Bot-S: Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt

As a matter of fact, I had no such feeling. I had been carefully
studying the question. I had talked with the Mutual Life and Equitable
people about it, but was not committed to any particular course, and had
grave doubts as to whether it was well to draw the line on size instead
of on conduct. I was therefore very glad to see Perkins and get a new
point of view. I went over the matter with a great deal of care and at
considerable length, and after we had thrashed the matter out pretty
fully and Perkins had laid before me in detail the methods employed by
Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries to handle
their large insurance companies, I took the position that there
undoubtedly were evils in the insurance business, but that they did not
consist in insuring people's lives, for that certainly was not an evil;
and I did not see how the real evils could be eradicated by limiting or
suppressing a company's ability to protect an additional number of lives
with insurance. I therefore announced that I would not favor a bill that
limited volume of business, and would not sign it if it were passed;
but that I favored legislation that would make it impossible to place,
through agents, policies that were ambiguous and misleading, or to pay
exorbitant prices to agents for business, or to invest policy-holders'
money in improper securities, or to give power to officers to use
the company's funds for their own personal profit. In reaching this
determination I was helped by Mr. Loeb, then merely a stenographer in
my office, but who had already attracted my attention both by his
efficiency and by his loyalty to his former employers, who were for
the most part my political opponents. Mr. Loeb gave me much information
about various improper practices in the insurance business. I began
to gather data on the subject, with the intention of bringing about
corrective legislation, for at that time I expected to continue
in office as Governor. But in a few weeks I was nominated as
Vice-President, and my successor did nothing about the matter.

So far as I remember, this was the first time the question of correcting
evils in a business by limiting the volume of business to be done was
ever presented to me, and my decision in the matter was on all fours
with the position I have always since taken when any similar principle
was involved. At the time when I made my decision about the Limitation
Bill, I was on friendly terms with the Mutual and Equitable people
who were back of it, whereas I did not know Mr. McCall at all, and Mr.
Perkins only from hearing him discuss the bill.

An interesting feature of the matter developed subsequently. Five years
later, after the insurance investigations took place, the Mutual Life
strongly urged the passage of a Limitation Bill, and, because of the
popular feeling developed by the exposure of the improper practices of
the companies, this bill was generally approved. Governor Hughes adopted
the suggestion, such a bill was passed by the Legislature, and Governor
Hughes signed it. This bill caused the three great New York companies to
reduce markedly the volume of business they were doing; it threw a great
many agents out of employment, and materially curtailed the foreign
business of the companies--which business was bringing annually a
considerable sum of money to this country for investment. In short,
the experiment worked so badly that before Governor Hughes went out of
office one of the very last bills he signed was one that permitted the
life insurance companies to increase their business each year by an
amount representing a certain percentage of the business they had
previously done. This in practice, within a few years, practically
annulled the Limitation Bill that had been previously passed. The
experiment of limiting the size of business, of legislating against it
merely because it was big, had been tried, and had failed so completely
that the authors of the bill had themselves in effect repealed it. My
action in refusing to try the experiment had been completely justified.

As a sequel to this incident I got Mr. Perkins to serve on the Palisade
Park Commission. At the time I was taking active part in the effort to
save the Palisades from vandalism and destruction by getting the States
of New York and New Jersey jointly to include them in a public park.
It is not easy to get a responsible and capable man of business to
undertake such a task, which is unpaid, which calls on his part for an
immense expenditure of time, money, and energy, which offers no
reward of any kind, and which entails the certainty of abuse and
misrepresentation. Mr. Perkins accepted the position, and has filled
it for the last thirteen years, doing as disinterested, efficient,
and useful a bit of public service as any man in the State has done
throughout these thirteen years.

The case of most importance in which I clashed with Senator Platt
related to a matter of fundamental governmental policy, and was the
first step I ever took toward bringing big corporations under effective
governmental control. In this case I had to fight the Democratic machine
as well as the Republican machine, for Senator Hill and Senator Platt
were equally opposed to my action, and the big corporation men, the big
business men back of both of them, took precisely the same view of these
matters without regard to their party feelings on other points. What
I did convulsed people at that time, and marked the beginning of the
effort, at least in the Eastern states, to make the great corporations
really responsible to popular wish and governmental command. But we
have gone so far past the stage in which we then were that now it seems
well-nigh incredible that there should have been any opposition at all
to what I at that time proposed.

