(Edited from Wikipedia)
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. As a leader of the Republican Party during this time, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century.
On September 6, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist acting alone while in Buffalo, New York. Initial reports suggested that his condition was improving, so Roosevelt, after visiting the ailing president, embarked for the west. When McKinley's condition worsened, Roosevelt rushed back. McKinley died on September 14, and Roosevelt was sworn in at the Ansley Wilcox House.
Roosevelt kept McKinley's Cabinet and promised to continue McKinley's policies. In the November 1904 presidential election, Roosevelt won the presidency in his own right in a landslide victory against Alton Brooks Parker.
One of Roosevelt's first notable acts as president was to deliver a 20,000-word address to Congress asking it to curb the power of large corporations (called "trusts"). He also spoke in support of organized labor to further chagrin big business, but to their delight, he endorsed the gold standard, protective tariffs and lower taxes. For his aggressive use of United States antitrust law, he became known as the "trust-buster." He brought 40 antitrust suits [Taft brought twice as many – G.N.], and broke up major companies, such as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company.
In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to an arbitration of the dispute by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike, dropping coal prices and retiring furnaces; the accord with J.P. Morgan resulted in the workers getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. Journalist Ray Baker quoted Roosevelt concerning his policy towards capitalists and laborers: "My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man."
Roosevelt thought it was particularly important for the government to supervise the
1 workings of the railway to avoid corruption in interstate commerce related to the shipment of coal and other commodities and goods. The result was enactment of the Hepburn Act in 1906, that established Federal control over railroad rates.
Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped.
Business
During the Panic of 1907, nearly all agreed that a more flexible system to ensure liquidity was needed—the Republicans sought a response to the money supply through the bankers, whereas the Democrats sought government control; Roosevelt was unsure, but leaned towards the Republican view while continuing to denounce corporate corruption. Nonetheless, in 1910, Roosevelt commented on "enormously wealthy and economically powerful men" and suggested "a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes... increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."
Roosevelt was also inclined to extend the regulatory reach of his office. In a moment of frustration, House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control in domestic policy-making: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands states, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." In fact, Roosevelt's willingness to exercise his power included attempted rule changes in the game of football; at the Naval Academy, he sought to force retention of martial arts classes and to revise disciplinary rules. He even ordered changes made in the minting of a coin whose design he disliked, and ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt simplified spellings for a core list of 300 words, according to reformers on the Simplified Spelling Board. He was forced to rescind the latter after substantial ridicule from the press and a resolution of protest from the House of Representatives.
Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in conservation of natural resources, and extending Federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests, including Shoshone National Forest, the nation's first. The area of the
2 United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres (930,000 km2). He worked closely with Gifford Pinchot.
Executive Orders
Roosevelt was the first President to issue over 1000 Executive Orders. According to Dr. Graham G. Dodds, a professor of political science at Concordia University, Roosevelt issued almost as many executive orders as all of his predecessors combined.
Prior to Roosevelt, only one President issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland.(Cleveland issued a total of 253) Of the first 25 Presidents in total, 1262 executive orders were issued. Roosevelt issued 1081.
Members of congress eventually got tired of Roosevelt's excesses in using executive orders to create policy. On February 25, 1907, Senator Charles W. Fulton, a Republican from Oregon, added an amendment to the 1907 Agricultural Appropriations Bill declaring these activities as falling under the authority of congressional power, not executive power.
Foreign policy
In the late 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist, and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 election campaign. After the rebellion ended in 1901, he largely lost interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion in general, despite the contradictory opinion of his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal.
In 1905, Roosevelt offered to mediate a treaty to end the Russo-Japanese War. The parties agreed to meet in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and they resolved the final conflict over the division of Sakhalin– Russia took the northern half, and Japan the south; Japan also dropped its demand for an indemnity. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful efforts. George E. Mowry concludes that Roosevelt handled the arbitration well, doing an "excellent job of balancing Russian and Japanese power in the Orient, where the supremacy of either constituted a threat to growing America." [I took a course from Mowry in 1962. He loved the Progressives – as did his generation of historians – and he loved Teddy Roosevelt. He was Roosevelt’s hagiographer.– G.N.]
