. When the book +appeared, Roosevelt went to Mr. Riis's office, found him out, and left +a card which said simply, "I have read your book. I have come down +to help." When Roosevelt became Police Commissioner, Riis was in the +Tribune Police Bureau in Mulberry Street, opposite Police Headquarters, +already a well valued friend. Roosevelt took him for guide, and together +they tramped about the dark spots of the city in the night hours when +the underworld slips its mask and bares its arm to strike. Roosevelt +had to know for himself. He considered that he had two duties as Police +Commissioner: one to make the police force an honest and effective +public servant; the other to use his position "to help in making the +city a better place in which to live and work for those to whom the +conditions of life and labor were hardest." These night wanderings of +"Haroun al Roosevelt," as some one successfully ticketed him in allusion +to the great Caliph's similar expeditions, were powerful aids to the +tightening up of discipline and to the encouragement of good work by +patrolmen and roundsmen. The unfaithful or the easy-going man on the +beat, who allowed himself to be beguiled by the warmth and cheer of a +saloon back-room, or to wander away from his duty for his own purposes, +was likely to be confronted by the black slouch hat and the gleaming +spectacles of a tough-set figure that he knew as the embodiment of +relentless justice. But the faithful knew no less surely that he was +their best friend and champion. + +In the old days of "the system," not only appointment to the force and +promotion, but recognition of exceptional achievement went by favor. The +policeman who risked his life in the pursuit of duty and accomplished +some big thing against great odds could not be sure of the reward to +which he was entitled unless he had political pull. It was even the rule +in the Department that the officer who spoiled his uniform in rescuing +man, woman, or child from the waters of the river must get a new one +at his own expense. "The system" knew neither justice nor fair play. It +knew nothing but the cynical phrase of Richard Croker, Tammany Hall's +famous boss, "my own pocket all the time." But Roosevelt changed all +that. He had not been in Mulberry Street a month before that despicable +rule about the uniform was blotted out. His whole term of office on the +Police Board was marked by acts of recognition of bravery and faithful +service. Many times he had to dig the facts out for himself or ran upon +them by accident. There was no practice in the Department of recording +the good work done by the men on the force so that whoever would might +read. + +Roosevelt enjoyed this part of his task heartily. He believed vigorously +in courage, hardihood, and daring. What is more, he believed with his +whole soul in men. It filled him with pure joy when he discovered a man +of the true stalwart breed who held his own life as nothing when his +duty was at stake. + +During his two years' service, he and his fellow Commissioners singled +out more than a hundred men for special mention because of some feat of +heroism. Two cases which he describes in his "Autobiography" are typical +of the rest. One was that of an old fellow, a veteran of the Civil War, +who was a roundsman. Roosevelt noticed one day that he had saved a woman +from drowning and called him before him to investigate the matter. The +veteran officer was not a little nervous and agitated as he produced his +record. He had grown gray in the service and had performed feat after +feat of heroism; but his complete lack of political backing had kept him +from further promotion. In twenty-two years on the force he had saved +some twenty-five persons from drowning, to say nothing of rescuing +several from burning buildings. Twice Congress had passed special +acts to permit the Secretary of the Treasury to give him a medal for +distinguished gallantry in saving life. He had received other medals +from the Life Saving Society and from the Police Department itself. The +one thing that he could not achieve was adequate promotion, although his +record was spotless. When Roosevelt's attention was attracted to him, +he received his promotion then and there. "It may be worth mentioning," +says Roosevelt, "that he kept on saving life after he was given his +sergeantcy." + +The other case was that of a patrolman who seemed to have fallen into +the habit of catching burglars. Roosevelt noticed that he caught two +in successive weeks, the second time under unusual conditions. The +policeman saw the burglar emerging from a house soon after midnight and +gave chase. The fugitive ran toward Park Avenue. The New York Central +Railroad runs under that avenue, and there is a succession of openings +in the top of the tunnel. The burglar took a desperate chance by +dropping through one of the openings, at the imminent risk of breaking +his neck. "Now the burglar," says Roosevelt, "was running for his +liberty, and it was the part of wisdom for him to imperil life and +limb; but the policeman was merely doing his duty, and nobody could +have blamed him for not taking the jump. However, he jumped; and in this +particular case the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the unrighteous. The +burglar had the breath knocked out of him, and the 'cop' didn't. When +his victim could walk, the officer trotted him around to the station +house." When Roosevelt had discovered that the patrolman's record showed +him to be sober, trustworthy, and strictly attentive to duty, he secured +his promotion at once. + +So the Police Commission, during those two years, under the driving +force of Roosevelt's example and spirit, went about the regeneration of +the force whose former proud title of "The Finest" had been besmirched +by those who should have been its champions and defenders. Politics, +favoritism, and corruption were knocked out of the department with all +the thoroughness that the absurd bipartisan scheme of administration +would permit. + +The most spectacular fight of all was against the illegal operations of +the saloons. The excise law forbade the sale of liquor on Sunday. +But the police, under orders from "higher up," enforced the law with +discretion. The saloons which paid blackmail, or which enjoyed the +protection of some powerful Tammany chieftain, sold liquor on Sunday +with impunity. Only those whose owners were recalcitrant or without +influence were compelled to obey the law. + +Now a goodly proportion of the population of New York, as of any great +city, objects strenuously to having its personal habits interfered with +by the community. This is just as true now in the days of prohibition as +it was then in the days of "Sunday closing." So when Roosevelt came +into office with the simple, straightforward conviction that laws on the +statute books were intended to be enforced and proceeded to close all +the saloons on Sunday, the result was inevitable. The professional +politicians foamed at the mouth. The yellow press shrieked and lied. +The saloon-keepers and the sharers of their illicit profits wriggled and +squirmed. But the saloons were closed. The law was enforced without fear +or favor. The Sunday sale of liquor disappeared from the city, until a +complaisant judge, ruling upon the provision of the law which permitted +drink to be sold with a meal, decreed that one pretzel, even when +accompanied by seventeen beers, made a "meal." No amount of honesty and +fearlessness in the enforcement of the law could prevail against such +judicial aid and comfort to the cause of nullification. The main purpose +of Roosevelt's fight for Sunday closing, the stopping of blackmail, was, +however, achieved. A standard of law enforcement was set which shows +what can be done even with an unpopular law, and in New York City +itself, if the will to deal honestly and without cowardice is there. + +So the young man who was "ever a fighter" went on his way, fighting evil +to the death wherever he found it, achieving results, making friends +eagerly and enemies blithely, learning, broadening, growing. Already he +had made a distinct impression upon his times. + + + +CHAPTER V. FIGHTING AND BREAKFASTING WITH PLATT + +From the New York Police Department Roosevelt was called by President +McKinley to Washington in 1897, to become Assistant Secretary of the +Navy. After a year there--the story of which belongs elsewhere in this +volume--he resigned to go to Cuba as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough +Riders. He was just as prominent in that war for liberty and justice +as the dimensions of the conflict permitted. He was accustomed in after +years to say with deprecating humor, when talking to veterans of the +Civil War, "It wasn't much of a war, but it was all the war we had." It +made him Governor of New York. + +When he landed with his regiment at Montauk Point from Cuba, he was met +by two delegations. One consisted of friends from his own State who were +political independents; the other came from the head of the Republican +political machine. + +Both wanted him as a candidate for Governor. The independents were +anxious to have him make a campaign against the Old Guard of both the +standard parties, fighting Richard Croker, the cynical Tammany boss, on +the one side, and Thomas C. Platt, the "easy boss" of the Republicans, +on the other. Tom Platt did not want him at all. But he did want to win +the election, and he knew that he must have something superlatively +fine to offer, if he was to have any hope of carrying the discredited +Republican party to victory. So he swallowed whatever antipathy he may +have had and offered the nomination to Roosevelt. This was before the +days when the direct primary gave the plain voters an opportunity to +upset the calculations of a political boss. + +Senator Platt's emissary, Lemuel Ely Quigg, in a two hours' conversation +in the tent at Montauk, asked some straight-from-the-shoulder questions. +The answers he received were just as unequivocal. Mr. Quigg wanted a +plain statement as to whether or not Roosevelt wanted the nomination. +He wanted to know what Roosevelt's attitude would be toward the +organization in the event of his election, whether or not he would "make +war" on Mr. Platt and his friends, or whether he would confer with them +and give fair consideration to their point of view as to party +policy and public interest. In short, he wanted a frank definition of +Roosevelt's attitude towards existing party conditions. He got precisely +that. Here it is, in Roosevelt's own words: + +"I replied that I should like to be nominated, and if nominated would +promise to throw myself into the campaign with all possible energy. +I said that I should not make war on Mr. Platt or anybody else if +war could be avoided; that what I wanted was to be Governor and not a +faction leader; that I certainly would confer with the organization +men, as with everybody else who seemed to me to have knowledge of +and interest in public affairs, and that as to Mr. Platt and the +organization leaders, I would do so in the sincere hope that there might +always result harmony of opinion and purpose; but that while I would try +to get on well with the organization, the organization must with equal +sincerity strive to do what I regarded as essential for the public good; +and that in every case, after full consideration of what everybody had +to say who might possess real knowledge of the matter, I should have to +act finally as my own judgment and conscience dictated and administer +the State government as I thought it ought to be administered.... I told +him to tell the Senator that while I would talk freely with him, and +had no intention of becoming a factional leader with a personal +organization, yet I must have direct personal relations with everybody, +and get their views at first hand whenever I so desired, because I could +not have one man speaking for all." * + + *Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 271-72. + +This was straight Roosevelt talk. It was probably the first time that +the "easy boss" had received such a response to his overtures. History +does not record how he liked it; but at least he accepted it. Subsequent +events suggest that he was either unwilling to believe or incapable of +understanding that the Colonel of the Rough Riders meant precisely what +he said. But Platt found out his mistake. He was not the first or the +last politician to have that experience. + +So Roosevelt was nominated, made a gruelling campaign, was elected by +a small but sufficient majority, in a year when any other Republican +candidate would probably have been "snowed under," and became Governor +seventeen years after he entered public life. He was now forty years +old. + +The governorship of Theodore Roosevelt was marked by a deal of fine +constructive legislation and administration. But it was even more +notable for the new standard which it set for the relationship in which +the executive of a great State should stand to his office, to the public +welfare, to private interests, and to the leaders of his party. Before +Roosevelt's election there was need for a revision of the standard. In +those days it was accepted as a matter of course, at least in +practice, that the party boss was the overlord of the constitutional +representatives of the people. Appointments were made primarily for +the good of the party and only incidentally in the public interest. The +welfare of the party was closely bound up with the profit of special +interests, such as public service corporations and insurance companies. +The prevalent condition of affairs was shrewdly summed up in a satiric +paraphrase of Lincoln's conception of the American ideal: "Government +of the people, by the bosses, for the special interests." The interests +naturally repaid this zealous care for their well-being by contributions +to the party funds. + +Platt was one of the most nearly absolute party bosses that the American +system of machine politics has produced. In spite of the fair warning +which he had already received, both directly from Roosevelt's own +words, and indirectly from his whole previous career, he was apparently +surprised and unquestionably annoyed when he found that he was not to +be the new Governor's master. The trouble began before Roosevelt took +office. At a conference one day Platt asked Roosevelt if there were any +members of the Assembly whom he would like to have assigned to special +committees. Roosevelt was surprised at the question, as he had not known +that the Speaker of the Assembly, who appoints the committees, had yet +been agreed upon by the Assemblymen-elect. He expressed his surprise. +But Mr. Platt enlightened him, saying, "Of course, whoever we choose +as Speaker will agree beforehand to make the appointments we wish." +Roosevelt has recorded the mental note which he thereupon made, that +if they tried the same process with the Governor-elect they would find +themselves mistaken. In a few days they did try it--and discovered their +mistake. + +Platt asked Roosevelt to come to see him. The Senator being an old and +physically feeble man, Roosevelt went. Platt handed him a telegram from +a certain man, accepting with pleasure his appointment as Superintendent +of Public Works. This was one of the most important appointive offices +in the State Administration. It was especially so at this time in view +of the scandals which had arisen under the previous Administration over +the Erie Canal, the most important responsibility of this department. +Now, the man whom the boss had picked out was an excellent fellow, whom +Roosevelt liked and whom, incidentally, he later appointed to an office +which he filled in admirable fashion. But Roosevelt had no intention of +having any one but himself select the members of his Administration. He +said so frankly and simply. The Senator raged. He was unaccustomed +to such independence of spirit. Roosevelt was courteous but firm. +The irresistible force had met the immovable obstacle--and the +force capitulated. The telegraphic acceptance was not accepted. The +appointment was not made. + +Mr. Platt was a wise man, even if he was arrogant. He knew when he +had met one whom he could not drive. So he did not break with the new +Governor. Roosevelt was wise, too, although he was honest. So he did not +break with the "easy boss." His failure to do so was a disappointment +to his impractical friends and supporters, who were more concerned with +theoretical goodness than with achievement. + +Roosevelt worked with Platt and the party machine whenever he could. +He fought only when he must. When he fought, he won. In Senator Platt's +"Autobiography", the old boss paid this tribute to the young fighter +whom he had made Governor: "Roosevelt had from the first agreed that he +would consult me on all questions of appointments, Legislature or party +policy. He religiously fulfilled this pledge, although he frequently did +just what he pleased." + +One of the things that particularly grieved the theoretical idealists +and the chronic objectors was the fact that Roosevelt used on occasion +to take breakfast with Senator Platt. They did not seem to think it +possible that a Governor could accept the hospitality of a boss without +taking orders from him. But Mr. Platt knew better, if they did not. He +was never under any illusions as to the extent of his influence +with Roosevelt. It vanished precisely at the point where the selfish +interests of the party and the wishes of the boss collided with the +public welfare. The facts about the famous breakfasts are plain enough. +The Governor was in Albany, the Senator in Washington. Both found it +easy to get to New York on Saturday. It was natural that they should +from time to time have matters to discuss for both were leaders in their +party. Mr. Platt was a feeble man, who found it difficult to get +about. Roosevelt was a chivalrous man, who believed that courtesy and +consideration were due to age and weakness. In addition, he liked to +make every minute count. So he used to go, frankly and openly, to the +Senator's hotel for breakfast. He was not one of that class which he has +described as composed of "solemn reformers of the tom-fool variety, +who, according to their custom, paid attention to the name and not the +thing." He cared only for the reality; the appearance mattered little to +him. + +The tom-fool reformers who criticized Roosevelt for meeting Platt at +breakfast were not even good observers. If they had been, they would +have realized that when Roosevelt breakfasted with Platt, it generally +meant that he was trying to reconcile the Senator to something he was +going to do which the worthy boss did not like. For instance, Roosevelt +once wrote to Platt, who was trying to get him to promote a certain +judge over the head of another judge: "There is a strong feeling among +the judges and the leading members of the bar that Judge Y ought not +to have Judge X jumped over his head, and I do not see my way clear to +doing it. I am inclined to think that the solution I mentioned to you +is the solution I shall have to adopt. Remember the breakfast at Douglas +Robinson's at 8:30." It is probable that the Governor enjoyed that +breakfast more than did the Senator. So it usually was with the famous +breakfasts. "A series of breakfasts was always the prelude to some +active warfare." + +For Roosevelt and Platt still had their pitched battles. The most +epic of them all was fought over the reappointment of the State +Superintendent of Insurance. The incumbent was Louis F. Payn, a veteran +petty boss from a country district and one of Platt's right-hand +men. Roosevelt discovered that Payn had been involved in compromising +relations with certain financiers in New York with whom he "did not deem +it expedient that the Superintendent of Insurance, while such, should +have any intimate and money-making relations." The Governor therefore +decided not to reappoint him. Platt issued an ultimatum that Payn must +be reappointed or he would fight. He pointed out that in case of a fight +Payn would stay in anyway, since the consent of the State Senate was +necessary not only to appoint a man to office but to remove him from +office. The Governor replied cheerfully that he had made up his mind +and that Payn would not be retained. If he could not get his successor +confirmed, he would make the appointment as soon as the Legislature +adjourned, and the appointment would stand at least until the +Legislature met again. Platt declared in turn that Payn would be +reinstated as soon as the Legislature reconvened. Roosevelt admitted the +possibility, but assured his opponent that the process would be repeated +as soon as that session came to an end. He added his conviction that, +while he might have an uncomfortable time himself, he would guarantee +that his opponents would be made more uncomfortable still. Thus the +matter stood in the weeks before final action could be taken. Platt was +sure that Roosevelt must yield. But once more he did not know his man. +It is curious how long it takes feudal overlords to get the measure of a +fearless free man. + +The political power which the boss wielded was reinforced by pressure +from big business interests in New York. Officials of the large +insurance companies adopted resolutions asking for Payn's reappointment. +But some of them privately and hastily assured the Governor that these +resolutions were for public consumption only, and that they would be +delighted to have Payn superseded. Roosevelt strove to make it clear +again and again that he was not fighting the organization as such, and +announced his readiness to appoint any one of several men who were good +organization men--only he would not retain Lou Payn nor appoint any man +of his type. The matter moved along to the final scene, which took place +at the Union League Club in New York. + +Mr. Platt's chief lieutenant asked for a meeting with the Governor. The +request was granted. The emissary went over the ground thoroughly. He +declared that Platt would never yield. He explained that he was certain +to win the fight, and that he wished to save Roosevelt from such a +lamentable disaster as the end of his political career. Roosevelt again +explained at length his position. After half an hour he rose to go. The +"subsequent proceedings" he described as follows: + +"My visitor repeated that I had this last chance, and that ruin was +ahead of me if I refused it; whereas, if I accepted, everything would +be made easy. I shook my head and answered, 'There is nothing to add to +what I have already said.' He responded, 'You have made up your mind?' +and I said, 'I have." He then said, 'You know it means your ruin?' and I +answered, 'Well, we will see about that,' and walked toward the door. He +said, 'You understand, the fight will begin tomorrow and will be carried +on to the bitter end.' I said, 'Yes,' and added, as I reached the +door, 'Good night.' Then, as the door opened my opponent, or visitor, +whichever one chooses to call him, whose face was as impassive and as +inscrutable as that of Mr. John Hamlin in a poker game, said: 'Hold on! +We accept. Send in so-and-so (the man I had named). The Senator is very +sorry, but he will make no further opposition!' I never saw a bluff +carried more resolutely through to the final limit." * + + * Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 293-94. + +One other Homeric fight with the machine was Roosevelt's portion during +his Governorship. This time it was not directly with the boss himself +but with the boss's liegemen in the Legislature. But the kernel of the +whole matter was the same--the selfish interests of big corporations +against the public good. + +In those days corporations were by common practice privileged creatures. +They were accustomed to special treatment from legislatures and +administrations. But when Roosevelt was elected Governor, he was +determined that no corporation should get a valuable privilege from the +State without paying for it. Before long he had become convinced that +they ought also to pay for those which they already had, free gifts +of the State in those purblind days when corporations were young and +coddled. He proposed that public service corporations doing business on +franchises granted by the State and by municipalities should be +taxed upon the value of the privileges they enjoyed. The corporations +naturally enough did not like the proposal. But it was made in no spirit +or tone of antagonism to business or of demagogic outcry against those +who were prosperous. All that the Governor demanded was a square deal. +In his message to the Legislature, he wrote as follows: + +"There is evident injustice in the light taxation of corporations. I +have not the slightest sympathy with the outcry against corporations as +such, or against prosperous men of business. Most of the great material +works by which the entire country benefits have been due to the +action of individual men, or of aggregates of men, who made money for +themselves by doing that which was in the interest of the people as a +whole. From an armor plant to a street railway, no work which is really +beneficial to the public can be performed to the best advantage of the +public save by men of such business capacity that they will not do +the work unless they themselves receive ample reward for doing it. The +effort to deprive them of an ample reward merely means that they will +turn their energies in some other direction; and the public will be just +so much the loser.... But while I freely admit all this, it yet remains +true that a corporation which derives its powers from the State should +pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the +privileges it enjoys." + +This was quietly reasonable and uninflammatory doctrine. But the +corporations would have none of it. The Republican machine, which had +a majority in the Legislature, promptly repudiated it as well. The +campaign contributions from the corporations were too precious to be +jeopardized by legislation which the corporations did not want. The +Governor argued, pleasantly and cheerfully. The organization balked +sullenly. The corporations grinned knowingly. They had plenty of money +with which to kill the bill, but they did not need to use it. The +machine was working smoothly in their behalf. The bill was introduced +and referred to a committee, and there it lay. No amount of argument and +persuasion that the Governor could bring to bear availed to bring the +bill out of hiding. So he sent in a special message, on almost the last +day of the session. According to the rules of the New York Assembly, +when the Governor sends in a special message on a given measure, the +bill must be reported out and given consideration. But the machine was +dazzled with its own arrogance. The Speaker would not have the message +read. Some one actually tore it up. + +This was more than a crime--it was a blunder. The wise ones in the +organization realized it. They had no desire to have the Governor appeal +to the people with his torn message in his hand. Roosevelt saw the error +too, and laughed happily. He wrote another message and sent it over with +the curt statement that, if it were not read forthwith, he would come +over and read it himself. They knew that he would! So the Speaker read +the message, and the bill was reported and hastily passed on the last +day of the session. + +Then the complacent corporations woke up. They had trusted the machine +too far. What was more, they had underestimated the Governor's striking +power. Now they came to him, hat in hand, and suggested some fault in +the bill. He agreed with them. They asked if he would not call a special +session to amend the bill. Again he agreed. The session was called, and +the amendments were proposed. In addition, however, certain amendments +that would have frustrated the whole purpose of the bill were suggested. +The organization, still at its old tricks, tried to get back into its +possession the bill already passed. But the Governor was not easily +caught napping. He knew as well as they did that possession of the bill +gave him the whip hand. He served notice that the second bill would +contain precisely the amendments agreed upon and no others. Otherwise +he would sign the first bill and let it become law, with all its +imperfections on its head. Once more the organization and the +corporations emulated Davy Crockett's coon and begged him not to shoot, +for they would come down. The amended bill was passed and became +law. But there was an epilogue to this little drama. The corporations +proceeded to attack the constitutionality of the law on the ground of +the very amendment for which they had so clamorously pleaded. But they +failed. The Supreme Court of the United States, after Roosevelt had +become President, affirmed the constitutionality of the law. + +The spectacular events of Roosevelt's governorship were incidents in +this conflict between two political philosophies, the one held by +Platt and his tribe, the other by Roosevelt. Extracts from two letters +exchanged by the Senator and the Governor bring the contrast between +these philosophies into clear relief. Platt wrote as follows: + +"When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was +one matter that gave me real anxiety.... I had heard from a good many +sources that you were a little loose on the relations of capital and +labor, on trusts and combinations, and, indeed, on those numerous +questions which have recently arisen in politics affecting the security +of earnings and the right of a man to run his business in his own way, +with due respect, of course, to the Ten Commandments and the Penal +Code. Or, to get at it even more clearly, I understood from a number of +business men, and among them many of your own personal friends, that you +entertained various altruistic ideas, all very well in their way, but +which before they could safely be put into law needed very profound +consideration." * + +* Roosevelt, "Autobiography" (Scribner), p. 299. + + +Roosevelt replied that he had known very well that the Senator had just +these feelings about him, and then proceeded to set forth his own view +of the matter. With his usual almost uncanny wisdom in human relations, +he based his argument on party expediency, which he knew Platt would +comprehend, rather than on abstract considerations of right and wrong, +in which realm the boss would be sure to feel rather at sea. He wrote +thus: + +"I know that when parties divide on such issues [as Bryanism] the +tendency is to force everybody into one of two camps, and to throw out +entirely men like myself, who are as strongly opposed to Populism in +every stage as the greatest representative of corporate wealth but +who also feel strongly that many of these representatives of enormous +corporate wealth have themselves been responsible for a portion of +the conditions against which Bryanism is in ignorant revolt. I do not +believe that it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere +negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to +me that our attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby +showing that whereas the Populists, Socialists, and others do not +correct the evils at all, or else do so at the expense of producing +others in aggravated form, on the contrary we Republicans hold the +just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate +influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the +other."