The substitution of electric power for horse power in the street car
lines of New York offered a fruitful chance for the most noxious type of
dealing between business men and politicians. The franchises granted by
New York were granted without any attempt to secure from the grantees
returns, in the way of taxation or otherwise, for the value received.
The fact that they were thus granted by improper favoritism, a
favoritism which in many cases was unquestionably secured by downright
bribery, led to all kinds of trouble. In return for the continuance
of these improper favors to the corporations the politicians expected
improper favors in the way of excessive campaign contributions, often
contributed by the same corporation at the same time to two opposing
parties. Before I became Governor a bill had been introduced into the
New York Legislature to tax the franchises of these street railways. It
affected a large number of corporations, but particularly those in New
York and Buffalo. It had been suffered to slumber undisturbed, as none
of the people in power dreamed of taking it seriously, and both the
Republican and Democratic machines were hostile to it. Under the rules
of the New York Legislature a bill could always be taken up out of its
turn and passed if the Governor sent in a special emergency message on
its behalf.

After I was elected Governor I had my attention directed to the
franchise tax matter, looked into the subject, and came to the
conclusion that it was a matter of plain decency and honesty that these
companies should pay a tax on their franchises, inasmuch as they did
nothing that could be considered as service rendered the public in lieu
of a tax. This seemed to me so evidently the common-sense and decent
thing to do that I was hardly prepared for the storm of protest and
anger which my proposal aroused. Senator Platt and the other machine
leaders did everything to get me to abandon my intention. As usual,
I saw them, talked the matter all over with them, and did my best to
convert them to my way of thinking. Senator Platt, I believe, was quite
sincere in his opposition. He did not believe in popular rule, and he
did believe that the big business men were entitled to have things their
way. He profoundly distrusted the people--naturally enough, for the kind
of human nature with which a boss comes in contact is not of an exalted
type. He felt that anarchy would come if there was any interference
with a system by which the people in mass were, under various necessary
cloaks, controlled by the leaders in the political and business worlds.
He wrote me a very strong letter of protest against my attitude,
expressed in dignified, friendly, and temperate language, but using one
word in a curious way. This was the word "altruistic." He stated in his
letter that he had not objected to my being independent in politics,
because he had been sure that I had the good of the party at heart, and
meant to act fairly and honorably; but that he had been warned, before
I became a candidate, by a number of his business friends that I was a
dangerous man because I was "altruistic," and that he now feared that
my conduct would justify the alarm thus expressed. I was interested in
this, not only because Senator Platt was obviously sincere, but because
of the way in which he used "altruistic" as a term of reproach, as if it
was Communistic or Socialistic--the last being a word he did use to me
when, as now and then happened, he thought that my proposals warranted
fairly reckless vituperation.

Senator Platt's letter ran in part as follows:

"When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was
one matter that gave me real anxiety. I think you will have no
trouble in appreciating the fact that it was _not_ the matter of your
independence. I think we have got far enough along in our political
acquaintance for you to see that my support in a convention does
not imply subsequent 'demands,' nor any other relation that may not
reasonably exist for the welfare of the party. . . . The thing that did
bother me was this: I had heard from a good many sources that you were
a little loose on the relations of capital and labor, on trusts and
combinations, and, indeed, on those numerous questions which have
recently arisen in politics affecting the security of earnings and the
right of a man to run his own business in his own way, with due respect
of course to the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code. Or, to get at it
even more clearly, I understood from a number of business men, and among
them many of your own personal friends, that you entertained various
altruistic ideas, all very well in their way, but which before they
could safely be put into law needed very profound consideration. . . .
You have just adjourned a Legislature which created a good opinion
throughout the State. I congratulate you heartily upon this fact because
I sincerely believe, as everybody else does, that this good impression
exists very largely as a result of your personal influence in the
Legislative chambers. But at the last moment, and to my very great
surprise, you did a thing which has caused the business community of New
York to wonder how far the notions of Populism, as laid down in Kansas
and Nebraska, have taken hold upon the Republican party of the State of
New York."

In my answer I pointed out to the Senator that I had as Governor
unhesitatingly acted, at Buffalo and elsewhere, to put down mobs,
without regard to the fact that the professed leaders of labor furiously
denounced me for so doing; but that I could no more tolerate wrong
committed in the name of property than wrong committed against property.
My letter ran in part as follows:

"I knew that you had just the feelings that you describe; that is, apart
from my 'impulsiveness,' you felt that there was a justifiable anxiety
among men of means, and especially men representing large corporate
interests, lest I might feel too strongly on what you term the
'altruistic' side in matters of labor and capital and as regards the
relations of the State to great corporations. . . . I know that when
parties divide on such issues [as Bryanism] the tendency is to force
everybody into one of two camps, and to throw out entirely men like
myself, who are as strongly opposed to Populism in every stage as the
greatest representative of corporate wealth, but who also feel strongly
that many of these representatives of enormous corporate wealth have
themselves been responsible for a portion of the conditions against
which Bryanism is in ignorant revolt. I do not believe that it is wise
or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to
say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that our
attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby showing that,
whereas the Populists, Socialists, and others really do not correct the
evils at all, or else only do so at the expense of producing others in
aggravated form; on the contrary we Republicans hold the just balance
and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on
the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. I understand
perfectly that such an attitude of moderation is apt to be misunderstood
when passions are greatly excited and when victory is apt to rest with
the extremists on one side or the other; yet I think it is in the long
run the only wise attitude. . . . I appreciate absolutely [what Mr.
Platt had said] that any applause I get will be too evanescent for a
moment's consideration. I appreciate absolutely that the people who now
loudly approve of my action in the franchise tax bill will forget all
about it in a fortnight, and that, on the other hand, the very powerful
interests adversely affected will always remember it. . . . [The
leaders] urged upon me that I personally could not afford to take this
action, for under no circumstances could I ever again be nominated for
any public office, as no corporation would subscribe to a campaign fund
if I was on the ticket, and that they would subscribe most heavily to
beat me; and when I asked if this were true of Republican corporations,
the cynical answer was made that the corporations that subscribed most
heavily to the campaign funds subscribed impartially to both party
organizations. Under all these circumstances, it seemed to me there
was no alternative but to do what I could to secure the passage of the
bill."

These two letters, written in the spring of 1899, express clearly the
views of the two elements of the Republican party, whose hostility
gradually grew until it culminated, thirteen years later. In 1912 the
political and financial forces of which Mr. Platt had once been the
spokesman, usurped the control of the party machinery and drove out of
the party the men who were loyally endeavoring to apply the principles
of the founders of the party to the needs and issues of their own day.

I had made up my mind that if I could get a show in the Legislature
the bill would pass, because the people had become interested and the
representatives would scarcely dare to vote the wrong way. Accordingly,
on April 27, 1899, I sent a special message to the Assembly, certifying
that the emergency demanded the immediate passage of the bill. The
machine leaders were bitterly angry, and the Speaker actually tore up
the message without reading it to the Assembly. That night they were
busy trying to arrange some device for the defeat of the bill--which
was not difficult, as the session was about to close. At seven the
next morning I was informed of what had occurred. At eight I was in the
Capitol at the Executive chamber, and sent in another special message,
which opened as follows: "I learn that the emergency message which I
sent last evening to the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill
has not been read. I therefore send hereby another message on the
subject. I need not impress upon the Assembly the need of passing this
bill at once." I sent this message to the Assembly, by my secretary,
William J. Youngs, afterwards United States District Attorney of Kings,
with an intimation that if this were not promptly read I should come
up in person and read it. Then, as so often happens, the opposition
collapsed and the bill went through both houses with a rush. I had in
the House stanch friends, such as Regis Post and Alford Cooley, men of
character and courage, who would have fought to a finish had the need
arisen.

My troubles were not at an end, however. The bill put the taxation in
the hands of the local county boards, and as the railways sometimes
passed through several different counties, this was inadvisable. It was
the end of the session, and the Legislature adjourned. The corporations
affected, through various counsel, and the different party leaders
of both organizations, urged me not to sign the bill, laying especial
stress on this feature, and asking that I wait until the following year,
when a good measure could be put through with this obnoxious feature
struck out. I had thirty days under the law in which to sign the bill.
If I did not sign it by the end of that time it would not become a law.
I answered my political and corporation friends by telling them that I
agreed with them that this feature was wrong, but that I would rather
have the bill with this feature than not have it at all; and that I was
not willing to trust to what might be done a year later. Therefore, I
explained, I would reconvene the Legislature in special session, and if
the legislators chose to amend the bill by placing the power of taxation
in the State instead of in the county or municipality, I would be glad;
but that if they failed to amend it, or amended it improperly, I would
sign the original bill and let it become law as it was.

When the representatives of Mr. Platt and of the corporations affected
found they could do no better, they assented to this proposition.
Efforts were tentatively made to outwit me, by inserting amendments that
would nullify the effect of the law, or by withdrawing the law when the
Legislature convened; which would at once have deprived me of the
whip hand. On May 12 I wrote Senator Platt, outlining the amendments I
desired, and said: "Of course it must be understood that I will sign the
present bill if the proposed bill containing the changes outlined above
fails to pass." On May 18 I notified the Senate leader, John Raines,
by telegram: "Legislature has no power to withdraw the Ford bill. If
attempt is made to do so, I will sign the bill at once." On the same
day, by telegram, I wired Mr. Odell concerning the bill the leaders were
preparing: "Some provisions of bill very objectionable. I am at work on
bill to show you to-morrow. The bill must not contain greater changes
than those outlined in my message." My wishes were heeded, and when I
had reconvened the Legislature it amended the bill as I outlined in my
message; and in its amended form the bill became law.

