Theodore Roosevelt and the Divided Character of American Nationalism Author(S): Gary Gerstle Source: the Journal of American History, Vol

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Theodore Roosevelt and the Divided Character of American Nationalism Author(s): Gary Gerstle Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 3, The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History: A Special Issue (Dec., 1999), pp. 1280-1307 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2568615 . Accessed: 19/01/2015 10:12

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This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TheodoreRoosevelt and theDivided Characterof AmericanNationalism

GaryGerstle

Anyexamination of American nationalism must, sooner or later, contend with its con- tradictorycharacter. On theone hand,it offersa civiccreed promising all Americans the same individualrights irrespective of color,religion, or sex. That creedhas stronglyinfluenced American politics and society,imparting social cohesionto a sprawling,heterogeneous population and inspiringcountless democratic movements. On the otherhand, American nationalism has long harboredracial ideologies that definethe United States and itsmission in ethnoracialways and havesought to prove Americanracial superiority through economic might and militaryconquest. As Rog- ers Smith,Matthew Jacobson, and othershave shown,racialized constructions of Americannationalism were present from the early days of theRepublic: in theCon- stitutionitself, which legalized slavery, and in a 1790 lawdeclaring that naturalization wouldbe limitedto thoseindividuals who werefree and white.And suchconstruc- tionspersisted well into the twentieth century.' This essayexplores the contradictory character of American nationalism. It doesso not by identifyinggroups, such as the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of ColoredPeople (NAACP) and theKu KluxKlan (KKK), espousingone principleor the other,but byexamining how bothprinciples often coexisted in theminds of single individuals.No individualbetter illustrates this phenomenonthan Theodore

GaryGerstle teaches history at the Universityof Maryland,College Park.Thanks are owed to Dave Thelen for invitingme to participatein thisspecial issue and forhis encouragementand incisivefeedback. I also wish to thankthe other authors in thisissue and ElizabethLunbeck, Nell Painter,and membersof thePrinceton Univer- sityFaculty Seminar on Race, Politics,and Culturefor their comments on earlierversions of thisessay. My grati- tudegoes to Tom Bender,Marcel van derLinden, and TonyBadger for hosting the three stimulating workshops at whichthe plans for this issue and thisessay took shape. Susan Armeny has beena superbeditor, and RobertRubin and C. Lori Perezassisted in vitalways with the copyediting and photographs. Readersmay contact Gerstle at [email protected].

I For an eloquentdefinition of the Americancivic creed,see GunnarMyrdal, An AmericanDilemma: The NegroProblem and ModernDemocracy (1944; 2 vols.,New York,1972), I, 3-25. On racializednotions of Ameri- can nationality,see RogersM. Smith,Civic Ideals: ConflictingVisions of Citizenshipin U.S. History(New Haven, 1997); MatthewFrye Jacobson, Whiteness of a DifferentColor: European Immigrants and theAlchemy of Race (Cambridge,Mass., 1998); MichaelRogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in theHollywood Melting Pot (Berkeley,1996); David R. Roediger,The Wagesof Whiteness:Race and theMaking of theAmerican Working Class (London, 1991); Ronald Takaki,Iron Cages:Race and Culturein Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica (Berkeley, 1971); and ReginaldHorsman, Race and ManifestDestiny: The Originsof American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, Mass., 1981). Smithand JohnHigham analyzehow thesecontrary impulses influenced American politics and publicpolicy. Smith, Civic Ideals; John Higham, Strangers in theLand: Patternsof American Nativism (1955; New Brunswick,1992).

1280 TheJournal of American History December1999

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Roosevelt,historian, dude rancher,civil service commissioner, police commissioner, governor,soldier, president, explorer. Few figures of any age have matched his devotion to theAmerican nation or hisinfluence on theform and contentof American nationalism.Regardless of thetask Roosevelt was carryingout, the office he had assumed, or the adventurehe had undertaken,he was alwayslooking for ways to strengthen theAmerican nation and intensifythe nationalist ardor of theAmerican people. Roosevelt'snationalism expressed itself as a combativeand unapologeticracial ideol- ogythat thrived on aggressionand thevanquishing of savageand barbaricpeoples. Fromthe perspective of thatideology, it was vital that "Americans" cultivate their racial superiorityand expelor subordinatethe racial inferiors in theirmidst. Yet, Roosevelt also locatedwithin American nationalism a powerfulcivic tradition that celebrated theUnited States as a place thatwelcomed all people,irrespective of theirnational- ity,race, and religiouspractice, as long as theywere willing to devotethemselves to the nationand obey its laws. Moreover,Roosevelt loved the idea of Americaas a meltingpot-a "crucible"-in which a hybridrace of many strainswould be forged.Mixing of thissort, Roosevelt believed, had createdand wouldsustain Amer- ican racialsuperiority. His affectionfor the melting pot expressed,too, thepersonal delighthe tookin crossingsocial boundaries and meetingdiverse groups of people. Mostof thetime, Roosevelt found ways to reconcilehis commitments to theracial and civictraditions of American nationalism. He disciplinedhis celebration of hybrid- ityby insistingthat certain kinds of boundarycrossing would damagethe racially superiorcharacter of theAmerican nation, and he expendedmuch effort to explain whyblacks, in particular,could not participatein America'sgreat melting pot. But Roosevelt'sefforts at reconciliationwere not always successful. In particular,his commitmentto the civictradition sometimes filled him withanxiety and uncertainty aboutAmerica's racial order and causedhim to violatethat order in sensationaland politicallydamaging ways. The civicand racialtraditions, in otherwords, sometimes pulledRoosevelt in suchdifferent directions that he couldnot easily encase them both withinthe national identity he was laboringso hardto create.Building the American nationfrom such contradictory materials turns out to havebeen exceptionally diffi- cultpolitical and personalwork. Rooseveltnever stopped trying to reconcilehis civicand racialbeliefs or to con- structhis nation,as hisextensive writings amply attest. Nor did he everquestion the needto builda nation.But the sheer arduousness of hisnation-building efforts allow us to glimpsethe problem of trying to yokedivergent human aspirations to a nation- alistideal. Rooseveltcelebrated racial conquest but also admiredcertain forms of racialmixing; he prizedsocial order as a paramountpolitical good but also thirsted foradventure and thethrill of theunexpected and thechaos that so oftenaccompa- niedit. The verycomplexity of his strivings,in otherwords, may have rendered one nationtoo limiting a space for personal exploration and aspiration. The caseof Roosevelt suggests,then, that the desire to escapeor to transcendthe nation lurked not only in theminds of internationalmigrants, such as theItalian sojourners about whom Donna Gabacciawrites, but in theminds of leadingnationalists themselves.

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Roosevelt'sRacialized Nation

In thelate nineteenthcentury, nationalist ideologies grounded in racestrengthened theirhold on the peoplesof manycountries, including those of the UnitedStates. Thesewere the years of a remarkableglobal capitalist expansion. Societies in disparate geographicand culturalregions were interpenetrating each other,their peoples look- ingvariously for work, raw materials, markets, and, at leastthe missionaries among them,souls ripe for salvation. The resultingjostling of peoples,often under adverse economicconditions-poverty-level wages among workers,production costs that exceededrevenues among farmers, the eclipseof smallbusiness by corporations- generatedfears of socialdisintegration and a tendencyto blamemisfortune on social contamination.Groups within every industrial society began calling for racial purity as a wayof strengtheningtheir nations and of overcomingthe problems that capitalist developmenthad thrustupon them.International competition intensified, as nationssought to provetheir economic, military, and racialsuperiority. In theUnited States one can detectthe growing prestige of racialideologies in the victoryover Spain in 1898 and in theacquisition of Spanishcolonies in theCaribbean Sea and thePacific Ocean. The wargenerated remarkable national unity, becoming an occasionwhen deep, seeminglyintractable divisions-between North and South, capitaland labor,native-born and immigrant-wereat leastmomentarily overcome. But thisunity depended on the reinvigorationof America'sracial nationalist tradition.In thenew American territories ofthe Philippines and PuertoRico, the indigenous peopleswere declared racially inferior and thusincapable of handlingthe responsi- bilitiesof Americancitizenship. At home, the formalsubjugation of the South's AfricanAmerican population through Jim Crow allowed white southerners to believe that"their" nation had finallybeen redeemed.White westerners associated national greatnesswith their campaigns to "cleanse"their cities and statesof Chineseand Jap- anese influence.A beliefin the superiorityof theAmerican "race" underlay these effortsat racialexclusion and subordination.Drawing on internationalistand "scien- tific"racialist discourses, themselves the product of themodern age of capital,white Americansfound the essenceof theirrace in its "Anglo-Saxon,""English-speaking,"or simply"white" character.2 In the 1880s,Theodore Roosevelt had turnedhis intellectualtalents to identify- ingthe historical origins of theAmerican race and to tracinghow it made itselfthe greatestEnglish-speaking race the world had everknown. That was thepurpose of his epicwork, The Winning of the West (1889-1896), mostof whichfocused on the conquestand settlementof theAmerican West by people of Europeanorigin.3

2Higham,Strangers in theLand, 131-57; Cecilia ElizabethO'Leary, To Die For: The Paradoxof American Patriotism(Princeton, 1999), 129-49; AlexanderSaxton, The Rise and Fall ofthe White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culturein Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica (New York,1990), 293-383; AndrewGyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics,and theChinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill, 1998). 3 TheodoreRoosevelt, The Winningof theWest: An Accountof theExploration and Settlementof Our Country fromthe Alleghanies to thePacific, in TheWorks of TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. HermannHagedorn (20 vols.,New York, 1926), VIII, IX. In additionto Roosevelt'sown writings,the followingaccount drawson Thomas G. Dyer, TheodoreRoosevelt and theIdea of Race (Baton Rouge, 1980); GeorgeSinkler, The RacialAttitudes of American

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If forKarl Marx history was thehistory of classconflict, for Roosevelt history was thehistory of raceconflict, of theworld's various races struggling for supremacy and power.The historyof racialconflict, in Roosevelt'seyes, pointed in thedirection of civilizationand progress:more often than not, the higher, civilized races triumphed overthe lower, savage or barbaricones. But thistendency was notan ironlaw; there had been shatteringreversals-the Dark Ages beingthe mostnotable-when the forcesof barbarismhad overwhelmedthe citadels of civilization.No race,no matter how civilizedits people or how superiortheir mental ability, could affordto become complacentabout its destiny.Racial triumphcame onlyto thosepeoples willing to fightfor it. Successin battlerequired the cultivation of manly,warlike, even savage qualities:physical toughness and fitness,fearlessness, bravery, single-mindedness, ruth- lessness.Thus, Rooseveltfound the formative experience of theAmerican race nei- therin thegodly Puritans who settledNew England,nor in thevirtuous farmers of themid-Atlantic states who diligentlyworked the land, nor even among the Boston, New York,and Philadelphiamerchants who made greatfortunes by acquiringand tradingthe continent'sabundant resources. Rather, he foundit in the backwoods- menwho bravelyventured forth into the wilderness to battlethe Indians and clear theland. The backwoodsmen,in Roosevelt'seyes, like the Germans who had invaded Britainand fashioneda super-Teutonicrace there, were warriors above all, and their primarytask was not placidhusbandry but relentlesswar against the savage Indians whoclaimed the lands as theirown. Roosevelt had no usefor Frederick Jackson Turner's view of the frontieras a sparselyinhabited place awaitingcultivation by diligent bands of husbandmen."A race of peaceful,unwarlike farmers," Roosevelt argued, "wouldhave been helpless before such foes as thered Indians, and no auxiliarymili- taryforces could haveprotected them or enabledthem to movewestward .... The Westwould never have been settled save for the fierce courage and theeager desire to bravedanger so characteristicof thestalwart backwoodsmen."4 Rooseveltloathed the savage red man but admiredhim, too, forhis bravery,cun- ning,and, most of all,ferocity. The backwoodsmanachieved his greatness as a result of thebattles he foughtto subduethe remarkable Indian foe. Roosevelt regarded the conquestof theIndians and thewinning of theWest as "thegreat epic feat in thehis- toryof our race." The relentlesswestward march was "a recordof men who greatly dared and greatlydid, a recordof wanderingswider and moredangerous than those of the Vikings;a recordof endlessfeats of arms,of victoryafter victory in the ceaseless strifewaged against wild man and wild nature."'The warto exterminatethe Indian createdthe "Americans."