* + +*Roosevelt, Autobiography (Scribner), p. 300. + + +This was the fight that Roosevelt was waging in every hour of his +political career. It was a middle-of-the-road fight, not because of any +timidity or slack-fibered thinking which prevented a committal to one +extreme or the other, but because of a stern conviction that in the +golden middle course was to be found truth and the right. It was an +inevitable consequence that first one side and then the other--and +sometimes both at once--should attack him as a champion of the other. +It became a commonplace of his experience to be inveighed against by +reformers as a reactionary and to be assailed by conservatives as a +radical. But this paradoxical experience did not disturb him at all. He +was concerned only to have the testimony of his own mind and conscience +that he was right. + +The contests which he had as Governor were spectacular and exhilarating; +but they did not fill all the hours of his working days. A tremendous +amount of spade work was actually accomplished. For example, he +brought about the reenactment of the Civil Service Law, which under +his predecessor had been repealed, and put through a mass of labor +legislation for the betterment of conditions under which the workers +carried on their daily lives. This legislation included laws to increase +the number of factory inspectors, to create a tenement-house commission, +to regulate sweatshop labor, to make the eight-hour and prevailing rate +of wages law effective, to compel railways to equip freight trains with +air brakes, to regulate the working hours of women, to protect women +and children from dangerous machinery, to enforce good scaffolding +provisions for workmen on buildings, to provide seats for the use of +waitresses in hotels and restaurants, to reduce the hours of labor +for drug-store clerks, to provide for the registration of laborers for +municipal employment. He worked hard to secure an employers' liability +law, but the time for this was not yet come. + +Many of these reforms are now matters of course that no employer would +think of attempting to eliminate. But they were new ideas then; and it +took vision and courage to fight for them. + +Roosevelt would have been glad to be elected Governor for a second term. +But destiny, working through curious instruments, would not have it so. +He left behind him in the Empire State, not only a splendid record of +concrete achievement but something more than that. Jacob Riis has told +how, some time after, an old State official at Albany, who had seen many +Governors come and go, revealed this intangible something. Mr. Riis had +said to him that he did not care much for Albany since Roosevelt had +gone, and his friend replied: "Yes, we think so, many of us. The place +seemed dreary when he was gone. But I know now that he left something +behind that was worth our losing him to get. This past winter, for the +first time, I heard the question spring up spontaneously, as it seemed, +when a measure was up in the Legislature 'Is it right?' Not 'Is it +expedient?' not 'How is it going to help me?' not 'What is it worth to +the party?' Not any of these, but 'Is it right?' That is Roosevelt's +legacy to Albany. And it was worth his coming and his going to have +that." + + + +CHAPTER VI. ROOSEVELT BECOMES PRESIDENT + +There was chance in Theodore Roosevelt's coming into the Presidency +as he did, but there was irony as well. An evil chance dropped William +McKinley before an assassin's bullet; but there was a fitting irony in +the fact that the man who must step into his place had been put where +he was in large measure by the very men who would least like to see him +become President. + +The Republican convention of 1900 was a singularly unanimous body. +President McKinley was renominated without a murmur of dissent. But +there was no Vice-President to renominate, as Mr. Hobart had died in +office. There was no logical candidate for the second place on the +ticket. Senator Platt, however, had a man whom he wanted to get rid of, +since Governor Roosevelt had made himself persona non grata alike to +the machine politicians of his State and to the corporations allied +with them. The Governor, however, did not propose to be disposed of so +easily. His reasons were characteristic. He wrote thus to Senator Platt +about the matter: + +"I can't help feeling more and more that the Vice-Presidency is not an +office in which I could do anything and not an office in which a man +who is still vigorous and not past middle life has much chance of +doing anything.... Now, I should like to be Governor for another term, +especially if we are able to take hold of the canals in serious shape. +But, as Vice-President, I don't see there is anything I can do. I would +be simply a presiding officer, and that I should find a bore." + +Now Mr. Platt knew that nothing but "sidetracking" could stop another +nomination of Roosevelt for the Governorship, and this Rough Rider was +a thorn in his flesh. So he went on his subterranean way to have him +nominated for the most innocuous political berth in the gift of +the American people. He secured the cooperation of Senator Quay of +Pennsylvania and another boss or two of the same indelible stripe; but +all their political strength would not have accomplished the desired +result without assistance from quite a different source. Roosevelt had +already achieved great popularity in the Middle and the Far West for the +very reasons which made Mr. Platt want him out of the way. So, while the +New York boss and his acquiescent delegates were stopped from presenting +his name to the convention by Roosevelt's assurance that he would fight +a l'outrance any movement from his own State to nominate him, other +delegates took matters into their own hands and the nomination was +finally made unanimously. + +Roosevelt gave great strength to the Republican ticket in the campaign +which followed. William Jennings Bryan was again the Democratic +candidate, but the "paramount issue" of his campaign had changed since +four years before from free silver to anti-imperialism. President +McKinley, according to his custom, made no active campaign; but Bryan +and Roosevelt competed with each other in whirlwind speaking tours from +one end of the country to the other. The war-cry of the Republicans was +the "full dinner pail"; the keynote of Bryan's bid for popular support +was opposition to the Republican policy of expansion and criticism of +Republican tendencies toward plutocratic control. The success of the +Republican ticket was overwhelming; McKinley and Roosevelt received +nearly twice as many electoral votes as Bryan and Stevenson. + +When President McKinley was shot at Buffalo six months after his +second term began, it looked for a time as though he would recover. So +Roosevelt, after an immediate visit to Buffalo, went to join his family +in the Adirondacks. The news of the President's impending death found +him out in the wilderness on the top of Mount Tahawus, not far from the +tiny Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds, the source of the Hudson River. A ten-mile +dash down the mountain trail, in the course of which he outstripped all +his companions but one; a wild forty-mile drive through the night to the +railroad, the new President and his single companion changing the horses +two or three times with their own hands; a fast journey by special train +across the State--and on the evening of September 14, 1901, Theodore +Roosevelt took the oath of office as the twenty-sixth President of the +United States. + +Before taking the oath, Roosevelt announced that it would be his aim "to +continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the +peace, prosperity, and honor of our beloved country." He immediately +asked every member of the late President's Cabinet to continue in +office. The Cabinet was an excellent one, and Mr. Roosevelt found it +necessary to make no other changes than those that came in the ordinary +course of events. The policies were not altered in broad general +outline, for Roosevelt was as stalwart a Republican as McKinley himself, +and was as firmly convinced of the soundness of the fundamentals of the +Republican doctrine. + +But the fears of some of his friends that Roosevelt would seem, if he +carried out his purpose of continuity, "a pale copy of McKinley" were +not justified in the event. They should have known better. A copy of any +one Roosevelt could neither be nor seem, and "pale" was the last epithet +to be applied to him with justice. It could not be long before the +difference in the two Administrations would appear in unmistakable +terms. The one which had just passed was first of all a party +Administration and secondly a McKinley Administration. The one which +followed was first, last, and all the time a Roosevelt Administration. +"Where Macgregor sits, there is the head of the table." Not because +Roosevelt consciously willed it so, but because the force and power and +magnetism of his vigorous mind and personality inevitably made it +so. McKinley had been a great harmonizer. "He oiled the machinery of +government with loving and imperturbable patience," said an observer of +his time, "and the wheels ran with an ease unknown since Washington's +first term of office." It had been a constant reproach of the critics +of the former President that "his ear was always to the ground." But +he kept it there because it was his sincere conviction that it belonged +there, ready to apprize him of the vibrations of the popular will. +Roosevelt was the born leader with an innate instinct of command. He did +not scorn or flout the popular will; he had too confirmed a conviction +of the sovereign right of the people to rule for that. But he did not +wait pusillanimously for the popular mind to make itself up; he had too +high a conception of the duty of leadership for that. He esteemed it +his peculiar function as the man entrusted by a great people with the +headship of their common affairs--to lead the popular mind, to educate +it, to inspire it, sometimes to run before it in action, serene in the +confidence that tardy popular judgment would confirm the rightness of +the deed. + +By the end of Roosevelt's first Administration two of the three groups +that had taken a hand in choosing him for the Vice-Presidency were +thoroughly sick of their bargain. The machine politicians and the +great corporations found that their cunning plan to stifle with the wet +blanket of that depressing office the fires of his moral earnestness and +pugnacious honesty had overreached itself. Fate had freed him and, once +freed, he was neither to hold nor to bind. It was less than two years +before Wall Street was convinced that he was "unsafe," and sadly shook +its head over his "impetuosity." When Wall Street stamps a man "unsafe," +the last word in condemnation has been said. It was an even shorter time +before the politicians found him unsatisfactory. "The breach between +Mr. Roosevelt and the politicians was, however, inevitable. His rigid +insistence upon the maintenance and the extension of the merit system +alone assured the discontent which precedes dislike," wrote another +observer. "The era of patronage mongering in the petty offices ceased +suddenly, and the spoilsmen had the right to say that in this respect +the policy of McKinley had not been followed." It was true. When +Roosevelt became President the civil service was thoroughly demoralized. +Senators and Congressmen, by tacit agreement with the executive, used +the appointing power for the payment of political debts, the reward of +party services, the strengthening of their personal "fences." But +within three months it was possible to say with absolute truth that "a +marvelous change has already been wrought in the morale of the civil +service." At the end of Roosevelt's first term an unusually acute and +informed foreign journalist was moved to write, "No President has so +persistently eliminated politics from his nominations, none has been +more unbending in making efficiency his sole test." + +There was the kernel of the whole matter: the President's insistence +upon efficiency. Roosevelt, however, did not snatch rudely away from the +Congressmen and Senators the appointing power which his predecessors had +allowed them gradually to usurp. He continued to consult each member of +the Congress upon appointments in that member's State or district and +merely demanded that the men recommended for office should be honest, +capable, and fitted for the places they were to fill. + +President Roosevelt was not only ready and glad to consult with Senators +but he sought and often took the advice of party leaders outside of +Congress, and even took into consideration the opinions of bosses. In +New York, for instance, the two Republican leaders, Governor Odell and +Senator Platt, were sometimes in accord and sometimes in disagreement, +but each was always desirous of being consulted. A letter written by +Roosevelt in the middle of his first term to a friendly Congressman well +illustrates his theory and practice in such cases: + +"I want to work with Platt. I want to work with Odell. I want to support +both and take the advice of both. But, of course, ultimately I must be +the judge as to acting on the advice given. When, as in the case of the +judgeship, I am convinced that the advice of both is wrong, I shall act +as I did when I appointed Holt. When I can find a friend of Odell's +like Cooley, who is thoroughly fit for the position I desire to fill, it +gives me the greatest pleasure to appoint him. When Platt proposes to me +a man like Hamilton Fish, it is equally a pleasure to appoint him." + +This high-minded and common-sense course did not, however, seem to +please the politicians, for dyed-in-the-wool politicians are curious +persons to whom half a loaf is no consolation whatever, even when the +other half of the loaf is to go to the people--without whom there would +be no policies at all. Strangely enough, Roosevelt's policy was equally +displeasing to those of the doctrinaire reformer type, to whom there is +no word in the language more distasteful than "politician," unless it +be the word "practical." But there was one class to whom the results of +this common-sense brand of political action were eminently satisfactory, +and this class made up the third group that had a part in the selection +of Theodore Roosevelt for the Vice-Presidency. The plain people, +especially in the more westerly portions of the country, were +increasingly delighted with the honesty, the virility, and the +effectiveness of the Roosevelt Administration. Just before the +convention which was to nominate Roosevelt for the Presidency to succeed +himself, an editorial writer expressed the fact thus: "The people at +large are not oblivious of the fact that, while others are talking and +carping, Mr. Roosevelt is carrying on in the White House a persistent +and never-ending moral struggle with every powerful selfish and +exploiting interest in the country." + +Oblivious of it? They were acutely conscious of it. They approved of +it with heartiness. They liked it so well that, when the time came to +nominate and elect another President, they swept aside with a mighty +rush not only the scruples and antagonisms of the Republican politicians +and the "special interests" but party lines as well, and chose Roosevelt +with a unanimous voice in the convention and a majority of two and a +half million votes at the polls. + +As President, Theodore Roosevelt achieved many concrete results. But his +greatest contribution to the forward movement of the times was in the +rousing of the public conscience, the strengthening of the nation's +moral purpose, and the erecting of a new standard of public service in +the management of the nation's affairs. It was no little thing that when +Roosevelt was ready to hand over to another the responsibilities of his +high office, James Bryce, America's best friend and keenest student from +across the seas, was able to say that in a long life, during which he +had studied intimately the government of many different countries, he +had never in any country seen a more eager, high-minded, and efficient +set of public servants, men more useful and more creditable to their +country, than the men then doing the work of the American Government in +Washington and in the field. + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE SQUARE DEAL FOR BUSINESS + +During the times of Roosevelt, the American people were profoundly +concerned with the trust problem. So was Roosevelt himself. In this +important field of the relations between "big business" and the people +he had a perfectly definite point of view, though he did not have a cut +and dried programme. He was always more interested in a point of view +than in a programme, for he realized that the one is lasting, the other +shifting. He knew that if you stand on sound footing and look at a +subject from the true angle, you may safely modify your plan of action +as often and as rapidly as may be necessary to fit changing conditions. +But if your footing is insecure or your angle of vision distorted, the +most attractive programme in the world may come to ignominious disaster. + +There were, broadly speaking, three attitudes toward the trust problem +which were strongly held by different groups in the United States. At +one extreme was the threatening growl of big business, "Let us alone!" +At the other pole was the shrill outcry of William Jennings Bryan and +his fellow exhorters, "Smash the trusts!" In the golden middle ground +was the vigorous demand of Roosevelt for a "square deal." + +In his first message to Congress, the President set forth his point of +view with frankness and clarity. His comprehensive discussion of +the matter may be summarized thus: The tremendous and highly complex +industrial development which went on with great rapidity during the +latter half of the nineteenth century produced serious social problems. +The old laws and the old customs which had almost the binding force +of law were once quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and +distribution of wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so +enormously increased the productive power of mankind, these regulations +are no longer sufficient. The process of the creation of great corporate +fortunes has aroused much antagonism; but much of this antagonism has +been without warrant. There have been, it is true, abuses connected +with the accumulation of wealth; yet no fortune can be accumulated in +legitimate business except by conferring immense incidental benefits +upon others. The men who have driven the great railways across the +continent, who have built up commerce and developed manufactures, have +on the whole done great good to the people at large. Without such men +the material development of which Americans are so justly proud never +could have taken place. They should therefore recognize the immense +importance of this material development by leaving as unhampered as is +compatible with the public good the strong men upon whom the success of +business inevitably rests. It cannot too often be pointed out that to +strike with ignorant violence at the interests of one set of men almost +inevitably endangers the interests of all. The fundamental rule in +American national life is that, on the whole and in the long run, we +shall all go up or down together. Many of those who have made it their +vocation to denounce the great industrial combinations appeal especially +to the primitive instincts of hatred and fear. These are precisely the +two emotions which unfit men for cool and steady judgment. The whole +history of the world shows that legislation, in facing new industrial +conditions, will generally be both unwise and ineffective unless it is +undertaken only after calm inquiry and with sober self-restraint. + +This is one side of the picture as it was presented by the President in +his message to Congress. It was characteristic that this aspect should +be put first, for Roosevelt always insisted upon doing justice to the +other side before he demanded justice for his own. But he then proceeded +to set forth the other side with equal vigor: There is a widespread +conviction in the minds of the American people that the great +corporations are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to +the general welfare. It is true that real and grave evils have arisen, +one of the chief of them being overcapitalization, with its many +baleful consequences. This state of affairs demands that combination and +concentration in business should be, not prohibited, but supervised +and controlled. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be +regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public +injury. The first essential in determining how to deal with the great +industrial combinations is knowledge of the facts. This is to be +obtained only through publicity, which is the one sure remedy we can +now invoke before it can be determined what further remedies are needed. +Corporations should be subject to proper governmental supervision, and +full and accurate information as to their operations should be made +public at regular intervals. The nation should assume powers of +supervision and regulation over all corporations doing an interstate +business. This is especially true where the corporation derives a +portion of its wealth from the existence of some monopolistic element +or tendency in its business. The Federal Government should regulate +the activities of corporations doing an interstate business, just as it +regulates the activities of national banks, and, through the Interstate +Commerce Commission, the operations of the railroads. + +Roosevelt was destined, however, not to achieve the full measure of +national control of corporations that he desired. The elements opposed +to his view were too powerful. There was a fortuitous involuntary +partnership though it was not admitted and was even violently denied +between the advocates of "Let us alone!" and of "Smash the trusts!" +against the champion of the middle way. In his "Autobiography" Roosevelt +has described this situation: + +"One of the main troubles was the fact that the men who saw the evils +and who tried to remedy them attempted to work in two wholly different +ways, and the great majority of them in a way that offered little +promise of real betterment. They tried (by the Sherman law method) +to bolster up an individualism already proved to be both futile and +mischievous; to remedy by more individualism the concentration that was +the inevitable result of the already existing individualism. They +saw the evil done by the big combinations, and sought to remedy it by +destroying them and restoring the country to the economic conditions of +the middle of the nineteenth century. This was a hopeless effort, and +those who went into it, although they regarded themselves as radical +progressives, really represented a form of sincere rural toryism. They +confounded monopolies with big business combinations, and in the effort +to prohibit both alike, instead of where possible prohibiting one and +drastically controlling the other, they succeeded merely in preventing +any effective control of either. + +"On the other hand, a few men recognized that corporations and +combinations had become indispensable in the business world, that it was +folly to try to prohibit them, but that it was also folly to leave them +without thoroughgoing control. These men realized that the doctrine +of the old laissez faire economists, of the believers in unlimited +competition, unlimited individualism, were, in the actual state of +affairs, false and mischievous. They realized that the Government must +now interfere to protect labor, to subordinate the big corporation +to the public welfare, and to shackle cunning and fraud exactly as +centuries before it had interfered to shackle the physical force which +does wrong by violence. The big reactionaries of the business world and +their allies and instruments among politicians and newspaper editors +took advantage of this division of opinion, and especially of the fact +that most of their opponents were on the wrong path; and fought to +keep matters absolutely unchanged. These men demanded for themselves an +immunity from government control which, if granted, would have been as +wicked and as foolish as immunity to the barons of the twelfth century. +Many of them were evil men. Many others were just as good men as were +some of these same barons; but they were as utterly unable as any +medieval castle-owner to understand what the public interest really was. +There have been aristocracies which have played a great and beneficent +part at stages in the growth of mankind; but we had come to a stage +where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all +forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny +of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy." * + + * Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 424-25. + +When Roosevelt became President, there were three directions in which +energy needed to be applied to the solution of the trust problem: in the +more vigorous enforcement of the laws already on the statute books; in +the enactment of necessary new laws on various phases of the subject; +and in the arousing of an intelligent and militant public opinion +in relation to the whole question. To each of these purposes the new +President applied himself with characteristic vigor. + +The Sherman Anti-Trust law, which had already been on the Federal +statute books for eleven years, forbade "combinations in restraint +of trade" in the field of interstate commerce. During three +administrations, eighteen actions had been brought by the Government for +its enforcement. At the opening of the twentieth century it was a grave +question whether the Sherman law was of any real efficacy in preventing +the evils that arose from unregulated combination in business. A +decision of the United States Supreme Court, rendered in 1895 in the +so-called Knight case, against the American Sugar Refining Company, had, +in the general belief, taken the teeth out of the Sherman law. In the +words of Mr. Taft, "The effect of the decision in the Knight case upon +the popular mind, and indeed upon Congress as well, was to discourage +hope that the statute could be used to accomplish its manifest purpose +and curb the great industrial trusts which, by the acquisition of all +or a large percentage of the plants engaged in the manufacture of a +commodity, by the dismantling of some and regulating the output of +others, were making every effort to restrict production, control prices, +and monopolize the business." It was obviously necessary that the +Sherman act, unless it were to pass into innocuous desuetude, should +have the original vigor intended by Congress restored to it by a new +interpretation of the law on the part of the Supreme Court. Fortunately +an opportunity for such a change presented itself with promptness. +A small group of powerful financiers had arranged to take control of +practically the entire system of railways in the Northwest, "possibly," +Roosevelt has said, "as the first step toward controlling the entire +railway system of the country." They had brought this about by +organizing the Northern Securities Company to hold the majority of the +stock of two competing railways, the Great Northern and the Northern +Pacific. At the direction of President Roosevelt, suit was brought +by the Government to prevent the merger. The defendants relied for +protection upon the immunity afforded by the decision in the Knight +case. But the Supreme Court now took more advanced ground, decreed that +the Northern Securities Company was an illegal combination, and ordered +its dissolution. + +By the successful prosecution of this case the Sherman act was made once +more a potentially valuable instrument for the prevention of the more +flagrant evils that flow from "combinations in restraint of trade." +During the remaining years of the Roosevelt Administrations, this legal +instrument was used with aggressive force for the purpose for which it +was intended. In seven years and a half, forty-four prosecutions were +brought under it by the Government, as compared with eighteen in the +preceding eleven years. The two most famous trust cases, next to the +Northern Securities case and even surpassing it in popular interest, +because of the stupendous size of the corporations involved, were those +against the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company. These +companion cases were not finally decided in the Supreme Court until the +Administration of President Taft; but their prosecution was begun while +Roosevelt was in office and by his direction. They were therefore +a definite part of his campaign for the solution of the vexed trust +problem. Both cases were decided, by every court through which they +passed, in favor of the Government. The Supreme Court finally in 1911 +decreed that both the Standard Oil and the Tobacco trusts were in +violation of the Sherman act and ordered their dissolution. There could +now no longer be any question that the Government could in fact exercise +its sovereign will over even the greatest and the most powerful of +modern business organizations. + +The two cases had one other deep significance which at first blush +looked like a weakening of the force of the anti-trust law but which was +in reality a strengthening of it. There had been long and ardent debate +whether the Sherman act should be held to apply to all restraints of +trade or only to such as were unreasonable. It was held by some that it +applied to ALL restraints and therefore should be amended to cover only +unreasonable restraints. It was held by others that it applied to all +restraints and properly so. It was held by still others that it applied +only to unreasonable restraints. But the matter had never been decided +by competent authority. The decision of the Supreme Court in these two +outstanding cases, however, put an end to the previous uncertainty. +Chief Justice White, in his two opinions, laid it down with definiteness +that in construing and applying the law recourse must be had to the +"rule of reason." He made clear the conviction of the court that it was +"undue" restraints of trade which the law forbade and not incidental or +inconsiderable ones. This definitive interpretation of the law, while +it caused considerable criticism at the moment, in ultimate effect so +cleared the air about the Sherman act as effectually to dispose of +the demands for its amendment in the direction of greater leniency or +severity. + +But the proving of the anti-trust law as an effective weapon against the +flagrantly offending trusts, according to Roosevelt's conviction, was +only a part of the battle. As he said, "monopolies can, although in +rather cumbrous fashion, be broken up by lawsuits. Great business +combinations, however, cannot possibly be made useful instead of noxious +industrial agencies merely by lawsuits, and especially by lawsuits +supposed to be carried on for their destruction and not for their +control and regulation." He took, as usual, the constructive point of +view. He saw both sides of the trust question--the inevitability and +the beneficence of combination in modern business, and the danger to +the public good that lay in the unregulated and uncontrolled wielding +of great power by private individuals. He believed that the thing to do +with great power was not to destroy it but to use it, not to forbid its +acquisition but to direct its application. So he set himself to the +task of securing fresh legislation regarding the regulation of corporate +activities. + +Such legislation was not easy to get; for the forces of reaction were +strong in Congress. But several significant steps in this direction were +taken before Roosevelt went out of office. The new Federal Department +of Commerce and Labor was created, and its head became a member of +the Cabinet. The Bureau of Corporations was established in the same +department. These new executive agencies were given no regulatory +powers, but they did perform excellent service in that field of +publicity on the value of which Roosevelt laid so much stress. + +In the year 1906 the passing of the Hepburn railway rate bill for the +first time gave the Interstate Commerce Commission a measure of real +control over the railways, by granting to the Commission the power +to fix maximum rates for the transportation of freight in interstate +commerce. The Commission had in previous years, under the authority of +the act which created it and which permitted the Commission to decide +in particular cases whether rates were just and reasonable, attempted +to exercise this power to fix in these specific cases maximum rates. But +the courts had decided that the Commission did not possess this right. +The Hepburn act also extended the authority of the Commission over +express companies, sleeping-car companies, pipe lines, private car +lines, and private terminal and connecting lines. It prohibited railways +from transporting in interstate commerce any commodities produced or +owned by themselves. It abolished free passes and transportation except +for railway employees and certain other small classes of persons, +including the poor and unfortunate classes and those engaged in +religious and charitable work. Under the old law, the Commission was +compelled to apply to a Federal court on its own initiative for the +enforcement of any order which it might issue. Under the Hepburn act +the order went into effect at once; the railroad must begin to obey the +order within thirty days; it must itself appeal to the court for the +suspension and revocation of the order, or it must suffer a penalty +of $5000 a day during the time that the order was disobeyed. The act +further gave the Commission the power to prescribe accounting methods +which must be followed by the railways, in order to make more difficult +the concealment of illegal rates and improper favors to individual +shippers. This extension and strengthening of the authority of the +Interstate Commerce Commission was an extremely valuable forward step, +not only as concerned the relations of the public and the railways, +but in connection with the development of predatory corporations of the +Standard Oil type. Miss Ida Tarbell, in her frankly revealing "History +of the Standard Oil Company", which had been published in 1904, had +shown in striking fashion how secret concessions from the railways had +helped to build up that great structure of business monopoly. In Miss +Tarbell's words, "Mr. Rockefeller's great purpose had been made possible +by his remarkable manipulation of the railroads. It was the rebate which +had made the Standard Oil trust, the rebate, amplified, systematized, +glorified into a power never equalled before or since by any business +of the country." The rebate was the device by which favored +shippers--favored by the railways either voluntarily or under the +compulsion of the threats of retaliation which the powerful shippers +were able to make--paid openly the established freight rates on +their products and then received back from the railways a substantial +proportion of the charges. The advantage to the favored shipper is +obvious. There were other more adroit ways in which the favoritism could +be accomplished; but the general principle was the same. It was one +important purpose--and effect--of the Hepburn act to close the door to +this form of discrimination. + +One more step was necessary in order to eradicate completely this +mischievous condition and to "keep the highway of commerce open to all +on equal terms." It was imperative that the law relative to these abuses +should be enforced. On this point Roosevelt's own words are significant: +"Although under the decision of the courts the National Government had +power over the railways, I found, when I became President, that +this power was either not exercised at all or exercised with utter +inefficiency. The law against rebates was a dead letter. All the +unscrupulous railway men had been allowed to violate it with impunity; +and because of this, as was inevitable, the scrupulous and decent +railway men had been forced to violate it themselves, under penalty of +being beaten by their less scrupulous rivals. It was not the fault of +these decent railway men. It was the fault of the Government." + +Roosevelt did not propose that this condition should continue to be the +fault of the Government while he was at its head, and he inaugurated a +vigorous campaign against railways that had given rebates and against +corporations that had accepted--or extorted-them. The campaign reached a +spectacular peak in a prosecution of the Standard Oil Company, in which +fines aggregating over $29,000,000 were imposed by Judge Kenesaw M. +Landis of the United States District Court at Chicago for the offense +of accepting rebates. The Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately determined +that the fine was improperly large, since it had been based on +the untenable theory that each shipment on which a rebate was paid +constituted a separate offense. At the second trial the presiding +judge ordered an acquittal. In spite, however, of the failure of this +particular case, with its spectacular features, the net result of the +rebate prosecutions was that the rebate evil was eliminated for good and +all from American railway and commercial life. + +When Roosevelt demanded the "square deal" between business and the +people, he meant precisely what he said. He had no intention of +permitting justice to be required from the great corporations without +insisting that justice be done to them in turn. The most interesting +case in point was that of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company. To this +day the action which Roosevelt took in the matter is looked upon, by +many of those extremists who can see nothing good in "big business," as +a proof of his undue sympathy with the capitalist. But thirteen years +later the United States Supreme Court in deciding the case against the +United States Steel Corporation in favor of the Corporation, added an +obiter dictum which completely justified Roosevelt's action. + +In the fall of 1907 the United States was in the grip of a financial +panic. Much damage was done, and much more was threatened. One great New +York trust company was compelled to close its doors, and others were +on the verge of disaster. One evening in the midst of this most trying +time, the President was informed that two representatives of the United +States Steel Corporation wished to call upon him the next morning. As he +was at breakfast the next day word came to him that Judge Gary and Mr. +Frick were waiting in the Executive Office. The President went over at +once, sending word to Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, to join him. +Judge Gary and Mr. Frick informed the President that a certain great +firm in the New York financial district was upon the point of failure. +This firm held a large quantity of the stock of the Tennessee Coal and +Iron Company. The Steel Corporation had been urged to purchase this +stock in order to avert the failure. The heads of the Steel Corporation +asserted that they did not wish to purchase this stock from the point of +view of a business transaction, as the value which the property might be +to the Corporation would be more than offset by the criticism to which +they would be subjected. They said that they were sure to be charged +with trying to secure a monopoly and to stifle competition. They told +the President that it had been the consistent policy of the Steel +Corporation to have in its control no more than sixty per cent of +the steel properties of the country; that their proportion of those +properties was in fact somewhat less than sixty per cent; and that the +acquisition of the holdings of the Tennessee Company would raise it +only a little above that point. They felt, however, that it would be +extremely desirable for them to make the suggested purchase in order to +prevent the damage which would result from the failure of the firm in +question. They were willing to buy the stocks offered because in +the best judgment of many of the strongest bankers in New York the +transaction would be an influential factor in preventing a further +extension of the panic. Judge Gary and Mr. Frick declared that they were +ready to make the purchase with this end in view but that they would not +act without the President's approval of their action. + +Immediate action was imperative. It was important that the purchase, if +it were to be made, should be announced at the opening of the New York +Stock Exchange at ten o'clock that morning. Fortunately Roosevelt +never shilly-shallied when a crisis confronted him. His decision was +instantaneous. He assured his callers that while, of course, he could +not advise them to take the action, proposed, he felt that he had no +public duty to interpose any objection. + +This assurance was quite sufficient. The pure chase was made and +announced, the firm in question did not fail, and the panic was +arrested. The immediate reaction of practically the whole country was +one of relief. It was only later, when the danger was past, that critics +began to make themselves heard. Any one who had taken the trouble +to ascertain the facts would have known beyond question that the +acquisition of the Tennessee properties was not sufficient to change +the status of the Steel Corporation under the anti-trust law. But the +critics did not want to know the facts. They wanted--most of them, at +least--to have a stick with which to beat Roosevelt. Besides, many of +them did not hold Roosevelt's views about the square deal. Their belief +was that whatever big business did was ipso facto evil and that it was +the duty of public officials to find out what big business wanted to do +and then prevent its accomplishment. + +Under a later Administration, Roosevelt was invited to come before a +Congressional investigating committee to explain what he did in this +famous case. There he told the complete story of the occurrence simply, +frankly, and emphatically, and ended with this statement: "If I were on +a sailboat, I should not ordinarily meddle with any of the gear; but if +a sudden squall struck us, and the main sheet jammed, so that the boat +threatened to capsize, I would unhesitatingly cut the main sheet, even +though I were sure that the owner, no matter how grateful to me at the +moment for having saved his life, would a few weeks later, when he had +forgotten his danger and his fear, decide to sue me for the value of +the cut rope. But I would feel a hearty contempt for the owner who so +acted." + +Two laws passed during the second Roosevelt Administration had an +important bearing on the conduct of American business, though in a +different way from those which have already been considered. They were +the Pure Food law, and the Meat Inspection act. Both were measures for +the protection of the public health; but both were at the same time +measures for the control of private business. The Pure Food law did +three things: it prohibited the sale of foods or drugs which were not +pure and unadulterated; it prohibited the sale of drugs which contained +opium, cocaine, alcohol, and other narcotics unless the exact proportion +of them in the preparation were stated on the package; and it prohibited +the sale of foods and drugs as anything else than what they actually +were. The Meat Inspection law required rigid inspection by Government +officials of all slaughterhouses and packing concerns preparing meat +food products for distribution in interstate commerce. The imperative +need for the passage of this law was brought forcibly and vividly to +the popular attention through a novel, "The Jungle", written by Upton +Sinclair, in which the disgraceful conditions of uncleanliness and +revolting carelessness in the Chicago packing houses were described with +vitriolic intensity. An official investigation ordered by the President +confirmed the truth of these timely revelations. + +These achievements on the part of the Roosevelt Administrations were of +high value. But, after all Roosevelt performed an even greater service +in arousing the public mind to a realization of facts of national +significance and stimulating the public conscience to a desire to +deal with them vigorously and justly. From the very beginning of his +Presidential career he realized the gravity of the problems created by +the rise of big business; and he began forthwith to impress upon the +people with hammer blows the conditions as he saw them, the need +for definite corrective action, and the absolute necessity for such +treatment of the case as would constitute the "square deal." An +interesting example of his method and of the response which it received +is to be found in the report of an address which he made in 1907. It +runs thus: + +"From the standpoint of our material prosperity there is only one +other thing as important as the discouragement of a spirit of envy and +hostility toward business men, toward honest men of means; this is the +discouragement of dishonest business men. [Great applause.] + +"Wait a moment; I don't want you to applaud this part unless you are +willing to applaud also the part I read first, to which you listened in +silence. [Laughter and applause.] I want you to understand that I will +stand just as straight for the rights of the honest man who wins his +fortune by honest methods as I will stand against the dishonest man who +wins a fortune by dishonest methods. And I challenge the right to your +support in one attitude just as much as in the other. I am glad you +applauded when you did, but I want you to go back now and applaud +the other statement. I will read a little of it over again. 