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Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography,
by William Roscoe Thayer
November, 2000 [Etext #2386]
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by William Roscoe Thayer
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THEODORE ROOSEVELT
AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY
BY
WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER
1919
PREFACE
In finishing the correction of the last proofs of this sketch, I
perceive that some of those who read it may suppose that I
planned to write a deliberate eulogy of Theodore Roosevelt. This
is not true. I knew him for forty years, but I never followed his
political leadership. Our political differences, however, never
lessened our personal friendship. Sometimes long intervals
elapsed between our meetings, but when we met it was always with
the same intimacy, and when we wrote it was with the same candor.
I count it fortunate for me that during the last ten years of his
life, I was thrown more with Roosevelt than during all the
earlier period; and so I was able to observe him, to know his
motives, and to study his character during the chief crises of
his later career, when what he thought and did became an integral
part of the development of the United States.
After the outbreak of the World War, in 1914, he and I thought
alike, and if I mistake not, this closing phase of his life will
come more and more to be revered by his countrymen as an example
of the highest patriotism and courage. Regardless of popular
lukewarmness at the start, and of persistent official thwarting
throughout, he roused the conscience of the nation to a sense of
its duty and of its honor. What gratitude can repay one who
rouses the con science of a nation? Roosevelt sacrificed his life
for patriotism as surely as if he had died leading a charge in
the Battle of the Marne.
The Great War has thrown all that went before it out of
perspective. We can never see the events of the preceding
half-century in the same light in which we saw them when they
were fresh. Instinctively we appraise them, and the men through
whom they came to pass, by their relation to the catastrophe. Did
they lead up to it consciously or un consciously? And as we judge
the outcome of the war, our views of men take on changed
complexions. The war, as it appears now, was the culmination of
three different world-movements; it destroyed the attempt of
German Imperialism to conquer the world and to rivet upon it a
Prussian military despotism. Next, it set up Democracy as the
ideal for all peoples to live by. Finally, it revealed that the
economic, industrial, social, and moral concerns of men are
deeper than the political. When I came to review Roosevelt's
career consecutively, for the purpose of this biography, I saw
that many of his acts and policies, which had been misunderstood
or misjudged at the time, were all the inevitable expressions of
the principle which was the master-motive of his life. What we
had imagined to be shrewd devices for winning a partisan
advantage, or for overthrowing a political adversary, or for
gratifying his personal ambition, had a nobler source. I do not
mean to imply that Roosevelt, who was a most adroit politician,
did not employ with terrific effect the means accepted as
honorable in political fighting. So did Abraham Lincoln, who
also, as a great Opportunist, was both a powerful and a shrewd
political fighter, but pledged to Righteousness. It seems now
tragic, but inevitable, that Roosevelt, after beginning and
carrying forward the war for the reconciliation between Capital
and Labor, should have been sacrificed by the Republican Machine,
for that Machine was a special organ of Capital, by which Capital
made and administered the laws of the States and of the Nation.
But Roosevelt's struggle was not in vain; before he died, many of
those who worked for his downfall in 1912 were looking up to him
as the natural leader of the country, in the new dangers which
encompassed it. "Had he lived," said a very eminent man who had
done more than any other to defeat him, "he would have been the
unanimous candidate of the Republicans in 1920." Time brings its
revenges swiftly. As I write these lines, it is not Capital, but
overweening Labor which makes its truculent demands on the
Administration at Washington, which it has already intimidated.
Well may we exclaim, "Oh, for the courage of Roosevelt!" And
whenever the country shall be in great anxiety or in direct peril
from the cowardice of those who have sworn to defend its welfare
and its integrity, that cry shall rise to the lips of true
Americans.
Although I have purposely brought out what I believe to be the
most significant parts of Roosevelt's character and public life,
I have not wished to be uncritical. I have suppressed nothing.
Fortunately for his friends, the two libel suits which he went
through in his later years, subjected him to a microscopic
scrutiny, both as to his personal and his political life. All the
efforts of very able lawyers, and of clever and unscrupulous
enemies to undermine him, failed; and henceforth his advocates
may rest on the verdicts given by two separate courts. As for the
great political acts of his official career, Time has forestalled
eulogy. Does any one now defend selling liquor to children and
converting them into precocious drunkards? Does any one defend
sweat-shops, or the manufacture of cigars under worse than
unsanitary conditions? Which of the packers, who protested
against the Meat Inspection Bill, would care to have his name
made public; and which of the lawyers and of the accomplices in
the lobby and in Congress would care to have it known that he
used every means, fair and foul, to prevent depriving the packers
of the privilege of canning bad meat for Americans, although
foreigners insisted that the canned meat which they bought should
be whole some and inspected? Does any American now doubt the
wisdom and justice of conserving the natural re sources, of
saving our forests and our mineral sup plies, and of controlling
the watershed from which flows the water-supply of entire States?
These things are no longer in the field of debate. They are
accepted just as the railroad and the telegraph are accepted. But
each in its time was a novelty, a reform, and to secure its
acceptance by the American people and its sanction in the statute
book, required the zeal, the energy, the courage of one man-
-Theodore Roosevelt. He had many helpers, but he was the
indispensable backer and accomplisher. When, therefore, I have
commended him for these great achievements, I have but echoed
what is now common opinion.
A contemporary can never judge as the historian a hundred years
after the fact judges, but the contemporary view has also its
place, and it may be really nearer to the living truth than is
the conclusion formed when the past is cold and remote and the
actors are dead long ago. So a friend's outlined portrait, though
obviously not impartial, must be nearer the truth than an enemy's
can be--for the enemy is not impartial either. We have fallen too
much into the habit of imagining that only hostile critics tell
the truth.
I wish to express my gratitude to many persons who have assisted
me in my work. First of all, to Mrs. Roosevelt, for permission to
use various letters. Next, to President Roosevelt's sisters, Mrs.
William S. Cowles and Mrs. Douglas Robinson, for invaluable
information. Equally kind have been many of Roosevelt's
associates in Government and in political affairs: President
William H. Taft, former Secretary of War; Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge; Senator Elihu Root and Colonel Robert Bacon, former
Secretaries of State; Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, former
Attorney-General; Hon. George B. Cortelyou, former Secretary of
the Interior; Hon. Gifford Pinchot, of the National Forest
Service; Hon. James R. Garfield, former Commissioner of Commerce.
Also to Lord Bryce and the late Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, British
Ambassadors at Washington; to Hon. George W. Wickersham,
Attorney-General under President Taft; to Mr. Nicholas Roosevelt
and Mr. Charles P. Curtis, Jr.; to Hon. Albert J. Beveridge,
ex-Senator; to Mr. James T. Williams, Jr.; to Dr. Alexander
Lambert; to Hon. James M. Beck; to Major George H. Putnam; to
Professor Albert Bushnell Hart; to Hon. Charles S. Bird; to Mrs.
George von. L. Meyer and Mrs. Curtis Guild; to Mr. Hermann
Hagedorn; to Mr. James G. King, Jr.; to Dean William D. Lewis; to
Hon. Regis H. Post; to Hon. William Phillips, Assistant Secretary
of State; to Mr. Richard Trimble; to Mr. John Woodbury; to Gov.
Charles E. Hughes; to Mr. Louis A. Coolidge; to Hon. F. D.
Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; to Judge Robert
Grant; to Mr. James Ford Rhodes; to Hon. W. Cameron Forbes.
I am under especial obligation to Hon. Charles G. Washburn,
ex-Congressman, whose book, "Theodore Roosevelt: The Logic of his
Career," I have consulted freely and commend as the best analysis
I have seen of Roosevelt's political character. I wish also to
thank the publishers and authors of books by or about Roosevelt
for permission to use their works. These are Houghton Mifflin
Co.; G. P. Putnam's Sons; The Outlook Co.; The Macmillan Co.
To Mr. Ferris Greenslet, whose fine critical taste I have often
drawn upon; and Mr. George B. Ives, who has prepared the Index;
and to Miss Alice Wyman, my secretary, my obligation is profound.
W. R. T.
August 10, 1919
CONTENTS
I. ORIGINS AND YOUTH
II. BREAKING INTO POLITICS
III. AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS
IV. NATURE THE HEALER
V. BACK TO THE EAST AND LITERATURE
VI. APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS
VII. THE ROUGH RIDER
VIII. GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK--VICE-PRESIDENT
IX. PRESIDENT
X. THE WORLD WHICH ROOSEVELT CONFRONTED
XI. ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY
XII. THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME
XIII. THE TWO ROOSEVELTS
XIV. THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER
XV. ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS
XVI. THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION
XVII. ROOSEVELT AT HOME
XVIII. HITS AND MISSES
XIX. CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR
XX. WORLD HONORS
XXI. WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?
XXII. THE TWO CONVENTIONS
XXIII. THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL
XXIV. PROMETHEUS BOUND
XXV. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND
ABBREVIATIONS
Autobiography = "Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography." Macmillan
Co.; New York, 1914.
*** The titles of other books by Mr. Roosevelt are given without
his name as they occur in the footnotes.
Leupp = Francis E. Leupp: "The Man Roosevelt." D. Appleton & Co.;
New York, 1904.
Lewis = Wm. Draper Lewis: "The Life of Theodore Roosevelt." John
C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, 1919.
Morgan = James Morgan: "Theodore Roosevelt; The Boy and the Man."
Macmillan Co., new ed., 1919.
Ogg = Frederic A.Ogg: "National Progress, 1907-1917." American
Nation Series. Harper& Bros.; New York, 1918.
Riis = Jacob A. Riis: "Theodore Roosevelt; the Citizen." Outlook
Co.; New York, 1904.
Washburn = Charles G. Washburn: "Theodore Roosevelt; The Logic of
His Career." Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
CHAPTER I. ORIGINS AND YOUTH
Nothing better illustrates the elasticity of American democratic
life than the fact that within a span of forty years Abraham
Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were Presidents of the United
States. Two men more unlike in origin, in training, and in
opportunity, could hardly be found.
Lincoln came from an incompetent Kentuckian father, a pioneer
without the pioneer's spirit of enterprise and push; he lacked
schooling; he had barely the necessaries of life measured even by
the standards of the Border; his companions were rough frontier
wastrels, many of whom had either been, or might easily become,
ruffians. The books on which he fed his young mind were very few,
not more than five or six, but they were the best. And yet in
spite of these handicaps, Abraham Lincoln rose to be the leader
and example of the American Nation during its most perilous
crisis, and the ideal Democrat of the nineteenth century.
Theodore Roosevelt, on the contrary, was born in New York City,
enjoyed every advantage in education and training; his family had
been for many generations respected in the city; his father was
cultivated and had distinction as a citizen, who devoted his
wealth and his energies to serving his fellow men. But, just as
incredible adversity could not crush Abraham Lincoln, so lavish
prosperity could not keep down or spoil Theodore Roosevelt.
In his "Autobiography" he tells us that "about 1644 his ancestor,
Claes Martensen van Roosevelt, came to New Amsterdam as a
'settler'--the euphemistic name for an immigrant who came over in
the steerage of a sailing ship in the seventeenth century. From
that time for the next seven generations from father to son every
one of us was born on Manhattan Island." * For over a hundred
years the Roosevelts continued to be typical Dutch burghers in a
hard-working, God-fearing, stolid Dutch way, each leaving to his
son a little more than he had inherited. During the Revolution,
some of the family were in the Continental Army, but they won no
high honors, and some of them sat in the Congresses of that
generation--sat, and were honest, but did not shine. Theodore's
great-grandfather seems to have amassed what was regarded in
those days as a large fortune.
* Autobiography, 1.
His grandfather, Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, a glass
importer and banker, added to his inheritance, but was more than
a mere money-maker.
His son Theodore, born in 1831, was the father of the President.
Inheriting sufficient means to live in great comfort, not to say
in luxury, he nevertheless engaged in business; but he had a high
sense of the obligation which wealth lays on its possessors. And
so, instead of wasting his life in merely heaping up dollars, he
dedicated it to spending wisely and generously those which he
had. There was nothing puritanical, however, in his way of
living. He enjoyed the normal, healthy pleasures of his station.
He drove his coach and four and was counted one of the best whips
in New York. Taking his paternal responsibilities seriously, he
implanted in his children lively respect for discipline and duty;
but he kept very near to their affection, so that he remained
throughout their childhood, and after they grew up, their most
intimate friend.
What finer tribute could a son pay than this which follows?
'My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He
combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and
great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children
selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness.
As we grew older he made us understand that the same standard of
clean living was demanded for the boys as for the girls; that
what was wrong in a woman could not be right in a man. With great
love and patience and the most understanding sympathy and
consideration he combined insistence on discipline. He never
physically punished me but once, but he was the only man of whom
I was ever really afraid.' *
*Autobiography, 16.
Thus the President, writing nearly forty years after his father's
death. His mother was Martha Bulloch, a member of an old Southern
family, one of her ancestors having been the first Governor of
Georgia. During the Civil War, while Mr. Roosevelt was busy
raising regiments, supporting the Sanitary Commission, and doing
whatever a non-combatant patriot could do to uphold the Union,
Mrs. Roosevelt's heart allegiance went with the South, and to the
end of her life she was never "reconstructed." But this conflict
of loyalties caused no discord in the Roosevelt family circle.
Her two brothers served in the Confederate Navy. One of them,
James Bulloch, "a veritable Colonel Newcome," was an admiral and
directed the construction of the privateer Alabama. The other,
Irvine, a midshipman on that vessel, fired the last gun in its
fight with the Kearsarge before the Alabama sank. After the war
both of them lived in Liverpool and "Uncle Jimmy" became a rabid
Tory. He "was one of the best men I have ever known," writes his
nephew Theodore; "and when I have sometimes been tempted to
wonder how good people can believe of me the unjust and
impossible things they do believe, I have consoled myself by
thinking of Uncle Jimmy Bulloch's perfectly sincere conviction
that Gladstone was a man of quite exceptional and nameless infamy
in both public and private life."
Theodore Roosevelt grew up to be not only a stanch but an
uncompromising believer in the Union Cause; but the fact that his
parents came from the North and from the South, and that, from
his earliest memory, the Southern kindred were held in affection
in his home, must have helped him towards that non-sectional,
all-American point of view which was the cornerstone of his
patriotic creed.
The Roosevelt house was situated at No. 28 East Twentieth Street,
New York City, and there Theodore was born on October 27, 1858.
He passed his boyhood amid the most wholesome family life.
Besides his brother Elliott and two sisters, as his Uncle Robert
lived next door, there were cousins to play with and a numerous
kindred to form the background of his young life. He was,
fortunately, not precocious, for the infant prodigies of seven,
who become the amazing omniscients of twenty-three, are seldom
heard of at thirty. He learned very early to read, and his
sisters remember that when he was still in starched white
petticoats, with a curl carefully poised on top of his head, he
went about the house lugging a thick, heavy volume of
Livingstone's "Travels" and asking some one to tell him about the
"foraging ants" described by the explorer. At last his older
sister found the passage in which the little boy had mistaken
"foregoing" for "foraging." No wonder that in his mature years he
became an advocate of reformed spelling. His sense of humor,
which flashed like a mountain brook through all his later
intercourse and made it delightful, seems to have begun with his
infancy. He used to say his prayers at his mother's knee, and one
evening when he was out of sorts with her, he prayed the Lord to
bless the Union Cause; knowing her Southern preferences he took
this humorous sort of vengeance on her. She, too, had humor and
was much amused, but she warned him that if he repeated such
impropriety at that solemn moment, she should tell his father.
Theodore and the other children had a great fondness for pets,
and their aunt, Mrs. Robert, possessed several of unusual
kinds--pheasants and peacocks which strutted about the back yard
and a monkey which lived on the back piazza. They were afraid of
him, although they doubtless watched his antics with a fearful
joy. From the accounts which survive, life in the nursery of the
young Roosevelts must have been a perpetual play-time, but
through it all ran the invisible formative influence of their
parents, who had the art of shaping the minds and characters of
the little people without seeming to teach.
Almost from infancy Theodore suffered from asthma, which made him
physically puny, and often prevented him from lying down when he
went to bed. But his spirit did not droop. His mental activity
never wearied and he poured out endless stories to the delight of
his brother and sisters. "My earliest impressions of my brother
Theodore," writes his sister, Mrs. Robinson, "are of a rather
small, patient, suffering little child, who, in spite of his
suffering, was the acknowledged head of the nursery .... These
stories," she adds, "almost always related to strange and
marvelous animal adventures, in which the animals were
personalities quite as vivid as Kipling gave to the world a
generation later in his 'Jungle Books.'"
Owing to his delicate health Theodore did not attend school,
except for a little while, when he went to Professor MacMullen's
Academy on Twentieth Street. He was taught at home and he
probably got more from his reading than from his teachers. By the
time he was ten, the passion for omnivorous reading which
frequently distinguishes boys who are physically handicapped,
began in him. He devoured Our Young Folks, that excellent
periodical on which many of the boys and girls who were his
contemporaries fed. He loved tales of travel and adventure; he
loved Cooper's stories, and especially books on natural history.
In summer the children spent the long days out of doors at some
country place, and there, in addition to the pleasure of being
continuously with nature, they had the sports and games adapted
to their age. Theodore was already making collections of stones
and other specimens after the haphazard fashion of boys. The
young naturalist sometimes met with unexpected difficulties.
Once, for instance, he found a litter of young white mice, which
he put in the ice-chest for safety. His mother came upon them,
and, in the interest Of good housekeeping, she threw them away.
When Theodore discovered it he flew into a tantrum and protested
that what hurt him most was "the loss to Science! the loss to
Science!" On another occasion Science suffered a loss of unknown
extent owing to his obligation to manners. He and his cousin had
filled their pockets and whatever bags they had with specimens.
Then they came upon two toads, of a strange and new variety.
Having no more room left, each boy put one of them on top of his
head and clapped down his hat. All went well till they met Mrs.
Hamilton Fish, a great lady to whom they had to take off their
hats. Down jumped the toads and hopped away, and Science was
never able to add the Bufo Rooseveltianus to its list of Hudson
Valley reptiles.
In 1869 Mr. Roosevelt took his family to Europe for a year. The
children did not care to go, and from the start Theodore was
homesick and little interested. Of course, picture galleries
meant nothing to a boy of ten, with a naturalist's appetite, and
he could not know enough about history to be impressed by
historic places and monuments. He kept a diary from which Mr.
Hagedorn* prints many amusing entries, some of which I quote:
* H. Hagedorn: The Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt. Harper &
Bros. 1918.
Munich, October. "In the night I had a nightmare dreaming that
the devil was carrying me away and had collorer morbos (a
sickness that is not very dangerous) but Mama patted me with her
delicate fingers."
Little Conie also kept a diary: the next entry is from it:
Paris. "I am so glad Mama has let me stay in the butiful hotel
parlor while the poor boys have been dragged off to the orful
picture galary."
Now Theodore again:
Paris, November 26. "I stayed in the house all day, varying the
day with brushing my hair, washing my hands and thinking in fact
haveing a verry dull time."
"Nov. 27. I Did the same thing as yesterday."
Chamounix. "I found several specimens to keep and we went on the
great glacier called 'Mother of ice!'"
"We went to our cousins school at Waterloo. We had a nice time
but met Jeff Davises son and some sharp words ensued."
Venice. "We saw a palace of the doges. It looks like a palace you
could be comfortable and snug in (which is not usual)--We went to
another church in which Conie jumped over tombstones spanked me
banged Ellies head &c."
"Conie" was his nickname for his younger sister Corinne.*
* She subsequently married Mr. Douglas Robinson.
November 22. "In the evening Mama showed me the portrait of
Eidieth Carow and her face stirred up in me homesickness and
longings for the past which will come again never aback never."
The little girl, the sight of whose portrait stirred such
longings for the past in the heart of the young Theodore, was
Edith Carow, the special playmate of his sister Conie and one of
the intimate group whom he had always known. Years later she
became his wife.
The Roosevelt family returned to New York in May, 1870, and
resumed its ordinary life. Theodore, whom one of his fellow
travelers on the steamer remembers as "a tall thin lad with
bright eyes and legs like pipestems," developed rapidly in mind,
but the asthma still tormented him and threatened to make a
permanent invalid of him. His father fitted up in the house in
Twentieth Street a small gymnasium and said to the boy in
substance, "You have brains, but you have a sickly body. In order
to make your brains bring you what they ought, you must build up
your body; it depends upon you." The boy felt both the obligation
and the desire; he willed to be strong, and he went through his
gymnastic exercises with religious precision. What he read in his
books about knights and paladins and heroes had always greatly
moved his imagination. He wanted to be like them. He understood
that the one indispensable attribute common to all of them was
bodily strength. Therefore he would be strong. Through all his
suffering he was patient and determined. But I recall no other
boy, enfeebled by a chronic and often distressing disease, who
resolved as he did to conquer his enemy by a wisely planned and
unceasing course of exercises.
Improvement came slowly. Many were the nights in which he spent
hours gasping for breath. Sometimes on summer nights his father
would wrap him up and take him on a long drive through the
darkness in search of fresh air. But no matter how hard the
pinch, the boy never complained, and when ever there was a
respite his vivacity burst forth as fresh as ever. He could not
attend school with other boys and, indeed, his realization that
he could not meet them on equal physical terms made him timid
when he was thrown with them. So he pursued his own tastes with
all the more zeal. He read many books, some of which seemed
beyond a boy's ken, but he got something from each of them. His
power of concentration already surprised his family. If he was
absorbed in a chapter, nothing which went on outside of him,
either noise or interruption, could distract his attention. His
passion for natural his tory increased. At the age of ten, he
opened in one of the rooms of his home "The Roosevelt Museum of
Natural History." Later, he devoted himself more particularly to
birds, and learned from a taxidermist how to skin and stuff his
specimens.
In 1873, President Grant appointed Mr. Roosevelt a Commissioner
to the Vienna Exposition and the Roosevelt family made another
foreign tour. Hoping to benefit Theodore's asthma they went to
Algiers, and up the Nile, where he was much more interested in
the flocks of aquatic fowl than in the half-buried temples of
Dendera or the obelisks and pylons of Karnak. He even makes no
mention of the Pyramids, but records with enthusiasm that he
found at Cairo a book by an English clergyman, whose name he
forgot, on the ornithology of the Nile, which greatly helped him.
Incidentally, he says that from the Latin names of the birds he
made his first acquaintance with that language. While Mr.
Roosevelt attended to his duties in Vienna the younger children
were placed in the family of Herr Minckwitz, a Government
official at Dresden. There, Theodore, "in spite of himself,"
learned a good deal of German, and he never forgot his pleasant
life among the Saxons in the days be fore the virus of Prussian
barbarism had poisoned all the non-Prussian Germans. Minckwitz
had been a Liberal in the Revolution of 1848, a fact which added
to Theodore's interest in him.
On getting home, Theodore, who was fifteen years old, set to work
seriously to fit himself to enter Harvard College. Up to this
time his education had been unmethodical, leaving him behind his
fellows in some subjects and far ahead of them in others. He had
the good fortune now to secure as a tutor Mr. Arthur H. Cutler,
for many years head of the Cutler Preparatory School in New York
City, thanks to whose excellent training he was able to enter
college in 1876. During these years of preparation Theodore's
health steadily improved. He had a gun and was an ardent
sportsman, the incentive of adding specimens to his collection of
birds and animals outweighing the mere sport of slaughter. At
Oyster Bay, where his father first leased a house in 1874, he
spent much of his time on the water, but he deemed sailing rather
lazy and unexciting, compared with rowing. He enjoyed taking his
row-boat out into the Sound, and, if a high headwind was blowing,
or the sea ran in whitecaps, so much the better. He was now able
to share in all of the athletic pastimes of his companions,
although, so far as I know, he never indulged in baseball, the
commonest game of all.
When he entered Harvard as a Freshman in 1876, that institution
was passing through its transition from college to university,
which had begun when Charles W. Eliot became its President seven
years before. In spite of vehement assaults, the Great Educator
pushed on his reform slowly but resistlessly. He needed to train
not only the public but many members, perhaps a majority, of his
faculty. Young Roosevelt found a body of eight hundred
undergraduates, the largest number up to that time. While the
Elective System had been introduced in the upper classes,
Freshmen and Sophomores were still required to take the courses
prescribed for them.
To one who looks back, after forty years, on the Harvard of that
time there was much about it, the loss of which must be
regretted. Limited in many directions it was, no doubt, but its
very limitations made for friendship and for that sense of
intimate mutual, relationship, out of which springs mutual
affection. You belonged to Harvard, and she to you. That she was
small, compared with her later magnitude, no more lessened your
love for her, than your love for your own mother could be
increased were she suddenly to become a giantess. The
undergraduate community was not exactly a large family, but it
was, nevertheless, restricted enough not only for a fellow to
know at least by sight all of his classmates, but also to have
some knowledge of what was going on in other classes as well as
in the College as a whole. Academic fame, too, had a better
chance then than it has now. There were eight or ten professors,
whom most of the fellows knew by sight, and all by reputation;
now, however, I meet intelligent students who have never heard
even the name of the head of some department who is famous
throughout the world among his colleagues, but whose courses that
student has never taken.
In spite of the simplicity and the homelikeness of the Harvard
with eight hundred undergraduates, however, it was large enough
to afford the opportunity of meeting men of many different tastes
and men from all parts of the country. So it gave free play to
the development of individual talents, and its standard of
scholarship was already sufficiently high to ensure the
excellence of the best scholars it trained. One quality which we
probably took little note of, although it must have affected us
all, sprang from the fact that Harvard was still a crescent
institution; she was in the full vigor of growth, of expansion,
of increase, and we shared insensibly from being connected with
that growth. In retrospect now, and giving due recognition to
this crescent spirit, I recall that, in spite of it, Omar Khayyam
was the favorite poet of many of us, that introspection, which
sometimes deepened into pessimism, was in vogue, and that a
spiritual or philosophic languorous disenchantment sicklied o'er
the somewhat mottled cast of our thought.
Roosevelt took rooms at No. 16 Winthrop Street, a quiet little
lane midway between the College Yard and Charles River, where he
could pursue his hobbies without incessant interruption from
casual droppers-in. Here he kept the specimens which he went on
collecting, some live--a large turtle and two or three harmless
snakes, for instance--and some dead and stuffed. He was no
"grind"; the gods take care not to mix even a drop of pedantry in
the make-up of the rare men whom they destine for great deeds or
fine works. Theodore was already so much stronger in his health
that he went on to get still more strength. He had regular
lessons in boxing. He took long walks and studied the flora and
fauna of the country round Cambridge in his amateurish but
intense way. During his first Christmas vacation, he went down to
the Maine Woods and camped out, and there he met Bill Sewall, a
famous guide, who remained Theodore's friend through life, and
Wilmot Dow, Sewall's nephew, another woodsman; and this trip,
subsequently followed by others, did much good to his physique.
He still had occasional attacks of asthma--he "guffled" as Bill
Sewall called it--and they were sometimes acute, but his tendency
to them slowly wore away.
All his days Roosevelt was proud of being a Harvard man. Even in
the period when academic Harvard was most critical of his public
acts, he never wavered in his devotion to Alma Mater herself,
that dear and lovely Being, who, like the ideal of our country,
lives on to inspire us in spite of unsympathetic administrations
and unloved leaders.
"The One remains, the many change and pass."
Nevertheless, in his "Autobiography," Theodore makes very scant
record of his college life. "I thoroughly enjoyed Harvard," he
says, "and I am sure it did me good, but only in the general
effect, for there was very little in my actual studies which
helped me in after life." * Like nine out of ten men who look
back on college he could make no definite estimate of the actual
gains from those four years; but it is precisely the
indefiniteness, the elusiveness of the college experience which
marks its worth. This is not to be reckoned financially by an
increase in dollars and cents, or intellectually, by so many
added foot-pounds of knowledge. Harvard College was of
inestimable benefit to Roosevelt, because it enabled him to find
himself--to be a man with his fellow men.
*Autobiography, 27.
During his youth his physical handicap had rather cut him off
from companionship on equal terms with his fellows. Now, however,
he could enter with zest in their sports and societies. At the
very beginning of his Freshman year he showed his classmates his
mettle. During the presidential torchlight parade when the
jubilant Freshmen were marching for Hayes, some Tilden man
shouted derisively at them from a second-story window and pelted
them with potatoes. It was impossible for them to get at him, but
Theodore, who was always stung at any display of meanness-- and
it was certainly mean to attack the paraders when they could not
retaliate--stood out from the line and shook his fist at the
assailant. His fellow marchers asked who their champion was, and
so the name of Roosevelt and his pugnacious little figure became
generally known to them. He was little then, not above five feet
six in height, and under one hundred and thirty pounds in weight.
By degrees they all knew him. His unusual ways, his loyalty to
his hobbies, which he treated not as mere whims but as being
worthy of serious application, his versatility, his
outspokenness, his almost unbroken good-nature, attracted most of
the persons with whom he came in contact. He rose to be President
of the Natural History Society, a distinction which implied some
real merit in its possessor. His family antecedents, but still
more his personal qualities, made easy for him the ascent of the
social terraces at Harvard--the Dicky, the Hasty Pudding Club,
and the Porcellian. He was editor of the Harvard Advocate, which
opened the door of the O.K. Society, where he found congenial
intellectual companionship with the editors from the classes
above and below him; and when Dr. Edward Everett Hale wished to
revive and perpetuate the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, Roosevelt
was one of the half-dozen men from the Class of 1880 whom he
selected.
My first definite recollection of him is at the annual dinner of
the Harvard Crimson in January or February, 1879. He was invited
as a guest to represent the Advocate. Since entering college I
had met him casually many times and had heard of his oddities and
exuberance; but throughout this dinner I came to feel that I knew
him. On being called on to speak he seemed very shy and made,
what I think he said, was his maiden speech. He still had
difficulty in enunciating clearly or even in running off his
words smoothly. At times he could hardly get them out at all, and
then he would rush on for a few sentences, as skaters redouble
their pace over thin ice. He told the story of two old gentlemen
who stammered, the point of which was, that one of them,--after
distressing contortions and stoppages, recommended the other to
go to Dr. X, adding, "He cured me."
A trifling bit of thistledown for memory to have preserved after
all these years; but still it is interesting to me to recall that
this was the beginning of the public speaking of the man who
later addressed more audiences than any other orator of his time
and made a deeper impression by his spoken word.
One other reminiscence of Roosevelt at Harvard, almost as
unsubstantial as this. Late in his Senior year we had a committee
meeting of the Alpha Delta Phi in Charles Washburn's room at 15
Holworthy. Roosevelt and I sat in the window-seat overlooking the
College Yard and chatted together in the intervals when business
was slack. We discussed what we intended to do after graduation.
"I am going to try to help the cause of better government in New
York City; I don't know exactly how," said Theodore.
I recall, still, looking hard at him with an eager, inquisitive
look and saying to myself, "I wonder whether he is the real
thing, or only the bundle of eccentricities which he appears."
There was in me then, as there has always been, a mingling of
skepticism and of deep reverence for those who dealt with
reality, and I had not had sufficient opportunity to determine
whether Roosevelt was real or not. One at least of his
classmates, however, saw portents of greatness in Theodore, from
their Freshman year, and most of us, even when we were amused and
puzzled by his " queerness," were very sure that the man from
whom they sprang was not commonplace.
So far as I remember, Roosevelt was the first undergraduate to
own and drive a dog-cart. This excited various comments; so did
the reddish, powder-puff side whiskers which no chaffing could
make him cut. There was never the slightest suggestion of the
gilded youth about him; though dog-carts, especially when owned
by young men, implied the habits and standards of the gilded
rich. How explain the paradox? On the other hand, Theodore taught
Sunday School at Christ Church, but he was so muscular a
Christian that the decorous vestrymen thought him an unwise guide
in piety. For one day a boy came to class with a black eye which
he had got in fighting a larger boy for pinching his sister.
Theodore told him that he did perfectly right--that every boy
ought to defend any girl from insult--and he gave him a dollar as
a reward. The vestrymen decided that this was too flagrant
approval of fisticuffs; so the young teacher soon found a welcome
in the Sunday School of a different denomination.
Of all the stories of Roosevelt's college career, that of his
boxing match is most vividly remembered. He enrolled in the
light-weight sparring at the meeting in the Harvard Gymnasium on
March 22 1879, and defeated his first competitor. When the
referee called "time," Roosevelt immediately dropped his hands,
but the other man dealt him a savage blow on the face, at which
we all shouted, "Foul, foul!" and hissed; but Roosevelt turned
towards us and cried out "Hush! He didn't hear," a chivalrous act
which made him immediately popular. In his second match he met
Hanks. They both weighed about one hundred and thirty-five
pounds, but Hanks was two or three inches taller and he had a
much longer reach, so that Theodore could not get in his blows,
and although he fought with unabated pluck, he lost the contest.
More serious than his short reach, however, was his
near-sightedness, which made it impossible for him to see and
parry Hanks's lunges. When time was called after the last round,
his face was dashed with blood and he was much winded; but his
spirit did not flag, and if there had been another round, he
would have gone into it with undiminished determination. From
this contest there sprang up the legend that Roosevelt boxed with
his eyeglasses lashed to his head, and the legend floated hither
and thither for nearly thirty years. Not long ago I asked him the
truth. "Persons who believe that," he said, "must think me
utterly crazy; for one of Charlie Hanks's blows would have
smashed my eyeglasses and probably blinded me for life."
In a class of one hundred and seventy he graduated twenty second,
which entitled him to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa, the
society of high scholars. To one who examines his academic record
wisely, the best symptom is that he did fairly well in several
unrelated subjects, and achieved preeminence in one, natural
history. He had the all-round quality which shows more promise
than does a propensity to light on a particular topic and suck it
dry; but he had also power of concentration and thoroughness. As
I have just said, he was a happy combination of the amateurish
and intense. His habit of absorption became a by-word; for if he
visited a, classmate's room and saw a book which interested him,
instead of joining in the talk, he would devour the book,
oblivious of, everything else, until the college bell rang for
the next lecture, when he would jump up with a start, and dash
off. The quiet but firm teaching of his parents bore fruit in
him: he came to college with a body of rational moral principles
which he made no parade of, but obeyed instinctively. And so,
where many young fellows are thrown off their balance on first
acquiring the freedom which college life gives, or are dazed and
distracted on first hearing the babel of strange philosophies or
novel doctrines, he walked straight, held himself erect, and was
not fooled into mistaking novelty for truth, or libertinism for
manliness.
Two outside events which deeply influenced him must be noted.
During his Sophomore year his father died; and during his Senior
year, Theodore became engaged to Miss Alice Hathaway Lee,
daughter of George C. Lee, of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
CHAPTER II. BREAKING INTO POLITICS
Roosevelt was a few months less than twenty-two years old when he
graduated from Harvard. His career in college had wrought several
important changes in him. First of all, his strength was
confirmed. Although he still suffered occasionally from asthma,
he was no longer handicapped. In business, or in pleasure, he did
not need to consider his health. Next, he had come to some
definite decision as to what he would do. His earlier dream of
becoming a professor of natural history had faded away. With the
inpouring of vigor into his constitution the ideal of an academic
life, often sedentary in mind as well as in body, ceased to lure
him. He craved activity, and this craving was bound to grow more
urgent as he acquired more strength. Next, and this consideration
must not be neglected, he was free to choose. His father's death
left him the possessor of a sufficient fortune to live on
comfortably without need of working to earn his bread and
butter--the motive which determines most young men when they
start in life. Finally, his father's example, reinforced by
wholesome advice, quickened in Theodore his sense of obligation
to the community. Having money, he must use it, not for mere
personal gratification, but in ways which would benefit those who
were deprived, or outcast, or bereft. But Theodore was too young
and too energetic to be contented with the life of a
philanthropist, no matter how noble and necessary its objects
might be. He had already accepted Emerson's dictum:
"He who feeds men, serves a few;
He serves all who dares be true."
Young as he was, he divined that much of the charitable work, to
which good people devote them selves in order to lighten or
relieve the ills which the sins and errors of mankind beget,
would be needless if the remedy were applied, as it ought to be,
to fundamental social conditions. These, he believed, could be
reached in many cases through political agency, and he resolved,
therefore, to make a trial of his talents in political life. The
point at which he decided to "break into politics, " as he
expressed it, was the Assembly, or Lower House of the New York
State Legislature. Most of his friends and classmates, on hearing
of his plan, regarded it as a proof of his eccentricity; a few of
them, the more discerning, would not prejudge him, but were
rather inclined to hope. By tradition and instinct, he was a
Republican, and in order to learn the political ropes he joined
the Twenty-first District Republican Association of New York
City. The district consisted chiefly of rich, respectable, and
socially conspicuous inhabitants of the vortex metropolis, with a
leaven of the "masses." The "classes" had no real zeal for
discharging their political duty. They subscribed to the campaign
fund, but had too delicate a sense of propriety to ask how their
money was spent. A few of them--and these seemed to be endowed
with a special modicum of patriotism--even attended the party
primaries in which candidates were named. The majority went to
the polls and cast their vote on election day, if it did not rain
or snow. For a young man of Roosevelt's position to desire to
take up politics seemed to his friends almost comic. Politics
were low and corrupt; politics were not for "gentlemen"; they
were the business and pastime of liquor-dealers, and of the
degenerates and loafers who frequented the saloons, of horse-car
conductors, and of many others whose ties with "respectability"
were slight.
To join the organization, Roosevelt had to be elected to the
Twenty-first District Republican Club, for the politicians of
those days kept their organization close, not to say exclusive,
and in this way they secured the docility of their members. The
Twenty first District Club met in Morton Hall, a dingy, barnlike
room situated over a saloon, and furnished severely with wooden
benches, many spittoons, and a speaker's table decorated with a
large pitcher for ice-water. The regular meetings came once a
month and Roosevelt attended them faithfully, because he never
did things by halves, and having made up his mind to learn the
mechanism of politics, he would not neglect any detail.
Despite the shyness which ill health caused him in his youth, he
was really a good "mixer," and, growing to feel more sure of
himself, he met men on equal terms. More than that, he had the
art of inspiring confidence in persons of divers sorts and, as he
was really interested in knowing their thoughts and desires, it
never took him long to strike up friendly relations with them.
Jake Hess, the Republican "Boss" of the Twenty-first District,
evidently eyed Roosevelt with some suspicion, for the newcomer
belonged to a class which Jake did not desire to see largely
represented in the business of "practical politics," and so he
treated Roosevelt with a "rather distant affability." The young
man, however, got on well enough with the heelers--the immediate
trusty followers of the Boss--and with the ordinary members. They
probably marveled to see him so unlike what they believed a youth
of the "kid-glove" and "silkstocking" set would be, and they
accepted him as a "good fellow."
Of all Roosevelt's comrades during this first year of initiation,
a young Irishman named Joe Murray was nearest to him, an honest
fellow, fearless and stanch, who remained his loyal friend for
forty years. Murray began as a Democrat of the Tammany Hall
tribe, but having been left in the lurch by his Boss at an
election, he determined to punish the Boss, and this he did at
the first opportunity by throwing his influence on the side of
the Republican candidate. The Republicans won, although the
district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and Murray joined the
Republican Party. He worked in the district where Jake Hess
ruled. Like other even greater men, Jake became arrogant and
treated the gang under him with condescension. Murray resented
this and resolved that he would humble the Boss by supporting
Roosevelt as a candidate for the Assembly. Hess protested, but
could not prevent the nomination and during the campaign he seems
to have supported the candidate whom he had not chosen.
Roosevelt sent the following laconic appeal to some of the voters
of his district:
New York, November 1, 1881.
DEAR SIR:
Having been nominated as a candidate for member of Assembly for
this District, I would esteem it a compliment if you honor me
with your vote and personal influence on Election day.
Very respectfully
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Certainly, nothing could be simpler than this card, which
contains no puff of either the party or the candidate, or no
promise. It drew a cordial response.
Twenty-first Assembly District.
40th to 86th Sts., Lexington to 7th Aves.
We cordially recommend the voters of the Twenty-first Assembly
District to cast their ballots for
Theodore Roosevelt
for member of Assembly
and take much pleasure in testifying to our appreciation of his
high character and standing in the community. He is conspicuous
for his honesty and integrity, and eminently qualified to
represent the District in the Assembly.
New York November 1, 1881
F. A. P. Barnard, William T. Black, Willard Bullard, Joseph H.
Choate, William A. Darling, Henry E. Davies, Theodore W. Dwight,
Jacob Hess, Morris K. Jesup, Edward Mitchell, William F. Morgan,
Chas. S. Robinson, Elihu Root, Jackson S. Shultz, Elliott F.
Shepard, Gustavus Tuckerman, S. H. Wales, W. H. Webb.
This list bears the names of at least two men who will be long
remembered. There are also several others which were doubtless of
more political value to the aspirant to office in 1881.
Just after the election Roosevelt wrote to his classmate, Charles
G. Washburn:
'Too true, too true; I have become a "political hack." Finding it
would not interfere much with my law, I accepted the nomination
to the Assembly and was elected by 1500 majority, leading the
ticket by 600 votes. But don't think I am going to go into
politics after this year, for I am not.'
Roosevelt's allusion to the law requires the statement that in
the autumn of 1880 he had begun to read law in the office of his
uncle, Robert Roosevelt; not that he had a strong leaning to the
legal profession, but that he believed that every one, no matter
how well off he might be, ought to be able to support himself by
some occupation or profession. Also, he could not endure being
idle, and he knew that the slight political work on which he
embarked when he joined the Twenty-first District Republican Club
would take but little of his time. During that first year out of
college he established himself as a citizen, not merely
politically, but socially. On his birthday in 1880 he married
Miss Lee and they set up their home at 6 West Fifty-seventh
Street; he joined social and literary clubs and extended his
athletic interests beyond wrestling and boxing to hunting, rifle
practice, and polo.
His law studies seem to have absorbed him less than anything else
that he undertook during all his life. He could not fail to be
interested in them, but he never plunged into them with all his
might and main as if he intended to make them his chief concern.
For a while he had a desk in the office of the publishers, G. P.
Putnam's Sons: but Major George Putnam recalls that he did little
except suggest wonderful projects, which "had to be sat down
upon." Already a love of writing infected him. Even before he
left Harvard he had begun "A History of the Naval War of 1812,"
and this he worked on eagerly. The Putnams published it in 1882.
One incident of Roosevelt's canvass must not be overlooked. The
Red Indians of old used to make their captives run the gauntlet
between two lines of warriors: political bosses in New York in
1880 made their nominee run the gauntlet of all the saloonkeepers
in their district. Accordingly, Jake Hess and Joe Murray
proceeded to introduce Roosevelt to the rum-sellers of Sixth
Avenue. The first they visited received Theodore with injudicious
condescension almost as if he were a suppliant. He said he hoped
that the young candidate, if elected, would treat the liquor men
fairly, to which the "suppliant" replied that he intended to
treat all interests fairly. The suggestion that liquor licenses
were too high brought the retort that they were not high enough.
Thereupon, the wary Hess and the discreet Joe Murray found an
excuse for hurrying Roosevelt out of the saloon, and they told
him that he had better look after his friends on Fifth Avenue and
that they would look after the saloon-keepers on Sixth Avenue.
That any decent candidate should have to pass in review before
the saloon-keepers and receive their approval, is so monstrous as
to be grotesque. That a possible President of the United States
should be the victim needs no comment. It was thoroughly
characteristic of Roosevelt that he balked at the first trial.
He says in his "Autobiography" that he was not conscious of going
into politics to benefit other people, but to secure for himself
a privilege to which every one was entitled. That privilege was
self-government. When his "kid-glove" friends laughed at him for
deliberately choosing to leap into the political mire, he told
them that the governing class ought to govern, and that not they
themselves but the bosses and "heelers" were the real governors
of New York City. Not the altruistic desire to reform, but the
perfectly practical resolve to enjoy the political rights to
which he had a claim was his leading motive. It is important to
understand this because it will explain much of his action as a
statesman. Roosevelt is the greatest idealist in American public
life since Lincoln; but his idealism, like Lincoln's, always had
a firm, intelligent, practical footing. Roosevelt himself thus
describes his work during his first year in the New York
Assembly:
I paid attention chiefly while in the Legislature to laws for the
reformation of Primaries and of the Civil Service and endeavored
to have a certain Judge Westbrook impeached, on the ground of
corrupt collusion with Jay Gould and the prostitution of his high
judicial office to serve the purpose of wealthy and unscrupulous
stock gamblers, but was voted down.
This brief statement gives no idea of either the magnitude or
quality of his work in which, like young David, he went forth to
smite Goliath, the Giant Corruption,, entrenched for years in the
Albany State House. I do not believe that in at tacking the
monster, Roosevelt thought that he was displaying unusual
courage, much less that he was winning the crown of a moral hero.
He simply saw a mass of abuse and wickedness which every decent
person ought to repudiate. Most decent persons saw it, too, but
convention, or self-interest, party affiliation, or unromantic,
every-day cowardice, made them hold their tongues. Being assigned
to committees which had some of the most important concerns of
New York City in charge, Roosevelt had the advantage given by his
initiation into political methods as practiced in the
Twenty-first District of knowing a little more than his
colleagues knew about the local issues. Three months of the
session elapsed before he stood up in the Chamber and attacked
point-blank,one formidable champion of corruption. Listen to an
anonymous writer in the Saturday Evening Post:
It was on April 6, 1882, that Roosevelt took the floor in the
Assembly and demanded that Judge Westbrook, of New bury, be
impeached. And for sheer moral courage that act is probably
supreme in Roosevelt's life thus far. He must have expected
failure. Even his youth and idealism and ignorance of public
affairs could not blind him to the apparently inevitable
consequences. Yet he drew his sword and rushed apparently to
destruction--alone, and at the very outset of his career, and in
disregard of the pleadings of his closest friends and the plain
dictates of political wisdom. That speech--the deciding act in
Roosevelt's career--is not remarkable for eloquence. But it is
remarkable for fear less candor. He called thieves thieves,
regardless of their millions; he slashed savagely at the judge
and the Attorney General; he told the plain unvarnished truth as
his indignant eyes saw it.*
* Riis, 54-55.
Astonishment verging on consternation filled the Assemblymen,
who, through long experience, were convinced that Truth was too
precious to be exhibited in public. Worldly wisdom came to the
aid of the veteran Republican leader who wished to treat the
assault as if it were the unripe explosion of youth. The
callowness of his young friend must excuse him. He doubtless
meant well, but his inexperience prevented him from realizing
that many a reputation in public life had been shattered by just
such loose charges. He felt sure that when the young man had time
to think it over, he would modify his language. It would be
fitting, therefore, for that body to show its kindliness by
giving the new member from New York City leisure to think it
over.
Little did this official defender of corruption understand Mr.
Roosevelt, whose business it was then to uphold Right. That was a
question in which expediency could have no voice. He regarded
neither the harm he might possibly do to his political future nor
to the standing of the Republican Party. I suspect that he
smarted under the leader's attempt to treat him as a young man
whose breaks instead of causing surprise must be condoned.
Although the magnates of the party pleaded with him and urged him
not to throw away his usefulness, he rose again in the Assembly
next day and renewed his demand for an investigation of Judge
Westbrook. Day after day he repeated his demand. The newspapers
throughout the State began to give more and more attention to
him. The public applauded, and the legislators, who had sat and
listened to him with contemptuous indifference, heard from their
constituents. At last, on the eighth day, by a vote of 104 to 6
the Assembly adopted Roosevelt's resolution and appointed an
investigating committee. The evidence taken amply justified
Roosevelt's charges, in spite of which the committee gave a
whitewashing verdict. Nevertheless the "young reformer" had not
only proved his case, but had suddenly made a name for himself in
the State and in the Country.
Before his first term ended he discovered that there were enemies
of honest government quite as dangerous as the open supporters of
corruption. These were the demagogues who, under the pretense of
attacking the wicked interests, introduced bills for the sole
purpose of being bought off. Sly fellows they were and sneaks.
Against their "strike" legislation Roosevelt had also to fight.
His chief friend at Albany was Billy O'Neil, who kept a little
crossroads grocery up in the Adirondacks; had thought for himself
on American politics; had secured his election to the Assembly
without the favor of the Machine; and now acted there with as
much independence as his young colleague of the Twenty first
District. Roosevelt remarks that the fact that two persons,
sprung from such totally different surroundings, should come
together in the Legislature was an example of the fine result
which American democracy could achieve.
The session came to a close, and although Roosevelt had protested
the year before that he was not going into politics as a career,
he allowed himself to be renominated. Naturally, his desire to
continue in and complete the task in which he had already
accomplished much was whetted. He would have been a fool if he
had not known, what every one else knew, that he had made a very
brilliant record during his first year. A false standard which
comes very near hypocrisy imposes a ridiculous mock modesty on
great men in modern times: as if Shakespeare alone should be
unaware that he was Shakespeare or that Napoleon or Darwin or
Lincoln or Cavour should each be ignorant of his worth. Better
vanity, if you will, than sham modesty. There was no harm done
that Roosevelt at twenty-three felt proud of being recognized as
a power in the Assembly. We must never forget also that he was a
fighter, and that his first contests in Albany had so roused his
blood that he longed to fight those battles to a finish, that is,
to victory. We must make a distinction also in his motives. He
did not strain every nerve to win a cause because it was his
cause; but having adopted a cause which his heart and mind told
him was good, he strove to make that cause triumph because he
believed it to be good.
So he allowed himself to be renominated and he was reelected by
2000 majority, although in that autumn of 1882 the Democratic
candidate for Governor, Grover Cleveland, swept New York State by
192,000 and carried into office by the momentum of his success
many of the minor candidates on the Democratic ticket.
The year 1883 opened with the cheer of dawn in New York politics.
Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself
fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt,
the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a
Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty
and righteousness above their party platforms.
Roosevelt pursued in this session the methods which had made him
famous and feared in the preceding. He admits that he may have
had for a while a "swelled head," for in the chaos of conflicting
principles and no-principles in which his life was thrown, he
decided to act independently and to let his conscience determine
his action on each question which arose. He flocked by himself on
a peak. He was too practical, however, to hold this course long.
Experience had already taught him that under a constitutional
government parties which advocate or oppose issues must rule, and
that in order to make your issues win you must secure a majority
of the votes. Not by playing solitaire, therefore, not by
standing aloof as one crying in the wilderness, but by honestly
persuading as many as you could to support you, could you promote
the causes which you had at heart. The professional politicians
and the Machine leaders still thought that he was stubborn and
too conceited to listen to reason, but in reality he had a few
intimates like Billy O'Neil and Mike Costello with whom he took
counsel, and a group of thirty or forty others, both Republican
and Democratic, with whom he acted harmoniously on many
questions.
They all united to fight the Black-Horse Cavalry, as the gang of
"strike" legislators was called. One of the most insidious bills
pushed by these rascals aimed at reducing the fares on the New
York Elevated Railway from ten cents to five cents. It seemed so
plausible! So entirely in the interest of the poor man! Indeed,
the affairs of the Elevated took up much of Roosevelt's attention
and enriched for years the Black-Horse Cavalrymen and the
lobbyists. He also forced the Assembly to appoint a commission to
investigate the New York City police officials, the police
department being at that time notoriously corrupt. They employed
as their counsel George Bliss, a lawyer of prominence, with a
sharp tongue and a contempt for self-constituted reformers. While
Roosevelt was cross-examining one of the officials, Bliss, who
little understood the man he was dealing with, interrupted with a
scornful and impertinent remark. "Of course you do not mean that,
Mr. Bliss," said the young reformer with impressive politeness,
"for if you did we should have to put you out in the street."
Even in those early days, when Roosevelt was in dead earnest, he
had a way of pointing his forefinger and of fixing his under jaw
which the person whom he addressed could not mistake. That
forefinger was as menacing as a seven shooter. Mr. Bliss, with
all the prestige of a successful career at the bar behind him,
quickly understood the meaning of the look, the gesture, and the
studied courtesy. He deemed it best to retract and apologize at
once; and it was.
Roosevelt consented to run for a third term and he was elected in
spite of the opposition of the various elements which united to
defeat him. Such a man was too. dangerous to be acceptable to Jay
Gould and the "interests," to Black-Horse Cavalry, and to gangs
of all kinds who made a living, directly or indirectly, by
office-holding. His friends urged him for the speakership; but
this was asking too much of the Democratic majority, and besides,
there were Republicans who had winced under his scourge the year
before and were glad enough to defeat him now. Occasionally, some
kind elderly friend would still attempt to show him the folly of
his ways, and we hear reports of one gentleman, a member of the
Assembly and an "old friend," who told him that the great concern
in life was Business, and that lawyers and judges, legislators
and Congressmen, existed to serve the ends of Business. "There is
no politics in politics," said this moral guide and sage. But he
could not budge the young man, who believed that there are many
considerations more important than the political.
During this third year, he made a straight and gallant fight to
improve the condition under which cigars were made in New York
City. By his own investigation, he found that the cigar makers
lived in tenements, in one room, perhaps two, with their families
and often a boarder; these made the cigars which the public
bought, in ignorance of the facts. Roosevelt proposed that, as a
health measure which would benefit alike the cigar-makers and the
public, this evil practice be prohibited and that the police put
a stop to it. His bill passed in 1884, but the next year the
Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional, because it
deprived the tenement-house people of their liberty and would
injure the owners of the tenements if they were not allowed to
rent their property to these tenants. In its decision, the court
indulged in nauseating sanctimony of this sort: " It cannot be
perceived how the cigar-maker is to be improved in his health, or
his morals, by forcing him from his home and its hallowed
associations and beneficent influences to ply his trade
elsewhere." This was probably not the first time when Roosevelt
was enraged to find the courts of justice sleekly upholding
hot-beds of disease and vice, on the pretense that they were
protecting liberty. Commenting on this episode, Mr. Washburn well
says: "As applied to the kind of tenement I have referred to,
this reference to the 'home and its hallowed associations' seems
grotesque or tragic depending upon the point of view."*
* Washburn, 11.
Amid work of this kind, fighting and fearless, constantly adding
to his reputation among the good as a high type of reformer, and
adding to the detestation in which the bad held him, he completed
his third term. He resolutely refused to serve again and declined
the offers which were pressed upon him to run for Congress; nor
did he accept a place on the Republican National Committee.
The death of his mother on February 12, 1884, followed in
twenty-four hours by that of his wife, who died after the birth
of a daughter, brought sorrow upon Roosevelt which made the
burden of his political work heavier and caused him to consider
how he should readjust his life, for he was first of all a man of
deep family affections and the loss of his wife left him adrift.
To S. N. D. North, editor of the Utica Herald and a well-wisher
of his, he wrote from Albany on April 30, 1884:
Dear Mr. North: I wish to write you a few words just to thank you
for your kindness towards me, and to assure you that my head will
not be turned by what I well know was a mainly accidental
success. Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great
deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too
keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more
than a very brief period over success or defeat.
I have very little expectation of being able to keep on in
politics; my success so far has only been won by absolute
indifference to my future career; for I doubt if any one can
realize the bitter and venomous hatred with which I am regarded
by the very politicians who at Utica supported me, under
dictation from masters who were influenced by political
considerations that were national and not local in their scope. I
realize very thoroughly the absolutely ephemeral nature of the
hold I have upon the people, and the very real and positive
hostility I have excited among the politicians. I will not stay
in public life unless I can do so on my own terms; and my ideal,
whether lived up to or not, is rather a high one. For very many
reasons I will not mind going back into private life for a few
years. My work this winter has been very harassing, and I feel
both tired and restless; for the next few months I shall probably
be in Dakota, and I think I shall spend the next two or three
years in making shooting trips, either in the Far West or in the
Northern woods--and there will be plenty of work to do writing.*
* Douglas, 41-42.
This letter is a striking revelation of the inmost intentions of
the man of twenty-five, who already stood on a pinnacle where
hard heads and mature might well have been dizzy. Evidently he
knew him self, and even in his brief experience with the world he
understood how uncertain and evanescent are the winds of Fame. If
he had ever suffered from a "swelled head," he was now cured. He
felt the emptiness of life's prizes when the dearest who should
have shared them with him were dead.
CHAPTER III. AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS
The year 1884 was a Presidential year, and Roosevelt was one of
the four delegates-at-large* of New York State to the Republican
National Convention at Chicago. The day seemed to have come for a
new birth in American politics. The Republican Party was grown
fat with four and twenty years of power, and the fat had overlain
and smothered its noble aims. The party was arrogant, it was
corrupt, it was unashamed. After the War, immense projects
involving huge sums of money had to be managed, and the
Republicans spent like spendthrifts when they did not spend like
embezzlers. I do not imply that the Democrats would not have done
the same if they had been in command, or that there were not
among them many who saw where their profit lay, and took it. The
quadrupeds which feed at the Treasury trough are all of one
species, no matter whether their skins be black or white.
* The other delegates-at-large were President Andrew D. White of
Cornell University, J. T. Gilbert, and Edwin Packard.
But now a new generation was springing up, with its leaven of
hope and idealism and its intuitive faith in honesty.
More completely than any one else, Roosevelt embodied to the
country the glorious promise of this new generation. But the old
always dies hard after it has long been the blood and mind of a
creed, a class, or a party. Terrible also is the blind,
remorseless sweep of a custom which may have sprung up from good
soil, not less than one spawned and nurtured in iniquity.
Frankenstein laboriously constructing his monster seems to
personify society at its immemorial task of creating
institutions; each institution as it becomes viable rends its
creator.
So the Republican Party lived on its traditions, its privileges,
its appetites, its arrogance, and it refused to be transmuted by
its youngest members. In 1876 it resorted to fraud to perpetuate
its hold on power. Unchastened in 1880, three hundred and six of
its delegates attempted through thick and thin to force the
nomination of General Grant for a third term. The chief opposing
candidate was James G. Blaine, whose unsavory reputation,
however, caused the majority of the convention which was not
pledged to Grant to repudiate Blaine and to choose Garfield as a
compromise. Then followed four years of factional bitterness in
the party, and when 1884 came round, Blaine's admirers pushed him
to the front.
Blaine himself was not a person of delicate instinct. The
repudiation which he had twice suffered by the better element of
the Republican Party, seemed only to redouble his determination
to be its candidate. He had much personal magnetism. Both in his
methods and ideals, he represented perfectly the politicians who
during the dozen years after Lincoln's death flourished at
Washington, and at every State capitol in the Union. By the luck
of a catching phrase applied to him by Robert G. Ingersoll, he
stood before the imagination of the country "as the plumed
knight," although on looking back we search in vain for any trait
of knightliness or chivalry in him. For a score of years he
filled the National Congress, House and Senate, with the bustle
of his egotism. His knightly valor consisted in shaking his fist
at the "Rebel Brigadiers " and in waving the "bloody shirt,"
feats which seemed to him heroic, no doubt, but which were safe
enough, the Brigadiers being few and Blaine's supporters many.
But where on the Nation's statute book do you find now a single
important law fathered by him? What book contains one of his
maxims for men to live by? Many persons still live who knew him,
and remember him, but can any of them repeat a saying of his
which passes current on the lips of Americans? So much sound and
fury, so much intrigue and sophistry, and self-seeking, and now
the silence of an empty sepulchre!
The better element of the Republican Party went to the Chicago
Convention sworn to save the party from the disgrace of
nominating Blaine. Roosevelt believed the charges against him,
and by all that he had written and spoken, and by his political
career, he was bound to oppose the politician, who, as Speaker of
the National House, had, by the showing of his own letters, taken
bribes from unscrupulous interests. In the convention, and in the
committee meetings, and in the incessant parleys which prepare
the work of a convention, Roosevelt fought unwaveringly against
Blaine. The better element made Senator George F. Edmunds their
candidate, and Roosevelt urged his nomination on all comers. When
the convention met, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, nominated J. R.