Presidents:From Abraham Lincoln to TheodoreRoosevelt (Garden City, 1971), 308-73; RichardSlotkin, Gunfighter Nation:The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-CenturyAmerica (New York,1992), 29-122; Gail Bederman,Man- linessand Civilization:A CulturalHistory of Genderand Race in the UnitedStates, 1880-1917 (Chicago,1995), 170-215; and Saxton,Rise and Fall of theWhite Republic, 349-83. 4 Roosevelt,Winning of theWest, in Worksof Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Hagedorn,VIII, 100-1 01. See Frederick JacksonTurner, The Significanceof the Frontier in AmericanHistory, ed. Harold P. Simonson(New York,1980), 29-58; and RichardWhite, "Frederick Jackson Turner and BuffaloBill," in TheFrontier in AmericanHistory, ed. JamesR. Grossman(Berkeley, 1994), 6-65. Theodore Roosevelt,"Manhood and Statehood,"1901 address,ibid., XIII, 455.

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That war,Roosevelt believed, had setin motiona criticalassimilatory process, one thatfashioned a singleAmerican people out of manyEuropean races. The backwoodsmen,according to Roosevelt,were primarily the descendants of two Britishraces- theScotch-Irish and theEnglish-but includedin theirranks significant numbers of Germans,Huguenots, "Hollanders," and Swedes.Although those distinct "racial" groupswere still conscious of theirdifferences when they arrived in thewilderness, theybecame oblivious to themwithin the lifetimes of thefirst settlers. "A single generation,passed under the hard conditions of lifein thewilderness," Roosevelt wrote, "wasenough to weld [them]together into one people."And so, "longbefore the first ContinentalCongress assembled, the backwoodsmen,whatever their blood, had becomeAmericans, one in speech,thought, and character.""Their iron surround- ings,"Roosevelt continued, "made a mouldwhich turned out all alikein thesame shape."Here, for the first of manytimes, Roosevelt referred in a positiveway to the melting-potorigins of theAmerican people.6 But Rooseveltincluded in hisAmerican brew only races emanating from Europe. What to do, then,with non-European races residing on Americansoil? Roosevelt did notworry much about the proper place of Indiansin thenation, for the savage warswith the Americans had culminatedin theirexpulsion or extermination.But he was troubledby theplace and roleof blacks.Roosevelt regarded the importation of Africanslaves to theNorth American continent as a racialand nationalcatastrophe. The Europeanraces who conqueredAmerica, Roosevelt intoned, "to theirown last- ingharm, committed a crimewhose short-sighted folly was worsethan its guilt, for theybrought hordes of Africanslaves, whose descendants now form immense popu- lationsin certainportions of thisland." Those "hordes"could nevertruly be assimi- latedinto American society: the distance separating them from the white races was simplytoo great.Nor could theyprovide the proud savage foe against whom Ameri- can warriorsdefined their race and peoplehood,for the Africans were already a bowed and conqueredpeople when they arrived, forced to obeytheir masters' every com- mand.Regrettably, the black man could "neitherbe killednor driven away." He had to be founda place in the nation.But where?Giving blacks an equal place would violatethe racial order of things,while hemming them into a subordinatestatus viti- atedthe American commitment to democracyand equal opportunity.7 Rooseveltblamed this dilemma, not on his heroicbackwoodsmen, but on the Ctrans-oceanicaristocracy" of the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies that had allegedlycreated and sustainedthe internationalslave trade. The racialcrime com- mittedby thosearistocrats had alreadytriggered one nationaldisaster-the Civil War-that almostdestroyed the mightynation that the backwoodsmenhad so painstakinglyand courageouslybuilt. And even emancipation-an act that

6 Rooseveltmight have claimed that the American culture was essentiallyEnglish or Anglo-Saxon;at times,he came close to labelingthe backwoodsmen'sculture Scotch-Irish. But he pulled back fromboth claims,perhaps becauseeither would have impliedthat his own heritage-mixed,but primarilyDutch-lay outsidethe core Americanculture. Roosevelt, Winning of the West, ibid., VIII, 89. 7Ibid., 8; TheodoreRoosevelt to AlbionWinegar Tourgee, Nov. 8, 1901, in TheLetters of TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. EltingE. Morison(8 vols.,Cambridge, Mass., 1951), III, 190-91.

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Rooseveltheartily supported-provided no simplecure to therace problem because Negroes,Roosevelt believed, would not takewell to democracy,a formof govern- mentthat depended on a self-controland masterythat only the whiteraces had attained.As president,Roosevelt struggled to devisewhat were, in his eyes,decent remediesto therace problem. But he alwaysregarded the Negro as an indelibleblack markon thewhite nation that had so gloriouslyemerged in themid-eighteenth century,a constantreminder of America'sracial imperfection, of an opportunitycom- promisedby the nefariousdealings of corrupt,antidemocratic, and immoral aristocrats.There would neverbe, Rooseveltonce concededin privatecorrespon- dence,a truesolution to "theterrible problem offered by thepresence of thenegro on thiscontinent."8

The 1890s: Crisis,War, and NationalistRenewal

TheWinning of the West brims with confident superiority. But, even as he was writ- ingthis treatise, Roosevelt was beset by worry that past achievements had set in motion processesthat could yet ruin the American race. By the early 1890s, the wild frontier of theeighteenth century had vanishedand theIndians had beenrouted. The conquest of theWest and theinvention of democracyhad triggeredtechnological and cultural revolutionsthat were rapidly making America into an urban,industrialized society. Whilethe backwoodsmen had setthe changes in motion,their very success had forced themto themargins of American society. Roosevelt worried that America, as a result, wouldlose its racial edge. "A peaceful and commercialcivilization is always in dangerof sufferingthe loss of thevirile fighting qualities without which no nation,however cul- tured,however refined, however thrifty and prosperous, can ever amount to anything."9 Everywhere,Roosevelt spotted signs of racialdegeneration: in an overlyrefined elite thathad abandoned"the strenuous life" for the effete manners and habitsof Euro- pean aristocrats;in a fallingbirth rate among this same elite, an unmistakablesign to Rooseveltthat the vigor of thismighty race was slipping;in theimpoverished urban masseswhose loyalty to thenation was questionableand whosegrowing involvement in lawlessstrikes Roosevelt regarded as signsof barbarism;in a societyso preoccu- piedwith material gain and "ignobleease" that it no longerknew how to pursuethe heroiclife. In short,the unique and raciallysuperior civilization that the backwoodsmenhad assiduouslycreated was in dangerof goingthe way of Rome:opulence, com- placency,effeminacy, military collapse. 'O Rooseveltconceived of hispersonal life as a crusadeagainst the enervating effects of excessivecivilization. He was determinedto excelat huntingand ranching,to

ITheodore Roosevelt,"National Life and Character,"1894, in Worksof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Hagedorn, XIII, 212-13; Rooseveltto Tourgee,Nov. 8, 1901, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,III, 190-91. Roosevelt'sclass analysisof the slavetrade was sharedby manywhite laboring men and sanctioneda racialized classconsciousness. See Saxton,Rise and Fall ofthe White Republic. 9Theodore Roosevelt, "The ManlyVirtues and PracticalPolitics," 1894, in Worksof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Hagedorn,XIII, 32. IOTheodoreRoosevelt, "True Americanism," 1894, ibid., 19. See also TheodoreRoosevelt, "The Strenuous Life,"1899, ibid.,319, andpassim.

This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1286 TheJournal of American History December1999 developthe qualities that made the Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen such a vigorousrace. His twowives and sixchildren were ample demonstration of hisown virility and, he hoped, an examplethat other members of his race would emulate.He preached againstthe complacent life, whether that of thebeggar content to liveoff charity or of therailroad tycoon obsessed with counting his money.He calledincessantly for thepursuit of a "higherlife" of glory,as achievedby George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,and UlyssesS. Grant.Each of thoseheroes had distinguishedhimself in war, and Rooseveltbelieved that true eminence would elude him until he, too, had proved hisworth on thebattlefield." Justas he expectedhis program for a strenuouslife to bringhim personal greatness, so Rooseveltbelieved that an emphasison muscularand racializednationalism would reinvigorateAmerica. By the early 1 890s he had casthis lot with Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahanand otherimperialists who arguedthat the United States should vie with Brit- ain, France,Germany, Russia, and Japanfor territory, military might, and world power.Social Darwinist to thecore, the imperialists believed that America had to prove itselfthe military equal of thestrongest European nation and themaster of the "lesser" peoplesof Asia, Africa, and LatinAmerica. Hankering for a fight,they strove to turn emergentpower struggles in theCaribbean and thePacific into armed confrontations. Fightswith barbarian races abroad could replacethe fight with the savage Indians at homeand thuskeep Americans racially fit. As Rooseveltdeclared in 1897, "No tri- umphof peace is quite so greatas thesupreme triumph of war."The imperialists' opportunitycame in 1898, whenthe explosion of thebattleship Maine in Havana harborset Spain and theUnited States on thepath to war.12 Atthe first opportunity, Roosevelt resigned as assistantsecretary of thenavy to accept thelieutenant colonelcy of theFirst Volunteer Cavalry, a regimentthat would soon be immortalizedas theRough Riders. More than 20,000 menapplied for the 1,000 availableplaces, and Rooseveltfilled a majorityof placeswith cowboys, hunters, and prospectorsfrom the West and Southwest-menwho borethe closest resemblance to his fabledbackwoodsmen. "They were a splendidset of men,"Roosevelt would laterwrite, "tall and sinewy,with resolute, weather-beaten faces, and eyesthat looked a manstraight in theface without flinching." "In all theworld," he added,"there could be no bettermaterial for soldiers than that afforded by thesegrim hunters of the mountains,these wild rough riders of theplains." Having come from lands that had been "mostrecently won over[from the savage Indians] to whitecivilization," these menwere among the few remaining Americans who stillpossessed the ferocity, the independence,and thewar-making skills of theKentucky backwoodsmen. 13 Justas the predominatelyScotch-Irish backwoodsmen had benefitedfrom the admixtureof minoritystreams from France, Germany, and elsewhere,so thequality ofthe Rough Riders was enhanced by the inclusion of complementary American strains. Mostimportant were the fifty men, most of themathletes, who had comefrom Har-

" TheodoreRoosevelt, "American Ideals," 1895, ibid.,3-4; "Grant,"1900 speech,ibid., 430-41. '2WalterLaFeber, The New Empire:An InterpretationofAmerican Expansion, 1860-1898 (Ithaca,1963), 80- 101; WilliamH. Harbaugh,The Life and Timesof TheodoreRoosevelt (New York,1975), 99. 13 TheodoreRoosevelt, The Rough Riders (New York,1902), 22-23.