There promptly followed something which afforded an index of the good
faith of the corporations that had been protesting to me. As soon as the
change for which they had begged was inserted in the law, and the law
was signed, they turned round and refused to pay the taxes; and in the
lawsuit that followed, they claimed that the law was unconstitutional,
because it contained the very clause which they had so clamorously
demanded. Senator David B. Hill had appeared before me on behalf of the
corporations to argue for the change; and he then appeared before the
courts to make the argument on the other side. The suit was carried
through to the Supreme Court of the United States, which declared the
law constitutional during the time that I was President.

One of the painful duties of the chief executive in States like New
York, as well as in the Nation, is the refusing of pardons. Yet I can
imagine nothing more necessary from the standpoint of good citizenship
than the ability to steel one's heart in this matter of granting
pardons. The pressure is always greatest in two classes of cases: first,
that where capital punishment is inflicted; second, that where the
man is prominent socially and in the business world, and where in
consequence his crime is apt to have been one concerned in some way with
finance.

As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women
always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and
neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who
would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any
criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom
he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive
she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which
she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be
granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinsfolk and
friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very
rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose
sleep were the times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a
plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it
would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.

On the other hand, there were certain crimes where requests for leniency
merely made me angry. Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the
circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what
would now be called the "white slave" traffic, or wife murder, or gross
cruelty to women and children, or seduction and abandonment, or the
action of some man in getting a girl whom he had seduced to commit
abortion. I am speaking in each instance of cases that actually came
before me, either while I was Governor or while I was President. In an
astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions
or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal. In two or
three of the cases--one where some young roughs had committed rape on a
helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth
and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit
abortion--I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had
asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was
not in my power to increase the sentence. I then let the facts be made
public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure.
Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but
that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me
real satisfaction. The list of these petitioners was a fairly long one,
and included two United States Senators, a Governor of a State, two
judges, an editor, and some eminent lawyers and business men.

In the class of cases where the offense was one involving the misuse of
large sums of money the reason for the pressure was different. Cases of
this kind more frequently came before me when I was President, but they
also came before me when I was Governor, chiefly in the cases of county
treasurers who had embezzled funds. A big bank president, a railway
magnate, an official connected with some big corporation, or a
Government official in a responsible fiduciary position, necessarily
belongs among the men who have succeeded in life. This means that his
family are living in comfort, and perhaps luxury and refinement, and
that his sons and daughters have been well educated. In such a case
the misdeed of the father comes as a crushing disaster to the wife and
children, and the people of the community, however bitter originally
against the man, grow to feel the most intense sympathy for the
bowed-down women and children who suffer for the man's fault. It is
a dreadful thing in life that so much of atonement for wrong-doing
is vicarious. If it were possible in such a case to think only of the
banker's or county treasurer's wife and children, any man would pardon
the offender at once. Unfortunately, it is not right to think only of
the women and children. The very fact that in cases of this class there
is certain to be pressure from high sources, pressure sometimes by men
who have been beneficially, even though remotely, interested in the
man's criminality, no less than pressure because of honest sympathy with
the wife and children, makes it necessary that the good public servant
shall, no matter how deep his sympathy and regret, steel his heart and
do his duty by refusing to let the wrong-doer out. My experience of the
way in which pardons are often granted is one of the reasons why I
do not believe that life imprisonment for murder and rape is a proper
substitute for the death penalty. The average term of so-called life
imprisonment in this country is only about fourteen years.

Of course there were cases where I either commuted sentences or pardoned
offenders with very real pleasure. For instance, when President, I
frequently commuted sentences for horse stealing in the Indian Territory
because the penalty for stealing a horse was disproportionate to the
penalty for many other crimes, and the offense was usually committed by
some ignorant young fellow who found a half-wild horse, and really did
not commit anything like as serious an offense as the penalty indicated.
The judges would be obliged to give the minimum penalty, but would
forward me memoranda stating that if there had been a less penalty they
would have inflicted it, and I would then commute the sentence to the
penalty thus indicated.