Lynch, a negro from Mississippi, to be temporary chairman,
thereby heading off Powell Clayton, a veteran Republican
"war-horse" and office-holder. Roosevelt had the honor--and it
was an honor for so young a man--to make a speech, which proved
to be effective, in Lynch's behalf; and when the vote was taken,
Lynch was chosen by 424 to 384. This first victory over the
Blaine Machine, the Edmunds men hailed as a good omen.
Roosevelt was chairman of the New York State delegation. The
whirling days and nights at Chicago confirmed his position as a
national figure, but he strove in vain in behalf of honesty. The
majority of the delegates would not be gainsaid. They had come to
Chicago resolved to elect James G. Blaine, and no other, and they
would not quit until they had accomplished this. Pleas for
morality and for party concord fell on deaf ears, as did warnings
of the comfort which Blaine's nomination would give to their
enemies. His supporters packed the great convention hall, and
when his name was put in nomination, there followed a riot of
cheers, which lasted the better part of an hour, and foreboded
his success.
As had been predicted, Blaine's nomination split the Republican
Party. Many of the better element came out for Grover Cleveland,
the Democratic candidate, who, as Governor of New York, had
displayed unfailing courage, integrity, and intelligence. Others
again, disgusted with many of the principles and leaders of both
parties, formed themselves into a special group or party of
Independents. They were hateful alike to the Bosses who
controlled the Republican or Democratic organization; and Charles
A. Dana, of the New York Sun, who took care never to be "on the
side of the angels," derisively dubbed them "mugwumps"--a title
which may carry an honorable meaning to posterity.
I was one of these Independents, and if I cite my own case, it is
not because it was of any importance to the public, but because
it was typical. During the days of suspense before the Chicago
Convention met, the proposed nomination of Blaine weighed upon me
like a nightmare. I would not admit to myself that so great a
crime against American ideals could be committed by delegates who
represented the standard of any political party, and were drawn
from all over the country. I cherished, what seems to me now the
sadly foolish dream, that with Roosevelt in the convention the
abomination could not be done. I thought of him as of a paladin
against whom the forces of evil would dash themselves to pieces.
I thought of him as the young and dauntless spokesman of
righteousness whose words would silence the special pleaders of
iniquity. I wrote him and besought him to stand firm.
There followed the days of suspense when the newspapers brought
news of the wild proceedings at the convention, and for me the
shadow deepened. Then the telegraph reported Blaine's triumphant
nomination. I waited, we all waited, to learn what the delegates
who opposed him intended to do. One morning a dispatch in the New
York Tribune announced that Roosevelt would not bolt. That very
day I had a little note from him saying that he had done his best
in Chicago, that the result sickened him, that he should,
however, support the Republican ticket; but he intended to spend
most of the summer and autumn hunting in the West.
I was dumfounded. I felt as Abolitionists felt after Webster's
Seventh of March speech. My old acquaintance, our trusted leader,
whose career in the New York Assembly we had watched with an
almost holy satisfaction, seemed to have strangely abandoned the
fundamental principles which we and he had believed in, and he
had so nobly upheld. Whittier's poem "Ichabod" seemed to have
been aimed at him, especially in its third stanza:
"Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night."
Amid the lurid gleams and heat of such a disappointment, men
cannot see clearly. They impute wrong motives, base motives, to
the backslider. In their wrath, they assume that only guilt can
account for his defection.
We see plainly enough now that we misjudged Roosevelt. We assumed
that because he was with us in the crusade for pure politics, he
agreed with us in the estimate we put on party loyalty.
Independents and mugwumps felt little reverence and set even less
value on political parties, which we regarded simply as
instruments to be used in carrying out policies. If a party
pursued a policy contrary to our own, we left it as we should
leave a train which we found going in the wrong direction. There
was nothing sacred in a political party.
In assuming that Roosevelt must have coincided with us in these
views, we did him wrong. For he held then, and had held since he
first entered politics, that party transcended persons, and that
only in the gravest case imaginable was one justified in bolting
his party because one disapproved of its candidate. He did not
respect Blaine; on the contrary, he regarded Blaine as a bad man:
but he believed that the future of the country would be much
safer under the control of the Republican Party than under the
Democratic. This doctrine exposes its adherents to obvious
criticism, if not to suspicion. It enables persons of callous
consciences to support bad platforms and bad candidates without
blushing; but after all, who shall say at what point you are
justified in bolting your party? The decision must rest with the
individual. And although it was hard for the bolting Independents
in 1884 to accept the tenet that party transcends persons, it was
Roosevelt's reason, and with him sincere. Some of his colleagues
in the better element who had struggled as he had to defeat
Blaine, and then, almost effusively, exalted Blaine as their
standard-bearer, were less fortunate than he in having their
sincerity doubted. George William Curtis, Carl Schurz, Charles
Francis Adams, and other Independents of their intransigent
temper formed a Mugwump Party and this turned the scale in
electing Grover Cleveland President.
There used to be much discussion as to who persuaded Roosevelt,
although he detested Blaine, to stand by the Republicans in 1884.
Those were the days when very few of his critics understood that,
in spite of his youth, he had already thought for himself on
politics and had reached certain conclusions as to fundamental
principles. These critics assumed that he must have been won over
by Henry Cabot Lodge, with whom he had been intimate since his
Harvard days, and who was supposed to be his political mentor.
The truth is, however, that Roosevelt had formed his own opinion
about bolting, and that he and Lodge, in discussing possibilities
before they went to the Chicago Convention, had independently
agreed that they must abide by the choice of the party there.
They held, and a majority of men in similar position still hold,
that delegates cannot in honor abandon the nominee chosen by the
majority in a convention which they attend as delegates. If the
rule, "My man, or nobody," were to prevail, there would be no use
in holding conventions at all. And after that of 1884, George
William Curtis, one of the chief leaders of the Independents,
admitted that Roosevelt, in staying with the Republican Party,
played the game fairly. While Curtis himself bolted and helped to
organize the Mugwumps, Roosevelt, after his trip to the West,
returned to New York and took a vigorous part in the campaign.
Nevertheless, Roosevelt's decision, in 1884, to cleave to the
Republican Party disappointed many of us. We thought of him as a
lost leader. Some critics in their ignorance were inclined to
impute false motives to him; but in time, the cloud of suspicion
rolled away and his action in that crisis was not laid up against
him. The election of Cleveland relieved him of seeming
perfunctorily to uphold Blaine.
CHAPTER IV. NATURE THE HEALER
A perfect biography would show definitely the interaction between
mind and body. At present we can only guess what this interaction
may be. In some cases the relations are evident, but in most they
are vague and often unsuspected. The psychologists, whose
pretensions are so great and whose actual results are still so
small, may perhaps lead, an age or two hence, to the desired
knowledge. But the biographer of today must beware of adopting
the unripe formulas of any immature science. Nevertheless, he
must watch, study, and record all the facts pertaining to his
subject, although he cannot explain them. Theodore Roosevelt was
a wonderful example of the partnership of mind and body, and any
one who writes his biography in detail will do well to pay great
heed to this intricate interlocking. I can do no more than allude
to it here. We have seen that Roosevelt from his earliest days
had a quick mind, happily not precocious, and a weak body which
prevented him from taking part in normal physical activity and
the play and sport of boyhood. So his intellectual life grew out
of scale to his physical. Then he set to work by the deliberate
application of will-power to develop his body, and when he
entered Harvard he was above the average youth in strength.
Before he graduated, those who saw him box or wrestle beheld a
fellow somewhat slim and light, but unusually well set up. During
the succeeding four years he never allowed his duties as
Assemblyman to encroach upon his exercise; on the contrary, he
played regularly and he played hard, adding new kinds of sport to
develop new faculties and to give the spice of variety. He rode
to hounds with the Meadowbrook Hunt; he took up polo; and he
boxed and wrestled as in his college days.
In a few years Roosevelt became physically a very powerful man. I
recall my astonishment the first time I saw him, after the lapse
of several years, to find him with the neck of a Titan and with
broad shoulders and stalwart chest, instead of the city-bred,
slight young friend I had known earlier. His body was now equal
to any burden or strain which his mind might have to endure; and
hence forth it is no idle fancy that suggests a perpetual
competition between the two. Thanks to his extraordinary will,
however, he never allowed his body to get control; but, as
appetite comes with eating, so his strong and healthy muscles
craved more and more exercise as he used them. And now he took a
novel way to gratify them.
Ever since his first taste of camp life, when he went into the
Maine Woods under the guidance of Bill Sewall and Will Dow,
Roosevelt felt the lure of wild nature, and on many successive
seasons he repeated these trips. Gradually, fishing and hunting
in the wilderness of Maine or the Adirondacks did not afford him
enough scope for his brimming vigor. He decided to go West, to
the real West, where great game and Indians still survived, and
the conditions of the few white men were almost as primitive as
in the days of the earliest explorers. When the session of 1883
adjourned, he started for North Dakota, then a territory with a
few settlers, and among the Bad Lands on the Little Missouri he
bought an interest in two cattle ranches, the Chimney Butte and
the Elkhorn. The following year, after the Presidential campaign
which placed Cleveland in the White House, Roosevelt determined,
as we saw in the letters I have quoted, to abandon the East for a
time and to devote himself to a ranchman's life. He was still in
deep grief at the loss of his wife and of his mother; there was
no immediate prospect of usefulness for him in politics; the
conventions of civilization, as he knew them in New York City,
palled upon him; a sure instinct whispered to him that he must
break away and seek health of body and heart and soul among the
re mote, unspoiled haunts of primeval Nature. For nearly two
years, with occasional intervals spent in the East, the Elkhorn
Ranch at Medora was his home, and he has described the life of
the ranchman and cow-puncher in pages which are sure to be read
as long as posterity takes any interest in knowing about the
transition of the American West from wilderness to civilization.
He shared in all the work of the ranch. He took with a "frolic
welcome" the humdrum of its routine as well as its excitements
and dangers. He says that he does not believe that there was ever
any more attractive life for a vigorous young fellow than this,
and assuredly no one else has glorified it as Roosevelt did with
his pen. At one time or another he performed all the duties of a
ranchman. He went on long rides after the cattle, he rounded them
up, he helped to brand them and to cut out the beeves destined
for the Eastern market. He followed the herd when it stampeded
during a terrific thunderstorm. In winter there was often need to
save the wandering cattle from a sudden and deadly blizzard. The
log cabin or "shack" in which he dwelt was rough, and so was the
fare; comforts were few. He chopped the cottonwood which they
used for fuel; he knew how to care for the ponies; and once at
least he passed more than twenty-four hours in the saddle without
sleep. According to the best standards, he says, he was not a
fine horseman, but it is clear that he could do everything with a
horse which had to be done, and that he never stopped from
fatigue. When they needed fresh meat, he would shoot it. In
short, he held his own under all the hardships and requirements
demanded of a cowboy or ranchman. To adapt himself to these wild
conditions of nature and work was, however, only a part of his
experience. Even more dangerous than pursuing a stampeding herd
at night over the plains, and plunging into the Little Missouri
after it, was intercourse with some of the lawless nomads of that
pioneer region. Nomads they were, though they might settle down
to work for a while on one ranch, and then pass on to another;
the sort of creatures who loafed in the saloons of the little
villages and amused them selves by running amuck and shooting up
the town. These men, and indeed nearly all of the pioneers, held
the man from the civilized East, the "tenderfoot," in scorn. They
took it for granted that he was a weakling, that he had soft
ideas of life and was stuck-up or affected. Now Roosevelt saw
that in order to win their trust and respect, he must show
himself equal to their tasks, a true comrade, who accepted their
code of courage and honor. The fact that he wore spectacles was
against him at the outset, because they associated spectacles
with Eastern schoolmasters and incompetence. They called him
"Four Eyes," at first with derision, but they soon discovered
that in him they had no "tenderfoot" to deal with. He shot as
well as the best of them; he rode as far; he never complained of
food or tasks or hardship; he met every one on equal terms. Above
all, he left no doubt as to his courage. He would not pick a
quarrel nor would he avoid one. Many stories of his prowess
circulated; mere heckling, or a practical joke, he took with a
laugh; as when some of the men changed the saddle from his pony
to a bucking broncho.
But he knew where to draw the line. At Medora, for instance, the
Marquis de Mores, a French settler, assumed the attitude of a
feudal proprietor. Having been the first to squat in that region
he regarded those who came later as interlopers, and he and his
men acted very sullenly. They even carried their ill-will and
intimidation to the point of shooting. In due time the Marquis
discovered cause for grievance against Roosevelt, and he sent him
a letter warning the newcomer that if the cause were not removed
the Marquis knew how one gentleman settles a dispute with
another. Roosevelt despised dueling as a silly practice, which
would not determine justice between disputants; but he knew that
in Cowboy Land the duel, being regarded as a test of courage,
must not be ignored by him. Any man who declined a challenge lost
caste and had better leave the country at once. So Roosevelt
within an hour dispatched a reply to the surly Marquis saying
that he was ready to meet him at any time and naming the rifle,
at twelve paces' distance, as the weapon that he preferred. The
Marquis, a formidable swordsman but no shot, sent back word,
expressing regret that Mr. Roosevelt had mistaken his meaning: in
referring to "gentlemen knowing how to settle disputes," he meant
that of course an amicable explanation would restore harmony.
Thenceforward, he treated Roosevelt with effusive courtesy.
Perhaps a chill ran down his back at the thought of standing up
before an antagonist twelve paces away and that the fighters were
to advance towards each other three paces after each round, until
one of them was killed.
So Theodore fought no duel with either the French Marquis or with
any one else during his life in the West, but he had several
encounters with local desperadoes. One cold night in winter,
having ridden far and knowing that he could reach no refuge for
many hours, he unexpectedly saw a light. Going towards it, he
found that it came from a cabin which served as saloon and
tavern. On entering, he saw a group of loafers and drinkers who
were apparently terrorized by a big fellow, rather more than half
drunk, who proved to be the local bully. The function of this
person was to maintain his bullyship against all comers:
accordingly, he soon picked on Roosevelt, who held his peace as
long as he could. Then the rowdy, who grasped his pistols in his
hands, ordered the "four-eyed tenderfoot" to come to the bar and
set up drinks for the crowd. Roosevelt walked deliberately
towards him, and before the bully suspected it, the "tenderfoot"
felled him with a sledgehammer blow. In falling, a pistol went
off wide of its mark, and the bully lay in a faint. Before he
could recover, Roosevelt stood over him ready to pound him again.
But the bully did not stir, and he was carried off into another
room. The crowd congratulated the stranger on having served him
right.
At another place, there was a "bad man" who surpassed the rest of
his fellows in using foul language. Roosevelt, who loathed
obscenity as he did any other form of filth, tired of this bad
man's talk and told him very calmly that he liked him but not his
nastiness. Instead of drawing his gun, as the bystanders thought
he would do, Jim looked sheepish, acknowledging the charge, and
changed his tone. He remained a loyal friend of his corrector.
Cattle-thieves and horse-thieves infested the West of those days.
To steal a ranchman's horse might not only cause him great
annoyance, but even put his life in danger, and accordingly the
rascals who engaged in this form of crime ranked as the worst of
all and received no mercy when they were caught. If the sheriff
of the region was lax, the settlers took the matter into their
own hands, enrolled themselves as vigilantes, hunted the thieves
down, hanged those whom they captured, and shot at sight those
who tried to escape. It happened that the sheriff, in whose
jurisdiction Medora lay, allowed so many thieves to get off that
he was suspected of being in collusion with them. The ranch men
held a meeting at which he was present and Roosevelt told him in
very plain words their complaint against him and their
suspicions. Though he was a hot-tempered man, and very quick on
the trigger, he showed no willingness to shoot his bold young
accuser; he knew, of course, that the ranchmen would have taken
vengeance on him in a flash, but it is also possible that he
recognized the truth of Roosevelt's accusation and felt
compunctions.
Some time later Roosevelt showed how a zealous officer of the
law--he was the acting deputy sheriff - ought to behave. He had a
boat in which he used to cross the Little Missouri to his herds
on the other side. One day he missed the boat, its rope having
been cut, and he inferred that it must have been stolen by three
cattle-thieves who had been operating in that neighborhood. By
means of it they could easily escape, for there was no road along
the river on which horsemen could pursue them. Notwithstanding
this, Roosevelt resolved that they should not go free. In three
days Bill Sewall and Dow built a flat, water-tight craft, on
which they put enough food to last for a fortnight, and then all
three started downstream. They had drifted and poled one hundred
and fifty miles or more, before they saw a faint column of smoke
in the bushes near the bank. It proved to be the temporary camp
of the fugitives, whom they quickly took prisoners, put into the
boat, and carried another one hundred and fifty miles down the
river to the nearest town with a jail and a court. Going and
coming, Roosevelt spent nearly three weeks, not to mention the
hardships which he and his trusty men suffered on the way; but he
had served justice, and Justice must be served at any cost. When
the story be came known, the admiration of his neighbors for his
pluck and persistence rose; but they wondered why he took the
trouble to make the extra journey, in order to deliver the
prisoners to the jail, instead of shooting them where he overtook
them.
I chronicle these examples of Roosevelt's courage among the
lawless gangs with whom he was thrown in North Dakota, because
they reveal several qualities which came to be regarded as
peculiarly Rooseveltian during the rest of his days. We are apt
to speak of "mere" physical courage as being inferior to moral
courage; and doubtless there are many heroes unknown to the world
who, under the torture of disease or the poignancy of social
injustice and wrongs, deserve the highest crown of heroism. Men
who would lead a charge in battle would shrink from denouncing an
accepted convention or even from slighting a popular fashion. But
after all, the instinct of the race is sound in revering those
who give their lives without hesitation or regret at the point of
deadly peril, or offer their own to save the lives of others.
Roosevelt's experience established in him that physical courage
which his soul had aspired to in boyhood, when the consciousness
of his bodily inferiority made him seem shy and almost timid. Now
he had a bodily frame which could back up any resolution he might
take. The emergencies in a ranchman's career also trained him to
be quick to will, instantaneous in his decisions, and equally
quick in the muscular activity by which he carried them out. In a
community whose members gave way to sudden explosions of passion,
you might be shot dead unless you got the drop on the other
fellow first. The anecdotes I have repeated, indicate that
Roosevelt must often have outsped his opponent in drawing.
We learn from them, too, that he was far from being the
pugnacious person whom many of his later critics insisted that he
was. Having given ample proof to the frontiersmen that he had no
fear, he resolutely kept the peace with them, and they had no
desire to break peace with him. Bluster and swagger were foreign
to his nature, and he loathed a bully as much as a coward. If we
had not already had the record of his. three years in the
Legislature, in which he surprised his friends by his wonderful
talent for mixing with all sorts of persons, we might marvel at
his ability to meet the cowboys and ranchmen, and even the
desperadoes, of the Little Missouri on equal terms, to win the
respect of all of them, and the lifelong devotion of a few. They
knew that the usual tenderfoot, however much he might wish to
fraternize, was fended from them by his past, his traditions, his
civilized life, his instincts; but in Roosevelt's case, there was
no gulf, no barrier.
Even after he became President of the United States, I can no
more imagine that he felt embarrassment in meeting any one, high
or low, than that he scrutinized the coat on a man's back in
order to know how to treat him.
To have gained solid health, to have gained mastery of himself,
and to have put his social nature to the severest test and found
it flawless, were valid results of his life on the Elkhorn Ranch.
It imparted to him also a knowledge which was to prove most
precious to him in the unforeseen future. For it taught him the
immense diversity of the people, and consequently of the
interests, of the United States. It gave him a national point of
view, in which he perceived that the standards and desires of the
Atlantic States were not all-inclusive or final. Yet while it
impressed on him the importance of geographical considerations,
it impressed, more deeply still, the fact that there are moral
fundamentals not to be measured by geography, or by time, or by
race. Lincoln learned this among the pioneers of Illinois; in
similar fashion Roosevelt learned it in the Bad Lands of Dakota
with their pioneers and exiles from civilization, and from
studying the depths of his own nature.
CHAPTER V. BACK TO THE EAST AND LITERATURE
One September day in 1886, Roosevelt was reading a New York
newspaper in his Elkhorn cabin, when he saw that he had been
nominated by a body of Independents as candidate for Mayor of New
York City. Whether he had been previously consulted or not, I do
not know, but he evidently accepted the nomination as a call, for
he at once packed up his things and started East. The political
situation in the metropolis was somewhat abnormal. The United
Democracy had nominated for Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, a merchant of
high standing, one of those decent persons whom Tammany Hall puts
forward to attract respectable citizens when it finds itself in a
tight place and likely to be defeated. At such a pinch, Tammany
even politely keeps in the background and allows it to appear
that the decent candidate is wholly the choice of decent
Democrats: for the Tammany Tiger wears, so to speak, a reversible
skin which, when turned inside out, shows neither stripes nor
claws. Mr. Hewitt's chief opponent was Henry George, put up by
the United Labor Party, which had suddenly swelled into
importance, and had discovered in the author of "Progress and
Poverty" and in the advocate of the Single Tax a candidate whose
private character was generally respected, even by those who most
hated his economic teachings. The mere thought that such a
Radical should be proposed for Mayor scared, not merely the Big
Interests, but the owners of real estate and intangible property.
Against these redoubtable competitors, the Independents and
Republicans pitted Roosevelt, hoping that his prestige and
personal popularity would carry the day. He made a plucky
campaign, but Hewitt won, with Henry George second. In his letter
of acceptance he went straight at the mark, which was that the
government of the city was strictly a business affair. " I very
earnestly deprecate," he says, "all attempts to introduce any
class or caste feeling into the mayoralty contest. Laborers and
capitalists alike are interested in having an honest and
economical city government, and if elected I shall certainly
strive to be the representative of all good citizens, paying heed
to nothing whatever but the general well-being."* When Tammany
reverses its hide, the Republicans in New York City need not
expect victory; and in 1886 Henry George drew off a good many
votes which would ordinarily have been cast for Roosevelt.
* Riis, 101.
Nevertheless, the fight was worth making. It reintroduced him to
the public, which had not heard him for two years, and it helped
erase from men's memories the fact that he had supported Blaine
in 1884. His contest with Hewitt and George set him in his true
light--a Republican by conviction, a party man, also by
conviction, but above all the fearless champion of what he
believed to be the right, in its struggle against economic heresy
and political corruption.
The election over, Roosevelt went to Europe, and on December 2,
1886, at St. George's, Hanover Square, London, he married Miss
Edith Kermit Carow, of New York, whom he had known since his
earliest childhood, the playmate of his sister Corinne, the
little girl whose photograph had stirred up in him "homesickness
and longings for the past," when he was a little boy in Paris.
Cecil Spring-Rice, an old friend (subsequently British Ambassador
at Washington), was his groomsman, and being married at St.
George's, Theodore remarks, "made me feel as if I were living in
one of Thackeray's novels."
Mrs. Roosevelt's father came of Huguenot stock, the name being
originally Quereau; the first French immigrants of the family
having migrated to New York in the seventeenth century at about
the same time as Claes van Roosevelt. Like the Roosevelts, the
Carows had so freely intermarried with English stock in America
that the French origin of one was as little discernible in their
descendants as was the Dutch origin of the other. Through her
American line Mrs. Roosevelt traced back to Jonathan Edwards, the
prolific ancestor of many persons who emerged above the common
level by either their virtue or their badness.
After spending several months in Europe, Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt
returned and settled at Oyster Bay, Long Island, where he had
built, not long before, a country house on Sagamore Hill. His
place there comprised many acres--a beautiful country of hill and
hollow and fine tall trees. The Bay made in from Long Island
Sound and seemed to be closed by the opposite shore, so that in
calm weather you might mistake it for a lake. This home was
thoroughly adapted for Roosevelt's needs. Being only thirty miles
from New York, with a railroad near by, convenient but not
intrusive, it gave easy access to the city, but was remote enough
to discourage casual or undesired callers. It had sufficient land
to carry on farming and to sustain the necessary horses and
domestic cattle. Mrs. Roosevelt supervised it; he simply loved it
and got distraction from his more pressing affairs; if he had
chosen to withdraw from these he might have devoted himself to
the pleasing and leisurely life of a gentleman farmer. For a
while his chief occupation was literary. Into this he pitched
with characteristic energy. His innate craving for
self-expression could never be satiated by speaking alone, and
now, since he filled no public position which would be a cause or
perhaps an excuse for speaking, he wrote with all the more
enthusiasm.
Although he was less than seven years out of college, his
political career had given him a national reputation, which
helped and was helped by the vogue of his writings. The American
public had come to perceive that Theodore Roosevelt could do
nothing commonplace. The truth was, that he did many things that
other men did which ceased to be commonplace only when he did
them. Scores of other young men went on hunting trips after big
game in the Rockies or the Selkirks, and even ranching had been
engaged in by the enterprising and the adventurous, who hoped to
find it a short way to a fortune. But whether as ranch man or as
hunter, Roosevelt was better known than all the rest. His skill
in describing his experiences no doubt largely accounted for
this; but the fact that the experiences were his, was the
ultimate explanation.
Roosevelt began to write very early. He thought that the
instruction in rhetoric which he received at Harvard enlightened
him, and during his Senior year he began the "History of the
Naval War of 1812," which he completed and published in 1882.
This work at once won recognition for him, and it differed from
the traditional accounts, embedded in the school histories of the
United States, in doing full justice to the British naval
operations. Probably, for the first time, our people realized
that the War of 1812 had not been a series of victories,
startling and irresistible, for the American Navy. Nearly ten
years later, Roosevelt in the "Winning of the West" made his
second excursion into history. These volumes, which eventually
numbered six, are regarded by experts in the subject as of great
value, and I suppose that in them Roosevelt did more than any
other writer to popularize the study of the historical origin and
development of the vast region west of the Alleghanies which now
forms a vital part of the American Republic. One attribute of a
real historian is the power to discern the structural or pregnant
quality of historic periods and episodes; and this power
Roosevelt displayed in choosing both the War of 1812 and the
Winning of the West.
In his larger history Roosevelt had a swift, energetic, and
direct style. He never lacked for ideas. Descriptions came to him
with exuberant details of which he selected enough to leave his
reader with the feeling that he had looked on a vivid and
accurate picture. Here, for instance, is a portrait of Daniel
Boon which seems remarkably lifelike, because I remember how
difficult other writers find it to individualize most of the
figures of the pioneers.
The backwoodsmen, he says, "all tilled their own clearings,
guiding the plow among the charred stumps left when the trees
were chopped down and the land burned over, and they were all, as
a matter of course, hunters. With Boon, hunting and exploration
were passions, and the lonely life of the wilderness, with its
bold, wild freedom, the only existence for which he really cared.
He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, with eyes like an eagle's, and
muscles that never tired; the toil and hardship of his life made
no impress on his iron frame, unhurt by intemperance of any kind,
and he lived for eighty-six years, a backwoods hunter to the end
of his days. His thoughtful, quiet, pleasant face, so often
portrayed, is familiar to every one; it was the face of a man who
never blustered or bullied, who would neither inflict nor suffer
any wrong, and who had a limitless fund of fortitude, endurance,
and indomitable resolution upon which to draw when fortune proved
adverse. His self-command and patience, his daring, restless love
of adventure, and, in time of danger, his absolute trust in his
own powers and resources, all combined to render him peculiarly
fitted to follow the career of which he was so fond."*
* Winning of the West, 1, 137, 138 (ed. 1889).
Roosevelt contributed two volumes to the American Statesmen
Series, one on Thomas Hart Benton in 1886, and the other on
Gouverneur Morris in 1887. The environment and careers of these
two men--the Missouri Senator of the first half of the nineteenth
century, and the New York financier of the last half of the
eighteenth--afforded him scope for treating two very diverse
subjects. He was himself rooted in the old New York soil and he
had come, through his life in the West, to divine the conditions
of Benton's days. Once again, many years later (1900) he tried
his hand at biography, taking Oliver Cromwell for his hero, and
making a summary, impressionistic sketch of him. Besides the
interest this biography has for students of Cromwell, it has also
interest for students of Roosevelt, for it is a specimen of the
sort of by-products he threw off in moments of relaxation.
More characteristic than such excursions into history and
biography, however, are his many books describing ranch-life and
hunting. In the former, he gives you truthful descriptions of the
men of the West as he saw them, and in the latter he recounts his
adventures with elk and buffalo, wolves and bears. The mere
trailing and killing of these creatures do not satisfy him. He
studies with equal zest their haunts and their habits. The
naturalist in him, which we recognized in his youth, found this
vent in his maturity. And long years afterward, on his
expeditions to Africa and to Brazil he dealt even more
exuberantly with the natural history of the countries which he
visited.
Two other classes of writings make up Roosevelt's astonishing
output. He gathered his essays and addresses into half a dozen
volumes, remarkable alike for the wide variety of their subjects,
and for the vigor with which he seized on each subject as if it
was the one above all others which most absorbed him. Finally,
skim the collection of his official messages, as Commissioner, as
Governor, or as President, and you will discover that he had the
gift of infusing life and color into the usually drab and
cheerless wastes of official documents.
I am not concerned to make a literary appraisal of Theodore
Roosevelt's manifold works, but I am struck by the fact that our
professional critics ignore him entirely in their summaries or
histories of recent American literature. As I re-read, after
twenty years, and in some cases after thirty years, books of his
which made a stir on their appearance, I am impressed, not only
by the excellence of their writing, but by their lasting quality.
If he had not done so many other things of greater importance,
and done them supremely, he would have secured lasting fame by
his books on hunting, ranching, and exploration. No other
American compares with him, and I know of no other, in English at
least, who has made a contribution in these fields equal to his.
Throughout these eight or ten volumes he proves himself to be one
of those rare writers who see what they write. As in the case of
Tennyson, than whom no English poet, in spite of nearsightedness,
has observed so minutely the tiniest details of form or the
faintest nuance of color, so the lack of normal vision did not
prevent Roosevelt from being the closest of observers. He was
also, by the way, a good shot with rifle or pistol. If you read
one of his chapters in "Hunting the Grizzly" and ask yourself
wherein its animation and attraction lie, you will find that it
is because every sentence and every line report things seen. He
does not, like the Realist, try to get a specious lifelikeness by
heaping up banal and commonplace facts; he selects. His
imagination reminds one of the traveling spark which used to run
along the great chandelier in the theatre, and light each jet, so
that its passage seemed a flight from point to point of
brilliance. Wherever he focuses his survey a spot glows vividly.
The eye, the master sense of the mind, thus dominates him, and I
think that we shall trace to its mastery much of the immediate
power which he exerted by his writings and speeches on public,
social, and moral topics. He struck off, in the heat of
composition or of speaking, phrases and similes which millions
caught up eagerly and made as familiar as household words. He
even remembered from his extensive reading some item which, when
applied by him to the affair of the moment, acquired new
pertinence and a second life. Thus, Bunyan's " muckraker" lives
again; thus, "the curse of Meroz," and many another Bible
reference, springs up with a fresh meaning.
No doubt the purist will find occasional lapses in taste or
expression, and the quibbling peddler of rhetoric will gloat over
some doubtful construction; but neither purist nor peddler of
rhetoric has ever been able in his writing to display the ease,
the rush, the naturalness, the sparkle which were as genuine in
Roosevelt as were the features of his face. On reading these
pages, which have escaped the attention of the professional
critics, I wonder whether they may not have a fate similar to
Defoe's; for Defoe also was read voraciously by his
contemporaries, his pamphlets made a great rustle in their time,
and then the critics turned to other and spicier writers. But in
due season, other critics, as well as the world, made the
discovery that only a genius could have produced Defoe's
"every-day," "commonplace" style.
His innate vigor, often swelling into vehemence, marks also
Roosevelt's political essays, and yet he had time for reflection,
and if you examine closely even some of his combative passages,
you will see that they do not spring from sudden anger or scorn,
but from a conviction which has matured slowly in him. He had not
the philosophic calm which formed the background of Burke's
political masterpieces, but he had the clearness, the simplicity,
by which he could drive home his thoughts into the minds of the
multitude. Burke spoke and wrote for thousands and for posterity;
Roosevelt addressed millions for the moment, and let posterity do
what it would with his burning appeals and invectives. He was not
so absolutely self-effacing as Lincoln, but I think that he
realized to the full the meaning of Lincoln's phrase, "the world
will little note, nor long remember what we may say here," and
that he would have made it his motto. For he, like all truly
great statesmen, was so immensely concerned in winning today's
battle, that he wasted no time in speculating what tomorrow, or
next year, or next century would say about it. Mysticism, the
recurrent fad which indicates that its victims neither see clear
nor think straight, could not spread its veils over him. The man
who visualizes is safe from that intellectual weakness and moral
danger. But although Roosevelt felt the sway of the true
emotions, he allowed only his intimates to know what he held most
intimate and sacred. He felt also the charm of beauty, and over
and over again in his descriptions of hunting and riding in the
West, he pauses to recall beautiful scenery or some unusual bit
of landscape; and even in remembering his passage down the River
of Doubt, when he came nearer to death than he ever came until he
died, in spite of tormenting pain and desperate anxiety for his
companions, he mentions more than once the loveliness of the
river scene or of the massed foliage along its banks. Naturalist
though he was, bent first on studying the habits of birds and
animals, he yet took keen delight in the iridescent plumage or
graceful form or the beautiful fur of bird and beast.
The quality of a writer can best be judged by reading a whole
chapter, or two or three, of his book, but sometimes he reveals a
phase of himself in a single paragraph. Read, for instance, this
brief extract from Roosevelt's "Through the Brazilian
Wilderness," if you would understand some of the traits which I
have just alluded to. It comes at the end of his long and
dismaying exploration of the River of Doubt, when the party was
safe at last, and the terrible river was about to flow into the
broad, lakelike Amazon, and Manaos was almost in sight, where
civilization could be laid hold on again, Manaos, whence the
swift ships went steaming towards the Atlantic and the Atlantic
opened a clear path home. He says:
'The North was calling strongly the three men of the North--Rocky
Dell Farm to Cherrie, Sagamore Hill to me; and to Kermit the call
was stronger still. After nightfall we could now see the Dipper
well above the horizon--upside down with the two pointers
pointing to a North Star below the world's rim; but the Dipper,
with all its stars. In our home country spring had now come, the
wonderful Northern spring of long, glorious days, of brooding
twilight, of cool, delightful nights. Robin and bluebird,
meadow-lark and song-sparrow were singing in the mornings at
home; the maple buds were red; windflowers and bloodroot were
blooming while the last patches of snow still lingered; the
rapture of the hermit thrush in Vermont, the serene golden melody
of the wood thrush on Long Island, would be heard before we were
there to listen. Each was longing for the homely things that were
so dear to him, for the home people who were dearer still, and
for the one who was dearest of all.' *
* Through the Brazilian Wilderness, 320.
CHAPTER VI. APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS
I have said that Roosevelt devoted the two years after he came
back to New York to writing, but it would be a mistake to imagine
that writing alone busied him. He was never a man who did or
would do only one thing at a time. His immense energy craved
variety, and in variety he found recreation. Now that the
physical Roosevelt had caught up in relative strength with the
intellectual, he could take what holidays requiring exhaustless
bodily vigor he chose. The year seldom passed now when he did not
go West for a month or two. Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow were
established with their families on the Elkhorn Ranch, which
Roosevelt continued to own, although, I believe, like many
ranches at that period, it ceased to be a good investment.
Sometimes he made a hurried dash to southern Texas, or to the
Selkirks, or to Montana in search of new sorts of game. In the
mountains he indulged in climbing, but this was not a favorite
with him because it offered less sport in proportion to the
fatigue. While he was still a young man he had gone up the
Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, feats which still required endurance,
although they did not involve danger.
While we think of him, therefore, as dedicating himself to his
literary work--the "Winning of the West" and the accounts of
ranch life--we must remember that he had leisure for other
things. He watched keenly the course of politics, for instance,
and in 1888 when the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison as
their candidate for President, Roosevelt supported him
effectively and took rank with the foremost Republican speakers
of the campaign. After his election Harrison, who both recognized
Roosevelt's great ability and felt under obligation to him,
wished to offer him the position of an under-secretary in the
State Department; but Blaine, who was slated for Secretary of
State, had no liking for the young Republican whose coolness in
1884 he had not forgotten. So Harrison invited Roosevelt to be a
Civil Service Commissioner. The position had never been
conspicuous; its salary was not large; its duties were of the
routine kind which did not greatly tax the energies of the
Commissioners, who could never hope for fame, but only for the
approval of their own consciences for whatever good work they
did. The Machine Republicans, whether of national size, or of
State or municipal, were glad to know that Roosevelt would be put
out of the way in that office.
They already thought of him as a young man dangerous to all
Machines and so they felt the prudence of bottling him up. To
make him a Civil Service Commissioner was not exactly so final as
chloroforming a snarling dog would be, but it was a strong
measure of safety. Theodore's friends, on the other hand, advised
him against accepting the appointment, because, they said, it
would shelve him, politically, use up his brains which ought to
be spent on higher work, and allow the country which was just
beginning to know him to forget his existence. Men drop out of
sight so quickly at Washington unless they can stand on some
pedestal which raises them above the multitude.
The Optimist of the future, to hasten whose coming we are all
making the world so irresistibly attractive, will be endowed, let
us hope, with a sense of humor. With that, he can read history as
a cosmic joke-book, and not as the Biography of the Devil, as
many of us moderns, besides Jean Paul, have found it. How long it
has taken, and how much blood has been spilt before this or that
most obvious folly has been abolished! With what absurd tenacity
have men flown in the face of reason and flouted common sense! So
our Optimist, looking into the conditions which made Civil
Service Reform imperative, will shed tears either of pity or of
laughter.
As long ago as the time of the cave-dweller, who was clothed in
shaggy hair instead of in broadcloth or silk, prehistoric man
learned that the best arrow or spear was that tipped with the
best piece of flint. In brief, to do good work, you must have
good tools. Translated into the terms of today, this means that
the expert or specialist must be preferred to the untrained. In
nearly all walks of life this truth was taken for granted, except
in affairs connected with government and administration. A
President might be elected, not because he was experienced in
these matters, but because he had won a battle, or was the
compromise candidate between two other aspirants. As it was with
Presidents, so with the Cabinet officers, Congressmen, and State
and city officials. Fitness being ignored as a qualification to
office, made it easy for favoritism and selfish motives to
determine the appointment of the army of employees required in
the bureaus and departments. That good old political freebooter,
Andrew Jackson, merely put into words what his predecessors had
put into practice: "To the victors belong the spoils." And since
his time, more than one upright and intelligent theorist on
government has supported the Party System even to the point where
the enjoyment of the spoils by the victors seems justified. The
"spoils" were the salaries paid to the lower grade of placemen
and women--salaries usually not very large, but often far above
what those persons could earn in honest competition. As the money
came out of the public purse, why worry? And how could party
enthusiasm during the campaign and at the polls be kept up, if
some of the partisans might not hope for tangible rewards for
their services? Many rich men sat in Congress, and the Senate be
came, proverbially, a millionaires' club. But not one of these
plutocrats conducted the private business which made him rich by
the methods to which he condemned the business administration of
the government. He did not fill his counting-room with shirkers
and incompetents; he did not find sinecures for his wife's poor
relations; he did not pad his payroll with parasites whose
characteristics were an itching palm and an unconquerable
aversion to work. He knew how to select the quickest, cleverest,
most industrious assistants, and through them he prospered.
That a man who had sworn to uphold and direct his government to
the best of his ability, should have the conscience to treat his
country as he did not treat himself, can be easily explained: he
had no conscience. Fashion, like a local anaesthetic, deadens the
sensitiveness of conscience in this or that spot; and the
prevailing fashion under all governments, autocratic or
democratic, has permitted the waste and even the dishonest
application of public funds.
These anomalies at last roused the sense of humor of some of our
citizens, just as the injustice and dishonesty which the system
embodied roused the moral sense of others; and the Reform of the
Civil Service--a dream at first, and then a passionate cause
which the ethical would not let sleep--came into being. But to
the politicians of the old type, the men of "inflooence" and
"pull," the project seemed silly. They ridiculed it, and they
expected to make it ridiculous in the eyes of the American
people, by calling it "Snivel" Service Reform. Zealots, however,
cannot be silenced by mockery. The contention that fitness should
have something to do in the choice of public servants was
effectively confirmed by the scientific departments of the
government. The most shameless Senator would not dare to propose
his brother's widow to lead an astronomical expedition, or to
urge the appointment of the ward Boss of his city as Chairman of
the Coast Survey. So the American people perceived that there
were cases in which the Spoils System did not apply. The
reformers pushed ahead; Congress at last took notice, and a law
was passed bringing a good many appointees in the Post Office and
other departments under the Merit System. The movement then
gained ground slowly and the spoilsmen began to foresee that if
it spread to the extent which seemed likely, it would deprive
them of much of their clandestine and corrupting power. Senator
Roscoe Conkling, one of the wittiest and most brazen of these,
remarked, that when Dr. Johnson told Boswell that "patriotism is
the last refuge of a scoundrel," he had not sounded the
possibilities of "reform."
The first administration of President Cleveland, who was a great,
irremovable block of stubbornness in whatever cause he thought
right, gave invaluable help to this one. The overturn of the
Republican Party, after it had held power for twenty-four years,
entailed many changes in office and in all classes of
office-holders. Cleveland had the opportunity, therefore, of
applying the Merit System as far as the law had carried it, and
his actions gave Civil Service Reformers much though not complete
satisfaction. The movement was just at the turning-point when
Roosevelt was appointed Commissioner in 1 889. Under listless or
timid direction it would have flagged and probably lost much
ground; but Roosevelt could never do anything listlessly and
whatever he pushed never lost ground.
The Civil Service Commission appointed by President Harrison
consisted of three members, of whom the President was C. R.
Procter, later Charles Lyman, with Roosevelt and Hugh Thompson,
an ex-Confederate soldier. I do not disparage Roosevelt's
colleagues when I say that they were worthy persons who did not
claim to have an urgent call to reform the Civil Service, or
anything else. They were not of the stuff which leads revolts or
reforms, but they were honest and did their duty firmly. They
stood by Roosevelt "shoulder to shoulder," and Thompson's mature
judgment restrained his impetuosity. Roosevelt always
acknowledged what he owed to the Southern gentleman. In a very
short time the Commission, Congress, and the public learned that
it was Roosevelt, the youngest member, just turned thirty years
of age, who steered the Commission. Hostile critics would say, of
course, that he usurped the leadership; but I think that this is
inaccurate. It was not his conceit or ambition, it was destiny
working through him, which made where he sat the head of the
table. Being tremendously interested in this cause and
incomparably abler than Lyman or Thompson, he naturally did most
of the work, and his decisions shaped their common policy. The
appeal to his sense of humor and his sense of justice stimulated
him, and being a man who already saw what large consequences
sometimes flow from small causes he must have been buoyed up by
the thought that any of the cases which came before him might set
a very important precedent.
Roosevelt acted on the principle that the office holder who
swears to carry out a law must do this without hesitation or
demur. If the law is good, enforcing it will make its goodness
apparent to everybody; if it is bad, it will become the more
quickly odious and need to be repealed. Roosevelt enforced the
Civil Service Law with the utmost rigor. It called for the
examination of candidates for office, and the examiners paid some
heed to their moral fitness. Its opponents tried to stir up
public opinion against it by circulating what purported to be
some of its examination papers. Why, they asked, should a man who
wished to be a letter-carrier in Keokuk, be required to give a
list of the Presidents of the United States? Or what was the
shortest route for a letter going from Bombay to Yokohama? By
these and similar spurious questions the spoilsmen hoped to get
rid of the reformers. But "shrewd slander," as Roosevelt called
it, could not move him. Two specimen cases will suffice to show
how he reduced shrewd slanderers to confusion. The first was
Charles Henry Grosvenor, an influential Republican Congressman
from Ohio, familiarly known as the "Gentle Shepherd of Ohio,"
because of his efforts to raise the tariff on wool for the
benefit of the owners of the few thousand sheep in that State. A
Congressional Committee was investigating the Civil Service
Commission and Roosevelt asked that Grosvenor, who had attacked
it, might be summoned. Grosvenor, however, did not appear, but
when he learned that Roosevelt was going to his Dakota ranch for
a vacation, he sent word that he would come. Nevertheless, this
gallant act failed to save him, for Roosevelt canceled his ticket
West, and confronted Grosvenor at the investigation. The Gentle
Shepherd protested that he had never said that he wished to
repeal the Civil Service Law; whereupon Roosevelt read this
extract from one of his speeches: "I will vote not only to strike
out this provision, but I will vote to repeal the whole law."
When Roosevelt pointed out the inconsistency of the two
statements, Grosvenor declared that they meant the same thing.
Being caught thus by one foot in Roosevelt's mantrap, he quickly
proceeded to be caught by the other. He declared that Rufus P.
Putnam, one of the candidates in dispute, had never lived in
Grosvenor's Congressional district, or even in Ohio. Then Mr.
Roosevelt quoted from a letter written by Grosvenor: "Mr. Rufus
P. Putnam is a legal resident of my district, and has relatives
living there now." With both feet caught in the man-trap, the
Gentle Shepherd was suffering much pain, but Truth is so great a
stranger to spoilsmen that he found difficulty in getting within
speaking distance of her. For he protested, first, that he never
wrote the letter, next, that he had forgotten that he wrote it,
and finally, that he was misinformed when he wrote it. So far as
appears, he never risked a tilt with the smiling young
Commissioner again, but returned to his muttons and their
fleeces.
A still more distinguished personage fell before the enthusiastic
Commissioner. This was Arthur Pue Gorman, a Senator from
Maryland, a Democrat, one of the most pertinacious agents of the
Big Interests in the United States Congress. Evidently, also, he
served them well, as they kept him in the Senate for nearly
twenty-five years, until his death. They employed Democrats as
well as Republicans, just as they subscribed to both Democratic
and Republican campaign funds. For, "in politics there is no
politics." Gorman, who knew that the Spoils System was almost
indispensable to the running of a political machine, waited for a
chance to attack the Civil Service Commission. Thinking that the
propitious moment had come, he inveighed against it in the
Senate. He "described with moving pathos," as Roosevelt tells the
story, "how a friend of his, 'a bright young man from Baltimore,'
a Sunday-School scholar, well recommended by his pastor, wished
to be a letter-carrier;" but the cruel examiners floored him by
asking the shortest route from Baltimore to China, to which he
replied that, as he never wished to go to China, he hadn't looked
up the route. Then, Senator Gorman asserted, the examiners
quizzed him about all the steamship lines from the United States
to Europe, branched off into geology and chemistry, and "turned
him down."
Gorman was unaware that the Commissioners kept records of all
their examinations, and when Roosevelt wrote him a polite note
inquiring the name of the "bright young man from Baltimore,"
Gorman did not reply. Roosevelt also asked him, in case he shrank
from giving the name of his informant, to give the date when the
alleged examination took place. He even offered to open the files
to any representative the Senator chose to send. Gorman, however,
"not hitherto known as a sensitive soul," as Roosevelt remarks,
"expressed himself as so shocked at the thought that the veracity
of the bright young man should be doubted, that he could not
bring himself to answer my letter." Accordingly, Roosevelt made a
public statement that the Commissioners had never asked the
questions which Gorman alleged. Gorman waited until the next
session of Congress and then, in a speech before the Senate,
complained that he had received a very "impudent" letter from
Commissioner Roosevelt "cruelly" calling him to account, when he
was simply endeavoring to right a great wrong which the
Commission had committed. But neither then nor afterwards did he
furnish "any clue to the identity of that child of his fondest
fancy, the bright young man without a name."
Roosevelt must have chuckled with a righteous exultation at such
evidence as this that the Lord had delivered the Philistines into
his hands; and his abomination of the Spoils System must have
deepened when he saw its Grosvenors and its Gormans brazen out
the lies he caught them telling.
When the spoilsmen failed to get rid of the Commission by
ridicule and by open attack, they resorted to the trick of not
appropriating money for it in this or that district. But this did
not succeed, for the Commission, owing to lack of funds, held no
examinations in those districts, and therefore no candidates from
them could get offices. This made the politicians unpopular with
the hungry office-seekers whom they deprived of their food at the
public trough.
The Commission had to struggle, however, not only to keep unfit
candidates out of office, but to keep in office those who
discharged their duty honestly and zealously. After every
election there came a rush of Congressmen and others, to turn out
the tried and trusty employees and to put in their own
applicants. Such an overturn was of course detrimental to the
service; first, because it substituted greenhorns for trained
employees, and next, because it introduced the haphazard of
politicians' whims for a just scheme of promotion and retention
in office. Roosevelt lamented bitterly over the injustice and he
denounced the waste. Many cases of grievous hardship came to his
notice. Widows, whose only means of support for themselves and
their little children was their salary, were thrown upon the
street in order that rapacious politicians might secure places
for their henchmen. Roosevelt might plead, but the politician
remained obdurate. What was the tragic lot of a widow and
starving children compared with keeping promises with greedy
"heelers"? Roosevelt saw that there was no redress except through
the extension of the classified service. This he urged at all
times, and ten years later, when he was himself President, he
added more than fifty thousand offices to the list of those which
the spoilsmen could not clutch.
He served six years as Civil Service Commissioner, being
reappointed in 1892 by President Cleveland. The overturn in
parties which made Cleveland President for the second time,
enabled Roosevelt to watch more closely the working of the Reform
System and he did what he could to safeguard those Government
employees who were Republicans from being ousted for the benefit
of Democrats. In general, he believed in laying down certain
principles on the tenure of office and in standing resolutely by
them. Thus, in 1891, under Harrison, on being urged to retain
General Corse, the excellent Democratic Postmaster of Boston, he
replied to his friend Curtis Guild that Corse ought to be
continued as a matter of principle and not because Cleveland,
several years before, had retained Pearson, the Republican
Postmaster of New York, as an exception.
At the end of six years, Roosevelt felt that he had worked on the
Commission long enough to let the American people understand how
necessary it was to maintain and extend the Merit System in the
Civil Service. A sudden access of virtue had just cast out the
Tammany Ring in New York City and set up Mr. Strong, a Reformer,
as Mayor. He wished to secure Roosevelt's help and Roosevelt was
eager to give it. The Mayor offered him the headship of the
Street Cleaning Department, but this he declined, not because he
thought the place beneath him, but because he lacked the
necessary scientific qualifications, and Mayor Strong, was lucky
in finding for it the best man in the country, Colonel George E.
Waring. Accordingly, the Mayor ap pointed Roosevelt President of
the Board of Police Commissioners, and he accepted.
The Police System in New York City in 1895, when Roosevelt took
control, was a monstrosity which, in almost every respect, did
exactly the opposite from what the Police System is organized to
do. Moral values had been so perverted that it took a strong man
to hold fast to the rudimentary distinctions between Good and
Evil. The Police existed, in theory, to protect the lives and
property of respectable citizens; to catch law-breakers and hand
them over to the courts for punishment; to hunt down gamblers,
swindlers, and all the other various criminals and purveyors of
vice. In reality, the Police under Tammany abetted crime and
protected the vicious. This they did, not because they had any
special hostility to Virtue--they probably knew too little about
it to form a dispassionate opinion any way--but because Vice paid
better. They held the cynical view that human nature will always
breed a great many persons having a propensity to licentious or
violent habits; that laws were made to check and punish these
persons, and that they might go their pernicious ways unmolested
if the Police took no notice of them. So the Police established a
system of immunity which anybody could enjoy by paying the price.
Notorious gambling-hells "ran wide open" after handing the
required sum to the high police official who extorted it.
Hundreds of houses of ill-fame carried on their hideous traffic
undisturbed, so long as the Police Captain of the district
received his weekly bribe. Gangs of roughs, toughs, and gunmen
pursued their piratical business without thinking of the law, for
they shared their spoils with the supposed officers of the law.
And there were more degenerate miscreants still, who connived
with the Police and went unscathed. As if the vast sums collected
from these willing bribers were not enough, the Police added a
system of blackmail to be levied on those who were not
deliberately vicious, but who sought convenience. If you walked
downtown you found the sidewalk in front of certain stores almost
barricaded by packing-boxes, whereas next door the way might be
clear. This simply meant that the firm which wished to use the
sidewalk for its private advantage paid the policeman on that
beat, and he looked the other way. As there was an ordinance
against almost every conceivable thing, so the Police had a price
for making every ordinance a dead letter. Was this a cosmic joke,
a nightmare of cynicism, a delusion? No, New York was classed in
the reference books as a Christian city, and this was its
Christianity.
Roosevelt knew the seamless bond which connected the crime and
vice of the city with corrupt politics. The party Bosses,
Republicans and Democrats alike, were the final profiters from
police blackmail and bribery. As he held his mandate from a
Reform Administration, he might expect to be aided by it on the
political side; at least, he did not fear that the heads of the
other departments would secretly work to block his purification
of the Police. A swift examination showed him that the New York
Police Department actually protected the criminals and promoted
every kind of iniquity which it existed to put down. It was as if
in a hospital which should cure the sick, the doctors, instead of
curing disease, should make the sick worse and should make the
well sick. How was Roosevelt, equally valiant and honest, to
conquer this Hydra? He took the straight way dictated by common
sense. First of all, he gained the confidence and respect of his
men. He said afterwards, that even at its worst, when he went
into office, the majority of the Police wanted to do right; that
their instincts were loyal; and this meant much, because they
were tempted on all sides by vicious wrongdoers; they had
constantly before them the example of superiors who took bribes
and they received neither recognition nor praise for their own
worthy deeds.
The Force came very soon to understand that under Roosevelt every
man would get a "square deal." "Pulls" had no efficacy. The Chief
Commissioner personally kept track of as many men as he could.
When he saw in the papers one morning that Patrolman X had saved
a woman from drowning, he looked him up, found that the man had
been twenty-two years in the service, had saved twenty five
lives, and had never been noticed, much less thanked, by the
Commission. More than this, he had to buy his own uniform, and as
this was often rendered unfit for further use when he rescued
persons from drowning, or from a burning house, his heroism cost
him much in dollars and cents. By Roosevelt's orders the
Department henceforth paid for new uniforms in such cases, and it
awarded medals. By recognizing the good, and by weeding out as
fast as possible the bad members of the Force, Roosevelt thus
organized the best body of Police which New York City had ever
seen. There were, of course, some black sheep among them whom he
could not reach, but he changed the fashion, so that it was no
longer a point of excellence to be a black sheep.
Roosevelt rigorously enforced the laws, without regard to his
personal opinion. It happened that at that time the good people
of New York insisted that liquor saloons should do no business on
Sundays. This prohibition had long been on the statute book, but
it had been generally evaded because the saloon keepers had paid
the Bosses, who controlled the Police Department, to let them
keep open--usually by a side door--on Sundays. Indeed, the
statute was evidently passed by the Bosses in order to widen
their opportunity for blackmail; but in this they overreached
themselves. For the liquor-sellers at last revolted, and they
held conferences with the Bosses--David B. Hill was then the
Democratic State Boss and Richard Croker the Tammany Boss - and
they published in the Wine and Spirit Gazette, their organ, this
statement: "An agreement was made between the leaders of Tammany
Hall and the liquor-dealers, according to which the monthly
blackmail paid to the force should be discontinued in return for
political support." Croker and his pals, taking it as a matter of
course that the public knew their methods, neither denied this
incriminating statement nor thought it worth noticing. For a
while all the saloons enjoyed equal immunity in selling drinks on
Sunday. Then came Roosevelt and ordered his men to close every
saloon. Many of the bar-keepers laughed incredulously at the
patrol man who gave the order; many others flew into a rage. The
public denounced this attempt to strangle its liberties and
reviled the Police Chief as the would be enforcer of obsolescent
blue laws. But they could not frighten Roosevelt: the saloons
were closed. Nevertheless, even he could not prevail against the
overwhelming desire for drink. Crowds of virtuous citizens
preferred. an honest police force, but they preferred their beer
or their whiskey still more, and joined with the criminal
classes, the disreputables, and all the others who regarded any
law as outrageous which interfered with their personal habits.
Accordingly, since they could not budge Roosevelt, they changed
the law. A compliant local judge discovered that it was lawful to
take what drink you chose with a meal, and the result was that,
as Roosevelt describes it, a man by eating one pretzel might
drink seventeen beers.
Roosevelt himself visited all parts of the city and chiefly those
where Vice grew flagrant at night. The journalists, who knew of
his tours of inspection and were always on the alert for the
picturesque, likened him to the great Caliph who in similar
fashion investigated Baghdad, and they nicknamed him Haroun al
Roosevelt. He had for his companion Jacob Riis, a remarkable Dane
who migrated to this country in youth, got the position of
reporter on one of the New York dailies, frequented the courts,
studied the condition of the abject poor in the tenement-houses,
and the haunts where Vice breeds like scum on stagnant pools, and
wrote a book, "How the Other Half Lives," which startled the
consciences of the well-to-do and the virtuous. Riis showed
Roosevelt everything. Police headquarters were in Mulberry
Street, and yet within a stone's throw iniquity flourished. He
guided him through the Tenderloin District, and the wharves, and
so they made the rounds of the vast city. More than once
Roosevelt surprised a shirking patrolman on his beat, but his
purpose they all knew was to see justice done, and to keep the
officers of the Force up to the highest standard of duty.
One other anecdote concerning his experience as Police
Commissioner I repeat, because it shows by what happy touches of
humor he sometimes dispersed menacing clouds. A German
Jew-baiter, Rector Ahlwardt, came over from Berlin to preach a
crusade against the Jews. Great trepidation spread through the
Jewish colony and they asked Roosevelt to forbid Ahlwardt from
holding public meetings against them. This, he saw, would make a
martyr of the German persecutor and probably harm the Jews more
than it would help them. So Roosevelt bethought him of a device
which worked perfectly. He summoned forty of the best Jewish
policemen on the Force and ordered them to preserve order in the
hall and prevent Ahlwardt from being interrupted or abused. The
meeting passed off without disturbance; Ahlwardt stormed in vain
against the Jews; the audience and the public saw the humor of
the affair and Jew-baiting gained no foothold in New York City.
Although Roosevelt thoroughly enjoyed his work as Police
Commissioner, he felt rightly that it did not afford him the
freest scope to exercise his powers. Much as he valued executive
work, the putting into practice and carrying out of laws, he felt
more and more strongly the desire to make them, and his instinct
told him that he was fitted for this higher task. When,
therefore, the newly elected Republican President, William
McKinley, offered him the apparently modest position of Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, he accepted it.
There was general grieving in New York City--except among the
criminals and Tammany--at the news of his resignation. All sorts
of persons expressed regrets that were really sincere, and their
gratitude for the good which he had done for them all. Some of
them protested that he ought not to abandon the duty which he had
discharged so valiantly. One of these was Edwin L. Godkin, editor
of The Nation and the New York Evening Post, a critic who seldom
spoke politely of anything except ideals which had not been
attained, or commended persons who were not dead and so beyond
reach of praise.
Since Roosevelt himself has quoted this passage from Godkin's
letter to him, I think it ought to be reprinted here: "I have a
concern, as the Quakers say, to put on record my earnest belief
that in New York you are doing the greatest work of which any
American today is capable, and exhibiting to the young men of the
country the spectacle of a very important office administered by
a man of high character in the most efficient way amid a thousand
difficulties. As a lesson in politics I cannot think of anything
more instructive."