This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TheodoreRoosevelt and American Nationalism 1287 vard,Princeton, and Yale universities and who possessed a worldlinessand a capacityfor leadershipthat many of therowdy southwesterners lacked. Roosevelt chose an equal numberof Indians(segregated in theirown company), a fewof pureblood but most a powerfullydisciplined mixture of redand white.He selecteda smatteringof Irish- menand Hispanics,at leastone Jew, one Italian,four New York City policemen, and a group"in whose veins ... blood stirredwith the same impulse which once sent the Vikingsoverseas." Like thefrontier, the regiment created the conditions for a care- fullyregulated process of racialmixing, one meantto generatethe finestpossible Americanfighting force. Three cups of southwesterners,a leavening tablespoon of IvyLeaguers, a tablespoonof Indians,and a sprinklingof Jews,Irish, Italians, and Scandinaviansyielded, in Roosevelt'seyes, a sterling,all-American regiment.14 The inclusionof evenlimited numbers of Indians,Jews, and Italiansmade the regi- mentmore diverse than the bands of backwoodsmen who had conquered the West had been-a sign,perhaps, that Roosevelt was becomingmore liberal in his racialatti- tudesthan he had beenwhen he wroteWinning of the West. 15 Yet,Roosevelt was not preparedto welcomeevery racial type into the Rough Rider crucible: he had neither soughtnor accepted any black or Asian American volunteers, demonstrating once again hisconviction that the inclusion of the"most inferior" racial ingredients would pol- lutethe American brew. The meltingpot continuedto dependfor its success as much on exclusionas on inclusion.16 The RoughRiders quickly achieved a camaraderiethat, in Roosevelt'seyes, justi- fiedhis efforts to regulatethe racial mixing. The IvyLeaguers brought civility to a reg- imentfull of rowdyspirits, while the roughness and physicalityof thesouthwesterners compelledthe elite easterners to abandontheir aversion to hardand "disagreeable" labor.The regimentsomewhat uneasily absorbed the fewIrishmen, Italians, and Jews,giving them belittling (although affectionate) nicknames such as SheenySolomon and Pork-chop.The socialequality that Roosevelt encouraged also shapedrelations betweenofficers and enlistedmen. Roosevelt craved a closerelationship with his troops. He gotto knoweach of histhousand men by name, greeted them with waves rather thanformal salutes, bought them beer after a longmarch, took his sergeantsto din- nerat a restaurantreserved for the army's top brass, and commandeeredofficers' rations forhis enlistedmen. Often reprimanded by his superiorsfor such transgressive frat- ernizing,Roosevelt was quickto offerthe authorities the necessary apologies. But, in truth,he lovedflouting the rules of militaryconduct. Here was a wayfor him to re- createa frontierenvironment, where social distinctions and rankcounted for little. A manwas judged for his ability as a man,and thatwas all.17 Rooseveltwanted his regimentto shine.Using all of theirorganizational abilities

14Ibid., 17-22, 28-32, 50, 52, esp. 17; Rooseveltto HenryFairfield Osborn, Dec. 21, 1908, in Lettersof The- odoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,VI, 1434-36; Edmund Morris,The Riseof TheodoreRoosevelt (New York,1979), 618; Slotkin,Gunfighter Nation, 103. 15 Here my interpretationdiverges from that of Slotkin,who sees in the Rough Ridersa replicationof the racialmix that conquered the frontier. Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 104. 16 The one blackin theregiment was Roosevelt'sbodyservant, Marshall. Roosevelt, Rough Riders, 67. '7Ibid., 18, 51, 52, 116-17; Morris,Rise of TheodoreRoosevelt, 620-21, 639-40, 647; Harbaugh,Life and Timesof TheodoreRoosevelt, 106.

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Thisphoto was taken on a hilloverlooking Santiago, Cuba, in July 1898 after the Rough Ridershad taken Kettle and San Juan hills. Theodore Roosevelt is wherehe wantsto be, at the center of it all but also one of the guys. CourtesyLibrary of Congress. and Washingtoninfluence, Roosevelt and his superior,Col. LeonardWood, made surethat the Rough Riders were among the first troops to disembarkat Daiquirlin June1898 and to beginmarching toward the expectedengagement with Spanish troopsin theheavily fortified hills east of Santiago.The Spanish,as it turnedout, were in no moodfor a longwar and gaveup afteronly three weeks and fourrather small battles.But the Rough Ridersplayed important roles in threeof the four-Las Gua'simas,Kettle Hill, and SanJuan Hill-and camehome military heroes. Roosevelt, bymuscling his way to Cuba,had literallywilled his regiment to thebattlefield and to glory.18 It had takenconsiderable propaganda to turnthe light-complexioned and highly culturedSpanish enemy into the dark and savagefoe, but the American tabloids, led

8Morris, Riseof TheodoreRoosevelt, 623; Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 46-78. See David F. Trask,The Warwith Spainin 1898 (New York,1981); and PhilipS. Foner,The Spanish-Cuban-American War and theBirth of American Imperialism,1895-1902 (2 vols.,New York,1972).

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by the Hearstand Pulitzerpapers, proved equal to the task.These newspapersfed Americancivilians and troopsa steadydiet of sensationalstories about atrocities that the Spanishhad committedagainst the freedom-lovingCubans, and theyfocused on thesinister Catholicism of theSpanish as a wayof explainingto theirProtestant nationthe autocraticand ruthlesscharacter of Spanishrule. Visually, the Spanish wereoften depicted in thesimian form that Americans used to portraythe races they mostdespised.'9 The RoughRiders' first encounter with Spanish troops seemed to confirmthe lat- ter'ssavage racial nature. The Americanshad expectedto meetthe Spanish in a civi- lizedengagement on an openfield of battle;but instead they were ambushed in heavily forestedterrain at Las Gua'simas.The battlerevealed that the Spanish army had adopted theguerrilla tactics favored by theirCuban adversaries,an intelligentadaptation of militarytactics to theCuban terrain and foethat the Americans would come to respect. But initiallyit seemedto Rooseveltand otherssteeped in frontierlore thatat Las Guasimas they had encountereda savage enemy. Roosevelt's recounting of thebattle resembledthe narratives he had alreadywritten about eighteenth-century Indian attacks in theKentucky backwoods. Victory came to theRough Riders, in Roosevelt'stell- ing,because they demonstrated the same pluck, resourcefulness, and courageas the Kentuckybackwoodsmen. And just as thetough conditions of theAmerican wilder- nesshad weldedthe frontiersmen, "whatever their blood," into one superiorpeople, so too therough encounter at Las Guaisimashad forgedthe motley Rough Riders into a trulyAmerican shape.20 Las Gua'simaswas onlya preludeto thefurious battles at Kettleand San Juanhills, thehigh and heavily fortified ridges that guarded the approach to Santiago.The Rough Ridershad been assigneda supportrole behind several regiments of regulartroops, butas thecasualties mounted and as communicationsbetween the generals in therear and frontlinetroops broke down, Roosevelt moved his RoughRiders into the thick of the action.Roosevelt demonstrated extraordinary heroism and recklessness.He inspireda wild chargeup KettleHill thatoverran Spanish defenses. He thenorga- nizedthe fragments of severalregiments that had madeit to thetop into a reserveforce thatprovided critical support to the regularswho wereassaulting the adjacentSan JuanHill. Rooseveltspent much of thebattle on horseback,riding among his troops; urgingthem up thehill, disregarding danger and death.His daringand impulsive- ness resembledthose of Gen. GeorgeArmstrong Custer; but Kettleand San Juan hillswere to be thesites of no laststands. Sheets of bulletsrained down upon the Americantroops; shells exploded everywhere. All around,Roosevelt saw menbeing killedand woundedor collapsingfrom exhaustion. By the timethe fightinghad ended,90 of the450 RoughRiders who had enteredthe battle lay killed or wounded. Manymore would later succumb to sickness.One bulletgrazed Roosevelt's wrist, but

19Gerald Linderman, The Mirror of War:American Society and theSpanish-American War (Ann Arbor, 1974), 114-73. 20 Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 79- 118, esp. 110, 1 5.