In one case in New York I pardoned outright a man convicted of murder
in the second degree, and I did this on the recommendation of a friend,
Father Doyle of the Paulist Fathers. I had become intimate with the
Paulist Fathers while I was Police Commissioner, and I had grown to feel
confidence in their judgment, for I had found that they always told me
exactly what the facts were about any man, whether he belonged to their
church or not. In this case the convicted man was a strongly built,
respectable old Irishman employed as a watchman around some big
cattle-killing establishments. The young roughs of the neighborhood,
which was then of a rather lawless type, used to try to destroy the
property of the companies. In a conflict with a watchman a member of one
of the gangs was slain. The watchman was acquitted, but the neighborhood
was much wrought up over the acquittal. Shortly afterwards, a gang of
the same roughs attacked another watchman, the old Irishman in question,
and finally, to save his own life, he was obliged in self-defense to
kill one of his assailants. The feeling in the community, however, was
strongly against him, and some of the men high up in the corporation
became frightened and thought that it would be better to throw over the
watchman. He was convicted. Father Doyle came to me, told me that he
knew the man well, that he was one of the best members of his church,
admirable in every way, that he had simply been forced to fight for his
life while loyally doing his duty, and that the conviction represented
the triumph of the tough element of the district and the abandonment of
this man, by those who should have stood by him, under the influence of
an unworthy fear. I looked into the case, came to the conclusion that
Father Doyle was right, and gave the man a full pardon before he had
served thirty days.

The various clashes between myself and the machine, my triumph in them,
and the fact that the people were getting more and more interested
and aroused, brought on a curious situation in the Republican National
Convention at Philadelphia in June, 1900. Senator Platt and the New
York machine leaders had become very anxious to get me out of the
Governorship, chiefly because of the hostility of the big corporation
men towards me; but they had also become convinced that there was such
popular feeling on my behalf that it would be difficult to refuse me a
renomination if I demanded it. They accordingly decided to push me for
Vice-President, taking advantage of the fact that there was at that time
a good deal of feeling for me in the country at large. [See Appendix B
to this chapter.] I myself did not appreciate that there was any such
feeling, and as I greatly disliked the office of Vice-President and was
much interested in the Governorship, I announced that I would not accept
the Vice-Presidency. I was one of the delegates to Philadelphia. On
reaching there I found that the situation was complicated. Senator
Hanna appeared on the surface to have control of the Convention. He was
anxious that I should not be nominated as Vice-President. Senator Platt
was anxious that I should be nominated as Vice-President, in order to
get me out of the New York Governorship. Each took a position opposite
to that of the other, but each at that time cordially sympathized with
the other's feelings about me--it was the manifestations and not the
feelings that differed. My supporters in New York State did not wish
me nominated for Vice-President because they wished me to continue as
Governor; but in every other State all the people who admired me were
bound that I should be nominated as Vice-President. These people were
almost all desirous of seeing Mr. McKinley renominated as President, but
they became angry at Senator Hanna's opposition to me as Vice-President.
He in his turn suddenly became aware that if he persisted he might find
that in their anger these men would oppose Mr. McKinley's renomination,
and although they could not have prevented the nomination, such
opposition would have been a serious blow in the campaign which was to
follow. Senator Hanna, therefore, began to waver.

Meanwhile a meeting of the New York delegation was called. Most of the
delegates were under the control of Senator Platt. The Senator notified
me that if I refused to accept the nomination for Vice-President I
would be beaten for the nomination for Governor. I answered that I would
accept the challenge, that we would have a straight-out fight on the
proposition, and that I would begin it at once by telling the assembled
delegates of the threat, and giving fair warning that I intended to
fight for the Governorship nomination, and, moreover, that I intended to
get it. This brought Senator Platt to terms. The effort to instruct
the New York delegation for me was abandoned, and Lieutenant-Governor
Woodruff was presented for nomination in my place.

I supposed that this closed the incident, and that no further effort
would be made to nominate me for the Vice-Presidency. On the contrary,
the effect was directly the reverse. The upset of the New York machine
increased the feeling of the delegates from other States that it was
necessary to draft me for the nomination. By next day Senator Hanna
himself concluded that this was a necessity, and acquiesced in the
movement. As New York was already committed against me, and as I was
not willing that there should be any chance of supposing that the New
Yorkers had nominated me to get rid of me, the result was that I was
nominated and seconded from outside States. No other candidate was
placed in the field.

By this time the Legislature had adjourned, and most of my work as
Governor of New York was over. One unexpected bit of business arose,
however. It was the year of the Presidential campaign. Tammany, which
had been lukewarm about Bryan in 1896, cordially supported him in
1900; and when Tammany heartily supports a candidate it is well for the
opposing candidate to keep a sharp lookout for election frauds. The city
government was in the hands of Tammany; but I had power to remove
the Mayor, the Sheriff, and the District Attorney for malfeasance or
misfeasance in office. Such power had not been exercised by any previous
Governor, as far as I knew; but it existed, and if the misfeasance or
malfeasance warranted it, and if the Governor possessed the requisite
determination, the power could be, and ought to be, exercised.