Godkin was a great power for good, in spite of the obvious
unpopularity which an incessant critic cannot fail to draw down
upon himself. The most pessimistic of us secretly crave a little
respite when for half an hour we may forget the circumambient and
all-pervading gloom: music, or an entertaining book, or a dear
friend lifts the burden from us. And then comes our
uncompromising pessimist and chides us for our softness and for
letting ourselves be led astray from our pessimism. His jeremiads
are probably justified, and as the historian looks back he finds
that they give the truest statement of the past; for the present
must be very bad, indeed, if it does not discover conditions
still worse in the past from which it has emerged. But Godkin
living could not escape from two sorts of unsympathetic
depreciators: first, the wicked who smarted under his just
scourge, and next, the upright, who tired of unremittent censure,
although they admitted that it was just.
Roosevelt came, quite naturally, to set the doer above the
critic, who, he thought, quickly degenerated into a fault finder
and from that into a common scold. When a man plunges into a
river to save somebody from drowning, if you do not plunge in
yourself, at least do not jeer at him for his method of swimming.
So Roosevelt, who shrank from no bodily or moral risk himself,
held in scorn the "timid good," the " acidly cantankerous," the
peace-at-any-price people, and the entire tribe of those who,
instead of attacking iniquities and abuses, attacked those who
are desperately engaged in fighting these, For this reason he
probably failed to absorb from Godkin's criticism some of the
benefit which it might have brought him. The pills were bitter,
but salutary. While he was Police Commissioner one of Joseph
Choate's epigrams passed current and is still worth recalling.
When some one remarked that New York was a very wicked city,
Choate replied, "How can you expect it to be otherwise, when Dana
makes Vice so attractive in the Sun every morning, and Godkin
makes Virtue so odious in the Post every afternoon?" Charles A.
Dana, the editor of the Sun, the stanch supporter of Tammany
Hall, and the apologist of almost every evil movement for nearly
thirty years, was a writer of diabolical cleverness whose
newspaper competed with Godkin's among the intellectual readers
in search of amusement. At one time, when Godkin had been
particularly caustic, and the Mugwumps at Harvard were unusually
critical, Roosevelt attended a committee meeting at the
University. After talking with President Eliot, he went and sat
by a professor, and remarked, play fully, "Eliot is really a good
fellow at heart. Do you suppose that, if he bit Godkin, it would
take?" So Roosevelt went back to Washington to be henceforth, as
it proved, a national figure whose career was to be forever
embedded in the structural growth of the United States.
CHAPTER VII. THE ROUGH RIDER
When Roosevelt returned to Washington in March, 1897, to take up
his duties as a subordinate officer in the National Government,
he was thirty-eight years old; a man in the prime of life, with
the strength of an ox, but quick in movement, and tough in
endurance. A rapid thinker, his intellect seemed as impervious to
fatigue as was his energy. Along with this physical and
intellectual make up went courage of both kinds, passion for
justice, and a buoying sense of obligation towards his fellows
and the State. His career thus far had prepared him for the
highest service. Born and brought up amid what our society
classifiers, with their sure democratic instincts, loved to call
the "aristocratic" circle in New York, his three years in the
Assembly at Albany introduced him to the motley group of
Representatives of high and low, bank presidents and farmers,
blacklegs and philanthropists, who gathered there to make the
laws for New York State. There he displayed the preference,
characteristic of him through life, of choosing his intimates
irrespective of their occupation or social label. Then he went
out on the Plains and learned to live with wild men, for whom the
artificial distinctions of civilization had no meaning. He
adapted himself to a primeval standard in which courage and a
rough sense of honor were the chief virtues. But this experience
did still more for him than prove his personal power of getting
along with such lower types of men, for it revealed to him the
human extremes of the American Nation. How vast it was, how
varied, how intricate, and, potentially, how sublime! Lincoln,
coming out of the Kentucky back woods, first to Springfield,
Illinois, then to Chicago in its youth, and finally to
Washington, similarly passed in review the American contrasts of
his time. More specific was Roosevelt's training as a Civil
Service Commissioner. The public had been applauding him as a
youthful prodigy, as a fellow of high spirit, of undisputed
valor, of brilliant flashes, of versatility, but the
worldly-wise, who have been too often fooled, were haunted by the
suspicion that perhaps this astonishing young man would turn out
to be only a meteor after all. His six years of routine work on
the Civil Service Commission put this anxiety to rest. That work
could not be carried on successfully by a man of moods and
spurts, but only by a man of solid moral basis, who could not be
disheartened by opposition or deflected by threats or by
temptations, and, as I have before suggested, the people began to
accustom itself to the fact that whatever position Roosevelt
filled was conspicuous precisely because he filled it. A good
while was still to elapse before we understood that notoriety was
inseparable from him, and did not need to be explained by the
theory that he was constantly setting traps for
self-advertisement.
As Police Commissioner of New York City he continued his familiar
methods, and deepened the impression he had created. He carried
boldness to the point of audacity and glorified the "square
deal." Whatever he undertook, he drove through with the
remorselessness of a zealot. He made no pretense of treating
humbugs and shams as if they were honest and real; and when he
found that the laws which were made to punish criminals, were
used to protect them, no scruple prevented him from achieving the
spirit of the law, although he might disregard its perverted
letter.
Ponder this striking example. The City of New York forbade the
sale of liquor to minors. But this ordinance was so completely
unobserved that a large proportion of the common drunks brought
before the Police Court were lads and even young girls, to whom
the bar-tenders sold with impunity. The children, often the
little children of depraved parents, "rushed the growler";
factory hands sent the boys out regularly to fetch their bottle
or bucket of drink from the saloons. Everybody knew of these
breaches of the law, but the framers of the law had taken care to
make it very difficult to procure legal evidence of those
breaches. The public conscience was pricked a little when the
newspapers told it that one of the youths sent for liquor had
drunk so much of it that he fell into a stupor, took refuge in an
old building, and that there the rats had eaten him alive.
Whether it was before or after this horror that Chief
Commissioner Roosevelt decided to take the law into his own
hands, I do not know, but what he did was swift. The Police
engaged one of the minors, who had been in the habit of going to
the saloons, to go for another supply, and then to testify. This
summary proceeding scared the rum-dealers and, no doubt, they
guarded against being caught again. But the victims of moral dry
rot held up their hands in rebuke and one of the city judges wept
metaphorical tears of chagrin that the Police should engage in
the awful crime of enticing a youth to commit crime. The record
does not show that this judge, or any other, had ever done
anything to check the practice of selling liquor to minors, a
practice which inevitably led thousands of the youth of New York
City to become drunkards.
How do you judge Roosevelt's act? Do you admit that a little
wrong may ever be done in order to secure a great right?
Roosevelt held, in such cases, that the wrong is only technical,
or a blind set up by the wicked to shield themselves. The danger
of allowing each person to play with the law, as with a toy, is
evident. That way lies Jesuitry; but each infringement must be
judged on its own merits, and as Roosevelt followed more and more
these short cuts to justice he needed to be more closely
scrutinized. Was his real object to attain justice or his own
desires?
The Roosevelts moved back to Washington in March, 1897, and
Theodore at once went to work in the office of the Assistant
Secretary of the Navy in that amazing building which John Hay
called "Mullett's masterpiece," where the Navy, War, and State
Departments found shelter under one roof. The Secretary of the
Navy was John D. Long, of Massachusetts, who had been a
Congressman and Governor, was a man of cultivation and geniality,
and a lawyer of high reputation. Although sixty years old, he was
believed never to have made an enemy either in politics or at the
Bar. Those who knew the two gentlemen wondered whether the
somewhat leisurely and conservative Secretary could leash in his
restless young First Assistant, with his Titanic energy and his
head full of projects. No one believed that even Roosevelt could
startle Governor Long out of his habitual urbanity, but every one
could foresee that they might so clash in policy that either the
head or the assistant would have to retire.
Nothing is waste that touches the man of genius. So the two years
which Roosevelt spent in writing, fifteen years before, the
"History of-the Naval War of 1812," now served him to good
purpose; for it gave him much information about the past of the
United States Navy and it quickened his interest in the problems
of the Navy as it should be at that time. The close of the Civil
War in 1865 left the United States with a formidable fleet, which
during the next quarter of a century deteriorated until it
comprised only a collection of rotting and unserviceable ships.
Then came a reaction, followed by the construction of an
up-to-date fleet, and by the recognition by Congress that the
United States must pursue a modern policy in naval affairs.
Roosevelt had always felt the danger to the United States of
maintaining a despicable or an inadequate Navy, and from the
moment he entered the Department he set about pushing the
construction of the unfinished vessels and of improving the
quality of the personnel.
He was impelled to do this, not merely by his instinct to bring
whatever he undertook up to the highest standard, but also
because he had a premonition that a crisis was at hand which
might call the country at an instant's notice to protect itself
with all the power it had. Two recent events aroused his
vigilance. In December, 1895, President Cleveland sent to England
a message upholding the Monroe Doctrine and warning the British
that they must arbitrate their dispute with Venezuela over a
boundary, or fight. This sledgehammer blow at England's pride
might well have caused war had not sober patriots on both sides
of the Atlantic, aghast at this shocking possibility, smoothed
the way to an understanding, and had not the British Government
itself acknowledged the rightness of the demand for arbitration.
So the danger vanished, but Roosevelt, and every other thoughtful
American, said to himself, "Suppose England had taken up the
challenge, what had we to defend ourselves with?" And we compared
the long roll of the great British Fleet with the paltry list of
our own ships, and realized that we should have been helpless.
The other fact which impressed Roosevelt was the insurrection in
Cuba which kept that island in perpetual disorder. The cruel
means, especially reconcentration and starvation, by which the
Spaniards tried to put down the Cubans stirred the sympathy of
the Americans, and the number of those who believed that the
United States ought to interfere in behalf of humanity grew from
month to month. A spark might kindle an explosion. Obviously,
therefore, the United States must have a Navy equipped and ready
for any emergency in the Caribbean.
During his first year in office, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt
busied himself with all the details of preparation; he encouraged
the enthusiasm of the officers of the New Navy, for he shared
their hopes; he added, wherever he could, to its efficiency, as
when by securing from Congress an appropriation of nearly a
million dollars--which seemed then enormous--for target practice.
He promoted a spirit of alertness--and all the while he watched
the horizon towards Cuba where the signs grew angrier and
angrier.
But the young Secretary had to act with circumspection. In the
first place the policy of the Department was formulated by
Secretary Long. In the next place the Navy could not come into
action until President McKinley and the Department of State gave
the word. The President, desiring to keep the peace up to the
very end, would not countenance any move which might seem to the
Spaniards either a threat or an insult. As the open speeding-up
of naval preparations would be construed as both, nothing must be
done to excite alarm. In the autumn of 1897, however, some of the
Spaniards at Havana treated the American residents there with so
much surliness that the American Government took the precaution
to send a battleship to the Havana Harbor as a warning to the
menacing Spaniards, and as a protection, in case of outbreak, to
American citizens and their property.
But what was meant for a precaution proved to be the immediate
cause of war. Early in the evening of February 15??, 1898, the
battleship Maine, peaceably riding at her moorings in the harbor,
was blown up. Two officers and 266 enlisted men were killed by
the explosion and in the sinking of the ship. Nearly as many
more, with Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, the commander, were
rescued. The next morning the newspapers carried the report to
all parts of the United States, and, indeed, to the whole world.
A tidal wave of anger surged over this country. "That means war!"
was the common utterance. Some of us, who abhorred the thought of
war, urged that at least we wait until the guilt could be fixed.
The reports of the catastrophe conflicted. Was the ship destroyed
by the explosion of shells in its own magazine, or was it blown
up from outside? If the latter, who set off the mine? The
Spaniards? It seemed unlikely, if they wished war, that they
should resort to so clumsy a provocation! Might not the
insurgents themselves have done it, in order to force the United
States to interfere? While the country waited, the anger grew. At
Washington, nobody denied that war was coming. All that our
diplomacy attempted to do was to stave off the actual declaration
long enough to give time for our naval and military preparation.
I doubt whether Roosevelt ever worked with greater relish than
during the weeks succeeding the blowing-up of the Maine. At last
he had his opportunity, which he improved night and day. The Navy
Department arranged in hot haste to victual the ships; to provide
them with stores of coal and ammunition; to bring the crews up to
their full quota by enlisting; to lay out a plan of campaign; to
see to the naval bases and the lines of communication; and to
cooperate with the War Department in making ready the land
fortifications along the shore. Of course all these labors did
not fall on Roosevelt's shoulders alone, but being a tireless and
willing worker he had more than one man's share in the
preparations.
But the great fact that war was coming--war, the test-- delighted
him, and his sense of humor was not allowed to sleep. For the
peace-at-any-price folk, the denouncers of the Navy and the Army,
the preachers of the doctrine that as all men are good it was
wicked to build defenses as if we suspected the goodness of our
neighbors, now rushed to the Government for protection. A certain
lady of importance, who had a seaside villa, begged that a
battleship should be anchored just outside of it. Seaboard cities
frantically demanded that adequate protection should be sent to
them. The spokesman for one of these cities happened to be a
politician of such importance that President McKinley told the
Assistant Secretary that his request must be granted.
Accordingly, Roosevelt put one of the old monitors in commission,
and had a tug tow it, at the imminent risk of its crew, to the
harbor which it was to guard, and there the water-logged old
craft stayed, to the relief of the inhabitants of the city and
the self-satisfaction of the Congressman who was able to give
them so shining a proof of his power with the Administration.
Many frightened Bostonians transferred their securities to the
bank vaults of Worcester, and they, too, clamored for naval watch
and ward. Roosevelt must have been made unusually merry by such
tidings from Boston, the city which he regarded as particularly
prolific in "the men who formed the lunatic fringe in all reform
movements."
It did not astonish him that the financiers and the business men,
who were amassing great fortunes in peace, should frown on war,
which interrupted their fortune-making; but he laughed when he
remembered what they and many other vague pacifists had been
solemnly proclaiming. There was the Senator, for instance, who
had denied that we needed a Navy, because, if the emergency came,
he said, we could improvise one, and "build a battleship in every
creek." There were also the spread eagle Americans, the
swaggerers and braggarts, who amused themselves in tail-twisting
and insulting other nations so long as they could do this with
impunity; but now they were brought to book, and their fears
magnified the possible danger they might run from the invasion of
irate Spaniards. Their imagination pictured to them the poor old
Spanish warship Viscaya, as having as great possibility for
destruction as the entire British Fleet itself.
At all these things Roosevelt laughed to himself, because they
confirmed the gospel of military and naval preparedness, which he
had been preaching for years, the gospel which these very
opponents reviled him for; but instead of contenting himself by
saying to them, "I told you so," he pushed on preparations for
war at full speed, determined to make the utmost of the existing
resources. The Navy had clearly two tasks before it. It must
blockade Cuba, which entailed the patrol of the Caribbean Sea and
the protection of the Atlantic ports, and it must prevent the
Spanish Fleet, known to be at the
Philippines, from crossing the Pacific Ocean, harassing our
commerce, and threatening our harbors on our Western coast.
Through Roosevelt's instrumentality, Commodore George Dewey had
been appointed in the preceding autumn to command our Asiatic
Squadron, and while, in the absence of Governor Long, Roosevelt
was Acting-Secretary, he sent the following dispatch:
Washington, February 25,'98. 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
I would not give the impression that Roosevelt was the dictator
of the Navy Department, or that all, or most, of its notable
achievements came from his suggestion, but the plain fact is,
wherever you look at its most active and fruitful preparations
for war, you find him vigorously assisting. The order he sent
Commodore Dewey led directly to the chief naval event of the war,
the destruction of the Spanish Fleet by our Asiatic Squadron in
Manila Bay, on May 1st. Long before this victory came to pass,
however, Roosevelt had resigned from the Navy Department and was
seeking an ampler outlet for his energy.
Having accomplished his duty as Assistant Secretary--a post which
he felt was primarily for a civilian--he thought that he had a
right to retire from it, and to gratify his long-cherished desire
to take part in the actual warfare. He did not wish, he said, to
have to give some excuse to his children for not having fought in
the war. As he had insisted that we ought to free Cuba from
Spanish tyranny and cruelty, he could not consistently refuse to
join actively in the liberation. A man who teaches the duty of
fighting should pay with his body when the fighting comes.
General Alger, the Secretary of War, had a great liking for
Roosevelt, offered him a commission in the Army, and even the
command of a regiment. This he prudently declined, having no
technical military knowledge. He proposed instead, that Dr.
Leonard Wood should be made Colonel, and that he should serve
under Wood as Lieutenant-Colonel. By profession, Wood was a
physician, who had graduated at the Harvard Medical School, and
then had been a contract surgeon with the American Army on the
plains. In this service he went through the roughest kind of
campaigning and, being ambitious, and having an instinct for
military science, he studied the manuals and learned from them
and through actual practice the principles of war. In this way he
became competent to lead troops. He was about two years younger
than Roosevelt, with an iron frame, great tenacity and endurance,
a man of few words, but of clear sight and quick decision.
While Roosevelt finished his business at the Navy Department,
Colonel Wood hurried to San Antonio, Texas, the rendezvous of the
First Regiment of Volunteer Cavalry. A call for volunteers,
issued by Roosevelt and endorsed by Secretary Alger, spread
through the West and Southwest, and it met with a quick response.
Not even in Garibaldi's famous Thousand was such a strange crowd
gathered. It comprised cow-punchers, ranchmen, hunters,
professional gamblers and rascals of the Border, sports men,
mingled with the society sports, former football players and
oarsmen, polo-players and lovers of adventure from the great
Eastern cities. They all had one quality in common--courage--and
they were all bound together by one common bond, devotion to
Theodore Roosevelt. Nearly every one of them knew him personally;
some of the Western men had hunted or ranched with him; some of
the Eastern had been with him in college, or had had contact with
him in one of the many vicissitudes of his career. It was a
remarkable spectacle, this flocking to a man not yet forty years
old, whose chief work up to that time had been in the supposed
commonplace position of a Civil Service Commissioner and of a New
York Police Commissioner! But Roosevelt's name was already known
throughout the country: it excited great admiration in many,
grave doubts in many, and curiosity in all. His friends urged him
not to go. It seemed to some of us almost wantonly reckless that
he should put his life, which had been so valuable and evidently
held the promise of still higher achievement, at the risk of a
Spanish bullet, or of yellow fever in Cuba, for the sake of a
cause which did not concern the safety of his country. But he
never considered risks or chances. He felt it as a duty that we
must free Cuba, and that every one who recognized this duty
should do his share in performing it. No doubt the excitement and
the noble side of our war attracted him. No doubt, also, that he
remembered that the reputation of a successful soldier had often
proved a ladder to political promotion in our Republic. Every
reader of our history, though he were the dullest, understood
that. But that was not the chief reason, or even an important
one, in shaping his decision. He went to San Antonio in May, and
worked without respite in learning the rudiments of war and in
teaching them to his motley volunteers, who were already called
by the public, and will be known in history, as the "Rough
Riders." He felt relieved when "Teddy's Terrors," one of the
nicknames proposed, did not stick to them. At the end of the
month the regiment proceeded to Tampa, Florida, whence part of it
sailed for Cuba on the transport Yucatan. It sufficiently
indicates the state of chaos which then reigned in our Army
preparations, that half the regiment and all the horses and mules
were left behind. Arrived in Cuba,, the first troops, accustomed
only to the saddle, had to hobble along as best they could, on
foot, so that some wag rechristened them " Wood's Weary Walkers."
The rest of the regiment, with the mounts, came a little later,
and at Las Guasimas they had their first skirmish with the
Spaniards. Eight of them were killed, and they were buried in one
grave. Afterward, in writing the history of the Rough Riders,
Roosevelt said: "There could be no more honorable burial than
that of these men in a common grave--Indian and cowboy, miner,
packer, and college athlete--the man of unknown ancestry from the
lonely Western plains, and the man who carried on his watch the
crests of the Stuyvesants and the Fishes, one in the way they had
met death, just as during life they had been one in their daring
and their loyalty." *
* The Rough Riders, 120.
I shall not attempt to follow in detail the story of the Rough
Riders, but shall touch only on those matters which refer to
Roosevelt himself. Wood, having been promoted to
Brigadier-General, in command of a larger unit, Theodore became
Colonel of the regiment. On July 1 and 2 he commanded the Rough
Riders in their attack on and capture of San Juan Hill, in
connection with some colored troops. In this engagement, their
nearest approach to a battle, the Rough Riders, who had less than
five hundred men in action, lost eighty-nine in killed and
wounded. Then followed a dreary life in the trenches until
Santiago surrendered; and then a still more terrible experience
while they waited for Spain to give up the war. Under a killing
tropical sun, receiving irregular and often damaged food, without
tent or other protection from the heat or from the rain, the
Rough Riders endured for weeks the ravages of fever, climate, and
privation. To realize that their sufferings were directly owing
to the blunders and incompetence of the War Department at home,
brought no consolation, for the soldiers could see no reason why
the Department should not go on blundering indefinitely. One of
the Rough Riders told me that, when stricken with fever, he lay
for days on the beach, and that anchored within the distance a
tennis-ball could be thrown was a steamer loaded with medicines,
but that no orders were given to bring them ashore!
The Rough Riders were hard hit by disease, but not harder than
the other regiments in the Army. Every one of their officers,
except the Colonel and another, had yellow fever, and at one time
more than half of the regiment was sick. A terrible depression
weighed them down. They almost despaired, not only of being
relieved, but of living. To face the entire Spanish Army would
have been a great joy, compared with this sinking, melting away,
against the invisible fever.
The Administration at Washington, however, although it knew the
condition of the Army in Cuba, seemed indifferent rather than
anxious, and talked about moving the troops into the interior, to
the high ground round San Luis. Thereupon, Roosevelt wrote to
General Shafter, his commanding officer:
To keep us here, in the opinion of every officer commanding a
division or a brigade, will simply involve the destruction of
thousands. There is no possible reason for not shipping
practically the entire command North at once ....
All of us are certain, as soon as the authorities at Washington
fully appreciate the conditions of the army, to be sent home. If
we are kept here it will in all human probability mean an
appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate that over half
the army, if kept here during the sickly season, will die.
This is not only terrible from the standpoint of the individual
lives lost, but it means ruin from the standpoint of military
efficiency of the flower of the American Army, for the great bulk
of the regulars are here with you. The sick-list, large though it
is, exceeding four thousand, affords but a faint index of the
debilitation of the army. Not ten per cent are fit for active
work.
This letter General Shafter really desired to have written, but
when Roosevelt handed it to him, he hesitated to receive it.
Still Roosevelt persisted, left it in the General's hands, and
the General gave it to the correspondent of the Associated Press
who was present. A few hours later it had been telegraphed to the
United States. Shafter called a council of war of the division
and brigade commanders, which he invited Roosevelt to attend,
although his rank as Colonel did not entitle him to take part.
When the Generals heard that the Army was to be kept in Cuba all
summer and sent up into the hills, they agreed that Roosevelt's
protest must be supported, and they drew up the famous "Round
Robin" in which they repeated Roosevelt's warnings. Neither
President McKinley nor the War Department could be deaf to such a
statement as this: "This army must be moved at once or perish. As
the army can be safely moved now, the persons responsible for
preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary
loss of many thousands of lives."
This letter also was immediately published at home, and outcries
of horror and indignation went up. A few sticklers for military
etiquette professed to be astonished that any officer should be
guilty of the insubordination which these letters implied, and,
of course, the blame fell on Roosevelt. The truth is that
Shafter, dismayed at the condition of the Fifth Army, and at his
own inability to make the Government understand the frightful
doom which was impending, deliberately chose Roosevelt to commit
the insubordination; for, as he was a volunteer officer, soon to
be discharged, the act could not harm his future, whereas the
regular officers were not likely to be popular with the War
Department after they had called the attention of the world to
its maleficent incompetence.
Washington heard the shot fired by the Colonel of the Rough
Riders, and without loss of time ordered the Army home. The sick
were transported by thousands to Montauk Point, at the eastern
end of Long Island, where, in spite of the best medical care
which could be improvised, large numbers of them died. But the
Army knew, and the American public knew, that Roosevelt, by his "
insubordination," had saved multitudes of lives. At Montauk Point
he was the most popular man in America.
This concluded Roosevelt's career as a soldier. The experience
introduced to the public those virile qualities of his with which
his friends were familiar. He had not endured the hardships of
ranching and hunting in vain. If life on the Plains democratized
him, life with the Rough Riders did also; indeed, without the
former there would have been no Rough Riders and no Colonel
Roosevelt. He learned not only how to lead a regiment according
to the tactics of that day, but also--and this was far more
important--he learned how disasters and the waste of lives, and
treasure, and the ignominy of a disgracefully managed campaign,
sprang directly from unpreparedness. This burned indelibly into
his memory. It stimulated all his subsequent appeals to make the
Army and Navy large enough for any probable sudden demand upon
them. "America the Unready" had won the war against a decrepit,
impoverished, third-rate power, but had paid for her victory
hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives;
what would the count have mounted to had she been pitted against
a really formidable foe? Would she have won at all against any
enemy fully prepared and of nearly equal strength? Many of us
dismissed Roosevelt's warnings then as the outpourings of a
jingo, of one who loved war for war's sake, and wished to graft
onto the peaceful traditions and standards of our Republic the
militarism of Europe. We misjudged him.
CHAPTER VIII. GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK--VICE-PRESIDENT
While Roosevelt was at Montauk Point waiting with his regiment to
be mustered out, and cheering up the sick soldiers, he had direct
proof that every war breeds a President. For the politicians went
down to call on him and, although they did not propose that he
should be a candidate for the Presidency--that was not a
Presidential year--they looked him over to see how he would do
for Governor of New York. Since Cleveland set the fashion in
1882, the New York governorship was regarded as the easiest
stepping stone to the Presidency. Roosevelt's popularity was so
great that if the matter had been left in the hands of the
people, he would have been nominated with a rush; but the Empire
State was dominated by Bosses--Senator David B. Hill, the
Democratic State Boss, Senator Thomas C. Platt, the Republican
State Boss, and Richard Croker, Boss of Tammany,--who had
intimate relations with the wicked of both parties, and often
decided an election by throwing their votes or withholding them.
Senator Platt enjoyed, with Senator Quay of Pennsylvania, the
evil reputation of being the most unscrupulous Boss in the United
States. I do not undertake to say whether the palm should go to
him or to Quay, but no one disputes that Platt held New York
State in his hand, or that Quay held Pennsylvania in his. By the
year 1898, both were recognized as representing a type of Boss
that was becoming extinct.
The business-man type, of which Senator Aldrich was a perfect
exponent, was pushing to the front. Quay, greedy of money, had
never made a pretense of showing even a conventional respect for
the Eighth Commandment; Platt, on the other hand, seems not to
have enriched himself by his political deals, but to have taken
his pay in the gratification he enjoyed from wielding autocratic
power. Platt also betrayed that he dated from the last generation
by his religiosity. He used his piety as an elephant uses his
proboscis, to reach about and secure desired objects, large or
small, the trunk of a tree or a bag of peanuts. He was a
Sunday-School teacher and, I believe, a deacon of his church.
Roosevelt says that he occasionally interlarded his political
talk with theological discussion, but that his very dry theology
was wholly divorced from moral implications. The wonderful
chapter on "The New York Governorship," in Roosevelt's
"Autobiography," ought to be read by every American, because it
gives the most remarkable account of the actual working of the
political Machine in a great American State, the disguises that
Machine wore, its absolute unscrupulousness, its wickedness, its
purpose to destroy the ideals of democracy. And Roosevelt's
analysis of Platt may stand alongside of Machiavelli's portraits
of the Italian Bosses four hundred years before--they were not
called Bosses then.
Senator Platt did not wish to have Roosevelt hold the
governorship, or any other office in which the independent young
man might worry the wily old Senator.* But the Republican Party
in New York State happened to be in such a very bad condition
that the likelihood that it would carry the election that autumn
was slight: for the public had temporarily tired of Machine rule.
Platt's managers saw that they must pick out a really strong
candidate and they understood that nobody at that moment could
rival Roosevelt's popularity. So they impressed on Platt that he
must accept the Rough Rider Chief, and Mr. Lemuel Quigg, an
ex-Congressman, a journalist formerly on the New York Tribune, a
stanch Republican, who nevertheless recognized that discretion
and intelligence might sometimes be allowed a voice in Machine
dictation, journeyed to Montauk and had a friendly, frank
conversation with the Colonel.
* Platt and Quay were both born in 1833.
Quigg spoke for nobody but himself; he merely wished to sound
Roosevelt. Roosevelt made no pledges; he defined his general
attitude and wished to understand what the Platt Machine
proposed. Quigg said that Platt admitted that the present
Governor, Black, could not be reelected, but that he had doubts
as to Roosevelt's docility. Republican leaders and local chairmen
in all parts of the State, however, enthusiastically called for
Roosevelt, and Quigg did not wish to have the Republican Party
split into two factions. He believed that Platt would accede if
he could be convinced that Roosevelt would not "make war on him."
Roosevelt, without promising anything, replied that he had no
intention of making "war on Mr. Platt, or on anybody else, if war
could be avoided." He said:
'that what [he] wanted was to be Governor and not a faction
leader; that [he] certainly would confer with the organization
men, as with everybody else who seemed to [him] to have knowledge
of and interest in public affairs, and that as to Mr. Platt and
the organization leaders, [he] would do so in the sincere hope
that there might always result harmony of opinion and purpose;
but that while [he] would try to get on well with the
organization, the organization must with equal sincerity strive
to do what [he] 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, [he]
should have to act finally as [his] own judgment and conscience
dictated, and administer the State Government as [he] thought it
ought to be administered.' *
* Autobiography, 295.
Having assured Roosevelt that his statements were exactly what
Quigg expected, Quigg returned to New York City, reported his
conversation to Platt, and, in due season, the free citizens of
New York learned that, with Platt's consent, the Colonel of the
Rough Riders would be nominated by the Republican State
Convention for the governorship of New York.
During the campaign, Roosevelt stumped the State at a pace
unknown till then. It was his first real campaign, and he went
from place to place in a special train speaking at every stop
from his car platform or, in the larger towns, staying long
enough to address great audiences out of doors or in the local
theatre. In November, he was elected by a majority of 18,000, a
slender margin as it looks now, but sufficient for its purpose,
and representing a really notable victory, because it had been
expected that the Democrats would beat any other Republican
candidate but him by overwhelming odds. So, after an absence of
fifteen years, he returned to dwell in Albany.
Before he was sworn in as Governor, he had already measured
strength with Senator Platt. The Senator asked him with amiable
condescension whether he had any special friends he would like to
have appointed on the committees. Roosevelt expressed surprise,
supposing that the Speaker appointed committees. Then Platt told
him that the Speaker had not been agreed upon yet, but that of
course he would name the list given to him. Roosevelt understood
the situation, but said nothing. A week later, however, at
another conference, Platt handed him a telegram, in which the
sender accepted with pleasure his appointment as Superintendent
of Public Works. Roosevelt liked this man and thought him honest,
but he did not think him the best person for that particular
work, and he did not intend as Governor to have his appointments
dictated to him, because he would naturally be held responsible
for his appointees. When he told Platt that that man would not
do, the Senator flew into a passion; he had never met such
insubordination before in any public official, and he decided to
fight the issue from the start. Roosevelt did not allow himself
to lose his temper; he was perfectly polite while Platt let loose
his fury; and before they parted Platt understood which was
master. The Governor appointed Colonel Partridge to the position
and, as it had chiefly to do with the canals of the State, it was
most important. In deed, the canal scandals under Roosevelt's
predecessor, Governor Black, had so roused the popular conscience
that it threatened to break down the supremacy of the Republican
Party.
Jacob Riis describes Roosevelt's administration as introducing
the Ten Commandments into the government at Albany, and we need
hardly be told that the young Governor applied his usual methods
and promoted his favorite reforms. Finding the Civil Service
encrusted with abuses, he pushed legislation which established a
high standard of reform. The starch which had been taken out of
the Civil Service Law under Governor Black was put back,
stiffened. He insisted on enforcing the Factory Law, for the
protection of operatives; and the law regulating sweat-shops,
which he inspected himself, with Riis for his companion.
Perhaps his hottest battle was over the law to tax corporations
which held public franchises. This touched the owners of street
railways in the cities and towns, and many other corporations
which enjoyed a monopoly in managing quasi-public utilities. "In
politics there is no politics," said that elderly early mentor of
Roosevelt when he first sat in the Assembly. Legislatures existed
simply to do the bidding of Big Business, was the creed of the
men who controlled Big Business. They contributed impartially to
the Republican and Democratic campaign funds. They had Republican
Assemblymen and Democratic Assemblymen in their service, and
their lobbyists worked harmoniously with either party. Merely to
suggest that the special privileges of the corporations might be
open to discussion was sacrilege. No wonder, therefore, that the
holders of public franchises marshaled all their forces against
the Governor.
Boss Platt wrote Roosevelt a letter--one of the sort inspired
more by sorrow than by anger--to the effect that he had been
warned that the Governor was a little loose on the relations of
capital and labor, on trusts and combinations, and, in general,
on the right of a man to run his business as he chose, always
respecting, of course, the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code.
The Senator was shocked and pained to perceive that this warning
had a real basis, and that the Governor's "altruism" in behalf of
the people had led him to urge curtailing the rights of
corporations. Roosevelt, instead of feeling contrite at this
chiding, redoubled his energy. The party managers buried the
bill. Roosevelt then sent a special message, as the New York
Governors are empowered to do. It was laid on the Speaker's desk,
but no notice was taken of it. The next morning he sent this
second message to the Speaker:
'I learn that the emergency message which I sent last evening to
the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill has not been
read. I, therefore, send hereby another. I need not impress upon
the Assembly the need of passing this bill at once .... It
establishes the principle that hereafter corporations holding
franchises from the public shall pay their just share of the
public burden.'*
* Riis, 221.
The Speaker, the Assembly, and the Machine now gave heed. The
corporations saw that it would be suicidal to bring down on
themselves the avalanche of fury which was accumulating. The bill
passed. Roosevelt had set a precedent for controlling corporate
truculence.
While Roosevelt was accomplishing these very real triumphs for
justice and popular welfare, the professional critics went on
finding fault with him. Although the passage of one bill after
another gave tangible proof that, far from being Platt's "man,"
or the slave of the Machine, he followed his own ideals, did not
satisfy these critics. They suspected that there was some
wickedness behind it, and they professed to be greatly disturbed
that Roosevelt frequently breakfasted or dined with Platt. What
could this mean except that he took his instructions from the
Boss? How could he, who made a pretense of righteousness, consent
to visit the Sunday School political teacher, much less to sit at
the table with him? The doubts and anxieties of these
self-appointed defenders of public morals, and of the Republic
even, found a spokesman in a young journalist who had then come
recently from college. This person, whom we will call X., met Mr.
Roosevelt at a public reception and with the brusqueness, to put
it mildly, of a hereditary reformer, he demanded to know why the
Governor breakfasted and dined with Boss Platt. Mr. Roosevelt
replied, with that courtesy of his which was never more complete
than when it conveyed his sarcasm, that a person in public
office, like himself, was obliged to meet officially all kinds of
men and women, and he added: "Why, Mr. X., I have even dined with
your father." X. did not pursue his investigation, and the
bystanders, who had vague recollections of the father's
misfortunes in Wall Street, thought that the son was a little
indiscreet even for a hereditary reformer. The truth about
Roosevelt's going to Platt and breakfasting with him was very
simple. The Senator spent the week till Friday afternoon in
Washington, then he came to New York for Saturday and Sunday.
Being somewhat infirm, although he was not, as we now reckon, an
old man, he did not care to extend his trip to Albany, and so the
young and vigorous Governor ran down from Albany and, at
breakfast with Platt, discussed New York State affairs. What I
have already quoted indicates, I think, that no body knew better
than the Boss himself that Roosevelt was not his "man."
One other example is too good to omit. The Superintendent of
Insurance was really one of Platt's men, and a person most
grateful to the insurance companies. Governor Roosevelt,
regarding him as unfit, not only declined to reappoint him, but
actually appointed in his stead a superintendent whom Platt and
the insurance companies could not manage, and so hated. Platt
remonstrated. Finding his arguments futile, he broke out in
threats that if his man was not reappointed, he would fight. He
would forbid the Assembly to confirm Roosevelt's candidate.
Roosevelt replied that as soon as the Assembly adjourned, he
should appoint his candidate temporarily. Platt declared that
when it reconvened, the Assembly would throw him out. This did
not, however, frighten Roosevelt, who remarked that, although he
foresaw he should have an uncomfortable time himself, he would
"guarantee to make his opponents more uncomfortable still."
Later that day Platt sent one of his henchmen to deliver an
ultimatum to the Governor. He repeated Platt's threats, but was
unable to make an impression. Roosevelt got up to go. "You know
it means your ruin?" said the henchman solemnly. "Well, we will
see about that," Roosevelt replied, and had nearly reached the
door when the henchman, anxious to give the prospective victim a
last chance, warned him that the Senator would open the fight on
the next day, and keep it up to the bitter end. "Yes," replied
the Governor; "good-night." And he was just going out, when the
henchman rushed after him, calling, "Hold on! We accept. Send in
your nomination. The Senator is very sorry, but will make no
further opposition."* Roosevelt adds that the bluff was carried
through to the limit, but that after it failed, Platt did not
renew his attempt to interfere with him.
* Autobiography, 317.
Nevertheless, Roosevelt made no war on Platt or anybody else,
merely for the fun of it. "We must use the tools we have," said
Lincoln to John Hay; and Lincoln also had many tools which he did
not choose, but which he had to work with. Roosevelt differed
from the doctrinaire reformer, who would sit still and do nothing
unless he had perfectly clean tools and pure conditions to work
with. To do nothing until the millennium came would mean, of
course, that the Machine would pursue its methods undisturbed.
Roosevelt, on the contrary, knew that by cooperating with the
Machine, as far as his conscience permitted, he could reach
results much better than it aimed at.
Here are three of his letters to Platt, written at a time when
the young journalist and the reformers of his stripe shed tears
at the thought that Theodore Roosevelt was the obsequious servant
of Boss Platt.
The first letter refers to Roosevelt's nomination to the Vice
Presidency, a possibility which the public was already
discussing. The last two letters, written after he had been
nominated by the Republicans, relate to the person whom he wished
to see succeed himself as Governor of New York.
ROOSEVELT TO PLATT
February 1, 1900
First, and least important. If you happened to have seen the
Evening Post recently, you ought to be amused, for it is
moralizing with lofty indignation over the cringing servility I
have displayed in the matter of the insurance superintendent. I
fear it will soon take the view that it cannot possibly support
you as long as you associate with me!
Now as to serious matters. I have, of course, done a great deal
of thinking about the Vice-Presidency since the talk I had with
you followed by the letter from Lodge and the visit from Payne,
of Wisconsin. I have been reserving the matter to talk over with
you, but in view of the publication in the Sun this morning, I
would like to begin the conversation, as it were, by just a line
or two now. I need not speak of the confidence I have in the
judgment of you and Lodge, yet 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. As
you know, I am of an active nature. In spite of all the work and
all the worry, and very largely because of your own constant
courtesy and consideration, my dear Senator,--I have thoroughly
enjoyed being Governor. I have kept every promise, express or
implied, I made on the stump, and I feel that the Republican
Party is stronger before the State because of my incumbency.
Certainly everything is being managed now on a perfectly straight
basis and every office is as clean as a whistle.
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
simply be a presiding officer, and that I should find a bore. As
you know, I am a man of moderate means (although I am a little
better off than the Sun's article would indicate) and I should
have to live very simply in Washington and could not entertain in
any way as Mr. Hobart and Mr. Morton entertained. My children are
all growing up and I find the burden of their education
constantly heavier, so that I am by no means sure that I ought to
go into public life at all, provided some remunerative work
offered itself. The only reason I would like to go on is that as
I have not been a money maker I feel rather in honor bound to
leave my children the equivalent in a way of a substantial sum of
actual achievement in politics or letters. Now, as Governor, I
can achieve something, but as Vice-President I should achieve
nothing. The more I look at it, the less I feel as if the
Vice-Presidency offered anything to me that would warrant my
taking it.
Of course, I shall not say anything until I hear from you, and
possibly not until I see you, but I did want you to know just how
I felt.
ROOSEVELT TO PLATT
Oyster Bay, August 13, 1900
I noticed in Saturday's paper that you had spoken of my
suggesting Judge Andrews. I did not intend to make the suggestion
public, and I wrote you with entire freedom, hoping that perhaps
I could suggest some man who would commend himself to your
judgment as being acceptable generally to the Republican Party. I
am an organization Republican of a very strong type, as I
understand the word "organization," but in trying to suggest a
candidate for Governor, I am not seeking either to put up an
organization or a non-organization man, but simply a first-class
Republican, who will commend himself to all Republicans, and, for
the matter of that, to all citizens who wish good government.
Judge Andrews needs no endorsement from any man living as to his
Republicanism. From the time he was Mayor of Syracuse through his
long and distinguished service on the bench he has been
recognized as a Republican and a citizen of the highest type. I
write this because your interview seems to convey the impression,
which I am sure you did not mean to convey, that in some way my
suggestions are antagonistic to the organization. I do not
understand quite what you mean by the suggestion of my friends,
for I do not know who the men are to whom you thus refer, nor why
they are singled out for reference as making any suggestions
about the Governorship.
In your last interview, I understood that you wished me to be
back in the State at the time of the convention. As I wish to be
able to give the nominee hearty and effective support, this
necessarily means that I do have a great interest in whom is
nominated.
ROOSEVELT TO PLATT
Oyster Bay, August 20, 1900
I have your letter of the 16th. I wish to see a straight
Republican nomination for the governorship. The men whom I have
mentioned, such as ex-Judge Andrews and Secretary Root, are as
good Republicans as can be found in the State, and I confess I
haven't the slightest idea what you mean when you say, "if we are
to lower the standard and nominate such men as you suggest, we
might as well die first as last." To nominate such. a man as
either of these is to raise the standard; to speak of it as
lowering the standard is an utter misuse of words.
You say that we must nominate some Republican who "will carry out
the wishes of the organization," and add that "I have not yet
made up my mind who that man is." Of one thing I am certain,
that, to have it publicly known that the candidate, whoever he
may be, "will carry out the wishes of the organization," would
insure his defeat; for such a statement implies that he would
merely register the decrees of a small body of men inside the
Republican Party, instead of trying to work for the success of
the party as a whole and of good citizenship generally. It is not
the business of a Governor to "carry out the wishes of the
organization" unless these wishes coincide with the good of the
Party and of the State. If they do, then he ought to have them
put into effect; if they do not, then as a matter of course he
ought to disregard them. To pursue any other course would be to
show servility; and a servile man is always an undesirable--not
to say a contemptible--public servant. A Governor should, of
course, try in good faith to work with the organization; but
under no circumstances should he be servile to it, or "carry out
its wishes" unless his own best judgment is that they ought to be
carried out. I am a good organization man myself, as I understand
the word "organization," but it is in the highest degree foolish
to make a fetish of the word "organization" and to treat any man
or any small group of men as embodying the organization. The
organization should strive to give effective, intelligent, and
honest leadership to and representation of the Republican Party,
just as the Republican Party strives to give wise and upright
government to the State. When what I have said ceases to be true
of either organization or party, it means that the organization
or party is not performing its duty, and is losing the reason for
its existence.*
* Washburn, 34-38.
Roosevelt's independence as Governor of New York, and the very
important reforms which, in spite of the Machine, he had driven
through, greatly increased his personal popularity throughout the
country. To citizens, East and West, who knew nothing about the
condition of the factories, canals, and insurance institutions in
New York State, the name "Roosevelt" stood for a man as honest as
he was energetic, and as fearless as he was true. Platt and the
Machine naturally wished to get rid of this marplot, who could
not be manipulated, who held strange and subversive ideas as to
the extent to which the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code
should be allowed to encroach on politics and Big Business, and
who was hopelessly "altruistic" in caring for the poor and down
trodden and outcast. Even Platt knew that, while it would not be
safe for him to try to dominate the popular hero against his own
preference and that of the public, still to shelve Roosevelt in
the office of Vice-President would bring peace to the sadly
disturbed Boss, and would restore jobs to many of his greedy
followers. So he talked up the Vice-Presidency for Roosevelt, and
he let the impression circulate that in the autumn there would be
a new Governor.
Roosevelt, however, repeated to many persons the views he wrote
to Platt in the letter quoted above, and his friends and
opponents both understood that he wished to continue as Governor
for another two years, to carry on the fight against corruption,
and to save himself from being laid away in the Vice
Presidency--the receiving-tomb of many ambitious politicians. In
spite of the fact that within thirty-five years, by the
assassination of two Presidents, two Vice-Presidents had
succeeded to the highest office in the Nation, Vice-Presidents
were popularly regarded as being mere phantoms without any real
power or influence as long as their term lasted, and cut off from
all hopes in the future. Roosevelt himself had this notion. But
the Presidential conventions, with criminal disregard of the
qualifications of a candidate to perform the duties of President
if accident thrust them upon him, went on recklessly nominating
nonentities for Vice-President.
The following extract from a confidential letter by John Hay,
Secretary of State, to Mr. Henry White, at the American Embassy
in London, reveals the attitude towards Roosevelt of the
Administration itself. Allowance must be made, of course, for
Hay's well-known habit of persiflage:
HAY TO HENRY WHITE
Teddy has been here: have you heard of it? It was more fun than a
goat. He came down with a sombre resolution thrown on his
strenuous brow to let McKinley and Hanna know once for all that
he would not be Vice-President, and found to his stupefaction
that nobody in Washington, except Platt, had ever dreamed of such
a thing. He did not even have a chance to launch his nolo
episcopari at the Major. That statesman said he did not want him
on the ticket--that he would be far more valuable in New York--
and Root said, with his frank and murderous smile, "Of course
not--you're not fit for it." And so he went back quite eased in
his mind, but considerably bruised in his amour propre.
In February, Roosevelt issued a public notice that he would not
consent to run for the Vice-Presidency, and throughout the
spring, until the meeting of the Republican Convention in
Philadelphia, on June 21st, he clung to that determination.
Platt, anxious lest Roosevelt should be reelected Governor
against the plans of the Machine, quietly--worked up a "boom" for
Roosevelt's nomination as Vice-President; and he connived with
Quay to steer the Pennsylvania delegation in the same direction.
The delegates met and renominated McKinley as a matter of course.
Then, with irresistible pressure, they insisted on nominating
Roosevelt. Swept off his feet, and convinced that the demand came
genuinely from representatives from all over the country, he
accepted, and was chosen by acclamation. The Boss-led delegations
from New York and Pennsylvania added their votes to those of the
real Roosevelt enthusiasts.
Happy, pious Tom Platt, relieved from the nightmare of having to
struggle for two years more with a Reform Governor at Albany!
Some of Roosevelt's critics construed his yielding, at the last
moment, as evidence of his being ruled by Platt after all. But
this insinuation collapsed as soon as the facts were known. As an
episode in the annals of political sport, I should like to have
had Roosevelt run for Governor a second time, defy Platt and all
his imps, and be reelected.
As I have just quoted Secretary Hay's sarcastic remarks on the
possibility that Roosevelt might be the candidate for
Vice-President, I will add this extract from Hay's note to the
successful candidate himself, dated June 21st:
As it is all over but the shouting, I take a moment of this cool
morning of the longest day in the year to offer you my cordial
congratulations .... You have received the greatest compliment
the country could pay you, and although it was not precisely what
you and your friends desire, I have no doubt it is all for the
best. Nothing can keep you from doing good work wherever you
are--nor from getting lots of fun out of it.*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 343.
The Presidential campaign which followed, shook the country only
a little less than that of 1896 had done. For William J. Bryan
was again the Democratic candidate, honest money--the gold
against the silver standard--was again the issue--although the
Spanish War had injected Imperialism into the Republican
platform--and the conservative elements were still anxious. The
persistence of the Free Silver heresy and of Bryan's hold on the
popular imagination alarmed them; for it seemed to contradict the
hope implied in Lincoln's saying that you can't fool all the
people all the time. Here was a demagogue, who had been exposed
and beaten four years before, who raised his head--or should I
say his voice?--with increased effrontery and to an equally large
and enthusiastic audience.
Roosevelt took his full share in campaigning for the Republican
ticket. He spoke in the East and in the West, and for the first
time the people of many of the States heard him speak and saw his
actual presence. His attitude as a speaker, his gestures, the way
in which his pent-up thoughts seemed almost to strangle him
before he could utter them, his smile showing the white rows of
teeth, his fist clenched as if to strike an invisible adversary,
the sudden dropping of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger
as he became almost conversational in tone, and seemed to address
special individuals in the crowd before him, the strokes of
sarcasm, stern and cutting, and the swift flashes of humor which
set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and
autumn familiar to millions of his countrymen; and the
cartoonists made his features and gestures familiar to many other
millions. On his Western trip, Roosevelt for a companion and
understudy had Curtis Guild, and more than once when Roosevelt
lost his voice completely, Guild had to speak for him. Up to
election day in November, the Republicans did not feel confident,
but when the votes were counted, McKinley had a plurality of over
830,000, and beat Bryan by more than a million.
By an absurd and bungling practice, which obtains in our
political life, the Administration elected in November does not
take office until the following March, an interval which permits
the old Administration, often beaten and discredited, to continue
in office for four months after the people have turned it out. As
we have lately seen, such an Administration does not experience a
death-bed repentance, but employs the moratorium to rivet upon
the country the evil policies which the people have repudiated.
This interval Roosevelt spent in finishing his work as Governor
of New York State, and in removing to Washington. Then he had a
foretaste of the life of inactivity to which the Vice-Presidency
doomed him.
After being sworn in on March 4, 1901, his only stated duty was
to preside over the Senate, but as the Senate did not usually sit
during the hot weather, he had still more leisure thrust upon
him. Of course, he could write, and there never was a time, even
at his busiest, when he had not a book, or addresses, or articles
on the stocks. But writing alone was not now sufficient to
exercise his very vigorous faculties. Perhaps, for the first time
in his life, he may have had a foreboding of what ennui meant. He
consulted Justice White, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
whether it would be proper for him to enroll himself as a student
in the Washington Law School. Justice White feared that this
might be regarded as a slight to the dignity of the
Vice-Presidential office, but he told Roosevelt what law-books to
read, and offered to quiz him every Saturday evening. Before
autumn came, however, when they could carry out their plan, a
tragic event altered the course of Roosevelt's career.
CHAPTER IX. PRESIDENT
During the summer of 1901, the city of Buffalo, New York, held a
Pan-American Exposition. President McKinley visited this and,
while holding a public reception on September 6, he was twice
shot by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish anarchist. When the news reached
him, Roosevelt went straight to Buffalo, to attend to any matters
which the President might suggest; but as the surgeons pronounced
the wounds not fatal nor even dangerous, Roosevelt left with a
light heart, and joined his family at Mount Tahawrus in the
Adirondacks. For several days cheerful bulletins came. Then, on
Friday afternoon the 13th, when the Vice-President and his party
were coming down from a climb to the top of Mount Marcy, a
messenger brought a telegram which read:
The President's condition has changed for the worse.
Cortelyou.
The climbers on Mount Marcy were fifty miles from the end of the
railroad and ten miles from the nearest telephone at the lower
club-house. They hurried forward on foot, following the trail to
the nearest cottage; where a runner arrived with a message, "Come
at once." Further messages awaited them at the lower club-house.
President McKinley was dying, and Roosevelt must lose no time.
His secretary, William Loeb, telephoned from North Creek, the end
of the railroad, that he had had a locomotive there for hours
with full steam up. So Roosevelt and the driver of his buckboard
dashed on through the night, over the uncertain mountain road,
dangerous even by daylight, at breakneck speed. Dawn was breaking
when they came to North Creek. There, Loeb told him that
President McKinley was dead. Then they steamed back to
civilization as fast as possible, reached the main trunk line,
and sped on to Buffalo without a moment's delay. It was afternoon
when the special train came into the station, and Roosevelt,
having covered the distance of 440 miles from Mount Marcy, was
driven to the house of Ansley Wilcox. Most of the Cabinet had
preceded him to Buffalo, and Secretary Root, the ranking member
present Secretary Hay having remained in Washington asked the
Vice-President to be sworn in at once. Roosevelt replied:
'I shall take the oath of office in obedience to your request,
sir, and in doing so, it shall be my aim to continue absolutely
unbroken the policies of President McKinley for the peace,
prosperity, and honor of our beloved country.'
The oath having been administered, the new President said:
'In order to help me keep the promise I have taken, I would ask
the Cabinet to retain their positions at least for some months to
come. I shall rely upon you, gentlemen, upon your loyalty and
fidelity, to help me.'*
* Washburn, 40.
On September 19, John Hay wrote to his intimate friend, Henry
Adams:
'I have just received your letter from Stockholm and shuddered at
the awful clairvoyance of your last phrase about Teddy's luck.
Well, he is here in the saddle again. That is, he is in Canton to
attend President McKinley's funeral and will have his first
Cabinet meeting in the White House tomorrow. He came down from
Buffalo Monday night--and in the station, without waiting an
instant, told me I must stay with him that I could not decline
nor even consider. I saw, of course, it was best for him to start
off that way, and so I said I would stay, forever, of course, for
it would be worse to say I would stay a while than it would be to
go out at once. I can still go at any moment he gets tired of me
or when I collapse.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay,II, 268.
Writing to Lady Jeune at this time Hay said:
I think you know Mr. Roosevelt, our new President. He is an old
and intimate friend of mine: a young fellow of infinite dash and
originality.
In this manner, "Teddy's luck" brought him into the White House,
as the twenty-sixth President of the United States. Early in the
summer, his old college friend and steadfast admirer, Charles
Washburn, remarked: "I would not like to be in McKinley's shoes.
He has a man of destiny behind him." Destiny is the one artificer
who can use all tools and who finds a short cut to his goal
through ways mysterious and most devious. As I have before
remarked, nothing commonplace could happen to Theodore Roosevelt.
He emerged triumphant from the receiving-vault of the
Vice-Presidency, where his enemies supposed they had laid him
away for good. In ancient days, his midnight dash from Mount
Marcy, and his flight by train across New York State to Buffalo,
would have become a myth symbolizing the response of a hero to an
Olympian summons. If we ponder it well, was it indeed less than
this?
In 1899, Mr. James Bryce, the most penetrating of foreign
observers of American life had said, in words that now seem
prophetic: "Theodore Roosevelt is the hope of American politics."
CHAPTER X. THE WORLD WHICH ROOSEVELT CONFRONTED
To understand the work of a statesman we must know something of
the world in which he lived. That is his material, out of which
he tries to embody his ideals as the sculptor carves his out of
marble. We are constantly under the illusions of time. Some
critics say, for instance, that Washington fitted so perfectly
the environment of the American Colonies during the last half of
the eighteenth century, that he was the direct product of that
environment; I prefer to think, however, that he possessed
certain individual traits which, and not the time, made him
George Washington, and would have enabled him to have mastered a
different period if he had been born in it. In like manner,
having known Theodore Roosevelt, I do not believe that he would
have been dumb or passive or colorless or slothful or futile
under any other conceivable conditions. Just as it was not New
York City, nor Harvard, nor North Dakota, which made him
ROOSEVELT, so the ROOSEVELT in him would have persisted under
whatever sky.
The time offers the opportunities. The gift in the man, innate
and incalculable, determines how he will seize them and what he
will do with them. Now it is because I think that Roosevelt had a
clear vision of the world in which he dwelt, and saw the path by
which to lead and improve it, that his career has profound
significance to me. Picturesque he was, and picturesqueness made
whatever he did interesting. But far deeper qualities made him
significant. From ancient times, at least from the days of Greece
and Rome, Democracy as a political ideal had been dreamed of, and
had even been put into practice on a small scale here and there.
But its shortcomings and the frailty of human nature made it the
despair of practical men and the laughing stock of philosophers
and ironists. Nevertheless, the conviction that no man has a
right to enslave another would not die. And in modern times the
English sense of justice and the English belief that a man must
have a right to be heard on matters concerning himself and his
government, forced Democracy, as an actual system, to the front.
The demand for representation caused the American colonists to
break away from England and to govern themselves independently.
Every one now sees that this demand was the just and logical
carrying forward of English ideals.
At about the same time, in France, Rousseau, gathering into his
own heart, from many sources, the suggestions and emotions of
Democracy, uttered them with a voice so magical that it roused
millions of other hearts and made the emotions seem intellectual
proofs. As the magician waves his wand and turns common pebbles
into precious stones, so Rousseau turned the dead crater of
Europe into a molten volcano. The ideals of Fraternity and
Equality were joined with that of Liberty and the three were
accepted as indivisible elements of Democracy. In the United
States we set our Democratic principles going. In Europe the
Revolution shattered many of the hateful methods of Despotism,
shattered, but did not destroy them. The amazing genius of
Napoleon intervened to deflect Europe from her march towards
Democracy and to convert her into the servant of his personal
ambition.
Over here, in spite of the hideous contradiction of slavery,
which ate like a black ulcer into a part of our body politic, the
Democratic ideal not only prevailed, but came to be taken for
granted as a heaven-revealed truth, which only fools would
question or dispute. In Europe, the monarchs of the Old Regime
made a desperate rally and put down Napoleon, thinking that by
smashing him they would smash also the tremendous Democratic
forces by which he had gained his supremacy. They put back, so
far as they could, the old feudal bases of privilege and of more
or less disguised tyranny. The Restoration could not slumber
quietly, for the forces of the Revolution burst out from time to
time. They wished to realize the liberty of which they had had a
glimpse in 1789 and which the Old Regime had snatched away from
them. The Spirit of Nationality now strengthened their efforts
for independence and liberty and another Spirit came stalking
after both. This was the Social Revolution, which refusing to be
satisfied by a merely political victory boldly preached
Internationalism as a higher ideal than Nationalism. Truly, Time
still devours all his children, and the hysterical desires bred
by half-truths prevent the coming and triumphant reign of Truth.
While these various and mutually clashing motives swept Europe
along during the first half of the nineteenth century, a
different current hurried the United States into the rapids.
Should they continue to exist as one Union binding together
sections with different interests, or should the Union be
dissolved and those sections attempt to lead a separate political
existence? Fortunately, for the preservation of the Union, the
question of slavery was uppermost in one of the sections. Slavery
could not be dismissed as a merely economic question. Many
Americans declared that it was primarily a moral issue. And this
transformed what the Southern section would gladly have limited
to economics into a war for a moral ideal. With the destruction
of slavery in the South the preservation of the Union came as a
matter of course.
The Civil War itself had given a great stimulus to industry, to
the need of providing military equipment and supplies, and of
extending, as rapidly as possible, the railroads which were the
chief means of transportation. When the war ended in 1865, this
expansion went on at an increasing rate. The energy which had
been devoted to military purposes was now directed to commerce
and industry, to developing the vast unpeopled tracts from the
Mississippi to the Pacific, and to exploiting the hitherto
neglected or unknown natural resources of the country. Every year
science furnished new methods of converting nature's products
into man's wealth. Chemistry, the doubtful science, Midas-like,
turned into gold every thing that it touched. There were not
native workers enough, and so a steady stream of foreign
immigrants flocked over from abroad. They came at first to better
their own fortunes by sharing in the unlimited American harvests.