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nonewounded him; virtually alone among the officers and men,he escapedsickness. In thisclimactic battle that Roosevelt had longwished for, he seemedas immortalas a Greekgod, especially to theawestruck journalists who werereporting this fight to the millionsof avid newspaperreaders back home. "Mountedhigh on horseback, and chargingthe rifle-pits at a gallopand quitealone," wrote Richard Harding Davis, the famedNew YorkHerald and Scribnersreporter, Roosevelt "made you feelthat youwould like to cheer."'21 In the Cuban campaign,Roosevelt brought to lifethe mythicpast thathe had inventedfor the American people in TheWinning of the West. In theclimactic Kettle Hill-SanJuan Hill battlethat symbolized the triumph of Americaover savagery and theforging of themany streams of humanityinto one Americanpeople, Roosevelt himselfplayed the starring role. But there was a problem.Just as thearrival of theblack manon theNorth American continent had compromisedthe great white nation taking shapethere, so, too, the presenceof blackUnited States troops on KettleHill and San JuanHill interferedwith the nation's triumph-or at leastwith Roosevelt's enjoymentof thattriumph. Roosevelthad beenable to keepblacks out of theRough Riders, but he couldnot keep themout of Cuba. Four regularregiments-a substantialpercentage of the UnitedStates Army-were all-black(although commanded by white officers), and theywere among the mostexperienced and reliableAmerican troops. The Negro Ninthand Tenthcavalry regiments fought well at Las Guaisimasand playedan even morevital role in the takingof Kettleand San Juanhills. The TenthCavalry had been thefrontline troops on KettleHill and therelost more of theirofficers (eleven of twenty-two)than any other regiment. When Rooseveltcalled for a chargeup the hill,they eagerly joined in; meanwhile,several platoons of theNinth Cavalry reached thesummit of KettleHill froma differentdirection at thesame moment as Roosevelt. Black troopsfrom both regimentsand, even more important,from the Twenty- FourthInfantry Division, fought hard for San JuanHill as well.22 When Rooseveltreached the top of San JuanHill, he foundhimself the effective commanderof the Rough Riders, the Ninth and Tenth Negro cavalries, and threeother cavalryregiments. The chaosof battlehad mischievouslyproduced a trueAmerican meltingpot-the heterogeneityof theRough Riders further diversified by the pres- ence of both whiteand blackregulars-and the pot had workedits magic,as all thesediverse troops had foughtas a single,cohesive unit. White regulars, the heavily southwesternRough Riders, the journalists, and evenRoosevelt himself all heaped praiseon theblack soldiers, who returnedto theUnited States as heroes.The Tenth

21Richard Harding Davis, Notesof a WarCorrespondent (New York,1910), 96; Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 119- 64; Morris,Rise of TheodoreRoosevelt, 650-56. 22 WilliamH. Leckie, The BuffaloSoldiers: A Narrativeof theNegro Cavalry in the West(Norman, 1967); AlbertL. Scipio II, Lastof the Black Regulars: A Historyof the Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment, 1869-1951 (Silver Spring,1983); AnthonyLukas, Big Trouble:A Murderin a Small WesternTown Sets Off a Struggleforthe Soul of America(New York,1997), 118-32; Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 132-64; TheophilusG. Steward,The ColoredReg- ularsin theUnited States Army (1904; New York,1969); MarvinEdward Fletcher, "The Negro Soldierand the UnitedStates Army, 1891-1917" (Ph.D. diss.,University of Wisconsin,1968), ch. 8.

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neverbe broken."The RoughRiders, reported a blacksoldier of theTenth Cavalry, roaredtheir approval.23 Rooseveltmight have seized on evidenceof intermixingofblack and white troops to celebratethe melting pot as a mechanismthat could fashion a singlenation out of all thedifferent racial, ethnic, and regionalgroups who residedin theUnited States. But Roosevelthad neverbeen entirelycomfortable with the presenceof blacksfighting alongsidewhites in theclimactic battle on Kettleand SanJuan hills. In fact,he hadbeen alarmedby the mixing,by "thedifferent regiments being completely intermingled- whiteregulars, colored regulars, and RoughRiders." He believedthat complete and unregulatedmixing-as had goneon in Mexicoand otherLatin countries-produced mediocreraces. The indiscriminatemingling of blackand whitetroops in theheat of battle,moreover, threatened to explodethe myth that regulated assimilation produced raciallysuperior Americans and to disruptthe reenactmentof assimilationcarefully orchestratedby Roosevelthimself The blacktroops had to be put in theirplace-a placeseparate from, and subordinateto, that of white Americans. 24 Roosevelttook on thistask when he beganpublishing his history of theRough Rid- ersin ScribnersMagazine in 1899. In recountingthe seizure of SanJuan Hill, Roosevelt interruptedhis triumphalist narrative to criticizethe shortcomings of theNegro troops. 'Whilethese troops were excellent fighters, they were "peculiarly dependent upon theirwhite officers"; left on theirown-as manyhad beenby the time they arrived on thesummit of San Juan,given the high casualty rate among the officers of the Ninth and Tenth-they faltered,even ran. Rooseveltrecalled having to drawhis revolveron blacktroops who seemed to be leavingtheir positions without permission. Onlyafter he had threatenedto shootthem did theyreturn to theforward lines.25 PresleyHolliday, a blacksoldier of theTenth Cavalry, remembered the incident differently.He described a chaoticsituation as nightwas fallingon SanJuan Hill amid manycalls for soldiers to carrythe wounded to therear and to procurerations and trenchingtools for the troops at thesummit. Both Rough Riders and blacksoldiers respondedto thosecalls, which created the impression of manysoldiers leaving the battlescene. That is whatRoosevelt apparently saw whenhe drewhis revolverand aimedit at theblack troops. But, according to Holliday,Lt. RobertF. Flemingof the Tenth(a whiteofficer) quickly reassured Roosevelt that the black soldiers had been followingorders; the next day, Roosevelt even visited members of theTenth Cavalry and apologizedto them.26

23JohnHope Franklinand AlfredA. Moss Jr.,From Slavery to Freedom:A Historyof NegroAmericans (New York,1988), 271; Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 145-52; WillardB. GatewoodJr., "Smoked Yankees" and theStruggle for Empire:Letters from Negro Soldiers, 1898-1902 (Urbana, 1971), 76-77; Lukas, Big Trouble,137; Frank Friedel,The Splendid Little War (Boston, 1958), 173; HerschelV. Cashin et al., UnderFire with the Tenth Cavalry (1899; New York,1970); EdwardA. Johnson,History of NegroSoldiers in theSpanish-American War, and Other Itemsof Interest (1899; New York,1970), 39-8 1; Steward,Colored Regulars in theUnited States Army, 191-220, 236-55. 24Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 145. Emphasisadded. Amy Kaplan, "Black and Blue on San JuanHill," in The Cul- turesof UnitedStates Imperialism, ed. AmyKaplan and Donald E. Pease (Durham,1993), 219-36. 25Roosevelt, Rough Riders, 149, 150-152. 26Presley Holliday to editor,New YorkAge, May 11, 1899, in Gatewood,"Smoked Yankees" and theStruggle for Empire,92-97.

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The soldierspictured above belonged to one ofthe four African American United States Armyregiments-the Ninth and Tenthcavalries, the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifthinfantries-that played indispensable roles in the victoriesat Kettleand San Juanhills. CouirtesyNationa/Archives.

It is, of course,difficult to knowexactly what went on at dusk,when all thesol- diers,including Roosevelt himself, were exhausted from the fight and mayhave had difficultyseeing and thinkingclearly. It is possiblethat some black troops may have been too quickto leavethe still insecure summit for the safety of therear when the opportunityarose. Holliday admittedthat some of the Tenth Cavalry'snewer recruitsbecame nervous at beingseparated from the bulk of theirregiment and at beingin suchclose proximity to whitesoldiers. But even if nervousness prompted them to lookfor opportunities to leavethe summit, it wasnot adequate reason for Roosevelt to challengethe worth of theblack fighting man. There had beenmany instances in Cuba of whitesoldierly cowardice and of blacksproving themselves to be themore stalwartand reliable troops; indeed, the colored Twenty-Fourth Infantry had been called upon to chargeSan JuanHill-and did-only afterthe white Seventy-First New Yorkhad panickedand refusedto attack.Roosevelt ignored this and otherincidents of whitecowardice and blackvalor, determined as he was to chargethat only black troopslacked the self-reliance and hardyindividualism to becometheir own men, to becometrue Americans. In thatchaotic and confusingmoment on San JuanHill, Rooseveltwas certainthat he had uncoveredincontrovertible evidence of theblack soldiers'"peculiar dependence" on whiteofficers. 'Whereas the Rough Riders,in

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Roosevelt'seyes, had shownthemselves equal to theKentucky backwoodsmen in every respect,the blackcavalry troops had demonstratedonce againwhat Roosevelt had viscerallybelieved: that blacks were not trulyfit for combat, that they lacked the qualitiesneeded to participateas equalsin thegreat nation that Daniel Booneand his fellowfrontiersmen had willedinto existence in theeighteenth century. 27 These weredevastating charges in 1899, especiallywhen leveled by a personof Roosevelt'sstature. Emboldened by the 1896 SupremeCourt decisionin Plessyv. Ferguson,the South was disfranchisingblacks and excludingthem from institutions thathad beendesignated white-schools, restaurants, stores, parks, and manyplaces of employment.In theNorth, whites were pushing blacks out of theskilled trades and servicejobs thathad longsupported a smallbut vibrant black middle class. The Spanish-AmericanWar took on specialsignificance in thiscontext, for it gaveblacks an opportunityto demonstratetheir loyalty to theUnited States and to demandan endto discriminatorytreatment. African Americans hoped that their impressive record of servicewould compelthe UnitedStates military to open officerranks to them, and thatthe achievementof thatstatus could thenbecome a powerfulsymbol in theirquest for equality, integration, and belonging.How coulda nationpermit officers of its own armyto be deniedthe rightto vote,to sit on juries,or to use public accommodations?Most whites,Roosevelt among them, evidently agreed that the nationcould not tolerate such a blatantcontradiction. They sought to resolveit, however,not by tearingdown racial barriers, but by reinforcingand justifyingthe ones alreadyin place.Just as mostblacks could notsuccessfully discharge the responsibil- itiesof citizenship,so, too,Roosevelt and othersargued, they could not be entrusted withleading troops into battle. The blackdemand for officer status was rebuffed.In thisclimate of racialseparation and discrimination,it did nottake long for whites to challengethe fighting abilities of blacksoldiers, even when they were commanded bywhite officers. By World War I, fewblacks were given combat roles. The nation had strippedvirtually all blacksof theright to fightand die fortheir country. The sac- rificesand heroismof theNinth and Tenth cavalries had becomebut a dimmemory to whites.White southerners, meanwhile, were reintegrating themselves into the military.As a resultof theSpanish-American War, efforts to re-createthe United States as a whitenation had bornefruit.28 The centralityof raceto thedefinition of Roosevelt'sAmerica was apparent,too, in thetreatment of theCubans and Filipinos,ostensible American allies in thefight againstthe Spaniards. Finding a savagefoe in theSpanish-American War proved a more

27Ibid.,95-96, 97, 72-73, 76-81; Lukas;Big Trouble,134-35. 28Plessyv. Ferguson,163 U.S. 537 (1896); JohnW. Cell, TheHighest Stage of WhiteSupremacy: The Originsof Segregationin SouthAfrica and theAmerican South (New York,1982); KennethL. Kusmer,A GhettoTakes Shape: Black Cleveland,1870-1930 (Urbana,1976), 53-90; Gatewood,"Smoked Yankees" and theStruggle for Empire, 79-81, 87. On thehopes investedby African Americans in militaryservice, see WillardB. GatewoodJr., Black Americansand the WhiteMans Burden(Urbana, 1975); BernardC. Nalty,Strength for theFight: A Historyof BlackAmericans in theMilitary (New York,1986), 78 -124; Ann J. Lane, TheBrownsville Affair: National Crisis and BlackReaction (Port Washington, 1971). On theSpanish-American War as a spurto North-Southunity, see O'Leary,To Die For,129-49; and TheodoreRoosevelt, "The ReunitedPeople," 1902 speech,in Worksof Theodore Roosevelt,ed. Hagedorn,XVI, 27-32.