By an Act of the Legislature, a State Bureau of Elections had been
created in New York City, and a Superintendent of Elections appointed
by the Governor. The Chief of the State Bureau of Elections was
John McCullagh, formerly in the Police Department when I was Police
Commissioner. The Chief of Police for the city was William F. Devery,
one of the Tammany leaders, who represented in the Police Department
all that I had warred against while Commissioner. On November 4 Devery
directed his subordinates in the Police Department to disregard the
orders which McCullagh had given to his deputies, orders which were
essential if we were to secure an honest election in the city. I had
just returned from a Western campaign trip, and was at Sagamore Hill. I
had no direct power over Devery; but the Mayor had; and I had power over
the Mayor. Accordingly, I at once wrote to the Mayor of New York, to the
Sheriff of New York, and to the District Attorney of New York County the
following letters:

STATE OF NEW YORK OYSTER BAY, November 5, 1900.

To the Mayor of the City of New York.

Sir: My attention has been called to the official order issued by Chief
of Police Devery, in which he directs his subordinates to disregard the
Chief of the State Election Bureau, John McCullagh, and his deputies.
Unless you have already taken steps to secure the recall of this order,
it is necessary for me to point out that I shall be obliged to hold you
responsible as the head of the city government for the action of the
Chief of Police, if it should result in any breach of the peace and
intimidation or any crime whatever against the election laws. The State
and city authorities should work together. I will not fail to call to
summary account either State or city authority in the event of either
being guilty of intimidation or connivance at fraud or of failure to
protect every legal voter in his rights. I therefore hereby notify
you that in the event of any wrong-doing following upon the failure
immediately to recall Chief Devery's order, or upon any action or
inaction on the part of Chief Devery, I must necessarily call you to
account.

Yours, etc., THEODORE ROOSEVELT.


STATE OF NEW YORK OYSTER BAY, November 5, 1900.

To the Sheriff of the County of New York.

Sir: My attention has been called to the official order issued by Chief
of Police Devery in which he directs his subordinates to disregard the
Chief of the State Election Bureau, John McCullagh, and his deputies.

It is your duty to assist in the orderly enforcement of the law, and I
shall hold you strictly responsible for any breach of the public peace
within your county, or for any failure on your part to do your full duty
in connection with the election to-morrow.

Yours truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.


STATE OF NEW YORK OYSTER BAY, November 5, 1900.

To the District Attorney of the County of New York.

Sir: My attention has been called to the official order issued by Chief
of Police Devery, in which he directs his subordinates to disregard the
Chief of the State Election Bureau, John McCullagh, and his deputies.

In view of this order I call your attention to the fact that it is your
duty to assist in the orderly enforcement of the law, and there must be
no failure on your part to do your full duty in the matter.

Yours truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

These letters had the desired effect. The Mayor promptly required Chief
Devery to rescind the obnoxious order, which was as promptly done. The
Sheriff also took prompt action. The District Attorney refused to heed
my letter, and assumed an attitude of defiance, and I removed him from
office. On election day there was no clash between the city and State
authorities; the election was orderly and honest.


APPENDIX A

CONSERVATION

As foreshadowing the course I later, as President, followed in this
matter, I give extracts from one of my letters to the Commission, and
from my second (and last) Annual Message. I spent the first months of my
term in investigations to find out just what the situation was.

On November 28, 1899, I wrote to the Commission as follows:

". . . I have had very many complaints before this as to the
inefficiency of the game wardens and game protectors, the complaints
usually taking the form that the men have been appointed and are
retained without due regard to the duties to be performed. I do not wish
a man to be retained or appointed who is not thoroughly fit to perform
the duties of game protector. The Adirondacks are entitled to a peculiar
share of the Commission's attention, both from the standpoint of
forestry, and from the less important, but still very important,
standpoint of game and fish protection. The men who do duty as game
protectors in the Adirondacks should, by preference, be appointed from
the locality itself, and should in all cases be thorough woodsmen. The
mere fact that a game protector has to hire a guide to pilot him through
the woods is enough to show his unfitness for the position. I want
as game protectors men of courage, resolution, and hardihood, who can
handle the rifle, ax, and paddle; who can camp out in summer or winter;
who can go on snow-shoes, if necessary; who can go through the woods by
day or by night without regard to trails.

"I should like full information about all your employees, as to their
capacities, as to the labor they perform, as to their distribution from
and where they do their work."