Later, our Captains of Industry, regardless of the quality of the
new comers, and intent only on securing cheap labor to multiply
their hoards, combed the lowest political and social levels of
southern Europe and of western Asia for employees. The immigrants
ceased to look upon America as the Land of Promise, the land
where they intended to settle, to make their homes, and to rear
their children; it became for them only a huge factory where they
earned a living and for which they felt no affection. On the
contrary, many of them looked forward to returning to their
native country as soon as they had saved up a little competence
here. The politicians, equally negligent of the real welfare of
the United States, gave to these masses of foreigners quick and
unscrutinized naturalization as American citizens.
So it fell out that before the end of the nineteenth century a
great gulf was opening between Labor and Capital. Now a community
can thrive only when all its classes feel that they have COMMON
interests; but since American Labor was largely composed of
foreigners, it acquired a double antagonism to Capital. It had
not only the supposed natural antagonism of employee to employer,
but also the further cause of misunderstanding, and hostility
even, which came from the foreignness of its members. Another
ominous condition arose. The United States ceased to be the Land
of Promise, where any hard-working and thrifty man could better
himself and even become rich. The gates of Opportunity were
closing. The free lands, which the Nation offered to any one who
would cultivate them, had mostly been taken up; the immigrant who
had been a laborer in Europe, was a laborer here. Moreover, the
political conditions in Europe often added to the burdens and
irritation caused by the industrial conditions there. And the
immigrant in coming to America brought with him all his
grievances, political not less than industrial. He was too
ignorant to discriminate; he could only feel. Anarchy and
Nihilism, which were his natural reaction against his despotic
oppressors in Germany and Russia, he went on cultivating here,
where, by the simple process of naturalization, he became
politically his own despot in a year or two.
But, of course, the very core of the feud which threatens to
disrupt modern civilization was the discovery that, in any final
adjustment, the POLITICAL did not suffice. What availed it for
the Taborer and the capitalist to be equal at the polls, for the
vote of one to count as much as the vote of the other, if the two
men were actually worlds apart in their social and industrial
lives? Equality must seem to the laborer a cruel deception and a
sham unless it results in equality in the distribution of wealth
and of opportunity. How this is to be attained I have never seen
satisfactorily stated; but the impossibility of realizing their
dreams, or the blank folly of doting on them, has never prevented
men from striving to obtain them. From this has resulted the
frantic pursuit, during a century and a quarter, of all sorts of
projects from Babuvism to Bolshevism, which, if they could not
install Utopia overnight, were at least calculated to destroy
Civilization as it is. The common feature of the propagandists of
all these doctrines seems to be the throwing-over of the Past;
not merely of the proved evils and inadequacies of the Past, but
of our conception of right and wrong, of morals, of human
relations, and of our duty towards the Eternal, which, having
sprung out of the Past, must be jettisoned in a fury of contempt.
In short, the destroyers of Society (writhing under the
immemorial sting of injustice, which they believed was wholly
caused by their privileged fellows, and not even in part inherent
in the nature of things) supposed that by blotting out Privilege
they could establish their ideals of Justice and Equality.
In the forward nations of Europe, not less than in the United
States, these ideals had been arrived at, at least in name, and
so far as concerned politics. Even in Germany, the most rigid of
Absolute Despot isms, a phantasm of political liberty was allowed
to flit about the Halls of Parliament. But through the cunning of
Bismarck the Socialist masses were bound all the more tightly to
the Hohenzollern Despot by liens which seemed to be socialistic.
Nevertheless, the principles of the Social Revolution spread
secretly from European country to country, whether it professed
to be Monarchical or Republican.
In the United States, when Theodore Roosevelt succeeded to the
Presidency in 1901, a similar antagonism between Capital and
Labor had become chronic. Capital was arrogant. Its advance since
the Civil War had been unmatched in history. The inundation of
wealth which had poured in, compared with all previous amassing
of riches, was as the Mississippi to the slender stream of
Pactolus. The men whose energy had created this wealth, and the
men who managed and increased it, lost the sense of their proper
relations with the rest of the community and the Nation.
According to the current opinion progress consisted in doubling
wealth in the shortest time possible; this meant the employment
of larger and larger masses of labor; therefore laborers should
be satisfied, nay, should be grateful to the capitalists who
provided them with the means of a livelihood; and those
capitalists assumed that what they regarded as necessary to
progress, defined by them, should be accepted as necessary to the
prosperity of the Nation.
Such an alignment of the two elements, which composed the Nation,
indicated how far the so-called Civilization, which modern
industrialism has created, was from achieving that social
harmony, which is the ideal and must be the base of every
wholesome and enduring State. The condition of the working
classes in this country was undoubtedly better than that in
Europe. And the discontent and occasional violence here were
fomented by foreign agitators who tried to make our workers
believe that they were as much oppressed as their foreign
brothers. Wise observers saw that a collision, it might be a
catastrophe, was bound to come unless some means could be found
to bring concord to the antagonists. Here was surely an amazing
paradox. The United States, already possessed of fabulous wealth
and daily amassing more, was heading straight for a social and
economic revolution, because a part of the inhabitants claimed to
be the slaves of industrialism and of poverty.
This slight outline, which every reader can complete for himself,
will serve to show what sort of a world, especially what sort of
an American world, confronted Roosevelt when he took the reins of
government. His task was stupendous, the problems he had to solve
were baffling. Other public men of the time saw its portents, but
he alone seems to have felt that it was his duty to strain every
nerve to avert the impending disaster. And he alone, as it seems
to me, understood the best means to take.
Honesty, Justice, Reason, were not to him mere words to decorate
sonorous messages or to catch and placate the hearers of his
passionate speeches; they were the most real of all realities,
moral agents to be used to clear away the deadlock into which
Civilization was settling.
CHAPTER XI. ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY
In taking the oath of office at Buffalo, Roosevelt promised to
continue President McKinley's policies. And this he set about
doing loyally. He retained McKinley's Cabinet,* who were working
out the adjustments already agreed upon. McKinley was probably
the best-natured President who ever occupied the White House. He
instinctively shrank from hurting anybody's feelings. Persons who
went to see him in dudgeon, to complain against some act which
displeased them, found him "a bower of roses," too sweet and soft
to be treated harshly. He could say "no" to applicants for office
so gently that they felt no resentment. For twenty years he had
advocated a protective tariff so mellifluously, and he believed
so sincerely in its efficacy, that he could at any time hypnotize
himself by repeating his own phrases. If he had ever studied the
economic subject, it was long ago, and having adopted the tenets
which an Ohio Republican could hardly escape from adopting, he
never revised them or even questioned their validity. His
protectionism, like cheese, only grew stronger with age. As a
politician, he was so hospitable that in the campaign of 1896,
which was fought to maintain the gold standard and the financial
honesty of the United States, he showed very plainly that he had
no prejudice against free silver, and it was only at the last
moment that the Republican managers could persuade him to take a
firm stand for gold.
* In April, 1901, J. W. Griggs had retired as Attorney-General
and was succeeded by P. C. Knox; in January, 1902, C. E. Smith
was replaced by H. W. Payne as Postmaster-General.
The chief business which McKinley left behind him, the work which
Roosevelt took up and carried on, concerned Imperialism. The
Spanish War forced this subject to the front by leaving us in
possession of the Philippines and by bequeathing to us the
responsibility for Cuba and Porto Rico. We paid Spain for the
Philippines, and in spite of constitutional doubts as to how a
Republic like the United States could buy or hold subject
peoples, we proceeded to conquer those islands and to set up an
American administration in them. We also treated Porto Rico as a
colony, to enjoy the blessing of our rule. And while we allowed
Cuba to set up a Republic of her own, we made it very clear that
our benevolent protection was behind her.
All this constituted Imperialism, against which many of our
soberest citizens protested. They alleged that as a doctrine it
contradicted the fundamental principles on which our nation was
built. Since the Declaration of Independence, America had stood
before the world as the champion and example of Liberty, and by
our Civil War she had purged her self of Slavery. Imperialism
made her the mistress of peoples who had never been consulted.
Such moral inconsistency ought not to be tolerated. In addition
to it was the political danger that lay in holding possessions on
the other side of the Pacific. To keep them we must be prepared
to defend them, and defense would involve maintaining a naval and
military armament and of stimulating a warlike spirit, repugnant
to our traditions. In short, Imperialism made the United States a
World Power, and laid her open to its perils and entanglements.
But while a minority of the men and women of sober judgment and
conscience opposed Imperialism, the large majority accepted it,
and among these was Theodore Roosevelt. He believed that the
recent war had involved us in a responsibility which we could not
evade if we would. Having destroyed Spanish sovereignty in the
Philippines, we must see to it that the people of those islands
were protected. We could not leave them to govern themselves
because they had no experience in government; nor could we dodge
our obligation by selling them to any other Power. Far from
hesitating because of legal or moral doubts, much less of
questioning our ability to perform this new task, Roosevelt
embraced Imperialism, with all its possible issues, boldly not to
say exultantly. To him Imperialism meant national strength, the
acknowledgment by the American people that the United States are
a World Power and that they would not shrink from taking up any
burden which that distinction involved.
When President Cleveland, at the end of 1895, sent his swingeing
message in regard to the Venezuelan Boundary quarrel, Roosevelt
was one of the first to foresee the remote consequences. And by
the time he himself became President, less than six years later,
several events--our taking of the Hawaiian Islands, the Spanish
War, the island possessions which it saddled upon us--confirmed
his conviction that the United States could no longer live
isolated from the great interests and policies of the world, but
must take their place among the ruling Powers. Having reached
national maturity we must accept Expansion as the logical and
normal ideal for our matured nation. Cleveland had laid down that
the Monroe Doctrine was inviolable; Roosevelt insisted that we
must not only bow to it in theory, but be prepared to defend it
if necessary by force of arms.
Very naturally, therefore, Roosevelt encouraged the passing of
legislation needed to complete the settlement of our relations
with our new possessions. He paid especial attention to the men
he sent to administer the Philippines, and later he was able to
secure the services of W. Cameron Forbes as Governor-General. Mr.
Forbes proved to be a Viceroy after the best British model and he
looked after the interest of his wards so honestly and
competently that conditions in the Philippines improved rapidly,
and the American public in general felt no qualms over possessing
them. But the Anti-Imperialists, to whom a moral issue does not
cease to be moral simply because it has a material sugar-coating,
kept up their protest.
There were, however, matters of internal policy; along with them
Roosevelt inherited several foreign complications which he at
once grappled with. In the Secretary of State, John Hay, he had a
remarkable helper. Henry Adams told me that Hay was the first
"man of the world" who had ever been Secretary of State. While
this may be disputed, nobody can fail to see some truth in
Adams's assertion. Hay had not only the manners of a gentleman,
but also the special carriage of a diplomat. He was polite,
affable, and usually accessible, without ever losing his innate
dignity. An indefinable reserve warded off those who would either
presume or indulge in undue familiarity His quick wits kept him
always on his guard. His main defect was his unwillingness to
regard the Senate as having a right to pass judgment on his
treaties. And instead of being compliant and compromising, he
injured his cause with the Senators by letting them see too
plainly that he regarded them as interlopers, and by peppering
them with witty but not agreeable sarcasm. In dealing with
foreign diplomats, on the other hand, he was at his best. They
found him polished, straightforward, and urbane. He not only
produced on them the impression of honesty, but he was honest. In
all his diplomatic correspondence, whether he was writing
confidentially to American representatives or was addressing
official notes to foreign governments, I do not recall a single
hint of double-dealing. Hay was the velvet glove, Roosevelt the
hand of steel.
For many years Canada and the United States had enjoyed
grievances towards each other, grievances over fisheries, over
lumber, and other things, no one of which was worth going to war
for. The discovery of gold in the Klondike, and the rush thither
of thousands of fortune-seekers, revived the old question of the
Alaskan Boundary; for it mattered a great deal whether some of
the gold-fields were Alaskan--that is, American-or Canadian.
Accordingly, a joint High Commission was appointed towards the
end of McKinley's first administration to consider the claims and
complaints of the two countries. The Canadians, however, instead
of settling each point on its own merits, persisted in bringing
in a list of twelve grievances which varied greatly in
importance, and this method favored trading one claim against
another. The result was that the Commission, failing to agree,
disbanded. Nevertheless, the irritation continued, and Roosevelt,
having become President, and being a person who was
constitutionally opposed to shilly-shally, suggested to the State
Department that a new Commission be appointed under conditions
which would make a decision certain. He even went farther, he
took precautions to assure a verdict in favor of the United
States. He appointed three Commissioners--Senators Lodge, Root,
and Turner; the Canadians appointed two, Sir A. L. Jette and A.
B. Aylesworth; the English representative was Alverstone, the
Lord Chief Justice.
The President gave to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the
Supreme Court, who was going abroad for the summer, a letter
which he was "indiscreetly" to show Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour,
and two or three other prominent Englishmen. In this letter he
wrote:
'The claims 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 suddenly claim the Island of Nantucket ....
'I believe that no three men [the President said] in the United
States could be found who would be more anxious than our own
delegates to do justice to the British claim on all points where
there is even a color of right on the British side. But the
objection raised by certain Canadian authorities to Lodge, Root,
and Turner, and especially to Lodge and Root, was that they had
committed themselves on the general proposition. No man in public
life in any position of prominence could have possibly avoided
committing himself on the proposition, any more than Mr.
Chamberlain could avoid committing himself on the question of the
ownership of the Orkneys if some Scandinavian country suddenly
claimed them. If this claim embodied other points as to which
there was legitimate doubt, I believe Mr. Chamberlain would act
fairly and squarely in deciding the matter; but if he appointed a
commission to settle up all these questions, I certainly should
not expect him to appoint three men, if he could find them, who
believed that as to the Orkneys the question was an open one.
'I wish to make one last effort to bring about an agreement
through the Commission [he said in closing] 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; a position . . . which
will render it necessary for Congress to give me the authority to
run the line as we claim it, by our own people, without any
further regard to the attitude of England and Canada. If I paid
attention to mere abstract rights, that is the position I ought
to take anyhow. I have not taken it because I wish to exhaust
every effort to have the affair settled peacefully and with due
regard to England's honor.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 209, 210.
In due time the Commission gave a decision in favor of the
American contention. Lord Alverstone, who voted with the
Americans, was suspected of having been chosen by the British
Government because they knew his opinion, but I do not believe
that this was true. A man of his honor, sitting in such a
tribunal, would not have voted according to instructions from
anybody.
Roosevelt's brusque way of bringing the Alaska Boundary Question
to a quick decision, may be criticised as not being judicial. He
took the short cut, just as he did years before in securing a
witness against the New York saloon-keepers who destroyed the
lives of thousands of boys and girls by making them drunkards.
Strictly, of course, if the boundary dispute was to be submitted
to a commission, he ought to have allowed the other party to
appoint its own commissioners without any suggestion from him.
But as the case had dragged on interminably, and he believed, and
the world believed, and the Canadians themselves knew, that they
intended to filibuster and postpone as long as possible, he took
the common-sense way to a settlement. If he had resolved, as he
had, to draw the boundary line "on his own hook," in case there
was further pettifogging he committed no impropriety in warning
the British statesmen of his purpose. In judging these
Rooseveltian short cuts, the reader must decide whether they were
justified by the good which they achieved.
Of even greater importance was the understanding reached, under
Roosevelt's direction, with the British Government in regard to
the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. By the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, the United States and Great
Britain agreed to maintain free and uninterrupted passage across
the Isthmus, and, further, that neither country should "obtain or
maintain to itself any control over the said ship-canal," or
"assume or exercise any dominion . . . over any part of Central
America." The ship canal talked about as a probability in 1850
had become a necessity by 1900. During the Spanish-American War,
the American battleship Oregon had been obliged. to make the
voyage round Cape Horn, from San Francisco to Cuba, and this
served to impress on the people of the United States the really
acute need of a canal across the Isthmus, so that in time of war
with a powerful enemy, our Atlantic fleet and our Pacific fleet
might quickly pass from one coast to another. It would obviously
be impossible for us to play the role of a World Power unless we
had this short line of communication. But the conditions of
peace, not less than the emergencies of war, called for a canal.
International commerce, as well as our own, required the saving
of thousands of miles of distance.
About 1880, the French under Count De Lesseps undertook to
construct a canal from Panama to Aspinwall, but after half a
dozen years the French company suspended work, partly for
financial reasons, and partly on account of the enormous loss of
life among the diggers from the pestilent nature of the climate
and the country. Then followed a period of waiting, until it
seemed certain that the French would never resume operations.
American promoters pressed the claims of a route through
Nicaragua where they could secure concessions. But it became
clear that an enterprise of such far reaching political
importance as a trans-Isthmian canal, should be under
governmental control. John Hay had been less than a year in the
Department of State when he set about negotiating with England a
treaty which should embody his ideas. In Sir Julian Pauncefote,
the British Ambassador at Washington, he had a most congenial man
to deal with. Both were gentlemen, both were firmly convinced
that a canal must be constructed for the good of civilization,
both held that to assure the friendship of the two great branches
of the English-speaking race should be the transcendent aim of
each. They soon made a draft of a treaty which was submitted to
the Senate,,but the Senators so amended it that the British
Government refused to accept their amendments, and the project
failed. Hay was so terribly chagrined at the Senate's
interference that he wished to resign. There could be no doubt
now, however, that if the canal had been undertaken on the terms
of his first treaty, it would never have satisfied the United
States and it would probably have been a continual source of
international irritation. Roosevelt was at that time Governor of
New York, and I quote the following letter from him to Hay
because it shows how clearly he saw the objections to the treaty,
and the fundamental principles for the control of an Isthmian
canal:
Albany, Feb. 18, 1900
'I hesitated long before I said anything about the treaty through
sheer dread of two moments--that in which I should receive your
note, and that in which I should receive Cabot's.* But I made up
my mind that at least I wished to be on record; for to my mind
this step is one backward, and it may be fraught with very great
mischief. You have been the greatest Secretary of State I have
seen in my time--Olney comes second--but at this moment I can
not, try as I may, see that you are right. Understand me. When
the treaty is adopted, as I suppose it will be, I shall put the
best face possible on it, and shall back the Administration as
heartily as ever, but oh, how I wish you and the President would
drop the treaty and push through a bill to build AND FORTIFY our
own canal.
* Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who also opposed the first treaty.
'My objections are twofold. First, as to naval policy. If the
proposed canal had been in existence in '98, the Oregon could
have come more quickly through to the Atlantic; but this fact
would have been far outweighed by the fact that Cervera's fleet
would have had open to it the chance of itself going through the
canal, and thence sailing to attack Dewey or to menace our
stripped Pacific Coast. If that canal is open to the warships of
an enemy, it is a menace to us in time of war; it is an added
burden, an additional strategic point to be guarded by our fleet.
If fortified by us, it becomes one of the most potent sources of
our possible sea strength. Unless so fortified it strengthens
against us every nation whose fleet is larger than our own. One
prime reason for fortifying our great seaports, is to unfetter
our fleet, to release it for offensive purposes; and the proposed
canal would fetter it again, for our fleet would have to watch
it, and therefore do the work which a fort should do; and what it
could do much better.
'Secondly, as to the Monroe Doctrine. If we invite foreign powers
to a joint ownership, a joint guarantee, of what so vitally
concerns us but a little way from our borders, how can we
possibly object to similar joint action, say in Southern Brazil
or Argentina, where our interests are so much less evident? If
Germany has the same right that we have in the canal across
Central America, why not in the partition of any part of Southern
America? To my mind, we should consistently refuse to all
European powers the right to control in any shape, any territory
in the Western Hemisphere which they do not already hold.
'As for existing treaties--I do not admit the "dead hand" of the
treaty making power in the past. A treaty can always be honorably
abrogated--though it must never be abrogated in dishonest
fashion.'*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 339-41.
Fortunately, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, remained
benevolently disposed towards the Isthmian Canal, and in the
following year he consented to take up the subject again. A new
treaty embodying the American amendments and the British
objections was drafted, and passed the Senate a few months after
Roosevelt became President. Its vital provisions were, that it
abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States
full ownership and control of the proposed canal.
This was the second illustration of Roosevelt's masterfulness in
cutting through a diplomatic knot. Arrangements for constructing
the Canal itself forced on him a third display of his dynamic
quality which resulted in the most hotly discussed act of his
career.
The French Canal Company was glad to sell to the American
Government its concessions on the Isthmus, and as much of the
Canal as it had dug, for $40,000,000. It had originally bought
its concession from the Government of Colombia, which owned the
State of Panama: At first the Colombian rulers seemed glad, and
they sent an accredited agent, Dr. Herran, to Washington, who
framed with Secretary Hay a treaty satisfactory to both, and
believed, by Mr. Hay, to represent the sincere intentions of the
Colombian Government at Bogota. The Colombian politicians,
however, who were banditti of the Tammany stripe, but as much
cruder as Bogota was than New York City, suddenly discovered that
the transaction might be much more profitable for themselves than
they had at first suspected. They put off ratifying the treaty,
therefore, and warned the French Company that they should charge
it an additional $10,000,000 for the privilege of transferring
its concession to the Americans. The French demurred; the
Americans waited. Secretary Hay reminded Dr. Herran that the
treaty must be signed within a reasonable time, and intimated
that the reasonable time would soon be up.
The Bogotan blackmailers indulged in still wilder dreams of
avarice; like the hasheesh-eater, they completely lost contact
with reality and truth. In one of their earlier compacts with the
French Company they stipulated that, if the Canal were not
completed by a certain day in 1904, the entire concession and
undertaking should revert to the Colombian Government. As it was
now September, 1903, it did not require the wits of a political
bandit to see that, by staving off an agreement with the United
States for a few months, Colombia could get possession of
property and privileges which the French were selling to the
Americans for $40,000,000. So the Colombian Parliament adjourned
in October, 1903, without even taking up the Hay-Herran Treaty.
Meanwhile the managers of the French Company became greatly
alarmed at the prospect of losing the sum which the United States
had agreed to pay for its rights and diggings, and it took steps
to avert this total loss. The most natural means which occurred
to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a revolution in
the State of Panama. To understand the affair truly, the reader
must remember that Panama had long been the chief source of
wealth to the Republic of Colombia. The mountain gentry who
conducted the Colombian Government at Bogota treated Panama like
a conquered. province, to be squeezed to the utmost for the
benefit of the politicians. There was neither community of
interest nor racial sympathy between the Panamanians and the
Colombians, and, as it required a journey of fifteen days to go
from Panama to the Capital, geography, also, added its sundering
influence. Quite naturally the Panamanians, in the course of less
than half a century, had made more than fifty attempts to revolt
from Colombia and establish their own independence. The most
illiterate of them could understand that, if they were
independent, the money which they received and passed on to
Bogota., for the bandits there to spend, would remain in their
own hands. An appeal to their love of liberty, being coupled with
so obvious an appeal to their pockets, was irresistible.
Just what devices the French Company employed to instigate
revolution, can be read in the interesting work of M.
Bunau-Varilla, one of the most zealous officers of the French
Company, who had devoted his life to achieving the construction
of the Trans-Isthmian Canal. He was indefatigable, breezy, and
deliberately indiscreet. He tells much, and what he does not tell
he leaves you to infer, without risk of going astray. Mr. William
Nelson Cromwell, of New York; the general counsel of the Company,
offset Varilla's loquacity by a proper amount of reticence.
Bunau-Varilla hurried over from Paris, and had interviews with
President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, but could not draw them
into his conspiracy. The President told him that, at the utmost,
he would only order American warships, which were on the Panama
coast, to prevent any attack from outside which might cause
bloodshed and interfere with the undisturbed passage across the
Isthmus, a duty which the United States was pledged to perform.
The French zealot-conspirator freely announced that the
revolution at Panama would take place at noon on November 3d. It
did take place as scheduled without violence, and with only the
accidental killing of a Chinaman and a dog. The next day the
Revolutionists proclaimed the Republic of Panama, and on November
6th the United States formally recognized its existence and
prepared to open diplomatic relations with it. The Colombian
Government had tried to send troops to put down the rebellion,
but the American warships, obeying their orders to prevent
bloodshed or fighting, would not allow the troops to land.
As soon as the news of these events reached Bogota, the halls of
Parliament there resounded with wailing and gnashing of teeth and
protests, and curses on the perfidious Americans who had connived
to free the Panamanians in their struggle for liberty. The
mountain bandits perceived that they had overreached themselves.
Instead of the $10,000,000 which their envoy Herran had deemed
sufficient; instead of the $40,000,000 and more, which their
greed had counted on in 1904, they would receive nothing. The
Roosevelt Government immediately signed a contract with the
Republic of Panama, by which the United States leased a zone
across the Isthmus for building, controlling, and operating, the
Canal. Then the Colombians, in a panic, sent their most
respectable public man, and formerly their President, General
Rafael Reyes, to Washington, to endeavor to persuade the
Government to reverse its compact with the Panama Republic. The
blackmailers were now very humble. Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, who was
counsel for Colombia, told me that General Reyes was authorized
to accept $8,000,000 for all the desired concessions, "and," Mr.
MacVeagh added, "he would have taken five millions, but Hay and
Roosevelt were so foolish that they wouldn't accept."
The quick decisions of the Administration in Washington, which
accompanied the revolution in Panama and the recognition of the
new Republic, were made by Roosevelt. I have seen no evidence
that Mr. Hay was consulted at the last moment. When the stroke
was accomplished, many good persons in the United States
denounced it. They felt that it was high-handed and brutal, and
that it fixed an indelible blot on the national conscience. Many
of them did not know of the long-drawn-out negotiations and of
the Colombian premeditated deceit; others knew, but overlooked or
condoned. They upheld strictly the letter of the law. They could
not deny that the purpose of the Colombians was to exact
blackmail. It meant nothing to them that Herran, the official
envoy, had drawn up and signed a treaty under instructions from
Marroquin, the President of Colombia, and its virtual dictator,
who, having approved of the orders under which Herran acted,
could easily have required the Colombian Parliament to ratify the
treaty. Perfervidly pious critics of Roosevelt pictured him as a
bully without conscience, and they blackened his aid in freeing
the Panamanians by calling it "the Rape of Panama." Some of these
persons even boldly asserted that John Hay died of remorse over
his part in this wicked deed. The fact is that John Hay died of a
disease which was not caused by remorse, and that, as long as he
lived, he publicly referred to the Panama affair as that in which
he took the greatest pride. It is only in the old Sunday-School
stories that Providence punishes wrongdoing with such commendable
swiftness, and causes the naughty boy who goes skating on Sunday
to drown forthwith; in real life the "mills of God grind slowly."
Roosevelt always regarded with equal satisfaction the decision by
which the Panama Canal was achieved and the high needs of
civilization and the protection of the United States were
attended to. He lived long enough to condemn the proposal of some
of our morbidly conscientious people, hypnotized by the same old
crafty Colombians, to pay Colombia a gratuity five times greater
than that which General Reyes would have thankfully received in
December, 1903.
Persons of different temperaments, but of equal patriotism and
sincerity, will probably pass different verdicts on this incident
for a long time to come. Mr. Leupp quotes a member of Roosevelt's
Administration as stating four alternative courses the President
might have followed. First, he might have let matters drift until
Congress met, and then sent a message on the subject, shifting
the responsibility from his own shoulders to those of the
Congressmen. Secondly, he might have put down the rebellion and
restored Panama to Colombia; but this would have been to subject
them against their will to a foreign enemy--an enormity the
Anti-Imperialists were still decrying in our holding the
Philippines against the will of their inhabitants. Thirdly, he
might have withdrawn American warships and left Colombia to fight
it out with the Panamanians--but this would have involved
bloodshed, tumult, and interruption of transit across the
Isthmus, which the United States, by the agreement of 1846, were
bound to prevent. Finally, he might recognize any de facto
government ready and willing to transact business--and this he
did.*
* Leupp, 10-11.
That the Colombian politicians, who repudiated the treaty Herran
had framed, were blackmailers of the lowest sort, is as
indisputable as is the fact that whoever begins to compromise
with a blackmailer is lured farther and farther into a bog until
he is finally swallowed up. Americans should know also that
during the summer and autumn of 1903, German agents were busy in
Bogota. and that, since German capitalists had openly announced
their desire to buy up the French Company's concession, we may
guess that they did not urge Colombia to fulfill her obligation
to the United States.
Many years later I discussed the transaction with Mr. Roosevelt,
chaffing him with being a wicked conspirator. He laughed, and
replied: " What was the use? The other fellows in Paris and New
York had taken all the risk and were doing all the work. Instead
of trying to run a parallel conspiracy, I had only to sit still
and profit by their plot--if it succeeded." He said also that he
had intended issuing a public announcement that, if Colombia by a
given date refused to come to terms, he would seize the Canal
Zone in behalf of civilization. I told him I rather wished that
he had accomplished his purpose in that way; but he answered that
events matured too quickly, and that, in any case, where swift
action was required, the Executive and not Congress must decide.
CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME
These early diplomatic settlements in Roosevelt's Administration
showed the world that the United States now had a President who
did not seek quarrels, but who was not afraid of them, who never
bluffed, because--unlike President Cleveland and Secretary Olney
with their Venezuela Message in 1895--he never made a threat
which he could not back up at the moment. There was no longer a
bed of roses to stifle opposition; whosoever hit at the United
States would encounter a barrier of long, sharp, and unbending
thorns.
These particular achievements in foreign affairs, and others
which I shall mention later, gave Roosevelt and his country great
prestige abroad and the admiration of a large part of his
countrymen. But his truly significant work related to home
affairs. Now at last, he, the young David of the New Ideals, was
to go forth, if he dared, and do battle with the Goliath of
Conservatism. With him there was no question of daring. He had
been waiting for twenty years for this opportunity. Such a
conflict or duel has rarely been witnessed, because it rarely
happens that an individual who consciously embodies the aims of
an epoch is accepted by that epoch as its champion. Looking
backward, we see that Abraham Lincoln typified the ideals of
Freedom and Union which were the supreme issues of his time; but
this recognition has come chiefly since his death. In like
fashion I believe that Roosevelt's significance as a champion of
Liberty, little suspected by his contemporaries and hardly
surmised even now, will require the lapse of another generation
before it is universally understood.
Many obvious reasons account for this. Most of the internal
reforms which Roosevelt struggled for lacked the dramatic quality
or the picturesqueness which appeals to average, dull,
unimaginative men and women. The heroism of the medical
experimenter who voluntarily contracts yellow fever and dies--and
thereby saves myriads of lives--makes little impression on the
ordinary person, who can be roused only by stories of battle
heroism, of soldiers and torpedoes. And yet the attacks which
Roosevelt made, while they did not involve death, called for the
highest kind of civic courage and fortitude.
Then again a political combat with tongues and arguments seldom
conveys the impression that through it irrevocable Fate gives its
decision to the same extent that a contest by swords and volleys
does. Political campaigns are a competition of parties and only
the immediate partisans who direct and carry on the fight, grow
very hot. The great majority of a party is not fanatical, and a
citizen who has witnessed many elections, some for and some
against him, comes instinctively to feel that whoever wins the
country is safe. He discounts the cries of alarm and the abuse by
opponents. And only in his most expansive moments does he flatter
himself that his party really represents the State. The
Republican Party, through which President Roosevelt had to work,
was by no means an ideal instrument. He believed in
Republicanism, with a faith only less devoted than that with
which he embraced the fundamental duties and spiritual facts of
life. But the Republicanism which he revered must be interpreted
by himself; and the party which bore the name Republican was
split into several sections, mutually discordant if not actually
hostile. It seems no exaggeration to say that the underlying
motive of the majority of the Republican Party during Roosevelt's
Presidency was to uphold Privilege, just as much as the
underlying purpose of the great Whig Party in England in the
eighteenth century was to uphold Aristocracy. Roosevelt's
purpose, on the contrary, was to clip the arrogance of Privilege
based on Plutocracy. To achieve this he must, in some measure,
compel the party of Plutocracy to help him. I speak, so far as
possible, as a historian,--and not as a partisan,--who recognizes
that the rise of a Plutocracy was the inevitable result of the
amassing, during a generation, of unprecedented wealth, and that,
in a Republic governed by parties, the all-dominant Plutocracy
would naturally see to it that the all dominant party which
governed the country and made its laws should be plutocratic. If
the spheres in which Plutocracy made most of its money had been
Democratic, then the Democratic Party would have served the
Plutocracy. As it was, in the practical relation between the
parties, the Democrats got their share of the spoils, and the
methods of a Democratic Boss, like Senator Gorman, did not differ
from those of a Republican Boss, like Senator Aldrich. Roosevelt
relied implicitly on justice and common sense. He held, as firmly
as Lincoln had held, to the inherent rightmindedness of the
"plain people." And however fierce and formidable the opposition
to his policies might be in Congress, he trusted that, if he
could make clear to the average voters of the country what he was
aiming at, they would support him. And they did support him. Time
after time, when the Interests appeared to be on the point of
crushing his reform, the people rose and coerced Congress into
adopting it. I would not imply that Roosevelt assumed an
autocratic manner in this warfare. He left no doubt of his
intention, still less could he disguise the fact of his
tremendous personal vigor; but rather than threaten he tried to
persuade; he was good-natured to everybody, he explained the
reasonableness of his measures; and only when the satraps of
Plutocracy so far lost their discretion as to threaten him, did
he bluntly challenge them to do their worst.
The Interests had undeniably reached such proportions that unless
they were chastened and controlled, the freedom of the Republic
could not survive. And yet, in justice, we must recall that when
they grew up in the day of small things, they were beneficial;
their founders had no idea of their becoming a menace to the
Nation. The man who built the first cotton-mill in his section,
or started the first iron-furnace, or laid the first stretch of
railroad, was rightly hailed as a benefactor; and he could not
foresee that the time would come when his mill, entering into a
business combination with a hundred other mills in different
parts of the country, would be merged. in a monopoly to strangle
competition in cotton manufacture. Likewise, the first stretch of
railroad joined another, and this a third, and so on, until there
had arisen a vast railway system under a single management from
New York to San Francisco. Now, while these colossal monopolies
had grown up so naturally, responding to the wonderful expansion
of the population they served, the laws and regulations which
applied to them, having been framed in the days when they were
young and small and harmless, still obtained. The clothes made
for the little boy would not do for the giant man. I have heard a
lawyer complain that statutes, which barely sufficed when travel
and transportation went by stage-coach, were stretched to fit the
needs of the public in its relation with transcontinental
railroads. This is an exaggeration, no doubt, but it points
towards truth. The Big Interests were so swollen that they went
ahead on their own affairs and paid little attention to the
community on which they were battening. They saw to it that if
any laws concerning them had to be made by the State Legislatures
or by Congress, their agents in those bodies should make them. A
certain Mr. Vanderbilt, the president of one of the largest
railroad systems in America, a person whose other gems of wit and
wisdom have not been recorded, achieved such immortality, as it
is, by remarking, "The public be damned." Probably the president
and directors of a score of other monopolies would have heartily
echoed that impolitic and petulant display of arrogance.
Impolitic the exclamation was, because the American public had
already begun to feel that the Big Interests were putting its
freedom in jeopardy, and it was beginning to call for laws which
should reduce the power of those interests.
As early as 1887 the Interstate Commerce Act was passed, the
earliest considerable attempt to regulate rates and traffic. Then
followed anti-trust laws which aimed at the suppression of
"pools," in which many large producers or manufacturers combined
to sell their staples at a uniform price, a practice which
inevitably set up monopolies. The "Trusts" were to these what the
elephant is to a colt. When the United States Steel Corporation
was formed by uniting eleven large steel plants, with an
aggregate capital of $11100,000,000, the American people had an
inkling of the magnitude to which Trusts might swell. In like
fashion when the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern
Railroads found a legal impediment to their being run by one
management, they got round the law by organizing the Northern
Securities Company, which was to hold the stocks and bonds of
both railroads. And so of many other important industrial and
transportation mergers. The most powerful financial promoters of
the country, led by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, were busy setting up
these combinations on a large scale and the keenest corporation
lawyers spent their energy and wits in framing charters which
obeyed the letter of the laws, but wholly denied their spirit.
President Roosevelt worked openly, with a definite purpose.
First, he would enforce every law on the statute book, without
exception in favor of any individual or company; next, he
suggested to Congress the need of new legislation to resist
further encroachments by capitalists in the fields where they had
already been checked; finally, he pointed out that Congress must
begin at once to protect the national resources which had been
allowed to go to waste, or to be seized and exploited by private
concerns.
I do not intend to take up in chronological sequence, or in
detail, Roosevelt's battles to secure proper legislation. To do
so would require the discussion of legal and constitutional
questions, which would scarcely fit a sketch like the present.
The main things to know are the general nature of his reforms and
his own attitude in conducting the fight. He aimed directly at
stopping abuses which gave a privileged few undue advantage in
amassing and distributing wealth. The practical result of the
laws was to spread justice, and equality throughout the country
and to restore thereby the true spirit of Democracy on which the
Founders created the Republic. He fought fairly, but warily,
never letting slip a point that would tell against his opponents,
who, it must be said, did not always attack him honorably.
At first, they regarded the President as a headstrong young man--
he was the youngest who had ever sat in the Presidential chair--
who wished to have his own way in order to show the country that
he was its leader. They did not see that ideals which dated back
to his childhood were really shaping his acts. He had seen law in
the making out West; he had seen law, and especially corporation
law, in the making when he was in the New York Assembly and
Governor of New York; he knew the devices by which the Interests
caused laws to be made and passed for their special benefit, or
evaded inconvenient laws. But he suffered no disillusion as to
the ideal of Law, the embodiment and organ of Justice. Legal
quibbles, behind which designing and wicked men dodged, nauseated
him, and he made no pretense of wishing to uphold them.
The champions of the Interests found out before long that the
young President was neither headstrong nor a mere creature of
impulse, but that he followed a thoroughly rational system of
principles; and so they had to abandon the notion that the next
gust of impulse might blow him over to their side. They must take
him as he was, and make the best of it. Now, I must repeat, that,
for these gentlemen, the very idea that anybody could propose to
run the American Government, or to organize American Society, on
any other standard than theirs, seemed to them preposterous. The
Bourbon nobles in France and in Italy were not more amazed. when
the Revolutionists proposed to sweep them away than were the
American Plutocrats of the Rooseveltian era when he promoted laws
to regulate them. The Bourbon thinks the earth will perish unless
Bourbonism governs it; the American Plutocrat thought that
America existed simply to enrich him. He clung to his rights and
privileges with the tenacity of a drowning man clinging to a
plank, and he deceived himself into thinking that, in desperately
trying to save himself and his order, he was saving Society.
Most tragic of all, to one who regards history as the revelation
of the unfolding of the moral nature of mankind, was the fact
that these men had not the slightest idea that they were living
in a moral world, or that a new influx of moral inspiration had
begun to permeate Society in its politics, its business, and its
daily conduct. The great ship Privilege, on which they had
voyaged with pomp and satisfaction, was going down and they knew
it not.
CHAPTER XIII. THE TWO ROOSEVELTS
I do not wish to paint Roosevelt in one light only, and that the
most favorable. Had no other been shed upon him, his
Administration would have been too bland for human belief, and
life for him would have palled. For his inexhaustible energy
hungered for action. As soon as his judgment convinced him that a
thing ought to be done he set about doing it. Recently, I asked
one of the most perspicacious members of his Cabinet, "What do
you consider Theodore's dominant trait" He thought for a while,
and then replied, "Combativeness." No doubt the public also, at
least while Roosevelt was in office, thought of him first as a
fighter. The idea that he was truculent or pugnacious, that he
went about with a chip on his shoulder, that he loved fighting
for the sake of fighting, was, however, a mistake. During the
eight years he was President he kept the United States out of
war; not only that, he settled long-standing causes of
irritation, such as the dispute over the Alaskan Boundary, which
might, under provocation, have led to war. Even more than this,
without striking a blow, he repelled the persistent attempts of
the German Emperor to gain a foothold on this continent; he
repelled those snakelike attacks and forced the Imperial Bully,
not merely to retreat ignominiously but to arbitrate. And in
foreign affairs, Roosevelt shone as a peacemaker. He succeeded in
persuading the Russian Czar to come to terms with the Mikado of
Japan. And soon after, when the German Emperor threatened to make
war on France, a letter from Roosevelt to him caused William to
reconsider his brutal plan, and to submit the Moroccan dispute to
a conference of the Powers at Algeciras.
Instead of the braggart and brawler that his enemies mispainted
him, I saw in Roosevelt, rather, a strong man who had taken early
to heart Hamlet's maxim and had steadfastly practiced it:
"Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake."
He himself summed up this part of his philosophy in a phrase
which has become a proverb: "Speak softly, but carry a big
stick." More than once in his later years he quoted this to me,
adding, that it was precisely because this or that Power knew
that he carried a big stick, that he was enabled to speak softly
with effect.
No man of our time better deserved the Nobel Peace Prize than did
he. The fallacy that Roosevelt, like the proverbial Irishman at
Donnybrook Fair, had rather fight than eat, spread through the
country, and indeed throughout the world, and had its influence
in determining whether men voted for him or not. His enemies used
it as proof that he was not a safe President, but they took means
much more malignant than this to discredit and destroy him. When
the Big Interests discovered that they could not silence him,
they circulated stories of all kinds that would have rendered
even the archangel Gabriel suspect to some worthy dupes.
They threw doubts, for instance, on his sanity, and one heard
that the "Wall Street magnates" employed the best alienists in
the country to analyze everything the President did and said, in
the hope of accumulating evidence to show that he was too
unbalanced to be President. Not content with stealing away his
reputation for mental competence, they shot into the dark the
gravest charges against his honor. A single story, still
believed, as I know, by persons of eminence in their professions,
will illustrate this. When one of the great contests between the
President and the Interests was on, he remembered that one of
their representatives in New York had damaging, confidential
letters from him. Hearing that these might be produced, Roosevelt
telephoned one of his trusty agents to break open the desk of the
Captain of Industry where they were kept, and to bring them to
the White House, before ten o'clock the following morning. This
was done. To believe that the President of the United States
would engage in a vulgar robbery of the jimmy and black-mask sort
indicates a degree of credulity which even the alienists could
hardly have expected to encounter outside of their asylums. It
suggests also, that Baron Munchausen, like the Wandering Jew
Ahasuerus, has never died. Does any one suppose that the person
whose desk was rifled would have kept quiet? Or that, if the
Interests had had even reasonably sure evidence of the
President's guilt, they would not have published it? To set spies
and detectives upon him with orders to trail him night and day
was, according to rumor, an obvious expedient for his enemies to
employ.
I repeat these stories, not because I believe them, but because
many persons did, and such gossip, like the cruel slanders
whispered against President Cleveland years before, gained some
credence. Roosevelt was so natural, so unguarded, in his speech
and ways, that he laid himself open to calumny. The delight he
took in establishing the Ananias Club, and the rapidity with
which he found new members for it, seemed to justify strong
doubts as to his temper and taste, if not as to his judgment. The
vehemence of his public speaking, which was caused in part by a
physical difficulty of utterance--the sequel of his early
asthmatic trouble--and in part by his extraordinary vigor,
created among some of the hearers who did not know him the
impression that he must be a hard drinker, or that he drank to
stimulate his eloquence. After he retired from office, his
enemies, in order to undermine his further political influence,
sowed the falsehood that he was a drunkard. I do not recall that
they ever suggested that he used his office for his private
profit--there are some things too absurd for even malice to
suggest--but he had reason enough many times to calm himself by
reflecting that his Uncle Jimmy Bulloch, the best of men,
believed just such lies, and the most atrocious insinuations,
against Mr. Gladstone.
Of course, nearly all public men have to undergo similar virulent
defamation. I have heard a well-known publicist, a lawyer of
ability, argue that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
did not escape from what seems now incredible abuse, and that
they were, nevertheless, the noblest of men and peerless
patriots; and then he went on to argue that President Woodrow
Wilson has been the target of similar malignity, and to leave you
to conclude that consequently Wilson is in the same class with
Washington and Lincoln. If he had put his thesis in a different
form, the publicist might have seen himself, as his hearers did,
the absurdity of it. Suppose he had said, for instance: "In spite
of the fact that Washington and Lincoln each kept a cow, they
were both peerless patriots, therefore, as President Wilson keeps
a cow, he must be a peerless patriot." One fears that logic is
somewhat neglected even in the training of lawyers in our day.
The commonest charge against Roosevelt, and the one which seemed,
on the surface at least, to be most plausible, was that he was
devoured by insatiable ambition. The critical remarked that
wherever he went he was always the central figure. The truth is,
that he could no more help being the central figure than a lion
could in any gathering of lesser creatures; the fact that he was
Roosevelt decided that. He did use the personal pronoun "I," and
the possessive pronoun "My," with such frequency as to irritate
good persons who were quite as egotistical as he--if that be
egotism--but who used such modest circumlocutions as "the present
writer," or "one," to camouflage their self-conceit. Roosevelt
enjoyed almost all his experiences with equal zest, and he
expressed his enjoyment without reserve. He was quite as well
aware of his foibles as his critics were, and he made merry over
them. Probably nobody laughed more heartily than he at the
pleasantly humorous remark of one of his boys: "Father never
likes to go to a wedding or a funeral, because he can't be the
bride at the wedding or the corpse at the funeral."
Ambition he had, the ambition which every healthy-minded man
ought to have to deserve the good-will and approbation of his
fellows. This he admitted over and over again, and he made no
pretense of not taking satisfaction from the popularity his
countrymen showered upon him. In writing to a friend that he
wished to be a candidate in 1904, he distinguished between the
case of Lincoln in 1864 and that of himself and other
Presidential candidates for renomination. In 1864, the crisis was
so tremendous that Lincoln must have considered that chiefly,
irrespective of his own hopes: whereas Roosevelt in 1904, like
Jackson, Grant, Cleveland, and the other two-term Presidents,
might, without impropriety, look upon reelection as, in a
measure, a personal tribute.
One of my purposes in writing this sketch will have failed, if I
have not made clear the character of Roosevelt's ambition. He
could not be happy unless he were busily at work. If that work
were in a public office he was all the happier. But the way in
which he accepted one office after another, each unrelated to the
preceding, was so desultory as to prove that he did not begin
life with a deep-laid design on the Presidency. He got valuable
political notoriety as an Assemblyman, but that was, as I have so
often said, because he could not be inconspicuous anywhere. He
took the office of Civil Service Commissioner, although everybody
regarded that as a commonplace field bounded on three sides by
political oblivion; and only a dreamer could have supposed that
his service as Chief Police Commissioner of New York City could
lead to the White House. Only when he became Assistant Secretary
of the Navy can he be said to have come within striking distance
of the great target. In enlisting in the Spanish War and
organizing the Rough Riders, he may well have reflected that
military prowess has often favored a Presidential candidacy; but
even here, his sense of patriotic duty and his desire to
experience the soldier's life were almost indisputably his chief
motives. As Governor of New York, however, he could not disguise
from himself the fact that that position might prove again, as it
had proved in the case of Cleveland, the stepping-stone to the
Presidency. On finding, however, that Platt and the Bosses,
exasperated by him as Governor, wished to get rid of him by
making him Vice-President, and knowing that in the normal course
of events a Vice-President never became President, he tried to
refuse nomination to the lower office. And only when he perceived
that the masses of the people, the country over, and not merely
the Bosses, insisted on nominating him, did he accept. This brief
summary of his political progress assuredly does not bear out the
charge that he was the victim of uncontrollable ambition.
Roosevelt's Ananias Club caught the imagination of the country,
but not always favorably. Those whom he elected into it, for
instance, did not relish the notoriety. Others thought that it
betokened irritation in him, and that a man in his high position
ought not to punish persons who were presumably trustworthy by
branding them so conspicuously. In fact, I suppose, he sometimes
applied the brand too hastily, under the spur of sudden
resentment. The most-open of men himself, he had no hesitation in
commenting on anybody or any topic with the greatest
indiscretion. For he took it for granted that even the strangers
who heard him would hold his remarks as confidential. When,
therefore, one of his hearers went outside and reported in public
what the President had said, Roosevelt disavowed it, and put the
babbler in the Ananias class. What a President wishes the public
to know, he tells it himself. What he utters in private should,
in honor, be held as confidential.
When I say that Roosevelt was astonishingly open, I do not mean
that he blurted out everything, for he always knew the company
with whom he talked, and if there were any among them with whom
it would be imprudent to risk an indiscretion, he took care to
talk "for safety." With him, a secret was a secret, and he could
be as silent as an unopened Egyptian tomb. Certain diplomatic
affairs he did not lisp, even to his Secretary of State. So far
as appears, John Hay knew nothing about the President's
interviews with the German Ambassador Holleben, which forced
William II to arbitrate. And he sometimes prepared a bill for
Congress with out consulting his Cabinet, for fear that the stock
jobbers might get wind of it and bull or bear the market with the
news.
Before passing on, I must remark that some cases of apparent
mendacity or inaccuracy on the part of a President--especially if
he were as voluble and busy as Roosevelt--must be attributed to
forgetfulness or misunderstanding and not to wilful lying. A
person coming from an interview with him might construe as a
promise the kindly remarks with which the President wished to
soften a refusal. The promise, which was no promise, not being
kept, the suppliant accused the President of faithlessness or
falsehood. McKinley, it was said, could say no to three different
seekers for the same office so balmily that each of them went
away convinced that he was the successful applicant. Yet McKinley
escaped the charge of mendacity and Roosevelt, who deserved it
far less, did not.
In his writings and speeches, Roosevelt uttered his opinions so
candidly that we need not fall back on breaches of confidence to
explain why his opponents were maddened by them. Plutocrats and
monopolists might well wince at being called "malefactors of
great wealth," "the wealthy criminal class." Such expressions had
the virtue, from the point of view of rhetoric, of being so
descriptive that any body could visualize them. They stung; they
shed indefinable odium on a whole class; and, no doubt, this was
just what Roosevelt intended. To many critics they seemed cruel,
because, instead of allowing for exceptions, they huddled all
plutocrats together, the virtuous and the vicious alike. And so
with the victims of his phrase, "undesirable citizens." I marvel
rather, however, that Roosevelt, given his extraordinary talent
of flashing epithets and the rush of his indignation when he was
doing battle for a good cause, displayed as much moderation as he
did. Had he been a demagogue, he would have roused the masses
against the capitalists and have goaded them to such a pitch of
hatred that they would have looked to violence, bloodshed, and
injustice, as the remedy they must apply.
But Roosevelt was farthest removed from the Revolutionists of the
vulgar, red-handed class. He consecrated his life to prevent
Revolution. All his action in the conflict between Labor and
Capital aimed at conciliation. He told the plutocrats their
defects with brutal frankness, and if he promoted laws to curb
them, it was because he realized, as they did not, that, unless
they mended their ways, they would bring down upon themselves a
Socialist avalanche which they could not withstand. What set the
seal of consecration on his work was his treatment of Labor with
equal justice. Unlike the demagogue, he did not flatter the
"horny-handed sons of toil" or obsequiously do the bidding of
railroad brotherhoods, or pretend that the capitalist had no
rights, and that all workingmen were good merely because they
worked. On the contrary, he told them that no class was above the
law; he warned them that if Labor attempted to get its demands by
violence, he would put it down. He ridiculed the idea that honest
citizenship depends on the more or less money a man has in his
pocket. "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his
country," Roosevelt said in a Fourth-of-July speech at
Springfield, Illinois, in 1903, "is good enough to be given a
square deal afterward. More than that no man is entitled to, and
less than that no man shall have."
That phrase, "a square deal," stuck in the hearts of the American
people. It summed up what they regarded as Roosevelt's most
characteristic trait. He was the man of the square deal, who
instinctively resented injustice done to those who could not
protect themselves; the friend of the underdog, the companion of
the self-reliant and the self-respecting. It is under this aspect
that Roosevelt seems most likely to live in popular history.
So, from the time he became President, the public was divided
into believing that there were two Roosevelts. His enemies made
almost a monster of him, denouncing and fearing him as violent,
rash, pugnacious, egotistical, ogreish in his mad, hatred of
Capital, and Capitalists condemned him as hypocritical, cruel,
lying, and vindictive. The other side, however, insisted on his
courage; he was a fighter, but he always fought to defend the
weak and to uphold the right; he was equally unmoved by Bosses
and by demagogues; in his human relations he regarded only what a
man was, not his class or condition; he had a great hearted,
jovial simplicity; a far-seeing and steadfast patriotism; he
preached the Square Deal and he practiced it; even more than
Lincoln he was accessible to every one.
CHAPTER XIV. THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER
During the first years of Roosevelt's Administration he had to
encounter many conditions which existed rather from the momentum
they had from the past than from any living vigor of their own.
It was a time of transition. The group of politicians dating from
the Civil War was nearly extinct, and the leaders who had come to
the front after 1870 were also much thinned in number, and fast
dropping off. Washington itself was becoming one of the most
beautiful cities in the world, with its broad avenues, seldom
thronged, its circles and squares, whose frequenters seemed never
busy, its spirit of leisure, its suggestion of opulence and
amplitude, and of a not too zealous or disturbing hold on
reality. You still saw occasionally a tiny cottage inhabited by a
colored family cuddled up against a new and imposing palace, just
as you might pass a colored mammy on the same sidewalk with a
millionaire Senator, for the residential section had not yet been
socially standardized.
Only a few years before, under President Cleveland, a single
telephone sufficed for the White House, and as the telephone
operator stopped work at six o'clock, the President himself or
some member of his family had to answer calls during the evening.
A single secretary wrote in long hand most of the Presidential
correspondence. Examples of similar primitiveness might be found
almost everywhere, and the older generation seemed to imagine
that a certain slipshod and dozing quality belonged to the very
idea of Democracy. If you were neatly dressed and wide awake, you
would inevitably be remarked among your fellows; such remark
would imply superiority; and to be superior was supposedly to be
undemocratic.
Nevertheless this was a time of transition, and the vigor which
emanated from the young President passed like electricity through
all lines and hastened the change. He caused the White House to
be remodeled and fitted on the one hand for social purposes which
required much more spacious accommodation, and on the other for
offices in which he could conduct the largely increased
Presidential business. Instead of one telephone there were many
working night and day, and instead of a single longhand
secretary, there were a score of stenographers and typists.
Before he left Washington he saw a vast Union Station erected
instead of the over-grown shanties at Sixth Street, and he had
encouraged the laying-out of the waste places beyond the Capitol,
thus adding to the city another and imposing section. His
interest did not stop at politics, nor at carrying through the
reforms he had at heart. He attended with equal keenness and
solicitude to external improvements.
Now at first, as I have suggested, his chief duty was to continue
President McKinley's policies, which concerned mostly the
establishment of our insular dependencies, and the readjustment
of our diplomatic relations. I have described how he closed the
dispute over the Alaskan Boundary, over our joint control with
England over the Isthmus of Panama, and how he circumvented the
attempt of the Colombian blackmailers to block our construction
of the Canal.
We must now glance at a matter of almost equal importance--our
relations with Germany. The German attack on civilization, which
was openly delivered in 194, revealed to the world that for
twenty years before the German Emperor had been secretly
preparing his mad project of Universal Conquest. We see now that
he used all sorts of base tools German exchange professors,
spies, bribers, conventional insinuators and corrupters,
organizers of pro-German sentiment, and of societies of German
Americans. So little did he and his lackeys understand the
American spirit that they assumed that at the given signal the
people of the United States would gladly go over to them. He
counted on securing North and South America by commerce and
corruption, and not by armed force. The reaffirmation of the
Monroe Doctrine by President Cleveland in 1895 seriously troubled
him; for he contemplated planting German colonies in Central and
South America without resistance, but the Monroe Doctrine in its
latest interpretation forbade him or any foreign government from
establishing dominion in either American continent. Still, two
things comforted him: the Americans were, he thought, a loose,
happy-go-lucky people, without any consecutive or deep-laid
policy, as foolish republicans must be; and next, he knew that he
had the most powerful army in the world, which, if put to the
test, would crush the undisciplined American militia at the first
onset. He adopted, therefore, a double policy: he pretended
openly to be most friendly to the Americans; he flattered all of
them whom he could reach in Berlin, and he directed an effusive
propaganda in the United States. In secret, how ever, he lost no
occasion to harm this country. When the Spanish War came in 1898,
he tried to form a naval coalition of his fleet with those of
France and England, and it was only the refusal of England to-
join in it which saved this country from disaster. The United
States owe Mr. Balfour, who at that time controlled the British
Foreign Office, an eternal debt of gratitude, because it was he
who replied to the Kaiser's secret temptation: "No: if the
British fleet takes any part in this war, it will be to put
itself between the American fleet and those of your coalition."
The Kaiser expressed his real sentiment towards the United States
in a remark which he made later, not expecting that it would
reach American ears. "If I had had ships enough," he said, "I
would have taken the Americans by the scruff of the neck." As it
was, he showed his purpose to those who had eyes to see it, by
ordering the German Squadron under Diederichs to go to Manila and
take what he could there. Fortunately before he could take Manila
or the Philippines he had to take the American Commodore, George
Dewey, and when he discovered what sort of a sea-fighter the
mountains of Vermont had produced in Dewey, he decided not to
attack him. Perhaps also the fact that the English commander at
Manila, Captain Chichester, stood ready to back up Dewey caused
Diederichs to back down. The true Prussian truculence always
oozes out when it has not a safe margin of superiority in
strength on its side.
The Kaiser was not to be foiled, however, in his determination to
get a foothold in America. As the likelihood that the Panama
Canal would be constructed became a certainty, he redoubled his
efforts. He tried to buy from a Mexican Land Company two large
ports in Lower California for "his personal use." These would
have given him, of course, control over the approach to the Canal
from the Pacific. Simultaneously he sent a surveying expedition
to the Caribbean Sea, which found a spacious harbor, that might
serve as a naval base, on an unoccupied island near the main line
of vessels approaching the Canal from the east, but before he
could plant a force there; the presence of his surveyors was
discovered, and they sailed away.
He now resorted to a more cunning ruse. The people of Venezuela
owed considerable sums to merchants and bankers in Germany,
England, and Italy, and the creditors could recover neither their
capital nor the interest on it. The Kaiser bethought him self of
the simple plan of making a naval demonstration against the
Venezuelans if they did not pay up; he would send his troops
ashore, occupy the chief harbors, and take in the customs. To
disguise his ulterior motive, he persuaded England and Italy to
join him in collecting their bill against Venezuela. So warships
of the three nations appeared off the Venezuelan coast, and for
some time they maintained what they called "A peaceful blockade."
After a while Secretary Hay pointed out that there could be no
such thing as a peaceful blockade; that a blockade was, by its
very nature, an act of war; accordingly the blockaders declared a
state of belligerency between themselves and Venezuela, and
Germany threatened to bombard the seacoast towns unless the debt
was settled without further delay. President Roosevelt had no
illusions as to what bombardment and occupation by German troops
would mean. If a regiment or two of Germans once went into
garrison at Caracas or Porto Cabello, the Kaiser would secure the
foothold he craved on the American Coast within striking distance
of the projected Canal, and Venezuela, unable to ward off his
aggression, would certainly be helpless to drive him out. Mr.