3 The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 resolved unpleasant racial tensions with Japan. Tokyo was angered over the segregation of Japanese children in San Francisco schools. The tensions were ended, but Japan also agreed not to allow unskilled workers to emigrate to the U.S.
Roosevelt's attention concerning Latin American turmoil was heightened by his plans for building a canal. In December 1902, the Germans, English, and Italians sought to impose a naval blockade against Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. Roosevelt was particularly concerned with the motives of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm. He succeeded in getting the aggressors to agree to arbitration by a tribunal at The Hague, and averted the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903. The latitude granted to the Europeans by the arbiters was in part responsible for the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which the President issued in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
The pursuit of an isthmus canal in Central America during this period focused on two possible routes—Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Roosevelt received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company $40,000,000 for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. There was also controversy over whether a French company engineer influenced Roosevelt in choosing the Panama route for the canal over the Nicaragua route. Roosevelt denied charges of corruption concerning the canal in a January 8, 1906 message to Congress. In January 1909, Roosevelt, in an unprecedented move, brought criminal libel charges against the New York World and the Indianapolis News known as the "Roosevelt-Panama Libel Cases." Both cases were dismissed by U.S. District Courts, and on January 3, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, upon federal appeal, upheld the lower courts' rulings. Historians are sharply critical of Roosevelt's criminal prosecutions of the World and the News, but are divided on whether actual corruption in acquiring and building the Panama Canal took place.
In 1906, following a disputed election, an insurrection ensued in Cuba; Roosevelt sent Taft, the Secretary of War, to monitor the situation; he was convinced that he had the
4 authority to unilaterally authorize Taft to deploy Marines if necessary, without congressional approval.
Media
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.
Roosevelt normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at expose-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, set magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not usually a target, but his speech in 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar," he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."
The press did briefly target Roosevelt in one instance. Ever since 1904, he had been periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the Panama Canal.
Election of 1904
The control and management of the Republican Party lay in the hands of chairman Mark Hanna until McKinley's death. Hanna's domination, and potential rivalry for the party's nomination in 1904, began to wane with his own health issues; he died early that year. In deference to Hanna's conservative loyalists, Roosevelt at first offered the party chairmanship to Cornelius Bliss, but he declined. Roosevelt turned to his own man, George B. Cortelyou of New York, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. To buttress his hold on the party's nomination, Roosevelt made it clear that anyone opposing Cortelyou would be considered to be opposing the President.
While Roosevelt followed the tradition of incumbents in not actively campaigning on the stump, he sought to control the campaign's message through specific instructions to Cortelyou. He also attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by forming the Ananias Club. Any journalist who repeated a statement made by the
5 president without approval was penalized by restriction of further access.
The Democratic Party's nominee in 1904 was Alton Brooks Parker. [Note: historians remain incomparably silent about Parker. He is the least known of the post-Civil War candidates. Historians ignore him far more than they ignore Winfield Scott Hancock in 1880. Parker was the last of the pro-gold standard Democrats. He was the last major Democrat who favored Cleveland’s policies. After the election, William Jennings Bryan said that this defeat would end Clevelandism. It did. – G.N.]
Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Roosevelt, himself. Roosevelt denied corruption while at the same time he ordered Cortelyou to return $100,000 of a campaign contribution from Standard Oil. Parker said that Roosevelt was accepting corporate donations to keep damaging information from the Bureau of Corporations from going public. Roosevelt strongly denied Parker's charge and responded that he would "go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding of any kind, sort, or description...." Allegations from Parker and the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal." Roosevelt won 56% of the popular vote, and Parker received 38%; Roosevelt also won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. Before his inauguration ceremony, Roosevelt declared that he would not serve another term. Democrats afterwards would continue to charge Roosevelt and the Republicans of being influenced by corporate donations during Roosevelt's second term.