Many of the men hitherto appointed owed their positions principally to
political preference. The changes I recommended were promptly made,
and much to the good of the public service. In my Annual Message, in
January, 1900, I said:

"Great progress has been made through the fish hatcheries in the
propagation of valuable food and sporting fish. The laws for the
protection of deer have resulted in their increase. Nevertheless, as
railroads tend to encroach on the wilderness, the temptation to illegal
hunting becomes greater, and the danger from forest fires increases.
There is need of great improvement both in our laws and in their
administration. The game wardens have been too few in number. More
should be provided. None save fit men must be appointed; and their
retention in office must depend purely upon the zeal, ability, and
efficiency with which they perform their duties. The game wardens in the
forests must be woodsmen; and they should have no outside business.
In short, there should be a thorough reorganization of the work of
the Commission. A careful study of the resources and condition of the
forests on State land must be made. It is certainly not too much to
expect that the State forests should be managed as efficiently as the
forests on private lands in the same neighborhoods. And the measure
of difference in efficiency of management must be the measure of
condemnation or praise of the way the public forests have been managed.

"The subject of forest preservation is of the utmost importance to
the State. The Adirondacks and Catskills should be great parks kept in
perpetuity for the benefit and enjoyment of our people. Much has been
done of late years towards their preservation, but very much remains to
be done. The provisions of law in reference to sawmills and wood-pulp
mills are defective and should be changed so as to prohibit dumping
dye-stuff, sawdust, or tan-bark, in any amount whatsoever, into the
streams. Reservoirs should be made, but not where they will tend to
destroy large sections of the forest, and only after a careful and
scientific study of the water resources of the region. The people of
the forest regions are themselves growing more and more to realize the
necessity of preserving both the trees and the game. A live deer in the
woods will attract to the neighborhood ten times the money that could
be obtained for the deer's dead carcass. Timber theft on the State lands
is, of course, a grave offense against the whole public.

"Hardy outdoor sports, like hunting, are in themselves of no small value
to the National character and should be encouraged in every way. Men who
go into the wilderness, indeed, men who take part in any field sports
with horse or rifle, receive a benefit which can hardly be given by even
the most vigorous athletic games.

"There is a further and more immediate and practical end in view. A
primeval forest is a great sponge which absorbs and distills the rain
water. And when it is destroyed the result is apt to be an alternation
of flood and drought. Forest fires ultimately make the land a desert,
and are a detriment to all that portion of the State tributary to the
streams through the woods where they occur. Every effort should be made
to minimize their destructive influence. We need to have our system of
forestry gradually developed and conducted along scientific principles.
When this has been done it will be possible to allow marketable lumber
to be cut everywhere without damage to the forests--indeed, with
positive advantage to them. But until lumbering is thus conducted,
on strictly scientific principles no less than upon principles of the
strictest honesty toward the State, we cannot afford to suffer it at
all in the State forests. Unrestrained greed means the ruin of the great
woods and the drying up of the sources of the rivers.

"Ultimately the administration of the State lands must be so centralized
as to enable us definitely to place responsibility in respect to
everything concerning them, and to demand the highest degree of trained
intelligence in their use.

"The State should not permit within its limits factories to make bird
skins or bird feathers into articles of ornament or wearing apparel.
Ordinary birds, and especially song birds, should be rigidly protected.
Game birds should never be shot to a greater extent than will offset the
natural rate of increase. . . . Care should be taken not to encourage
the use of cold storage or other market systems which are a benefit to
no one but the wealthy epicure who can afford to pay a heavy price for
luxuries. These systems tend to the destruction of the game, which would
bear most severely upon the very men whose rapacity has been appealed to
in order to secure its extermination. . . ."

I reorganized the Commission, putting Austin Wadsworth at its head.