Roosevelt allowed Mr. Herbert W. Bowen, the American Minister to
Venezuela, to serve as Special Commissioner for Venezuela in
conducting her negotiations with. Germany. He, himself, however,
took the matter into his own hands at Washington. Having sounded
England and Italy, and learned that they were willing to
arbitrate, and knowing also that neither of them schemed to take
territorial payment for their bills, he directed his diplomatic
attack straight at the Kaiser. When the German Ambassador, Dr.
von Holleben, one of the pompous and ponderous professorial sort
of German officials, was calling on him at the White House, the
President told him to warn the Kaiser that unless he consented,
within a given time--about ten days--to arbitrate the Venezuelan
dispute, the American fleet under Admiral Dewey would appear off
the Venezuelan coast and defend it from any attack which the
German Squadron might attempt to make. Holleben displayed
consternation; he protested that since his Imperial Master had
refused to arbitrate, there could be no arbitration. His Imperial
Master could not change his Imperial Mind, and the dutiful
servant asked the President whether he realized what such a
demand meant. The President replied calmly that he knew it meant
war. A week passed, but brought no reply from Berlin; then
Holleben called again at the White House on some unimportant
matters; as he turned to go the President inquired, "Have you
heard from Berlin?" "No," said Holleben. "Of course His Imperial
Majesty cannot arbitrate." "Very well, " said Roosevelt, "you may
think it worth while to cable to Berlin that I have changed my
mind. I am sending instructions to Admiral Dewey to take our
fleet to Venezuela next Monday instead of Tuesday." Holleben
brought the interview to a close at once and departed with
evident signs of alarm. He returned in less than thirty-six hours
with relief and satisfaction written on his face, as he informed
the President, "His Imperial Majesty consents to arbitrate."
In order to screen the Kaiser's mortification from the world,
Roosevelt declared that his transaction--which only he, the
Kaiser, and Holleben knew about--should not be made public at the
time; and he even went so far, a little later, in speaking on the
matter as to refer to the German Emperor as a good friend and
practicer of arbitration.
Many years later, when Roosevelt and I discussed this episode we
cast about for reasons to account for the Kaiser's sudden
back-down. We concluded that after the first interview Holleben
either did not cable to Berlin at all, or he gave the message
with his own comment that it was all a bluff. After the second
interview, he consulted Buenz, the German Consul-General at New
York, who knew Roosevelt well and knew also the powerfulness of
Dewey's fleet. He assured Holleben that the President was not
bluffing, and that Dewey could blow all the German Navy, then in
existence, out of the water in half an hour. So Holleben sent a
hot cablegram to Berlin, and Berlin understood that only an
immediate answer would do.
Poor, servile, old bureaucrat Holleben! The Kaiser soon treated
him as he was in the habit of treating any of his servile
creatures, high or low, who made a fiasco. Deceived by the
glowing reports which his agents in the United States sent to
him, the Kaiser believed that the time was ripe for a visit by a
Hohenzollern, to let off the pent-up enthusiasm of the
German-Americans and to stimulate the pro-German conspiracy here.
Accordingly Prince Henry of Prussia came over and made a
whirlwind trip, as far as Chicago; but it was in no sense a royal
progress. Multitudes flocked to see him out of curiosity, but
Prince Henry realized, and so did the German kin here, that his
mission had failed. A scapegoat must be found, and apparently
Holleben was the chosen victim.
The Kaiser cabled him to resign and take the next day's steamer
home, alleging "chronic illness" as an excuse. He sailed from
Hoboken obediently, and there were none so poor as to do him
reverence. The sycophants who had fawned upon him while he was
enjoying the Imperial favor as Ambassador took care not to be
seen waving a farewell to him from the pier. Instead of that,
they were busy telling over his blunders. He had served French
instead of German champagne at a banquet for Prince Henry, and he
had allowed the Kaiser's yacht to be christened in French
champagne. How could such a blunderer satisfy the diplomatic
requirements of the vain and petty Kaiser? And yet! Holleben was
utterly devoted and willing to grovel in the mud. He even
suggested to President Roosevelt that at the State Banquet at the
White House, Prince Henry, as a Hohenzollern, and the
representative of the Almightiest Kaiser, should walk out to
dinner first; but there was no discussion, for the President
replied curtly, "No person living precedes the President of the
United States in the White House."
Henceforth the Kaiser understood that the United States
Government, at least as long as Roosevelt was President, would
repel any attempt by foreigners to violate the Monroe Doctrine,
and set up a nucleus of foreign power in either North or South
America. He devoted himself all the more earnestly to pushing the
sly work of peaceful penetration, that work of spying and lying
in which the German people proved itself easily first. The
diabolical propaganda, aimed not only at undermining the United
States, at seducing the Irish and other hyphenate groups of
Americans, but at polluting the Mexicans and several of the South
American States; and later there was a thoroughly organized
conspiracy to stir up animosity between this country and Japan by
making the Japanese hate and suspect the Americans, and by making
the Americans hate and suspect the Japanese. I alluded just now
to the fact that German intrigue was working in Bogota, and
influenced the Colombian blackmailers in refusing to sign the Hay
Herran Canal Treaty with the United States, and peered about in
the hope of snapping up the Canal rights for Germany.
Outwardly, during the first decade of the twentieth century, the
Kaiser seemed to be most active in interfering in European
politics, including those of Morocco, in which the French were
entangled. In 1904 the war between Russia and Japan broke out.
Roosevelt remained strictly neutral towards both belligerents,
making it evident, however, that either or both of them could
count on his friendly offices if they sought mediation. At the
beginning of the war, it was generally assumed that the German
Kaiser shed no tears over the Russian reverses, for the weaker
Russia became, the less Germany needed to fear her as a neighbor.
At length, however, when it looked as if the Japanese might
actually shatter the Russian Empire, Germany and the other
European Powers seemed to have had a common feeling that a
decided victory by an Asiatic nation like Japan would certainly
require a readjustment of world politics, and might not only put
in jeopardy European interests and control in Asia, but also
raise up against Europe what the Kaiser had already advertised as
the Yellow Peril. I have no evidence that President Roosevelt
shared this anxiety; on the contrary, I think that he was not
unwilling that a strong Japan should exist to prevent the
dismemberment of Eastern Asia by European land-grabbers.
By the spring of 1905, both Russia and Japan had fought almost to
exhaustion. The probability was that Russia with her vast
population could continue to replenish her army. Japan, with
great pluck, after winning amazing victories, which left her
weaker and weaker, made no sign of wishing for an armistice.
Roosevelt, however, on his own motion wrote a private letter to
the Czar, Nicholas II, and sent George Meyer, Ambassador to
Italy, with it on a special mission to Petrograd. The President
urged the Czar to consider making peace, since both the Russians
and the Japanese had nearly fought them selves out, and further
warfare would add to the losses and burdens, already tremendous,
of both people. Probably he hinted also that another disaster in
the field might cause an outbreak by the Russian Revolutionists.
I have not seen his letter--perhaps a copy of it has escaped, in
the Czar's secret archives, the violence of the Bolshevists--but
I have heard him speak about it. I have reason to suppose also
that he wrote privately to the Kaiser to use his influence with
the Czar. At any rate, the Czar listened to the President's
advice, and by one of those diplomatic devices by which both
parties saved their dignity, an armistice was arranged and, in
the summer of 1905, the Peace was signed. The following year, the
Trustees of the Nobel Peace Prize recognized Roosevelt's large
part in stopping the war, by giving the Prize to him.
Meanwhile, the irritation between France and Germany had
increased to the point where open rupture was feared. For years
Germany had been waiting for a propitious moment to swoop down on
France and overwhelm her. The French intrigues in Morocco, which
were leading visibly to a French Protectorate over that country,
aroused German resentment, for the Germans coveted Morocco
themselves. The Kaiser went so far as to invite Roosevelt to
interfere with him in Morocco, but this, the President replied,
was impossible. Probably he was not unwilling to have the German
Emperor understand that, while the United States would interfere
with all their might to prevent a foreign attack on the Monroe
Doctrine, they meant to keep their hands off in European
quarrels. That he also had a clear idea of William II's
temperament appears from the following opinion which I find in a
private letter of his at this time: "The Kaiser had weekly pipe
dreams."
The situation grew very angry, and von Billow, the German
Chancellor, did not hide his purpose of upholding the German
pretensions, even at the cost of war. President Roosevelt then
wrote--privately--to the Kaiser impressing it upon him that for
Germany to make war on France would be a crime against
civilization, and he suggested that a Conference of Powers be
held to discuss the Moroccan difficulty, and to agree upon terms
for a peaceful adjustment. The Kaiser finally accepted
Roosevelt's advice, and after a long debate over the
preliminaries, the Conference was held at Algeciras, Spain.
That Roosevelt understood, or even suspected, the great German
conspiracy which the Kaiser's hire lings were weaving over the
United States is wholly improbable. Had he known of any plot he
would have been the first to hunt it down and crush it. He knew
in general of the extravagant vaporings of the Pan-Germans; but,
like most of us, he supposed that there was still enough sanity,
not to say common sense, left in Germany to laugh such follies
away. Through his intimate friend, Spring-Rice, subsequently the
British Ambassador, he had early and sound information of the
conditions of Germany. He watched with curiosity the abnormal
expansion of the German Fleet. All these things simply confirmed
his belief that the United States must attend seriously to the
business of making military and naval preparations.
Secretary Hay had already secured the recognition by the European
Powers of the policy of the Open Door in China, the year before
Roosevelt became President, but the struggle to maintain that
policy had to be kept up for several years. On November 21, 1900,
John Hay wrote to Henry Adams: "At least we are spared the infamy
of an alliance with Germany. I would rather, I think, be the dupe
of China, than chum of the Kaiser. Have you noticed how the world
will take anything nowadays from a German? Billow said yesterday
in substance--'We have demanded of China everything we can think
of. If we think of anything else we will demand that, and be d--d
to you'--and not a man in the world kicks."*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 248.
By an adroit move similar to that by which Hay had secured the
unwilling adherence of the Powers to his original proposal of the
Open Door, he, with Roosevelt's sanction, prevented the German
Emperor from carrying out a plan to cut up China and divide the
slices among the Europeans.
Equally adroit was Roosevelt's method of dealing with the Czar in
1903. Russian mobs ran amuck and massacred many Jews in the city
of Kishineff. The news of this atrocity reached the outside world
slowly: when it came, the Jews of western Europe, and especially
those of the United States, cried out in horror, held meetings,
drew up protests, and framed petitions, asking the Czar to punish
the criminals. Leading American Jews besought Roosevelt to plead
their cause before the Czar. As it was well known that the Czar
would refuse to receive such petitions, and would regard himself
as insulted by whatever nation should lay them before him by
official diplomatic means, the world wondered what Roosevelt
would do. He took one of his short cuts, and chose a way which
everybody saw was most obvious and most simple, as soon as he had
chosen it. He sent the petitions to our Ambassador at Petrograd,
accompanying them with a letter which recited the atrocities and
grievances. In this letter, which was handed to the Russian
Secretary of State, our Government asked whether His Majesty the
Czar would condescend to receive the petitions. Of course the
reply was no, but the letter was published in all countries, so
that the Czar also knew of the petitions, and of the horrors
which called them out. In this fashion the former Ranchman and
Rough Rider outwitted, by what I may call his straightforward
guile, the crafty diplomats of the Romanoffs.
CHAPTER XV. ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS
In a previous chapter I glanced at three or four of the principal
measures in internal policy which Roosevelt took up and fought
through, until he finally saw them passed by Congress. No other
President, as has been often remarked, kept Congress so busy;
and, we may add, none of his predecessors (unless it were Lincoln
with the legislation required by the Civil War) put so many new
laws on the national statute book. Mr. Charles G. Washburn
enumerates these acts credited to Roosevelt's seven and a half
years' administration: "The Elkins Anti-Rebate Law applying to
railroads; the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor
and the Bureau of Corporations; the law authorizing the building
of the Panama Canal; the Hepburn Bill amending and vitalizing the
Interstate Commerce Act; the Pure Food and Meat Inspection laws;
the law creating the Bureau of Immigration; the Employers'
Liability and Safety Appliance Laws, that limited the working
hours of employees; the law making the Government liable for
injuries to its employees; the law forbidding child labor in the
District of Columbia; the reformation of the Consular Service;
prohibition of campaign contributions from corporations; the
Emergency Currency Law, which also provided for the creation of
the Monetary Commission." *
* C. G. Washburn, 128, 129.
Although the list is by no means complete, it shows that
Roosevelt's receptive and sleepless mind fastened on the full
circle of questions which interested American life, so far as
that is controlled or directed by national legislation. Some of
the laws passed were simply readjustments--new statutes on old
matters. Other laws were new, embodying the first attempt to
define the attitude which the courts should hold towards new
questions which had grown suddenly into great importance. The
decade which had favored the springing-up and amazing expansion
of the Big Interests, had to be followed by the decade which
framed legislation for regulating and curbing these interests.
Quite naturally, the monopolists affected did not like to be
harnessed or controlled, and, to put it mildly, they resented the
interference of the formidable young President whom they could
neither frighten, inveigle, nor cajole.
And yet it is as evident to all Americans now, as it was to some
Americans at the time, that that legislation had to be passed;
because if the monopolists had been allowed to go on
unrestrained, they would either have perverted this Republic into
an open Plutocracy, in which individual liberty and equality
before the law would have disappeared, or they would have hurried
on the Social Revolution, the Armageddon of Labor and Capital,
the merciless conflict of class with class, which many persons
already vaguely dreaded, or thought they saw looming like an
ominous cloud on the horizon. It seems astounding that any one
should have questioned the necessity of setting up regulations.
And will not posterity wonder, when it learns that only in the
first decade of the twentieth century did we provide laws against
the cruel and killing labor of little children, and against
impure foods and drugs?
Year after year, the railroads furnished unending causes for
legislative control. There were the old laws which the railroad
men tried to evade and which the President, as was his duty,
insisted on enforcing; and still more insistent and spectacular
were the new problems. Just as three or four hundred years ago
the most active and vigorous Frenchmen and English men tried to
get possession of large tracts of land, or even of provinces, and
became counts and dukes, so the Americans of our generation, who
aspired to lead the pushing financier class, worked day and night
to own a railroad. Naturally one railroad did not satisfy a man
who was bitten by this ambition; he reached out for several, or
even for a transcontinental system. The war for railroad
ownership or monopoly was waged intensely, and in 1901 it nearly
plunged the country into a disastrous financial panic. Edward H.
Harriman, who had only recently been regarded as a great power in
the struggle for railroad supremacy, clashed with James J. Hill,
of Minnesota, and J. P. Morgan, a New York banker, over the
Northern Pacific Railroad. Their battle was nominally a draw,
because Wall Street rushed in and, to avert a nation-wide
calamity, demanded a truce. But Harriman remained, until his
death in 1909, the railroad czar of the United States, and when
he died, he was master of twenty-five thousand miles of road,
chief influencer of fifty thousand more miles, besides steamboat
companies, banks, and other financial institutions. He controlled
more money than any other American. I summarize these statistics,
in order to show the reader what sort of a Colossus the President
of the United States had to do battle with when he undertook to
secure new laws adequate to the control of the enormously
expanded railway problems. And he did succeed, in large measure,
in bringing the giant corporations to recognize the authority of
the Nation. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Northern
Securities case, by which the merger of two or more competing
roads was declared illegal, put a stop to the practice of
consolidation, which might have resulted in the ownership of all
the railroads in the United States by a single person. Then
followed the process of "unscrambling the omelet," to use J. P.
Morgan's phrase, in order to bring the companies already
illegally merged within the letter of the law. Probably a
lynx-eyed investigator might discover that in some of the efforts
to legalize operations in the future, "the voice was Jacob's, but
the hands were the hands of Esau."
The laws aimed at regulating transportation, rates, and rebates,
certainly made for justice, and helped to enlighten great
corporations as to their place in the community and their duties
towards it. Roosevelt showed that his fearlessness had apparently
no bounds, when in 1907 he caused suit to be brought against the
Standard Oil Company in Indiana--a branch of a monopoly which was
popularly supposed to be above the law--for receiving a rebate
from a railroad on the petroleum shipped by the Company. The
judge who tried the case gave a verdict in favor of the
Government, but another judge, to whom appeal was made, reversed
the decision, and finally at a re-trial, a third judge dismissed
the indictment. "Thus," says Mr. Ogg, "a good case was lost
through judicial blundering." *
* Ogg, 50.
But the greatest of Roosevelt's works as a legislator were those
which he carried through in the fields of conservation and
reclamation. He did not invent these issues; he was only one of
many persons who understood their vast importance. He gives full
credit to Mr. Gifford Pinchot and Mr. F. H. Newell, who first
laid these subjects before him as matters which he as President
ought to consider. He had himself during his days in the West
seen the need of irrigating the waste tracts. He was a quick and
willing learner, and in his first message to Congress (December
1, 1901) he remarked: "The forest and water problems are perhaps
the most vital internal problems of the United States." Years
later, in referring to this part of his work, he said:
'The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still
obtained, and there was as yet no real knowledge of their extent
and condition. The relation of the conservation of national
resources to the problems of national welfare and national
efficiency had not yet dawned on the public mind. The reclamation
of arid public lands in the West was still a matter for private
enterprise alone; and our magnificent river system, with its
superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt with by the
National Government not as a unit, but as a disconnected series
of pork-barrel problems, whose only real interest was in their
effect on the reelection or defeat of a Congressman here and
there--a theory which, I regret to say, still obtains.'*
* Autobiography, p. 430.
The public lands saved mounted to millions of acres. The
long-standing practice of stealing these lands was checked and
put a stop to as rapidly as possible. Individuals and private
companies had bought for a song great tracts of national
property, getting thereby, it might be, the title to mineral
deposits worth fabulous sums; and these persons were naturally
angry at being deprived of the immense fortunes which they had
counted on for themselves. A company would buy up an entire
watershed, and control, for its private profit, the water-supply
of a region. Roosevelt insisted with indisputable logic that the
States and Counties ought them selves to own such natural
resources and derive an income from them. So, too, were the areas
restored to man's habitation, and to agriculture, by irrigation,
and by reforesting. A company, having no object but its own
enrichment, would ruthlessly cut down a thousand square miles of
timber in order to convert it into wood pulp for paper, or into
lumber for building; and the region thus devastated, as if a
German army had been over it, would be left without regard to the
effect on the climate and the water supply of the surrounding
country. Surely this was wrong.
It seems to me as needless now to argue in behalf of Roosevelt's
legislation for the conservation of national resources as to
argue against cannibalism as a practice fit for civilized men.
That lawyers of repute and Congressmen of reputation should have
done their utmost, as late as 1906, to obstruct and defeat the
passage of the Meat Inspection Bill must seem incredible to
persons of average sanity and conscience. If any of those
obstructionists still live, they do not boast of their
performance, nor is it likely that their children will exult over
this part of the paternal record.
In order not to exaggerate Roosevelt's importance in these
fundamental reforms, I would repeat that he did not originate the
idea of many of them. He gladly took his cue for conservation
from Gifford Pinchot, and for reclamation from F. H. Newell, as I
have said; the need of inspecting the packing-houses which
exported meat, from Senator A. J. Beveridge, and so on. The vital
fact is that these projects got form and vigor and publicity, and
were pushed through Congress, only after Roosevelt took them up.
His opponents, the packers, the land-robbers, the mine-grabbers,
the wood-pulp pirates, fought him at every point. They appealed
to the old law to discredit and damn the new. They gave him no
quarter, and he asked for none because he was bent on securing
justice, irrespective of persons or private interests. It
followed, of course, that they watched eagerly for any slip which
might wreck him, and they thought they had found their chance in
1907.
That was a year of financial upheaval, almost of panic, the blame
for which the Big Interests tried to fasten on the President. It
resulted, they said, from his attack on Capital and the
Corporations. A special incident gave plausibility to some of
their bitter criticism. Messrs. Gary and Frick, of the United
States Steel Corporation, called on the President, and told him
that the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company was on the verge of
bankruptcy, and that, if it went under, a general panic would
probably ensue. To prevent this financial disaster, their
Corporation was willing to buy up enough of the Tennessee Company
to save it, but they wished to know whether the President would
allow the purchase. He told them that he could not officially
advise them to take the action proposed, but that he did not
regard it as a public duty of his to raise any objection. They
made the purchase, and the total amount of their holdings in the
Tennessee Company did not equal in value what they had originally
held, for the stock had greatly shrunk. The Attorney-General
subsequently informed the President that he saw no reason to
prosecute the United States Steel Corporation. But the
President's enemies did not spare their criticism. They
circulated grave suspicions; they hinted that, if the whole truth
were known, Roosevelt would be embarrassed, to say the least.
What had become of his pretended impartiality when he allowed one
of the great Trusts to do, with impunity, that which others were
prosecuted for? The public, which seldom has the knowledge, or
the information, necessary for understanding business or
financial complexities, usually remarks, with the archaic
sapience of a Greek chorus, "There must be some fire where there
is so much smoke." But the public interest was never seriously
roused over the Tennessee Coal and Iron affair, and, six years
later, when a United States District Court handed down a verdict
in which this matter was referred to, the public had almost
forgotten what it was all about.
The great result from Roosevelt's battle for conservation, which
I believe will glorify him, in the future, to heroic proportions
as a statesman, is that where he found wide stretches of desert
he left fertile States, that he saved from destruction, that he
seized from the hands of the spoilers rivers and valleys which
belonged to the people, and that he kept for the people mineral
lands of untold value. Nor did he work for material and sanitary
prosperity alone; but he worked also for Beauty. He reserved as
National Parks for the use and delight of men and women forever
some of the most beautiful regions in the United States, and the
support he gave to these causes urged them forward after he
ceased to be President.
CHAPTER XVI. THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION
Having seen briefly how President Roosevelt dealt with Capital,
let us look even more briefly at his dealings with Labor. I think
that he took the deepest personal satisfaction in fighting the
criminal rich and the soulless corporations, because he regarded
them not only as lawbreakers, malefactors of great wealth, but as
despicably mean, in that they used their power to oppress the
poor and helpless classes. The Labor groups when they burst out
into violence merely responded to the passion which men naturally
feel at injustice and at suffering; to their violence they did
not add slyness or legal deceits. But Roosevelt had no toleration
for the Labor demagogue, for the walking delegate, and all
similar parasites, who preyed upon the working classes for their
own profit, and fomented the irritation of Labor and Capital.
Stronger, however, than his sympathy for any individual, and
especially for those who suffered without redress, was his love
of justice. This he put in a phrase which he invented and made
current, a phrase which everybody could understand: "the labor
unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have
a square deal." At another time he expressed the same idea, by
saying that the rich man should have justice, and that the poor
man should have justice, and that no man should have more or
less.
Time soon brought a test for his devotion to social justice. In
the summer of 1902 the coal-miners of Pennsylvania stopped
working. Early in September the public awoke with a start to the
realization that a coal famine threatened the country. In the
Eastern States, in New York, and Pennsylvania, and in some of the
Middle Western States, a calamity threatened, which would be
quite as terrible as the invasion of an enemy's army. For not
only would lack of fuel cause incalculable hardship and distress
from cold, but it would stop transportation, and all
manufacturing by machinery run by coal. The mine operators and
the miners were at a deadlock. The President invited the leaders
on both sides to confer with him at the White House. They came
and found him stretched out on an invalid's chair, with one of
his legs much bandaged, from an accident he had received in a
collision at Pittsfield a few weeks before, but his mental vigor
was unsubdued. John Mitchell spoke for the miners. The President
urged the quarrelers to come to terms. But the big coal operators
would not yield. They knew that the distress among the mining
population was great, and they believed that if the authorities
would only maintain peace, the miners would soon be forced to
give in. So the meeting broke up and the "coal barons," as the
newspapers dubbed the operators, quitted with evident
satisfaction. They felt that they had not only repelled the
miners again, but virtually put down the President for
interfering in a matter in which he had no legal jurisdiction.
And, in truth, the laws gave the President of the United States
no authority to play the role of arbiter in a strike. His plain
duty was to keep the peace. If a strike resulted in violent
disorders he could send United States troops to quell them, but
only in case the Governor of the State in which the riots
occurred declared himself unable, by the State force at his
command, to keep the peace, and requested assistance from the
President. In the coal strike the Governor of Pennsylvania, for
reasons which I need not discuss here, refused to call for United
States troops, and so did the Pennsylvania Legislature. Roosevelt
acted as a patriotic citizen might act, but being the President,
his interference had immensely greater weight than that of any
private citizen could have. He knew the law in the matter, but he
believed that the popular opinion of the American people would
back him up.
In spite of the first rebuff, therefore, he persuaded the miners
and the operators to agree to the appointment of an arbitration
commission, and this suggested a settlement which both
contestants accepted. It ended the great coal strike of 1902, but
it left behind it much indignation among the American people, who
realized for the first time that one of the three or four great
industries essential to the welfare and even to the life itself
of the Nation, was in the hands of men who preferred their
selfish interests to those of the Nation. It taught several other
lessons also; it taught, for instance, that great combinations of
Labor may be as dangerous as those of Capital, and as heedless of
everything except their own selfish control. It taught that the
people of the States and of the Nation could not go on forever
without taking steps to put an end to the already dangerous
hostility between Capital and Labor, and that that end must be
the establishment of justice for all. An apologist of the "coal
barons" might have pleaded that they held out not merely for
their private gain on that occasion, but in order to defeat the
growing menace of Labor. Their stubbornness might turn back the
rising flood of socialism.
Respecters of legal precedent, on the other hand, criticised the
President. They acknowledged his good intentions, but they
pointed out that his extra-legal interference set an ominously
bad example. And some of them would have preferred to go cold all
winter, and even to have had the quarrel sink into civil war,
rather than to have had the constitutional ideals of the Nation
distorted or obscured by the President's good-natured endeavor.
Roosevelt himself, however, never held this opinion. In 1915, he
wrote to Mr. Washburn: "I think the settlement of the coal strike
was much the most important thing I did about Labor, from every
standpoint."
I find an intimate letter of his which dates from the time of the
conflict itself and gives frankly his motives and apology, if we
should call it that. He admits that his action was not strictly
legal, but he asks that, if the President of the United States
may not intervene to prevent a widespread calamity, what is his
authority worth? If it had been a national strike of iron-workers
or miners, he would have held himself aloof, but the coal strike
affected a product necessary to the life and health of the
people. It was easy enough for well-to-do gentlemen to say that
they had rather go cold and see the fight carried. through until
the strikers submitted, than to have legal precedence ignored;
for these gentlemen had money enough to buy fuel at even an
exorbitant price, and they would be warm anyway, while the great
mass of the population froze. I may add that it seems more legal
than sensible that any official chosen to preserve the public
welfare and health should not be allowed to interpose against
persons who would destroy both, and may stir only after the
destroyers have caused the catastrophe they aimed at.
Roosevelt's action in the great coal strike not only averted the
danger, but it also gave Labor means of judging him fairly. Every
demagogue, from the days of Cleon down, has talked glibly in
behalf of the downtrodden or unjustly treated working-men, and we
might suppose that the demagogue has acquired enlargement of the
heart, owing to his overpowering sympathy with Labor. But the
questions we have to ask about demagogues are two: Is he sincere?
Is he wise?
Sincerity alone has been rather too much exalted as an excuse for
the follies and crimes of fanatics and zealots, blatherskites and
cranks. Some of our "lunatic fringe" of reformers have been heard
to palliate the Huns' atrocities in Belgium, by the plea: "Ah,
but they were so perfectly sincere!" Sincerity alone, therefore,
is not enough; it must be wise or it may be diabolical. Now
Roosevelt was both sincere and wise. He left no doubt in the
strikers' minds that he sympathized with their sufferings and
grievances and with their attempts to better their condition, so
far as this could be achieved without violence, and without
leaving a permanent state of war between Labor and Capital. In a
word, he did not aim at merely patching up a temporary peace, but
at finding, and when found, applying, a remedy to the deep-rooted
causes of the quarrel.
In his first message to Congress, the new President said: "The
most vital problem with which this country, and, for that matter,
the whole civilized world, has to deal, is the problem which has
for one side the betterment of social conditions, moral and
physical, in large cities, and for another side the effort to
deal with that tangle of far-reaching questions which we group
together when we speak of 'labor.'"
By his settlement of the coal strike, Roosevelt showed the
workers that he would practice towards them the justice which he
preached, but this did not mean that he would be unjust towards
the capitalists. They, too, should have justice, and they had it.
He never intended to coddle laborers or to make them feel that,
having a grievance, as they alleged, they must be specially
favored. Since Labor is, or should be, common to all men,
Roosevelt believed that every laborer, whether farmer or
mechanic, employer or employee, merchant or financier, should
stand erect and look every other man straight in the eyes, and
neither look up nor down, but with level gaze, fearless,
uncringing, uncondescending. The laws he proposed, the
adjustments he arranged, had the self-respect, the dignity, of
the individual, for their aim. He knew that nothing could be more
dangerous to the public, or more harmful to the laboring class
itself, than to make of it a privileged class, absolved from the
obligations, and even from the laws, which bound the rest of the
community. By this ideal he set a great gulf between himself and
the demagogues who fawned upon Labor and corrupted it by granting
its unjust demands.
He had always present before him a vision of the sacred Oneness
of the body politic. This made him the greatest of modern
Democrats, and the chief interpreter, as it seems to me, of the
highest ideal of American Democracy. The ideal of Oneness can
never be realized in a State which permits a single class to
enjoy privileges of its own at the expense of all other classes;
and it makes no difference whether this class belongs to the
Proletariat or to the Plutocracy. Equality before the law, and
justice, are the two eternal instruments for establishing the
true Democracy. And I do not recall that in any of the measures
which Roosevelt supported these two vital principles were
violated. The following brief quotations from later messages
summarize his creed:
'In the vast and complicated mechanism of our modern civilized
life, the dominant note is the note of industrialism, and the
relations of capital and labor, and especially of organized
capital and organized labor, to each other, and to the public at
large, come second in importance only to the intimate questions
of family life.'
The corporation has come to stay, just as the trade union has
come to stay. Each can do and has done great good. Each should be
favored as long as it does good, but each should be sharply
checked where it acts against law and justice.
Any one can profess a creed; Theodore Roosevelt lived his.
Nothing better tested his impartiality than the strike of the
Federation of Western Miners in 1907. Many murders and much
violence were attributed to this organization and they were
charged with assassinating Governor Steunenberg of Idaho. Their
leaders, Moyer and Haywood, were anarchists like themselves, and
although they professed contempt for law, as soon as they were
arrested and brought up for trial, they clutched at every quibble
of the law, as drowning men clutch at straws to save them; and,
be it said to the glory or shame of the law, it furnished enough
quibbles, not only to save them from the gallows, but to let them
loose again on society with the legal whitewash "not guilty"
stamped upon them.
Roosevelt understood the great importance of punishing these men,
and he committed the indiscretion of classing them with certain
big capitalists as "undesirable citizens." Members of the
Federation then wrote him denouncing his attempt to prejudice the
courts against Moyer and Haywood, and they resented that their
leaders should be coupled with Harriman and other big capitalists
as "undesirable citizens." This gave the President the
opportunity to reply that such criticism did not come
appropriately from the Federation; for they and their supporters
had got up parades, mass-meetings, and petitions in favor of
Moyer and Haywood and for the direct purpose of intimidating the
court and jury. "You want," he said in substance, "the square
deal for the defendants only. I want the square deal for every
one"; and he added, "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 pro test against the denunciation of a labor leader who
has been guilty of wrongdoing." *
* Autobiography, 531.
But Moyer and Haywood, as I have said, escaped punishment, and
before long Haywood reappeared as leader of the Industrial
Workers of the World, an anarchistic body with a comically
inappropriate name for its members objected to nothing so much as
to industry and work. The I.W.W., as they have been known for
short, have consistently preached violence and "action," by which
they might take for themselves the savings and wealth of others
as a means to enable them to do no work. And some of the recent
strikes which have brought the greatest misery upon the laborers
whom they misled, have been directed by I. W. W. leaders.
"I treated anarchists and bomb-throwing and dynamiting gentry
precisely as I treated other criminals," Roosevelt writes:
"Murder is murder. It is not rendered one whit better by the
allegation that it is committed on behalf of a cause." * I need
hardly state that the President was as consistently vigilant to
prevent labor unions from persecuting non-union men as he was in
upholding the just rights of the union.
* Autobiography, 532.
Consider what this record of his with Capital and Labor really
means. The social conditions in the United States, owing to the
immense expansion in the production of wealth--an expansion which
included the invention of innumerable machines and the
application, largely made possible by immigration, of millions of
laborers--had changed rapidly, and had brought pressingly to the
front novel and gigantic industrial and financial problems. In
the solution of these problems Justice and Equality must not only
be regarded, but must play the determining part. Now, Justice and
Equality were beautiful abstractions which could be praised by
every demagogue without laying upon him any obligation except
that of dulcet lip service. Every American, young or old, had
heard them lauded so unlimitedly that he did not trouble himself
to inquire whether they were facts or not; they were words,
sonorous and pleasing words, which made his heart throb, and
himself feel a worthier creature. And then came along a young
zealot, mighty in physical vigor and moral energy, who believed
that Justice and Equality were not mere abstractions, were not
mere words for politicians and parsons to thrill their audiences
by, but were realities, duties, which every man in a Democracy
was bound to revere and to make prevail. And he urged them with
such power of persuasion, such tirelessness, such titanic zeal,
that he not only converted the masses of the people to believe in
them, too, but he also made the legislators of the country
understand that they must embody these principles in the national
statute book. He did not originate, as I have said, all or most
of the reforms, but he gave ear to those who first suggested
them, and his enthusiasm and support were essential to their
adoption. In order to measure the magnitude of Roosevelt's
contribution in marking deeply the main principles which should
govern the New Age, we need only remember how little his
predecessor, President McKinley, a good man with the best
intentions, either realized that the New Age was at hand, or
thought it necessary even to outline the principles which should
guide it; and how little his successor, President Taft, a most
amiable man, understood that the New Age, with the Rooseveltian
reforms, had come to stay, and could not be swept back by
actively opposing it or by allowing the Rooseveltian ideals to
lapse.
CHAPTER XVII. ROOSEVELT AT HOME
Although Theodore Roosevelt was personally known to more people
of the United States than any other President has been, and his
manners and quick responsive cordiality made multitudes feel,
after a brief sight of him, or after shaking his hand, that they
were old acquaintances, he maintained during his life a dignified
reticence regarding his home and family. But now that he is dead
and the world craves eagerly, but not irreverently, to know as
much as it can about his many sides, I feel that it is not
improper to say something about that intimate side which was in
some respects the most characteristic of all.
Early in the eighties he bought a country place at Oyster Bay,
Long Island, and on the top of a hill he built a spacious house.
There was a legend that in old times Indian Chiefs used to gather
there to hold their powwows; at any rate, the name, the
Sagamores' Hill, survived them, and this shortened to Sagamore
Hill he gave to his home. That part of Long Island on the north
coast overlooking the Sound is very attractive; it is a country
of hills and hollows, with groves of tall trees, and open fields
for farming, and lawns near the house. You look down on Oyster
Bay which seems to be a small lake shut in by the curving shore
at the farther end. From the house you see the Sound and the
hills of Connecticut along the horizon.
After the death of his first wife in January, 1884, Roosevelt
went West to the Bad Lands of North Dakota where he lived two
years at Medora, on a ranch which he owned, and there he endured
the hardships and excitements of ranch life at that time; acting
as cow-puncher, ranchman, deputy sheriff, or hunting big and
little game, or writing books and articles. In the autumn of
1886, however, having been urged to run as candidate for Mayor of
New York City, he came East again. He made a vigorous campaign,
but having two opponents against him he was beaten. Then he took
a trip to Europe where he married Miss Edith Kermit Carow, whom
he had known in New York since childhood, and on their return to
this country, they settled at Sagamore Hill. Two years later,
when President Harrison appointed Roosevelt a Civil Service
Commissioner, they moved to Washington. There they lived in a
rather small house at 1720 Jefferson Place--"modest," one might
call it, in comparison with the modern palaces which had begun to
spring up in the National Capital; but people go to a house for
the sake of its occupants and not for its size and upholstery.
So for almost six years pretty nearly everybody worth knowing
crossed the Roosevelts' threshold, and they themselves quickly
took their place in Washington society. Roosevelt's humor, his
charm, his intensity, his approachableness, attracted even those
who rejected his politics and his party. Bright sayings cannot be
stifled, and his added to the gayety of more than one group. He
was too discreet to give utterance to them all, but his private
letters at that time, and always, glistened with his remarks on
public characters. He said, for instance, of Senator X, whom he
knew in Washington: He "looks like Judas, but unlike that
gentleman, he has no capacity for remorse."
When the Roosevelts returned to New York, where he became Police
Commissioner in 1895, they made their home again at Oyster Bay.
This was thirty miles by rail from the city, near enough to be
easily accessible, but far enough away to deter the visits of
random, curious, undesired callers. Later, when automobiles came
in, Roosevelt motored to and from town. Mrs. Roosevelt looked
after the place itself; she supervised the farming, and the
flower gardens were her especial care. The children were now
growing up, and from the time when they could toddle they took
their place--a very large place--in the life of the home.
Roosevelt described the intense satisfaction he had in teaching
the boys what his father had taught him. As soon as they were
large enough, they rode their horses, they sailed on the Cove and
out into the Sound. They played boys' games, and through him they
learned very young to observe nature. In his college days he had
intended to be a naturalist, and natural history remained his
strong est avocation. And so he taught his children to know the
birds and animals, the trees, plants, and flowers of Oyster Bay
and its neighborhood. They had their pets--Kermit, one of the
boys, carried a pet rat in his pocket.
Three things Roosevelt required of them all; obedience,
manliness, and truthfulness. And I imagine that all these virtues
were taught by affection and example, rather than by constant
correction. For the family was wholly united, they did everything
together; the children had no better fun than to accompany their
father and mother, and there were a dozen or more young cousins
and neighbors who went out with them too, forming a large,
delighted family for whom "Uncle" or "Cousin Theodore " was
leader and idol. And just as formerly, in the long winter nights
on his ranch at Medora, he used to read aloud to the cowboys and
hunters of what was then the Western Wilderness, so at Sagamore
Hill, in the days of their childhood, he read or told stories to
the circle of boys and girls.
In 1901, Mr. Roosevelt became President, and for seven years and
a half his official residence was the White House, where he was
obliged to spend most of the year. But whenever he could steal
away for a few days he sought rest and recreation at Oyster Bay,
and there, during the summers, his family lived. So far as the
changed conditions permitted, he did not allow his official
duties to interfere with his family life. "One of the most
wearing things about being President," a President once said to
me, "is the incessant publicity of it. For four years you have
not a moment to yourself, not a moment of privacy." And yet
Roosevelt, masterful in so many other things, was masterful in
this also. Nothing interfered with the seclusion of the family
breakfast. There were no guests, only Mrs. Roosevelt and the
children, and the simplest of food. At Oyster Bay he would often
chop trees in the early morning, and sometimes, while he was
President, he would ride before breakfast, but the meal itself
was quiet, private, uninterrupted. Then each member of the family
would go about his or her work, for idleness had no place with
them. The President spent his morning in attending to his
correspondence and dictating letters, then in receiving persons
by appointment, and he always reserved time when any American,
rich or poor, young or old, could speak to him freely. He liked
to see them all and many were the odd experiences which he had.
He asked one old lady what he could do for her. She replied:
"Nothing; I came all the way from Jacksonville, Florida, just to
see what a live President looked like. I never saw one before."
"That's very kind of you," the President replied; "persons from
up here go all the way to Florida just to see a live
alligator"--and so he put the visitor at her ease.
Luncheon was a varied meal; sometimes there were only two or
three guests at it; at other times there might be a dozen. It
afforded the President an opportunity for talking informally with
visitors whom he wished to see, and not infrequently it brought
together round the table a strange, not to say a motley, company.
After luncheon followed more work in his office for the
President, looking over the letters he had dictated and signing
them, signing documents and holding interviews. Later in the
afternoon he always reserved two hours for a walk or drive with
Mrs. Roosevelt. Nothing interfered with that. In the season he
played tennis with some of the large group of companions whom he
gathered round him, officials high and low, foreign Ambassadors
and Cabinet Ministers and younger under-secretaries who were
popularly known as the "Tennis Cabinet." There were fifty or more
of them, and that so many should have kept their athletic vigor
into middle age, and even beyond it, spoke well for the physique
of the men of official Washington at that time.
At Oyster Bay Roosevelt had instituted "hiking." He and the young
people and such of the neighbors as chose would start from
Sagamore Hill and walk in a bee-line to a point four or five
miles off. The rule was that no natural impediment should cause
them to digress or to stop. So they went through the fields and
over the fences, across ditches and pools, and even clambered up
and down a haystack, if one happened to be in the way, or through
a barnyard. Of course they often reached home spattered with mud
or even drenched to the skin from a plunge into the water, but
with much fun, a livelier circulation, and a hearty appetite to
their credit.
In Washington the President continued this practice of hiking,
but in a somewhat modified form. His favorite resort was Rock
Creek, then a wild stream, with a good deal of water in it, and
here and there steep, rocky banks. To be invited by the President
to go on one of those hikes was regarded as a mark of special
favor. He indulged in them to test a man's bodily vigor and
endurance, and there were many amusing incidents and perhaps more
amusing stories about them. M. Tardieu, who at that time was
paying a short visit to this country and was connected with the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told me that the dispatches
which the new French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, sent to Paris were
full of reports on President Roosevelt's personality. The
Europeans had no definite conception of him at that time, and so
the sympathetic and much-esteemed Ambassador, who still
represents France at Washington, tried to give his Government
information by which it could judge for itself what sort of a
person the President was. What must have been the surprise in the
French Foreign Office when it received the following dispatch: (I
give the substance, of course, because I have not seen the
original.):
'Yesterday,' wrote Ambassador Jusserand, 'President Roosevelt
invited me to take a promenade with him this afternoon at three.
I arrived at the White House punctually, in afternoon dress and
silk hat, as if we were to stroll in the Tuileries Garden or in
the Champs Elysees. To my surprise, the President soon joined me
in a tramping suit, with knickerbockers and thick boots, and soft
felt hat, much worn. Two or three other gentlemen came, and we
started off at what seemed to me a breakneck pace, which soon
brought us out of the city. On reaching the country, the
President went pell-mell over the fields, following neither road
nor path, always on, on, straight ahead! I was much winded, but I
would not give in, nor ask him to slow up, because I had the
honor of La belle France in my heart. At last we came to the bank
of a stream, rather wide and too deep to be forded. I sighed
relief, because I thought that now we had reached our goal and
would rest a moment and catch our breath, before turning
homeward. But judge of my horror when I saw the President
unbutton his clothes and heard him say, "We had better strip, so
as not to wet our things in the Creek." Then I, too, for the
honor of France, removed my apparel, everything except my
lavender kid gloves. The President cast an inquiring look at
these as if they, too, must come off, but I quickly forestalled
any remark by saying, "With your permission, Mr. President, I
will keep these on, otherwise it would be embarrassing if we
should meet ladies." And so we jumped into the water and swam
across.'
M. Jusserand has a fine sense of humor and doubtless he has
laughed often over this episode, although he must have been
astonished and irritated when it occurred. But it gave Roosevelt
exactly what he wanted by showing him that the plucky little
French man was "game" for anything, and they remained firm
friends for life.
Occasionally, one of the guests invited on a hike relucted from
taking the plunge, and then he was allowed to go up stream or
down and find a crossing at a bridge; but I suspect that his host
and the habitual hikers instinctively felt a little less regard
for him after that. General Leonard Wood was one of Roosevelt's
boon companions on these excursions, and, speaking of him, I am
reminded of one of the President's orders which caused a great
flurry among Army officers in Washington.
The President learned that many of these officers had become
soft, physically, through their long residence in the city, where
an unmilitary life did not tend to keep their muscles hard. As a
consequence these great men of war became easy-going, indolent
even, better suited to loaf in the armchairs of the Metropolitan
Club and discuss campaigns and battles long ago than to lead
troops in the field. "Their condition," said Roosevelt, "would
have excited laughter, had it not been so serious, to think that
they belonged to the military arm of the Government. A cavalry
colonel proved unable to keep his horse at a sharp trot for even
half a mile when I visited his post; a major-general proved
afraid even to let his horse canter when he went on a ride with
us; and certain otherwise good men proved as unable to walk as if
they had been sedentary brokers." After consulting Generals Wood
and Bell, who were themselves real soldiers at the top of
condition, the President issued orders that the infantry should
march fifty miles, and the cavalry one hundred, in three days.
There was an outcry. The newspapers denounced Roosevelt as a
tyrant who followed his mere caprices. Some of the officers
intrigued with Congressmen to nullify the order. But when the
President himself, accompanied by Surgeon-General Rixey and two
officers, rode more than one hundred miles in a single day over
the frozen and rutty Virginia roads, the objectors could not keep
up open opposition. Roosevelt adds, ironically, that three naval
officers who walked the fifty miles in a day, were censured for
not obeying instructions, and were compelled to do the test over
again in three days.
Dinner in the White House was usually a formal affair, to which
most, if not all the guests, at least, were invited some time in
advance. There were, of course, the official dinners to the
foreign diplomats, to the justices of the Supreme Court, to the
members of the Cabinet; ordinarily, they might be described as
general. The President never forgot those who had been his
friends at any period of his life. It might happen that Bill
Sewall, his earliest guide from Maine, or a Dakota ranchman, or a
New York policeman, or one of his trusted enthusiasts in a hard-
fought political campaign, turned up at the White House. He was
sure to be asked to luncheon or to dinner, by the President. And
these former chums must have felt somewhat embarrassed, if they
were capable of feeling embarrassment, when they found themselves
seated beside some of the great ladies of Washington. Perhaps
Roosevelt himself felt a little trepidation as to how the
unmixables would mix. He is reported to have said to one Western
cowboy of whom he was fond: "Now, Jimmy, don't bring your gun
along to-night. The British Ambassador is going to dine too, and
it wouldn't do for you to pepper the floor round his feet with
bullets, in order to see a tenderfoot dance."
But those dinners were mainly memorable occasions, and the guests
who attended them heard some of the best talk in America at that
time, and came away with increased wonder for the variety of
knowledge and interest, and for the unceasing charm and courtesy
of their host, the President. Contrary to the opinion of persons
who heard him only as a political speaker shouting in the open
air from the back platform of his train or in a public square,
Roosevelt was not only a speaker, he was also a most courteous
listener. I watched him at little dinners listen not only
patiently, but with an astonishing simulation of interest, to
very dull persons who usurped the conversation and imagined that
they were winning his admiration. Mr. John Morley, who was a
guest at the White House at election time in 1904, said: "The two
things in America which seem to me most extraordinary are Niagara
Falls and President Roosevelt."
Jacob Riis, the most devoted personal follower of Roosevelt,
gives this as the finest compliment he ever heard of him. A lady
said that she had always been looking for some living embodiment
of the high ideals she had as to what a hero ought to be. "I
always wanted to make Roosevelt out that," she declared, "but
somehow every time he did something that seemed really great it
turned out, upon looking at it closely, that it was ONLY JUST THE
RIGHT THING TO DO." *
* Riis, 268-69.
But at home Roosevelt had affection, not compliments, whether
these were unintentional and sincere, like that of the lady just
quoted, or were thinly disguised flattery. And affection was what
he most craved from his family and nearest friends, and what he
gave to them without stint. As I have said, he allowed nothing to
interrupt the hours set apart for his wife and children while he
was at the White House; and at Oyster Bay there was always time
for them. A typical story is told of the boys coming in upon him
during a conference with some important visitor, and saying
reproachfully, "It's long after four o'clock, and you promised to
go with us at four." "So I did," said Roosevelt. And he quickly
finished his business with the visitor and went. When the
children were young, he usually saw them at supper and into bed,
and he talked of the famous pillow fights they had with him.
House guests at the White House some times unexpectedly caught
sight of him crawling in the entry near the children's rooms,
with two or three children riding on his back. Roosevelt's days
were seldom less than fifteen hours long, and we can guess how he
regarded the laboring men of today who clamor for eight and six,
and even fewer hours, as the normal period for a day's work. He
got up at half-past seven and always finished breakfast by nine,
when what many might call the real work of his day began.
The unimaginative laborer probably supposes that most of the
duties which fall to an industrious President are not strictly
work at all; but if any one had to meet for an hour and a half
every forenoon such Congressmen and Senators as chose to call on
him, he would understand that that was a job involving real work,
hard work. They came every day with a grievance, or an appeal, or
a suggestion, or a favor to ask, and he had to treat each one,
not only politely, but more or less deferently. Early in his
Administration I heard it said that he offended some Congressmen
by denying their requests in so loud a voice that others in the
room could hear him, and this seemed to some a humiliation.
President McKinley, on the other hand, they said, lowered his
voice, and spoke so softly and sweetly that even his refusal did
not jar on his visitor, and was not heard at all by the
bystanders. If this happened, I suspect it was because Roosevelt
spoke rather explosively and had a habit of emphasis, and not
because he wished in any way to send his petitioner's rebuff
through the room.
Nor was the hour which followed this, when he received general
callers, less wearing. As these persons came from all parts of
the Union, so they were of all sorts and temperaments. Here was a
worthy citizen from Colorado who, on the strength of having once
heard the President make a public speech in Denver, claimed
immediate friendship with him. Then might come an old lady from
Georgia, who remembered his mother's people there, or the lady
from Jacksonville, Florida, of whom I have already spoken. Once a
little boy, who was almost lost in the crush of grown-up
visitors, managed to reach the President. "What can I do for
you?" the President asked; and the boy told how his father had
died leaving his mother with a large family and no money, and how
he was selling typewriters to help support her. His mother, he
said, would be most grateful if the President would accept a
typewriter from her as a gift. So the President told the little
fellow to go and sit down until the other visitors had passed,
and then he would attend to him. No doubt, the boy left the White
House well contented--and richer.
Roosevelt's official day ended at half-past nine or ten in the
evening, and then, after the family had gone to bed, he sat down
to read or write, and it was long after midnight, sometimes one
o'clock, some times much later, before he turned in himself. He
regarded the preservation of health as a duty; and well he might
so regard it, because in childhood he had been a sickly boy, with
apparently only a life of invalidism to look forward to. But by
sheer will, and by going through physical exercises with
indomitable perseverance, he had built up his body until he was
strong enough to engage in all sports and in the hardships of
Western life and hunting. After he became President, he allowed
nothing to interfere with his physical exercise. I have spoken of
his long hikes and of his vigorous games with members of the
Tennis Cabinet. On many afternoons he would ride for two hours or
more with Mrs. Roosevelt or some friend, and it is a sad
commentary on the perpetual publicity to which the American
people condemn their Presidents, that he sometimes was obliged to
ride off into the country with one of his Cabinet Ministers in
order to be able to discuss public matters in private with him.
Roosevelt took care to provide means for exercise indoors in very
stormy weather. He had a professional boxer and wrestler come to
him, and when jiu-jitsu, the Japanese system of physical
training, was in vogue, he learned some of its introductory
mysteries from one of its foremost professors.
It was in a boxing bout at the White House with his teacher that
he lost the sight of an eye from a blow which injured his
eyeball. But he kept this loss secret for many years. He had a
wide acquaintance among professional boxers and even
prize-fighters. Jeffries, who had been a blacksmith before he
entered the ring, hammered a penholder out of a horseshoe and
gave it to the President, a gift which Roosevelt greatly prized
and showed among his trophies at Oyster Bay. John L. Sullivan,
perhaps the most notorious of the champion prize-fighters of
America, held Roosevelt in such great esteem that when he died
his family invited the ex-President to be one of the
pall-bearers. But Mr. Roosevelt was then too sick himself to be
able to travel to Boston and serve.
At Oyster Bay in summer, the President found plenty of exercise
on the place. It contained some eighty acres, part of which was
woodland, and there were always trees to be chopped. Hay-making,
also, was an equally severe test of bodily strength, and to pitch
hay brought every muscle into use. There, too, he had water
sports, but he always preferred rowing to sailing, which was too
slow and inactive an exercise for him. In old times, rowing used
to be the penalty to which galley-slaves were condemned, but now
it is commended by athletes as the best of all forms of exercise
for developing the body and for furnishing stimulating
competition.
No President ever lived on better terms with the newspaper men
than Roosevelt did. He treated them all with perfect fairness,
according no special favors, no "beats," or "scoops to any one.
So they regarded him as "square"; and further they knew that he
was a man of his word, not to be trifled with. "It is generally
supposed," Roosevelt remarked, "that newspaper men have no sense
of honor, but that is not true. If you treat them fairly, they
will treat you fairly; and they will keep a secret if you impress
upon them that it must be kept."
The great paradox of Roosevelt's character was the contrast
between its fundamental simplicity and its apparent spectacular
quality. His acts seemed to be unusual, striking, and some
uncharitable critics thought that he aimed at effect; in truth,
however, he acted at the moment as the impulse or propriety of
the moment suggested. There was no premeditation, no swagger.
Dwellers in Berlin noticed that after William the Crown Prince
became the Kaiser William II, he thrust out his chest and adopted
a rather pompous walk, but there was nothing like this in
Roosevelt's manner or carriage. In his public speaking, he
gesticulated incessantly, and in the difficulty he had in pouring
out his words as rapidly as the thoughts came to him, he seemed
sometimes almost to grimace; but this was natural, not studied.
And so I can easily understand what some one tells me who saw him
almost daily as President in the White House. "Roosevelt," he
said, "had an immense reverence for the Presidential office. He
did not feel cocky or conceited at being himself President; he
felt rather the responsibility for dignity which the office
carried with it, and he was humble. You might be as intimate with
him as possible, but there was a certain line which no one ever
crossed. That was the line which the office itself drew."
Roosevelt had that reverence for the great men of the past which
should stir every heart with a capacity for noble things. In the
White House he never forgot the Presidents who had dwelt there
before him. "I like to see in my mind's eye," he said to Mr.
Rhodes, the American historian, "the gaunt form of Lincoln
stalking through these halls." During a visit at the White House,
Mr. Rhodes watched the President at work throughout an entire day
and set down the points which chiefly struck him. Foremost among
these was the lack of leisure which we allow our Presidents. They
have work to do which is more important than that of a railroad
manager, or the president of the largest business corporation, or
of the leader of the American Bar. They are expected to know the
pros and cons of each bill brought before them to sign so that
they can sign it not only intelligently but justly, and yet
thanks to the constant intrusion which Americans deem it their
right to force on the President, he has no time for deliberation,
and, as I have said, Mr. Roosevelt was often obliged, when he
wished to have an undisturbed consultation with one of his
Cabinet Secretaries, to take him off on a long ride.
"I chanced to be in the President's room," Mr. Rhodes continues,
"when he dictated the rough draft of his famous dispatch to
General Chaffee respecting torture in the Philippines. While he
was dictating, two or three cards were brought in, also some
books with a request for the President's autograph, and there
were some other interruptions. While the dispatch as it went out
in its revised form could not be improved, a President cannot
expect to be always so happy in dictating dispatches in the midst
of distractions. Office work of far-reaching importance should be
done in the closet. Certainly no monarch or minister in Europe
does administrative work under such unfavorable conditions;
indeed, this public which exacts so much of the President's time
should in all fairness be considerate in its criticism." *
* Rhodes: Historical Essays, 238-39.
To cope in some measure with the vast amount of business thrust
upon him, Roosevelt had unique endowments. Other Presidents had
been indolent and let affairs drift; he cleared his desk every
day. Other Presidents felt that they had done their duty if they
merely dispatched the important business which came to them;
Roosevelt was always initiating, either new legislation or new
methods in matters which did not concern the Government. One
autumn, when there was unusual excitement, with recriminations in
disputes in the college football world, I was surprised to
receive a large four-page typewritten letter, giving his views as
to what ought to be done.
He reorganized the service in the White House, and not only that,
he had the Executive Mansion itself remodeled somewhat according
to the original plans so as to furnish adequate space for the
crowds who thronged the official receptions, and, at the other
end of the building, proper quarters for the stenographers,
typewriters, and telegraphers required to file and dispatch his
correspondence. Promptness was his watchword, and in cases where
it was expected, I never knew twenty-four hours to elapse before
he dictated his reply to a letter.
The orderliness which he introduced into the White House should
also be recorded. When I first went there in 1882 with a party of
Philadelphia junketers who had an appointment to shake hands with
President Arthur, as a preliminary to securing a fat
appropriation to the River and Harbor Bill of that year, the
White House was treated by the public very much as a common
resort. The country owned it: therefore, why shouldn't any
American make himself at home in it? I remember that on one of
the staircases, Dr. Mary Walker (recently dead), dressed in what
she was pleased to regard as a masculine costume, was haranguing
a group of five or six strangers, and here and there in the
corridors we met other random visitors. Mr. Roosevelt established
a strict but simple regimen. No one got past the Civil War
veteran who acted as doorkeeper without proper credentials; and
it was impossible to reach the President himself without first
encountering his Secretary, Mr. Loeb.
To the President some persons were, of course, privileged. If an
old pal from the West, or a Rough Rider came, the President did
not look at the clock, or speed him away. The story goes that one
morning Senator Cullom came on a matter of business and indeed
rather in a hurry. On asking who was "in there," and being told
that a Rough Rider had been with the President for a half-hour,
the Senator said, "Then there's no hope for me," took his hat,
and departed.
Although, as I have said, Roosevelt might be as intimate and
cordial as possible with any visitor, he never forgot the dignity
which belonged to his office. Nor did he forget that as President
he was socially as well as officially the first person in the
Republic. In speaking of these social affairs, I must not pass
over without mention the unfailing help which his two sisters
gave him at all times. The elder, the wife of Admiral William S.
Cowles, lived in Washington when Roosevelt was Civil Service
Commissioner, and her house was always in readiness for his use.
His younger sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson, lived in New York
City, and first at No. 422 Madison Avenue and later at No. 9 East
Sixty-third Street, she dispensed hospitality for him and his
friends. Nothing could have been more convenient. If he were at
Oyster Bay, it was often impossible to make an appointment to
meet there persons whom he wished to see, but he had merely to
telephone to Mrs. Robinson, the appointment was made, and the
interview was held. It was at her house that many of the
breakfasts with Senator Platt--those meetings which caused so
much alarm and suspicion among over-righteous reformers--took
place while Roosevelt was Governor. Mr. Odell nearly always
accompanied the Senator, as if he felt afraid to trust the astute
Boss with the very persuasive young Governor. Having Mrs.
Robinson's house as a shelter, Theodore could screen himself from
the newspaper men. There he could hold private consultations
which, if they had been referred to in the papers, would have
caused wild guesses, surmises, and embarrassing remarks. His
sisters always rejoiced that, with his wonderful generosity of
nature, he took them often into his political confidence, and
listened with unfeigned respect to their point of view on
subjects on which they might even have a slight difference of
opinion.
Mr. Charles G. Washburn tells the following story to illustrate
Roosevelt's faculty of getting to the heart of every one whom he
knew. When he was hunting in Colorado, "he met a cowboy who had
been with him with the Rough Riders in Cuba. The man came up to
speak to Roosevelt, and said, 'Mr. President, I have been in jail
a year for killing a gentleman.' 'How did you do it?' asked the
President, meaning to inquire as to the circumstances.
'Thirty-eight on a forty-five frame,' replied the man, thinking
that the only interest the President had was that of a comrade
who wanted to know with what kind of a tool the trick was done.
Now, I will venture to say that to no other President, from
Washington down to and including Wilson, would the man-killer
have made that response." *
* Washburn, 202-03.
I think that all of us will agree with Mr. Washburn, who adds
another story of the same purport, and told by Roosevelt himself.