This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TheodoreRoosevelt and American Nationalism 1295 difficulttask than Roosevelt and othershad anticipated.Despite their "savage" behav- iorat Las Gua'simas,the Spanish soldiers soon revealedthat they were far whiter and morecivilized than the Americans had expected.Meanwhile, United States troops were unnervedby their encounters with Cuban troops. The latterwere often poorly dressed, inadequatelyprovisioned, and lackingdiscipline. American soldiers were particularly upsetby the Cuban troops'practice of strippingcorpses-of friendand foealike- of clothing,food, guns, and anyother usable items and bytheir annoying penchant forbegging. And theywere stunned that Cuban troopswere overwhelmingly dark in complexion.The UnitedStates troops knew little of the Cubans' long strugglefor independence,of thehardships they had had to endure,and of whythey had chosen guerrillatactics against the Spanish. The Americans,influenced by Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers,had imaginedthat Cubans were a peoplemuch like themselves-freedom loving,civilized, and white.Hence, theywere shocked to discoverthat the Cubans exhibitedtraits they could define as primitiveand undignified.The blackCubans, not theSpanish, were the island's true savages!29 The Cubans themselves,however, never became a savagefoe againstwhom the Americansfelt compelled to fighta warof extermination-thathonor went to theFil- ipinos.The Cubansinstead became a childlikeally in needof Americanmentoring, assistance,and protection.On thesegrounds, the United States justified its refusal to grantthe Cubans thepolitical independence they so desperatelysought. Instead, it made theisland into a virtualcolony, taking on the"white man's burden" of uplift- inga darkerand moresavage race. In suchways the Spanish-American War reinforced Americans'sense of themselvesas a whiteand superiorpeople.30

Roosevelt'sCivic Nationalism

It is temptingto interpretRoosevelt's nationalism as simplyan Americanexpression of whatEuropean scholars label ethnic, or romantic,nationalism. Such nationalism locatesthe essence of thenation in theVolk, defined as a peoplewho sharethe same blood,history, language, and land.The Volk,in theeyes of ethnicnationalists, did notchange much over time; it was thoughtof as an entitystanding outside history, a forceof moraland biologicalpurity that could eradicatethe alleged evils of moder- nity:corruption, materialism, promiscuity, and racialmixing.31 Manyindividuals and groupsin theUnited States subscribed to suchethnoracialist notions,the Ku Klux Klan beingthe best known and mostsuccessful example. But

29 Roosevelt,Rough Riders, 81; Morris,Rise of TheodoreRoosevelt, 646; Kaplan,"Black and Blue on San Juan Hill," 223-26; Linderman,Mirror of War,114-47. 30 StuartCreighton Miller, "BenevolentAssimilation' The American Conquest of thePhilippines, 1899-1903 (New Haven, 1982); RichardDrinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and EmpireBuilding (Min- neapolis,1980), esp. 307-51; Paul Kramer,"U.S. Anthropologyand Colonial Politicsin the Occupied Philip- pines, 1898-1916" (Ph.D. diss., PrincetonUniversity, 1998); Slotkin, GunfighterNation, 106-22; Foner, Spanish-Cuban-AmericanWar; James H. Hitchman,Leonard Wood and Cuban Independence,1898-1902 (The Hague, 1971); Louis A. Perez,Cuba underthe PlattAmendment, 1902-1934 (Pittsburgh,1986). 31 On thehistory of ethnicnationalism in Europe,see RogersBrubaker, Citizenship and Nationhoodin France and Germany(Cambridge, Mass., 1992); and MichaelIgnatieff, Blood and Belonging:Journeys in theNew Nation- alism(New York,1993).

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Rooseveltwas not among them. The notionthat the European peoples represented pure biologicalentities made no senseto him,for he keenlyunderstood that war and con- questhad made the Europeans far more hybridized than most cared to admit.Roosevelt celebratedhybridity: the world's greatest peoples, after all-the English,the Ameri- cans,the Australians-had emerged from melting pots. Even prior to theRevolution, Roosevelthad once written,"we werethen already, what we are now,a people of mixedblood." The smelting,Roosevelt believed, had to be controlledby a skilledpud- dlerif it wereto producethe best and mostefficient result; but racialmixing would thenalways produce peoples superior to thosethat had remainedpure. In his cele- brationof hybridity, Roosevelt was very much a modernand deeplyat oddswith membersof his gentryclass, such as HenryCabot Lodge,Madison Grant,and Frederic Remington,who longedfor a pureAnglo-Saxon America. Nowhere in Roosevelt's voluminouswritings, neither in hispublished work nor his private letters, is itpossible to findthe kind of indiscriminaterevulsion against "outsiders" expressed by Remington in a letter:"Jews, Injuns, Chinamen, Italians, Huns-the rubbishof theearth I hate I'vegot some Winchesters and when the massacring begins, I can getmy share of 'em, and what'smore I will."32 Rooseveltinstead was a civicnationalist who imaginedthe nation, to use Michael Ignatieff'swords, "as a communityof equal, rights-bearingcitizens united in patri- oticattachment to a sharedset of politicalpractices and values." Such a nationalcom- munitywas open,in theoryat least,to all thosewho residedin a nation'sterritory, irrespectiveof theirethnicity, race, or religion.It was democratic,for it vested"sov- ereigntyin all of thepeople."33 In practice,Roosevelt's national community was open to anyonewho couldclaim European origins or ancestry.Roosevelt paid littleatten- tion to whetherthose Europeans had come fromeastern or westernEurope, from Catholic,Protestant, or Jewishbackgrounds, or fromthe ranksof the richor the poor;to all he extendedthe invitation to becomeAmerican. He assumeda different posturetoward blacks, Asians, and othernonwhites. He did not attemptto exclude themfrom the political community as thoroughlyas he had excludedthem from his nationalistmythology. In fact,on numerousoccasions he passionatelydefended the politicalrights and aspirationsof selectedAfrican Americans and Asianswho, to his thinking,had achieveda requisitelevel of intellectualand moralcompetence. But he also believedthat the vast majority of nonwhiteswould not achieve those levels dur- inghis lifetime or forseveral lifetimes thereafter. Althoughracism compromised his civic nationalism, it would be a mistaketo dis- missthe sincerity of hiscivic declarations. He felthis civic nationalism, what he called "trueAmericanism," deeply, and it allowedhim to welcomeinto American society "lowly"and "raciallyinferior" European immigrants whom most people of his class

32Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 97; Roosevelt,"True Americanism," 24-25; Roosevelt,Winning of the West, VIII, 17. See also G. EdwardWhite, The Eastern Establishment and theWestern Experience: The West of Frederic Rem- ington,Theodore Roosevelt, and OwenWister (New Haven, 1968). On Lodge and Grant,see Higham,Strangers in theLand, 68-157 andpassim. I disagreewith Alexander Saxton, who arguesthat the Remington passage expressed Roosevelt'sviews as well.Saxton, Rise and Fall ofthe White Republic, 343-44. 33Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging,5.

This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TheodoreRoosevelt and American Nationalism 1297 andcultural background despised. It is easyto belittlethe progressive character of Roosevelt'sinclusionary attitudes toward European immigrants, now thatanti- Catholicismand anti-Semitism have largely vanished as significantAmerican ideolo- giesand all Euro-Americansare thoughtto belongto thesame white race. But Roosevelt'sembrace of Catholic and Jewish Europeans was not popular among many native-bornProtestant Americans of his time.In fact,the arrival of so manyof them,especially from "primitive" regions in easternand southern Europe, generated hysteriaamong large numbers of native-bornProtestants.34 Many immigrants, in turn,responded to Roosevelt'swarmth with appreciation, enthusiasm, and votes. His civicnationalism also gave nonwhite Americans something to workwith, for its democraticand egalitarian ethos allowed them to believethat they could yet find a wayto gain full citizenship rights and thus to include themselves inthe great national experiment.The American creed of a GunnarMyrdal and the integrationist dream of a MartinLuther King Jr. sprang from the same taproot of civicnationalism that TheodoreRoosevelt espoused in theearly years of this century. Roosevelt'scivic nationalism was rooted both in his Republicanism and in his love ofthe cosmopolitan city in which he had grown up. Since the 1860s, the Republican partyhad cast itself as theimplacable foe of discrimination and favoritism. From the earliestdays of his political career, Roosevelt had wanted to purge government offavor- itism,cronyism, and corruption and to ensure that government appointments would be reservedfor the best qualified. That meant adopting civil service procedures that reliedon impartialmerit tests rather than on tiesof party, friendship, ornationality.35' ForRoosevelt, a commitment to merit uncompromised byprejudice or cronyism wasmore than abstract principle; it alsoreflected what he hadlearned as a denizen ofwhat he called "huge, polyglot, pleasure-loving" New York, where people from all walksof life had found a wayto live together. Roosevelt valued what he sawas New Yorkers'inclination toput aside their prejudices, and he believed that city leaders ought to encouragethis broad-mindedness. He was proud to callhimself a friend of Otto Raphael,a Jewishpoliceman, who, like Roosevelt, was "'straightNew York."' As policecommissioner (1895-1897), Roosevelt became famous for his midnight strolls withJacob Riis (himself an immigrant),ostensibly tocatch deadbeat cops who were asleepon thejob orotherwise neglectful of theirduties; but Roosevelt loved just as muchthe exposure these excursions gave him to the hidden communities and activi- tiesof New York City life. "These midnight rambles are great fun," he once wrote. "My wholework brings me in contactwith every class of people in NewYork.... I geta glimpseof the real life of the swarming millions."36 Therewas a voyeuristicelement to this,just as therehad been in Riis'ssensation- alistexpose, How the Other Half Lives.37 But there was also a strongdesire to break downthe barriers that had separated New Yorkers from each other and to prod all citi-

34 Higham,Strangers in theLand, 52-105, 158-93. 35Harbaugh, Life and Timesof TheodoreRoosevelt, 13-49, 69-92. 36Roosevelt, An Autobiography(1913; New York,1927), 175, 179-80; Rooseveltto Anna Roosevelt,June 16, 1895, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,I, 463. 37JacobA. Riis,How theOther Half Lives:Studies Among the Tenements of New York(1890; New York,1971).