'Every +manifestation of ignorant envy and hostility toward honest men who +acquire wealth by honest means should be crushed at the outset by the +weight of a sensible public opinion.' [Tremendous applause.] Thank you. +Now I'll go on." + + +Roosevelt's incessant emphasis was placed upon conduct as the proper +standard by which to judge the actions of men. "We are," he once said, +"no respecters of persons. If a labor union does wrong, we oppose it as +firmly as we oppose a corporation which does wrong; and we stand equally +stoutly for the rights of the man of wealth and for the rights of the +wage-worker. We seek to protect the property of every man who acts +honestly, of every corporation that represents wealth honestly +accumulated and honestly used. We seek to stop wrongdoing, and we desire +to punish the wrongdoer only so far as is necessary to achieve this +end." + +At another time he sounded the same note--sounded it indeed with a +"damnable iteration" that only proved how deeply it was imbedded in his +conviction. + +"Let us strive steadily to secure justice as between man and man without +regard to the man's position, social or otherwise. Let us remember that +justice can never be justice unless it is equal. Do justice to the rich +man and exact justice from him; do justice to the poor man and +exact justice from him--justice to the capitalist and justice to the +wage-worker.... I have an equally hearty aversion for the reactionary +and the demagogue; but I am not going to be driven out of fealty to my +principles because certain of them are championed by the reactionary and +certain others by the demagogue. The reactionary is always strongly +for the rights of property; so am I.... I will not be driven away from +championship of the rights of property upon which all our civilization +rests because they happen to be championed by people who champion +furthermore the abuses of wealth.... Most demagogues advocate some +excellent popular principles, and nothing could be more foolish than for +decent men to permit themselves to be put into an attitude of ignorant +and perverse opposition to all reforms demanded in the name of the +people because it happens that some of them are demanded by demagogues." + +Such an attitude on the part of a man like Roosevelt could not fail to +be misunderstood, misinterpreted, and assailed. Toward the end of his +Presidential career, when he was attacking with peculiar vigor the +"malefactors of great wealth" whom the Government had found it necessary +to punish for their predatory acts in corporate guise, it was gently +intimated by certain defenders of privilege that he was insane. At other +times, when he was insisting upon justice even to men who had achieved +material success, he was placed by the more rabid of the radical +opponents of privilege in the hierarchy of the worshipers of the +golden calf. His course along the middle of the onward way exposed him +peculiarly to the missiles of invective and scorn from the partisans on +either side. But neither could drive him into the arms of the other. + +The best evidence of the soundness of the strategy with which he +assailed the enemies of the common good, with whirling war-club but with +scrupulous observance of the demands of justice and fair play, is to +be found in the measure of what he actually achieved. He did arouse +the popular mind and sting the popular conscience broad awake. He +did enforce the law without fear or favor. He did leave upon the +statute-book and in the machinery of government new means and methods +for the control of business and for the protection of the general +welfare against predatory wealth. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE SQUARE DEAL FOR LABOR + +It should go without saying that Roosevelt was vigorously and deeply +concerned with the relations between capital and labor, for he was +interested in everything that concerned the men and women of America, +everything that had to do with human relations. From the very beginning +of his public life he had been a champion of the workingman when the +workingman needed defense against exploitation and injustice. But his +advocacy of the workers' rights was never demagogic nor partial. In +industrial relations, as in the relations between business and the +community, he believed in the square deal. The rights of labor and +the rights of capital must, he firmly held, be respected each by the +other--and the rights of the public by both. + +Roosevelt believed thoroughly in trade unions. He realized that one of +the striking accompaniments of the gigantic developments in business +and industry of the past few generations was a gross inequality in the +bargaining relation between the employer and the individual employee +standing alone. + +Speaking of the great coal strike which occurred while he was President, +he developed the idea in this way: + +"The great coal-mining and coal-carrying companies, which employed +their tens of thousands, could easily dispense with the services of any +particular miner. The miner, on the other hand, however expert, could +not dispense with the companies. He needed a job; his wife and children +would starve if he did not get one. What the miner had to sell--his +labor--was a perishable commodity; the labor of today--if not sold today +was lost forever. Moreover, his labor was not like most commodities--a +mere thing; it was a part of a living, human being. The workman saw, and +all citizens who gave earnest thought to the matter saw that the labor +problem was not only an economic, but also a moral, a human problem. +Individually the miners were impotent when they sought to enter a wage +contract with the great companies; they could make fair terms only by +uniting into trade unions to bargain collectively. The men were forced +to cooperate to secure not only their economic, but their simple human +rights. They, like other workmen, were compelled by the very conditions +under which they lived to unite in unions of their industry or trade, +and those unions were bound to grow in size, in strength, and in power +for good and evil as the industries in which the men were employed grew +larger and larger." * + + * Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 471-78. + +He was fond of quoting three statements of Lincoln's as expressing +precisely what he himself believed about capital and labor. The first of +these sayings was this: "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. +Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if +labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and +deserves much the higher consideration." + +This statement, Roosevelt used to say, would have made him, if it had +been original with him, even more strongly denounced as a communist +agitator than he already was! Then he would turn from this, which the +capitalist ought to hear, to another saying of Lincoln's which the +workingman ought to hear: "Capital has its rights, which are as worthy +of protection as any other rights.. .. Nor should this lead to a war +upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor;... property +is desirable; it is a positive good in the world." + +Then would come the final word from Lincoln, driven home by Roosevelt +with all his usual vigor and fire: "Let not him who is houseless pull +down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one +for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from +violence when built." + +In these three sayings, Roosevelt declared, Lincoln "showed the proper +sense of proportion in his relative estimates of capital and labor, of +human rights and property rights." Roosevelt's own most famous statement +of the matter was made in an address which he delivered before the +Sorbonne in Paris, on his way back from Africa: "In every civilized +society property rights must be carefully safeguarded. Ordinarily, and +in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are +fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly appears +that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the +upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property." + +Several times it happened to Roosevelt to be confronted with the +necessity of meeting with force the threat of violence on the part of +striking workers. He never refused the challenge, and his firmness never +lost him the respect of any but the worthless among the workingmen. +When he was Police Commissioner, strikers in New York were coming into +continual conflict with the police. Roosevelt asked the strike leaders +to meet him in order to talk things over. These leaders did not know +the man with whom they were dealing; they tried to bully him. They +truculently announced the things that they would do if the police +were not compliant to their wishes. But they did not get far in that +direction. Roosevelt called a halt with a snap of his jaws. "Gentlemen!" +he said, "we want to understand one another. That was my object in +coming here. Remember, please, that he who counsels violence does the +cause of labor the poorest service. Also, he loses his case. Understand +distinctly that order will be kept. The police will keep it. Now, +gentlemen!" There was surprised silence for a moment, and then smashing +applause. They had learned suddenly what kind of a man Roosevelt was. +All their respect was his. + +It was after he became President that his greatest opportunity occurred +to put into effect his convictions about the industrial problem. In +1909 there was a strike which brought about a complete stoppage of work +for several months in the anthracite coal regions. Both operators and +workers were determined to make no concession. The coal famine became +a national menace as the winter approached. "The big coal operators +had banded together," so Roosevelt has described the situation, "and +positively refused to take any steps looking toward an accommodation. +They knew that the suffering among the miners was great; they were +confident that if order was kept, and nothing further done by the +Government, they would win; and they refused to consider that the public +had any rights in the matter." + +As the situation grew more and more dangerous, the President directed +the head of the Federal Labor Bureau to make an investigation of the +whole matter. From this investigation it appeared that the most feasible +solution of the problem was to prevail upon both sides to agree to a +commission of arbitration and promise to accept its findings. To this +proposal the miners agreed; the mine owners insolently declined it. +Nevertheless, Roosevelt persisted, and ultimately the operators +yielded on condition that the commission, which was to be named by the +President, should contain no representative of labor. They insisted that +it should be composed of (1) an officer of the engineer corps of +the army or navy, (2) a man with experience in mining, (3) a "man +of prominence, eminent as a sociologist," (4) a Federal Judge of the +Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and (5) a mining engineer. In the +course of a long and grueling conference it looked as though a +deadlock could be the only outcome, since the mine owners would have +no representative of labor on any terms. But it suddenly dawned on +Roosevelt that the owners were objecting not to the thing but to the +name. He discovered that they would not object to the appointment of any +man, labor man or not, so long as he was not appointed as a labor man +or as a representative of labor. "I shall never forget," he says in +his "Autobiography", "the mixture of relief and amusement I felt when I +thoroughly grasped the fact that while they would heroically submit to +anarchy rather than have Tweedledum, yet if I would call it Tweedledee +they would accept with rapture." All that he needed to do was to "commit +a technical and nominal absurdity with a solemn face." When he realized +that this was the case, Roosevelt announced that he was glad to accept +the terms laid down, and proceeded to appoint to the third position +on the Commission the labor man whom he had wanted from the first +to appoint, Mr. E. E. Clark, the head of the Brotherhood of Railway +Conductors. He called him, however, an "eminent sociologist," adding in +his announcement of the appointment this explanation: "For the purposes +of such a Commission, the term sociologist means a man who has thought +and studied deeply on social questions and has practically applied his +knowledge." + +The Commission as finally constituted was an admirable one. Its report, +which removed every menace to peace in the coal industry, was an +outstanding event in the history of the relations of labor and capital +in the United States. + +But the most interesting and significant part of Roosevelt's relation +to the great coal strike concerned something that did not happen. It +illustrates his habit of seeing clearly through a situation to the end +and knowing far in advance just what action he was prepared to take in +any contingency that might possibly arise. He was determined that work +should be resumed in the mines and that the country should have coal. He +did not propose to allow the operators to maintain the deadlock by sheer +refusal to make any compromise. In case he could not succeed in making +them reconsider their position, he had prepared a definite and drastic +course of action. The facts in regard to this plan did not become +public until many years after the strike was settled, and then only when +Roosevelt described it in his "Autobiography". + +The method of action which Roosevelt had determined upon in the last +resort was to get the Governor of Pennsylvania to appeal to him as +President to restore order. He had then determined to put Federal troops +into the coal fields under the command of some first-rate general, +with instructions not only to preserve order but to dispossess the mine +operators and to run the mines as a receiver, until such time as the +Commission should make its report and the President should issue further +orders in view of that report. Roosevelt found an army officer with the +requisite good sense, judgment, and nerve to act in such a crisis in the +person of Major General Schofield. Roosevelt sent for the General and +explained the seriousness of the crisis. "He was a fine fellow," says +Roosevelt in his "Autobiography", "a most respectable-looking old boy, +with side whiskers and a black skull-cap, without any of the outward +aspect of the conventional military dictator; but in both nerve and +judgment he was all right." Schofield quietly assured the President that +if the order was given he would take possession of the mines, and would +guarantee to open them and run them without permitting any interference +either by the owners or by the strikers or by any one else, so long as +the President told him to stay. Fortunately Roosevelt's efforts to bring +about arbitration were ultimately successful and recourse to the novel +expedient of having the army operate the coal mines proved unnecessary. +No one was more pleased than Roosevelt himself at the harmonious +adjustment of the trouble, for, as he said, "It is never well to take +drastic action if the result can be achieved with equal efficiency in +less drastic fashion." But there can be no question that the drastic +action would have followed if the coal operators had not seen the light +when they did. + +In other phases of national life Roosevelt made his influence equally +felt. As President he found that there was little which the Federal +Government could do directly for the practical betterment of living and +working conditions among the mass of the people compared with what the +State Governments could do. He determined, however, to strive to make +the National Government an ideal employer. He hoped to make the Federal +employee feel, just as much as did the Cabinet officer, that he was one +of the partners engaged in the service of the public, proud of his work, +eager to do it efficiently, and confident of just treatment. The Federal +Government could act in relation to laboring conditions only in the +Territories, in the District of Columbia, and in connection with +interstate commerce. But in those fields it accomplished much. + +The eight-hour law for workers in the executive departments had become +a mere farce and was continually violated by officials who made their +subordinates work longer hours than the law stipulated. This condition +the President remedied by executive action, at the same time seeing +to it that the shirk and the dawdler received no mercy. A good law +protecting the lives and health of miners in the Territories was passed; +and laws were enacted for the District of Columbia, providing for the +supervision of employment agencies, for safeguarding workers against +accidents, and for the restriction of child labor. A workmen's +compensation law for government employees, inadequate but at least a +beginning, was put on the statute books. A similar law for workers on +interstate railways was declared unconstitutional by the courts; but a +second law was passed and stood the test. + +It was chiefly in the field of executive action, however, that Roosevelt +was able to put his theories into practice. There he did not have to +deal with recalcitrant, stupid, or medieval-minded politicians, as he so +often did in matters of legislation. One case which confronted him found +him on the side against the labor unions, but, being sure that he was +right, he did not let that fact disturb him. A printer in the Government +Printing Office, named Miller, had been discharged because he was a +non-union man. The President immediately ordered him reinstated. + +Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, with +several members of its Executive Council, called upon him to protest. +The President was courteous but inflexible. He answered their protest by +declaring that, in the employment and dismissal of men in the Government +service, he could no more recognize the fact that a man did or did not +belong to a union as being for or against him, than he could recognize +the fact that he was a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile, +as being for or against him. He declared his belief in trade unions and +said that if he were a worker himself he would unquestionably join a +union. He always preferred to see a union shop. But he could not allow +his personal preferences to control his public actions. The Government +was bound to treat union and non-union men exactly alike. His action in +causing Miller to be reinstated was final. + +Another instance which illustrated Roosevelt's skill in handling a +difficult situation occurred in 1908 when the Louisville and Nashville +Railroad and certain other lines announced a reduction in wages. The +heads of that particular road laid the necessity for the reduction at +the door of "the drastic laws inimical to the interests of the railroads +that have in the past year or two been enacted." A general strike, +with all the attendant discomfort and disorder, was threatened in +retaliation. The President wrote a letter to the Interstate Commerce +Commission, in which he said: + +"These reductions in wages may be justified or they may not. As to this +the public, which is a vitally interested party, can form no judgment +without a more complete knowledge of the essential facts and real merits +of the case than it now has or than it can possibly obtain from the +special pleadings, certain to be put forth by each side in case their +dispute should bring about serious interruption to traffic. If the +reduction in wages is due to natural causes, the loss of business being +such that the burden should be, and is, equitably distributed, between +capitalist and wageworker, the public should know it. If it is caused by +legislation, the public and Congress should know it; and if it is caused +by misconduct in the past financial or other operations of any railroad, +then everybody should know it, especially if the excuse of unfriendly +legislation is advanced as a method of covering up past business +misconduct by the railroad managers, or as a justification for failure +to treat fairly the wage-earning employees of the company." + +The letter closed with a request to the Commission to investigate the +whole matter with these points in view. But the investigation proved +unnecessary; the letter was enough. The proposed reduction of wages was +never heard of again. The strength of the President's position in a case +of this sort was that he was cheerfully prepared to accept whatever an +investigation should show to be right. If the reduction should prove to +be required by natural causes, very well--let the reduction be made. If +it was the result of unfair and unwise legislation, very well--repeal +the legislation. If it was caused by misconduct on the part of railroad +managers, very well--let them be punished. It was hard to get the better +of a man who wanted only the truth, and was ready to act upon it, no +matter which way it cut. + +In 1910, after his return from Africa, a speaking trip happened to +take him to Columbus, Ohio, which had for months been in the grasp of a +street railway strike. There had been much violence, many policemen had +refused to do their duty, and many officials had failed in theirs. It +was an uncomfortable time for an outsider to come and make a speech. But +Roosevelt did not dodge. He spoke, and straight to the point. His speech +had been announced as on Law and Order. When he rose to speak, however, +he declared that he would speak on Law, Order, and Justice. Here are +some of the incisive things that he said: + +"Now, the first requisite is to establish order; and the first duty of +every official, in State and city alike, high and low, is to see that +order obtains and that violence is definitely stopped .... I have the +greatest regard for the policeman who does his duty. I put him high +among the props of the State, but the policeman who mutinies, or +refuses to perform his duty, stands on a lower level than that of the +professional lawbreaker.... I ask, then, not only that civic officials +perform their duties, but that you, the people, insist upon their +performing them... . I ask this particularly of the wage-workers, and +employees, and men on strike.... I ask them, not merely passively, but +actively, to aid in restoring order. I ask them to clear their skirts +of all suspicion of sympathizing with disorder, and, above all, the +suspicion of sympathizing with those who commit brutal and cowardly +assaults.... What I have said of the laboring men applies just as +much to the capitalists and the capitalists' representatives.... The +wage-workers and the representatives of the companies should make it +evident that they wish the law absolutely obeyed; that there is no +chance of saying that either the labor organization or the corporation +favors lawbreakers or lawbreaking. But let your public servants trust, +not in the good will of either side, but in the might of the civil arm, +and see that law rules, that order obtains, and that every miscreant, +every scoundrel who seeks brutally to assault any other man--whatever +that man's status--is punished with the utmost severity.... When +you have obtained law and order, remember that it is useless to have +obtained them unless upon them you build a superstructure of justice. +After finding out the facts, see that justice is done; see that +injustice that has been perpetrated in the past is remedied, and see +that the chance of doing injustice in the future is minimized." + +Now, any one might in his closet write an essay on Law, Order, and +Justice, which would contain every idea that is here expressed. The +essayist might even feel somewhat ashamed of his production on the +ground that all the ideas that it contained were platitudes. But it is +one thing to write an essay far from the madding crowd, and it was +quite another to face an audience every member of which was probably +a partisan of either the workers, the employers, or the officials, and +give them straight from the shoulder simple platitudinous truths of this +sort applicable to the situation in which they found themselves. Any one +of them would have been delighted to hear these things said about his +opponents; it was when they were addressed to himself and his associates +that they stung. The best part of it, however, was the fact that those +things were precisely what the situation needed. They were the truth; +and Roosevelt knew it. His sword had a double edge, and he habitually +used it with a sweep that cut both ways. As a result he was generally +hated or feared by the extremists on both sides. But the average citizen +heartily approved the impartiality of his strokes. + +In the year 1905 the Governor of Idaho was killed by a bomb as he was +leaving his house. A former miner, who had been driven from the State +six years before by United States troops engaged in putting down +industrial disorder, was arrested and confessed the crime. In his +confession he implicated three officers of the Western Federation of +Miners, Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone. These three men were brought from +Colorado into Idaho by a method that closely resembled kidnaping, though +it subsequently received the sanction of the United States Supreme +Court. While these prominent labor leaders were awaiting trial, +Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada seethed and burst into eruption. Parts of +the mining districts were transformed into two hostile armed camps. +Violence was common. At this time Roosevelt coupled the name of a giant +among American railroad financiers, with those of Moyer and Haywood, +and described them all as "undesirable citizens." The outbursts of +resentment from both sides were instantaneous and vicious. There was +little to choose between them. Finally the President took advantage of +a letter of criticism from a supporter of the accused labor leaders to +reply to both groups of critics. He referred to the fact that certain +representatives of the great capitalists had protested, because he had +included a prominent financier with Moyer and Haywood, while certain +representatives of labor had protested on precisely the opposite +grounds. Then Roosevelt went on to say: + +"I am as profoundly indifferent to the condemnation in one case as in +the other. I challenge as a right the support of all good Americans, +whether wage-workers or capitalists, whatever their occupation or creed, +or in whatever portion of the country they live, when I condemn both the +types of bad citizenship which I have held up to reprobation.... You ask +for a 'square deal' for Messrs. Moyer and Haywood. So do I. When I +say 'square deal', I mean a square deal to every one; it is equally a +violation of the policy of the square deal for a capitalist to protest +against denunciation of a capitalist who is guilty of wrongdoing and for +a labor leader to protest against the denunciation of a labor leader who +has been guilty of wrongdoing. I stand for equal justice to both; and so +far as in my power lies I shall uphold justice, whether the man accused +of guilt has behind him the wealthiest corporation, the greatest +aggregations of riches in the country, or whether he has behind him the +most influential labor organizations in the country." + +It should be recorded for the sake of avoiding misapprehension that +Roosevelt's denunciation of Moyer and Haywood was not based on the +assumption that they were guilty of the death of the murdered Governor, +but was predicated on their general attitude and conduct in the +industrial conflicts in the mining fields. + +The criticisms of Roosevelt because of his actions in the complex +relations of capital and labor were often puerile. For instance, he +was sternly taken to task on one or two occasions because he had labor +leaders lunch with him at the White House. He replied to one of his +critics with this statement of his position: "While I am President I +wish the labor man to feel that he has the same right of access to me +that the capitalist has; that the doors swing open as easily to the +wageworker as to the head of a big corporation--AND NO EASIER." + + + +CHAPTER IX. RECLAMATION AND CONSERVATION + +The first message of President Roosevelt to Congress contained these +words: "The forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital +internal questions of the United States." At that moment, on December 3, +1901, the impulse was given that was to add to the American vocabulary +two new words, "reclamation" and "conservation," that was to create two +great constructive movements for the preservation, the increase, and +the utilization of natural resources, and that was to establish a new +relationship on the part of the Federal Government to the nation's +natural wealth. + +Reclamation and conservation had this in common: the purpose of both was +the intelligent and efficient utilization of the natural resources +of the country for the benefit of the people of the country. But +they differed in one respect, and with conspicuous practical effects. +Reclamation, which meant the spending of public moneys to render fertile +and usable arid lands hitherto deemed worthless, trod on no one's toes. +It took from no one anything that he had; it interfered with no one's +enjoyment of benefits which it was not in the public interest that he +should continue to enjoy unchecked. It was therefore popular from the +first, and the new policy went through Congress as though on well-oiled +wheels. Only six months passed between its first statement in the +Presidential message and its enactment into law. Conservation, on the +other hand, had to begin by withholding the natural resources from +exploitation and extravagant use. It had, first of all, to establish in +the national mind the principle that the forests and mines of the nation +are not an inexhaustible grab-bag into which whosoever will may thrust +greedy and wasteful hands, and by this new understanding to stop the +squandering of vast national resources until they could be economically +developed and intelligently used. So it was inevitable that conservation +should prove unpopular, while reclamation gained an easy popularity, and +that those who had been feeding fat off the country's stores of +forest and mineral wealth should oppose, with tooth and nail, the very +suggestion of conservation. It was on the first Sunday after he reached +Washington as President, before he had moved into the White House, that +Roosevelt discussed with two men, Gifford Pinchot and F. H. Newell, the +twin policies that were to become two of the finest contributions +to American progress of the Roosevelt Administrations. Both men were +already in the Government service, both were men of broad vision and +high constructive ability; with both Roosevelt had already worked +when he was Governor of New York. The name of Newell, who became chief +engineer of the Reclamation Service, ought to be better known popularly +than it is in connection with the wonderful work that has been +accomplished in making the desert lands of western America blossom and +produce abundantly. The name of Pinchot, by a more fortunate combination +of events, has become synonymous in the popular mind with the +conservation movement. + +On the very day that the first