Another old comrade wrote him from jail in Arizona: "Dear
Colonel: I am in trouble. I shot a lady in the eye, but I did not
intend to hit the lady; I was shooting at my wife." Roosevelt had
large charity for sinners of this type, but he would not tolerate
deceit or lying. Thus, when a Congressman made charges to him
against one of the Wild Western appointees whom he accused of
drinking and of gambling, the President remarked that he had to
take into consideration the moral standards of the section, where
a man who gambled or who drank was not necessarily an evil
person. Then the Congressman pressed his charges and said that
the fellow had been in prison for a crime a good many years
before. This roused Roosevelt, who said, "He never told me about
that," and he immediately telegraphed the accused for an
explanation. The man replied that the charge was true, whereupon
the President at once dismissed him, not for gambling or for
drinking, but for trying to hide the fact that he had once been
in jail.
In these days of upheaval, when the most ancient institutions and
laws are put in question, and anarchists and Bolshevists, blind
like Samson, wish to throw down the very pillars on which
Civilization rests, the Family, the fundamental element of
civilized life, is also violently attacked. All the more
precious, therefore, will Theodore Roosevelt's example be, as an
upholder of the Family. He showed how essential it is for the
development of the individual and as a pattern for Society. Only
through the Family can come the deepest joys of life and can the
most intimate duties be transmuted into joys. As son, as husband,
as father, as brother, he fulfilled the ideals of each of those
relations, and, so strong was his family affection, that, while
still a comparatively young man, he drew to him as a patriarch
might, not only his own children, but his kindred in many
degrees. With utter truth he wrote, "I have had the happiest home
life of any man I have ever known." And that, as we who were his
friends understood, was to him the highest and dearest prize
which life could bestow.
CHAPTER XVIII. Hits And Misses
In this sketch I do not attempt to follow chronological order,
except in so far as this is necessary to make clear the
connection between lines of policy, or to define the structural
growth of character. But in Roosevelt's life, as in the lives of
all of us, many events, sometimes important events, occurred and
had much notice at the moment and then faded away and left no
lasting mark. Let us take up a few of these which reveal the
President from different angles.
Since the close of the Civil War the Negro Question had brooded
over the South. The war emancipated the Southern negroes and then
politics came to embitter the question. Partly to gain a
political advantage, partly as some visionaries believed, to do
justice, and partly to punish the Southerners, the Northern
Republicans gave the Southern negroes equal political rights with
the whites. They even handed over the government of some of the
States to wholly incompetent blacks. In self-defense the whites
terrorized the blacks through such secret organizations as the
Ku-Klux Klan, and recovered their ascendancy in governing. Later,
by such specious devices as the Grandfathers' Law, they prevented
most of the blacks from voting, and relieved themselves of the
trouble of maintaining a system of intimidation. The real
difficulty being social and racial, to mix politics with it was
to envenom it.
Roosevelt took a man for what he was without regard to race,
creed, or color. He held that a negro of good manners and
education ought to be treated as a white man would be treated. He
felt keenly the sting of ostracism and he believed that if the
Southern whites would think as he did on this matter; they might
the quicker solve the Negro Question and establish human if not
friendly relations with the blacks.
The negro race at that time had a fine spokesman in Booker T.
Washington, a man who had been born a slave, was educated at the
Hampton Institute, served as teacher there, and then founded the
Tuskegee Institute for teaching negroes. He wisely saw that the
first thing to be done was to teach them trades and farming, by
which they could earn a living and make themselves useful if not
indispensable to the communities in which they settled. He did
not propose to start off to lift his race by letting them imagine
that they could blossom into black Shakespeares and dusky
Raphaels in a single generation. He himself was a man of tact,
prudence, and sagacity with trained intelligence and a natural
gift of speaking.
To him President Roosevelt turned for some suggestions as to
appointing colored persons to offices in the South. It happened
that on the day appointed for a meeting Washington reached the
White House shortly before luncheon time, and that, as they had
not finished their conference, Roosevelt asked him to stay to
luncheon. Washington hesitated politely. Roosevelt insisted. They
lunched, finished their business, and Washington went away. When
this perfectly insignificant fact was published in the papers the
next morning, the South burst into a storm of indignation and
abuse. Some of the Southern journals saw, in what was a mere
routine incident, a terrible portent, foreboding that Roosevelt
planned to put the negroes back to control the Southern whites.
Others alleged the milder motive that he was fishing for negro
votes. The common type of fire-eaters saw in it one of
Roosevelt's unpleasant ways of having fun by insulting the South.
And Southern cartoonists took an ignoble, feeble retaliation by
caricaturing even Mrs. Roosevelt.
The President did not reply publicly. As his invitation to Booker
Washington was wholly unpremeditated, he was surprised by the
rage which it caused among Southerners. But he was clear-sighted
enough to understand that, without intending it, he had made a
mistake, and this he never repeated. Nothing is more elusive than
racial antipathy, and we need not wonder that a man like
Roosevelt who, although he was most solicitous not to hurt
persons' feelings and usually acted, unless he had proof to the
contrary, on the assumption that everybody was blessed with a
modicum of good-will and common sense, should not always be able
to foresee the strange inconsistencies into which the antipathy
of the white Southerners for the blacks might lead. A little
while later there was a religious gathering in Washington of
Protestant-Episcopal ministers. They had a reception at the White
House. Their own managers made out a list of ministers to be
invited, and among the guests were a negro archdeacon and his
wife, and the negro rector of a Maryland parish. Although these
persons attended the reception, the Southern whites burst into no
frenzy of indignation against the President. Who could steer
safely amid such shoals? * The truth is that no President since
Lincoln had a kindlier feeling towards the South than Roosevelt
had. He often referred proudly to the fact that his mother came
from Georgia, and that his two Bulloch uncles fought in the
Confederate Navy. He wished to bring back complete friendship
between the sections. But he understood the difficulties, as his
explanation to Mr. James Ford Rhodes, the historian, in 1905,
amply proved. He agreed fully as to the folly of the
Congressional scheme of reconstruction based on universal negro
suffrage, but he begged Mr. Rhodes not to forget that the initial
folly lay with the Southerners themselves. The latter said, quite
properly, that he did not wonder that much bitterness still
remained in the breasts of the Southern people about the
carpet-bag negro regime. So it was not to be wondered at that in
the late sixties much bitterness should have remained in the
hearts of the Northerners over the remembrance of the senseless
folly and wickedness of the Southerners in the early sixties.
Roosevelt felt that those persons who most heartily agreed that
as it was the presence of the negro which made the problem, and
that slavery was merely the worst possible method of solving it,
we must therefore hold up to reprobation, as guilty of doing one
of the worst deeds which history records, those men who tried to
break up this Union because they were not allowed to bring
slavery and the negro into our new territory. Every step which
followed, from freeing the slave to enfranchising him, was due
only to the North being slowly and reluctantly forced to act by
the South's persistence in its folly and wickedness.
* Leupp,231.
The President could not say these things in public because they
tended, when coming from a man in public place, to embitter
people. But Rhodes was writing what Roosevelt hoped would prove
the great permanent history of the period, and he said that it
would be a misfortune for the country, and especially a
misfortune for the South, if they were allowed to confuse right
and wrong in perspective. He added that his difficulties with the
Southern people had come not from the North, but from the South.
He had never done anything that was not for their interest. At
present, he added, they were, as a whole, speaking well of him.
When they would begin again to speak ill, he did not know, but in
either case his duty was equally clear. *
* February 20, 1905.
Inviting Booker Washington to the White House was a counsel of
perfection which we must consider one of Roosevelt's misses.
Quite different was the voyage of the Great Fleet, planned by him
and carried out without hitch or delay.
We have seen that from his interest in American naval history,
which began before he left Harvard, he came to take a very deep
interest in the Navy itself, and when he was Assistant Secretary,
he worked night and day to complete its preparation for entering
the Spanish War. From the time he became President, he urged upon
Congress and the country the need of maintaining a fleet adequate
to ward off any dangers to which we might be exposed. In season
and out of season he preached, with the ardor of a propagandist,
his gospel that the Navy is the surest guarantor of peace which
this country possesses. By dint of urging he persuaded Congress
to consent to lay down one battleship of the newest type a year.
Congress was not so much reluctant as indifferent. Even the
lesson of the Spanish War failed to teach the Nation's
law-makers, or the Nation itself, that we must have a Navy to
protect us if we intended to play the role of a World Power. The
American people instinctively dreaded militarism, and so they
resisted consenting to naval or military preparations which might
expand into a great evil such as they saw controlling the nations
of Europe.
Nevertheless Roosevelt, as usual, could not be deterred by
opposition; and when the Hague Conference in 1907, through the
veto of Germany, refused to limit armaments by sea and land, he
warned Congress that one new battleship a year would not do, that
they must build four. Meanwhile, he had pushed to completion a
really formidable American Fleet, which assembled in Hampton
Roads on December 1, 1907, and ten days later weighed anchor for
parts unknown. There were sixteen battleships, commanded by Rear
Admiral Robley D. Evans. Every ship was new, having been built
since the Spanish War. The President and Mrs. Roosevelt and many
notables reviewed the Fleet from the President's yacht Mayflower,
as it passed out to sea. Later, the country learned that the
Fleet was to sail round Cape Horn, to New Zealand and Australia,
up the Pacific to San Francisco, then across to Japan, and so
steer homeward through the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, and the
Mediterranean to Gibraltar, across the Atlantic, and back to
Hampton Roads.
The American public did not quite know what to make of this
dramatic gesture. Roosevelt's critics said, of course, that it
was the first overt display of his combativeness, and that from
this he would go on to create a great army and be ready, at the
slightest provocation, to attack any foreign Power. In fact,
however, the sending of the Great Fleet, which was wholly his
project, was designed by him to strengthen the prospect of peace
for the United States. Through it, he gave a concrete
illustration of his maxim: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick."
The Panama Canal was then half dug and would be finished in a few
years. Distant nations thought of this country as of a land
peopled by dollar-chasers, too absorbed in getting rich to think
of providing defense for themselves. The fame of Dewey's exploit
at Manila Bay had ceased to strike wonder among foreign peoples,
after they heard how small and almost contemptible, judging by
the new standards, the Squadron was by which he won his victory.
Japan, the rising young giant of the Orient, felt already strong
enough to resent any supposed insult from the United States.
Germany had embarked on her wild naval policy of creating a fleet
which would soon be able to cope with that of England.
When, however, the Great Fleet steamed into Yokohama or Bombay or
any other port, it furnished a visible evidence of the power of
the country from which it came. We could not send an army to
furnish the same object-lesson. But the Fleet must have opened
the eyes of any foreign jingoes who supposed that they might send
over with impunity their battleships and attack our ports. In
this way it served directly to discourage war against us, and
accordingly it was a powerful agent for peace. Spectacular the
voyage was without question, like so many of Roosevelt's acts,
but if you analyze it soberly, do you not admit that it was the
one obvious, simple way by which to impress upon an uncertain and
rapacious world the fact that the United States had manpower as
well as money-power, and that they were prepared to repel all
enemies?
On February 22, 1909, the White Fleet steamed back to Hampton
Roads and was received by President Roosevelt. It had performed a
great moral achievement. It had also raised the efficiency of its
officers and the discipline of its crews to the highest point.
There had been no accident; not a scratch on any ship.
"Isn't it magnificent?" said Roosevelt, as he toasted the
Admirals and Captains in the cabin of the Mayflower. "Nobody
after this will forget that the American coast is on the Pacific
as well as on the Atlantic." Ten days later he left the White
House, and after he left, the prestige of the American Fleet was
slowly frittered away.
So important is it, if we would form a just estimate of
Roosevelt, to understand his attitude towards war, that I must
refer to the subject briefly here. One of the most authoritative
observers of international politics now living, a man who has
also had the best opportunity for studying the chief statesmen of
our age, wrote me after Roosevelt's death: "I deeply grieve with
you in the loss of our friend. He was an extraordinary man. The
only point in which I ever found myself seriously differing from
him was in the value he set upon war. He did not seem to realize
how great an evil it is, and in how many ways, fascinated as he
was by the virtues which it sometimes called out; but in this
respect, also, I think his views expanded and mellowed as time
went on. His mind was so capacious as to take in Old-World
affairs in a sense which very few people outside Europe, since
Hamilton, have been able to do."
Now the truth is that neither the eminent person who wrote this
letter, nor many others among us, saw as clearly during the first
decade of this century as Roosevelt saw that war was not a remote
possibility, but a very real danger. I think that he was almost
the first in the United States to feel the menace of Germany to
the entire world. He knew the strength of her army, and when she
began to build rapidly a powerful navy, he understood that the
likelihood of her breaking the peace was more than doubled; for
with the fleet she could at pleasure go up and down the seas,
picking quarrels as she went. If war came on a great scale in
Europe, our Republic would probably be involved; we should either
take sides and so have to furnish a contingent, or we should
restrict our operations to self-defense. In either case we must
be prepared.
But Roosevelt recognized also that on the completion of the
Panama Canal we might be exposed to much international friction,
and unless we were ready to defend the Canal and its approaches,
a Foreign Power might easily do it great damage or wrest it from
us, at least for a time. Here, too, was another motive for facing
the possibility of war. We were growing up in almost childish
trust in a world filled with warlike nations, which regarded war
not only as the obvious way in which to settle disputes, but as
the easiest way to seize the territory and the wealth of rich
neighbors who could not defend themselves.
This being the condition of life as our country had to lead it,
we were criminally remiss in not taking precautions. But
Roosevelt went farther than this; he believed that, war or no
war, a nation must be able to defend itself; so must every
individual be. Every youth should have sufficient military
training to fit him to take his place at a moment's notice in the
national armament. This did not mean the maintenance of a large
standing army, or the adoption of a soul and character-killing
system of militarism like the German. It meant giving training to
every youth who was physically sound which would develop and
strengthen his body, teach him obedience, and impress upon him
his patriotic duty to his country.
I was among those who, twenty years ago, feared that Roosevelt's
projects were inspired by innate pugnacity which he could not
outgrow. Now, in this year of his death, I recognize that he was
right, and I believe that there is no one, on whom the lesson of
the Atrocious War has not been lost, who does not believe in his
gospel of military training, both for its value in promoting
physical fitness and health and in providing the country with
competent defenders. Roosevelt detested as much as anyone the
horrors of war, but, as he had too much reason to remind the
American people shortly before his death, there are things worse
than war. And when in 1919 President Charles W. Eliot becomes the
chief advocate of universal military training, we need not fear
that it is synonymous with militarism.
On one subject--a protective tariff--I think that Roosevelt was
less satisfactory than on any other. At Harvard, in our college
days, John Stuart Mill's ideas on economics prevailed, and they
were ably expounded by Charles F. Dunbar, who then stood first
among American economists. Being a consistent Individualist, and
believing that liberty is a principle which applies to commerce,
not less than to intellectual and moral freedom, Mill, of course,
insisted on Free Trade. But after Roosevelt joined the Republican
Party--in the straw vote for President, in 1880, he had voted
like a large majority of undergraduates for Bayard, a Democrat--he
adopted Protection as the right principle in theory and in
practice. The teachings of Alexander Hamilton, the wonderful
spokesman of Federalism, the champion of a strong Government
which should be beneficent because it was unselfish and
enlightened, captivated and filled him. In 1886, in his Life of
Benton, he wrote: "Free traders are apt to look at the tariff
from a sentimental standpoint; but it is in reality a purely
business matter and should be decided solely on grounds of
expediency. Political economists have pretty generally agreed
that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in practice; but
if the majority of the people in interest wish it, and it affects
only themselves, there is no earthly reason why they should not
be allowed to try the experiment to their heart's content." *
* Roosevelt: Thomas H. Benton, 67. American Statesmen Series.
Perhaps we ought to infer from this extract that Roosevelt, as an
historical critic, strove to preserve an open mind; as an ardent
Republican, however, he never wavered in his support of the
tariff. Even his sense of humor permitted him to swallow with out
a smile the demagogue's cant about "infant industries," or the
raising of the tariff after election by the Republicans who had
promised to reduce it. To those of us who for many years regarded
the tariff as the dividing line between the parties, his stand
was most disappointing. And when the head of one of the chief
Trusts in America cynically blurted out, "The Tariff is the
mother of Trusts," we hoped that Roosevelt, who had then begun
his stupendous battle with the Trusts, would deal them a
staggering blow by shattering the tariff. But, greatly to our
chagrin, he did nothing.
His enemies tried to explain his callousness to this reform by
hinting that he had some personal interest at stake, or that he
was under obligations to tariff magnates. Nothing could be more
absurd than these innuendoes; from the first of his career to the
last, no man ever brought proof that he had directly or
indirectly secured Roosevelt's backing by question able means.
And there were times enough when passions ran so high that any
one who could produce an iota of such testimony would have done
so. The simple fact is, that in looking over the field of
important questions which Roosevelt believed must be met by new
legislation, he looked on the tariff as unimportant in comparison
with railroads, and conservation, and the measures for public
health. I think, also, that he never studied the question
thoroughly; he threw over Mill's Individualism early in his
public career and with it went Mill's political economy. As late
as December, 1912, after the affronting Payne Aldrich Tariff Act
had been passed under his Republican successor, I reminded
Roosevelt that I had never voted for him because I did not
approve of his tariff policy. To which he replied, almost in the
words of the Benton extract in 1886, "My dear boy, the tariff is
only a question of expediency."
In this field also I fear that we must score a miss against him.
Cavour used to say that he did not need to resort to craft, which
was supposed to be a statesman's favorite instrument, he simply
told the truth and everybody was deceived. Roosevelt might have
said the same thing. His critics were always on the look out for
some ulterior motive, some trick, or cunning thrust, in what he
did; consequently they misjudged him, for he usually did the most
direct thing in the most direct way.
The Brownsville Affair proved this. On the night of August 13,
1906, several colored soldiers stationed at Fort Brown, Texas,
stole from their quarters into the near-by town of Brownsville
and shot up the inhabitants, against whom they had a grudge. As
soon as the news of the outbreak reached the fort, the rest of
the colored garrison was called out to quell it, and the guilty
soldiers, under cover of darkness, joined their companions and
were undiscovered. Next day the commander began an investigation,
but as none of the culprits confessed, the President discharged
nearly all of the three companies. There upon his critics
insinuated that Roosevelt had indulged his race hatred of the
blacks; a few years before, many of these same critics had
accused him of wishing to insult the Southern whites by inviting
Booker Washington to lunch. The reason for his action with the
Brownsville criminals was so clear that it did not need to be
stated. He intended that every soldier or sailor who wore the
uniform of the United States, be he white, yellow, or black,
should not be allowed to sully that uniform and go unpunished. He
felt the stain on the service keenly; in spite of denunciation he
trusted that the common sense of the Nation would eventually
uphold him, as it did.
A few months later he came to Cambridge to make his famous
"Mollycoddle Speech," and in greeting him, three or four of us
asked him jokingly, "How about Brownsville?" "Brownsville?" he
replied, laughing; "Brownsville will soon be forgotten, but 'Dear
Maria' will stick to me all my life." This referred to another
annoyance which had recently bothered him. He had always been
used to talk among friends about public matters and persons with
amazing unreserve. He took it for granted that those to whom he
spoke would regard his frank remarks as confidential; being
honorable himself, he assumed a similar sense of honor in his
listeners. In one instance, however, he was deceived. Among the
guests at the White House were a gentleman and his wife. The
latter was a convert to Roman Catholicism, and she had not only
all the proverbial zeal of a convert, but an amount of
indiscretion which seems incredible in any one. She often led the
conversation to Roman Catholic subjects, and especially to the
discussion of who was likely to be the next American Cardinal.
President Roosevelt had great respect for Archbishop Ireland, and
he said, frankly, that he should be glad to see the red hat go to
him. The lady's husband was appointed to a foreign Embassy, and
they were both soon thrown into an Ultramontane atmosphere, where
clerical intrigues had long furnished one of the chief amusements
of a vapid and corrupt Court. The lady, who, of course, could not
have realized the impropriety, made known the President's regard
for Archbishop Ireland. She even had letters to herself beginning
"Dear Maria," to prove the intimate terms on which she and her
husband stood with Mr. Roosevelt, and to suggest how important a
personage she was in his estimation. Assured, as she thought, of
her influence in Washington, she seems also to have aspired to
equal influence in the Vatican. That would not be the first
occasion on which Cardinals' hats had been bestowed through the
benign feminine intercession. Reports from Rome were favorable;
Archbishop Ireland's prospects looked rosy.
But the post of Cardinal is so eminent that there are always
several candidates for each vacancy. I do not know whether or not
it came about through one of Archbishop Ireland's rivals, or
through "Dear Maria's" own indiscretion, but the fact leaked out
that President Roosevelt was personally interested in Archbishop
Ireland's success. That settled the Archbishop. The Hierarchy
would never consent to be influenced by an American President,
who was also a Protestant. It might take instructions from the
Emperor of Austria or the King of Spain; it had even allowed the
German Kaiser, also a Protestant, indirectly but effectually to
block the election of Cardinal Rampolla to be Pope in 1903; but
the hint that the Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, might be
made Cardinal because the American President respected him, could
not be tolerated. The President's letters beginning "Dear Maria"
went gayly through the newspapers of the world, and the man in
the street everywhere wondered how Roosevelt could have been so
indiscreet as to have trusted so imprudent a zealot. "Dear Maria"
and her husband were recalled from their Embassy and put out of
reach of committing further indiscretions of that sort.
Archbishop Ireland never became Cardinal. In spite of the
President's forebodings, the "Dear Maria" incident did not cling
to him all his life, but sank into oblivion, while the world,
busied with matters of real importance, rushed on towards a great
catastrophe. Proofs that a man or a woman can do very foolish
things are so common that "Dear Maria" could not win lasting fame
by hers. I do not think, however, that this experience taught
Roosevelt reticence. He did not lose his faith that a sense of
honor was widespread, and would silence the tongues of the
persons whom he talked to in confidence.
No President ever spoke so openly to newspaper men as he did. He
told them many a secret with only the warning, "Mind, this is
private," and none of them betrayed him. When he entered the
White House he gathered all the newspaper men round him, and said
that no mention was to be made of Mrs. Roosevelt, or of any
detail of their family life, while they lived there. If this rule
were broken, he would refuse for the rest of his term to allow
the representative of the paper which published the unwarranted
report to enter the White House, or to receive any of the
President's communications. This rule also was religiously
observed, with the result that Mrs. Roosevelt was spared the
disgust and indignity of a vulgar publicity, which had thrown its
lurid light on more than one "First Lady of the Land" in previous
administrations, and even on the innocent Baby McKee, President
Harrison's grand-child.
We cannot too often bear in mind that Theodore Roosevelt never
forgot the Oneness of Society. If he aimed at correcting an
industrial or financial abuse by special laws. he knew that this
work could be partial only. It might promote the health of the
entire body, but it was not equivalent to sanifying that entire
body. There was no general remedy. A plaster applied to a skin
cut does not cure an internal disease. But he watched the
unexpected effects of laws and saw how that influence spread from
one field to another.
Roosevelt traced closely the course of Law and Custom to their
ultimate objects, the family and the individual. In discussing
the matter with Mr. Rhodes he cordially agreed with what the
historian said about our American rich men. He insisted that the
same thing held true of our politicians, even the worst: that the
average Roman rich man, like the average Roman public man, of the
end of the Republic and of the beginning of the Empire, makes the
corresponding man of our own time look like a self-denying,
conscientious Puritan. He did not think very highly of the
American multi-millionaire, nor of his wife, sons, and daughters
when compared with some other types of our citizens; even in
ability the plutocrat did not seem to Roosevelt to show up very
strongly save in his own narrowly limited field; and he and his
womanhood, and those of less fortune who modeled their lives upon
his and upon the lives of his wife and children, struck Roosevelt
as taking very little advantage of their opportunities. But to
denounce them with hysterical exaggeration as resembling the
unspeakable tyrants and debauchees of classic times, was simple
nonsense. Roosevelt hoped he had been of some assistance in
moving our people along the line Mr. Rhodes mentioned; that is,
along the line of a sane, moderate purpose to supervise the
business use of wealth and to curb its excesses, while keeping as
far aloof from the policy of the visionary and demagogue as from
the policy of the wealthy corruptionist.
CHAPTER XIX. CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR
Critics frequently remark that Roosevelt was the most masterful
politician of his time, and what we have already seen of his
career should justify this assertion. We need, however, to define
what we mean by "politician." Boss Platt, of New York, was a
politician, but far removed from Roosevelt. Platt and all similar
dishonest manipulators of voters--and the dishonesty took many
forms--held their power, not by principles, but by exerting an
unprincipled influence over the masses who supported them.
Roosevelt, on the other hand, was a great politician because he
saw earlier than most men certain fundamental principles which he
resolved to carry through whether the Bosses or their supporters
liked it or not. In a word he believed in principles rather than
in men. He was a statesman, and like the statesman he understood
that half a loaf is often better than no bread and that, though
he must often compromise and conciliate, he must surrender
nothing essential.
As a result, his career as Assemblyman, as Civil Service
Commissioner, as Police Commissioner of New York City, as
Governor of New York State, and as President, seems a continuous
rising scale of success. We see the achievement which swallows up
the baffling difficulties and the stubborn opposition. These we
must always remember if we would measure the extent of the
victory. It was Roosevelt's persistence and his refusal to be
baffled or turned aside which really made him seem to triumph in
all his work.
He never doubted, as I have often said, the necessity of party
organization in our political system, although he recognized the
tendency to corruption in it, the unreasoning loyalty which it
bred and its substitution of Party for Country in its teaching.
He had known something of political machine methods at Albany.
After he became President, he knew them through and through as
they were practiced on national proportions at Washington. The
Machine had hoped to shelve him by making him Vice President, and
in spite of it he suddenly emerged as President. This
confrontation would have been embarrassing on both sides if
Roosevelt had not displayed unexpected tact. He avowed his
purpose of carrying out McKinley's policies and he kept it
faithfully, thus relieving the Machine of much anxiety. By his
straightforwardness he even won the approval of Boss Quay, the
lifelong political bandit from Pennsylvania, who went to him and
said in substance: 'I believe that you are square and I will
stand by you until you prove otherwise.' Roosevelt made no
bargain, but like a sensible man he did not forbid Quay from
voting on his side. Personally, also, Quay's lack of hypocrisy
attracted him; for Quay never pretended that he was in politics
to promote the Golden Rule and he had skirted so close to the
Penal Code that he knew how it looked and how he could evade it.
Senator Hanna, the Ohio political Boss, who had made McKinley
President by ways which cannot all be documented except by
persons who have examined the Recording Angel's book (and
research students of that original source never return), was
another towering figure whom Roosevelt had to get along with. He
found out how to do it, and to do it so amicably that it was
reported that he breakfasted often with the Ohio Senator and that
they even ate griddle-cakes and scrapple together. The Senator
evidently no more understood the alert and fascinating young
President than we under stand what is going on in the brain of a
playful young tiger, but instinct warned him that this mysterious
young creature, electrified by a thousand talents, was dangerous
and must be held down. And so with the other members of the
Republican Machine which ran both Houses of Congress and expected
to run the undisciplined President too. Roosevelt studied them
all and discovered how to deal with each.
At the beginning of the year 1904, everybody began to discuss the
next Presidential campaign. Who should be the Republican
candidate? The President, naturally, wished to be elected and
thereby to hold the office in his own right and not by the chance
of assassination. Senator Hanna surprised many of the politicians
by bagging a good many delegates for himself. He probably did not
desire to be President; like Warwick he preferred the glory of
king-maker to that of king; but he was a shrewd business man who
knew the value of having goods which, although he did not care
for them himself, he might exchange for others. I doubt whether
he deluded himself into supposing that the American people would
elect so conspicuous a representative of the Big Interests as he
was, to be President, but he knew that the fortunes of candidates
in political conventions are uncertain, and that if he had a
considerable body of delegates to swing from one man to another,
he might, if his choice won, become the power behind the new
throne as he had been behind McKinley's. And if we could suspect
him of humor he may have enjoyed fun to a mild degree in keeping
the irrepressible Roosevelt in a state of suspense.
Senator Hanna's death, however, in March, 1904, removed the only
competitor whom Roosevelt could have regarded as dangerous.
Thenceforth he held the field, and yet, farseeing politician
though he was, he did not feel sure. The Convention at Chicago
nominated him, virtually, by acclamation. In the following months
of a rather slow campaign he had fits of depression, although all
signs pointed to his success. Talking with Hay as late as October
30, he said: "It seems a cheap sort of thing to say, and I would
not say it to other people, but laying aside my own great
personal interests and hopes,-- for of course I desire intensely
to succeed,--I have the greatest pride that in this fight we are
not only making it on clearly avowed principles, but we have the
principles and the record to avow. How can I help being a little
proud when I contrast the men and the considerations by which I
am attacked, and those by which I am defended?" *
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 356, 357.
Just at the end, the campaign was enlivened by the attack which
the Democratic candidate, Judge Alton B. Parker, made upon his
opponent. He charged that Mr. Cortelyou, the manager of the
Republican campaign, had received great sums of money from the
Big Interests, and that he had, indeed, been appointed manager
because, from his previous experience as Secretary of the
Department of Commerce, he had special information in regard to
malefactors of great wealth which would enable him to coerce them
to good purpose for the Republican Corruption Fund. President
Roosevelt published a letter denying Judge Parker's statements as
"unqualifiedly and atrociously false." If Judge Parker's attack
had any effect on the election it was to reduce his own votes.
Later, Edward H. Harriman, the railroad magnate, tried to smirch
Roosevelt by accusing him of seeking Harriman's help in 1904, but
this charge also was never sustained.
At the election on November 8, Roosevelt had a majority of nearly
two million and a half votes out of thirteen million and a half
cast, thus securing by large odds the greatest popular majority
any President has had. The Electoral College gave him 336 votes
and Parker 140. That same evening, his victory being assured, he
dictated the following statement to the press: "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 and accept the nomination for another." Those who
heard this statement, or who had talked the matter over with
Roosevelt, under stood that he had in mind a renomination in
1908, but many persons regarded it as his final renunciation of
ever being a candidate for the Presidency. And later, when
circumstances quite altered the situation, this "promise" was
revived to plague him.
>From March 4, 1905, he was President "in his own right." Behind
him stood the American people, and he was justified in regarding
himself, at that time, as the most popular President since
Washington. The unprecedented majority of votes he had received
at the election proved that, and proved also that the country
believed in "his policies." So he might go ahead to carry out and
to extend the general reforms which he had embarked on against
much opposition. No one could question that he had a mandate from
the people, and during his second term he was still more
aggressive.
Now, however, came the little rift which widened and widened and
at last opened a great chasm between Roosevelt and the people on
one side and the Machine dominators of the Republican Party on
the other. For although Roosevelt was the choice of the
Republicans and of migratory voters from other parties, although
he was, in fact, the idol of millions who supported him, the
Republican Machine insisted on ruling. Before an election, the
Machine consents to a candidate who can win, but after he has
been elected the. Machine instinctively acts as his master. A
strong man, like President Cleveland, may hold out against the
Bosses of his party, but the penalty he has to pay is to find
himself bereft of support and his party shattered. This might
have happened in Roosevelt's case also, if he had not been more
tactful than Cleveland was in dealing with his enemies.
He now had to learn the bitter knowledge of the trials which
beset a President whose vision outsoars that of the practical
rulers of his party. In the House of Representatives there was a
little group led by the Speaker, Joseph G. Cannon, of Illinois,
who controlled that part of Congress with despotic arrogance. In
the Senate there was a similar group of political oligarchs,
called the Steering Committee, which decided what questions
should be discussed, what bills should be killed, and what others
should be passed. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, headed this. A
multi-millionaire himself, he was the particular advocate of the
Big Interests. Next came Allison, of Iowa, an original
Republican, who entered Congress in 1863 and remained there for
the rest of his life, a hide-bound party man, personally honest
and sufficiently prominent to be "talked of" for Vice President
on several occasions. He was rather the peacemaker of the
Steering Committee, having the art of reconciling antagonists and
of smoothing annoying angles. A little older, was Orville H.
Platt, the Senator from Connecticut who died in 1905, and was
esteemed a model of virtue among the Senators of his time. As an
offset to the men of threescore and ten and over was Albert J.
Beveridge, the young Senator from Indiana, vigorous, eloquent,
fearless, and radical, whose mind and heart were consecrated to
Roosevelt. Beveridge, at least, had no ties, secret or open, with
the Trusts, or the Interests, or Wall Street; on the contrary, he
attacked them fiercely, and among other Anti-Trust legislation he
drove through the Meat Inspection Bill. How he managed to get on
with the gray wolves of the Committee it would be interesting to
hear; but we must rid ourselves of the notion that those gray
wolves sought personal profit in money by their steering. None of
them was charged with using his position for the benefit of his
purse. Power was what those politicians desired; Power, which
gave them the opportunity to make the political tenets of their
party prevail. Orville Platt, or Allison, regarded Republicanism
with al most religious fanaticism; and we need not search far in
history to find fanatics who were personally very good and
tender-hearted men, but who would put heretics to death with a
smile of pious satisfaction.
Roosevelt's task was to persuade the Steering Committee to
support him in as many of his Radical measures as he could. They
had done this during his first Administration, partly because
they did not see whither he was leading. Senator Hanna, then a
member of the Steering Committee, attempted to steady all
Republicans who seemed likely to be seduced by Roosevelt's
subversive novelties by telling them to "stand pat," and, as we
look back now, the Senator from Ohio with his stand-pattism broom
reminds us of the portly Mrs. Partington trying to sweep back the
inflowing Atlantic Ocean. During the second Administration,
however, no one could plead ignorance or surprise when Roosevelt
urged on new projects. He made no secret of his policies, and he
could not have disguised, if he would, the fact that he was
thorough. By a natural tendency the "Stand-Patters" drew closer
together. Similarly the various elements which followed Roosevelt
tended to combine. Already some of these were beginning to be
called "Insurgents," but this name did not frighten them nor did
it shame them back into the fold of the orthodox Republicans. As
Roosevelt continued his fight for reclamation, conservation,
health, and pure foods, and governmental control of the great
monopolies, the opposition to him, on the part of the capitalists
affected, grew more intense. What wonder that these men,
realizing at last that their unlimited privileges would be taken
away from them, resented their deprivation. The privileged
classes in England have not welcomed the suggestion that their
great landed estates shall be cut up, nor can we expect that the
American dukes and marquises of oil and steel and copper and
transportation should look forward with meek acquiescence to
their own extinction.
Nevertheless, there is no politics in politics, and so the gray
wolves who ran the Republican Party, knowing that Roosevelt, and
not themselves, had the determining popular support of the
country, were too wary to block him entirely as the Democrats had
done under Cleveland. They let his bills go through, but with
more evident reluctance, only after bitter fighting. And as they
were nearly all church members in good standing, we can imagine
that they prayed the Lord to hasten the day when this pestilent
marplot in the White House should retire from office. Trusting
Roosevelt so far as to believe that he would stand by his pledge
not to be a candidate in 1908, they cast about for a person of
their own stripe whom they could make the country accept.
But Roosevelt himself felt too deeply involved in the cause of
Reform, which he had been pushing for seven years, to allow his
successor to be dictated by the Stand-Patters. So he sought among
his associates in the Cabinet for the member who, judging by
their work together, would most loyally carry on his policies,
and at length he decided upon William H. Taft, his Secretary of
War. "Root would make the better President, but Taft would be the
better candidate," Theodore wrote to an intimate, and that
opinion was generally held in Washington and elsewhere. Mr. Root
had so conducted the Department of State, since the death of John
Hay, that many good judges regarded him as the ablest of all the
Secretaries of that Department, and Roosevelt himself went even
farther. "Root," he said to me, "is the greatest intellectual
force in American public life since Lincoln." But in his career
as lawyer, which brought him to the head of the American Bar, he
had been attorney for powerful corporations, and that being the
time when the Government was fighting the Corporations, it was
not supposed that his candidacy would be popular. So Taft was
preferred to him.
The Republican Machine accepted Taft as a candidate with
composure, if not with enthusiasm. Anyone would be better than
Roosevelt in the eyes of the Machine and its supporters, and
perhaps they perceived in Secretary Taft qualities not wholly
unsympathetic. They were probably thankful, also, that Roosevelt
had not demanded more. He allowed the "regulars" to choose the
nominee for Vice-President, and he did not meddle with the
make-up of the Republican National Committee. One of his critics,
Dean Lewis, marks this as Roosevelt's chief political blunder,
because by leaving the Republican National Committee in command
he virtually predetermined the policy of the next four years.
Only a very strong President with equal zeal and fighting quality
could win against the Committee. In 1908 he had them so docile
that he might have changed their membership, and changed the
rules by which elections were governed if he had so willed, but,
just as before the election of 1904, Roosevelt had doubted his
own popularity in the country, so now he missed his chance
because he did not wish to seem to wrest from the unwilling
Machine powers which it lost no time in using against him.
The campaign never reached a dramatic crisis. Mr. Bryan, the
Democratic candidate, who still posed as the Boy Orator of the
Platte, although he had passed forty-eight years of age, made a
spirited canvass, and when the votes were counted he gained more
than a million and a third over the total for Judge Parker in
1904. But Mr. Taft won easily by a million and a quarter votes.
Between election and inauguration an ominous disillusion set in.
The Rooseveltians had taken it for granted that the new President
would carry on the policies of the old; more than that, the
impression prevailed among them that the high officials of the
Roosevelt Administration, including some members of his Cabinet,
would be retained, but when Inauguration Day came, it appeared
that Mr. Taft had chosen a new set of advisers, and he denied
that he had given any one reason to believe that he would do
otherwise.
March 4, 1909, was a wintry day in Washington. A snowstorm and
high winds prevented holding the inaugural exercises out of doors
as usual on the East Front of the Capitol. President Roosevelt
and President-elect Taft drove in state down Pennsylvania Avenue,
and Mr. Taft, having taken the oath of office, delivered his
inaugural address in the Senate Chamber. The ceremonies being
over, Mr. Roosevelt, instead of accompanying the new President to
the White House, went to the railway station and took the train
for New York. This innovation had been planned some time before,
because Mr. Roosevelt had arranged to sail for Europe in a few
days, and needed to reach Oyster Bay as soon as possible to
complete his preparations.
Many an eye-witness who watched him leave, as a simple civilian,
the Hall of Congress, must have felt that with his going there
closed one of the most memorable administrations this country had
ever known. Roosevelt departed, but his invisible presence still
filled the capital city and frequented every quarter of the
Nation.
CHAPTER XX. WORLD HONORS
What to do with ex-Presidents is a problem which worries those
happy Americans who have nothing else to worry over. They think
of an ex-President as of a sacred white elephant, who must not
work, although he has probably too little money to keep him alive
in proper ease and dignity. In fact, however, these gentlemen
have managed, at least during the past half-century, to sink back
into the civilian mass from which they emerged without suffering
want themselves or dimming the lustre which radiates from the
office. Roosevelt little thought that in quitting the Presidency
he was not going into political obscurity.
Roosevelt had two objects in view when he left the White House.
He sought long and complete rest, and to place himself beyond the
reach of politicians. In fairness, he wished to give Mr. Taft a
free field, which would hardly have been possible if Roosevelt
had remained in Washington or New York, where politicians might
have had access to him.
Accordingly, he planned to hunt big game in Africa for a year,
and in order to have a definite purpose, which might give his
expedition lasting usefulness, he arranged to collect specimens
for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. His second son,
Kermit, then twenty years of age, besides several naturalists and
hunters, accompanied him. His expedition sailed from New York on
March 23d, touched at the Azores and at Gibraltar, where the
English Commander showed him the fortifications, and transshipped
at Naples into an East-African liner. He found his stateroom
filled with flowers sent by his admiring friend, Kaiser William
II, with a telegram of effusive greeting, and with messages and
tokens from minor potentates. More important to him than these
tributes, however, was the presence of Frederick C. Selous, the
most famous hunter of big game in Africa, who joined the ship and
proved a congenial fellow passenger. They reached Mombasa on
April 23rd, and after the caravan had been made ready, they
started for the interior.
We need not follow in detail the year which Roosevelt and his
party spent in his African hunting. The railroad took them to
Lake Victoria Nyanza, but they stopped at many places on the way,
and made long excursions into the country. Then from the Lake
they proceeded to the Albert Nyanza and steamed down the Nile to
Gondokoro, which they reached on February 26, 1910. On March 14th
at Khartoum, where Mrs. Roosevelt and their daughter Ethel
awaited them, Roosevelt emerged into civilization again. He and
Kermit had shot 512 beasts and birds, of which they kept about a
dozen for trophies, the rest going to the Smithsonian Institution
and to the museums. A few of their specimens were unique, and the
total product of the expedition was the most important which had
ever reached America from Africa.
After spending a few days in visiting Omdurman and other scenes
connected with the British conquest of the Mahdists, less than a
dozen years before, the Roosevelts went down the river to Cairo,
where the ex-President addressed the Egyptian students. These
were the backbone of the so-called Nationalist Party, which aimed
at driving out the British and had killed the Prime Minister a
month before. They warned Roosevelt that if he dared to touch on
this subject he, too, would be assassinated. But such threats did
not move him then or ever. Roosevelt reproved them point-blank
for killing Boutros Pasha, and told them that a party which
sought freedom must show its capacity for living by law and
order, before it could expect to deserve freedom.
>From Egypt, Roosevelt crossed to Naples, and then began what must
be described as a triumphal progress through Central and Western
Europe. Only General Grant, after his Presidency, had made a
similar tour, but he did not excite a tenth of the popular
interest and enthusiasm which Roosevelt excited. Although Grant
had the prestige of being the successful general of the most
tremendous war ever fought in America, he had nothing picturesque
or magnetic in his personality. The peasants in the remote
regions had heard of Roosevelt; persons of every class in the
cities knew about him a little more definitely; and all were keen
to see him. Except Garibaldi, no modern ever set multitudes on
fire as Roosevelt did, and Garibaldi was the hero of a much
narrower sphere and had the advantage of being the hero of the
then downtrodden masses. Roosevelt, on the other hand, belonged
to the ruling class in America, had served nearly eight years as
President of the United States, and was equally the popular idol
without class distinction. And he had just come from a very
remarkable exploit, having led his scientific and hunting
expedition for twelve months through the perils and hardships of
tropical Africa. We Americans may well thrill with satisfaction
to remember that it was this most typical of Americans who
received the honors and homage of the world precisely because he
was most typically American and strikingly individual.
Before he reached Italy on his way back, he had invitations from
most of the sovereigns of Europe to visit them, and universities
and learned bodies requested him to address them. At Rome, as
guest of King Victor Emanuel II, he received ovations of the
exuberant and throbbing kind, which only the Italians can give.
But here also occurred what might have been, but for his common
sense and courage, a hitch in his triumphal progress. The
intriguers of the Vatican, always on the alert to edify the Roman
Catholics in the United States, thought they saw a chance to
exalt themselves and humble the Protestants by stipulating that
Colonel Roosevelt, who had accepted an invitation to call upon
the Pope, should not visit any Protestant organization while he
was in that city. Some time before, Vice-President Fairbanks had
incensed Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal Secretary, and his
group, by remarks at the Methodist College in Rome. Here was a
dazzling opportunity for not only getting even, but for coming
out victorious. If the Vatican schemers could force Colonel
Roosevelt, who, at the moment, was the greatest figure in the
world, to obey their orders, they might exult in the sight of all
the nations. Should he balk, he would draw down upon himself a
hostile Catholic vote at home. Probably the good-natured Pope
himself understood little about the intrigue and took little part
in it, for Pius X was rather a kindly and a genuinely pious
pontiff. But Cardinal Merry del Val, apt pupil of the Jesuits,
made an egregious blunder if he expected to catch Theodore
Roosevelt in a Papal trap. The Rector of the American Catholic
College in Rome wrote: " 'The Holy Father will be delighted to
grant audience to Mr. Roosevelt on April 5th, and hopes nothing
will arise to prevent it, such as the much-regretted incident
which made the reception of Mr. Fairbanks impossible.' Roosevelt
replied to our Ambassador as follows: 'On the other hand, I in my
turn must decline to have any stipulations made or submit to any
conditions which in any way limit my freedom of conduct.' To this
the Vatican replied. through our Ambassador: 'In view of the
circumstances for which neither His Holiness nor Mr. Roosevelt is
responsible, an audience could not occur except on the
understanding expressed in the former message.'" *
* Washburn, 164.
Ex-President Roosevelt did not, by calling upon the Pope, furnish
Cardinal Merry del Val with cause to gloat. A good while
afterward in talking over the matter with me, Roosevelt dismissed
it with "No self-respecting American could allow his actions or
his going and coming to be dictated to him by any Pope or King."
That, to him, was so self-evident a fact that it required no
discussion; and the American people, including probably a large
majority of Roman Catholics, agreed with him.
>From Rome he went to Austria, to Vienna first, where the aged
Emperor, Francis Joseph, welcomed him; and then to Budapest,
where the Hungarians, eager for their independence, shouted
themselves hoarse at sight of the representative of American
independence. Wherever he went the masses in the cities crowded
round him and the people in the country flocked to cheer him as
he passed. Since Norway had conferred on him the Nobel Peace
Prize after the Russo-Japanese War, he journeyed to Christiania
to pay his respects to the Nobel Committee, and there he
delivered an address on the conditions necessary for a universal
peace in which he foreshadowed many of the terms which have since
been preached by the advocates of a League of Nations. In Berlin,
the Kaiser received him with ostentatious friendliness. He
addressed him as "Friend Roosevelt." Since the Colonel was not a
monarch the Kaiser could not address him as "Brother" or as
"Cousin," and the word "Friend "disguised whatever condescension
he may have felt. There was a grand military review of twelve
thousand troops, which the Kaiser and his "Friend" inspected, and
he took care to inform Roosevelt that he was the first civilian
to whom this honor had ever been paid. An Imperial photographer
made snapshots of the Colonel and the Kaiser, and these were
subsequently given to the Colonel with superscriptions and
comments written by the Kaiser on the negatives. Roosevelt's
impression of his Imperial host was, on the whole, favorable. I
do not think he regarded him as very solid, personally, but he
recognized the results of the power which William's inherited
position as Emperor conferred on him.
Paris did not fall behind any of the other European capitals in
the enthusiasm of its welcome. There, Roosevelt was received in
solemn session by the Sorbonne, before which he spoke on
citizenship in a Republic, and, with prophetic vision, he warned
against the seductions of phrase-makers as among the insidious
dangers to which Republics were exposed.
His most conspicuous triumph, however, was in England. On May
6th, King Edward VII died, and President Taft appointed Colonel
Roosevelt special envoy, to represent the United States at the
royal funeral. This drew together crowned heads from all parts of
Europe, so that at one of the State functions at Buckingham
Palace there were no fewer than thirteen monarchs at table. The
Colonel stayed at Dorchester House with the American Ambassador,
Mr. Whitelaw Reid, and was beset by calls and invitations from
the crowned personages. I have heard him give a most amusing
account of that experience, but it is too soon to repeat it.
Then, as always, he could tell a bore at sight, and the bore
could not deceive him by any disguise of ermine cloak or Imperial
title. The German Kaiser seems to have taken pains to pose as the
preferred intimate of "Friend Roosevelt," but the "Friend"
remained unwaveringly Democratic. One day William telephoned to
ask Roosevelt to lunch with him, but the Colonel diplomatically
pleaded a sore throat, and declined. At another time when the
Kaiser wished him to come and chat, Roosevelt replied that he
would with pleasure, but that he had only twenty minutes at the
Kaiser's disposal, as he had already arranged to call on Mrs.
Humphry Ward at three-thirty. These reminiscences may seem
trifling, unless you take them as illustrating the truly
Democratic simplicity with which the First Citizen of the
American Republic met the scions of the Hapsburgs and the
Hohenzollerns on equal terms as gentleman with gentlemen.
Some of his backbiters and revilers at home whispered that his
head was turned by all these pageants and courtesies of kings,
and that he regretted that our system provided for no monarch.
This afforded him infinite amusement. "Think of it!" he said to
me after his return. "They even say that I want to be a prince
myself! Not I! I've seen too many of them! Do you know what a
prince is? He's a cross between Ward McAllister and
Vice-President Fairbanks. How can any one suppose I should like
to be that?" It may be necessary to inform the later generation
that Mr. Ward McAllister was by profession a decayed gentleman in
New York City who achieved fame by compiling a list of the Four
Hundred persons whom he condescended to regard as belonging to
New York Society. Vice-President Fairbanks was an Indiana
politician, tall and thin and oppressively taciturn, who seemed
to be stricken dumb by the weight of an immemorial ancestry or by
the sense of his own importance; and who was not less cold than
dumb, so that irreverent jokers reported that persons might
freeze to death in his presence if they came too near or stayed
too long.
All this was only the froth on the stream of Roosevelt's
experience in England. He took deep enjoyment in meeting the
statesmen and the authors and the learned men there. The City of
London bestowed the freedom of the city upon him. The
Universities of Cambridge and Oxford gave him their highest
honorary degrees. At the London Guildhall he made a memorable
address, in which he warned the British nation to see to it that
the grievances of the Egyptian people were not allowed to fester.
Critics at the moment chided this advice as an exhibition of bad
taste; an intrusion, if not an impertinence, on the part of a
foreigner. They did not know, however, that before speaking,
Roosevelt submitted his remarks to high officers in the
Government and had their approval; for apparently they were well
pleased that this burning topic should be brought under
discussion by means of Roosevelt's warning.
At Cambridge University he exhorted the students not to be
satisfied with a life of sterile athleticism. "I never was an
athlete," said he, "although I have always led an outdoor life,
and have accomplished something in it, simply because my theory
is that almost any man can do a great deal, if he will, by
getting the utmost possible service out of the qualities that he
actually possesses . . . . The average man who is successful--the
average statesman, the average public servant, the average
soldier, who wins what we call great success--is not a genius. He
is a man who has merely the ordinary qualities that he shares
with his fellows, but who has developed those ordinary qualities
to a more than ordinary degree."
The culmination of his addresses abroad was his Romanes Lecture,
delivered at the Convocation at Oxford University on June 7,
1910. Lord Curzon, the Chancellor, presided. Roosevelt took for
his theme, "Biological Analogies in History," a subject which his
lifelong interest in natural history and his considerable reading
in scientific theory made appropriate. He afterwards said that in
order not to commit shocking blunders he consulted freely his old
friend Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of the Museum of Natural
History in New York City, but the substance and ideas were
unquestionably his own.
Dr. Henry Goudy, "the public orator" at Cambridge, in a
Presentation Speech, eulogized Roosevelt's manifold activities
and achievements, declaring, among other things, that he had
"acquired a title to be ranked with his great predecessor Abraham
Lincoln--'of whom one conquered slavery, and the other
corruption.'" Lord Curzon addressed him as, "peer of the most
august kings, queller of wars, destroyer of monsters wherever
found, yet the most human of mankind, deeming nothing indifferent
to you, not even the blackest of the black."
This cluster of foreign addresses is not the least remarkable of
Roosevelt's intellectual feats. No doubt among those who listened
to him in each place there were carping critics, scholars who did
not find his words scholarly enough, dilettanti made tepid by
over-culture, intellectual cormorants made heavy by too much
information, who found no novelty in what he said, and were
insensible to the rush and freshness of his style. But in spite
of these he did plant in each audience thoughts which they
remembered, and he touched upon a range of interests which no
other man then alive could have made to seem equally vital.
On June 18th Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt reached New York. All the way
up the harbor from Sandy Hook, he was escorted by a vast
concourse of vessels, large and small, tugs, steamboats, and
battleships. At the Narrows, Fort Wadsworth greeted him with the
Presidential salute of twenty-one guns. The revenue-cutter,
Androscoggin, took him from the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, on
which he had crossed the ocean, and landed him at the Battery.
There an immense multitude awaited him. Mayor Gaynor bade him
welcome, to which he replied briefly in affectionate words to his
fellow countrymen. Then began a triumphal procession up Broadway,
and up Fifth Avenue, surpassing any other which New York had
seen. No other person in America had ever been so welcomed. The
million or more who shouted and cheered and waved, were proud of
him because of his great reception in Europe, but they admired
him still more for his imperishable work at home, and loved him
most of all, because they knew him as their friend and fellow,
Theodore Roosevelt, their ideal American. A group of Rough Riders
and two regiments of Spanish War Veterans formed his immediate
escort, than whom none could have pleased him better.
His head was not turned, but his heart must have overflowed with
gratitude.
Later, when the crowds had dispersed, he went into a bookstore,
and some one in the street having recognized him, the word
passed, and a great crowd cheered him as he came out. Telling his
sister of the occurrence, he said, "And they soon will be
throwing rotten apples at me!"
CHAPTER XXI. WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?
Did those words of Roosevelt spring from his sense of
humor--humor which recognizes the topsy-turvy of life and its
swift changes, and still laughs--or from the instinct which knows
that even in the sweetest of all experiences there must be a drop
of bitterness? Whatever their cause, they proved to be a true
foreboding. He had not been home twenty four hours before he
perceived, on talking with his friends, that the Republican Party
during his absence had drifted far from the course he had
charted. "His policies" had vanished with his control, and the
men who now managed the Administration and the party regarded
him, not merely with suspicion, but with aversion.
To tell the story of this conflict is the disagreeable duty of
the historian of. that period, especially if he have friends and
acquaintances on both sides of the feud. There are some facts not
yet known; there are others which must be touched upon very
delicately if at all; and, in the main, so much of the episode
grew out of personal likes and dislikes that it is hard to base
one's account of it on documents. In trying to get at the truth,
I have been puzzled by the point-blank contradictions of
antagonistic witnesses, whose veracity has not been questioned.
Equally perplexing are the lapses of memory in cases where I
happen to have seen letters or documents written at the time and
giving real facts. The country would assuredly have been alarmed
if it had suspected that, during the years from 1909 to 1912, the
statesmen who had charge of it, were as liable to attacks of
amnesia as they proved to be later.
The head and front of the quarrel which wrecked the Republican
Party must be sought in Roosevelt's thoroughly patriotic desire
to have a successor who should carry on the principles which he
had fought for and had embodied in national laws during the
nearly eight years of his Presidency. He felt more passionately
than anybody else the need of continuing the work he had begun,
not because it was his work, but because on it alone, as he
thought, the reconciliation between Capital and Labor in the
United States could be brought about, and the impending war of
classes could be prevented. So he chose Judge Taft as the person
who, he believed, would follow his lead in this undertaking. But
the experience of a hundred and ten years, since Washington was
succeeded by John Adams, might have taught him that no President
can quite reproduce the qualities of his predecessor and that the
establishment of a Presidential dynasty is not congenial to the
spirit of the American people. Jefferson did, indeed, hand on his
mantle to Madison, and the experiment partially succeeded. But
Madison was much nearer Jefferson in ability and influence than
Judge Taft was near Roosevelt.
During the campaign of 1908, and immediately after the election,
we can imagine that Mr. Taft was sincerely open to Roosevelt's
suggestions, and that he quite naturally gave Roosevelt the
impression that he intended to follow them, not because they were
Roosevelt's, but because they were his own also. As soon as he
began to realize that he was President, and that a President has
a right to speak and act on his own motion, Mr. Taft saw other
views rising within him, other preferences, other resolves. From
the bosom of his family he may have heard the exhortation, "Be
your own President; don't be any body's man or rubber stamp." No
doubt intimate friends strengthened this advice. The desire to be
free and independent, which lies at the bottom of every normal
heart, took possession of him also; further, was it not the
strict duty of a President to give the country the benefit of his
best judgment instead of following the rules laid down by
another, or to parrot another's doctrines?
Whatever may have been the process by which the change came, it
had come before Taft's inauguration. He chose a new Cabinet,
although Roosevelt supposed that several of the members of his
Cabinet would be retained. Before the Colonel started for Africa
he felt that a change had come, but he went away with the hope
that things would turn out better than he feared. His long
absence under the Equator would relieve any anxiety Taft might
have as to Roosevelt's intention to dictate or interfere.
Very little political news reached the Colonel while he was
hunting. On reaching Italy, on his return journey, he met Mr.
Gifford Pinchot, who had come post-haste from New York, and
conveyed to him the latest account of the political situation at
home. It was clear that the Republican Party had split into two
factions-the Regulars, who regarded President Taft as their
standard-bearer, and the Insurgents, who rallied round Roosevelt,
and longed desperately for his return. To the enemies of the
Administration, it seemed that Mr. Taft had turned away from the
Rooseveltian policies. In his appointments he had replaced
Roosevelt men by Regulars. His Secretary of the Interior, Mr.
Ballinger, came into conflict with Mr. Pinchot over conservation,
and the public assumed that the President was not only
unconcerned to uphold conservation, but was willing that the
natural resources of the Nation should fall again into the hands
of greedy private corporations. This assumption proved to be
false, and Secretary Ballinger was exonerated by a public
investigation; but for two years, at least, the cloud hung over
Mr. Taft's reputation, and, as always happens, the correction
being far less nimble than the accusation, took a much longer
time in remedying the harm that it had done.
When, therefore, Roosevelt landed at the Battery on June 18,
1910, the day of his apotheosis, he knew that a factional fight
was raging in the Republican Party. His trusty followers, and
every one who bore a grudge against the Administration, urged him
to unfurl his flag and check any further disintegration; but
prudence controlled him and he announced that he should not speak
on political matters for at least two months. He was sincere; but
a few days later at the Harvard Commencement exercises he met
Governor Hughes, of New York State, who was waging a fierce
struggle against the Machine to put through a bill on primary
elections. The Governor begged the Colonel as a patriotic
boss-hating citizen, to help him, and Roosevelt hastily wrote and
dispatched to Albany a telegram urging Republicans to support
Hughes. In the result, his advice was not heeded, a straw which
indicated that the Machine no longer feared to disregard him.
For several weeks Roosevelt waited and watched, and found out by
personal investigation how the Republican Party stood. It took
little inspection to show him that the Taft Administration was
not carrying out his policies, and that the elements against
which he had striven for eight years were creeping back. Indeed,
they had crept back. It would be unjust to Mr. Taft to assert
that he had not continued the war on Trusts. Under his able
Attorney-General, Mr. George W. Wickersham, many prosecutions
were going forward, and in some cases the legislation begun by
Roosevelt was extended and made more effective. I speak now as to
the general course of Mr. Taft's Administration and not specially
of the events of 1910. In spite of this continuation of the
battle with the Octopus--as the Big Interests, Wall Street, and
Trusts were indiscriminately nicknamed--the public did not
believe that Mr. Taft and his assistants pushed the fight with
their whole heart. Perhaps they were misjudged. Mr. Taft being in
no sense a spectacular person, whatever he did would lack the
spectacular quality which radiated from all Roosevelt's actions.
Then, too, the pioneer has deservedly a unique reward. Just as
none of the navigators who followed Columbus on the voyage to the
Western Continent could win credit like his, so the prestige
which Roosevelt gained from being the first to grapple with the
great monopolies could not be shared by any successor of his, who
simply carried on the work of "trust-busting," as it was called,
which had be come commonplace.
Nevertheless, although nobody doubted Mr. Wickersham's legal
ability, the country felt that during the Taft Administration
zeal had gone out of the campaign of the Administration against
the Interests. Roosevelt had plunged into the fray with the
enthusiasm of a Crusader. Taft followed him from afar, but
without feeling the Crusader's consecration or his terrible
sincerity. And during the first six months of his Administration,
President Taft had unwittingly given the country the measure of
himself.