This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1298 TheJournal of American History December1999 zensof the "great city" to crossneighborhood and ethnic boundaries. Some scholars have arguedthat Roosevelt's openness to immigrantsextended only to the so-calledold immigrantsfrom Great Britain, Germany, and Scandinaviawho supposedly belonged to superiorand easilyassimilable races. The "newimmigrants" from eastern and south- ernEurope, in thisview, received no welcomefrom Roosevelt, for they were consid- eredto lackthe racial makeup to succeedin America.38While some evidence supports thisview, other evidence does not. It cannotaccount, for example, for Roosevelt's enthusiasticembrace of IsraelZangwill's play, The Melting-Pot, when it openedon Broadwayin 1908. The protagonist,David Quixano,belongs to a RussianJewish familythat can onlybe describedas newimmigrant. David's mother, father, and sis- tershave been slain duringthe 1903 Kishinevpogrom. David fleesto New York, wherehe is takenin byhis uncle,Mendel Quixano, who is portrayedby Zangwill as the stereotypicaleastern European Jewish immigrant, "wearing a blackskull-cap, a seedyvelvet jacket." Mendel lives with his mother, Frau Quixano, a forlornsoul who speaksonly Yiddish and forwhom America is a culturaland emotionalgraveyard. Mendeland David, bothtalented musicians, desire to escapethe provincialism and tragedythat envelop Frau Quixano. While Mendel is too old and too tied to his motherto succeedin thisquest, David possessesthe necessary talent, drive, and independence.He seizesthe opportunitythat America gives him, writes his American symphony,marries the gentile girl of his dreams,and becomesa proudAmerican.39 Roosevelt,of course,endorsed Zangwill's depiction of America as a landof unlim- itedopportunity. But, even more important, he applaudedZangwill's insistence that evenimmigrants such as David,whose origins lay in theallegedly inferior races of east- ernEurope, could become the most successful and bestof Americans. It mattered,too, thatDavid succeedsin America,not by maintaining his Jewish heritage, but by assim- ilatingto American culture. The wordsthat Zangwill puts in David'smouth could have come fromRoosevelt's own pen: "Americais God's Crucible,the great Melting-Pot whereall theraces of Europeare melting and reforming!. . . Germansand French- men,Irishmen and Englishmen,Jews and Russians-into theCrucible with you all! God is makingthe American." No wonderRoosevelt wrote Zangwill, "I do notknow whenI haveseen a playthat stirred me as much."40 An evenmore impressive demonstration of Roosevelt'scomfort with the new immi- grantsoccurred in 1913, in themidst of a strikeby women garment workers in New YorkCity. Roosevelt traveled to HenryStreet and St.Mark's Place to witnessthe strike firsthandand to interviewthe strikers about their grievances and ambitions.On Henry Streethe encounteredyoung women whom some observers would have described as themost pathetic examples of thenew immigration: They were the "lowest and poorest paid workersthat we saw,"Roosevelt noted. Their "racial" background was equally base,for many were Turkish Jews who could not even speak Yiddish, let alone English.

38 See, forexample, Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 189-92. 39 IsraelZangwill, The Melting-Pot: Drama in FourActs(1909; New York,1923), 2 andpassim. 40Ibid.,33; Rooseveltto IsraelZangwill, Oct. 15, 1908, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,VI, 1288.

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Theywere thus cut offnot onlyfrom American culture but also fromthe Yiddish- speakingJewish community and labormovement in New YorkCity.41 It wouldhave been easy for Roosevelt to findfault with these women and to deplore an immigrationpolicy that had let themin. A HenryCabot Lodge or a Madison Grantwould probably have responded to a closeencounter with these Turkish Jew- ishwomen with horror rather than empathy, with demands for their deportation or exclusionrather than for their protection. But thatwas not Roosevelt'sreaction. He was movedby theirplight, feeling "deep sympathy for them personally." Moreover, Rooseveltnoted, "there is thelarger question of thesocial good of thewhole race." We musttake care of them,he argued,for they represent the "mothersof . . . our Americancitizenship for the next generation." One can discernin Roosevelt'sreac- tiona Victorianpaternalism that stressed the need to savethese poor damselsfrom theirdistress (although his preferredremedy, unionization of thewomen, was not paternalistat all). Such a judgment,however, too readilyignores Roosevelt's unam- biguousinvitation to thesewomen to becomepart of theAmerican nation. In going outamong these poor Turkish Jewish women, mixing easily with them ("gather around me and tellyour stories," he imploredat one point),and treatingthem as themothers of futureAmericans, Roosevelt was showing ample solicitude and easewith a groupof newimmigrants.42 Roosevelt'swillingness to grantthose immigrant women, or anywomen, the rights and dutiesof menwas anothermatter. The centralityof thewarrior to Roosevelt's narrativesof nationbuilding, his admirationfor muscular individuals willing to use force,and his abhorrenceof effeminacyin men underscorethe gendered character of his nationalism.Men, Rooseveltbelieved, were society's natural leaders; nations restedon the intensehomosocial bonds arisingamong men sharingthe perilsof combat.Women's nature did not allow themto succeedat men'swork, and the admissionof femalesto thearmy and othersacred institutions of malecomradeship wouldonly compromise nation building. But women'sinferiority did not mean thatthey, or at leastthe Euro-Americans amongthem, were to be excludedfrom the nation. Their contributions as wivesand motherswere essential both to thecreation of newmale citizens and to thosecitizens' moraleducation; women were, as Roosevelthad declaredof the New YorkCity womenstrikers, the "mothers . .. of ourcitizenship." An interestingambiguity attaches to Roosevelt'suse of theword "our" in thatphrase. Perhaps Roosevelt meant "our" to referto allAmericans, male and female, but it seems more likely that "our" refers only to menand expressesRoosevelt's belief that women's primary role was to createmale citizenswhile accepting their own exclusion from citizenship. Rooseveltenlarged his conception of women'srole over the first two decades of the twentiethcentury. His interestin theconditions of workersand theimmigrant poor notonly led himto advocateunionization for women workers but also broughthim

41 Rooseveltto MichaelA. Schaap,Jan. 24, 1913, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,VII, 696-701. 42 Ibid.;Annelise Orleck, Common Sense and a LittleFire: Women and Working-ClassPolitics in theUnited States, 1900-1965 (Chapel Hill, 1995), 77-78. Emphasisadded. Madison Grant,The Passing of theGreat Race; or,the RacialBasis of European History (New York,1916).

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intocontact with women Progressives such as JaneAddams and FlorenceKelley who advocatedwoman suffrage and otherreforms likely to increasewomen's political influence.And whenRoosevelt formed the Progressive party in 1912 (a subjectthat this essaywill later take up), he welcomedinto it a largecontingent of womenreformers, who wereprominent at theconvention and in thecampaign. Roosevelt's embrace of thewomen activists reflected more than expediency, more than his desperateneed forall thesupport, male or female,he could muster.At a timewhen many men, in Roosevelt'sestimation, were suffering from effeminacy and thusfailing as fathers, leaders,and soldiers,the femalerole in buildingthe nationassumed greater impor- tance.By improvingthe living and familialconditions in whichmale childrenwere born and raised,women reformers could help ensurethat the nextgeneration of menwould be inculcatedwith manly virtues. Roosevelt at timesaccepted the need fora modifiedconception of masculinitythat accorded with the femalereformers' emphasison cooperation,service, and social welfare,qualities that other men of Roosevelt'stime derided as fatalto men's"rugged individualism." As a signof the growingpolitical role that Roosevelt envisioned for women, he becamea supporter of woman suffrage.Suffragists and feminists,in turn,found in Roosevelt'scivic nationalismthe language to justifytheir struggle for equality. ButRoosevelt never became a feminist,nor a believerin thefundamental equality of men and women.He supportedsuffrage because he believedthat by enlisting womento cleansepolitics of corruptionand vice,it would ultimately strengthen men, enhancingtheir ability to pursuenational virtue and glory.Thus whileRooseveltian conceptionsof nationhoodheld sway,feminists would findfull equality an elusive goal. Roosevelt'scivic nationalism retained its genderedcast, reserving for men the opportunityand responsibilityto becomefree and self-governingindividuals.43

Civic Nationalismand the Problemof Race

In theabstract, the task of reconcilingcivic nationalism with racial nationalism was straightforward.Roosevelt simply argued that certain races-notably Asians and Afri- can Americans-couldnot meetthe fundamental requirements of Americancitizen- ship. "Only the veryhighest races have been able" to make a successof self- government,he wrotein a 1908 letter,and it would be foolish,even contemptible, to assumethat "utterly undeveloped races" could functionon an evenfooting with whitesin a democracy.44 The practicalwork of exclusionwas in some casesas easilyaccomplished as the

43 ArnaldoTesti, "The Genderof ReformPolitics: Theodore Roosevelt and theCulture of Masculinity,"Jour- nal of AmericanHistory, 81 (March 1995), 1509-33; RobynMuncy, "Trustbusting and White Manhood in America,1898-1914," AmericanStudies, 38 (Fall 1997), 21-42; Paula Baker,"The Domesticationof Politics: Women and AmericanPolitical Society, 1780-1920," AmericanHistorical Review, 89 (June 1984), 620-47; Theodore Roosevelt,Theodore Roosevelt: Autobiography, 161-67; Theodore Roosevelt,The Foes of Our Own Household(New York,1917), esp. 232-73; KristinL. Hoganson,Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender PoliticsProvoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-AmericanWars (New Haven, 1998); Bederman,Manliness and Civilization,170-215; Nancy F. Cott, "Marriageand Women'sCitizenship in the United States,1830- 1934,"American HistoricalReview, 103 (Dec. 1998), 1440-74. 44 Rooseveltto ArthurHamilton Lee, March7, 1908, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,VI, 965.