Roosevelt message was read to the +Congress, a committee of Western Senators and Congressmen was organized, +under the leadership of Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada, to +prepare a Reclamation Bill. The only obstacle to the prompt enactment +of the bill was the undue insistence upon State Rights by certain +Congressmen, "who consistently fought for local and private interests +as against the interests of the people as a whole." In spite of this +shortsighted opposition, the bill became law on June 17, 1902, and the +work of reclamation began without an instant's delay. The Reclamation +Act set aside the proceeds of the sale of public lands for the purpose +of reclaiming the waste areas of the arid West. + +Lands otherwise worthless were to be irrigated and in those new regions +of agricultural productivity homes were to be established. The money so +expended was to be repaid in due course by the settlers on the land and +the sums repaid were to be used as a revolving fund for the continuous +prosecution of the reclamation work. Nearly five million dollars was +made immediately available for the work. Within four years, twenty-six +"projects" had been approved by the Secretary of the Interior and work +was well under way on practically all of them. They were situated in +fourteen States--Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, +Washington, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, California, +South Dakota. The individual projects were intended to irrigate areas +of from eight thousand to two hundred thousand acres each; and the grand +total of arid lands to which water was thus to be brought by canals, +tunnels, aqueducts, and ditches was more than a million and a half +acres. + +The work had to be carried out under the most difficult and adventurous +conditions. The men of the Reclamation Service were in the truest sense +pioneers, building great engineering works far from the railroads, where +the very problem of living for the great numbers of workers required was +no simple one. On the Shoshone in Wyoming these men built the highest +dam in the world, 310 feet from base to crest. They pierced a mountain +range in Colorado and carried the waters of the Gunnison River nearly +six miles to the Uncompahgre Valley through a tunnel in the solid rock. +The great Roosevelt dam on the Salt River in Arizona with its gigantic +curved wall of masonry 280 feet high, created a lake with a capacity +of fifty-six billion cubic feet, and watered in 1915 an area of 750,000 +acres. + +The work of these bold pioneers was made possible by the fearless +backing which they received from the Administration at Washington. +The President demanded of them certain definite results and gave them +unquestioning support. In Roosevelt's own words, "the men in charge +were given to understand that they must get into the water if they would +learn to swim; and, furthermore, they learned to know that if they acted +honestly, and boldly and fearlessly accepted responsibility, I would +stand by them to the limit. In this, as in every other case, in the end +the boldness of the action fully justified itself." + +The work of reclamation was first prosecuted under the United States +Geological Survey; but in the spring of 1908 the United States +Reclamation Service was established to carry it on, under the direction +of Mr. Newell, to whom the inception of the plan was due. Roosevelt paid +a fine and well-deserved tribute to the man who originated and carried +through this great national achievement when he said that "Newell's +single-minded devotion to this great task, the constructive imagination +which enabled him to conceive it, and the executive power and high +character through which he and his assistant, Arthur P. Davis, built up +a model service--all these made him a model servant. The final proof of +his merit is supplied by the character and records of the men who later +assailed him." + +The assault to which Roosevelt thus refers was the inevitable aftermath +of great accomplishment. Reclamation was popular, when it was proposed, +while it was being carried out, and when the water began to flow in the +ditches, making new lands of fertile abundance for settlers and farmers. +But the reaction of unpopularity came the minute the beneficiaries +had to begin to pay for the benefits received. Then arose a concerted +movement for the repudiation of the obligation of the settlers to repay +the Government for what had been spent to reclaim the land. The baser +part of human nature always seeks a scapegoat; and it might naturally +be expected that the repudiators and their supporters should concentrate +their attacks upon the head of the Reclamation Service, to whose +outstanding ability and continuous labor they owed that for which they +were now unwilling to pay. But no attack, not even the adverse report +of an ill-humored congressional committee, can alter the fact of +the tremendous service that Newell and his loyal associates in the +Reclamation Service did for the nation and the people of the United +States. By 1915 reclamation had added to the arable land of the country +a million and a quarter acres, of which nearly eight hundred thousand +acres were already "under water," and largely under tillage, producing +yearly more than eighteen million dollars' worth of crops. + +When Roosevelt became President there was a Bureau of Forestry in the +Department of Agriculture, but it was a body entrusted with merely the +study of forestry problems and principles. It contained all the trained +foresters in the employ of the Government; but it had no public forest +lands whatever to which the knowledge and skill of these men could be +applied. All the forest reserves of that day were in the charge of the +Public Land Office in the Department of the Interior. This was managed +by clerks who knew nothing of forestry, and most, if not all, of whom +had never seen a stick of the timber or an acre of the woodlands for +which they were responsible. The mapping and description of the timber +lay with the Geological Survey. So the national forests had no foresters +and the Government foresters no forests. + +It was a characteristic arrangement of the old days. More than that, +it was a characteristic expression of the old attitude of thought +and action on the part of the American people toward their natural +resources. Dazzled and intoxicated by the inexhaustible riches of their +bountiful land, they had concerned themselves only with the agreeable +task of utilizing and consuming them. To their shortsighted vision there +seemed always plenty more beyond. With the beginning of the twentieth +century a prophet arose in the land to warn the people that the supply +was not inexhaustible. He declared not only that the "plenty more +beyond" had an end, but that the end was already in sight. This prophet +was Gifford Pinchot. His warning went forth reinforced by all the +authority of the Presidential office and all the conviction and driving +power of the personality of Roosevelt himself. Pinchot's warning cry was +startling: + +"The growth of our forests is but one-third of the annual cut; and +we have in store timber enough for only twenty or thirty years at +our present rate of use.... Our coal supplies are so far from being +inexhaustible that if the increasing rate of consumption shown by +the figures of the last seventy-five years continues to prevail, our +supplies of anthracite coal will last but fifty years and of bituminous +coal less than two hundred years.... Many oil and gas fields, as in +Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the Mississippi Valley, have already +failed, yet vast quantities of gas continue to be poured into the air +and great quantities of oil into the streams. Cases are known in which +great volumes of oil were systematically burned in order to get rid +of it.... In 1896, Professor Shaler, than whom no one has spoken with +greater authority on this subject, estimated that in the upland regions +of the States South of Pennsylvania, three thousand square miles of +soil have been destroyed as the result of forest denudation, and that +destruction was then proceeding at the rate of one hundred square miles +of fertile soil per year.. .. The Mississippi River alone is estimated +to transport yearly four hundred million tons of sediment, or about +twice the amount of material to be excavated from the Panama Canal. This +material is the most fertile portion of the richest fields, transformed +from a blessing to a curse by unrestricted erosion.... The destruction +of forage plants by overgrazing has resulted, in the opinion of men most +capable of judging, in reducing the grazing value of the public lands by +one-half." + +Here, then, was a problem of national significance, and it was one which +the President attacked with his usual promptness and vigor. His first +message to Congress called for the unification of the care of the forest +lands of the public domain in a single body under the Department of +Agriculture. He asked that legal authority be granted to the President +to transfer to the Department of Agriculture lands for use as forest +reserves. He declared that "the forest reserves should be set apart +forever for the use and benefit of our people as a whole and not +sacrificed to the shortsighted greed of a few." He supplemented this +declaration with an explanation of the meaning and purpose of the forest +policy which he urged should be adopted: "Wise forest protection does +not mean the withdrawal of forest resources, whether of wood, water, or +grass, from contributing their full share to the welfare of the people, +but, on the contrary, gives the assurance of larger and more certain +supplies. The fundamental idea of forestry is the perpetuation of +forests by use. Forest protection is not an end in itself; it is a means +to increase and sustain the resources of our country and the industries +which depend upon them. The preservation of our forests is an imperative +business necessity. We have come to see clearly that whatever +destroys the forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our +wellbeing." + +Nevertheless it was four years before Congress could be brought to the +common-sense policy of administering the forest lands still belonging +to the Government. Pinchot and his associates in the Bureau of Forestry +spent the interval profitably, however, in investigating and studying +the whole problem of national forest resources and in drawing up +enlightened and effective plans for their protection and development. +Accordingly, when the act transferring the National Forests to the +charge of the newly created United States Forest Service in the +Department of Agriculture was passed early in 1905, they were ready for +the responsibility. + +The principles which they had formulated and which they now began to +apply had been summed up by Roosevelt in the statement "that the rights +of the public to the natural resources outweigh private rights and must +be given the first consideration." Until the establishment of the Forest +Service, private rights had almost always been allowed to overbalance +public rights in matters that concerned not only the National Forests, +but the public lands generally. It was the necessity of having this new +principle recognized and adopted that made the way of the newly created +Forest Service and of the whole Conservation movement so thorny. Those +who had been used to making personal profit from free and unrestricted +exploitation of the nation's natural resources would look only with +antagonism on a movement which put a consideration of the general +welfare first. + +The Forest Service nevertheless put these principles immediately into +practical application. The National Forests were opened to a regulated +use of all their resources. A law was passed throwing open to settlement +all land in the National Forests which was found to be chiefly valuable +for agriculture. Hitherto all such land had been closed to the settler. +Regulations were established and enforced which favored the settler +rather than the large stockowner. It was provided that, when conditions +required the reduction in the number of head of stock grazed in any +National Forest, the vast herds of the wealthy owner should be affected +before the few head of the small man, upon which the living of his +family depended. The principle which excited the bitterest antagonism of +all was the rule that any one, except a bona fide settler on the land, +who took public property for private profit should pay for what he got. +This was a new and most unpalatable idea to the big stock and sheep +raisers, who had been accustomed to graze their animals at will on the +richest lands of the public forests, with no one but themselves a penny +the better off thereby. But the Attorney-General of the United States +declared it legal to make the men who pastured their cattle and sheep in +the National Forests pay for this privilege; and in the summer of 1906 +such charges were for the first time made and collected. The trained +foresters of the service were put in charge of the National Forests. As +a result, improvement began to manifest itself in other ways. Within two +years the fire prevention work alone had completely justified the new +policy of forest regulation. Eighty-six per cent of the fires that did +occur in the National Forests were held down to an area of five acres or +less. The new service not only made rapid progress in saving the timber, +but it began to make money for the nation by selling the timber. In 1905 +the sales of timber brought in $60,000; three years later the return was +$850,000. + +The National Forests were trebled in size during the two Roosevelt +Administrations with the result that there were 194,000,000 acres of +publicly owned and administered forest lands when Roosevelt went out of +office. The inclusion of these lands in the National Forests, where they +were safe from the selfish exploitation of greedy private interests, +was not accomplished without the bitterest opposition. The wisdom of the +serpent sometimes had to be called into play to circumvent the adroit +maneuvering of these interests and their servants in Congress. In 1907, +for example, Senator Charles W. Fulton of Oregon obtained an amendment +to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill forbidding the President to set +aside any additional National Forests in six Northwestern States. But +the President and the Forest Service were ready for this bold attempt +to deprive the public of some 16,000,000 acres for the benefit of land +grabbers and special interests. They knew exactly what lands ought to +be set aside in those States. So the President first unostentatiously +signed the necessary proclamations to erect those lands into National +Forests, and then quietly approved the Agricultural Bill. "The opponents +of the Forest Service," said Roosevelt, "turned handsprings in their +wrath; and dire were their threats against the Executive; but the +threats could not be carried out, and were really only a tribute to the +efficiency of our action." + +The development of a sound and enlightened forest policy naturally led +to the consideration of a similar policy for dealing with the water +power of the country which had hitherto gone to waste or was in the +hands of private interests. It had been the immemorial custom that the +water powers on the navigable streams, on the public domain, and in +the National Forests should be given away for nothing, and practically +without question, to the first comer. This ancient custom ran right +athwart the newly enunciated principle that public property should not +pass into private possession without being paid for, and that permanent +grants, except for home-making, should not be made. The Forest Service +now began to apply this principle to the water powers in the National +Forests, granting permission for the development and use of such power +for limited periods only and requiring payment for the privilege. This +was the beginning of a general water power policy which, in the course +of time, commended itself to public approval; but it was long before +it ceased to be opposed by the private interests that wanted these rich +resources for their own undisputed use. + +Out of the forest movement grew the conservation movement in its broader +sense. In the fall of 1907 Roosevelt made a trip down the Mississippi +River with the definite purpose of drawing general attention to the +subject of the development of the national inland waterways. Seven +months before, he had established the Inland Waterways Commission and +had directed it to "consider the relations of the streams to the use of +all the great permanent natural resources and their conservation for the +making and maintenance of permanent homes." During the trip a letter was +prepared by a group of men interested in the conservation movement +and was presented to him, asking him to summon a conference on the +conservation of natural resources. At a great meeting held at Memphis, +Tennessee, Roosevelt publicly announced his intention of calling such a +conference. + +In May of the following year the conference was held in the East Room +of the White House. There were assembled there the President, the +Vice-President, seven Cabinet members, the Supreme Court Justices, the +Governors of thirty-four States and representatives of the other twelve, +the Governors of all the Territories, including Alaska, Hawaii, and +Porto Rico, the President of the Board of Commissioners of the District +of Columbia, representatives of sixty-eight national societies, four +special guests, William Jennings Bryan, James J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, +and John Mitchell, forty-eight general guests, and the members of the +Inland Waterways Commission. The object of the conference was stated by +the President in these words: "It seems to me time for the country to +take account of its natural resources, and to inquire how long they are +likely to last. We are prosperous now; we should not forget that it will +be just as important to our descendants to be prosperous in their time." + +At the conclusion of the conference a declaration prepared by the +Governors of Louisiana, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Utah, and South Carolina, +was unanimously adopted. This Magna Charta of the conservation movement +declared "that the great natural resources supply the material basis +upon which our civilization must continue to depend and upon which the +perpetuity of the nation itself rests," that "this material basis is +threatened with exhaustion," and that "this conservation of our natural +resources is a subject of transcendent importance, which should engage +unremittingly the attention of the Nation, the States, and the people +in earnest cooperation." It set forth the practical implications of +Conservation in these words: + +"We agree that the land should be so used that erosion and soil wash +shall cease; and that there should be reclamation of arid and semi-arid +regions by means of irrigation, and of swamp and overflowed regions by +means of drainage; that the waters should be so conserved and used as +to promote navigation, to enable the arid regions to be reclaimed by +irrigation, and to develop power in the interests of the people; that +the forests which regulate our rivers, support our industries, and +promote the fertility and productiveness of the soil should be preserved +and perpetuated; that the minerals found so abundantly beneath the +surface should be so used as to prolong their utility; that the beauty, +healthfulness, and habitability of our country should be preserved and +increased; that sources of national wealth exist for the benefit of the +people, and that monopoly thereof should not be tolerated." + +The conference urged the continuation and extension of the forest +policies already established; the immediate adoption of a wise, active, +and thorough waterway policy for the prompt improvement of the streams, +and the conservation of water resources for irrigation, water supply, +power, and navigation; and the enactment of laws for the prevention of +waste in the mining and extraction of coal, oil, gas, and other minerals +with a view to their wise conservation for the use of the people. The +declaration closed with the timely adjuration, "Let us conserve the +foundations of our prosperity." + +As a result of the conference President Roosevelt created the National +Conservation Commission, consisting of forty-nine men of prominence, +about one-third of whom were engaged in politics, one-third in various +industries, and one-third in scientific work. Gifford Pinchot was +appointed chairman. The Commission proceeded to make an inventory of the +natural resources of the United States. This inventory contains the only +authentic statement as to the amounts of the national resources of the +country, the degree to which they have already been exhausted, and their +probable duration. But with this inventory there came to an end the +activity of the Conservation Commission, for Congress not only refused +any appropriation for its use but decreed by law that no bureau of +the Government should do any work for any commission or similar body +appointed by the President, without reference to the question whether +such work was appropriate or not for such a bureau to undertake. +Inasmuch as the invaluable inventory already made had been almost +entirely the work of scientific bureaus of the Government instructed by +the President to cooperate with the Commission, the purpose and animus +of this legislation were easily apparent. Congress had once more shown +its friendship for the special interests and its indifference to the +general welfare. + +In February, 1909, on the invitation of President Roosevelt, a North +American Conservation Conference, attended by representatives of the +United States, Canada, and Mexico, was held at the White House. A +declaration of principles was drawn up and the suggestion made that +all the nations of the world should be invited to meet in a World +Conservation Conference. The President forthwith addressed to forty-five +nations a letter inviting them to assemble at The Hague for such a +conference; but, as he has laconically expressed it, "When I left the +White House the project lapsed." + + + +CHAPTER X. BEING WISE IN TIME + +Perhaps the most famous of Roosevelt's epigrammatic sayings is, +"Speak softly and carry a big stick." The public, with its instinctive +preference for the dramatic over the significant, promptly seized upon +the "big stick" half of the aphorism and ignored the other half. But +a study of the various acts of Roosevelt when he was President readily +shows that in his mind the "big stick" was purely subordinate. It was +merely the ultima ratio, the possession of which would enable a nation +to "speak softly" and walk safely along the road of peace and justice +and fair play. + +The secret of Roosevelt's success in foreign affairs is to be found in +another of his favorite sayings: "Nine-tenths of wisdom is to be wise in +time." He has himself declared that his whole foreign policy "was +based on the exercise of intelligent foresight and of decisive action +sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis to make it improbable +that we would run into serious trouble." + +When Roosevelt became President, a perplexing controversy with Great +Britain over the boundary line between Alaska and Canada was in full +swing. The problem, which had become acute with the discovery of gold in +the Klondike in 1897, had already been considered, together with eleven +other subjects of dispute between Canada and the United States, by a +Joint Commission which had been able to reach no agreement. The essence +of the controversy was this: The treaty of 1825 between Great Britain +and Russia had declared that the boundary, dividing British and Russian +America on that five-hundred-mile strip of land which depends from the +Alaskan elephant's head like a dangling halter rope, should be drawn +"parallel to the windings of the coast" at a distance inland of thirty +miles. The United States took the plain and literal interpretation of +these words in the treaty. The Canadian contention was that within the +meaning of the treaty the fiords or inlets which here break into the +land were not part of the sea, and that the line, instead of following, +at the correct distance inland, the indentations made by these arms of +the sea, should leap boldly across them, at the agreed distance from +the points of the headlands. This would give Canada the heads of several +great inlets and direct access to the sea far north of the point where +the Canadian coast had always been assumed to end. Canada and the +United States were equally resolute in upholding their claims. It looked +as if the matter would end in a deadlock. + +John Hay, who had been Secretary of State in McKinley's Cabinet, as +he now was in Roosevelt's, had done his best to bring the matter to a +settlement, but had been unwilling to have the dispute arbitrated, for +the very good reason that, as he said, "although our claim is as clear +as the sun in heaven, we know enough of arbitration to foresee the fatal +tendency of all arbitrators to compromise." Roosevelt believed that the +"claim of the Canadians for access to deep water along any part of the +Alaskan coast is just exactly as indefensible as if they should now +claim the island of Nantucket." He was willing, however, to refer the +question unconfused by other issues to a second Joint Commission of six. +The commission was duly constituted. There was no odd neutral member of +this body, as in an arbitration, but merely three representatives from +each side. Of the British representatives two were Canadians and the +third was the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Alverstone. + +But before the Commission met, the President took pains to have conveyed +to the British Cabinet, in an informal but diplomatically correct way, +his views and his intentions in the event of a disagreement. "I wish to +make one last effort," he said, "to bring about an agreement through the +Commission which will enable the people of both countries to say +that the result represents the feeling of the representatives of +both countries. But if there is a disagreement, I wish it distinctly +understood, not only that there will be no arbitration of the matter, +but that in my message to Congress I shall take a position which will +prevent any possibility of arbitration hereafter." If this should seem +to any one too vigorous flourishing of the "big stick," let him remember +that it was all done through confidential diplomatic channels, and +that the judgment of the Lord Chief Justice of England, when the final +decision was made, fully upheld Roosevelt's position. + +The decision of the Commission was, with slight immaterial +modifications, in favor of the United States. Lord Alverstone voted +against his Canadian colleagues. It was a just decision, as most +well-informed Canadians knew at the time. The troublesome question was +settled; the time-honored friendship of two great peoples had suffered +no interruption; and Roosevelt had secured for his country its just +due, without public parade or bluster, by merely being wise--and +inflexible--in time. + +During the same early period of his Presidency, Roosevelt found himself +confronted with a situation in South America, which threatened a serious +violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Venezuela was repudiating certain +debts which the Venezuelan Government had guaranteed to European +capitalists. German capital was chiefly involved, and Germany proposed +to collect the debts by force. Great Britain and Italy were also +concerned in the matter, but Germany was the ringleader and the active +partner in the undertaking. Throughout the year 1902 a pacific blockade +of the Venezuelan coast was maintained and in December of that year an +ultimatum demanding the immediate payment of the debts was presented. +When its terms were not complied with, diplomatic relations were broken +off and the Venezuelan fleet was seized. At this point the United States +entered upon the scene, but with no blare of trumpets. + +In fact, what really happened was not generally known until several +years later. + +In his message of December, 1901, President Roosevelt had made two +significant statements. Speaking of the Monroe Doctrine, he said, "We do +not guarantee any state against punishment, if it misconducts itself." +This was very satisfactory to Germany. But he added--"provided the +punishment does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any +non-American power." This did not suit the German book so well. For a +year the matter was discussed. Germany disclaimed any intention to make +"permanent" acquisitions in Venezuela but contended for its right +to make "temporary" ones. Now the world had already seen "temporary" +acquisitions made in China, and it was a matter of common knowledge that +this convenient word was often to be interpreted in a Pickwickian sense. + +When the "pacific blockade" passed into the stage of active hostilities, +the patience of Roosevelt snapped. The German Ambassador, von Holleben, +was summoned to the White House. The President proposed to him that +Germany should arbitrate its differences with Venezuela. Von Holleben +assured him that his "Imperial Master" would not hear of such a course. +The President persisted that there must be no taking possession, even +temporarily, of Venezuelan territory. He informed the Ambassador that +Admiral Dewey was at that moment maneuvering in Caribbean waters, and +that if satisfactory assurances did not come from Berlin in ten days, +he would be ordered to proceed to Venezuela to see that no territory was +seized by German forces. The Ambassador was firm in his conviction that +no assurances would be forthcoming. + +A week later Von Holleben appeared at the White House to talk of +another matter and was about to leave without mentioning Venezuela. The +President stopped him with a question. No, said the Ambassador, no +word had come from Berlin. Then, Roosevelt explained, it would not +be necessary for him to wait the remaining three days. Dewey would be +instructed to sail a day earlier than originally planned. He added that +not a word of all this had been put upon paper, and that if the German +Emperor would consent to arbitrate, the President would praise him +publicly for his broadmindedness. The Ambassador was still convinced +that no arbitration was conceivable. + +But just twelve hours later he appeared at the White House, his face +wreathed in smiles. On behalf of his Imperial Master he had the honor to +request the President of the United States to act as arbitrator +between Germany and Venezuela. The orders to Dewey were never sent, +the President publicly congratulated the Kaiser on his loyalty to the +principle of arbitration, and, at Roosevelt's suggestion, the case went +to The Hague. Not an intimation of the real occurrences came out till +long after, not a public word or act marred the perfect friendliness of +the two nations. The Monroe Doctrine was just as unequivocally invoked +and just as inflexibly upheld as it had been by Grover Cleveland eight +years before in another Venezuelan case. But the quiet private warning +had been substituted for the loud public threat. + +The question of the admission of Japanese immigrants to the United +States and of their treatment had long disturbed American international +relations. It became acute in the latter part of 1906, when the city of +San Francisco determined to exclude all Japanese pupils from the public +schools and to segregate them in a school of their own. This action +seemed to the Japanese a manifest violation of the rights guaranteed by +treaty. Diplomatic protests were instantly forthcoming at Washington; +and popular demonstrations against the United States boiled up in +Tokyo. For the third time there appeared splendid material for a serious +conflict with a great power which might conceivably lead to active +hostilities. From such beginnings wars have come before now. + +The President was convinced that the Californians were utterly wrong +in what they had done, but perfectly right in the underlying conviction +from which their action sprang. He saw that justice and good faith +demanded that the Japanese in California be protected in their treaty +rights, and that the Californians be protected from the immigration of +Japanese laborers in mass. With characteristic promptness and vigor +he set forth these two considerations and took action to make them +effective. In his message to Congress in December he declared: "In the +matter now before me, affecting the Japanese, everything that is in my +power to do will be done and all of the forces, military and civil, of +the United States which I may lawfully employ will be so employed ... to +enforce the rights of aliens under treaties." Here was reassurance for +the Japanese. But he also added: "The Japanese would themselves not +tolerate the intrusion into their country of a mass of Americans who +would displace Japanese in the business of the land. The people of +California are right in insisting that the Japanese shall not come +thither in mass." Here was reassurance for the Californians. + +The words were promptly followed by acts. The garrison of Federal +troops at San Francisco was reinforced and public notice was given that +violence against Japanese would be put down. Suits were brought both in +the California State courts and in the Federal courts there to uphold +the treaty rights of Japan. Mr. Victor H. Metcalf, the Secretary of +Commerce and Labor, himself a Californian, was sent to San Francisco to +make a study of the whole situation. It was made abundantly clear to the +people of San Francisco and the Coast that the provision of the Federal +Constitution making treaties a part of the supreme law of the land, +with which the Constitution and laws of no State can interfere, would +be strictly enforced. The report of Secretary Metcalf showed that the +school authorities of San Francisco had done not only an illegal thing +but an unnecessary and a stupid thing. + +Meanwhile Roosevelt had been working with equal vigor upon the other +side of the problem. He esteemed it precisely as important to protect +the Californians from the Japanese as to protect the Japanese from +the Californians. As in the Alaskan and Venezuelan cases, he proceeded +without beat of drum or clash of cymbal. The matter was worked out in +unobtrusive conferences between the President and the State Department +and the Japanese representatives in Washington. It was all friendly, +informal, conciliatory--but the Japanese did not fail to recognize the +inflexible determination behind this courteous friendliness. Out of +these conferences came an informal agreement on the part of the Japanese +Government that no passports would be issued to Japanese workingmen +permitting them to leave Japan for ports of the United States. It was +further only necessary to prevent Japanese coolies from coming into +the United States through Canada and Mexico. This was done by executive +order just two days after the school authorities of San Francisco had +rescinded their discriminatory school decree. + +The incident is eminently typical of Roosevelt's principles and +practice: to accord full measure of justice while demanding full measure +in return; to be content with the fact without care for the formality; +to see quickly, to look far, and to act boldly. + +It had a sequel which rounded out the story. The President's ready +willingness to compel California to do justice to the Japanese was +misinterpreted in Japan as timidity. Certain chauvinistic elements in +Japan began to have thoughts which were in danger of becoming inimical +to the best interests of the United States. It seemed to President +Roosevelt an opportune moment, for many reasons, to send the American +battle fleet on a voyage around the world. The project was frowned on +in this country and viewed with doubt in other parts of the world. Many +said the thing could not be done, for no navy