The Republican platform adopted at Chicago declared
"unequivocally for a revision of the tariff by a special session
of Congress, immediately following the inauguration of the next
President .... In all tariff legislation the true principle of
protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as
will equal the difference between the cost of production at home
and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American
industries. We favor the establishment of maximum and minimum
rates to be administered by the President under limitations fixed
in the law, the maximum to be available to meet discriminations
by foreign countries against American goods entering their
markets, and the minimum to represent the normal measure of
protection at home." The American public, regardless of party,
assumed that the "revision" referred to in this plank of the
Republican platform meant a revision downward; and it supposed,
from sayings and opinions of Mr. Taft, that he put the same
construction upon it. He at once called a special session of
Congress, and a new tariff bill was framed under the direction of
Sereno E. Payne, a Stand-Pat Republican member of Congress,
Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and Nelson W.
Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island, and guardian angel and
factotum for the Big Interests. For several months these
gentlemen conducted the preparation of the new bill. Payne had
already had experience in putting through the McKinley Tariff in
1890, and the Dingley Tariff in 1897. Again the committee-room
was packed by greedy protectionists who, for a consideration, got
from the Government whatever profit they paid for. Neither Payne
nor Aldrich had the slightest idea that to fix tariff rates to
enrich special individuals and firms was a most corrupt practice.
When a Republican Senator, who honestly supposed that the
revision would be downward, privately remonstrated, the reply he
heard was, "Where shall we get our campaign funds?" Finally,
after some discussion between the House and the Senate--a
discussion which did not lessen the enormities of the
measure--the Payne-Aldrich Bill was passed by Congress and signed
by President Taft, and it enjoyed the bad eminence of being worse
than the McKinley and the Dingley tariffs which had preceded it.
The public, which had seen more clearly than on former occasions,
how such charters to legalize industrial piracy were devised, was
somewhat dashed--by President Taft's approval. Perhaps it still
hoped that the creation of a non-partisan Tariff Commission of
experts would put an end to this indecent purchase and sale of
privileges and would establish rates after the scientific
investigation of each case. Soon, however, these hopes were swept
away; for on September 17, 1909, the President delivered at
Winona, Minnesota, a laudatory speech on the new tariff. He
admitted that some points in Schedule K--that comprising wool and
woolen goods--were too high. But, he said solemnly that this was
"the best tariff law the Republicans ever made, and, therefore,
the best the country ever had." In that Winona speech, Mr. Taft
hung a millstone round his own neck. His critics and his friends
alike had thrust upon them this dilemma: either he knew that the
Payne-Aldrich Tariff had been arrived at by corrupt ways and was
not a revision downward--in spite of which he pronounced it the
"best ever"; or he did not know its nature and the means used in
framing it. In the latter case, he could not be considered a
person sufficiently informed on great financial questions, or on
the practices of some of the politicians who made laws for him to
sign, to be qualified to sit in the President's chair. If, on the
other hand, knowing the measure to be bad he declared it the
"best ever," he was neither sincere nor honest, and in this case
also he was not a President whom the country could respect.
I would not imply that the American public went through this
process of reasoning at once, or arrived at such clear-cut
conclusions; Demos seldom indulges in the luxury of logic; but
the shock caused by the Winona speech vibrated through the
country and never after that did the public fully trust Mr. Taft.
It knew that the Interests had crawled back and dictated the
Payne-Aldrich Tariff, and it surmised that, although he
prosecuted the Trusts diligently, they did not feel greatly
terrified. But nobody whispered or suspected that he was not
honest.
While President Taft slowly lost his hold on the American people,
he gained proportionately with the Republican Machine. That
Machine was composed of the Regulars of the party, or the
Conservatives, as they preferred to be called, and it was losing
its hold on the country. There comes a time in every sect, party,
or institution when it stops growing, its arteries harden, its
young men see no visions, its old men dream no dreams; it lives
in the past and desperately tries to perpetuate the past. In
politics when this process of petrifaction is reached, we call it
Bourbonism, and the sure sign of the Bourbon is that, being
unconscious that he is the victim of sclerosis, he sees no reason
for seeking a cure. Unable to adjust himself to change and new
conditions he falls back into the past, as an old man drops into
his worn-out armchair.
Now Roosevelt had been, of course, the negation of Bourbonism. He
had led the Republican Party into new fields and set it to do new
work, and far off, shining clearly, its goal beckoned it on. His
followers were mostly young men; they saw that the world had
changed, and would change still further, and they went forward
valiantly to meet it and, if possible, to shape its changes. For
ten years past, these Radicals, as the Regulars named them some
what reproachfully, and who were better defined as "Insurgents,"
had played an increasingly important part in Congress. They would
not submit to the Bosses and the Machine, but voted
independently, and, although they were not all of them avowed
Rooseveltians, they all were going in his direction. In the
second year of Mr. Taft's Administration, they rebelled against
the rigid dictatorship of Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker of the
House. "Uncle Joe," as the public nicknamed him, dated from
before the Civil War, and entered Congress in 1863, forty-seven
years before 1910. It was as if a rigid Bourbon, who had served
under Louis XV in France in 1763, had been chief law-maker under
Napoleon I in 1810. Mr. Cannon, however, had never learned that
the Civil War was over, whereas every Frenchman who survived the
Revolution knew that it had taken place. So the Insurgents rose
up against him, in his old age, deprived him of his dictatorial
power, and, at the next election, Democrats and Republicans
combined to sweep him out of office altogether.
The Jews who ridiculed Noah when he began to build the Ark were,
it proved, Bourbons, but they had some excuse, for when Noah was
working there was no portent of a flood and not even a black
cloud with a shower wrapped up in it hung on the horizon. But the
Republican Regulars, under Mr. Taft, could not complain that no
sign had been vouchsafed to them. The amazing rise in power and
popularity of Roosevelt during the decade, the surging unrest of
Labor throughout the world, the obviously altered conditions
which immense fortunes and the amassing of wealth by a few
corporations had produced, and such special symptoms as the
chafing at the Payne Aldrich Tariff, the defeat of Speaker
Cannon, and the election of a Democratic House of Representatives
ought to have warned even the dullest Republican. For good, or
for ill, a social and industrial revolution was under way, and,
instead of trimming their sails to meet it, they had not even
taken ship. Roosevelt and the Insurgents had long understood the
revolution of which they were a part, and had taken measures to
control it. Roosevelt's first achievement, as we have seen, was
to bring the Big Interests under the power of the law. The hawks
and vultures whose wings he clipped naturally did not like it or
him, but the laws had force behind them, and they submitted. The
leaders of the popular movement, however, declared that this was
not enough. They preached the right of the people to rule. The
people, they urged, must have a real share in electing the men
who were to make the laws and to administer and interpret them.
Every one knew that the system of party government resulted in a
Machine, consisting of a few men who controlled the preliminary
steps which led to the nomination of candidates and then decided
the election, so far as their control of the regular party
members could do this. It would be idle, said the advocates of
these popular rights, to make the best of laws in behalf of the
people and allow them to be enforced by representatives and
judges chosen, under whatever disguise, by the great capitalists.
And so these Progressives, bent on trusting implicitly the
intelligence, the unselfishness, and the honesty of the People,
proposed three novel political instruments for obtaining the pure
Democracy they dreamed of. First, the Initiative, by which a
certain number of voters could suggest new laws; second, the
Referendum, by which a vote should be taken to decide whether the
People approved or not of a law that was in operation; and third,
the judicial Recall, by which a majority of the voters could
nullify a decision handed down by a judge. This last was often
misnamed and misconstrued, the "Recall of Judges," but so far as
I know very few of the Progressive leaders, certainly not Colonel
Roosevelt, proposed to put the tenure of office of a judge at the
mercy of a sudden popular vote.
When Roosevelt returned from Africa, he found that the
Progressive movement had developed rapidly, and the more he
thought over its principles, the more they appealed to him. To
arrive at Social Justice was his life-long endeavor. In a speech
delivered on August 31, 1910, at Ossawatomie, Kansas, he
discoursed on the "New Nationalism." As if to push back hostile
criticism at the start, he quoted Abraham Lincoln: "Labor is
prior to, and independent of capital; capital is only the fruit
of labor and could never have existed but for labor. Labor is the
superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.
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. Let not him who is
houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work
diligently and build one for him self, thus, by example, showing
that his own shall be safe from violence when built."
Not all those who cry "Plato! Plato!" are Platonists. So, not all
those who now appeal to Lincoln's mighty name for sanction of
their own petty caprices and crazy creeds, have learned the first
letter of the alphabet which Lincoln used; but Roosevelt, I
believe, knew Lincoln better, knew the spirit of Lincoln better,
than any other President has known it. And Lincoln would have
approved of most, if not of all, of the measures which, in that
Ossawatomie speech, Roosevelt declared must be adopted. Whenever
he spoke or wrote after that, he repeated his arguments in
defense of the "New Nationalism," and they sank deep into the
public conscience. He took no active part in politics, as he
thought, but the country knew better than he did that, wherever
he was, politics was active. Every one consulted him; his
occasional speeches roused a storm of criticism; a dozen would-be
candidates in each party sat on the anxious seat and waited for
his decision. So he watched the year 1910 draw to its close and
1911 wheel by, without his giving the final word. Although he was
very really the centre of attention, he nevertheless felt lonely,
and a friend tells me of going to Oyster Bay, late in the autumn,
and finding Roosevelt in fact alone, as his family were away, and
depressed by the thought that he was cut off, probably forever,
from throwing himself into work which would be of public benefit.
But Roosevelt was a fighter, not a sulker, and he was too healthy
in spirit to give way to disappointment.
That he resented the purpose, as he supposed, of the Taft
Administration to throw over his policies, I do not doubt,
although there are letters in existence which indicate that he
still had courteous if not friendly relations with President
Taft. But what ate into him more than any personal resentment was
his chagrin at seeing the Great Cause, for which he had spent his
life, neglected and denied by the Republican Party. Progressivism
seemed to be slowly in process of suffocation by the Big
Interests which it had come into being to protest against, to
curb, and to control.
There were other leaders in this Cause, the most prominent being
Senator La Follette, of Wisconsin. He had caught up very early
some of Bryan's demagogic doctrines, which he had softened a good
deal and made palatable to the Republicans of his State. Then he
had stood out as a Liberal in Congress, and from Liberal he
became Insurgent, and now that the Insurgents were being defined
as Progressives, he led the Progressives in Congress. The same
spirit was permeating the Democrats; only the hide-bound Regular
Republicans appeared not to notice that a new day had dawned.
"Uncle Joe" Cannon, their Speaker of the House, reveled in his
Bourbonism, made it as obnoxious as he could, and then was swept
away by the enraged Liberals.
By the summer of 1911 the discussion of possible candidates grew
more heated. Roosevelt still kept silent, but he told his
intimates that he would not run. He did not wish to be President
again, especially at the cost of an internecine struggle. I
believe that he was sincere; so is the consummate actor or the
prima donna, whom the world applauds, sincere in bidding farewell
to the stage forever. Nevertheless, which of them is conscious of
the strength of the passion, which long habit, and supremacy, and
the intoxication of success have evoked, dwells in them? Given
the moment and the lure, they forget their promise of farewell.
By this time the politicians began to foresee that the dissension
in the Republican Party would make it difficult to choose a
candidate who could win. Every President desires to be reelected
if he can be, not necessarily because he is greedy of power, but
because reelection is equivalent to public approval of his first
term. Mr. Taft, therefore, stood out as the logical candidate of
the Conservatives. The great majority of the Progressives desired
Roosevelt, but, since he would say neither yes nor no, they
naturally turned to Senator La Follette. And La Follette launched
a vigorous campaign for the nomination and was undoubtedly
gaining ground except in the East, where some of his views had
been regarded as too extreme even for the Liberals. To his great
misfortune, in a speech at Philadelphia on February 2, 1912, he
showed signs of a temporary mental collapse and, although his
friends protested that this mishap was not serious, much less
permanent, he never got back into the running.
Meanwhile, Roosevelt's nearest zealots not only urged upon him
the duty of coming out squarely as the Progressive aspirant, but
they set up throughout the country their propaganda for him. He
received letters by the bushel and every letter appealed to his
patriotism and to his sense of duty. The Progressives were in
dead earnest. They believed that the country, if not
civilization, had reached a crisis on the outcome of which would
depend the future health and peace of Society. They had a
crusade, not a mere political campaign, ahead of them, and they
could not believe that Roosevelt, their peerless champion, would
fail them.
The average person, who calmly sits back in his easy-chair and
passes his verdict on the acts of great men, does not always
allow for the play of emotions which may have influenced them.
What sort of reaction must appeals like these have stimulated?
How can the unimaginative man, who has never been urged by his
fellow townspeople to be even Trustee of the Town library or
graveyard, put himself in the place of a Leader, who is told by
millions of persons, possibly fanatics but not flatterers, that
the destiny of the Nation depends upon his listening to their
entreaties?
Everything conspired to win Roosevelt over: La Follette being
eliminated, there was no other Progressive whom the majority
would agree upon. The party spoke with only one voice, and
uttered only one name. And, presently, the Governors of seven
States--Bass of New Hampshire, Hadley of Missouri, Osborn of
Michigan, Glasscock of West Virginia, Carey of Wyoming, Aldrich
of Nebraska, and Stubbs of Kansas--issued an appeal to him which
seemed to give an official stamp to the popular entreaties.
Roosevelt's enemies insinuated that the seven Governors had been
moved to act at his own instigation, and they tried to belittle
the entire movement as a "frame-up," in the common phrase of the
day. No doubt he was consulted in the general direction of the
campaign; no doubt, being a very alert student of political
effects, he suggested many things; but the rush of enthusiasts to
him was genuine and spontaneous.
I happened to spend the evening of February 25, 1912, with him at
the house of Judge Robert Grant in Boston. Judge Grant and I were
not politicians, and I, at least, had never voted for a
Republican Presidential candidate. But both of us were very old
personal friends of the Colonel, and for five hours we three
talked with the utmost frankness. He knew that he could trust us,
and, I think, he planned to get the views of non-partisan friends
before announcing his final decision. Three days earlier, at
Columbus, Ohio, he gave a great speech, in which he proclaimed a
new charter for Democracy and vigorously advocated the
Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. We discussed these from every
side; he got the Outlook in which his speech was printed and read
to us passages which he thought corrected popular
misunderstanding of it. When I objected to the platform in
general, because it would tend to destroy representative
government and substitute therefor the whims of the populace at
the moment, he replied that we had no representative government.
"I can name forty-six Senators," he said, "who secured their
seats and hold them by the favor of a Wall Street magnate and his
associates, in all parts of the country. Do you call that
popular, representative government?" he asked.
The evening wore on, and in similar fashion he parried all our
criticism. We urged him not to be a candidate, because, we said,
we thought that the public ought to be reined in and disciplined,
instead of being encouraged to be more lawless and self-willed. I
defended our judiciary system and said that the American people
needed most of all to be taught respect for the Courts. He
explained that his Recall of Judicial Decisions did not mean, as
the Opposition alleged, the Recall of Judges. Then we urged him,
for the sake of his own future, not to engage in a factional
strife which might end his usefulness to the country, but he
brushed aside every argument based on his selfish advantage. "I
wish," he said to me, "to draw into one dominant stream all the
intelligent and patriotic elements, in order to prepare against
the social upheaval which will other wise overwhelm us." "A great
Central Party, such as Cavour founded for the liberation of
Italy?" said I. "Exactly," said he.
The thing which mainly struck me at the time, and which I still
vividly remember, was the Colonel's composure throughout all this
debate. Vehement he was--because he could not describe even a
butterfly without vividness which easily passed into vehemence-
-but he was in no sense mentally overwrought; nor did he
continually return to one subject like a man with an obsession.
His humor flashed out, even at his own expense, but he had
throughout the underlying gravity of one who knows that he is
about to make a very important decision. I mention these facts
because at the time, and afterward, Roosevelt's enemies
circulated the assertion that his mind was unbalanced, and that
this fact accounted for his break with the regular Republicans. I
have in my hand a printed circular, issued by a Chicago lawyer,
offering five thousand dollars apiece to each of several
hospitals and other charitable institutions, if Roosevelt would
allow himself to be examined by competent alienists and they did
not pronounce him to be a "madman"! No! he was not mad, but he
had the fervor, the courage, the impatience of a Crusader about
to undergo ordeal by battle.
>From notes of the conversation Judge Grant made at the time I
quote the following. Judge Grant asked:
"Will any of the party leaders support you?"
"No," he said, "none of them; not even Lodge, I think. I don't
see how he can. My support will come from the people, officered
by a few lieutenants--young men principally like Governor Bass,
of New Hampshire." He said that he realized that the
probabilities were all against his nomination; that a President
in office had all the machinery on his side; but that of course
it wouldn't do to admit outside that he expected to lose; that if
he could reach the popular vote through direct primaries, he
could hope to win. It was manifest that he believed that it was
indispensable for the future good of the Republican Party that he
should make the breach. When he said as much, I asked, "But the
situation is complex, I suppose? You would like to be President?"
"You are right," he replied. "It is complex. I like power; but I
care nothing to be President as President. I am interested in
these ideas of mine and I want to carry them through, and feel
that I am the one to carry them through." He said that he
believed the most important questions today were the humanitarian
and economic problems, and intimated that the will of the people
had been thwarted in these ways, especially by the courts on
constitutional grounds, and that reforms were urgent.
As I went out into the midnight, I felt sad, as one might after
bidding farewell to a friend who has volunteered to lead a
forlorn hope. I did not realize then the moral depth from which
Roosevelt's resolve came, or that he would rather die for that
cause than be victorious in any other.
The next day, Monday, February 26th, he announced to the country
that he was a candidate for the Republican nomination.
CHAPTER XXII. THE TWO CONVENTIONS
During the weeks while Roosevelt had been deliberating over
"throwing his hat into the ring," his opponents had been busily
gathering delegates. By this delay they gained a strategic
advantage. According to the unholy custom which gave to the
Republicans in the Southern States a quota of delegates
proportioned to the population and not to the number of
Republican voters, a large Southern delegation was pledged for
Mr. Taft very early. Most of the few Southern Republicans were
either office-holders or negroes; the former naturally supported
the Administration on which their living depended; the latter,
whose votes were not counted, also supported the President from
whom alone they might expect favors. The former slave States
elected 216 delegates, nearly all of whom went to President Taft,
making a very good start for him. In the Northern, Western, and
Pacific States, however, Roosevelt secured a large proportion of
the delegates. In the system of direct primaries, by which the
people indicated their preference instead of having the
candidates chosen in the State Conventions, which were controlled
by the Machine, the Progressives came out far ahead. Thus, in
North Dakota, President Taft had less than 4000 votes out of
48,000 cast, the rest going to Roosevelt and La Follette. In
several of the great States he carried everything before him. In
Illinois, his majority was 139,000 over Taft's; in Pennsylvania,
67 of the 76 delegates went to him. In Ohio, the President's own
State, the Taft forces were "snowed under"; in California, a
stronghold of Progressivism, Roosevelt had a large plurality.
Nevertheless, wherever the Regulars controlled the voting, they
usually brought President Taft to the front. Even when they could
not produce the votes, they managed to send out contesting
delegations.
On looking back, it appears indisputable that if the Republicans
could then have cast their ballots they would have been
overwhelmingly for Roosevelt; and if the Roosevelt delegates to
the Convention had not been hampered in voting, they too would
have nominated him. But the elections had been so artfully
manipulated that, when the Convention met, there were 220
contests. Everybody understood that the final result hung on the
way in which these should be decided.
The Convention assembled in the great Coliseum Hall at Chicago on
June 18, 1912. But for ten days the hosts had been coming in, one
delegation after another; the hotels were packed; each committee
had its special quarters; crowds of sight-seers, shouters, and
supporters swelled the multitude. The Republican National
Committee met; the managers of each candidate met. The
committees, which had not yet an official standing, conferred
unofficially. Rumors floated from every room; there were secret
conferences, attempts to win over delegates, promises to trade
votes, and even efforts at conciliation. Night and day this wild
torrent of excitement rushed on.
A spectator from Mars might have remarked: "But for so important
a business as the choice of a candidate who may become President
of the United States, you ought to have quiet, deliberation, free
play, not for those who can shout loudest, but for those who can
speak wisest." And to this remark, the howling and whirling
dervishes who attended the Convention would have replied, if they
had waited long enough to hear it through, by yelling,
"Hail! Hail! the gang's all here!
What the hell do we care?
What the hell do we care?"
and would have darted off to catch up with their fellow
Bacchanals. A smell of cocktails and of whiskey was ubiquitous; a
dense pall of tobacco smoke pervaded the committee-rooms; and out
of doors the clang of brass bands drowned even the incessant
noise of the throngs. There was no night, for the myriads of
electric lights made shadows but no darkness, and you wondered
when these strange creatures slept.
Such Saturnalia did not begin with the Convention of 1912. Most
of those who took part in them hardly thought it a paradox that
these should be the conditions under which the Americans
nominated their candidates for President.
Roosevelt had not intended to appear at the Convention, but when
he discovered that the long distance telephone from Chicago to
Oyster Bay, by which his managers conferred with him, was being
tapped, he changed his mind. He perceived, also, that there was a
lack of vigorous leadership among those managers which demanded
his presence. By going, he would call down much adverse
criticism, even from some of those persons whose support he
needed. On the other hand, he would immensely strengthen his
cause in Chicago, where the mere sight of him would stimulate
enthusiasm.
So he and Mrs. Roosevelt took the five-thirty afternoon train to
Chicago, on Friday, June 14th, leaving as privately as possible,
and accompanied by seven or eight of their children and cousins.
Late on Saturday, the train, having narrowly escaped being
wrecked by an accident, reached Chicago. At the station there was
an enormous crowd. Roosevelt's young kinsmen kept very close to
him and wedged their way to an automobile. With the greatest
difficulty his car slowly proceeded to the Congress Hotel. Never
was there such a furor of welcome. Everybody wore a Roosevelt
button. Everybody cheered for "Teddy." Here and there they passed
State delegations bearing banners and mottoes. Rough Riders, who
had come in their well-worn uniforms, added to the Rooseveltian
exultation. Whoever judged by this demonstration must think it
impossible that the Colonel could be defeated.
After he and his party had been shown to the suites reserved for
them, he went out on the balcony of a second-floor room and spoke
a few words to the immense multitude waiting below. He said, in
substance, that he was glad to find from their cheers that
Chicago did not believe in the thieves who stole delegates. Some
who saw him say that his face was red with anger; others aver
that he was no more vehement than usual, and simply strained
himself to the utmost to make his voice carry throughout his
audience. Still, if he said what they report, he was not politic.
Then followed days and nights of incessant strain.
The Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt had their personal apartment in
the northeast corner of the hotel, at some distance from the
Florentine Room, which served as the official headquarters for
the Progressives. He had, besides, a private office with a
reception-room, and Tyree, one of the devoted detectives who had
served under him in old times, carefully guarded the entrance.
There was hardly a moment when one or two persons were not
closeted with him. Occasionally, he would come out into the
reception room and speak to the throng waiting there. No matter
what the news, no matter how early or late the hour, he was
always cheerful, and the mere sight of him brought joy and
confidence to his followers.
The young kinsmen went everywhere and brought back reports of
what they had seen or heard. One of them kept a diary of the
events as they whirled past, hour by hour, and in this one can
note many of the fleeting but vivid touches, which recall to the
reader now the reality of those feverish days. He attended a big
Taft rally at the Taft headquarters. Bell-boys ran up and down
the hotel corridors announcing it. "After each announcement,"
writes the young cousin, "a group of Roosevelt men would cry out,
'All postmasters attend!'" Two Taftites spoke briefly and "were
greeted by a couple of hand claps apiece; and then the star
performer of the evening was announced in the most glowing terms
as a model of political propriety, and the foremost and most
upright citizen of the United States--William Barnes, Jr., of
Albany." Mr. Barnes was supposed, at that time, to lead the New
York Republican Machine. "We have got to save the country," he
said, " save the constitution, save our liberty. We are in danger
of monarchy. The country must be saved!!" The Roosevelt cousin
thought that he spoke "without fervor to a listless, sedate, and
very polite audience. It was made all the more preposterous by
the fact that a very ancient colored gentleman stood back of
Barnes, and whenever Barnes paused, would point to the crowd and
feebly begin clapping his hands. They would then slowly and very
politely take up the applause, in every case waiting for his
signal. It was almost pathetic." At one time the Roosevelt scouts
alleged that "Timothy Woodruff is wavering, with four other
delegates, and will soon fall to us," and told "of delegates
flopping over, here and there." A still more extraordinary piece
of news came from Hooker to the effect that he had in some way
intercepted a telegram "from Murray Crane to his nephew saying
that Crane and Barnes would 'fight or ruin' and that it was now
'use any means and sacrifice the Republican Party.' Had it not
been for the way he told us, I couldn't have believed such a
thing possible."
Rumors like these were not verified at the time, and they are
assuredly unverifiable now. I repeat them merely to show how
suspense and excitement were constantly fed before the Convention
met. Remembering how long ex-Senator Crane and Mr. Barnes had had
their hands on the throttle of the Republican Machine, we are not
surprised at the young Rooseveltian's statement: "The Taft forces
control anything that has to do with machinery, but all the
feeling is for Roosevelt, and the Congress Hotel, at any rate,
favors the 'Big Noise,' as you will sometimes hear him called in
the lobbies or in the streets." Apparently, stump speeches were
made at any moment, and without provocation, in any hall; room,
or lobby of the hotel, by any one who felt the spirit move him;
and, lest silence should settle down and soothe the jaded nerves,
a band would strike up unexpectedly. The marching to and fro of
unrestrained gangs, shouting, "We-want-Teddy!" completed the
pandemonium.
Monday came. The young scouts were as busy as ever in following
the trails which led to Taft activities. The news they had to
tell was always very cheering. They found little enthusiasm among
the President's supporters. They heard, from the most trustworthy
sources, that this or that Taft leader or delegation was coming
over. And, in truth, the Taft body probably did not let off a
tenth of the noise which their opponents indulged in. The
shallows murmur, but the deeps are dumb, does not exactly apply
to the two opposing hosts. The Taft men resorted very little to
shouting, because they knew that if they were to win at all it
must be by other means. The Rooseveltians, on the other hand,
really felt a compelling surge of enthusiasm which they must
uncork.
Meanwhile Colonel Roosevelt and his lieutenants knew that the
enemy was perfecting his plan to defeat them. On Monday evening
his zealots packed the Auditorium and he poured himself out to
them in one of his torrential speeches calculated to rouse the
passions rather than the minds of his hearers. But it fitly
symbolized the situation. He, the daunt less leader, stood there,
the soul of sincerity and courage, impressing upon them all that
they were engaged in a most solemn cause and defying the
opposition as if it were a legion of evil spirits. His closing
words--" We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the
Lord"--summed it all up so completely that the audience burst
into a roar of approval, and never doubted that he spoke the
truth.
Tuesday at noon, a crowd of fifteen thousand persons, delegates
and visitors, packed the vast Convention Hall of the Coliseum.
Mr. Victor Rosewater, of Nebraska, presided at the opening. As it
was known that the Republican National Committee intended to
place on the temporary roll of delegates seventy-two names of
persons whose seats were contested, Governor Hadley, of Missouri,
made a motion that only those delegates, whose right was not
contested, should sit and vote during the preliminary
proceedings. Had he been successful, the Regulars would have lost
the battle from the beginning. But he was ruled out of order on
the ground that the only business before the Convention was the
election of a Temporary Chairman. This took place, and Senator
Root, from New York, was elected by 558 votes; McGovern, the
Roosevelt candidate, received 501 votes; there were 14
scattering, and 5 persons did not vote. Senator Root, therefore,
won his election by 38 votes over the combined opposition, but
his plurality was secured by the votes of the 72 whose seats were
contested.
During the three following days the Roosevelt men fought
desperately to secure what they believed to be justice. They
challenged every delegate, they demanded a roll-call on the
slightest excuse, they deluged the Regulars with alternate
showers of sarcasm and anger. But it availed them nothing. They
soon perceived that victory lay with the Republican National
Committee, which had the organization of the Convention and the
framing of the rules of procedure. The Taft people, the Regulars,
controlled the National Committee, and they knew that the rules
would do the rest, especially since, the Chairman of the
Convention, Senator Root, was the interpreter of the rules.
At no other National Convention in American history did a
Chairman keep his head and his temper so admirably as did Mr.
Root on this occasion. His intellect, burning with a cold, white
light,illumined every point, but betrayed no heat of passion. He
applied the rules as impartially as if they were theorems of
algebra. Time after time the Rooseveltians protested against the
holders of contested seats to vote, but he was unmoved because
the rule prescribed that the person had a right to vote. When the
contests were taken up, the Taft men always won, the Roosevelt
men always lost. The Machine went as if by clock-work or like the
guillotine. More than once some Rooseveltian leader, like
Governor Hadley, stung by a particularly shocking display of
overbearing injustice, taunted the majority with shouts of
"Robbers" and "Theft." Roars of passion swept through the hall.
The derision of the minority was countered by the majority with
equal vigor, but the majority did not always feel, in spite of
its truculent manner, confident of the outcome.
By what now seems shameless theft, the Credentials Committee
approved the seating of two Taft delegates from California, in
spite of the fact that the proper officials of that State had
certified that its twenty-six delegates were all for Roosevelt,
and had been elected by a majority of 76,000 votes. Chairman Root
put the question to the Convention, however, and those two
discredited delegates were admitted for Taft by a vote of 542 to
529. This indicates how close the Convention then stood, when a
change of seven votes would have given Roosevelt a majority of
one and have added to his list the two California delegates who
were counted out. Had such a change taken place, those who
watched the Convention believed there would have been a
"landslide" to Roosevelt. But the Republican Committee's sorely
tested rules held. After that, the Rooseveltians saw no gleam of
hope.
On Saturday, June 22d, the list of delegates to the Convention
having been drawn up as the Republican Machine intended, Mr. Taft
was nominated by a vote of 561; Roosevelt received 107, La
Follette 41, Cummins 17, Hughes 2; 344 delegates did not vote.
The last were all Roosevelt men, but they had been requested by
Roosevelt to refuse to vote. Through Mr. Henry J. Allen, of
Kansas, he sent this message:
'The Convention has now declined to purge the roll of the
fraudulent delegates placed thereon by the defunct National
Committee, and the majority which thus endorsed fraud was made a
majority only because it included the fraudulent delegates
themselves, who all sat as judges on one another's cases. If
these fraudulent votes had not thus been cast and counted the
Convention would have been purged of their presence. This action
makes the Convention in no proper sense any longer a Republican
Convention representing the real Republican Party. Therefore, I
hope the men elected as Roosevelt delegates will now decline to
vote on any matter before the Convention. I do not release any
delegate from his honorable obligation to vote for me if he votes
at all, but under the actual conditions I hope that he will not
vote at all. The Convention as now composed has no claim to
represent the voters of the Republican Party. It represents
nothing but successful fraud in overriding the will of the rank
and file of the party. Any man nominated by the Convention as now
constituted would be merely the beneficiary of this successful
fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to 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.'
Mr. Allen concluded with these words of his own:
'We do not bolt. We merely insist that you, not we, are making
the record. And we refuse to be bound by it. We have pleaded with
you ten days. We have fought with you five days for a square
deal. We fight no more, we plead no longer. We shall sit in
protest and the people who sent us here shall judge us.
'Gentlemen, you accuse us of being radical. Let me tell you that
no radical in the ranks of radicalism ever did so radical a thing
as to come to a National Convention of the great Republican Party
and secure through fraud the nomination of a man whom they knew
could not be elected.'*
* Fifteenth Republican National Convention (New York, 1912), 333,
335.
Every night during that momentous week the Roosevelt delegates
met in the Congress Hotel, talked over the day's proceedings,
gave vent to their indignation, confirmed each other's
resolution, and took a decision as to their future action. The
powerful Hiram Johnson, Governor of California, led them, and
through his eloquence he persuaded all but 107 of them to stand
by Roosevelt whether he were nominated by the Convention or not.
And this they did. For when the vote for the nomination was taken
at the Convention only 107 of the Roosevelt men cast their
ballots. They favored Roosevelt, but they were not prepared to
quit the Republican Party. During the roll-call the Roosevelt
delegates from Massachusetts refused to vote. Thereupon, Mr.
Root, the Chairman, ruled that they must vote, to which Frederick
Fosdick replied, when his name was read again, "Present, and not
voting. I defy the Convention to make me vote for any man"; and
seventeen other Roosevelt delegates refrained. Mr. Root then
called up the alternates of these abstainers and three of them
recorded their votes for Taft, but there was such a demonstration
against this ruling that Mr. Root thought better of it and
proceeded in it no farther. Many of his Republican associates at
the time thought this action high-handed and unjustified, and
many more agree in this opinion today.
Except for this grave error, Mr. Root's rulings were strictly
according to the precedents and directions of the Republican
National Committee, and we may believe that even he saw the
sardonic humor of his unvarying application of them at the
expense of the Rooseveltians. Before the first day's session was
over, the process was popularly called the "steam roller." Late
in the week, a delegate rose to a point of order, and on being
recognized by the Chairman, he shouted that he wished to call the
attention of the Chairman to the fact that the steam roller was
exceeding its speed limit, at which Mr. Root replied, "The
Chairman rules that the gentleman's point of order is well
taken." And everybody laughed. There was one dramatic moment
which, as Dean Lewis remarks, has had no counterpart in a
National Convention. When the Machine had succeeded, in spite of
protests and evidence, in stealing the two delegates from
California, the friends of Mr. Taft gave triumphant cheers. Then
the Roosevelt men rose up as one man and sent forth a mighty
cheer which astonished their opponents. It was a cheer in which
were mingled indignation and scorn, and, above all, relief.
Strictly interpreted, it meant that those men who had sat for
four days and seen their wishes thwarted, by what they regarded
as fraud, and had held on in the belief that this fraud could not
continue to the end, that a sense of fairness would return and
rule the Regulars, now realized that Fraud would concede nothing
and that their Cause was lost. And they felt a great load lifted.
No obligation bound them any longer to the Republican Party which
had renounced honesty in its principles and fair play in its
practice. Henceforth they could go out and take any step they
chose to promote their Progressive doctrines. *
* Lewis, 363.
Shortly after the Convention adjourned, having, by these methods,
nominated Mr. Taft and James S. Sherman for President and
Vice-President, the Rooseveltians held a great meeting in
Orchestra Hall. Governor Johnson presided and apparently a
majority of the Rooseveltians wished, then and there, to organize
a new party and to nominate Roosevelt as its candidate. Several
men made brief but earnest addresses. Then Roosevelt himself
spoke, and although he lacked nothing of his usual vehemence, he
seemed to be controlled by a sense of the solemnity of their
purpose. He told them that it was no more a question of
Progressivism, which he ardently believed in, but a question of
fundamental honesty and right, which everybody ought to believe
in and uphold. He advised them to go to their homes, to discuss
the crisis with their friends; to gain what adherence and support
they could, and to return in two months and formally organize
their party and nominate their candidate for President. And he
added: "If you wish me to make the fight, I will make it, even if
only one State should support me. The only condition I impose is
that you shall feel entirely free, when you come together, to
substitute any other man in my place, if you deem it better for
the movement, and in such case, I will give him my heartiest
support."
And so the defeated majority of the Republicans at Chicago,
Republicans no longer, broke up. There were many earnest
hand-shakings, many pledges to meet again in August, and to take
up the great work. Those who intended to stay by the Republican
Party, not less than those who cast their lot with the
Progressives, bade farewell, with deep emotion, to the Leader
whom they had wished to see at the head of the Republican Party.
Chief among these was Governor Hadley, of Missouri, who at one
moment, during the Convention, seemed likely to be brought
forward by the Regulars as a compromise candidate. Some of the
Progressives resented his defection from them; not so Roosevelt,
who said: "He will not be with us, but we must not blame him."
Six weeks later, the Progressives returned to Chicago. Again,
Roosevelt had his headquarters at the Congress Hotel. Again, the
delegates, among whom were several women, met at the Coliseum.
Crowds of enthusiastic supporters and larger crowds of curiosity-
seekers swarmed into the vast building. On Monday, August 5, the
first session of the Progressive Party's Convention was held.
Senator Albert J. Beveridge, of Indiana, made the opening
address, in which he defined the principles of their party and
the objects it hoped to obtain. Throughout the proceedings there
was much enthusiasm, but no battle. It was rather the gathering
of several thousand very earnest men and women bent on
consecrating themselves to a new Cause, which they believed to be
the paramount Cause for the political, economic, and social
welfare of. their country. Nearly all of them were Idealists,
eager to secure the victory of some special reform. And, no
doubt, an impartial observer might have detected among them
traces of that "lunatic fringe," which Roosevelt himself had long
ago humorously remarked clung to the skirts of every reform. But
the whole body, judged without prejudice, probably contained the
largest number of disinterested, public-spirited, and devoted
persons, who had ever met for a national and political object
since the group which formed the Republican Party in 1854.
The professional politician who usually preponderates in such
Conventions, and, in the last, had usurped control both of the
proceedings and decisions, had little place here. The chief topic
of discussion turned on the admission of negro delegates from the
South. Roosevelt believed that an attempt to create a negro
Progressive Party, as such, would alienate the Southern whites
and would certainly sharpen their hostility towards the blacks.
Therefore, he advised that the negro delegates ought to be
approved by the White Progressives in their several districts. In
other words, the Progressive Party in the South should be a white
party with such colored members as the whites found acceptable.
On Monday and Tuesday the work done in the Convention was much
less important than that done by the Committee on Resolutions and
by the Committee on Credentials. On Wednesday the Convention
heard and adopted the Platform and then nominated Roosevelt by
acclamation. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, seconded
the nomination, praising Roosevelt as "one of the few men in our
public life who has been responsive to modern movement." "The
program," she said, "will need a leader of invincible courage, of
open mind, of democratic sympathies--one endowed with power to
interpret the common man, and to identify himself with the common
lot." Governor Hiram Johnson, from California, was nominated for
Vice-President. Over the platform, to which the candidates were
escorted, hung Kipling's stanza:
"For there is neither East nor West,
Border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
Though they come from the ends of the earth."
Portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, and
Hamilton, a sufficiently inclusive group of patriots, looked down
upon them. After Roosevelt and Johnson addressed the audience,
the trombones sounded "Old Hundred" and the great meeting closed
to the words--
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
The Progressive Platform contained many planks which have since
been made laws by the Democratic Party, which read the signs of
the times more quickly than did the Republicans. Especially many
of the suggestions relating to Labor, the improvement of the
currency, the control of corporate wealth, and oversight over
public hygiene, should be commended. In general, it promised to
bring the Government nearer to the people by giving the people a
more and more direct right over the Government. It declared for a
rational tariff and the creation of a non-partisan Tariff
Commission of experts, and it denounced alike the Republicans for
the Payne-Aldrich Bill, which dishonestly revised upwards, and
the Democrats, who wished to abolish protection altogether. It
urged proper military and naval preparation and the building of
two battleships a year--a plank which we can imagine Roosevelt
wrote in with peculiar satisfaction. It advocated direct
primaries; the conservation of natural resources; woman suffrage.
So rapidly has the country progressed in seven years that most of
the recommendations have already been adopted, and are among the
common places which nobody disputes any longer. But the
Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall of Judicial Decisions
were the points, as I remarked above, over which the country
debated most hotly. The Recall, in particular, created a
widespread alarm, and just as Roosevelt's demand for it in his
Columbus speech prevented, as I believe, his nomination by the
Republican Convention in June, so it deprived the Progressives at
the election in November of scores of thousands of votes. The
people of the United States--every person who owned a bit of
property, a stock or a bond, or who had ten dollars or more in
the savings bank--looked upon it almost with consternation. For
they knew that they were living in a time of flux, when old
standards were melting away like snow images in the sun, when new
ideals, untried and based on the negation of some of the oldest
principles in our civilization, were being pushed forward. They
instinctively rallied to uphold Law, the slow product of
centuries of growth, the sheet anchor of Society in a time of
change. Where could we look for solidity, or permanence, if
judicial decisions could be recalled at the caprice of the
mob--the hysterical, the uninstructed, the fickle mob? The
opinion of one trained and honest judge outweighs the whims of
ten thousand of the social dregs.
The Recall of Judicial Decisions, therefore, caused many of
Roosevelt's friends, and even Republicans who would otherwise
have supported him, to balk. They not only rejected the proposal
itself, but they feared that he, by making it, indicated that he
had lost his judgment and was being swept into the vortex of
revolution. Judges and courts and respect for law, like
lighthouses on granite foundations, must be kept safe from the
fluctuations of tides and the crash of tempests.
The campaign which followed is chiefly remarkable for Roosevelt's
amazing activity. He felt that the success of the Progressive
Party at the polls depended upon him as its Leader. The desire
for personal success in any contest into which he plunged would
have been a great incentive, but this was a cause which dwarfed
any personal considerations of his. Senator Joseph M. Dixon, of
Montana, managed the campaign; Roosevelt himself gave it a
dynamic impulse which never flagged. He went to the Pacific
Coast, speaking at every important centre on the way, and
returning through the Southern States to New York City. In
September he swept through New England, and he was making a final
tour through the Middle West, when, on October 14th, just as he
was leaving his hotel to make a speech in the Auditorium in
Milwaukee, a lunatic named John Schranck shot him with a
revolver. The bullet entered his body about an inch below the
right nipple and would probably have been fatal but for an eye
glass-case and a roll of manuscript he had in his pocket. Before
the assassin could shoot again, his hand was caught and deflected
by the Colonel's secretary. "Don't hurt the poor creature,"
Roosevelt said, when Schranck was overpowered and brought before
him. Not knowing the extent of his wound, and waiting only long
enough to return to his hotel room and change his white shirt, as
the bosom of the one he had on was soaked with blood, and
disregarding the entreaties of his companions to stay quiet, he
went to the Auditorium and spoke for more than an hour. Only
towards the end did the audience perceive that he showed signs of
fatigue. This extraordinary performance was most foolhardy, and
some of his carping critics said that, as usual, Roosevelt wanted
to be theatrical. But there was no such purpose in him. He felt
to the depths of his soul that neither his safety nor that of any
other individual counted in comparison with the triumph of the
Cause he was fighting for.
After a brief examination the surgeons stated that he had better
be removed to the Mercy Hospital in Chicago. They put him on his
special car and by an incredible negligence they sent him off to
make the night journey without any surgical attendant. On
reaching the Mercy Hospital, Dr. Ryan made a further examination
and reported that there seemed to be no immediate danger,
although he could not be sure whether the Colonel would live or
not. Roosevelt, who was advertised to make a great speech in
Louisville, Kentucky, that evening, summoned Senator Beveridge
and sent him off with the manuscript of the address to take his
place. Mrs. Roosevelt reached Chicago by the first train
possible, and stayed with him while he underwent, impatiently,
nearly a fortnight's convalescence. Then, much sooner than the
surgeons thought wise, although his wound had healed with
remarkable speed, he returned to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th
he closed his campaign by addressing sixteen thousand persons in
the Madison Square Garden. He spoke with unwonted calm and
judicial poise; and so earnestly that the conviction which he
felt carried conviction to many who heard him. "I am glad beyond
measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who in this fight
have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to fight, while
life lasts, the great fight for righteousness and for brotherhood
and for the welfare of mankind."
President Taft and the members of his Cabinet took little or no
active part in the campaign. Indeed, the Republicans seemed
unable to arouse enthusiasm. They relied upon their past
victories and the robust campaign fund, which the Interests
gladly furnished. The Democratic candidate was Woodrow Wilson,
Governor of New Jersey, who had been professor at Princeton
University, and then its president. As Governor, he had commended
himself by fighting the Machine, and by advocating radical
measures. As candidate, he asserted his independence by declaring
that "a party platform is not a program." He spoke effectively,
and both he and his party had the self-complacency that comes to
persons who believe that they are sure to win. And how could
their victory be in doubt since the united Democrats had for
opponents the divided Republicans? When Colonel Roosevelt was
shot, Governor Wilson magnanimously announced that he would make
no more speeches. Roosevelt objected to this, believing that a
chance accident to him, personally, ought not to stop any one
from criticising him politically. "What ever could with truth and
propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was
shot, can," he urged, "with equal truth and equal propriety, be
said against me now, and it should so be said; and the things
that cannot be said now are merely the things that ought not to
have been said before. This is not a contest about any man; it is
a contest concerning principles."
At the election on November 5th, Wilson was elected by 6,286,000
votes out of 15,310,000 votes, thus being a minority President by
two million and a half votes. Roosevelt received 4,126,000 and
Taft 3,483,000 votes. The combined vote of what had been the
Republican Party amounted to 7,609,000 votes, or 1,323,000 more
than those received by Mr. Wilson. When it came to the Electoral
College, the result was even more significant. Wilson had 435,
Roosevelt 88, and Taft, thanks to Vermont and Utah, secured 8
votes. Roosevelt carried Pennsylvania the rock-bound Republican
State, Missouri which was usually Democratic, South Dakota,
Washington, Michigan, and eleven out of the thirteen votes of
California. These figures, analyzed calmly, after the issues and
passions have cooled into history, indicate two things. First,
the amazing personal popularity of Roosevelt, who, against the
opposition of the Republican Machine and all its ramifications,
had so easily defeated President Taft, the candidate of that
Machine. And secondly, it proved that Roosevelt, and not Taft,
really represented a large majority of what had been the
Republican Party. Therefore, it was the Taft faction which, in
spite of the plain evidence given at the choice of the delegates,
and at the Convention itself--evidence which the Machine tried to
ignore and suppress--it was the Taft faction and not Roosevelt
which split the Republican Party in 1912.
Had it allowed the preference of the majority to express itself
by the nomination of Roosevelt, there is every reason to believe
that he would have been elected. For we must remember that the
Democratic Platform was hardly less progressive than that of the
Progressives themselves. Counting the Wilson and the Roosevelt
vote together, we find 10,412,000 votes were cast for Progressive
principles against 3,483,000 votes for the reactionary
Conservatives. And yet the gray wolves of the Republican Party,
and its Old Guard, and its Machine, proclaimed to the country
that its obsolescent doctrines represented the desires and the
ideals of the United States in 1912!
Although the campaign, as conducted by the Republicans, seemed
listless, it did not lack venom. Being a family fight between the
Taft men and the Roosevelt men, it had the bitterness which
family quarrels develop. Mr. Taft and most of his Secretaries had
known the methods of Mr. Roosevelt and his Ministers. They could
counter, therefore, charges of incompetence and indifference by
recalling the inconsistencies, or worse, of Roosevelt's regime.
When the Progressives charged the Taft Administration with being
easy on the Big Interests, Attorney-General Wickersham resorted
to a simple sum in arithmetic in order to contradict them,
showing that whereas Roosevelt began forty-four Anti-Trust suits,
and concluded only four important cases during his seven and a
half years in office, under Taft sixty-six new suits were begun
and many of the old ones were successfully concluded. Some great
cases, like that of the Standard Oil and of the Railroad Rates,
had been settled, which equaled in importance any that Roosevelt
had taken up. In the course of debate on the stump, each side
made virulent accusations against the other, and things were said
which were not true then and have long since been regretted by
the sayers. That happens in all political contests.
Roosevelt himself, being the incarnation, if not indeed the
cause, of the Progressive Party, had to endure an incessant
volley of personal attack. They charged him with inordinate
ambition. We heard how Mr. William Barnes, Jr., the would-be
savior of the country, implied that Roosevelt must be defeated in
order to prevent the establishment of monarchy in the United
States. Probably Mr. Barnes, in his moments of reflection,
admitted to himself that he did not really mean that, but many
campaign orators and editors repeated the insinuation and
besought free-born Americans not to elect a candidate who would
assume the title of King Theodore. Many of his critics could
account for his leaving the Republican Party and heading another,
only on the theory that he was moved by a desire for revenge. If
he could not rule he would ruin. The old allegation that he must
be crazy was of course revived.
After the election, the Republican Regulars, who had stubbornly
refused, to read the handwriting on the wall during the previous
four years, heaped new abuse upon him. They said that he had
betrayed the Party. They said that he had shown himself an
ingrate towards Taft, whose achievements in the Presidency awoke
his envy. And more recently, many persons who have loathed the
Administration of President Wilson, blame Roosevelt for having
brought down this curse upon the country.
These various opinions and charges seem to me to be mistaken; and
in the foregoing chapters, if I have truly divined Theodore
Roosevelt's character, every reader should see that his action in
entering the field for the Republican nomination in 1912, and
then in founding the Progressive Party, was the perfectly natural
culmination of his career. Some one said that he went off at a
tangent in 1912. Some one else has said better that this tangent
was a straight line leading back to 1882, when he sat in the New
York Assembly. Remember that the love of Justice was from boyhood
his leading principle. Remember that, after he succeeded in
having a law passed relieving the miserably poor cigar-makers
from the hideous conditions under which they had to work, a judge
declared the law unconstitutional, thereby proving to Roosevelt
that the courts, which should be the citadels of justice, might
and did, in this case, care more for the financial interests of
landowners than for the health, life, and soul of human beings.
That example of injustice was branded on his heart, and he
resolved to combat the judicial league with in humanity, wherever
he met it. So Abraham Lincoln, when, at the age of twenty-two he
first saw a slave auction in New Orleans, said, in indignant
horror, to his companion, John Hanks: "If I ever get a chance to
hit that thing [meaning slavery] I'll hit it hard." Exactly
thirty years later, Abraham Lincoln, as President, was hitting
that thing--slavery--so hard that it perished. Roosevelt's
experience as Assemblyman, as Civil Service Commissioner, as
Police Commissioner, as Governor, and as President, had confirmed
his belief that the decisions of the courts often stood between
the People and Justice.
Especially in his war on the Interests was he angered at finding
corporate abuses, and even criminal methods, comfortably
protected by an upholstery of favoring laws. With that tact and
willingness to compromise on non-essentials in order to gain his
essential object, which mark him as a statesman, he used the
Republican Party, naturally the party of the plutocrats who
controlled the Interests, just as long as he could. Then, when
the Republican Machine rose against him, he quitted it and
founded the Progressive Party, to be the instrument for carrying
on and completing the great reforms he had at heart. Here was no
desertion, no betrayal; here was, first of all, common sense; if
the road no longer leads towards your goal, you leave it and take
an other. No one believed more sincerely than Roosevelt did, in
fealty to party. In 1884 he would not bolt, because he hoped that
the good which the Republican principles would accomplish would
more than offset the harm which the nomination of Blaine would
inflict. But in 1912, the Republicans cynically rejected his
cause which he had tried to make the Republican cause, and then,
as in 1884, he held that the cause was more important than the
individual, and he followed this idea loyally, lead where it
might.
In trying thus to state Roosevelt's position fairly, I do not
mean to imply that I should agree with his conclusions in regard
to the Recall of the Judicial Decisions; and the experiments
which have already been made with the Referendum and Initiative
and Direct Primaries are so unsatisfactory that Roosevelt himself
would probably have recognized that the doubts, which many of us
felt when he first proposed those measures, have been justified.
But I wish to emphasize my admiration for the large consistency
of his career, and my conviction that, with out his crowning
action in 1912, he would have failed to be the moral force which
he was. If ambition, if envy, if a selfish desire to rule, had
been the motives which guided him, he would have lain low in
1912; for all his friends and the managers of the Republican
Party assured him that if he would stand aside then, he would be
unanimously nominated by the Republicans in 1916. But he could
not be tempted.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL
"They will be throwing rotten apples at me soon," Theodore had
said to his sister, on the day when New York went frantic in
placing him among the gods. His treatment, after he championed
Progressivism, showed him to be clairvoyant. Not only did his
political opponents belabor him--that was quite natural--but his
friends, having failed to persuade him not to take the fatal
leap, let him see plainly that, while he still had their
affection, they had lost their respect for his judgment. He
himself bore the defeat of 1912 with the same valiant
cheerfulness with which he took every disappointment and
thwarting. But he was not stolid, much less indifferent. " It is
all very well to talk with the Crusading spirit," he said after
the election, "and of the duty to spend and be spent; and I feel
it absolutely as regards myself; but I hate to see my Crusading
lieutenants suffer for the cause." He was thinking of the eager
young men, including some of his kinsmen, who had gone into the
campaign because they believed in him.
His close friends did not follow him, but they still loved him.
And it was a sign of his open-mindedness that he would listen to
their opinions and even consult them, although he knew that they
entirely rejected his Progressivism. General Luke E. Wright, who
remained a devoted friend but did not become a Progressive, used
to explain what the others called the Colonel's aberration, as
being really a very subtle piece of wisdom. Experienced ranchmen,
he would say, when their herds stampede in a sudden alarm, spur
their horses through the rushing cattle, fire their revolvers
into the air, and gradually, by making the herds suppose that men
and beasts are all together in their wild dash, work their way to
the front. Then they cleverly make the leaders swing round, and
after a long stampede the herd comes panting back to the place it
started from. This, General Wright said, is what Roosevelt was
doing with the multitudes of Radicals who seemed to be headed for
perdition.
Just as he had absented himself in Africa for a year, after
retiring from the Presidency, so Roosevelt decided to make one
more trip for hunting and exploration. As he could not go to the
North Pole, he said, because that would be poaching on Peary's
field, he selected South America. He had long wished to visit the
Southern Continent, and invitations to speak at Rio Janeiro and
at Buenos Aires gave him an excuse for setting out. As before, he
started with the distinct purpose of collecting animal and
botanical specimens; this time for the American Museum of Natural
History in New York, which provided two trained naturalists to
accompany him. His son Kermit, toughened by the previous
adventure, went also.
Having paid his visits and seen the civilized parts of Brazil,
Uruguay, and Argentina, he ascended the Paraguay River and then
struck across the plateau which divides its watershed from that
of the tributaries of the Amazon; for he proposed to make his way
through an unexplored region in Central Brazil and reach the
outposts of civilization on the Great River. Dr. Osborn had
dissuaded him from going through a tract where the climate was
known to be most pernicious. The Brazilian Government had
informed him that, by the route he had chosen, he would meet a
large river--the Rio da Duvido, the River of Doubt--by which he
could descend to the Amazon. Roosevelt's account of this
exploration, given in his "The Brazilian Wilderness," belongs
among the masterpieces of explorers' records.
There were some twenty persons, including a dozen or fifteen
native rowers and pack-bearers, in his party. They had canoes and
dugouts, supplies of food for about forty days, and a carefully
chosen outfit. With high hopes they put their craft into the
water and moved downstream. But on the fourth day they found
rapids ahead, and from that time on they were constantly obliged
to land and carry their dugouts and stores round a cataract. The
peril of being swept over the falls was always imminent, and as
the trail which constituted their portages had to be cut through
the matted forest, their labors were increased. In the first
eleven days, they progressed only sixty miles. No one knew the
distance they would have to traverse nor how long the river would
be broken by falls and cataracts before it came down into the
plain of the Amazon. Some of their canoes were smashed on the
rocks; two of the natives were drowned. They watched their
provisions shrink. Contrary to their expectations, the forest had
almost no animals. If they could shoot a monkey or a monster
lizard, they rejoiced at having a little fresh meat. Tropical
insects--of which the pium seems to have been the worst--bit them
day and night and caused inflammation and even infection.
Man-eating fish lived in the river, making it dangerous for the
men when they tried to cool their inflamed bodies by a swim. Most
of the party had malaria, and could be kept going only by large
doses of quinine. Roosevelt, while in the water, wounded his leg
on a rock, inflammation set in, and prevented him from walking,
so that he had to be carried across the portages. The physical
strength of the party, sapped by sickness and fatigue, was
visibly waning. Still the cataracts continued to impede their
progress and to add terribly to their toil. The supply of food
had shrunk so much that the rations were restricted and amounted
to little more than enough to keep the men able to go forward
slowly. Then fever attacked Roosevelt, and they had to wait for a
few days because he was too weak to be moved. He besought them to
leave him and hurry along to safety, because every day they
delayed consumed their diminishing store of food, and they might
all die of starvation. They refused to leave him, however, and he
secretly determined to shoot himself unless a change for the
better in his condition came soon. It came; they moved forward.
At last, they left the rapids behind them and could drift and
paddle on the unobstructed river. Roosevelt lay in the bottom of
a dugout, shaded by a bit of canvas put up over his head, and too
weak from sickness, he told me, even to splash water on his face,
for he was almost fainting from the muggy heat and the tropical
sunshine.
On April 15th, forty-eight days after they began their voyage on
the River of Doubt, they saw a peasant, a rubber-gatherer, the
first human being they had met. Thenceforward they journeyed
without incident. The River of Doubt flowed into the larger river
Madeira where they found a steamer which took them to Manaos on
the Amazon. A regular line of steamers connects Manaos with New
York, where Roosevelt and Kermit and Cherrie, one of the
naturalists, landed on May 19, 1914. During the homeward voyage
Roosevelt slowly recovered his strength, but he had never again
the iron physique with which he had embarked the year before. His
friends had urged him not to go, warning him that a man of fifty
four was already too old to waste his reserve force on
unnecessary enterprises. But his love of adventure, his passion
for testing his endurance and pluck by facing the grimmest
dangers, and his wish to keep out of American political turmoil
for a time, prevailed against wiser counsel. The Brazilian
Wilderness stole away ten years of his life.
I do not know whether later, when he found himself checked by
recurrent illness, he regretted having chosen to encounter that
ordeal in Brazil. He was a man who wasted no time over regrets.
The past for him was done. The material out of which he wove his
life was the present or the future. Days gone were as water that
has flowed under the mill. Acting always from what he regarded as
the best motives of the present, he faced with equal heart
whatever result they brought. So when he found on his return home
that some geographers and South American explorers laughed at his
story of the River of Doubt, he laughed, too, at their
incredulity, and presently the Brazilian Government, having
established the truth of his exploration and named the river
after him, Rio Teodoro, his laughter prevailed. He took real
satisfaction in having placed on the map of Central Brazil a
river six hundred miles long.
New York made no festival for him on this second homecoming. The
city and the country welcomed him, but not effusively. The
American people, how ever, felt a void without Roosevelt. Whether
they always agreed with him or not, they found him perpetually
interesting, and during the ten or eleven weeks when he went into
the Brazilian silence and they did not know whether he was alive
or dead, they learned how much his presence and his ready speech
had meant to them. And so they rejoiced to know that he was safe
and at home again at Sagamore Hill.
Roosevelt insisted, imprudently, on accompanying his son Kermit
to Madrid, where he was to marry the daughter of the American
Minister. He made the trip to Spain and back, as quickly as
possible, and then he turned to politics. That year, Congress men
and several Governors were to be elected, and Roosevelt allowed
himself to be drawn into the campaign. As I have said, he was
like the consummate actor who, in spite of his protestations, can
never bid farewell to the stage. And now a peculiar obligation
moved him. He must help the friends who had followed him eagerly
into the conflict of 1912, and, in helping them, he must save the
Progressive principles and drive them home with still greater
cogency. He delivered a remarkable address at Pittsburgh; he
toured New York State in an automobile; he spoke to multitudes in
Pennsylvania from the back platform of a special train; he
visited Louisiana and several other States. But the November
elections disappointed him. The Progressive Party, if not dead,
had ceased to be a real power in politics; but Progressivism, as
an influence and an ideal, was surviving under other forms.
Probably the chief cause for this wane was the putting into
operation, by President Wilson and the triumphant Democrats, of
many of the Progressive suggestions which the Democratic Platform
had also contained. The psychological effect of success in
politics is always important and this accounted for the cooling
of the zeal of a certain number of enthusiasts who had
vociferously supported Roosevelt in 1912. The falling-off in the
vote measured further the potency of Roosevelt's personal
magnetism; thousands voted for him who would not vote for other
candidates professing his principles. Finally, other issues--the
imbroglio with Mexico, for instance--were looming up, and
exciting a different interest among the American people. Before
we discuss the greatest issue of all, in which Theodore
Roosevelt's career as a patriot culminated, we must recall two or
three events which absorbed him at the time and furnished
evidence of vital import to those who would appraise his
character fairly.