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ideologicalwork. That was certainlytrue in regardto theChinese, whom Roosevelt despised.The Chinese ExclusionAct of 1882, whichbarred Chinese immigrant laborersfrom entering the country, insured that the ChineseAmerican population would not becomelarge enough to pose a realproblem for American democracy. Congresskept this 1882 exclusionin place untilthe 1940s. Rooseveltdid notwant to excludethe Japanese, a peoplewhom he admired,but he rathereasily engineered a policyof exclusion once anti-Japanese agitation in Californiamade one, in Roosevelt's eyes,a politicalnecessity. 45 The workof reconcilingcivic and racialnationalist principles in regardto black Americanswas anothermatter altogether, because the relativelyeasy remedy of an exclusionaryimmigration law couldnot solve the "Negro problem." The corollaryto immigrationexclusion-the repatriationof blacksto Africa-seemedtoo impracti- cal bythe early 1 900s evento proposeas publicpolicy. That Roosevelttolerated blacks' subordination to whitesand thoughtof themas an inferiorrace is beyonddispute. He neverdeviated from the words he wroteto his good friendOwen Wisterin 1906: "I entirelyagree with you thatas a raceand in the mass theyare altogetherinferior to whites."46He rarelyprotested the segrega- tionistregime that, during the years of his presidency,reshaped social relationsin theAmerican South. As president,he actuallyappointed fewer blacks to federalposi- tionsthan had his predecessorWilliam McKinley. During theseyears, Roosevelt continuedto denigratethe fitness and honorof blacksoldiers, as he had done since theSpanish-American War. In 1906, he orderedthe dishonorable discharge of 167 men of the all-blackTwenty-fifth United States Infantry Regiment, alleging that theywere covering up fora fewsoldiers who mayhave assaulted a whitewoman and participatedin a raidagainst the white residents of Brownsville,Texas. The factsof the case werehotly debated and werenever truly clarified. But thisdid not stop Rooseveltfrom dismissing scores of black soldiers,including five who had been awardedthe Congressional Medal of Honor fortheir heroism in Cuba and thePhil- ippines.It is unlikelythat Roosevelt would have meted out equallyharsh treatment to whitesoldiers accused of a cover-up.47 Yetthis same man earned the loyalty of blacksand theenmity of southernwhites becauseon occasionhe violatedthe color line in sensationaland highly publicized ways. He enragedsouthern whites when he appointeda blackman, William D. Crum,to thecollectorship of theport of Charleston,South Carolina, a prestigiousfederal post, and he infuriatedthem again when he shutdown the post office in Indianola,Mis- sissippi,to punishlocal whiteswho had run theirAfrican American postmaster, Minnie M. Cox, out of town.Roosevelt's greatest racial "crime" occurred within monthsof his inauguration,when he invitedBooker T. Washingtonto theWhite

45 LucySalyer, Laws Harshas Tigers:Chinese Immigrants and theShaping of Modern Immigration Law (Chapel Hill, 1995), 94-138; Gyory,Closing the Gate; Roy L. Garis,Immigration Restriction (New York,1927), 308-54. On Roosevelt'sadmiration for the Japanese, see Rooseveltto GeorgeOtto Trevelyan,Sept. 12, 1905, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,V, 22. 46Roosevelt to Owen Wister,April 27, 1908, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,V, 226. 47Alfred Holt Stone,Studies in theAmerican Race Problem (New York,1908), 313; Lane, BrownsvilleAffair.

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House forlunch. Not onlydid he thusbecome, in thewords of theWashington Bee, "thefirst President of theUnited States to entertaina coloured man." He alsocommit- ted,in thewords of one keenobserver, "the one unpardonableviolation of theSouth- ernracial code"-"the breakingof breadbetween the raceson equal terms."With theexception of interracialsexual intercourse, there could be no more"ultimate and positiveexpression" of a commitmentto socialequality. Many southern whites never forgaveRoosevelt for the transgression.48 Whydid he do it?Recently, historians have treated Roosevelt's high-profile meet- ingswith, and appointmentsof, blacksas partof an elaborateand cynicalpolitical game in whichRoosevelt was attemptingto securehis southernbase amongblack Republicans;once he decidedthat the political payoff from that base was too small, he stoppedappointing blacks and begancourting southern whites instead.49 Rooseveltno doubtmade such calculations, but it would be a mistaketo interprethis entireapproach to therace question through this Machiavellian lens. If Roosevelt,in general,endorsed the notionthat the white race was supreme,he was nonetheless impatientwith the idea thatthe two major American races ought to haveno contact witheach other. In personalterms, Roosevelt was an adventurerand boundarycrosser whowanted no restrictionson hisfreedom of association.If he wantedto meetwith a black-or a Jewor a Catholic-under conditionsof equality,he wouldnot tolerate anyonetelling him he had no rightto do so. In politicalterms, Roosevelt grounded thisright in his civicnationalist belief that Americans ought to respect-and open theirhomes and businessesto-anyone willingto workhard and live honorably, regardlessof hisor herracial or religiousbackground. That is whyRoosevelt, on many occasionsand at greatlength, declared his commitmentto treating"each black man and each whiteman strictly[according to] . . . his meritsas a man,giving him no moreand no lessthan he showshimself worthy to have."50Roosevelt, in otherwords, could not entirelycontain his behaviorwithin the boundariescalled forby the racializednation he had laboredso hardto imagineand create.This was trueeven of his effortsto redirectAmerican politics through the New Nationalismhe unveiledin 1910, whichbecame the ideological foundation of theProgressive party he founded in 1912. Rooseveltworked hard in thiscampaign to do whathe had done on San JuanHill-to bringEuropean immigrants closer to the centerof Americanlife whilekeeping blacks and otherracial minorities on the periphery.And by many measureshe was successfulin doingso. ButRoosevelt continued to violatethe southerners'racial code in otherways, revealing yet again his discomfortwith what he judgedarbitrary racial boundaries.

48 Stone,American Race Problem, 243-49, 315, 319. Those wantingto believein Roosevelt'scommitment to racialequality could findother examples of good deeds.As civilservice commissioner, he had eliminatedfrom examsgiven in southerncities questions regarding applicants' religion, political orientation, and race; the result was thatgreater numbers of blackapplicants entered government service. As governorof New York,he outlawed racialdiscrimination in the state'spublic schools and prohibitedindividual towns from placing white and black childrenin separateeducational institutions. Ibid., 312; Harbaugh,Life and Timesof TheodoreRoosevelt, 127-28. 49JoelWilliamson, The Crucibleof Race: Black-White Relations in theAmerican South since Emancipation (New York,1984), 354. 50 Rooseveltto Tourgee, Nov. 8, 1901, in Lettersof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Morison,III, 190. See also Roosevelt to Owen Wister,ibid., V, 221-30, esp. 228.

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The New Nationalism

The NewNationalism, a political program invented by the Progressive journalist Herbert Crolyin 1908,was intendedto offerclass-torn America a thoroughgoingplan of eco- nomicand politicalreconstruction. Croly called for a largestate to regulatethe pred- atorypractices of big industryand to reinvigorateAmerican life with a spiritof cooperationand selflessness.Croly's program gave Roosevelt a namefor the efforts he had alreadytaken as presidentto enlargethe federal government in orderto control thecorporations and to offerall ordinaryAmericans, no matterhow impoverished or disadvantaged,a "square deal." Just back from an Africansafari in 1910 and look- ing fora wayto reenterAmerican politics after his prematureretirement from the presidencyin 1909, Rooseveltembraced Croly's New Nationalismas hisown.51 Croly'sNew Nationalismalso allowed Roosevelt to addressa glaringweakness in his earlierformulations of civicnationalism. Roosevelt's nationalism had alwayscontained withinit the promise of economicopportunity and advancementto thosewho worked hardand livedhonorably. But the civicnationalist philosophy that he had formu- latedin the1890s, with its focus on equalcivil and political rights for all citizens,could notdeliver on thatpromise. Politically, this philosophy owed a greatdeal to classicallib- eralism,especially in itsinsistence that individual emancipation would follow upon the removalof artificialconstraints on politicaland civic participation. Thus, Roosevelt had believedthat the ending of discriminatorytreatment in publicand privatelife would giveEuropean immigrants and otherdisadvantaged Americans ample opportunity to partakeof theAmerican dream. But Roosevelt had failedto gaugethe negative effects of industrializationon individualopportunity and virtue.Belatedly, and aftermuch proddingfrom New YorkCity's vigorous labor movement, Roosevelt acknowledged thatgrinding poverty was preventingworkers, even those with full political and civil rights,from achieving economic security or the leisurenecessary to cultivatetheir civicvirtue. The poor neededwhat the Englisheconomist T. H. Marshallwould latercall social rights:rights to limitson the hoursof work,to a decentwage, to compensationfor work-related injuries, and to socialinsurance against sickness, old age, and deathfor themselves and theirfamilies. Once theypossessed such social rights,citizens could gaineconomic security and reachtheir fullest moral and intel- lectualpotential. The New Nationalismmade the attainment of social rights central to itsprogram. Every man, Roosevelt declared, would then be able "tomake of himself all thatin him lies"and "to reachthe highest point to whichhis capacities. . . can carryhim." In thisway the promise of civicnationalism would be fulfilled.52 As a New Yorker,Roosevelt understood how large a proportionof theworking class wereimmigrants and theirchildren. His New Nationalistprogram was meantto bringthem into the nation, not just politically and culturally,but economically as well.

51 HerbertCroly, The Promiseof American Life (1909; Boston,1989); GeorgeE. Mowry,Theodore Roosevelt and theProgressive Movement (Madison, 1946); ArthurS. Link, WoodrowWilson and theProgressive Era, 1910- 1917(New York,1954), 1-24. 52Howard Lawrence Hurwitz, Theodore Roosevelt and Laborin New YorkState, 1880-1900 (New York,1943); T. H. Marshall,Citizenship and Social Classand OtherEssays (Cambridge, Eng., 1950), 11; TheodoreRoosevelt, TheNew Nationalism(New York,1910), 11, andpassim.

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As his movementgathered momentum, Roosevelt attracted to it leadingsocial wel- fareProgressives, such as Paul Kellogg,Jane Addams, Frances Kellor, Robert Woods, and LillianWald, who had laboredintensively with immigrants in theirneighbor- hoods, schools,and workplaces.For thesereformers, the plightof the European immigrants-theinadequate wages, the slum conditionsin whichthey lived, the infectiousdiseases from which they suffered, and theurban vices to whichsome of themhad succumbed(prostitution, gambling, and politicalcorruption)-symbolized muchthat was wrongwith the United States. They called for better working conditions,higher wages, improved housing and sanitation,playgrounds to givechildren morewholesome recreation, Americanization programs to teachimmigrants English, andpublic museums and librariesto cultivateimmigrant minds. As theygathered with Rooseveltin Chicagoin 1912 to foundthe Progressiveparty, these reformers were giddywith the belief that their concerns had movedfrom obscure charity and aca- demic conferencesto the verycenter of Americanpolitics. "A greatparty," Jane Addamsexclaimed in her speechseconding Roosevelt's nomination, "has pledged itselfto theprotection of children,to thecare of theaged, to therelief of overworked girls,to thesafeguarding of burdenedmen." The Progressiveparty had become"the Americanexponent of a world-widemovement toward juster social conditions." In theprocess, it helpeddefine an agendathat would remain central to Americanreform forfifty years.53 Butthe issue of raceintruded on thisprogram of nationalistrenewal. The Progres- siveparty had raisedblack hopes, drawing many African American voters to Roosevelt. Eventhose who remainedsuspicious of Rooseveltfound in theProgressive pledge to help themost disadvantaged Americans a compellingreason to throwtheir support behindthis new movement.In the summerof 1912, blackRepublicans in several southernstates left their party and puttogether delegate slates to sendto theProgres- siveparty's convention. But Roosevelt and hissupporters refused to seatthem, choos- ingto honorthe credentials of lily-whitedelegations from those states instead.54 The blackdelegates were the properly elected ones, but Roosevelt, seeing an opportunityto builda Progressivebase amongsouthern whites dissatisfied with the Dem- ocraticparty, brushed propriety aside. The southernwhites whom Roosevelt wanted to woo wouldjoin theProgressive party only on thecondition that the party endorse theprinciples of whitesupremacy, and thatmeant an acceptanceof segregationand blackdisfranchisement in the South. Roosevelt acquiesced in thatdemand, prevail-

Daniel Levine,Jane Addams and theLiberal Tradition (Madison, 1971), 190-91; JohnAllen Gable, TheBull Moose Years:Theodore Roosevelt and theProgressive Party (Port Washington, 1978), 6, 40; JaneAddams, Twenty Yearsat Hull House(New York,1910); RivkaShpak Lissak, Pluralism and theProgressives: Hull Houseand theNew Immigrants,1890-1919 (Chicago, 1919); CatherineKerr, "Race in theMaking of AmericanLiberalism, 1912- 1965" (Ph.D. diss.,Johns Hopkins University, 1995), ch. 1. On theProgressive reformers' engagement with the new immigrantsand theirproblems, see also twovolumes of thePittsburgh Survey, an exhaustiveexamination of the livesof immigrantsin Pittsburgh:Margaret Byington, Homestead: Households of a Mill Town(New York, 1910); and Paul U. Kellogg,ed., ThePittsburgh District: Civic Frontage (New York,1914). For a briefintroduc- tion to thisproject, see Paul U. Kellogg,"The PittsburghSurvey," Charities and theCommons, 21 (Jan. 1909), 517-26. 54 Gable,Bull Moose Years, 60-74.