in the world had yet done +it; but Roosevelt knew that it could. European observers believed +that it would lead to war with Japan; but Roosevelt's conviction was +precisely the opposite. In his own words, "I did not expect it;... I +believed that Japan would feel as friendly in the matter as we did; +but... if my expectations had proved mistaken, it would have been proof +positive that we were going to be attacked anyhow, and... in such +event it would have been an enormous gain to have had the three months' +preliminary preparation which enabled the fleet to start perfectly +equipped. In a personal interview before they left, I had explained +to the officers in command that I believed the trip would be one of +absolute peace, but that they were to take exactly the same precautions +against sudden attack of any kind as if we were at war with all the +nations of the earth; and that no excuse of any kind would be accepted +if there were a sudden attack of any kind and we were taken unawares." +Prominent inhabitants and newspapers of the Atlantic coast were deeply +concerned over the taking away of the fleet from the Atlantic to the +Pacific. The head of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, who hailed +from the State of Maine, declared that the fleet should not and could +not go because Congress would refuse to appropriate the money; Roosevelt +announced in response that he had enough money to take the fleet +around into the Pacific anyhow, that it would certainly go, and that if +Congress did not choose to appropriate enough money to bring the fleet +back, it could stay there. There was no further difficulty about the +money. + +The voyage was at once a hard training trip and a triumphant progress. +Everywhere the ships, their officers, and their men were received with +hearty cordiality and deep admiration, and nowhere more so than in +Japan. The nations of the world were profoundly impressed by the +achievement. The people of the United States were thoroughly aroused +to a new pride in their navy and an interest in its adequacy and +efficiency. It was definitely established in the minds of Americans and +foreigners that the United States navy is rightfully as much at home in +the Pacific as in the Atlantic. Any cloud the size of a man's hand that +may have been gathering above the Japanese horizon was forthwith swept +away. Roosevelt's plan was a novel and bold use of the instruments of +war on behalf of peace which was positively justified in the event. + + + +CHAPTER XI. RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND REVOLUTIONS + +It was a favorite conviction of Theodore Roosevelt that neither an +individual nor a nation can possess rights which do not carry with them +duties. Not long after the Venezuelan incident--in which the right +of the United States, as set forth in the Monroe Doctrine, to prevent +European powers from occupying territory in the Western Hemisphere was +successfully upheld--an occasion arose nearer home not only to insist +upon rights but to assume the duties involved. In a message to the +Senate in February, 1905, Roosevelt thus outlined his conception of the +dual nature of the Monroe Doctrine: + +"It has for some time been obvious that those who profit by the Monroe +Doctrine must accept certain responsibilities along with the rights +which it confers, and that the same statement applies to those who +uphold the doctrine.... An aggrieved nation can, without interfering +with the Monroe Doctrine, take what action it sees fit in the adjustment +of its disputes with American states, provided that action does not +take the shape of interference with their form of government or of the +despoilment of their territory under any disguise. But short of this, +when the question is one of a money claim, the only way which remains +finally to collect it is a blockade or bombardment or seizure of the +custom houses, and this means... what is in effect a possession, even +though only a temporary possession, of territory. The United States then +becomes a party in interest, because under the Monroe Doctrine it cannot +see any European power seize and permanently occupy the territory of +one of these republics; and yet such seizure of territory, disguised +or undisguised, may eventually offer the only way in which the power in +question can collect its debts, unless there is interference on the part +of the United States." + +Roosevelt had already found such interference necessary in the case of +Germany and Venezuela. But it had been interference in a purely negative +sense. He had merely insisted that the European power should not occupy +American territory even temporarily. In the later case of the Dominican +Republic he supplemented this negative interference with positive +action based upon his conviction of the inseparable nature of rights and +obligations. + +Santo Domingo was in its usual state of chronic revolution. The stakes +for which the rival forces were continually fighting were the custom +houses, for they were the only certain sources of revenue and their +receipts were the only reliable security which could be offered to +foreign capitalists in support of loans. So thoroughgoing was the +demoralization of the Republic's affairs that at one time there were +two rival "governments" in the island and a revolution going on against +each. One of these governments was once to be found at sea in a small +gunboat but still insisting that, as the only legitimate government, +it was entitled to declare war or peace or, more particularly, to make +loans. The national debt of the Republic had mounted to $32,280,000 of +which some $22,000,000 was owed to European creditors. The interest due +on it in the year 1905 was two and a half million dollars. The whole +situation was ripe for intervention by one or more European governments. + +Such action President Roosevelt could not permit. But he could not +ignore the validity of the debts which the Republic had contracted or +the justice of the demand for the payment of at least the interest. "It +cannot in the long run prove possible," he said, "for the United +States to protect delinquent American nations from punishment for the +non-performance of their duties unless she undertakes to make them +perform their duties." So he invented a plan, which, by reason of +its success in the Dominican case and its subsequent application and +extension by later administrations, has come to be a thoroughly accepted +part of the foreign policy of the United States. It ought to be known +as the Roosevelt Plan, just as the amplification of the Monroe Doctrine +already outlined might well be known as the Roosevelt Doctrine. + +A naval commander in Dominican waters was instructed to see that no +revolutionary fighting was permitted to endanger the custom houses. +These instructions were carried out explicitly but without any actual +use of force or shedding of blood. On one occasion two rival forces had +planned a battle in a custom-house town. The American commander informed +them courteously but firmly that they would not be permitted to +fight there, for a battle might endanger the custom house. He had no +objection, however, to their fighting. In fact he had picked out a +nice spot for them outside the town where they might have their battle +undisturbed. The winner could have the town. Would they kindly step +outside for their fight. They would; they did. The American commander +gravely welcomed the victorious faction as the rightful rulers of the +town. So much for keeping the custom houses intact. But the Roosevelt +Plan went much further. An agreement was entered into with those +governmental authorities "who for the moment seemed best able to speak +for the country" by means of which the custom houses were placed under +American control. United States forces were to keep order and to protect +the custom houses; United States officials were to collect the customs +dues; forty-five per cent of the revenue was to be turned over to the +Dominican Government, and fifty-five per cent put into a sinking fund in +New York for the benefit of the creditors. The plan succeeded famously. +The Dominicans got more out of their forty-five per cent than they had +been wont to get when presumably the entire revenue was theirs. The +creditors thoroughly approved, and their Governments had no possible +pretext left for interference. Although the plan concerned itself not +at all with the internal affairs of the Republic, its indirect influence +was strong for good and the island enjoyed a degree of peace and +prosperity such as it had not known before for at least a century. +There was, however, strong opposition in the United States Senate to the +ratification of the treaty with the Dominican Republic. The Democrats, +with one or two exceptions, voted against ratification. A number of the +more reactionary Republican Senators, also, who were violently +hostile to President Roosevelt because of his attitude toward great +corporations, lent their opposition. The Roosevelt Plan was further +attacked by certain sections of the press, already antagonistic on other +grounds, and by some of those whom Roosevelt called the "professional +interventional philanthropists." It was two years before the Senate was +ready to ratify the treaty, but meanwhile Roosevelt continued to carry +it out "as a simple agreement on the part of the Executive which could +be converted into a treaty whenever the Senate was ready to act." + +The treaty as finally ratified differed in some particulars from the +protocol. In the protocol the United States agreed "to respect the +complete territorial integrity of the Dominican Republic." This covenant +was omitted in the final document in deference to Roosevelt's opponents +who could see no difference between "respecting" the integrity of +territory and "guaranteeing" it. Another clause pledging the assistance +of the United States in the internal affairs of the Republic, whenever +the judgment of the American Government deemed it to be wise, was also +omitted. The provision of the protocol making it the duty of the United +States to deal with the various creditors of the Dominican Republic in +order to determine the amount which each was to receive in settlement +of its claims was modified so that this responsibility remained with the +Government of the Republic. In Roosevelt's opinion, these modifications +in the protocol detracted nothing from the original plan. He ascribed +the delay in the ratification of the treaty to partisanship and +bitterness against himself; and it is certainly true that most of the +treaty's opponents were his consistent critics on other grounds. + +A considerable portion of Roosevelt's success as a diplomat was the +fruit of personality, as must be the case with any diplomat who makes +more than a routine achievement. He disarmed suspicion by transparent +honesty, and he impelled respect for his words by always promising or +giving warning of not a hairsbreadth more than he was perfectly willing +and thoroughly prepared to perform. He was always cheerfully ready +to let the other fellow "save his face." He set no store by public +triumphs. He was as exigent that his country should do justly as he was +insistent that it should be done justly by. Phrases had no lure for him, +appearances no glamour. + +It was inevitable that so commanding a personality should have an +influence beyond the normal sphere of his official activities. Only a +man who had earned the confidence and the respect of the statesmen of +other nations could have performed such a service as he did in 1905 +in bringing about peace between Russia and Japan in the conflict then +raging in the Far East. It was high time that the war should end, in +the interest of both contestants. The Russians had been consistently +defeated on land and had lost their entire fleet at the battle of +Tsushima. The Japanese were apparently on the highroad to victory. But +in reality, Japan's success had been bought at an exorbitant price. +Intelligent observers in the diplomatic world who were in a position to +realize the truth knew that neither nation could afford to go on. + +On June 8, 1905, President Roosevelt sent to both Governments an +identical note in which he urged them, "not only for their own sakes, +but in the interest of the whole civilized world, to open direct +negotiations for peace with each other." This was the first that the +world heard of the proposal. But the President had already conducted, +with the utmost secrecy, confidential negotiations with Tokyo and with +St. Petersburg to induce both belligerents to consent to a face to face +discussion of peace. In Russia he had found it necessary to go directly +to the Czar himself, through the American Ambassador, George von +Lengerke Meyer. Each Government was assured that no breath of the matter +would be made public until both nations had signified their willingness +to treat. Neither nation was to know anything of the other's readiness +until both had committed themselves. These advances appear to have been +made following a suggestion from Japan that Roosevelt should attempt to +secure peace. He used to say, in discussing the matter, that, while +it was not generally known or even suspected, Japan was actually "bled +white" by the herculean efforts she had made. But Japan's position +was the stronger, and peace was more important for Russia than for +her antagonist. The Japanese were more clear-sighted than the selfish +Russian bureaucracy; and they realized that they had gained so much +already that there was nothing to be won by further fighting. + +When the public invitation to peace negotiations was extended, the +conference had already been arranged and the confidential consent +of both Governments needed only to be made formal. Russia wished the +meeting of plenipotentiaries to take place at Paris, Japan preferred +Chifu, in China. Neither liked the other's suggestion, and Roosevelt's +invitation to come to Washington, with the privilege of adjourning +to some place in New England if the weather was too hot, was finally +accepted. The formal meeting between the plenipotentiaries took place +at Oyster Bay on the 5th of August on board the Presidential yacht, the +Mayflower. Roosevelt received his guests in the cabin and proposed a +toast in these words: "Gentlemen, I propose a toast to which there will +be no answer and which I ask you to drink in silence, standing. I drink +to the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and the peoples of the +two great nations whose representatives have met one another on this +ship. It is my earnest hope and prayer, in the interest not only of +these two great powers, but of all civilized mankind, that a just and +lasting peace may speedily be concluded between them." + +The two groups of plenipotentiaries were carried, each on an American +naval vessel, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and there at the Navy Yard +began their conference. Two-thirds of the terms proposed by Japan were +promptly accepted by the Russian envoys. But an irretrievable split on +the remainder seemed inevitable. Japan demanded a money indemnity and +the cession of the southern half of the island of Saghalien, which +Japanese forces had already occupied. These demands the Russians +refused. + +Then Roosevelt took a hand in the proceedings. He urged the Japanese +delegates, through the Japanese Ambassador, to give up their demand +for an indemnity. He pointed out that, when it came to "a question +of rubles," the Russian Government and the Russian people were firmly +resolved not to yield. To Baron Rosen, one of the Russian delegates, he +recommended yielding in the matter of Saghalien, since the Japanese were +already in possession and there were racial and historical grounds +for considering the southern half of the island logically Japanese +territory. The envoys met again, and the Japanese renewed their demands. +The Russians refused. Then the Japanese offered to waive the indemnity +if the Russians would yield on Saghalien. The offer was accepted, and +the peace was made. + +Immediately Roosevelt was acclaimed by the world, including the Russians +and the Japanese, as a great peacemaker. The Nobel Peace Prize of a +medal and $40,000 was awarded to him. But it was not long before both in +Russia and Japan public opinion veered to the point of asserting that +he had caused peace to be made too soon and to the detriment of the +interests of the nation in question. That was just what he expected. He +knew human nature thoroughly; and from long experience he had learned +to be humorously philosophical about such manifestations of man's +ingratitude. + +In the next year the influence of Roosevelt's personality was again +felt in affairs outside the traditional realm of American international +interests. Germany was attempting to intrude in Morocco, where France by +common consent had been the dominant foreign influence. The rattling of +the Potsdam saber was threatening the tranquillity of the status quo. A +conference of eleven European powers and the United States was held +at Algeciras to readjust the treaty provisions for the protection of +foreigners in the decadent Moroccan empire. In the words of a historian +of America's foreign relations, "Although the United States was of all +perhaps the least directly interested in the subject matter of dispute, +and might appropriately have held aloof from the meeting altogether, +its representatives were among the most influential of all, and it +was largely owing to their sane and irenic influence that in the end a +treaty was amicably made and signed." * But there was something behind +all this. A quiet conference had taken place one day in the remote +city of Washington. The President of the United States and the French +Ambassador had discussed the approaching meeting at Algeciras. There +was a single danger-point in the impending negotiations. The French must +find a way around it. The Ambassador had come to the right man. He +went out with a few words scratched on a card in the ragged Roosevelt +handwriting containing a proposal for a solution. ** The proposal went +to Paris, then to Morocco. The solution was adopted by the conference, +and the Hohenzollern menace to the peace of the world was averted for +the moment. Once more Roosevelt had shown how being wise in time was the +sure way to peace. + + * Willie Fletcher Johnson, "America's Foreign Relations", + vol. II, p. 376. + + ** The author had this story direct from Mr. Roosevelt + himself. + +Roosevelt's most important single achievement as President of the United +States was the building of the Panama Canal. The preliminary steps which +he took in order to make its building possible have been, of all his +executive acts, the most consistently and vigorously criticized. + +It is not our purpose here to follow at length the history of American +diplomatic relations with Colombia and Panama. We are primarily +concerned with the part which Roosevelt played in certain international +occurrences, of which the Panama incident was not the least interesting +and significant. In after years Roosevelt said laconically, "I took +Panama." In fact he did nothing of the sort. But it was like him to +brush aside all technical defenses of any act of his and to meet his +critics on their own ground. It was as though he said to them, "You +roundly denounce me for what I did at the time of the revolution which +established the Republic of Panama. You declare that my acts were +contrary to international law and international morals. I have a +splendid technical defense on the legal side; but I care little about +technicalities when compared with reality. Let us admit that I did +what you charge me with. I will prove to you that I was justified in so +doing. I took Panama; but the taking was a righteous act." + +Fourteen years after that event, in a speech which he made in +Washington, Roosevelt expressed his dissatisfaction with the way in +which President Wilson was conducting the Great War. He reverted to what +he had done in relation to Panama and contrasted his action with the +failure of the Wilson Administration to take prompt possession of two +hundred locomotives which had been built in this country for the late +Russian Government. This is what he said: + +"What I think, of course, in my view of the proper governmental policy, +should have been done was to take the two hundred locomotives and then +discuss. That was the course that I followed, and to which I have ever +since looked back with impenitent satisfaction, in reference to the +Panama Canal. If you remember, Panama declared itself independent and +wanted to complete the Panama Canal and opened negotiations with us. I +had two courses open. I might have taken the matter under advisement and +put it before the Senate, in which case we should have had a number of +most able speeches on the subject. We would have had a number of very +profound arguments, and they would have been going on now, and the +Panama Canal would be in the dim future yet. We would have had half a +century of discussion, and perhaps the Panama Canal. I preferred that +we should have the Panama Canal first and the half century of discussion +afterward. And now instead of discussing the canal before it was built, +which would have been harmful, they merely discuss me--a discussion +which I regard with benign interest." + +The facts of the case are simple and in the main undisputed. Shortly +after the inauguration of Roosevelt as President, a treaty was +negotiated with Colombia for the building of a canal at Panama. It +provided for the lease to the United States of a strip six miles wide +across the Isthmus, and for the payment to Colombia of $10,000,000 down +and $250,000 a year, beginning nine years later. The treaty was promptly +ratified by the United States Senate. A special session of the Colombian +Senate spent the summer marking time and adjourned after rejecting the +treaty by a unanimous vote. The dominant motive for the rejection was +greed. An attempt was first made by the dictatorial government that held +the Colombian Congress in its mailed hand to extort a large payment from +the French Canal Company, whose rights and property on the Isthmus were +to be bought by the United States for $40,000,000. Then $15,000,000 +instead of $10,000,000 was demanded from the United States. Finally an +adroit and conscienceless scheme was invented by which the entire +rights of the French Canal Company were to be stolen by the Colombian +Government. This last plot, however, would involve a delay of a year or +so. The treaty was therefore rejected in order to provide the necessary +delay. + +But the people of Panama wanted the Canal. They were tired of serving +as the milch cow for the fattening of the Government at Bogota. So they +quietly organized a revolution. It was a matter of common knowledge that +it was coming. Roosevelt, as well as the rest of the world, knew it and, +believing in the virtue of being wise in time, prepared for it. Several +warships were dispatched to the Isthmus. + +The revolution came off promptly as expected. It was bloodless, for the +American naval forces, fulfilling the treaty obligations of the United +States, prevented the Colombian troops on one side of the Isthmus +from using the Panama Railroad to cross to the other side where the +revolutionists were. So the revolutionists were undisturbed. A republic +was immediately declared and immediately recognized by the United +States. A treaty with the new Republic, which guaranteed its +independence and secured the cession of a zone ten miles wide across the +Isthmus, was drawn up inside of two weeks and ratified by both Senates +within three months. Six weeks later an American commission was on the +ground to plan the work of construction. The Canal was built. The "half +century of discussion" which Roosevelt foresaw is now more than a third +over, and the discussion shows no sign of lagging. But the Panama Canal +is in use. + +Was the President of the United States justified in preventing the +Colombian Government from fighting on the Isthmus to put down the +unanimous revolution of the people of Panama? That is precisely all that +he did. He merely gave orders to the American admiral on the spot to +"prevent the disembarkation of Colombian troops with hostile intent +within the limits of the state of Panama." But that action was enough, +for the Isthmus is separated from Colombia on the one hand by three +hundred miles of sea, and on the other by leagues of pathless jungle. + +Roosevelt himself has summed up the action of the United States in this +way: + +"From the beginning to the end our course was straightforward and +in absolute accord with the highest of standards of international +morality.... To have acted otherwise than I did would have been on my +part betrayal of the interests of the United States, indifference to +the interests of Panama, and recreancy to the interests of the world at +large. Colombia had forfeited every claim to consideration; indeed, this +is not stating the case strongly enough: she had so acted that yielding +to her would have meant on our part that culpable form of weakness which +stands on a level with wickedness.... We gave to the people of Panama, +self-government, and freed them from subjection to alien oppressors. We +did our best to get Colombia to let us treat her with more than +generous justice; we exercised patience to beyond the verge of proper +forbearance.... I deeply regretted, and now deeply regret, the fact +that the Colombian Government rendered it imperative for me to take +the action I took; but I had no alternative, consistent with the full +performance of my duty to my own people, and to the nations of mankind." + +The final verdict will be given only in another generation by the +historian and by the world at large. But no portrait of Theodore +Roosevelt, and no picture of his times, can be complete without the +bold, firm outlines of his Panama policy set as near as may be in their +proper perspective. + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE TAFT ADMINISTRATION + +In the evening of that election day in 1904 which saw Roosevelt made +President in his own right, after three years of the Presidency given +him by fate, he issued a brief statement, in which he said: "The wise +custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and +not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or +accept another nomination." From this determination, which in his mind +related to a third consecutive term, and to nothing else, he never +wavered. Four years later, in spite of a widespread demand that he +should be a candidate to succeed himself, he used the great influence +and prestige of his position as President and leader of his party to +bring about the nomination of his friend and close associate, William +Howard Taft. The choice received general approval from the Republican +party and from the country at large, although up to the very moment of +the nomination in the convention at Chicago there was no certainty that +a successful effort to stampede the convention for Roosevelt would not +be made by his more irreconcilable supporters. + +Taft was elected by a huge popular plurality. His opponent was William +Jennings Bryan, who was then making his third unsuccessful campaign for +the Presidency. Taft's election, like his nomination, was assured by +the unreserved and dynamic support accorded him by President Roosevelt. +Taft, of course, was already an experienced statesman, high in the +esteem of the nation for his public record as Federal judge, as the +first civil Governor of the Philippines, and as Secretary of War in +the Roosevelt Cabinet. There was every reason to predict for him a +successful and effective Administration. His occupancy of the White +House began under smiling skies. He had behind him a united party and a +satisfied public opinion. Even his political opponents conceded that +the country would be safe in his hands. It was expected that he would +be conservatively progressive and progressively conservative. Everybody +believed in him. Yet within a year of the day of his inauguration the +President's popularity was sharply on the wane. Two years after his +election the voters repudiated the party which he led. By the end of his +Presidential term the career which had begun with such happy auguries +had become a political tragedy. There were then those who recalled the +words of the Roman historian, "All would have believed him capable of +governing if only he had not come to govern." + +It was not that the Taft Administration was barren of achievement. +On the contrary, its record of accomplishment was substantial. Of two +amendments to the Federal Constitution proposed by Congress, one was +ratified by the requisite number of States before Taft went out of +office, and the other was finally ratified less than a month after the +close of his term. These were the amendment authorizing the imposition +of a Federal income tax and that providing for the direct election of +United States Senators. Two States were admitted to the Union during +Taft's term of office, New Mexico and Arizona, the last Territories of +the United States on the continent, except Alaska. + +Other achievements of importance during Taft's Administration were the +establishment of the parcels post and the postal savings banks; the +requirement of publicity, through sworn statements of the candidates, +for campaign contributions for the election of Senators and +Representatives; the extension of the authority of the Interstate +Commerce Commission over telephone, telegraph, and cable lines; an act +authorizing the President to withdraw public lands from entry for +the purpose of conserving the natural resources which they may +contain--something which Roosevelt had already done without specific +statutory authorization; the establishment of a Commerce Court to +hear appeals from decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission; the +appointment of a commission, headed by President Hadley of Yale, to +investigate the subject of railway stock and bond issues, and to propose +a law for the Federal supervision of such railway securities; the Mann +"white slave" act, dealing with the transfer of women from one State to +another for immoral purposes; the establishment of the Children's +Bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor; the empowering of the +Interstate Commerce Commission to investigate all railway accidents; the +creation of Forest Reserves in the White Mountains and in the southern +Appalachians. + +Taft's Administration was further marked, by economy in expenditure, by +a considerable extension of the civil service law to cover positions in +the executive departments hitherto free plunder for the spoilsmen, and +by efforts on the part of the President to increase the efficiency and +the economical administration of the public service. + +But this good record of things achieved was not enough to gain for +Mr. Taft popular approval. Items on the other side of the ledger were +pointed out. Of these the three most conspicuous were the Payne-Aldrich +tariff, the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy, and the insurgent movement in +Congress. + +The Republican party was returned to power in 1908, committed to a +revision of the tariff. Though the party platform did not so state, this +was generally interpreted as a pledge of revision downward. Taft made +it clear during his campaign that such was his own reading of the party +pledge. He said, for instance, "It is my judgment that there are many +schedules of the tariff in which the rates are excessive, and there +are a few in which the rates are not sufficient to fill the measure of +conservative protection. It is my judgment that a revision of the tariff +in accordance with the pledge of the platform, will be, on the whole, +a substantial revision downward, though there probably will be a few +exceptions in this regard." Five months after Taft's inauguration the +Payne-Aldrich bill became law with his signature. In signing it the +President said, "The bill is not a perfect bill or a complete compliance +with the promises made, strictly interpreted"; but he further declared +that he signed it because he believed it to be "the result of a sincere +effort on the part of the Republican party to make downward revision." + +This view was not shared by even all Republicans. Twenty of them in the +House voted against the bill on its final passage, and seven of them +in the Senate. They represented the Middle West and the new element +and spirit in the Republican party. Their dissatisfaction with the +performance of their party associates in Congress and in the White +House was shared by their constituents and by many other Republicans +throughout the country. A month after the signing of the tariff law, +Taft made a speech at Winona, Minnesota, in support of Congressman James +A. Tawney, the one Republican representative from Minnesota who had not +voted against the bill. In the course of that speech he said; "This is +the best tariff bill that the Republican party has ever passed, and, +therefore, the best tariff bill that has been passed at all." + +He justified Mr. Tawney's action in voting for the bill and his own +in signing it on the ground that "the interests of the country, the +interests of the party" required the sacrifice of the accomplishment of +certain things in the revision of the tariff which had been hoped for, +"in order to maintain party solidity," which he believed to be much more +important than the reduction of rates in one or two schedules of the +tariff. + +A second disaster to the Taft Administration came in the famous +Ballinger-Pinchot controversy. Louis R. Glavis, who had served as a +special agent of the General Land Office to investigate alleged frauds +in certain claims to coal lands in Alaska, accused Richard Ballinger, +the Secretary of the Interior, of favoritism toward those who were +attempting to get public lands fraudulently. The charges were vigorously +supported by Mr. Pinchot, who broadened the accusation to cover a +general indifference on the part of the Secretary of the Interior to +the whole conservation movement. President Taft, however, completely +exonerated Secretary Ballinger from blame and removed Glavis for "filing +a disingenuous statement unjustly impeaching the official integrity +of his superior officer." Later Pinchot was also dismissed from the +service. The charges against Secretary Ballinger were investigated by a +joint committee of Congress, a majority of which exonerated the accused +Cabinet officer. Nevertheless the whole controversy, which raged with +virulence for many months, convinced many ardent supporters of the +conservation movement, and especially many admirers of Mr. Pinchot and +of Roosevelt, that the Taft Administration at the best was possessed of +little enthusiasm for conservation. There was a widespread belief, as +well, that the President had handled the whole matter maladroitly and +that in permitting himself to be driven to a point where he had to +deprive the country of the services of Gifford Pinchot, the originator +of the conservation movement, he had displayed unsound judgment and +deplorable lack of administrative ability. + +The first half of Mr. Taft's term was further marked by acute +dissensions in the Republican ranks in Congress. Joseph G. Cannon was +Speaker of the House, as he had been in three preceding Congresses. +He was a reactionary Republican of the most pronounced type. Under his +leadership the system of autocratic party control of legislation in the +House had been developed to a high point of effectiveness. The Speaker's +authority had become in practice almost unrestricted. + +In the congressional session of 1909-10 a strong movement of insurgency +arose within the Republican party in Congress against the control of +the little band of leaders dominated by the Speaker. In March, 1910, +the Republican Insurgents, forty in number, united with the Democratic +minority to overrule a formal decision of the Speaker. A four days' +parliamentary battle resulted, culminating in a reorganization of the +all-powerful Rules Committee, with the Speaker no longer a member