A 1912–1913 Senate investigation, led by progressive Minnesota Senator Moses E. Clapp, into the 1904 election showed that Standard Oil had contributed a total of $150,000 to the Republican campaign and that large corporations had in total contributed $2,195,000 to the Republican Party. Historians generally agree that Roosevelt was unaware that the Standard Oil contribution was actually kept and spent. This information was probably purposely kept secret from Roosevelt by Republican Treasurer Cornilius Bliss, a standard practice at the time to protect candidates. There is no direct evidence that corporate contributions were linked to specific favorable corporate treatment by Roosevelt.
Second-term troubles
Roosevelt, moving to the left of his Republican Party base, called for a series of reforms that were mostly not passed. He sought a national incorporation law (at a time when all corporations had state charters, which varied greatly state by state). He called for a federal income tax, but the Supreme Court in the 1890s had ruled any income tax would
6 require a constitutional amendment. Roosevelt sought an inheritance tax so the great fortunes could not pay out in perpetuity. In the area of labor legislation, Roosevelt called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes; injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries (pre-empting state laws). He called for an eight-hour law for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system (to provide competition for local banks), and he asked for campaign reform laws. He secured passage of the 1906 Hepburn Bill, with help from Democrats, which increased the regulating power of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Eventually some of his proposals were enacted under his successors. When Roosevelt ran for president on an independent Progressive Party ticket in 1912, in addition to these policies he proposed stringent new controls on the court system, especially state courts, to make a more democratic.
Election of 1908
Before leaving office, while attempting to push through the nomination of William Howard Taft for the Presidency in 1908, Roosevelt declared Taft to be a "genuine progressive." In January of that year, Roosevelt wrote the following to Taft: "Dear Will: Do you want any action about those federal officials? I will break their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!" Just weeks later he branded as "false and malicious"; the charge was that he was using the offices at his disposal to favor Taft.
Taft easily defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft promoted a progressivism that stressed the rule of law; he preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness. Taft usually proved to be a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and lacked the energy and personal magnetism, along with the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk creating severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against merchants and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, and then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and big businesses, Taft took credit, calling it the best tariff ever. He managed to alienate all sides.
Roosevelt had attempted to refashion Taft into a younger version of himself, but as soon as Taft began to display his individuality, the former president expressed his disenchantment. He was offended on election night when Taft wrote and indicated that
7 his success had been possible not just through the efforts of Roosevelt, but also his brother Charley. Roosevelt was further alienated when Taft, intent on becoming his own man, did not consult him about cabinet appointments.
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 90 antitrust suits, including one against the largest corporation, US Steel, for an acquisition which Roosevelt had personally approved. Consequently, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. More trouble came when Taft fired Roosevelt's friend and appointee Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency. The left wing of the Republican Party began turning against Taft.
Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White and Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Roosevelt declined to join this group—he was reluctant to leave the GOP.
Back from Europe, Roosevelt unexpectedly launched an attack on the courts. He gave a notable speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, in August 1910, which was the most radical of his career and openly initiated his break with the Taft administration and the conservative Republicans. Osawatomie was well known as the base used by John Brown when he launched his bloody attacks on slavery. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism," Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
Roosevelt shortly thereafter made it clear in a meeting with Lloyd Carpenter Griscom, a New York Republican regular, that Taft no longer enjoyed his support, since he had "deliberately abandoned" their previous close relations. Taft was deeply upset.
In the 1910 Congressional elections, Democrats won a majority in the House, and significantly diminished the Republicans' hold on the Senate. From 1890 to 1908, Southern legislatures dominated by white conservative Democrats had completed the disenfranchisement of most blacks, and therefore most Republicans in the region, through a series of new constitutions and laws creating barriers to voter registration. Democrats built the Solid South, a one-party region, which was maintained as such nearly into the late 1960s.
8 These changes made Taft's reelection in 1912 doubtful. The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911, and Roosevelt reacted with renewed interest in more personal political endeavors. Despite skepticism of La Follette's new League, Roosevelt expressed general support for progressive principles; between January and April 1911, Roosevelt wrote a series of articles for The Outlook, defending what he called "the great movement of our day, the progressive nationalist movement against special privilege, and in favor of an honest and efficient political and industrial democracy."
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