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ing upon the Progressiveconvention committee to denysouthern black delegates theirseats.55 Fromthe perspective of hiscivic nationalism, this should not have been a difficult movefor Roosevelt to makeor justify. He couldhave stressed how few southern blacks had raisedthemselves to a levelwhere they would be capableof handling the political responsibilitiesalready vested in whites.But Rooseveltfelt compelled to mounta far morecomplex defense, for his decision to subordinateblacks had drawna firestorm of criticismwithin and beyondthe Progressive party.56 Rooseveltstressed the impotenceand corruptionof blackRepublicanism in the South,the base from which the Progressives would have drawn their support. He empha- sizedhis support for black participation in theNorth and proudlypointed to theblack menwho had beenelected members of delegationsfrom thirteen northern and border states."The ProgressiveParty," Roosevelt declared, "is already, at itsvery birth, endeav- oringin theseStates, in itshome, to act withfuller recognition of therights of the coloredman than ever the Republican party did." Finally, he insistedthat racial progress in theSouth would come,not fromhigh-handed northern attempts to forcea new racialorder on thatrecalcitrant region, but from the many well-intentioned "white men in theSouth sincerely desirous of doingjustice to thecolored man." Only these "men of justiceand of visionas well as of strengthand leadership,"Roosevelt wrote, can do forthe colored man "whatneither the Northern white man northe colored men themselvescan do": securethe right of free political expression "to the negro who shows he possessesthe intelligence, integrity, and self-respectwhich justify such right of political expressionin hiswhite neighbor." The whitedelegates to theProgressive convention,Roosevelt implied, were precisely the sortof wise southernmen who would workon theNegro's behalf.57 Roosevelt'srationalizations could not hidehow muchhis actionshad violatedthe spiritof the Fourteenthand Fifteenthamendments, which forbade discrimination againstcitizens on thebasis of color,nor how muchsouthern white Progressives- eventhose of themwhom Roosevelt considered the wisest-wanted to perpetuate whitesupremacy, not upend it. And to asksouthern blacks to trusttheir fate to well- intentionedwhite neighbors was not onlyto insulttheir capacity for political self- mobilizationbut also to demandthat they acquiesce in theirown subordination. Roosevelt'sfellow Progressives attacked him on all thesegrounds, as wellas others. ButRoosevelt stuck to hisguns, and a majorityof Progressivesassented to Roosevelt's policy.Yet, despite his victory, Roosevelt had hurthimself with the white South. His publicpronouncements on thedecision to excludethe black delegates were agoniz- inglyapologetic and long-winded;they all includedlengthy iterations of his civic

Ibid.; GeorgeE. Mowry,"The South and the ProgressiveLily White Partyof 1912," Journalof Southern History,6 (May 1940), 237-47; Dewey W. GranthamJr., "The ProgressiveMovement and the Negro,"South AltanticQuarterly, 54 (Oct. 1955), 461-77; ArthurS. Link,"The Negroas a Factorin theCampaign of 1912," Journalof Negro History, 32 (Jan.1947), 81-99. 56Grantham, "Progressive Movement and theNegro"; Link, "Negro as a Factorin theCampaign of 1912." 57Arthur S. Link,ed., "CorrespondenceRelating to theProgressive Party's 'Lily White' Policy in 1912,"Jour- nal ofSouthern History, 10 (Nov. 1944), 483-88; TheodoreRoosevelt, "The Progressivesand theColored Man," 1912, in Worksof TheodoreRoosevelt, ed. Hagedorn,XVII, 304-5.

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nationalistconviction that every American be guaranteed"his right to life,to liberty, to protectionfrom injustice" without regard to creed,birthplace, social station,or color.In hiscommunications and speeches,Roosevelt also listedthe many efforts by theProgressive party in theNorth to guaranteeblacks their political rights. None of thiswent over very well withwhite southerners who werecontemplating joining Roosevelt'scrusade. And then,on theeve of theelection, Roosevelt further alienated hispotential white southern supporters by committing another "unpardonable viola- tionof theSouthern racial code": He dinedwith two blacks in a RhodeIsland hotel, remindingwhite supremacists everywhere of his originalsin-his White House lunch,more than a decade earlier,with BookerT. Washington.The Progressive party'ssouthern campaign was a fiasco,netting Roosevelt many fewer votes than he had won as a Republicanin 1904.58

Thereare at leasttwo ways to interpretthe events of 1912. The firstis to emphasize the hold that the racial nationalisttradition exercised over the imaginationof Rooseveltand others.Throughout his life,Roosevelt believed that most nonwhites belongedto inferiorraces with limited capacities for self-government. Only the few individualswithin those races who demonstratedthat they had liftedthemselves to the levelof Europeanswere to be rewardedwith a fullcomplement of civiland socialrights. This kindof thinkingpermitted Roosevelt and hissupporters at thePro- gressiveparty's 1912 conventionto reinscribeAfrican American subordination into theirliberal politics; this particular act takes on addedsignificance because of theconvention'srole in definingmodern American liberalism. It is nottoo muchto saythat therefusal to seatblack delegates set a precedentthat would haunt liberal politics for muchof therest of thetwentieth century. But it is equallystriking that, in upholdingracial nationalism in 1912, Roosevelt createda politicaland personalmess for himself Unlike his excision of blacksoldiers fromthe Rough Rider narrative, an act he had executedin 1899 withoutshame or hesitation,Roosevelt was troubledby his exclusion of blackdelegates from the 1912 convention.In theuncertain terms in whichhe rationalizedthis exclusion and in the inconsistencyof his behavioron the"race question," we can detectthe influence of thecivic nationalist ideal. This idealcould-and did-destabilize Roosevelt'sracial mythsand practices,even as it failedto undercutthem altogether. In Roosevelt'sactions in 1912,then, we can discernthe true American dilemma- a nationalidentity divided against itself. On the one hand, Rooseveltand others conceivedof America as a landmeant for Europeans in whichblacks had eithera sub- ordinateplace or no placeat all. On theother hand, they subscribed to a civicnationalist ideal thatwelcomed all law-abidingresidents into the polityand disavowed distinctionsbased on race.How werethe opposing conceptions of nationalidentity to be reconciledinto a singleAmerican creed? Sometimes this dilemma came into full

58Link, ed., "CorrespondenceRelating to the ProgressiveParty's 'Lily White' Policyin 1912," 482; Mowry, "Southand theProgressive Lily White Party of 1912," 246; Link,"Negro as a Factorin theCampaign of 1912," 97-98.

This content downloaded from 64.9.56.53 on Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:10 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TheodoreRoosevelt and American Nationalism 1307 view,as it did in 1912; othertimes it was obscured,as imagesof thetwo Americas developedseparately from each other, dominating different political and culturalforms. But bothsprang with equal forcefrom the same source-American nationalism- and bothanimated American politics with equal intensity. Eventually,the contradiction between the civic and racializedforms of American nationalismbecame too greatfor large numbers of Americansto tolerate.But that momenttook a longtime to arrive.Only in the1960s did a greatbattle erupt over the desirabilityof upholdinga nationso steepedin racializednotions of belonging.We are still,today, endeavoring to figureout whether we wanta strongAmerican nation and whetherone can be builtwithout resuscitating racialized patterns of exclusion.But equallypuzzling is thequestion of howAmerican nationalism flourished for so long in such a dividedstate. One answeris easy:that, when push came to shove,racial nationalismwas the only tradition that mattered to whiteAmericans. As muchas these Americans,even the liberals among them, expressed a commitment to equalrights, they alwaysbelieved that whites were better and more deserving than were people of color. Roosevelt'scase, however, suggests a morecomplex and confusinganswer: that the kindof restrictivedefinition of socialorder called for by the racial nationalist tradi- tionproved too constrainingto humanimagination. As committedas Rooseveltwas to celebratingthe United States as a whitenation, he neverfelt entirely comfortable livingwithin such raciallyrigid borders. Roosevelt had alwaysbeen an adventurer, drawnto frontiers,whether they were located in theAmerican West, in Cuba, or in immigrantdistricts in NewYork City. In hishistorical writing he celebratedthe mix- ingof peoples;in his personallife, he enjoyedhis encounterswith the Turkish Jew- ish womenworkers in New York,with Booker T. Washingtonin theWhite House, and even,initially, with the black soldiers on San JuanHill. Forsuch an individual, havingtwo nations-a racialnation and a civicnation-may havebeen better than havingone, forit allowedhim to satisfyquite differentstrivings. He could pursue socialorder through racial hierarchy even as he foundpersonal satisfaction through hisfreedom to associatewith individuals of widelydivergent nationalities, races, and vocations.From this perspective, the divided or double character of American nation- alismposes much less of a problem;while it undoubtedlycaused moments of embar- rassmentand politicalfailure, it also may have helpedto sustainnationalists like Rooseveltwho could not find in onlyone conceptionof the nation satisfaction for their ambitionsand needs. One can discernin thisneed to inhabit"two nations" an implicitcritique of the verynotion that nationhood was an effectivevehicle for social bonding and personal fulfillment.In Roosevelt'sown mind,this critique could never have become explicit. He was a man of his time,which meant that he associatedabsolute devotion to one nationwith the highest civic virtue. He wouldhave regarded the notion that he himself inhabitedtwo nationsas abhorrent,much as he detestedthose Americans, ranging fromnostalgic immigrants to anglophiliacwould-be aristocrats, who daredto suggest thatthey loved some European nation as muchas theyloved America. But Roosevelt was also human,and hishumanity regularly overflowed the vessel-the nation-into whichhe so insistentlypoured all hisstrivings and aspirations.

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