of it. +The right of the Speaker to appoint this committee was also taken +away. When the Democrats came into control of the House in 1911, they +completed the dethronement of the Speaker by depriving him of the +appointment of all committees. + +The old system had not been without its advantages, when the power +of the Speaker and his small group of associate party leaders was not +abused. It at least concentrated responsibility in a few prominent +members of the majority party. But it made it possible for these few +men to perpetuate a machine and to ignore the desires of the rest of +the party representatives and of the voters of the party throughout the +country. The defeat of Cannonism put an end to the autocratic power +of the Speaker and relegated him to the position of a mere presiding +officer. It had also a wider significance, for it portended the division +in the old Republican party out of which was to come the new Progressive +party. + +When the mid-point of the Taft Administration was reached, a practical +test was given of the measure of popular approval which the President +and his party associates had achieved. The congressional elections +went decidedly against the Republicans. The Republican majority of +forty-seven in the House was changed to a Democratic majority of +fifty-four. The Republican majority in the Senate was cut down from +twenty-eight to ten. Not only were the Democrats successful in this +substantial degree, but many of the Western States elected Progressive +Republicans instead of Republicans of the old type. During the last two +years of his term, the President was consequently obliged to work with +a Democratic House and with a Senate in which Democrats and Insurgent +Republicans predominated over the old-line Republicans. + +The second half of Taft's Presidency was productive of little but +discord and dissatisfaction. The Democrats in power in the House were +quite ready to harass the Republican President, especially in view +of the approaching Presidential election. The Insurgents in House and +Senate were not entirely unwilling to take a hand in the same game. +Besides, they found themselves more and more in sincere disagreement +with the President on matters of fundamental policy, though not one of +them could fairly question his integrity of purpose, impugn his purity +of character, or deny his charm of personality. + +Three weeks after Taft's inauguration, Roosevelt sailed for Africa, +to be gone for a year hunting big game. He went with a warm feeling of +friendship and admiration for the man whom he had done so much to make +President. He had high confidence that Taft would be successful in his +great office. He had no reason to believe that any change would come in +the friendship between them, which had been peculiarly intimate. From +the steamer on which he sailed for Africa, he sent a long telegram of +cordial and hearty good wishes to his successor in Washington. + +The next year Roosevelt came back to the United States, after a +triumphal tour of the capitals of Europe, to find his party disrupted +and the progressive movement in danger of shipwreck. He had no intention +of entering politics again. But he had no intention, either, of ceasing +to champion the things in which he believed. This he made obvious, +in his first speech after his return, to the cheering thousands who +welcomed him at the Battery. He said: + +"I have thoroughly enjoyed myself; and now I am more glad than I can say +to get home, to be back in my own country, back among people I love. And +I am ready and eager to do my part so far as I am able, in helping solve +problems which must be solved, if we of this, the greatest democratic +republic upon which the sun has ever shone, are to see its destinies +rise to the high level of our hopes and its opportunities. This is the +duty of every citizen, but is peculiarly my duty; for any man who +has ever been honored by being made President of the United States is +thereby forever rendered the debtor of the American people and is bound +throughout his life to remember this, his prime obligation." + +The welcome over, Roosevelt tried to take up the life of a private +citizen. He had become Contributing Editor of The Outlook and had +planned to give his energies largely to writing. But he was not to be +let alone. The people who loved him demanded that they be permitted to +see and to hear him. Those who were in the thick of the political fight +on behalf of progress and righteousness called loudly to him for aid. +Only a few days after Roosevelt had landed from Europe, Governor Hughes +of New York met him at the Commencement exercises at Harvard and urged +him to help in the fight which the Governor was then making for a direct +primary law. Roosevelt did not wish to enter the lists again until he +had had more time for orientation; but he always found it difficult to +refuse a plea for help on behalf of a good cause. He therefore sent a +vigorous telegram to the Republican legislators at Albany urging them to +support Governor Hughes and to vote for the primary bill. But the appeal +went in vain: the Legislature was too thoroughly boss-ridden. This +telegram, however, sounded a warning to the usurpers in the house of the +Republican Penelope that the fingers of the returned Odysseus had not +lost their prowess with the heroic bow. + +During the summer of 1910, Roosevelt made a trip to the West and in a +speech at Ossawattomie, Kansas, set forth what came to be described as +the New Nationalism. It was his draft of a platform, not for himself, +but for the nation. A few fragments from that speech will suggest what +Roosevelt was thinking about in those days when the Progressive party +was stirring in the womb. "At many stages in the advance of humanity, +this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and +the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition +of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of free men to gain +and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, +who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating +the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the +essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, +and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest +possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. + +"Every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled +to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in +any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, +and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of +suffrage to any corporation. + +"The absence of effective state and, especially, national restraint upon +unfair money getting has tended to create a small class of enormously +wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and +increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which +enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general +welfare that they should hold or exercise. + +"We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property +to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of +property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too +far. + +"The State must be made efficient for the work which concerns only the +people of the State; and the nation for that which concerns all the +people. There must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for +lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can +hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both +jurisdictions. + +"I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in +a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what +concerns our people as a whole. + +"We must have the right kind of character--character that makes a +man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a good +husband--that makes a man a good neighbor.... The prime problem of our +nation is to get the right kind of good citizenship, and to get it, we +must have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive. + +"I stand for the Square Deal. But when I say that I am for the square +deal I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present +rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as +to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for +equally good service." + +These generalizations Roosevelt accompanied by specific recommendations. +They included proposals for publicity of corporate affairs; prohibition +of the use of corporate funds for political purposes; governmental +supervision of the capitalization of all corporations doing an +interstate business; control and supervision of corporations and +combinations controlling necessaries of life; holding the officers and +directors of corporations personally liable when any corporation breaks +the law; an expert tariff commission and revision of the tariff schedule +by schedule; a graduated income tax and a graduated inheritance tax, +increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate; conservation +of natural resources and their use for the benefit of all rather than +their monopolization for the benefit of the few; public accounting for +all campaign funds before election; comprehensive workmen's compensation +acts, state and national laws to regulate child labor and work for +women, the enforcement of sanitary conditions for workers and the +compulsory use of safety appliances in industry. + +There was nothing in all these proposals that should have seemed +revolutionary or extreme. But there was much that disturbed the +reactionaries who were thinking primarily in terms of property and only +belatedly or not at all of human rights. The Bourbons in the Republican +party and their supporters among the special interests "viewed +with alarm" this frank attack upon their intrenched privileges. The +Progressives, however, welcomed with eagerness this robust leadership. +The breach in the Republican party was widening with steadily +accelerating speed. + +In the fall of 1910 a new demand arose that Roosevelt should enter +actively into politics. Though it came from his own State, he resisted +it with energy and determination. Nevertheless the pressure from his +close political associates in New York finally became too much for him, +and he yielded. They wanted him to go as a delegate to the Republican +State Convention at Saratoga and to be a candidate for Temporary +Chairman of the Convention--the officer whose opening speech is +traditionally presumed to sound the keynote of the campaign. Roosevelt +went and, after a bitter fight with the reactionists in the party, +led by William Barnes of Albany, was elected Temporary Chairman over +Vice-President James S. Sherman. The keynote was sounded in no uncertain +tones, while Mr. Barnes and his associates fidgeted and suffered. + +Then came a Homeric conflict, with a dramatic climax. The reactionary +gang did not know that it was beaten. Its members resisted stridently +an attempt to write a direct primary plank into the party platform. They +wished to rebuke Governor Hughes, who was as little to their liking +as Roosevelt himself, and they did not want the direct primary. After +speeches by young James Wadsworth, later United States Senator, Job +Hedges, and Barnes himself, in which they bewailed the impending demise +of representative government and the coming of mob rule, it was clear +that the primary plank was defeated. Then rose Roosevelt. In a speech +that lashed and flayed the forces of reaction and obscurantism, he +demanded that the party stand by the right of the people to rule. +Single-handed he drove a majority of the delegates into line. The plank +was adopted. Thenceforward the convention was his. It selected, as +candidate for Governor, Henry W. Stimson, who had been a Federal +attorney in New York under Roosevelt and Secretary of War in Taft's +Cabinet. When this victory had been won, Roosevelt threw himself +into the campaign with his usual abandon and toured the State, making +fighting speeches in scores of cities and towns. But in spite of +Roosevelt's best efforts, Stimson was defeated. + +All this active participation in local political conflicts seriously +distressed many of Roosevelt's friends and associates. They felt that he +was too big to fritter himself away on small matters from which he--and +the cause whose great champion he was--had so little to gain and so much +to lose. They wanted him to wait patiently for the moment of destiny +which they felt sure would come. But it was never easy for Roosevelt +to wait. It was the hardest thing in the world for him to decline an +invitation to enter a fight--when the cause was a righteous one. + +So the year 1911 passed by, with the Taft Administration steadily losing +prestige, and the revolt of the Progressives within the Republican party +continually gathering momentum. Then came 1912, the year of the Glorious +Failure. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY + +The Progressive party and the Progressive movement were two things. +The one was born on a day, lived a stirring, strenuous span of life, +suffered its fatal wound, lingered on for a few more years, and received +its coup de grace. The other sprang like a great river system from +a multitude of sources, flowed onward by a hundred channels, always +converging and uniting, until a single mighty stream emerged to water +and enrich and serve a broad country and a great people. The one was +ephemeral, abortive--a failure. The other was permanent, creative--a +triumph. The two were inseparable, each indispensable to the other. Just +as the party would never have existed if there had been no movement, +so the movement would not have attained such a surpassing measure of +achievement so swiftly without the party. + +The Progressive party came into full being at the convention held in +Chicago on August 5, 1912 under dramatic circumstances. Every drama must +have a beginning and this one had opened for the public when, on the +10th of February in the same year, the Republican Governors of West +Virginia, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Kansas, and +Missouri addressed a letter to Roosevelt, in which they declared that, +in considering what would best insure the continuation of the Republican +party as a useful agency of good government, they had reached the +conclusion that a large majority of the Republican voters of the country +favored Roosevelt's nomination, and a large majority of the people +favored his election as the next President. They asserted their belief +that, in view of this public demand, he should soon declare whether, if +the nomination came to him unsolicited and unsought, he would accept it. +They concluded their request with this paragraph: + +"In submitting this request we are not considering your personal +interests. We do not regard it as proper to consider either the +interest or the preference of any man as regards the nomination for the +Presidency. We are expressing our sincere belief and best judgment as to +what is demanded of you in the interests of the people as a whole. And +we feel that you would be unresponsive to a plain public duty if +you should decline to accept the nomination, coming as the voluntary +expression of the wishes of a majority of the Republican voters of +the United States, through the action of their delegates in the next +National Convention." + +The sincerity and whole-heartedness of the convictions here expressed +are in no wise vitiated by the fact that the letter was not written +until the seven Governors were assured what the answer to it would be. +For the very beginning of our drama, then, we must go back a little +farther to that day in late January of 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt +himself came face to face with a momentous decision. On that day he +definitely determined that his duty to the things in which he profoundly +believed--and no less to the friends and associates who shared his +beliefs--constrained him once more to enter the arena of political +conflict and lead the fight. + +Roosevelt had come to this conclusion with extreme reluctance. He had no +illusions as to the probable effect upon his personal fortunes. Twice +he had been President once by the hand of fate, once by a great popular +vote. To be President again could add nothing to his prestige or fame; +it could only subject him for four years to the dangerous vagaries +of the unstable popular mood. He had nothing to gain for himself by +entering the ring of political conflict again; the chances for personal +loss were great. His enemies, his critics, and his political adversaries +would have it that he was eaten up with ambition, that he came back from +his African and European trip eager to thrust himself again into the +limelight of national political life and to demand for himself again a +great political prize. But his friends, his associates, and those who, +knowing him at close range, understood him, realized that this was no +picture of the truth. He accepted what hundreds of Progressive leaders +and followers throughout the country--for the man in the ranks had as +ready access to him as the most prominent leader, and received as warm +consideration--asserted was his clear duty and obligation. + +A letter which he had written two days before Christmas, 1911, shows +unmistakably how his mind was working in those days of prologue to the +great decision. The letter was entirely private, and was addressed to my +father who was a publisher and a friend and not a politician. There is, +therefore, no reason whatever why the letter should not be accepted as +an accurate picture of Mr. Roosevelt's mind at that time: "Now for the +message Harold gave me, that I should write you a little concerning +political conditions. They are very, very mixed. Curiously enough, my +article on the trusts was generally accepted as bringing me forward for +the Presidential nomination. Evidently what really happened was that +there had been a strong undercurrent of feeling about me, and that the +talk concerning the article enabled this feeling to come to the surface. +I do not think it amounts to anything. It merely means that a great many +people do not get the leadership they are looking for from any of the +prominent men in public life, and that under the circumstances they +grasp at any one; and as my article on the McNamaras possessed at least +the merit of being entirely clearcut and of showing that I knew my own +mind and had definite views, a good many plain people turned longingly +to me as a leader. Taft is very weak, but La Follette has not developed +real strength east of the Mississippi River, excepting of course in +Wisconsin. West of the River he has a large following, although there is +a good deal of opposition to him even in States like Kansas, Washington, +and California. East of the Mississippi, I believe he can only pick up +a few delegates here and there. Taft will have most of the Southern +delegates, he will have the officeholders, and also the tepid and +acquiescent, rather than active, support of the ordinary people who do +not feel very strongly one way or the other, and who think it is the +usual thing to renominate a President. If there were a strong candidate +against him, he would I believe be beaten, but there are plenty of men, +many of the leaders not only here but in Texas, for instance, in Ohio, +in New Hampshire and Illinois, who are against him, but who are even +more against La Follette, and who regard themselves as limited to the +alternative between the two. There is, of course, always the danger that +there may be a movement for me, the danger coming partly because the +men who may be candidates are very anxious that the ticket shall be +strengthened and care nothing for the fate of the man who strengthens +it, and partly because there is a good deal of honest feeling for me +among plain simple people who wish leadership, but who will not +accept leadership unless they believe it to be sincere, fearless, and +intelligent. I most emphatically do not wish the nomination. Personally +I should regard it as a calamity to be nominated. In the first place, I +might very possibly be beaten, and in the next place, even if elected I +should be confronted with almost impossible conditions out of which to +make good results. In the tariff, for instance, I would have to face +the fact that men would keep comparing what I did, not with what the +Democrats would or could have done but with an ideal, or rather with a +multitude of entirely separate and really incompatible ideals. I am +not a candidate, I will never be a candidate; but I have to tell the +La Follette men and the Taft men that while I am absolutely sincere in +saying that I am not a candidate and do not wish the nomination, yet +that I do not feel it would be right or proper for me to say that under +no circumstances would I accept it if it came; because, while wildly +improbable, it is yet possible that there might be a public demand which +would present the matter to me in the light of a duty which I could not +shirk. In other words, while I emphatically do not want office, and have +not the slightest idea that any demand for me will come, yet if there +were a real public demand that in the public interest I should do a +given job, it MIGHT be that I would not feel like flinching from the +task. However, this is all in the air, and I do not for one moment +believe that it will be necessary for me even to consider the matter. As +for the Democrats, they have their troubles too. Wilson, although still +the strongest man the Democrats could nominate, is much weaker than he +was. He has given a good many people a feeling that he is very ambitious +and not entirely sincere, and his demand for the Carnegie pension +created an unpleasant impression. Harmon is a good old solid Democrat, +with the standards of political and commercial morality of twenty years +ago, who would be eagerly welcomed by all the conservative crowd. Champ +Clark is a good fellow, but impossible as President. + +"I think a good deal will depend upon what this Congress does. Taft may +redeem himself. He was fairly strong at the end of the last session, but +went off lamentably on account of his wavering and shillyshallying on so +many matters during his speaking trip. His speeches generally hurt +him, and rarely benefit him. But it is possible that the Democrats in +Congress may play the fool, and give him the chance to appear as the +strong leader, the man who must be accepted to oppose them." + +This was what Roosevelt at the end, of December sincerely believed would +be the situation as time went on. But he underestimated the strength and +the volume of the tide that was rising. + +The crucial decision was made on the 18th of January. I was in the +closest possible touch with Roosevelt in those pregnant days, and I +know, as well as any but the man himself could know, how his mind was +working. An entry in my diary on that date shows the origin of the +letter of the seven governors: + +"Senator Beveridge called on T. R. to urge him to make a public +statement soon. T. R. impressed by his arguments and by letters just +received from three Governors, Hadley, Glasscock, and Bass. Practically +determined to ask these Governors, and Stubbs and Osborne, to send him a +joint letter asking him to make a public statement to the effect that +if there is a genuine popular demand for his nomination he will not +refuse-in other words to say to him in a joint letter for publication +just what they have each said to him in private letters. Such joint +action would give him a proper reason--or occasion--for making a public +declaration. T. R. telegraphed Frank Knox, Republican State Chairman of +Michigan and former member of his regiment, to come down, with intention +of asking him to see the various governors. H. H., at Ernest Abbott's +suggestion, asked him not to make final decision till he has had +conference--already arranged--with editorial staff. T. R. agrees, but +the inevitableness of the matter is evident." + +After that day, things moved rapidly. Two days later the diary contains +this record: "Everett Colby, William Fellowes Morgan, and Mark +Sullivan call on T. R. All inclined to agree that time for statement is +practically here. T. R.--The time to use a man is when the people want +to use him." M. S.--"The time to set a hen is when the hen wants to +set." Frank Knox comes in response to telegram. Nat Wright also present +at interview where Knox is informed of the job proposed for him. Gifford +Pinchot also present at beginning of interview while T. R. tells how +he views the situation, but leaves (at T. R.'s suggestion) before real +business of conference begins. Plan outlined to Knox, who likes it, and +subsequently, in H. H.'s office, draws up letter for Governors. Draft +shown to T. R., who suggests a couple of added sentences emphasizing +that the nomination must come as a real popular demand, and declaring +that the Governors are taking their action not for his sake, but for the +sake of the country. Knox takes copy of letter and starts for home, to +go out to see Governors as soon as possible. + +On the 22d of January the Conference with The Outlook editorial staff +took place and is thus described in my diary: + +"T. R. had long conference with entire staff. All except R. D. T. +[Mr. Townsend, Managing Editor of The Outlook] and H. H. inclined to +deprecate a public statement now. T. R.--'I have had all the honor the +American public can give me. If I should be elected I would go back not +so young as I once was, with all the first fine flavor gone, and take up +the horrible task of going in and out, in and out, of the same hole over +and over again. But I cannot decline the call. Too many of those +who have fought with me the good fight for the things we believe in +together, declare that at this critical moment I am the instrument that +ought to be used to make it possible for me to refuse. I BELIEVE I SHALL +BE BROKEN IN THE USING. But I cannot refuse to permit myself to be used. +I am not going to get those good fellows out on the end of a limb and +then saw off the limb.' R. D. T. suggested that it be said frankly that +the Governors wrote the joint letter at T. R.'s request. T. R. accepted +like a shot. Went into H. H.'s room, dictated two or three sentences to +that effect, which H. H. later incorporated in letter. [This plan was +later given up, I believe on the urging of some or all of the Governors +involved.] T. R.--'I can't go on telling my friends in private letters +what my position is, but asking them not to make it public, without +seeming furtive.' In afternoon H. H. suggests that T. R. write first +draft of his letter of reply soon as possible to give all possible time +for consideration and revision. T. R. has two inspirations--to propose +presidential primaries in order to be sure of popular demand, and to use +statement made at Battery when he returned home from Europe." + +The next day's entry reads as follows: + +"Sent revised letter to Knox. T. R. said, "Not to make a public +statement soon would be to violate my cardinal principle--never hit if +you can help it, but when you have to, hit hard. NEVER hit soft. You'll +never get any thanks for hitting soft." McHarg called with three men +from St. Louis. T. R. said exactly the same thing as usual--he would +never accept the nomination if it came as the result of an intrigue, +only if it came as the result of a genuine and widespread popular +demand. The thing he wants to be sure of is that there is this +widespread popular demand that he "do a job," and that the demand is +genuine." + +Meanwhile Frank Knox was consulting the seven Governors, each one of +whom was delighted to have an opportunity to say to Roosevelt in this +formal, public way just what they had each said to him privately and +forcefully. The letter was signed and delivered to T. R. On the 24th +of February Roosevelt replied to the letter of the seven Governors in +unequivocal terms, "I will accept the nomination for President if it is +tendered to me, and I will adhere to this decision until--the convention +has expressed its preference." He added the hope that so far as possible +the people might be given the chance, through direct primaries, to +record their wish as to who should be the nominee. A month later, in a +great address at Carnegie Hall in New York, he gave voice publicly to +the same thought that he had expressed to his friends in that editorial +conference: "The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but +an instrument, to be used until broken and then cast aside; and if he +is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier +cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit that the victory may +be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all is, +'Spend and be spent.' It is of little matter whether any one man fails +or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of +mankind." + +The decision once made, Roosevelt threw himself into the contest for +delegates to the nominating convention with his unparalleled vigor and +forcefulness. His main opponent was, of course, the man who had been +his friend and associate and whom he had done more than any other single +force to make President as his successor. William Howard Taft had +the undivided support of the national party organization; but the +Progressive Republicans the country over thronged to Roosevelt's support +with wild enthusiasm. The campaign for the nomination quickly developed +two aspects, one of which delighted every Progressive in the Republican +party, the other of which grieved every one of Roosevelt's levelheaded +friends. It became a clean-cut conflict between progress and reaction, +between the interests of the people, both as rulers and as governed, +and the special interests, political and business. But it also became +a bitter conflict of personalities between the erstwhile friends. The +breach between the two men was afterwards healed, but it was several +years after the reek of the battle had drifted away before even formal +relations were restored between them. + +A complicating factor in the campaign was the candidacy of Senator La +Follette of Wisconsin. In July, 1911, La Follette had begun, at the +earnest solicitation of many Progressive leaders in Congress and out, an +active campaign for the Republican nomination. Progressive organizations +were perfected in numerous States and "in less than three months," as La +Follette has written in his Autobiography, his candidacy "had taken on +proportions which compelled recognition." Four months later a conference +of some three hundred Progressives from thirty States, meeting in +Chicago, declared that La Follette was, because of his record, the +logical candidate for the Presidency. Following this conference he +continued to campaign with increasing vigor, but concurrently the +enthusiasm of some of his leading supporters began to cool and their +support of his candidacy to weaken. Senator La Follette ascribes this +effect to the surreptitious maneuvering of Roosevelt, whom he credits +with an overwhelming appetite for another Presidential term, kept in +check only by his fear that he could not be nominated or elected. But +there is no evidence of any value whatever that Roosevelt was conducting +underground operations or that he desired to be President again. The +true explanation of the change in those Progressives who had favored the +candidacy of La Follette and yet had gradually ceased to support him, +is to be found in their growing conviction that Taft and the reactionary +forces in the Republican party which he represented could be defeated +only by one man--and that not the Senator from Wisconsin. In any event +the La Follette candidacy rapidly declined until it ceased to be +a serious element in the situation. Although the Senator, with +characteristic consistency and pertinacity, stayed in the fight till the +end, he entered the Convention with the delegates of but two States, his +own Wisconsin and North Dakota, pledged to support him. + +The pre-convention campaign was made unusually dramatic by the fact +that, for the first time in the history of Presidential elections, +the voters of thirteen States were privileged not only to select the +delegates to the Convention by direct primary vote but to instruct them +in the same way as to the candidate for whom they should cast their +ballots. There were 388 such popularly instructed delegates from +California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New +Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and +Wisconsin. It was naturally in these States that the two candidates +concentrated their campaigning efforts. The result of the selection +of delegates and of the preferential vote in these States was the best +possible evidence of the desire of the rank and file of the party as to +the Presidential candidate. Of these 388 delegates, Senator La Follette +secured 36; President Taft 71--28 in Georgia, 2 in Illinois, 18 in +Massachusetts, 14 in Ohio, and 9 in Pennsylvania; and Roosevelt 281--26 +in California, 56 in Illinois, 16 in Maryland, 18 in Massachusetts, +16 in Nebraska, 28 in New Jersey, 34 in Ohio, 10 in Oregon, 67 in +Pennsylvania, and 10 in South Dakota. Roosevelt therefore, in those +States where the voters could actually declare at primary elections +which candidate they preferred, was the expressed choice of more than +five times as many voters as Taft. + +When the Republican convention met in Chicago an interesting and +peculiar situation presented itself. There were 1078 seats in the +Convention. Of the delegates elected to those seats Taft had committed +to him the vast majority of the delegates from the States which have +never cast an electoral vote for a Republican candidate for President +since there was a Republican party. Roosevelt had in support of him +the great majority of the delegates from the States which are normally +Republican and which must be relied upon at election time if a +Republican President is to be chosen. Of the 1078 seats more than 200 +were contested. Aside from these contested seats, neither candidate had +a majority of the delegates. The problem that confronted each side was +to secure the filling of a sufficient number of the disputed seats with +its retainers to insure a majority for its candidate. In the solution +of this problem the Taft forces had one insuperable advantage. The +temporary roll of a nominating convention is made up by the National +Committee of the party. The Republican National Committee had been +selected at the close of the last national convention four years before. +It accordingly represented the party as it had then stood, regardless +of the significant changes that three and a quarter years of Taft's +Presidency had wrought in party opinion. + +In the National Committee the Taft forces had a strength of more than +two to one; and all but an insignificant number of the contests were +decided out of hand in favor of Mr. Taft. The temporary roll of the +Convention therefore showed a distinct majority against Roosevelt. +From the fall of the gavel, the Roosevelt forces fought with vigor and +determination for what they described as the "purging of the roll" of +those Taft delegates whose names they declared had been placed upon it +by fraud. But at every turn the force of numbers was against them; and +the Taft majority which the National Committee had constituted in +the Convention remained intact, an impregnable defense against the +Progressive attack. + +These preliminary engagements concerned with the determination of the +final membership of the Convention had occupied several days. Meanwhile +the temper of the Roosevelt delegates had burned hotter and hotter. +Roosevelt was present, leading the fight in person--not, of course, +on the floor of the Convention, to which he was not a delegate, but +at headquarters in the Congress Hotel. There were not wanting in +the Progressive forces counsels of moderation and compromise. It was +suggested by those of less fiery mettle that harmony might be arrived +at on the basis of the elimination of both Roosevelt and Taft and +the selection of a candidate not unsatisfactory to either side. But +Roosevelt, backed by the majority of the Progressive