During the campaign of 1912, his enemies resorted to all sorts of
slanders, calumnies, lies, ignoble always, and often indecent, to
blacken him. On October 12th, the Iron Ore, a trade paper edited
by George A. Newett at Ishpeming, Michigan, pubished this
accusation: "Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way;
he gets drunk too, and that not infrequently, and all of his
intimates know about it." When he was President, Roosevelt had
appointed Newett as postmaster, but Newett stayed by the
Republican Party, and did not scruple to serve it, as he
supposed, in this way. The charge of drunkenness spread so far
and, as usual, so many persons said that where there is much
smoke there must be some fire, that Roosevelt determined to crush
that lie once for all. He would not have it stand unchallenged,
to shame his children after he was dead, or to furnish food for
the maggots which feed on the reputations of great men. So he
brought suit against Newett. His counsel, James H. Pound,
assembled nearly two-score witnesses, who had known Roosevelt
since he left College, men who had visited him, had hunted with
him, had served with him in the Spanish War, had been his Cabinet
Ministers, journalists who had followed him on his campaigning
tours, detectives, and his personal body-servant; General Leonard
Wood, and Jacob Riis, and Dr. Alexander Lambert, who had been his
family physician for a quarter of a century. This cloud of
witnesses all testified unanimously that they had never seen him
drink anything stronger than wine, except as a medicine; that he
took very little wine, and that they had never seen him drunk.
They also declared that he was not a curser or blasphemer.
After listening to this mass of evidence for a week, Newett
begged to withdraw his charge and to apologize, and he confessed
that he had nothing but hearsay on which to base his slanders.
Then Roosevelt addressed the court and asked it not to impose
damages upon the defendant, as he had not prosecuted the libeler
with the intention of getting satisfaction in money. He wrote one
of his sisters from Marquette, where the trial was held: "I
deemed it best not to demand money damages; the man is a country
editor, and while I thoroly* depise him, I do not care to seem to
persecute him." (May 31, 1913.)
* I copy "thoroly," as he wrote it, as a reminder that Roosevelt
practiced the spelling reform which he advocated.
Roosevelt had to undergo one other trial, this time as defendant.
The managers of the Republican Party-and the Interests behind
them, not content with blocking his way to the nomination in
1912, wished utterly to destroy him as a political factor; for
they still dreaded that, as a Progressive, he might have a
triumphant resurrection and recapture the confidence of the
American people. To accomplish their purpose they wished to
discredit him as a reform politician, and as a leader in civic
and social welfare.
Roosevelt himself gave the occasion for their on slaught upon
him. In supporting Harvey D. Hinman, the Progressive candidate
for the Governor of New York in 1914, he declared that William
Barnes, Jr., who managed the Republican Machine politics in that
State, had a bi-partisan alliance with the Democratic Machine in
the interest of crooked politics and crooked business. Mr.
Barnes, in whose ears the word "Boss" sounded obnoxious as
applied to himself, brought suit for libel, and it came to trial
at Syracuse on April 19, 1915. Mr. Barnes's counsel, Mr. Ivins,
peered into every item of Mr. Roosevelt's political career with a
microscope. Mr. Barnes had, of course, all the facts, all the
traditions that his long experience at Albany could give him. And
as he dated back to Boss Platt's time, he must have heard, at
first hand from the Senator, his relations with Roosevelt as
Governor. But the most searching examination by Mr. Barnes
brought him no evidence, and cross-examination, pursued for many
days, brought him no more. When it became Roosevelt's turn to
reply, he showed how the Albany Evening Journal, Mr. Barnes's
organ, had profited by illegal political advertising. He proved
the existence of the bi-partisan alliance with the Democratic
Machine, and showed its effects on legislation and elections.
After deliberating two days, the jury brought in a verdict in
favor of Roosevelt.
The trial, which had lasted two months, and cost Roosevelt
$52,000 (so expensive is it for an honest man to defend his
honesty against hostile politicians!) decided two things: first,
that Mr. Barnes was a Boss, and had used crooked methods; and
next, that Theodore Roosevelt, under the most intense scrutiny
which his enemies could employ, was freed from any suspicion of
dishonest political methods or acts. As William M. Ivins,
attorney for Mr. Barnes, left the New York Constitutional
Convention to try the case at Syracuse, he said with un concealed
and alluring self-satisfaction to Mr. Root: "I am going to nail
Roosevelt's hide to the barn door." Mr. Root replied: "Be sure it
is Roosevelt's and not some other hide that is nailed there."
CHAPTER XXIV. PROMETHEUS BOUND
The event which put Roosevelt's patriotism to the final test,
and, as it proved, evoked all his great qualities in a last
display, was the outbreak of the Atrocious World War in August,
1914. By the most brutal assault in modern times, Germany, and
her lackey ally, Austria, without notice, overran Belgium and
Northeastern France, and devastated Serbia. The other countries,
especially the United States, were too startled at first to
understand either the magnitude or the possible implications of
this war. On August 18th, President Wilson issued the first of
his many variegated messages, in which he gave this warning: "We
must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a
curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that
might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle
before another." He added that his first thought was of America.
Any one who analyzed his message carefully must have wondered how
it was possible, in the greatest moral issue which had ever been
thrust before the world's judgment, to remain impartial "even in
thought" between good and evil. Perhaps it was right, though
hardly necessary, to impress upon Americans that they must look
after their own interests first. Would it not have been more
seemly, however, especially for President Wilson, who on the
previous Fourth of July had uttered his sanctimonious tribute to
the superiority in virtue of the United States to all other
nations, to urge his countrymen to put some of this virtue into
practice at that crisis?
But the masses did not reason. They used his admonition to remain
neutral "even in thought" to justify them in not having any great
anxiety as to who was right and who wrong; and they interpreted
his concern for "America first" as authorizing them to go about
their affairs and profit as much as they could in the warlike
conditions. Some of us, indeed, took an opposite view. We saw
that the conflict, if fought to a finish, would decide whether
Democracy or Despotism should rule the earth. We felt that the
United States, the vastest, strongest, and most populous Republic
in the world, pledged to uphold Democracy, should throw itself at
once on the side of the European nations which were struggling,
against great odds, to save Democracy from the most atrocious of
despots. Inevitably, we were regarded as incorrigible idealists
whose suggestions ran counter to etiquette and were, after all,
crazy.
For several years, Roosevelt had been a contributing editor of
the Outlook, and although his first instinct, when the Germans
ravished Belgium, was to protest and then, if necessary, to
follow up our protest by a show of force, he wrote in the Outlook
an approval of our taking immediately a neutral attitude. Still,
he did not let this preclude stern action later. " Neutrality,"
he said, "may be of prime necessity to maintain peace . . . 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 at
present." Three years afterwards these sentences of his were
unearthed by his enemies and flung against him; but his dominant
purpose, from the start, was too well known for any one to accuse
him of inconsistency. He assumed, when President Wilson issued
his impartial "even in thought" message, that the President must
have some secret diplomatic information which would vindicate it.
As the months went on, however, it became clear to him that Mr.
Wilson was pursuing towards the European War the same policy of
contradictions, of brief paroxysms of boldness, followed by long
periods of lassitude, which had marked his conduct of our
relations towards the Mexican bandits. He saw only too well,
also, into what ignoble depths this policy led us. Magnificent
France, throttled Belgium, England willing but not yet ready,
devastated Serbia, looked to us for sympathy and help, and all
the sympathy they got came from private persons in America, and
of help there was none. Meanwhile, the Germans undermined and
gangrened the American people. Every ship brought over their
slyest and most unscrupulous propagandists, who cooperated with
the despicable German professors and other agents already planted
here, and opened the sewers of their doctrines. Their spies began
to go up and down the land, without check. Count Bernstorff, the
German Ambassador, assumed to play with the Administration at
Washington as a cat might play with half a score of mice, feeling
sure that he could devour them when he chose. A European
gentleman, who came from a neutral country, and called on
Bernstorff in April, 1915, told me that when he asked the
Ambassador how he got on with the United States, he replied:
"Very well, indeed; we pay no attention to the Government, but go
ahead and do what we please." Within a fortnight the sinking of
the Lusitania showed that Bernstorff had not boasted idly.
Roosevelt understood the harm which the German conspiracy was
doing among our people, not only by polluting their ideals, but
actually strengthening the coils which the propagandists had been
winding, to strangle at the favorable moment American
independence itself. We discovered then that the process of
Germanization had been going on secretly during twenty years.
Since England was the chief enemy in the way of German world
domination, the German-Americans laid themselves out to render
the English odious here. And they worked to such good purpose
that the legal officers of the Administration admonished the
American people that the English, in holding up merchant vessels
laden with cargoes for Germany, committed breaches against
international law which were quite as heinous as the sinking by
German submarines of ships laden with American non-combatants.
They magnified the loss of a cargo of perishable food and set it
against the ferocious destruction of neutral human beings.
Senator Lodge, however, expressed the clear thought and right
feeling of Americans when he said that we were more moved by the
thought of the corpse of an innocent victim of the Hun submarines
than by that of a bale of cotton.
These enormities, these sins of omission and commission, of which
Roosevelt declared our Government guilty, amazed and exasperated
him, and from the beginning of 1915 onward, he set himself three
tasks. He wished to expose and circumvent German machinations
over here. Next, he deemed it a pressing duty to rouse our
country to the recognition that we must prepare at once for war.
He saw, as every other sensible person saw, that as the conflict
grew more terrible in Europe and spread into Asia and Africa, we
should be drawn into it, and that therefore we must make ready.
He seconded the plan of General Leonard Wood to organize a camp
for volunteers at Plattsburg and other places; and what that plan
accomplished in fitting American soldiers to meet and vanquish
the Kaiser's best troops, has since been proved. President
Wilson, however, would not officially countenance any preparation
which, so far as the public was allowed to know his reasons,
might be taken by the Germans as an unfriendly act. Finally,
Roosevelt labored unceasingly to revive and make militant the
ideals of true Americanism.
That the Germans accurately gauged that President Wilson would
not sanction any downright vigorous action against them, was
sufficiently proved on May 7, 1915, when German submarines
torpedoed and sank, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the British
passenger steamship Lusitania, eastward bound, a few miles south
of the Point of Kinsale on the Irish coast. With her went down
nearly thirteen hundred persons, all of them non-belligerents and
more than one hundred of them American men, women, and children.
This atrocious crime the Germans committed out of their stupid
miscalculation of the motives which govern non-German peoples.
They thought that the British and Americans would be so
terrorized that they would no longer dare to cross the ocean. The
effect was, of course, just the opposite. A cry of horror swept
over the civilized world, and swiftly upon it came a great demand
for punishment and retribution.
Then was the moment for President Wilson to break off diplomatic
relations with Germany. The very day after the waters of the
British Channel had closed over the innocent victims, President
Wilson made an address in which he announced that "a nation may
be too proud to fight." The country gasped for breath when it
read those words, which seemed to be the official statement of
the President of the United States that foreign nations might out
rage, insult, and degrade this nation with impunity, because, as
the rabbit retires into its hole, so we would burrow deep into
our pride and show neither resentment nor sense of honor. As soon
as possible, word came from the White House that, as the
President's speech had been written before the sinking of the
Lusitania, his remarks had no bearing on that atrocity. Pride is
a wonderful cloak for cowards, but it never saves them. Perhaps
the most amazing piece of impudence in Germany's long list was
the formal visit described by the newspapers which the German
Ambassador, Bernstorff, paid to Mr. Bryan, the Secretary--of
State, to present to our Government the formal condolence of
Germany and him self at this painful happening. Bernstorff, we
know now, planned the sinking and gave the German Government
notice by wireless just where the submarines could best destroy
the Lusitania, on that Friday afternoon.
Ten days later, Mr. Wilson sent a formal protest to Germany in
which he recalled "the humane and enlightened attitude hitherto
assumed by the Imperial German Government in matters of
international right, and particularly in regard to the freedom of
the seas"; and he professed to have "learned to recognize the
German views and the German influence in the field of
international obligation as always engaged upon the side of
justice and humanity." If Mr. Bryan had written this, no one
would have been astonished, because Mr. Bryan made no pretense of
knowing even the rudimentary facts of history; but that President
Wilson, by profession a historian, should laud, as being always
engaged in justice and humanity, the nation which, under
Frederick the Great, had stolen Silesia and dismembered Poland,
and which, in his own lifetime, had garroted Denmark, had forced
a wicked war on Austria, had trapped France by lies into another
war and robbed her of Alsace-Lorraine, and had only recently
wiped its hands, dripping with blood drawn from the Chinese, was
amazing! Small wonder if after that, the German hyphenates lifted
up their heads arrogantly in this country, or that the Kaiser in
Germany believed that the United States was a mere jelly-fish
nation which would tolerate any enormity he might concoct. This
was the actual comfort President Wilson's message gave Germany.
The negative result was felt among the Allied nations which,
struggling against the German Monster like Laocoon in the coils
of the Python, took Mr. Wilson's praise of Germany's imaginary
love of justice and humanity as a death-warrant for themselves.
They could not believe that he who wrote such words, or the
American people who swallowed them, could ever be roused to give
succor to the Allies in their desperation.
Three years later I asked Roosevelt what he would have done, if
he had been President in May, 1915. He said, in substance, that,
as soon as he had read in the New York newspaper* the
advertisement which Bernstorff had inserted warning all American
citizens from taking passage on the Lusitania, he would have sent
for Bernstorff and asked him whether the advertisement was
officially acknowledged by him. Even Bernstorff, arch-liar that
he was, could not have denied it. "I should then have sent to the
Department of State to prepare his passports; I should have
handed them to him and said, 'You will sail on the Lusitania
yourself next Friday; an American guard will see you on board,
and prevent your coming ashore.' The breaking off of diplomatic
relations with Germany," Roosevelt added, "would probably have
meant war, and we were horribly unprepared. But better war, than
submission to a humiliation which no President of this country
has ever before allowed; better war a thousand times, than to let
the Germans go on really making war upon us at sea, and
honeycombing the American people with plots on land, while our
Government shamelessly lavishes praise on the criminal for his
justice and humanity and virtually begs his pardon."
* The advertisement was printed in the New York Times of April
23, 1915.
Thus believed Roosevelt in the Lusitania crisis, and many others
of us agreed with him. The stopping of German intrigues here, the
breaking-off of diplomatic relations, would have been of
inestimable benefit to this country. It would have caused every
American to rally to the country's defense. It would have forced
the reluctant Administration to prepare a navy and an army. It
would have sifted the patriotic sheep from the sneaking and
spying goats. It would have brought immense comfort to the Allies
and corresponding despondency to the Huns. For Germany plunged
into the war believing that England would remain neutral. When
England came in, to redeem her word of honor, Germany's frantic
purpose was to have us keep neutral and supply her with food and
munitions. Had she known that there was any possibility of our
actively joining the Allies, she would have hastened to make
peace. Our first troops could have reached France in the early
spring of 1916. They would not have been, of course, shock
troops, but their presence in France would have been an assurance
to the Allies that we were coming with all our force, and the
Germans would soon have understood that this meant their doom. By
the summer of 1916, the war would have been over.
Think what this implies! Two years and a half of fighting would
never have taken place. At least three million lives among the
Allied armies would have been saved. Russia would have been
spared revolution, chaos, Bolshevism. Some, at least, of the
myriads of massacred Armenians would not have been slain.
Thousands of square miles of devastated territory would not have
been spoiled. A hundred billions of dollars for equipping and
carrying on the war would never have been spent. All this is not
an idle dream; it is the calm statement of what would probably
have happened if President Wilson, after the Lusitania outrage,
had dared to break with Germany. History will hold him
accountable for those millions of lives sacrificed, for the
unspeakable suffering which the people of the ravaged regions had
to endure, for the dissolution of Russia, which threatened to
throw down the bases of our civilization, and for the waste of
incalculable treasure. President Wilson's apologists assert that
the country was not ready for him to take any resolute attitude
towards Germany in May, 1915. They argue that if he had attempted
to do so there would have been great internal dissension, perhaps
even civil war, and especially that the German sections would
have opposed preparations for war so stubbornly as to have made
them impossible. This is pure assumption. The truth is that
whenever or wherever an appeal was made to American patriotism,
it met with an immediate response. The sinking of the Lusitania
created such a storm of horror and indignation that if the
President had lifted a finger, the manhood of America, and the
womanhood, too, would have risen to back him up. But instead of
lifting a finger, he wrote that message to Germany, praising the
Germans for their traditional respect for justice and humanity.
And a long time had yet to pass before he made the least sign of
encouragement to those Americans who would uphold the honor of
the United States and would have this, the greatest of Republics,
take its due part in defending Democracy against the Huns'
attempt to wipe Democracy off the earth forever.
Having missed his opportunity then, Mr. Wilson could of course
plead that the country was less and less inclined to go to war,
because he furnished the pro-German plotters the very respite
they had needed for carrying on their work. By unavowed ways they
secured a strong support among the members of the National House
of Representatives and the Senate. They disguised themselves as
pacifists, and they found it easy to wheedle the "lunatic fringe"
of native pacifists into working for the domination of William of
Hohenzollern over the United States, and for the establishing of
his world dominion. The Kaiser's propagandists spread evil
arguments to justify all the Kaiser's crimes, and they found
willing disciples even among the members of the Administration to
repeat and uphold these arguments.
They told us, for instance, that their massacre served the
victims of the Lusitania right for taking passage on a British
steamship. They even wished to pass a law forbidding Americans
from traveling on the ocean at all, because, by doing so, they
might be blown up by the Germans, and that would involve this
country in diplomatic difficulties with Germany. Next, the
Germans protested against our selling munitions of war to the
Allies. Neither custom nor international law forbade doing this,
and the protest stood out in :stark impudence when it came from
Germany, the country which, for fifty years and more, had sold
munitions to every one who asked and had not hesitated to sell
impartially to both antagonists in the Russo-Japanese War. By
playing on the sentimentality of this same "lunatic fringe," the
German intriguers almost succeeded in driving through a bill to
stop this traffic. They knew the true Prussian way of whimpering
when bullying did not avail them. And so they not only whimpered
about our sending shells over to kill- the German soldiers, but
they whimpered also over the dire effects which the Allied
blockade produced upon the non-combatant population of Germany.
These things went on, not only a whole year, but far into the
second after the sinking of the Lusitania. Roosevelt never
desisted from charging that the person ultimately responsible for
them was President Wilson, and he believed that the President's
apparent self-satisfaction would avail him little when he stands
at the bar of History.
It may be that an entire people may lose for a time its sense of
logic. We have just had the most awful proof that, through a
long-continued and deliberate education for that purpose, the
German people lost its moral sense and set up diabolical
standards in place of those common to all civilized races. We
know that religious hysteria has at different times, like the
influenza, swept over a nation, or that a society has lost its
taste for generations together in art, and in poetry. We remember
that the Witchcraft Delusion obsessed our ancestors. It is not
impossible, therefore, that between 194 and 1918 the American
people passed through a stage in which it threw logic to the
winds. This would account at least for its infatuation for
President Wilson, in spite of his undisguised inconsistencies and
appalling blunders. A people who thought logic ally and kept
certain principles steadily before it, could hardly otherwise
have tolerated Mr. Wilson's "too-proud-to-fight" speech, and his
message to Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania, or his
subsequent endeavor to make the Americans think that there was no
choice between the causes for which the Allies and the Teutons
were fighting. Was it not he who said that Europe was war-mad,
and that America had better mind her own business, and look the
other way? Did he not declare that we were forced into war, and
then that we were not? That a President of the United States
should assert or even insinuate these things during the great War
for Humanity -and by Humanity I mean every trait, every advance
which has lifted men above the level of the beast, where they
originated, to the level of the human with its potential ascent
to heights undreamed of--is amazing now: what will it be a
generation hence?
Roosevelt watched impatiently while these strange phases passed
before him. He listened angrily at the contradictory utterances.
He felt the ignominy of our country's being at such a depth. He
knew Germany too well to suppose that she could be deterred by
President Wilson's messages. He saw something comic in shaking a
long fore-finger and saying, "Tut, tut! I shall consider being
very harsh, if you commit these outrages three more times.." To
shake your fist at all, and then to shake your finger, seemed to
Roosevelt almost imbecile. Cut off from serving the cause of
American patriotism in any public capacity, Roosevelt struggled
to take his part by writing. Every month in the Outlook, and
subsequently in the Metropolitan Magazine, he gave vent to his
pent-up indignation. The very titles of some of his papers reveal
his animus: "Fear God and Take Your Own Part"; "A Sword for
Defense"; "America First: A Phrase or a Fact?"; "Uncle Sam's Only
Friend is Uncle Sam"; "Dual Nationality"; "Preparedness." In each
of these he poured forth with unflagging vehemence the
fundamental verities on which our American society should rest.
He showed that it was not a mere competition in letter-writing
between the honey-worded Mr. Wilson and the sophisticated
Bernstorff or the Caliban-sly Bethmann Hollweg, but that God was
in the crisis, and that no adroitness of phrase or trick of
diplomacy could get rid of Him. He showed that there could not be
two kinds of Americans: one genuine, which believed wholly and
singly in the United States, and the other cunning and mongrel,
which swore allegiance to the United States--lip service--and
kept its allegiance to Germany--heart service. He lost no
opportunity to make his illustrations clear. On resigning as
Secretary of State after the sinking of the Lusitania, because
President Wilson insisted on mildly calling Germany's attention
to that crime, Mr. Bryan addressed a large audience of Germans.
Then Roosevelt held him up to the gaze of the American people as
a man who had no true Americanism. Lest I should be suspected of
misinterpreting or exaggerating Roosevelt's opinion of President
Wilson, during the first two years of the war, I quote two or
three passages, taken at random, which will prove, I hope, that I
have summarized him truly. He says, for instance:
Professional pacifists of the type of Messrs. Bryan, Jordan, and
Ford, who in the name of peace preach doctrines that would entail
not merely utter infamy, but utter disaster to their own country,
never in practice venture to denounce concrete wrong by dangerous
wrongdoers .... These professional pacifists, through President
Wilson, have forced the country into a path of shame and dishonor
during the past eighteen months. Thanks to President Wilson, the
most powerful of Democratic nations has refused to recognize the
binding moral force of international public law. Our country has
shirked its clear duty. One outspoken and straightforward
declaration by this government against the dreadful iniquities
perpetrated in Belgium, Armenia, and Servia would have been worth
to humanity a thousand times as much as all that the professional
pacifists have done in the past fifty years .... Fine phrases
become sickening when they represent nothing whatever but
adroitness in phrase making, with no intention of putting deeds
behind the phrases.
After the American messages in regard to the sinking of the
Lusitania had brought no apology, much less any suggestion of
redress, Roosevelt said: Apparently President Wilson has believed
that the American people would permanently forget their dead and
would slur over the dishonor and disgrace to the United States by
that basest of all the base pleas of cowardly souls which finds
expression in the statement: "Oh, well, anyhow the President kept
us out of war!" The people who make this plea assert with
quavering voices that they "are behind the President." So they
are; well behind him. The farther away from the position of duty
and honor and hazard he has backed, the farther behind him these
gentry have stood--or run.
Finally, Roosevelt stated with deadly clearness the position into
which Wilson's vacillating policy had driven us:
The United States has not a friend in the world. Its conduct,
under the leadership of its official representatives, for the
last five years and, above all, for the last three years, has
deprived it of the respect and has secured for it the contempt of
every one of the great civilized nations of mankind. Peace
treaties and windy Fourth-of-July eloquence and the base
materialism which seeks profit as an incident to the abandonment
of duty will not help us now. For five years our rulers at
Washington have believed that all this people cared for was easy
money, absence of risk and effort, and sounding platitudes which
were not reduced to action. We have so acted as to convince other
nations that in very truth we are too proud to fight; and the man
who is too proud to fight is in practice always treated as just
proud enough to be kicked. We have held our peace when our women
and children were slain. We have turned away our eyes from the
sight of our brother's woe.
"He kept us out of war," was a paradoxical battle-cry for one who
in a very short time thereafter wished to pose as the winner of
the greatest war in history.
But the battle-cry, it turned out, was used chiefly for political
purposes. The year 1916 was a Presidential year and his opponents
suspected that every thing President Wilson had done at home or
abroad had been planned by him with a view to the effect which it
might have on his reelection. Politicians of all parties saw that
the war was the vital question to be decided by the political
campaign. For the Democrats, Wilson was, of course, the only
candidate; but the Republicans and the Progressives had their own
schism to settle. First of all, they must attempt to reunite and
to present a candidate whom both factions would support; if they
did not, the catastrophe of 1912 would be repeated, and Wilson
would again easily win against two warring Progressive and
Republican candidates. The elections in 194 showed that the
Progressive Party was disintegrating. Should its leaders strive
now to revive its strength or should they bow to the inevitable,
combine with the Republicans on a satisfactory candidate, and
urge all the Progressives as a patriotic duty to support him?
All depended on Roosevelt's decision. After reflection, he
consented to run for nomination by the Progressives. It soon
became plain, however, that the Republicans would not take him
back. The Machine did not want him on any terms: many of the
Republicans blinding themselves to the fact that, as the number
of votes cast in 1912 proved, Taft and not he had split the
Republican Party, held Roosevelt responsible for the defeat in
that year. One heard also of some Republicans who, for lack of a
better reason, opposed Roosevelt because, they said, that
Roosevelt having put Taft into the Presidency, ought not to have
"gone back" on him. Yet these same persons, if they had taken a
partner into their firm to carry on a certain policy, and had
found him pursuing a different one, would hardly have argued that
they were in loyalty bound to continue to support this partner as
long as he chose. The consideration which weighed with a much
larger number, however, was that Roosevelt had so antagonized the
German vote and the Pacifist vote and all the other anti-American
votes, that he might not be a winning candidate. Accordingly, the
Republicans sought for somebody who would please everybody, and
yet would have enough personal strength to be a leader. They
pitched on Charles E. Hughes, former Governor of New York State,
and then a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The
unwisdom of going to the Supreme Bench for a standard-bearer was
immediately apparent; because all the proprieties prevented
justice Hughes from expressing any opinion on political subjects
until he resigned from the Court. Hence, it followed that no
great enthusiasm could be aroused over his candidacy for
nomination since nobody knew what his policy would be.
The Progressives held their Convention in Chicago on June 5th,
the same day that the Republicans met there. Some of the
original, Simon-Pure Progressives disapproved of this collusion,
declaring that it represented a "deal," and that the Progressive
Party, which had come into existence as a rebuke of Machine
politics, ought never to soil itself by entering into a "deal."
Nevertheless, the will of the more worldly-minded prevailed, and
they probably thought that there would be a better chance to have
the Republicans nominate Roosevelt if he were already the nominee
of the Progressives. But they were disappointed. They nominated
Roosevelt and the Republicans Justice Hughes. Suspense followed
as to whether Roosevelt, by accepting, would oblige the
Progressives to organize another campaign. He sent only a
conditional acceptance to the Progressive Committee and, a few
days later, he announced publicly that he would support justice
Hughes, because he regarded the defeat of Wilson as the most
vital object before the American people. I find among my
correspondence from him a reply to a letter of mine in which I
had quite needlessly urged this action upon him. I quote this
passage because it epitomizes what might be expanded over many
pages. The letter is dated June 16, 1916:
I agree entirely with you. I shall do all I can for Mr. Hughes.
But don't forget that Mr. Hughes alone can make it possible for
me to be efficient in his behalf. If he merely speaks like Mr.
Wilson, only a little more weakly, he will rob my support of its
effectiveness. Speeches such as those of mine, to which you
kindly allude, have their merit only if delivered for a man who
is himself speaking uncompromisingly and without equivocation. I
have just sent word to Hughes through one of our big New York
financiers to make a smashing attack on Wilson for his actions,
and to do it immediately, in connection with this Democratic
Nominating Convention. Wilson was afraid of me. He never dared
answer me; but if Hughes lets him, he will proceed to take the
offensive against Hughes. I shall do everything I can for him,
but don't forget that the efficiency of what I do must largely
depend upon Hughes.
Roosevelt was as good as his word, and made four or five powerful
speeches in behalf of Mr. Hughes, speeches which gave a sharper
edge to the Republicans' fight. But their campaign was obviously
mismanaged. They put their candidate to the torture of making two
transcontinental journeys, in which he had to speak incessantly,
and they warned him against uttering any downright criticism of
the anti-American throng, whose numbers being unknown were
feared. President Wilson, on the other hand, unexpectedly flared
up in a retort which doubtless won votes for him. Jeremiah
O'Leary, an Irish agitator in relations with the German
propagandists, tried to catch Mr. Wilson in a pro-British snare.
The President replied: " I would feel deeply mortified to have
you or anybody like you vote for me. Since you have access to so
many disloyal Americans, and I have not, I will ask you to convey
this message to them."
The result of the election, which took place on November 5th,
hung in suspense for many days. Then it appeared that Wilson, by
capturing thirteen California votes, had won by 277 electoral
votes to 254. for Hughes. Of the popular vote, Wilson got
9,128,00 and Hughes, 8,536,000. So the slogan, "He kept us out of
war," accomplished its purpose.
CHAPTER XXV. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND
During the winter of 1916-17, Roosevelt never relaxed his
criticism of President Wilson's dilatory and evasive policy, or
his efforts to arouse the American people to a sense of their
duty to civilization. By this time the President himself felt
that it was safe for him to speak up in behalf of Americanism.
The year before, Roosevelt having been assured that it would be
dangerous to make American and pro-Ally speeches in the Middle
West, went straight to the so-called German cities, and was most
enthusiastically received where it had been predicted he would be
hooted and even mobbed. President Wilson ventured to follow him
some time later, and suffered no harm. By the summer of 1916 he
became almost reckless, as it seemed, in his utterances. He said
to the graduating cadets at West Point: "My conception of America
is a conception of infinite dignity, along with quiet,
unquestionable power. I ask you, gentlemen, to join with me in
that conception, and let us all in our several spheres be
soldiers together to realize it."* Once he declared that he too
came of fighting blood. Meanwhile, how ever, the German
submarines went on sinking ships; Bernstorff made his frequent
calls of studied impudence at the White House; German agents blew
up munitions factories and the warehouses where shells were
stored before shipment; and the process of spreading Prussian
gangrene throughout our country went on unchecked.
* July 14, 1916.
Worse than this, the military situation in Europe was almost
disheartening. Imperial Russia had disappeared and the Germans
were preparing to carve up the vast amorphous Russian carcass.
Having driven their way through the Balkans to Constantinople
they were on the point of opening their boasted direct route from
Berlin to Bagdad. England, France and Italy began to feel
war-weary. The German submarines threatened to cut off their
supplies of food, and unless the Allied countries could be
succored they might be starved into making peace. When they
looked across the Atlantic they beheld this mighty Republic
leaving them in the lurch, too busy piling up millions of dollars
drawn from the Allies in their distress to heed that distress,
and drugging their compunctions, if they had any, by saying to
themselves that a nation may be "too proud to fight," and that
they had the best authority for remembering that they must remain
"neutral even in thought."
I need not describe in detail what Roosevelt thought of this. He
himself expressed his scorn for making war by rhetoric. He knew
that a man may boast of coming of fighting blood, and come so
late that all the fighting quality in the blood has evaporated.
Could not many of the Pacifists trace back to Revolutionary and
to Puritan ancestors, who fought as they prayed, without
hesitation or doubt, for the Lord of Hosts? They could, and their
present attitude simply made their shame the greater. The Colonel
had said very early in the conflict: "I do not believe that the
firm assertion of our rights means war, but in any event, it is
well to remember there are things worse than war." In 1917 he
declared: "For two years after the Lusitania was sunk, we
continued to fawn on the blood-stained murderers of our people,
we were false to ourselves and we were false to the cause of
right and of liberty and democracy through out the world." He
kept hammering at our need of preparation. He told a great
audience at Detroit:* "We first hysterically announced that we
would not prepare because we were afraid that preparation might
make us lose our vantage-ground as a peace loving people. Then we
became frightened and announced loudly that we ought to prepare;
that the world was on fire; that our national structure was in
danger of catching aflame; and that we must immediately make
ready. Then we turned an other somersault and abandoned all talk
of preparedness; and we never did anything more than talk."
* May 9,1916.
At last, at the beginning of 1917, the German truculence became
too great even for President Wilson to palliate. The Kaiser,
whose atrocious submarine policy had already failed, decided that
it could be made to succeed by increasing its horror. He proposed
to sink indiscriminately all ships, whether neutral or enemy; but
out of his Imperial generosity he would allow the Americans to
send one ship a week to Falmouth, England, provided it followed a
certain line marked out by him on the chart, flew a certain flag,
and was painted a color which he specified. As late as December
18, 1916, the President had put forth a message only less
startling than his "too-proud-to-fight" dictum, in which he
announced that the warring world must plan for a "peace without
victory" if it would hope to end the war at all. "Peace without
victory" would mean, of course, a peace favorable to Germany. But
the Germans, with characteristic stupidity, instead of using even
a specious courtesy towards the President who had been
long-suffering in their favor, immediately sent out their
"Once-a-week-to-Falmouth" order. Perhaps they thought that Mr.
Wilson would consent even to that.
President Wilson's friends have assured us that he devotes
himself to finding out what the American people wants and then in
doing it. He soon learned what the American people wanted, after
it understood the purport of the "Once-a-week-to-Falmouth" order;
and after the interchange of two or three more notes, he broke
off relations with Germany on April 6, 1917. At last, at the
eleventh hour, the United States by President Wilson's consent
joined the great alliance of free nations in their life and-death
struggle to make the world safe for Democracy. Now the President
had to prepare for war, and prepare in haste, which rendered
careful plans and economy impossible. At the start, there was
much debate over the employment of Volunteers, the rating of
Regulars, and the carrying out of a selective draft. True to his
policy of timidity and evasion President Wilson did not openly
declare war on Germany, but allowed us to drift into a state of
war; so executives who do not wish either to sign or veto a bill
let it become a law without their signatures. His Secretary of
War, Lindley M. Garrison, the only member of his Cabinet who had
marked ability, had resigned the year before, having apparently
found the official atmosphere uncongenial. At the Plattsburg
camp, commanded by General Leonard Wood, Colonel Roosevelt made a
speech of ringing patriotism and of unveiled criticism of the
lack of energy in the Administration. It was not a politic thing
to do, although there seems to have been some confusion between
what the Colonel said to the Volunteers in camp, and what he said
that same evening to a gathering of civilians in the town. The
indiscretion, how ever, gave the Administration the opportunity
it had been waiting for; but, being unable to punish Roosevelt,
it severely reprimanded General Wood, who had not been aware of
what the Colonel intended to say. Indeed, the offensive remarks
seem to have been extemporaneous, because, as it was too dark for
him to read his prepared speech, he spoke impromptu. In any
event, Secretary Garrison had due notice that Roosevelt was to
speak, and if he had had any doubts he should have sent word to
General Wood to cancel the engagement. The Administration made as
much as it could out of this impropriety, but the public saw the
humor of it, because it knew that Secretary Garrison agreed with
Roosevelt and Wood in their crusade for preparedness.
Later, when Mr. Garrison resigned, President Wilson put Mr.
Newton D. Baker, a Pacifist, in his place, and after war came,
the military preparation and direction of the United States were
entrusted to him. But it does not belong to this biographical
sketch to narrate the story of the American conduct of the war
under the Wilson Administration.
To Roosevelt, the vital fact was that war was at hand, the great
object for which he had striven during two years and eight
months, the participation in the war which would redeem the honor
of the United States, call forth the courage of its citizens,
make Americans alone dominant in America and so purge this
Republic of the taints of pro-Germanism, of commercial greed, and
of ignoble worship of material safety, that it could take its
part again at the head of the democracies of the world. He
thanked God that his country could stand out again untarnished.
And then a great exultation came over him, as he believed that at
last he himself having put on his sword, would be allowed to join
the American army bound overseas, share its dangers and glories
in the field, and, if Fate so willed it, pay with his body the
debt of patriotism which nothing else could pay. He wrote
immediately to the War Department, offering his services and
agreeing to raise a division or more of Volunteers, to be sent to
the front with the briefest delay. But Secretary Baker replied
that without authorization by Congress, he could not accept such
bodies of Volunteers. On being pressed further, Mr. Baker replied
that the War College Division of the General Staff wished the
officers of the Regular Army to be kept at home, in order to
train new men, and then to lead the first contingents which might
go abroad.*
* The entire correspondence between General Wood and President
Wilson and Secretary Baker is given in The Foes of Our Own House
hold, by Theodore Roosevelt (Doran, New York, 1917, pp. 304-47.)
Meanwhile, at the first suggestion that Roosevelt might head a
body of troops himself, letters poured upon him from every State
in the Union, from men of all classes eager to serve under him,
and eager, in this way, to wipe out the shame which they felt the
Administration, by its delays and supineness, had put upon the
nation. Then Congress passed the Draft Law, and, on May 18,
Roosevelt appealed again, this time directly to President Wilson,
offering to raise four divisions. The President, in a public
statement, declared that purely military reasons caused him to
reject the plan. In a telegram to Colonel Roosevelt he said that
his action was "based entirely upon imperative considerations of
public policy, and not upon personal or private choice."
Roosevelt summed up the contention with this flat contradiction:
"President Wilson's reasons for refusing my offer had nothing to
do either with military considerations or with public needs."
Roosevelt issued an announcement to the men who had applied for
service under him--they were said already to number over
300,000--regretting that they could not all go together on their
country's errand, and brushing aside the insinuation of his
enemies that he was merely seeking political and selfish ends.
That is a charge, of course, to which all of our statesmen, from
Washington down, have been exposed. Its final refutation comes
from examining the entire public career and the character of the
person accused. To any one who knew what Roosevelt's life had
been, and who knew how poignantly he felt the national dangers
and humiliation of the past three years, the idea that he was
playing politics, and merely pretending to be terribly in earnest
as a patriot, is grotesque. And I believe that no greater
disappointment ever came to him than when he was prohibited from
going out to battle in 1917. Mr. Wilson and the obsolescent
members of the General Staff had obviously a plausible reason
when they said that the European War was not an affair for
amateurs; that no troops, however brave and willing, could, like
the Rough Riders in the Spanish War, be fitted for action in a
month. Only by long drill and by the coordination of all branches
of the service, organized on a vaster scale than the world had
ever seen before, and commanded by experts, could an army enter
the field with any hope of holding its own against the veteran
armies of Europe. We may accept this plea, but the fact remains
that President Wilson refused to make the very obvious use of
Roosevelt which he might have made. Roosevelt was known
throughout the world as the incarnation of Americanism. If he had
been sent to Europe in April, 19 117, when he first requested,
with only a corporal's guard to attend him, he would have been a
visible proof to the masses in England, in France, and in Italy,
that the United States had actually joined the Allies. He would
have been the forerunner of the armies that were to. follow, and
his presence would have heartened immensely the then sorely
perplexed, if not discouraged, populations which the Hun seemed
sure to overwhelm. But President Wilson had shown no desire to
employ any American on any task where he might get credit which
the President coveted for himself. In his Cabinet, his rule was
to appoint only mediocre or third-class persons, whose opinions
he did not think it necessary to consult. It was quite unlikely,
there fore, that he would give Roosevelt any chance to shine in
the service of the country, for Roosevelt was not only his
political opponent, but his most formidable critic, who had laid
bare the weakness of the Wilson regime. When Cavour was
assembling all the elements in Italy to undertake the great
struggle for Italian liberty and independence, he adroitly
secured the cooperation of Garibaldi and his followers, although
Garibaldi had declared himself the personal enemy of Cavour.
Personal enemy or not, Cavour would have him as a symbol, and
Garibaldi's concurrence proved of immense value to Italy. So
would that of Roosevelt have proved to the Allies if he had been
officially accredited by President Wilson. But Cavour was a
statesman, who looked far ahead, a patriot uninfluenced by
personal likes and dislikes. Roosevelt felt his own deprivation
mightily, but the shutting-out of General Leonard Wood roused his
anger--all injustice roused his anger. As the motive for General
Wood's exclusion was not frankly avowed, the public naturally
drew its own inferences. To him, more than to any other American,
we owed what little preparation for war existed when we entered
the war. He founded the Plattsburg Camp; he preached very
solemnly our needs and our dangers; and he did these things at
the very period when President Wilson was assuring the country
that we ought not to think of preparing. Doubtless, in 1919, Mr.
Wilson would be glad to have those sayings of his, and many
others--including the "too proud to fight," the laudation of
German "humanity and justice," the "war-mad Europe," whose
ravings did not concern us, the "peace without victory"
forgotten; but that cannot be, and they rise to accuse him now.
Macbeth did not welcome the inopportune visit of the Murderers
and of Banquo's Ghost at his banquet.
General Wood had to be disciplined for allowing Colonel Roosevelt
to make his impolitic speech to the Plattsburg Volunteers; he was
accordingly removed from his New York headquarters to the South
and then to Camp Funston in Kansas. It was even proposed to
relegate him to the Philippines. When our troops began to go to
France, he earnestly hoped to accompany them. There were whispers
that he was physically unfit for the stress of active war: but
the most diligent physical examination by Army surgeons who would
have overlooked no defects, showed him to be a man of astonishing
health and vigor, as sound as hickory. On the technical side, the
best military experts regarded him as the best general officer in
the American Army. Nevertheless, in spite of his physical and
military qualifications, President Wilson rejected him. Why? The
unsympathetic asserted that Mr. Wilson took care to assign no
conspicuous officer to service abroad who might win laurels which
would bring him forward as a Presidential possibility in 1920. On
the other hand, cynics, remembering the immemorial jealousy
between the Regulars and Volunteers in both the Army and Navy,
declared that an outsider like General Wood, who had not come
into the Army through West Point, could expect no fairer
treatment from the Staff which his achievements and irregular
promotion had incensed. History may be trusted to judge equitably
on whom to place the blame. But as Americans recede from the
event, their amazement will increase that any personal pique or
class jealousy should have deprived the United States from using
the soldier best equipped for war at the point where war was
raging.*
* In June, 1915, Colonel Paul Azan, who came to this country to
command the French officers who taught American Volunteers at
Harvard, and subsequently was commissioned by the French
Government to oversee the work of all the French officers in the
United States, told me that the Camp and Division commanded by
General Wood were easily the best in the country and that General
Wood was the only General we had who in knowledge and efficiency
came up to the highest French standard. Colonel Azan added that
he was suggesting to the French War Department to invite the
United States Government to send General Wood to France, but this
request, if ever made, was not followed.
While Roosevelt could not denounce the Administration for
debarring himself from military service abroad, he could, and
did, attack it for its treatment of General Wood, treatment which
both did injustice to a brave and very competent soldier and
deprived our Army in its need of a precious source of strength.
Perhaps he drew some grim amusement from the banal utterances of
the Honorable Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, whom he
frequently referred to with appropriate comment. Two months after
we entered the war, Mr. Baker issued an official bulletin in
which he admitted the "difficulty, disorder, and confusion in
getting things started, but," he said, "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. Accustomed to peace, we were not ready."*
Could any one, except a very young child at a soap-bubble party
in the nursery, have spoken thus? But Mr. Baker was not a very
young child, he was a Pacifist; he did not write from a nursery,
but from the War Department of the United States. In the
following October he announced with undisguised
self-satisfaction: "We are well on the way to the battle-field."
This was too much for Roosevelt, who wrote: "For comparison with
this kind of military activity we must go back to the days of
Tiglath Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh. The United States
should adopt the standard of speed in war which belongs to the
twentieth century A.D.; we should not be content with, and still
less boast about, standards which were obsolete in the
seventeenth century B.C."
*Official War Bulletin, June 7, 1917.
Roosevelt had now made a contract with the Metropolitan Magazine
to furnish to it a monthly article on any topic he chose, and he
was also writing for the Kansas City Stay frequent, and often
daily, editorial articles. Through these he gave vent to his
passionate patriotism and the reader who wishes to measure both
the variety and the vigor of his polemics at this time should
look through the files of those journals. But this work by no
means limited his activity. As occasion stirred him, he
dispatched his communications to other journals. He wrote
letters, which were really elaborated arguments, to chance
correspondents, and he made frequent addresses. The necessity of
hurrying on the preparation of our army and of backing up our
troops with undivided enthusiasm were his main theme. But he
delivered himself on other subjects almost equally important. He
paid his respects to the "Conscientious Objector," and he
insisted at all times that "Murder is not debatable." "Murder is
murder," he wrote Professor Felix Frankfurter, "and it is rather
more evil when committed in the name of a professed social
movement." * Mr. Frankfurter was then acting, by appointment of
President Wilson, as counsel to a Mediation Commission, which was
dealing with recent crimes of the Industrial Workers of the
World. Anarchists, when arrested, had a suspicious way of
professing that they espoused anarchism only as a "philosophical"
theory. Roosevelt branded several of the palliators of
these--"the Hearsts and La Follettes and Bergers and Hillquits,"
and others--as reactionaries, as the "Bolsheviki of America," who
really abetted the violent criminals by pleading for leniency for
them on the ground that after all they were only "philosophical"
theorists. Roosevelt was not fooled by any such plea. "When you,"
he told Mr. Frankfurter, "as representing President Wilson, find
yourself obliged to champion men of this stamp [the
"philosophical" criminals], you ought by unequivocal affirmative
action to make it evident that you are sternly against their
general and habitual line of conduct."
* December 19, 1917. Letter printed in full in the Boston Herald,
June 6, 1919.
So Roosevelt pursued, without resting, his campaign to stimulate
the patriotic zeal of his country men and to rebuke the delays
and blunders of the Administration. If any one had said that he
was making rhetoric a substitute for warfare--the accusation with
which he charged President Wilson--he would have replied that
Wilson condemned him to use the pen instead of the sword.
Forbidden to go himself, he felt supreme satisfaction in the
going of all his four sons, and of his son-in-law, Dr. Richard
Derby. They did honor to the Roosevelt name. Theodore, Jr.,
became a Lieutenant-Colonel, Kermit and Archibald became
Captains; and Quentin, the youngest, a Lieutenant of Aviation,
was killed in an air battle.
Roosevelt was prevented from fighting in France, indeed, but he
was gratified to learn from good authority that his efforts in
the spring of 1917 to secure a commission and lead troops over
seas were the immediate cause of the sending of any American
troops. President Wilson, it was reported had no intention, when
we went to war, of risking American lives over there, and the
leisurely plans which he made for creating and training an army
seemed to confirm this report. But Roosevelt's insistence and the
great mass of volunteers who begged to be allowed to join his
divisions, if they were organized, awakened the President to the
fact that the American people expected our country to give valid
military support to the Allies, at death-grapple with the Hun.
The visit in May, 1917, of a French Mission with Marshal Joffre
at its head, and of an English Mission under Mr. Arthur Balfour,
and their plain revelation of the dire distress of the French and
British armies, forced Mr. Wilson to promise immediate help; for
Joffre and Balfour made him under stand that unless help came
soon, it would come too late. So President Wilson, who hoped to
go down in history as the Peacemaker of the World War, and as the
organizer of an American Army, which, without shedding a drop of
blood, had brought peace about, was compelled to send the only
too willing American soldiers, by the hundred thousand and the
million, to join the Allied veterans in France.
Persons who do not penetrate beneath the flickering surfaces of
life, regard these last years of Roosevelt's as an anticlimax
which he passed in eclipse; as if they were the eight lean and
overshadowed years, following the splendid decade in which as
Governor and President he had the world's admiration and consent.
But this view wholly misconceives him. It takes a man who had
proved himself to be the greatest moral force in the public life
of the world, and drops him when he steps down from the seat of
power. Now, of course, Theodore Roosevelt did not require to walk
on a high platform or to sit in the equivalent of a throne in
order to be Roosevelt; and if we would read the true meaning of
his life we must understand, that the years which followed 1910
were the culmination and crown of all that went before. He was a
fighter from the days when, as a little boy, he fought the
disease which threatened to make his existence puny and crippled.
He was a fighter, and from his vantage-ground as President, he
fought so valiantly that the world took notice and he brought new
ideals into the hearts of the American people. He was just as
brave and resourceful and tenacious a fighter when he led the
forlorn hope, as when he marched at the head of the Nation in his
campaigns against corruption and the mercenaries of Mammon.
During these later years he gave up everything - his ease, his
probable restoration to power, the friendships that were very
dear to him, even his party which no longer, as he thought,
followed the path of righteousness, or desired righteous ends -
for the Cause to which he had been dedicated since youth. Analyze
his acts at any period, and you will find that they were
determined by his loyalty to that Cause.
And how could so great a soul exercise itself to the full, except
by grappling with adversity? The prosperous days seemed to fit
him like a skin, but only in these days of apparent thwarting and
disappointment could he show himself equal to any blows of Fate.
At first he struggled magnificently against crushing odds, asking
no allowances and no favors. He founded and led the Progressive
Party and, in 1912, received the most amazing popular tribute in
our history. And he would have pushed on his work for that party
had not the coming of the World War changed his perspective.
Thenceforth, he devoted himself to saving civilization from the
reptilian and atrocious Hun; that was a task, in comparison with
which the fortune of a political party sank out of sight.
His work demanded of him to rouse his country men from the apathy
and indifference which a timid Administration breathed upon it,
and from the lethargic slumber into which the pro-Germans drugged
it. During four years, his was the one voice in the United States
which could not be silenced. He was listened to everywhere. Men
might agree with him or not, but they listened to him, and they
trusted him. Never for a moment did they suspect that he was
slyly working for the enemy, or for special interests here or
abroad.
He, the supreme American, spoke for America and for the
civilization which he believed America fulfilled. His attacks on
the delays and the incompetence, on the faint-heartedness and
contradictions of the Administration had no selfish object. His
heart was wrenched by the humiliation into which the honor of the
United States had been dragged. The greatest patriotic service
which he could render was to lift it out of that slough, and he
did. The best evidence that he was right lies in the fact that
President Wilson, tardily, reluctantly, adopted, one by one,
Roosevelt's demands. He rejected Preparedness, when it could have
been attained with comparative leisure; he accepted it, when it
had to be driven through at top speed. And so of the other
vitally necessary things. He ceased to warn Americans that they
must be neutral "even in thought"; he ceased to comfort them by
the assurance that a nation may be "too proud to fight"; he
ceased to extol the "justice and humanity of the Germans." That
he suffered these changes was owing to the fact that American
public opinion, largely influenced by Roosevelt's word and
example, would not tolerate them any more. And President Wilson,
when he can, follows public opinion.
Roosevelt took personal pleasure in the bridging of the chasm
which had opened between him and his former party intimates. On
neither side was there recantation, but they could unite again on
the question of the War and America's duty towards it, which
swallowed up partisan grievances. Many of the old time
Republicans who had broken politically from Roosevelt in 1912,
remained devoted personal friends, and they tried to reunite him
and the discordant fragments. One of these friends was Colonel
Robert Bacon, whom every one loved and trusted, a born
conciliator. He it was who brought Roosevelt and Senator Root
together, after more than five years' estrangement. He gave a
luncheon, at which they and General Leonard Wood met, and they
all soon fell into the old-time familiarity. Roosevelt urged
vehemently his desire to go to France, and said that he would go
as a private if he could not lead a regiment; that he was willing
to die in France for the Cause. At which Mr. Root, with his
characteristic wit, said: "Theodore, if you will promise to die
there, Wilson will give you any commission you want, tomorrow."
Roosevelt never fully recovered from the infection which the
fever he caught in Brazil left in his system. It manifested
itself in different ways and the one thing certain was that it
could not be cured. He paid little attention to it except when it
actually sent him to bed. In the winter of 1918, it caused so
serious an inflammation of the mastoid that he was taken to the
hospital and had to undergo an operation. For several days his
life hung by a thread. But, on his recovery, he went about as
usual, and the public was scarcely aware of his lowered
condition. He wrote and spoke, and seemed to be acting with his
customary vigor. That summer, however, on July 14th, his youngest
son, Quentin, First Lieutenant in the 95th American Aero
Squadron, was killed in an air battle near Chambray, France. The
lost child is the dearest. Roosevelt said nothing, but he never
got over Quentin's loss. No doubt he often asked, in silence, why
he, whose sands were nearly run, had not been taken and the
youth, who had a lifetime to look forward to, had not been
spared. The day after the news came, the New York State
Republican Convention met at Saratoga. Roosevelt was to address
it, and he walked up the aisle without hesitating, and spoke from
the platform as if he had no thoughts in his heart, except the
political and patriotic exhortation which he poured out. He
passed a part of the summer with his daughter, Mrs. Derby, on the
coast of Maine; and in the early autumn, at Carnegie Hall, he
made his last public speech, in behalf of Governor Whitman's
candidacy. A little after this, he appeared for the last time in
public at a meeting in honor of a negro hospital unit. In a few
days another outbreak of the old infection caused his removal to
the Roosevelt Hospital. The date was November 11th,--the day when
the Armistice was signed. He remained at the hospital until
Christmas Eve, often suffering acutely from inflammatory
rheumatism, the name the physicians gave to the new form the
infection took. He saw his friends for short intervals, he
followed the news, and even dictated letters on public subjects,
but his family understood that his marvelous physical strength
was being sadly exhausted. He longed to be taken home to Sagamore
Hill, and when his doctor allowed him to go home, he was greatly
cheered.
To spend Christmas there, with his family, even though he had to
spend it very quietly, delighted him. For ten days he seemed to
be gaining, he read much, and dictated a good deal. On January
5th, he reviewed a book on pheasants and wrote also a little
message to be read at the meeting of the American Defense
Society, which he was unable to attend. That evening he spent
with the family, going to bed at eleven o'clock. "Put out the
light, please," he said to his attendant, James Amos, and no one
heard his voice again. A little after four o'clock the next
morning, Amos, noticing that he breathed strangely, called the
nurse, and when they reached his bedside, Roosevelt was dead. A
blood clot in his heart had killed him. Death had unbound
Prometheus.
By noon on that day, the 6th of January, 1919, the whole world
knew of his death, and as the news sank in, the sense of an
unspeakable void was felt everywhere. He was buried on January
8th, on a knoll in the small country graveyard, which he and Mrs.
Roosevelt had long before selected, overlooking Oyster Bay and
the waters of the Sound. His. family and relatives and dear
friends, and a few persons who represented State and Nation, the
Rough Riders, and learned societies, attended the services in the
little church. Just as the coffin was being borne in, the sun
came out and streamed through the stained-glass windows. "The
services were most impressive in their simplicity, in their sense
of intimacy, in the sentiment that filled the hour and the place
of personal loss and of pride of possession of a priceless
memory." The bearers took the coffin through the grove, with its
bare trees and light sifting of snow, to the grave; and as it was
committed, there were many sobs and tears of old and young. Rough
Riders, who had fought by his side, cabinet ministers who had
served with him, companions of his work and of his playtime, were
all mourners now, and some of those men of affairs, who had done
their utmost to wreck him eight years before, now knew that they
had loved him, and they grieved as they realized what America and
the world had lost. "Death had to take him sleeping," said
Vice-President Marshall; "for if Roosevelt had been awake, there
would have been a fight."
---------------
The evil men do lives after them; so does the good. With the
passing of years, a man's name and fame either drift into
oblivion, or they are seen in their lasting proportions. You must
sail fifty miles over the Ionian Sea and look back before you can
fully measure the magnitude and majesty of Mount Aetna.
Not otherwise, I believe, will it be with Theodore Roosevelt,
when the people of the future look back upon him. The blemishes
due to misunderstanding will have faded away; the transient
clouds will have vanished; the world will see him as he was.
I do not mean that it will reduce him to an abstraction of
perfection, as ill-judged worshipers of George Washington
attempted to do with him. Theodore Roosevelt was so vastly human,
that no worshiper can make him abstract and retain recognizable
features. We have reached the time when we will not suffer
anybody to turn our great ones into gods or demigods, and to
remove them far from us to dwell, like absentee deities, on a
remote Olympus, or in an unimaginable Paradise; we must have them
near, intimates whom our souls can converse with, and our hearts
love. Such an intimate was Roosevelt living, and such an intimate
will he be dead. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt--those are the
three whom Americans will cherish and revere; each of them a
leader and representative and example in a structural crisis in
our national life.
Those of us who knew him, knew him as the most astonishing human
expression of the Creative Spirit we had ever seen. His manifold
talents, his protean interests, his tireless energy, his
thunderbolts which he did not let loose, as well as those he did,
his masterful will sheathed in self-control like a sword in its
scabbard, would have rendered him superhuman, had he not
possessed other qualities which made him the best of playmates
for mortals. He had humor, which raises every one to the same
level. He had loyalty, which bound his friends to him for life.
He had sympathy, and capacity for strong, deep love. How tender
he was with little children! How courteous with women! No matter
whether you brought to him important things or trifles, he
understood.
I can think of no vicissitude in life in which Roosevelt's
participation would not have been welcome. If it were danger,
there could be no more valiant comrade than he; if it were sport,
he was a sports man; if it were mirth, he was a fountain of
mirth, crystal pure and sparkling. He would have sailed with
Jason on the ship Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece, and he
would have written a vivid description of the adventure. I can
imagine the delight he would have taken, as the comrade of
Ulysses, on his voyage through the Midland Sea, looking with
unjaded curiosity on strange towns and into strange faces, and
steering fearlessly out to the Hesperides, and beyond the baths
of all the western stars. What a Crusader he would have been! How
he would have smitten the Paynim with his sword, and then
unvisored and held chivalrous interview with Saladin!
Had he companioned Columbus, he would not have been one of those
who murmured and besought the great Admiral to turn back, but
would have counseled, "On! On! 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." I can see him with the voyageurs of New
France, exploring the Canadian Wilderness, and the rivers and
forests of the North west. I can see him with Lasalle, beaming
with exultation as they looked on the waters of the Mississippi;
and I can think of no battle for man's welfare in which he would
not have felt at home. But he would have taken equal, perhaps
greater, delight in meeting the authors, sages, and statesmen,
whose words were his daily joy, and whose deeds were his study
and incentive. I can hear him question Thucydides for further
details as to the collapse of the Athenians at Syracuse; or
cross-examine Herodotus for information of some of his incredible
but fascinating stories. What hours he would have spent in
confabulation with Gibbon! What secrets he would have learned,
without asking questions, from Napoleon and Cavour!
His interest embraced them all, some of them he could have
taught, many of them would have welcomed him as their peer. As he
mixed with high and low in his lifetime, so would it have been in
the past; and so will it be in the future, if he has gone into a
world where personal identity continues, and the spiritual
standards and ideals of this world persist. But yesterday, he
seemed one who embodied Life to the utmost. With the assured step
of one whom nothing can frighten or surprise, he walked our
earth, as on granite. Suddenly, the granite grew more
unsubstantial than a bubble, and he dropped beyond sight into the
Eternal Silence. Happy we who had such a friend! Happy the
American Republic which bore such a son!
THE END
Mr. John Woodbury, Secretary of the Harvard Class of 1880, in
sending to his classmates a notice of Theodore Roosevelt's death
on January 6, 1919, added this quotation from the second part of
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress:"
"After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant for-truth was
taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this
for a token that the summons was true, 'That his pitcher was
broken at the fountain.' When he understood it, he called for his
friends and told them of it. Then he said, 'I am going to my
Father's, and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet
now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to
arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me
in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get
it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me
that I have fought His battles who now will be my rewarder.'"
End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Theodore Roosevelt by
William Roscoe Thayer.