delegates, stood +firm and immovable on the ground that the "roll must be purged" and that +he would consent to no traffic with a Convention whose make-up contained +delegates holding their seats by virtue of fraud. "Let them purge the +roll," he declared again and again, "and I will accept any candidate the +Convention may name." But the organization leaders knew that a yielding +to this demand for a reconstitution of the personnel of the Convention +would result in but one thing--the nomination for Roosevelt--and this +was the one thing they were resolved not to permit. + +As the hours of conflict and turmoil passed, there grew steadily and +surely in the Roosevelt ranks a demand for a severance of relations +with the fraudulent Convention and the formation of a new party devoted, +without equivocation or compromise, to Progressive principles. A typical +incident of these days of confusion and uncertainty was the drawing up +of a declaration of purpose by a Progressive alternate from New Jersey, +disgusted with the progress of the machine steam roller and disappointed +at the delayed appearance of a positive Progressive programme of action. +Circulated privately, with the knowledge and approval of Roosevelt, +it was promptly signed by dozens of Progressive delegates. It read as +follows: + +"We, the undersigned, in the event that the Republican National +Convention as at present constituted refuses to purge its roll of the +delegates fraudulently placed upon it by the action of the majority +of the Republican National Committee, pledge ourselves, as American +citizens devoted to the progressive principles of genuine popular rule +and social justice, to join in the organization of a new party founded +upon those principles, under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt." + +The first signer of the declaration was Governor Hiram W. Johnson of +California, the second, Governor Robert S. Vessey of South Dakota, the +third, Governor Joseph M. Carey of Wyoming, and farther down the +list were the names of Gifford and Amos Pinchot, James R. Garfield, +ex-Governor John Franklin Fort of New Jersey, with Everett Colby and +George L. Record of the same State, Matthew Hale of Massachusetts, +"Jack" Greenway of Arizona, Judge Ben B. Lindsey of Colorado, Medill +McCormick of Illinois, George Rublee of New Hampshire, and Elon +Huntington Hooker, of New York, who was to become the National Treasurer +of the new party. The document was, of course, a purely informal +assertion of purpose; but it was the first substantial straw to predict +the whirlwind which the masters of the convention were to reap. + +When at last it had become unmistakably clear that the Taft forces +were and would remain to the end in control of the Convention, the +Progressive delegates, with a few exceptions, united in dramatic action. +Speaking for them with passion and intensity Henry J. Allen of Kansas +announced their intention to participate no longer in the actions of +a convention vitiated by fraud. The Progressive delegates would, he +declared, remain in their places but they would neither vote nor take +any part whatever in the proceedings. He then read, by permission of +the Convention, a statement from Roosevelt, in which he pronounced the +following indictment: + +"The Convention has now declined to purge the roll of the fraudulent +delegates placed thereon by the defunct National Committee, and the +majority which has thus indorsed the fraud was made a majority only +because it included the fraudulent delegates themselves who all sat as +judges on one another's cases.... The Convention as now composed has +no claim to represent the voters of the Republican party.... Any man +nominated by the Convention as now constituted would merely be the +beneficiary of this successful fraud; it would be deeply discreditable +for any man to accept the Convention's nomination under these +circumstances; and any man thus accepting it would have no claim to the +support of any Republican on party grounds and would have forfeited +the right to ask the support of any honest man of any party on moral +grounds." + +So while most of the Roosevelt delegates sat in ominous quiet and +refused to vote, the Convention proceeded to nominate Taft for President +by the following vote: Taft 561--21 votes more than a majority; +Roosevelt 107; La Follette 41; Cummins 17; Hughes 2; absent 6; present +and not voting 344. + +Then the Taft delegates went home to meditate on the fight which they +had won and the more portentous fight which they must wage in the coming +months on a broader field. The Roosevelt delegates, on the other +hand, went out to Orchestra Hall, and in an exalted mood of passionate +devotion to their cause and their beloved leader proceeded to nominate +Theodore Roosevelt for the Presidency and Hiram Johnson for the +Vice-Presidency. A committee was sent to notify Roosevelt of the +nomination and when he appeared in the hall all precedents of +spontaneous enthusiasm were broken. This was no conventional--if the +double entendre may be permitted--demonstration. It had rather the +quality of religious exaltation. + +Roosevelt made a short speech, in which he adjured his hearers to go to +their several homes "to find out the sentiment of the people at home and +then again come together, I suggest by mass convention, to nominate for +the Presidency a Progressive on a Progressive platform that will enable +us to appeal to Northerner and Southerner, Easterner and Westerner, +Republican and Democrat alike, in the name of our common American +citizenship. If you wish me to make the fight I will make it, even if +only one State should support me." + +Thus ended the first act in the drama. The second opened with the +gathering of some two thousand men and women at Chicago on August 5, +1912. It was a unique gathering. Many of the delegates were women; one +of the "keynote" speeches was delivered by Miss Jane Addams of Hull +House. The whole tone and atmosphere of the occasion seemed religious +rather than political. The old-timers among the delegates, who found +themselves in the new party for diverse reasons, selfish, sincere, +or mixed, must have felt astonishment at themselves as they stood and +shouted out Onward Christian Soldiers as the battle-hymn of their new +allegiance. The long address which Roosevelt made to the Convention he +denominated his "Confession of Faith." The platform which the gathering +adopted was entitled "A Contract with the People." The sessions of the +Convention seethed with enthusiasm and burned hot with earnest devotion +to high purpose. There could be no doubt in the mind of any but the most +cynical of political reactionaries that here was the manifestation of a +new and revivifying force to be reckoned with in the future development +of American political life. + +The platform adopted by the Progressive Convention was no less a +novelty. Its very title--even the fact that it had a title marked it +off from the pompous and shopworn documents emanating from the usual +nominating Convention--declared a reversal of the time-honored view of +a platform as, like that of a street-car, "something to get in on, not +something to stand on." The delegates to that Convention were perfectly +ready to have their party sued before the bar of public opinion +for breach of contract if their candidates when elected did not do +everything in their power to carry out the pledges of the platform. +The planks of the platform grouped themselves into three main sections: +political reforms, control of trusts and combinations, and measures of +"social and industrial justice." + +In the first section were included direct primaries, nation-wide +preferential primaries for the selection of candidates for the +Presidency, direct popular election of United States Senators, the +short ballot, the initiative, referendum and recall, an easier method +of amending the Federal constitution, woman suffrage, and the recall +of judicial decisions in the form of a popular review of any decision +annulling a law passed under the police power of the State. + +The platform in the second place opposed vigorously the indiscriminate +dissolution of trusts and combinations, on the ground that combination +in the business field was not only inevitable but necessary and +desirable for the promotion of national and international efficiency. It +condemned the evils of inflated capitalization and unfair competition; +and it proposed, in order to eliminate those evils while +preserving the unquestioned advantages that flow from combination, the +establishment of a strong Federal commission empowered and directed +to maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations +engaged in interstate commerce, doing for them what the Federal +Government now does for the national banks and, through the Interstate +Commerce Commission, for the transportation lines. + +Finally in the field of social justice the platform pledged the party to +the abolition of child labor, to minimum wage laws, the eight-hour day, +publicity in regard to working conditions, compensation for industrial +accidents, continuation schools for industrial education, and to +legislation to prevent industrial accidents, occupational diseases, +overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident +to modern industry. + +To stand upon this platform and to carry out the terms of this "contract +with the people," the Convention nominated without debate or dissent +Theodore Roosevelt for President and Hiram W. Johnson of California for +Vice-President. Governor Johnson was an appropriate running mate for +Roosevelt. In his own State he had led one of the most virile and fast +moving of the local Progressive movements. He burned with a white-hot +enthusiasm for the democratic ideal and the rights of man as embodied +in equality of opportunity, freedom of individual development, and +protection from the "dark forces" of special privilege, political +autocracy and concentrated wealth. He was a brilliant and fiery +campaigner where his convictions were enlisted. + +So passed the second act in the drama of the Progressive party. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. THE GLORIOUS FAILURE + +The third act in the drama of the Progressive party was filled with the +campaign for the Presidency. It was a three-cornered fight. Taft stood +for Republican conservatism and clung to the old things. Roosevelt +fought for the progressive rewriting of Republican principles with added +emphasis on popular government and social justice as defined in the New +Nationalism. The Democratic party under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson +espoused with more or less enthusiasm the old Democratic principles +freshly interpreted and revivified in the declaration they called the +New Freedom. The campaign marked the definite entrance of the nation +upon a new era. One thing was clear from the beginning: the day of +conservatism and reaction was over; the people of the United States +had definitely crossed their Rubicon and had committed themselves to +spiritual and moral progress. + +The campaign had one dramatic incident. On the 14th of October, just +before entering the Auditorium at Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot by a +fanatic. His immediate action was above everything characteristic. Some +time later in reply to a remark that he had been foolhardy in going on +with his speech just after the attack, Roosevelt said, "Why, you know, +I didn't think I had been mortally wounded. If I had been mortally +wounded, I would have bled from the lungs. When I got into the motor I +coughed hard three times, and put my hand up to my mouth; as I did not +find any blood, I thought that I was not seriously hurt, and went on +with my speech." + +The opening words of the speech which followed were equally typical: + +"Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know +whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes +more than that to kill a Bull Moose.... The bullet is in me now, so that +I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.... First of +all, I want to say this about myself; I have altogether too important +things to think of to feel any concern over my own death; and now I +cannot speak insincerely to you within five minutes of being shot. I +am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is for many +other things. It is not in the least for my own life. I want you to +understand that I am ahead of the game anyway. No man has had a happier +life than I have led; a happier life in every way. I have been able to +do certain things that I greatly wished to do, and I am interested in +doing other things. I can tell you with absolute truthfulness that I am +very much uninterested in whether I am shot or not. It was just as when +I was colonel of my regiment. I always felt that a private was to be +excused for feeling at times some pangs of anxiety about his personal +safety, but I cannot understand a man fit to be a colonel who can pay +any heed to his personal safety when he is occupied as he ought to be +occupied with the absorbing desire to do his duty." + +There was a great deal of self-revelation in these words. Even the +critic accustomed to ascribe to Roosevelt egotism and love of gallery +applause must concede the courage, will-power, and self-forgetfulness +disclosed by the incident. + +The election was a debacle for reaction, a victory for Democracy, a +triumph in defeat for the Progressive party. Taft carried two States, +Utah and Vermont, with eight electoral votes; Woodrow Wilson carried +forty States, with 435 electoral votes; and Roosevelt carried five +States, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Washington, +and eleven out of the thirteen votes of California, giving him 88 +electoral votes. Taft's popular vote was 3,484,956; Wilson's was +6,293,019; while Roosevelt's was 4,119,507. The fact that Wilson was +elected by a minority popular vote is not the significant thing, for it +is far beyond the capability of any political observer to declare what +would have been the result if there had been but two parties in the +field. The triumph for the Progressive party lay in the certainty that +its emergence had compelled the election of a President whose face was +toward the future. If the Roosevelt delegates at Chicago in June had +acquiesced in the result of the steam-roller Convention, it is highly +probable that Woodrow Wilson would not have been the choice of the +Democratic Convention that met later at Baltimore. + +During the succeeding four years the Progressive party, as a national +organization, continued steadily to "dwindle, peak, and pine." More and +more of its members and supporters slipped or stepped boldly back to the +Republican party. Its quondam Democratic members had largely returned to +their former allegiance with Wilson, either at the election or after it. +Roosevelt once more withdrew from active participation in public life, +until the Great War, with its gradually increasing intrusions upon +American interests and American rights, aroused him to vigorous and +aggressive utterance on American responsibility and American duty. He +became a vigorous critic of the Administration. + +Once more a demand began to spring up for his nomination for the +Presidency; the Progressive party began to show signs of reviving +consciousness. There had persisted through the years a little band of +irreconcilables who were Progressives or nothing. They wanted a new +party of radical ideas regardless of anything in the way of reformation +and progress that the old parties might achieve. There were others who +preferred to go back to the Republican party rather than to keep up the +Progressive party as a mere minority party of protest, but who hoped in +going back to be able to influence their old party along the lines of +progress. There were those who were Rooseveltians pure and simple and +who would follow him wherever he led. + +All these groups wanted Roosevelt as President. They united to hold a +convention of the Progressive party at Chicago in 1916 on the same days +on which the Republican Convention met there. Each convention opened +with a calculating eye upon the activities of the other. But both +watched with even more anxious surmise for some sign of intention from +the Progressive leader back at Oyster Bay. He held in his single hand +the power of life and death for the Progressive party. His decision as +to cooperative action with the Republicans or individual action as a +Progressive would be the most important single factor in the campaign +against Woodrow Wilson, who was certain of renomination. Three +questions confronted and puzzled the two bodies of delegates: Would +the Republicans nominate Roosevelt or another? If another, what would +Roosevelt do? If another, what would the Progressives do? + +For three days the Republican National Convention proceeded steadily +and stolidly upon its appointed course. Everything had been done in +the stereotyped way on the stereotyped time-table in the stereotyped +language. No impropriety or infelicity had been permitted to mar the +smooth texture of its surface. The temporary chairman in his keynote +speech had been as mildly oratorical, as diffusely patriotic, and as +nobly sentimental as any Fourth of July orator of a bygone day. The +whole tone of the Convention had been subdued and decorous with the +decorum of incertitude and timidity. That Convention did not know what +it wanted. It only knew that there was one thing that it did not want +and that it was afraid of, and another thing it would rather not +have and was afraid it would have to take. It wanted neither Theodore +Roosevelt nor Charles E. Hughes, and its members were distinctly +uncomfortable at the thought that they might have to take one or the +other. It was an old-fashioned convention of the hand-picked variety. +It smacked of the former days when the direct primary had not +yet introduced the disturbing thought that the voters and not the +office-holders and party leaders ought to select their candidates. + +It was a docile, submissive convention, not because it was ruled by a +strong group of men who knew what they wanted and proposed to compel +their followers to give it to them, but because it was composed of +politicians great and small to whom party regularity was the breath of +their nostrils. They were ready to do the regular thing; but the only +two things in sight were confoundedly irregular. + +Two drafts were ready for their drinking and they dreaded both. They +could nominate one of two men, and to nominate either of them was to +fling open the gates of the citadel of party regularity and conformity +and let the enemy in. Was it to be Roosevelt or Hughes? Roosevelt they +would not have. Hughes they would give their eye teeth not to take. No +wonder they were subdued and inarticulate. No wonder they suffered and +were unhappy. So they droned along through their stereotyped routine, +hoping dully against fate. + +The hot-heads in the Progressive Convention wanted no delay, no +compromise. They would have nominated Theodore Roosevelt out of hand +with a whoop, and let the Republican Convention take him or leave him. +But the cooler leaders realized the importance of union between the two +parties and knew, or accurately guessed, what the attitude of Roosevelt +would be. With firm hand they kept the Convention from hasty and +irrevocable action. They proposed that overtures be made to the +Republican Convention with a view to harmonious agreement. A conference +was held between committees of the two conventions to see if common +ground could be discovered. At the first session of the joint committee +it appeared that there was sincere desire on both sides to get together, +but that the Progressives would have no one but Roosevelt, while the +Republicans would not have him but were united on no one else. When the +balloting began in the Republican Convention, the only candidate who +received even a respectable block of votes was Hughes, but his total +was hardly more than half of the necessary majority. For several ballots +there was no considerable gain for any of the numerous candidates, +and when the Convention adjourned late Friday night the outcome was as +uncertain as ever. But by Saturday morning the Republican leaders and +delegates had resigned themselves to the inevitable, and the nomination +of Hughes was assured. When the Progressive Convention met that morning, +the conference committee reported that the Republican members of the +committee had proposed unanimously the selection of Hughes as the +candidate of both parties. + +Thus began the final scene in the Progressive drama, and a more +thrilling and intense occasion it would be difficult to imagine. It was +apparent that the Progressive delegates would have none of it. They were +there to nominate their own beloved leader and they intended to do it. +A telegram was received from Oyster Bay proposing Senator Lodge as the +compromise candidate, and the restive delegates in the Auditorium could +with the greatest difficulty be held back until the telegram could be +received and read at the Coliseum. A direct telephone wire from +the Coliseum to a receiver on the stage of the Auditorium kept the +Progressive body in instant touch with events in the other Convention. +In the Auditorium the atmosphere was electric. The delegates bubbled +with excitement. They wanted to nominate Roosevelt and be done with it. +The fear that the other Convention would steal a march on them and make +its nomination first set them crazy with impatience. The hall rumbled +and sputtered and fizzed and detonated. The floor looked like a giant +corn popper with the kernels jumping and exploding like mad. + +The delegates wanted action; the leaders wanted to be sure that they had +kept faith with Roosevelt and with the general situation by giving the +Republican delegates a chance to hear his last proposal. Bainbridge +Colby, of New York, put Roosevelt in nomination with brevity and vigor; +Hiram Johnson seconded the nomination with his accustomed fire. Then, +as the word came over the wire that balloting had been resumed in the +Coliseum, the question was put at thirty-one minutes past twelve, and +every delegate and every alternate in the Convention leaped to his feet +with upstretched arm and shouted "Aye." + +Doubtless more thrilling moments may come to some men at some time, +somewhere, but you will hardly find a delegate of that Progressive +Convention to believe it. Then the Convention adjourned, to meet again +at three to hear what the man they had nominated would say. + +At five o'clock in the afternoon, after a couple of hours of impatient +and anxious marking time with routine matters, the Progressive delegates +received the reply from their leader. It read thus: + +"I am very grateful for the honor you confer upon me by nominating me as +President. I cannot accept it at this time. I do not know the attitude +of the candidate of the Republican party toward the vital questions of +the day. Therefore, if you desire an immediate decision, I must decline +the nomination. + +"But if you prefer to wait, I suggest that my conditional refusal to +run be placed in the hands of the Progressive National Committee. If +Mr. Hughes's statements, when he makes them, shall satisfy the committee +that it is for the interest of the country that he be elected, they can +act accordingly and treat my refusal as definitely accepted. + +"If they are not satisfied, they can so notify the Progressive party, +and at the same time they can confer with me, and then determine on +whatever action we may severally deem appropriate to meet the needs of +the country. + +"THEODORE ROOSEVELT." + +Puzzled, disheartened, overwhelmed, the Progressive delegates went +away. They could not then see how wise, how farsighted, how inevitable +Roosevelt's decision was. Some of them will never see it. Probably few +of them as they went out of those doors realized that they had taken +part in the last act of the romantic and tragic drama of the National +Progressive party. But such was the fact, for the march of events was +too much for it. Fate, not its enemies, brought it to an end. + +So was born, lived a little space, and died the Progressive party. At +its birth it caused the nomination, by the Democrats, and the election, +by the people, of Woodrow Wilson. At its death it brought about the +nomination of Charles E. Hughes by the Republicans. It forced the +writing into the platforms of the more conservative parties of +principles and programmes of popular rights and social regeneration. +The Progressive party never attained to power, but it wielded a potent +power. It was a glorious failure. + + + +CHAPTER XV. THE FIGHTING EDGE + +Theodore Roosevelt was a prodigious coiner of phrases. He added scores +of them, full of virility, picturesqueness, and flavor to the every-day +speech of the American people. They stuck, because they expressed ideas +that needed expressing and because they expressed them so well that no +other combinations of words could quite equal them. One of the best, +though not the most popular, of his phrases is contained in the +following quotation: + +"One of the prime dangers of civilization has always been its tendency +to cause the loss of virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge. When +men get too comfortable and lead too luxurious lives, there is always +danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their manliness of +fiber." + +He used the same phrase many times. Here is another instance: + +"Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make +ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! +And woe, thrice over, to the nation in which the average man loses the +fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need +should arise!" + +That was it--THE FIGHTING EDGE. Roosevelt had it, if ever man had. The +conviction of the need for that combination of physical and spiritual +qualities that this represented, if a man is to take his place and keep +it in the world, became an inseparable part of his consciousness early +in life. It grew in strength and depth with every year that he lived. +He learned the need of preparedness on that day in Maine when he found +himself helpless before the tormenting of his young fellow travelers. In +the gymnasium on Twentieth Street, within the boxing ring at Harvard, +in the New York Assembly, in the conflicts with the spoilsmen in +Washington, on the frontier in cowboy land, in Mulberry Street and on +Capitol Hill, and in the jungle before Santiago, the lesson was hammered +into him by the stern reality of events. The strokes fell on malleable +metal. + +In the spring of 1897, Roosevelt had been appointed Assistant Secretary +of the Navy, largely through the efforts of his friend, Senator Henry +Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. The appointment was excellent from every +point of view. Though Roosevelt had received no training for the post +so far as technical education was concerned, he brought to his duties a +profound belief in the navy and a keen interest in its development. His +first published book had been "The Naval War of 1812"; and the lessons +of that war had not been lost upon him. It was indeed a fortuitous +circumstance that placed him in this branch of the national service +just as relations between Spain and the United States were reaching the +breaking point. When the battleship Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor, +his reaction to that startling event was instantaneous. He was convinced +that the sinking of the Maine made war inevitable, but he had long been +certain that war ought to come. He believed that the United States had +a moral duty toward the Cuban people, oppressed, abused, starved, and +murdered at the hands of Spain. + +He was not the head of the Navy Department, but that made little +difference. The Secretary was a fine old gentleman, formerly president +of the Massachusetts Peace Society, and by temperament indisposed to any +rapid moves toward war. But he liked his Assistant Secretary and did +not put too stern a curb upon his impetuous activity and Roosevelt's +activity was vigorous and unceasing. Secretary Long has described it, +rather with justice than with enthusiasm. + +"His activity was characteristic. He was zealous in the work of putting +the navy in condition for the apprehended struggle. His ardor sometimes +went faster than the President or the Department approved.... He worked +indefatigably, frequently incorporating his views in memoranda which +he would place every morning on my desk. Most of his suggestions had, +however, so far as applicable, been already adopted by the various +bureaus, the chiefs of which were straining every nerve and leaving +nothing undone. When I suggested to him that some future historian +reading his memoranda, if they were put on record, would get the +impression that the bureaus were inefficient, he accepted the suggestion +with the generous good nature which is so marked in him. Indeed, nothing +could be pleasanter than our relations. He was heart and soul in his +work. His typewriters had no rest. He, like most of us, lacks the rare +knack of brevity. He was especially stimulating to the younger officers +who gathered about him and made his office as busy as a hive. He was +especially helpful in the purchasing of ships and in every line where he +could push on the work of preparation for war." + +One suspects that the Secretary may have been more complacently +convinced of the forehandedness of the bureau chiefs than was his +impatient associate. For, while the navy was apparently in better +shape than the army in those days, there must have been, even in the +Department where Roosevelt's typewriters knew no rest, some of that +class of desk-bound officers whom he met later when he was organizing +the Rough Riders. His experience with one such officer in the War +Department was humorous. This bureaucrat was continually refusing +Roosevelt's applications because they were irregular. In each case +Roosevelt would appeal to the Secretary of War, with whom he was on +the best of terms, and would get from him an order countenancing the +irregularity. After a number of experiences of this kind, the harassed +slave of red tape threw himself back in his chair and exclaimed, "Oh, +dear! I had this office running in such good shape--and then along came +the war and upset everything!" + +But there were plenty of good men in the navy; and one of them was +Commodore George Dewey. Roosevelt had kept his eye on him for some time +as an officer who "could be relied upon to prepare in advance, and +to act promptly, fearlessly, and on his own responsibility when the +emergency arose." When he began to foresee the probability of war, +Roosevelt succeeded in having Dewey sent to command the Asiatic +squadron; and just ten days after the Maine was blown up this cablegram +went from Washington to Hong Kong: + +"DEWEY, Hong Kong: + +"Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. Keep full of +coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to +see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then +offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further +orders. Roosevelt." + +The declaration of war lagged on for nearly two months, but when it +finally came, just one week elapsed between the sending of an order to +Dewey to proceed at once to the Philippines and to "capture vessels or +destroy" and the elimination of the sea power of Spain in the Orient. +The battle of Manila Bay was a practical demonstration of the value of +the "fighting edge," as exemplified in an Assistant Secretary who fought +procrastination, timidity, and political expedience at home and in a +naval officer who fought the enemy's ships on the other side of the +world. + +When war actually came, Roosevelt could not stand inactivity in +Washington. He was a fighter and he must go where the real fighting was. +With Leonard Wood, then a surgeon in the army, he organized the First +United States Volunteer Cavalry. He could have been appointed Colonel, +but he knew that Wood knew more about the soldier's job than he, and he +insisted upon taking the second place. The Secretary of War thought him +foolish to step aside thus and suggested that Roosevelt become Colonel +and Wood Lieutenant-Colonel, adding that Wood would do the work anyway. +But that was not the Roosevelt way. He replied that he did not wish to +rise on any man's shoulders, that he hoped to be given every chance that +his deeds and his abilities warranted, that he did not wish what he +did not earn, and that, above all, he did not wish to hold any position +where any one else did the work. Lieutenant-Colonel he was made. + +The regiment, which will always be affectionately known as the Rough +Riders, was "raised, armed, equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, +kept for two weeks on a transport, and then put through two victorious +aggressive fights, in which it lost a third of the officers, and a fifth +of the enlisted men, all within a little over fifty days." Roosevelt +began as second in command, went through the battle of San Juan Hill as +Colonel, and ended the war in command of a brigade, with the brevet of +Brigadier-General. The title of Colonel stuck to him all his life. + +When he became President, his instinctive commitment to the necessity of +being prepared had been stoutly reinforced by his experience in what he +called "the war of America the Unready." His first message to +Congress was a long and exhaustive paper, dealing with many matters of +importance. But almost one-fifth of it was devoted to the army and the +navy. "It is not possible," he said, "to improvise a navy after +war breaks out. The ships must be built and the men trained long +in advance." He urged that Congress forthwith provide for several +additional battleships and heavy armored cruisers, together with the +proportionate number of smaller craft, and he pointed out the need for +many more officers and men. He declared that "even in time of peace a +warship should be used until it wears out, for only so can it be kept +fit to respond to any emergency. The officers and men alike should be +kept as much as possible on blue water, for it is there only they can +learn their duties as they should be learned." But his most vigorous +insistence was upon gunnery. "In battle," he said once to the graduates +of the Naval Academy, "the only shots that count are those that hit, and +marksmanship is a matter of long practice and intelligent reasoning." To +this end he demanded "unceasing" gunnery practice. + +In every succeeding message to Congress for seven years he returned to +the subject of the navy, demanding ships, officers, men, and, above all, +training. His insistence on these essentials brought results, and by the +time the cruise of the battle fleet around the world had been achieved, +the American navy, ship for ship, was not surpassed by any in the world. +Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, ship's crew for ship's +crew; for it was the officers and men of the American navy who made it +possible for the world cruise to be made without the smallest casualty. + +The question of marksmanship had been burned into Roosevelt's mind +in those days when the Spanish War was brewing. He has related in his +"Autobiography" how it first came to his attention through a man whose +name has in more recent years become known the world over in connection +with the greatest task of the American navy. Roosevelt's account is as +follows: + +"There was one deficiency... which there was no time to remedy, and of +the very existence of which, strange to say, most of our best men were +ignorant. Our navy had no idea how low our standard of marksmanship +was. We had not realized that the modern battleship had become such +a complicated piece of mechanism that the old methods of training in +marksmanship were as obsolete as the old muzzle-loading broadside guns +themselves. Almost the only man in the navy who fully realized this was +our naval attach at Paris, Lieutenant Sims. He wrote letter after letter +pointing out how frightfully backward we were in marksmanship. I was +much impressed by his letters.... As Sims proved to be mistaken in his +belief that the French had taught the Spaniards how to shoot, and as +the Spaniards proved to be much worse even than we were, in the service +generally Sims was treated as an alarmist. But although I at first +partly acquiesced in this view, I grew uneasy when I studied the small +proportion of hits to shots made by our vessels in battle. When I was +President I took up the matter, and speedily became convinced that we +needed to revolutionize our whole training in marksmanship. Sims was +given the lead in organizing and introducing the new system; and to him +more than to any other one man was due the astonishing progress made by +our fleet in this respect, a progress which made the fleet, gun for gun, +at least three times as effective, in point of fighting efficiency, in +1908, as it was in 1902" *. + + *Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 212-13. + +Theodore Roosevelt was a thoroughgoing, bred-in-the-bone individualist, +but not as the term is ordinarily understood. He continually emphasized +not the rights of the individual, but his duties, obligations, and +opportunities. He knew that human character is the greatest thing in the +world and that men and women are the real forces that move and sway the +world's affairs. So in all his preaching and doing on behalf of a great +and efficient navy, the emphasis that he always laid was upon the men +of the navy, their efficiency and their spirit. He once remarked, "I +believe in the navy of the United States primarily because I believe in +the intelligence, the patriotism, and the fighting edge of the average +man of the navy." To the graduating class at Annapolis, he once said: + +"There is not one of you who is not derelict in his duty to the whole +Nation if he fails to prepare himself with all the strength that in him +lies to do his duty should the occasion arise; and one of your great +duties is to see that shots hit. The result is going to depend largely +upon whether you or your adversary hits. I expect you to be brave. +I rather take that for granted.... But, in addition, you have got to +prepare yourselves in advance. Every naval action that has taken place +in the last twenty years ... has shown, as a rule, that the defeated +party has suffered not from lack of courage, but because it could +not make the best use of its weapons, or had not been given the right +weapons... . I want every one here to proceed upon the assumption that +any foe he may meet will have the courage. Of course, you have got +to show the highest degree of courage yourself or you will be beaten +anyhow, and you will deserve to be; but in addition to that you must +prepare yourselves by careful training so that you may make the best +possible use of the delicate and formidable mechanism of a modern +warship." + +Theodore Roosevelt was an apostle of preparedness from the hour that he +began to think at all about affairs of public moment--and that hour came +to him earlier in life than it does to most men. In the preface to his +history of the War of 1812, which he wrote at the age of twenty-four, +this sentence appears: "At present people are beginning to realize that +it is folly for the great English-speaking Republic to rely for defense +upon a navy composed partly of antiquated hulks, and partly of new +vessels rather more worthless than the old." His prime interest, +from the point of view of preparedness, lay in the navy. His sense +of proportion told him that the navy was the nation's first line of +defense. He knew that without an efficient navy a nation situated as +the United States was would be helpless before an aggressive enemy, +and that, given a navy of sufficient size and effectiveness, the nation +could dispense with a great army. For the army he demanded not size +but merely efficiency. One of his principal points of attack in his +criticism of the army was the system of promotion for officers. He +assailed sharply the existing practice of "promotion by mere seniority." +In one of his messages to Congress he pointed out that a system of +promotion by merit existed in the Military Academy at West Point. He +then went on to say that from the time of the graduation of the cadets +into the army "all effort to find which man is best or worst and reward +or punish him accordingly, is abandoned: no brilliancy, no amount of +hard work, no eagerness in the performance of duty, can advance him, +and no slackness or indifference, that falls short of a court-martial +offense, can retard him. Until this system is changed we cannot hope +that our officers will be of as high grade as we have a right to expect, +considering the material from which we draw. Moreover, when a man +renders such service as Captain Pershing rendered last spring in the +Moro campaign, it ought to be possible to reward him without at once +jumping him to the grade of brigadier-general." + +It is not surprising to find in this message also a name that was later +to become famous in the Great War. Roosevelt had an uncanny gift of +prophecy. + +More than once, as President, he picked out for appreciation and +commendation the very men who were to do the big things for America when +the critical hour came. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. THE LAST FOUR YEARS + +When the Great War broke out in August, 1914, Roosevelt instantly +stiffened to attention. He immediately began to read the lessons that +were set for the world by the gigantic conflict across the sea and it +was not long before he was passing them on to the American people. Like +every other good citizen, he extended hearty support to the President +in his conduct of America's foreign relations in the crisis. At the same +time, however, he recognized the possibility that a time might come when +it would be a higher moral duty to criticize the Administration than to +continue unqualified support. Three weeks after war had begun, Roosevelt +wrote in "The Outlook": + +"In common with the immense majority of our fellow countrymen, I shall +certainly stand by not only the public servants in control of the +Administration at Washington, but also all other public servants, no +matter of what party, during this crisis; asking only that they with +wisdom and good faith endeavor to take every step that can be taken to +safeguard the honor and interest of the United States, and, so far +as the opportunity offers, to promote the cause of peace and justice +throughout the world. My hope, of course, is that in their turn the +public servants of the people will take no action so fraught with +possible harm to the future of the people as to oblige farsighted and +patriotic men to protest against it." + +One month later, in a long article in "The Outlook", Roosevelt +reiterated this view in these words: + +".... We, all of us, without regard to party differences, must stand +ready loyally to support the Administration, asking nothing except that +the policy be one that in truth and in fact tells for the honor and +interest of our Nation and in truth and in fact is helpful to the cause +of a permanent and righteous world peace." + +In the early months of the war, Roosevelt thus scrupulously endeavored +to uphold the President's hands, to utter no criticism that might +hamper him, and to carry out faithfully the President's adjuration to +neutrality. He recognized clearly, however, the price that we must pay +for neutrality, and he set it forth in the following passage from the +same article: "A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to +invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. What action +our Government can or will take I know not. It has been announced that +no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality. +It is certainly eminently desirable that we should remain entirely +neutral, and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our +neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. Our first duty is to +hold ourselves ready to do whatever the changing circumstances demand +in order to protect our own interests in the present and in the future; +although, for my own part, I desire to add to this statement the proviso +that under no circumstances must we do anything dishonorable, especially +toward unoffending weaker nations. Neutrality may be of prime necessity +in order to preserve our own interests, to maintain peace in so much of +the world as is not affected by the war, and to conserve our influence +for helping toward the reestablishment of general peace when the time +comes; for if any outside Power is able at such time to be the medium +for bringing peace, it is more likely to be the United States than any +other. But we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for +ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, by forfeiting our +right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians in the present. +We can maintain our neutrality only by refusal to do anything to aid +unoffending weak powers which are dragged into the gulf of bloodshed +and misery through no fault of their own. Of course it would be folly +to jump into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably +nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We have not +the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her, and I am sure +that the sympathy of this country for the men, women, and children of +Belgium is very real. Nevertheless, this sympathy is compatible with +full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of +official protest unless we are prepared to make that protest effective; +and only the clearest and most urgent national duty would ever justify +us in deviating from our rule of neutrality and noninterference. But +it is a grim comment on the professional pacifist theories as hitherto +developed that our duty to preserve peace for ourselves may necessarily +mean the abandonment of all effective efforts to secure peace for other +unoffending nations which through no fault of their own are dragged into +the War." + +The rest of the article concerned itself with the lessons taught by the +war, the folly of pacifism, the need for preparedness if righteousness +is not to be sacrificed for peace, the worthlessness of treaties +unsanctioned by force, and the desirability of an association of +nations for the prevention of war. On this last point Roosevelt wrote as +follows: + +"But in view of what has occurred in this war, surely the time ought to +be ripe for the nations to consider a great world agreement among all +the civilized military powers TO BACK RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FORCE. Such an +agreement would establish an efficient World League for the Peace of +Righteousness. Such an agreement could limit the amount to be spent on +armaments and, after defining carefully the inalienable rights of +each nation which were not to be transgressed by any other, could also +provide that any cause of difference among them, or between one of them +and one of a certain number of designated outside non-military nations, +should be submitted to an international court, including citizens of +all these nations, chosen not as representatives of the nations, BUT +AS JUDGES and perhaps in any given case the particular judges could +be chosen by lot from the total number. To supplement and make this +effectual it should be solemnly covenanted that if any nation refused to +abide by the decision of such a court the others would draw the sword on +behalf of peace and justice, and would unitedly coerce the recalcitrant +nation. This plan would not automatically bring peace, and it may be too +soon to hope for its adoption; but if some such scheme could be adopted, +in good faith and with a genuine purpose behind it to make it effective, +then we would have come nearer to the day of world peace. World peace +will not come save in some such manner as that whereby we obtain +peace within the borders of each nation; that is, by the creation +of reasonably impartial judges and by putting an efficient police +power--that is, by putting force in efficient fashion--behind the +decrees of the judges. At present each nation must in the last resort +trust to its own strength if it is to preserve all that makes life +worth having. At present this is imperative. This state of things can be +abolished only when we put force, when we put the collective armed power +of civilization, behind some body which shall with reasonable justice +and equity represent the collective determination of civilization to do +what is right." + +From this beginning Roosevelt went on vigorously preaching preparedness +against war; and the Great War had been raging for a scant seven months +when he was irresistibly impelled to utter open criticism of President +Wilson. In April, 1915, in The Metropolitan Magazine, to which he had +transferred his writings, he declared that "the United States, thanks +to Messrs. Wilson and Bryan, has signally failed in its duty toward +Belgium." He maintained that the United States, under the obligations +assumed by the signature of The Hague Conventions, should have protested +to Germany against the invasion of Belgium. + +For two years thereafter, while Germany slapped America first on one +cheek and then on the other, and treacherously stabbed her with slinking +spies and dishonored diplomats, Roosevelt preached, with growing +indignation and vehemence, the cause of preparedness and national honor. +He found it impossible to support the President further. In February, +1916, he wrote: + +"Eighteen months have gone by since the Great War broke out. It needed +no prescience, no remarkable statesmanship or gift of forecasting the +future, to see that, when such mighty forces were unloosed, and when it +had been shown that all treaties and other methods hitherto relied upon +for national protection and for mitigating the horror and circumscribing +the area of war were literally 'scraps of paper,' it had become a vital +necessity that we should instantly and on a great and adequate scale +prepare for our own defense. Our men, women, and children--not in +isolated cases, but in scores and hundreds of cases--have been murdered +by Germany and Mexico; and we have tamely submitted to wrongs from +Germany and Mexico of a kind to which no nation can submit without +impairing its own self-respect and incurring the contempt of the rest +of mankind. Yet, during these eighteen months not one thing has been +done.... Never in the country's history has there been a more stupendous +instance of folly than this crowning folly of waiting eighteen months +after the elemental crash of nations took place before even making +a start in an effort--and an utterly inefficient and insufficient +effort-for some kind of preparation to ward off disaster in the future. + +"If President Wilson had shown the disinterested patriotism, courage, +and foresight demanded by this stupendous crisis, I would have supported +him with hearty enthusiasm. But his action, or rather inaction, has +been such that it has become a matter of high patriotic duty to +oppose him.... No man can support Mr. Wilson without at the same time +supporting a policy of criminal inefficiency as regards the United +States Navy, of short-sighted inadequacy as regards the army, +of abandonment of the duty owed by the United States to weak and +well-behaved nations, and of failure to insist on our just rights when +we are ourselves maltreated by powerful and unscrupulous nations." + +Theodore Roosevelt could not, without violating the integrity of his +own soul, go on supporting either positively by word or negatively by +silence the man who had said, on the day after the Lusitania was sunk, +"There is such a thing as a nation being too proud to fight," and who +later called for a "peace without victory." He could have nothing but +scorn for an Administration whose Secretary of War could say, two months +after the United States had actually entered the war, that there was +"difficulty. .. disorder and confusion... in getting things started," +and could then add, "but it is a happy confusion. I delight in the fact +that when we entered this war we were not like our adversary, ready for +it, anxious for it, prepared for it, and inviting it." + +Until America entered the war Roosevelt used his voice and his pen with +all his native energy and fire to convince the American people of three +things that righteousness demanded that the United States forsake its +supine neutrality and act; that the United States should prepare itself +thoroughly for any emergency that might arise; and that the hyphenated +Americanism of those who, while enjoying the benefits of American +citizenship, "intrigue and conspire against the United States, and do +their utmost to promote the success of Germany and to weaken the +defense of this nation" should be rigorously curbed. The sermons that he +preached on this triple theme were sorely needed. No leadership in +this phase of national life was forthcoming from the quarter where the +American people had every right to look for leadership. The White House +had its face set in the opposite direction. + +In August, 1915, an incident occurred which set the contrast between +the Rooseveltian and Wilsonian lines of thought in bold relief. Largely +through the initiative of General Leonard Wood there had been organized +at Plattsburg, New York, an officers' training camp where American +business men were given an all too brief course of training in the art +and duty of leading soldiers in camp and in the field. General Wood was +in command of the Plattsburg camp. He invited Roosevelt to address the +men in training. Roosevelt accepted gladly, and in the course of his +speech made these significant statements: + +"For thirteen months America has played an ignoble part among the +nations. We have tamely submitted to seeing the weak, whom we have +covenanted to protect, wronged. We have seen our men, women, and +children murdered on the high seas without protest. We have used +elocution as a substitute for action. + +"During this time our government has not taken the smallest step in the +way of preparedness to defend our own rights. Yet these thirteen months +have made evident the lamentable fact that force is more dominant now +in the affairs of the world than ever before, that the most powerful of +modern military nations is utterly brutal and ruthless in its disregard +of international morality, and that righteousness divorced from force is +utterly futile. Reliance upon high sounding words, unbacked by deeds, is +proof of a mind that dwells only in the realm of shadow and of sham. + +"It is not a lofty thing, on the contrary, it is an evil thing, to +practise a timid and selfish neutrality between right and wrong. It is +wrong for an individual. It is still more wrong for a nation. + +"Therefore, friends, let us shape our conduct as a nation in accordance +with the highest rules of international morality. Let us treat others +justly and keep the engagements we have made, such as these in The Hague +conventions, to secure just treatment for others. But let us remember +that we shall be wholly unable to render service to others and +wholly unable to fulfill the prime law of national being, the law of +self-preservation, unless we are thoroughly prepared to hold our own. +Let us show that a free democracy can defend itself successfully against +any organized and aggressive military despotism." + +The men in the camp heard him gladly and with enthusiasm. But the next +day the Secretary of War sent a telegram of censure to General Wood in +which he said: + +"I have just seen the reports in the newspapers of the speech made +by ex-President Roosevelt at the Plattsburg camp. It is difficult to +conceive of anything which could have a more detrimental effect upon the +real value of this experiment than such an incident.... No opportunity +should have been furnished to any one to present to the men any matter +excepting that which was essential to the necessary training they were +to receive. Anything else could only have the effect of distracting +attention from the real nature of the experiment, diverting +consideration to issues which excite controversy, antagonism, and ill +feeling and thereby impairing if not destroying, what otherwise would +have been so effective." + +On this telegram Roosevelt's comment was pungent: "If the Administration +had displayed one-tenth the spirit and energy in holding Germany and +Mexico to account for the murder of men, women, and children that it is +now displaying in the endeavor to prevent our people from being taught +the need of preparation to prevent the repetition of such murders in the +future, it would be rendering a service to the people of the country." + +Theodore Roosevelt could have little effect upon the material +preparedness of the United States for the struggle which it was +ultimately to enter. But he could and did have a powerful effect upon +the spiritual preparedness of the American people for the efforts, the +trials, and the sacrifices of that struggle. No voice was raised more +persistently or more consistently than his. No personality was thrown +with more power and more effect into the task of arousing the people +of the United States to their duty to take part in the struggle against +Prussianism. No man, in public or private life, urged so vigorously and +effectively the call to arms against evil and for the right. His was +the "voice crying in the wilderness," and to him the American spirit +hearkened and awoke. + +At last the moment came. Roosevelt had but one desire and one thought. +He wanted to get to the firing-line. This was no impulse, no newly +formed project. For two months he had been in correspondence with the +Secretary of War on the subject. A year or more before that he had +offered, in case America went into the war, to raise a volunteer force, +train it, and take it across to the front. The idea was not new to +him, even then. As far back as 1912 he had said on several different +occasions, "If the United States should get into another war, I should +raise a brigade of cavalry and lead it as I did my regiment in Cuba." It +never occurred to him in those days that a former Commander-in-Chief of +the United States Army, with actual experience in the field, would be +refused permission to command troops in an American war. The idea +would hardly have occurred to any one else. But that is precisely what +happened. + +On February 2, 1917, Roosevelt wrote to the Secretary of War reminding +him that his application for permission to raise a division of infantry +was already on file in the Department, saying that he was about to sail +for Jamaica, and asking the Secretary to inform him if he believed there +would be war and a call for volunteers, for in that case he did not +intend to sail. Secretary Baker replied, "No situation has arisen which +would justify my suggesting a postponement of the trip you propose." +Before this reply was received Roosevelt had written a second letter +saying that, as the President had meanwhile broken off diplomatic +relations with Germany, he should of course not sail. He renewed his +request for permission to raise a division, and asked if a certain +regular officer whom he would like to have for his divisional Chief of +Staff, if the division were authorized, might be permitted to come to +see him with a view to "making all preparations that are possible in +advance." To this the Secretary replied, "No action in the direction +suggested by you can be taken without the express sanction of Congress. +Should the contingency Occur which you have in mind, it is to be +expected that Congress will complete its legislation relating to +volunteer forces and provide, under its own conditions, for the +appointment of officers for the higher commands." + +Roosevelt waited five weeks and then earnestly renewed his request. +He declared his purpose to take his division, after some six weeks of +preliminary training, direct to France for intensive training so that +it could be sent to the front in the shortest possible time. Secretary +Baker replied that no additional armies could be raised without the +consent of Congress, that a plan for a much larger army was ready for +the action of Congress when ever required, and that the general officers +for all volunteer forces were to be drawn from the regular army. To +this Roosevelt replied with the respectful suggestion that, as a retired +Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, he was eligible to any +position of command over American troops. He recounted also his +record of actual military experience and referred the Secretary to his +immediate superiors in the field in Cuba as to his fitness for command +of troops. + +When war had been finally declared, Secretary Baker and Roosevelt +conferred together at length about the matter. Thereafter Mr. Baker +wrote definitely, declaring that he would be obliged to withhold his +approval from an expedition of the sort proposed. The grounds which he +gave for the decision were that the soldiers sent across must not be +"deprived... of the most experienced leadership available, in deference +to any mere sentimental consideration," and that it should appear from +every aspect of the expeditionary force, if one should be sent over (a +point not yet determined upon) that "military considerations alone had +determined its composition." + +To this definite refusal on the part of the Secretary of War Roosevelt +replied at length. In his letter was a characteristic passage commenting +upon Secretary Baker's reference to "sentimental considerations": + +"I have not asked you to consider any "sentimental value" in this +matter. I am speaking of moral effect, not of sentimental value. +Sentimentality is as different from morality as Rousseau's life from +Abraham Lincoln's. I have just received a letter from James Bryce urging +"the dispatch of an American force to the theater of war," and saying, +"The moral effect of the appearance in the war line of an American +force would be immense." From representatives of the French and +British Governments and of the French, British, and Canadian military +authorities, I have received statements to the same effect, in even more +emphatic form, and earnest hopes that I myself should be in the force. +Apparently your military advisers in this matter seek to persuade you +that a "military policy" has nothing to do with "moral effect." If so, +their militarism is like that of the Aulic Council of Vienna in the +Napoleonic Wars, and not like that of Napoleon, who stated that in war +the moral was to the material as two to one. These advisers will do +well to follow the teachings of Napoleon and not those of the pedantic +militarists of the Aulic Council, who were the helpless victims of +Napoleon." + +Secretary Baker replied with a reiteration of his refusal. Roosevelt +made one further attempt. When the Draft Law passed Congress, carrying +with it the authorization to use volunteer forces, he telegraphed the +President asking permission to raise two divisions, and four if so +directed. The President replied with a definite negative, declaring that +his conclusions were "based entirely upon imperative considerations +of public policy and not upon personal or private choice." Meanwhile +applications had been received from over three hundred thousand +men desirous of joining Roosevelt's volunteer force, of whom it was +estimated that at least two hundred thousand were physically fit, double +the number needed for four divisions. That a single private citizen, +by "one blast upon his bugle horn" should have been able to call forth +three hundred thousand volunteers, all over draft age, was a tremendous +testimony to his power. If his offer had been accepted when it was first +made, there would have been an American force on the field in France +long before one actually arrived there. It was widely believed, among +men of intelligence and insight, not only in America but in Great +Britain and France, that the arrival of such a force, under the command +of a man known, admired, and loved the world over, would have been a +splendid reinforcement to the Allied morale and a sudden blow to the +German confidence. But the Administration would not have it so. + +I shall never forget one evening with Theodore Roosevelt on a speaking +tour which he was making through the South in 1912. There came to our +private car for dinner Senator Clarke of Arkansas and Jack Greenway, +young giant of football fame and experience with the Rough Riders in +Cuba. After dinner, Jack, who like many giants, is one of the most +diffident men alive, said hesitatingly: + +"Colonel, I've long wanted to ask you something." + +"Go right ahead," said T. R., "what is it?" + +"Well, Colonel," said Jack, "I've always believed that it was your +ambition to die on the field of battle." + +T. R. brought his hand down on the table with a crash that must have +hurt the wood. + +"By Jove," said he, "how did you know that?" + +"Well, Colonel," said Jack, "do you remember that day in Cuba, when you +and I were going along a trail and came upon ____ [one of the regiment] +propped against a tree, shot through the abdomen? It was evident that he +was done for. But instead of commiserating him, you grabbed his hand +and said something like this, 'Well, old man, isn't this splendid!' Ever +since then I've been sure you would be glad to die in battle yourself." + +T. R.'s face sobered a little. + +"You're right, Jack," he said. "I would." + +The end of Theodore Roosevelt's life seemed to come to him not in action +but in quietness. But the truth was other than that. For it, let us turn +again to Browning's lines: + + I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, + The best and the last! + I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, + And bade me creep past. + +On the fifth of January in 1919, after sixty years of life, full of +unwearied fighting against evil and injustice and falseness, he "fell on +sleep." The end came peacefully in the night hours at Sagamore Hill. +But until he laid him down that night, the fight he waged had known no +relaxation. Nine months before he had expected death, when a serious +mastoid operation had drained his vital forces. Then his one thought +had been, not for himself, but for his sons to whom had been given the +precious privilege, denied to him, of taking part in their country's +and the world's great fight for righteousness. His sister, Mrs. Corinne +Douglas Robinson, tells how in those shadowy hours he beckoned her to +him and in the frailest of whispers said, "I'm glad it's I that lie here +and that my boys are in the fight over there." + +His last, best fight was worthy of all the rest. With voice and pen he +roused the minds and the hearts of his countrymen to their high mission +in defense of human rights. It was not given to him to fall on the field +of battle. But he went down with his face to the forces of evil with +which he had never sought a truce. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The reader who is primarily interested in the career and personality +of Roosevelt would do well to begin with his own volume, "Theodore +Roosevelt, An Autobiography". But it was written in 1912, before the +great campaign which produced the Progressive party. + +"Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen" (1904), by Jacob A. Riis, was published +just after Roosevelt became President. It is an intimate and naively +enthusiastic portrait by a man who was an intimate friend and an ardent +admirer. + +There are two lives written since his death that are complete and +discriminating. They are "The Life of Theodore Roosevelt" (1919), by +William Draper Lewis, and "Theodore Roosevelt, an Intimate Biography" +(1919), by William Roscoe Thayer. + +"Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt" (1919) is a volume of first-hand +experiences, written by Lawrence F. Abbott of "The Outlook". The author +was closely associated with Roosevelt on "The Outlook"; and after the +African hunting trip met him at Khartum and went with him on his tour of +the capitals of Europe. + +A small volume by Charles G. Washburn, "Theodore Roosevelt, the Logic of +His Career" (1916), contains the interpretation of a long-time friend +and sincere admirer. + +Collections of Roosevelt's writings and speeches covering the years from +his becoming Governor of New York to the end of his Presidential terms +are found in "The Roosevelt Policy", 2 vols. (1908) and "Presidential +Addresses and State Papers", 4 vols. (1904). "The New Nationalism" +(1910) is a collection of his speeches delivered between his return from +Africa and the beginning of the Progressive campaign. His writings and +speeches during the Great War are found in several volumes: "America and +the World War" (1915); "Fear God and Take Your Own Part" (1916); "The +Foes of Our Own Household" (1917); "The Great Adventure" (1919). + +Material on the Progressive movement and the Progressive party are to be +found in "The Progressive Movement" (1915), by Benjamin Parke De Witt, +"The Progressive Movement, Its Principles and Its Programme" (1913), by +S. J. Duncan-Clark, "Presidential Nominations and Elections" (1916), by +Joseph Bucklin Bishop, and "Third Party Movements" (1916), by Fred E. +Haynes. The story of La Follette is set forth at greater length in his +"Autobiography; A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences" (1918). +Three other autobiographies contribute to an understanding of politics: +"The Autobiography of Thomas C. Platt" (1910); J. B. Foraker, "Notes +of a Busy Life", 2 vols. (1916). S. M. Cullom, "Fifty Years of Public +Service" (1911). + +The history of the country during the years when Roosevelt became a +national figure is recounted by J. H. Latane in "America as a World +Power" and by F. A. Ogg in "National Progress", both volumes in the +"American Nation" Series. Briefer summaries of the general history of at +least a part of the period treated in the present volume are to be found +in Frederic L. Paxson's "The New Nation" (1915), and Charles A. Beard's +"Contemporary American History" (1914). + +The prosecution of the trusts may be followed in "Trust Laws and Unfair +Competition" (Government Printing Office, 1916). Much useful material +is contained in "Trusts, Pools and Corporations", edited by W. Z. Ripley +(1916). W. H. Taft in "The Anti-Trust Law and the Supreme Court" +(1914) defends the Sherman Act as interpreted by the courts during his +administration. + +The progress of social and industrial justice is outlined in "Principles +of Labor Legislation" (1916), by John R. Commons and John B. Andrews. +The problems of conservation and the history of governmental policy are +set forth by C. R. Van Hise in "The Conservation of Natural Resources in +the United States" (1910). + +The "American Year Book" for the years 1910 to 1919 and the "New +International Year Book" for the years 1907 to 1919 are invaluable +sources of accurate and comprehensive information on the current history +of the United States for the period which they cover. + +Willis Fletcher Johnson's "America's Foreign Relations", 2 vols. (1915) +is a history of the relations of the United States to the rest of the +world. A shorter account is given in C. R. Fish's "American Diplomacy" +(1915). + +But much of the best material for the historical study of the first +decade and a half of the twentieth century is to be found in the pages +of the magazines and periodicals published during those years. "The +Outlook", "The Independent", "The Literary Digest", "Collier's", "The +Review of Reviews", "The World's Work", "Current Opinion", "The Nation", +"The Commoner", La Follette's "Weekly"--all these are sources of great +value. The Outlook is of especial usefulness because of Mr. Roosevelt's +connection with it as Contributing Editor during the years between 1909 +and 1914. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Theodore Roosevelt and His Times, by Harold Howland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES *** + +***** This file should be named 2724.txt or 2724.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/2/2724/ + +Produced by The James J. 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