APPENDIX B

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN 1900

My general scheme of action as Governor was given in a letter I wrote
one of my supporters among the independent district organization
leaders, Norton Goddard, on April 16, 1900. It runs in part as follows:
"Nobody can tell, and least of all the machine itself, whether the
machine intends to renominate me next fall or not. If for some reason I
should be weak, whether on account of faults or virtues, doubtless the
machine will throw me over, and I think I am not uncharitable when I say
they would feel no acute grief at so doing. It would be very strange if
they did feel such grief. If, for instance, we had strikes which led
to riots, I would of course be obliged to preserve order and stop the
riots. Decent citizens would demand that I should do it, and in any
event I should do it wholly without regard to their demands. But, once
it was done, they would forget all about it, while a great many laboring
men, honest but ignorant and prejudiced, would bear a grudge against
me for doing it. This might put me out of the running as a candidate.
Again, the big corporations undoubtedly want to beat me. They prefer
the chance of being blackmailed to the certainty that they will not be
allowed any more than their due. Of course they will try to beat me
on some entirely different issue, and, as they are very able and very
unscrupulous, nobody can tell that they won't succeed. . . . I have been
trying to stay in with the organization. I did not do it with the idea
that they would renominate me. I did it with the idea of getting things
done, and in that I have been absolutely successful. Whether Senator
Platt and Mr. Odell endeavor to beat me, or do beat me, for the
renomination next fall, is of very small importance compared to the fact
that for my two years I have been able to make a Republican majority
in the Legislature do good and decent work and have prevented any split
within the party. The task was one of great difficulty, because, on the
one hand, I had to keep clearly before me the fact that it was better to
have a split than to permit bad work to be done, and, on the other hand,
the fact that to have that split would absolutely prevent all _good_
work. The result has been that I have avoided a split and that as a net
result of my two years and the two sessions of the Legislature,
there has been an enormous improvement in the administration of the
Government, and there has also been a great advance in legislation."

To show my reading of the situation at the time I quote from a letter
of mine to Joseph B. Bishop, then editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_,
with whom towards the end of my term I had grown into very close
relations, and who, together with two other old friends, Albert Shaw,
of the _Review of Reviews_, and Silas McBee, now editor of the
_Constructive Quarterly_, knew the inside of every movement, so far as I
knew it myself. The letter, which is dated April 11, 1900, runs in part
as follows: "The dangerous element as far as I am concerned comes from
the corporations. The [naming certain men] crowd and those like them
have been greatly exasperated by the franchise tax. They would like to
get me out of politics for good, but at the moment they think the best
thing to do is to put me into the Vice-Presidency. Naturally I will
not be opposed openly on the ground of the corporations' grievance; but
every kind of false statement will continually be made, and men like
[naming the editors of certain newspapers] will attack me, not as the
enemy of corporations, but as their tool! There is no question whatever
that if the leaders can they will upset me."

One position which as Governor (and as President) I consistently took,
seems to me to represent what ought to be a fundamental principle in
American legislative work. I steadfastly refused to advocate any law, no
matter how admirable in theory, if there was good reason to believe that
in practice it would not be executed. I have always sympathized with the
view set forth by Pelatiah Webster in 1783--quoted by Hannis Taylor
in his _Genesis of the Supreme Court_--"Laws or ordinances of any kind
(especially of august bodies of high dignity and consequence) which
fail of execution, are much worse than none. They weaken the government,
expose it to contempt, destroy the confidence of all men, native and
foreigners, in it, and expose both aggregate bodies and individuals who
have placed confidence in it to many ruinous disappointments which
they would have escaped had no such law or ordinance been made." This
principle, by the way, not only applies to an internal law which cannot
be executed; it applies even more to international action, such as a
universal arbitration treaty which cannot and will not be kept; and
most of all it applies to proposals to make such universal arbitration
treaties at the very time that we are not keeping our solemn promise
to execute limited arbitration treaties which we have already made. A
general arbitration treaty is merely a promise; it represents merely a
debt of honorable obligation; and nothing is more discreditable, for
a nation or an individual, than to cover up the repudiation of a debt
which can be and ought to be paid, by recklessly promising to incur a
new and insecure debt which no wise man for one moment supposes ever
will be paid.



CHAPTER IX

OUTDOORS AND INDOORS

There are men who love out-of-doors who yet never open a book; and other
men who love books but to whom the great book of nature is a
sealed volume, and the lines written therein blurred and illegible.
Nevertheless among those men whom I have known the love of books and the
love of outdoors, in their highest expressions, have usually gone hand
in hand. It is an affectation for the man who is praising outdoors to
sneer at books. Usually the keenest appreciation of what is seen in
nature is to be found in those who have also profited by the hoarded
and recorded wisdom of their fellow-men. Love of outdoor life, love of
simple and hardy pastimes, can be gratified by men and women who do
not possess large means, and who work hard; and so can love of good
books--not of good bindings and of first editions, excellent enough in
their way but sheer luxuries--I mean love of reading books, owning them
if possible of course, but, if that is not possible, getting them from a
circulating library.

Sagamore Hill takes its name from the old Sagamore Mohannis, who,
as chief of his little tribe, signed away his rights to the land two
centuries and a half ago. The house stands right on the top of the hill,
separated by fields and belts of woodland from all other houses, and
looks out over the bay and the Sound. We see the sun go down beyond long
reaches of land and of water. Many birds dwell in the trees round the
house or in the pastures and the woods near by, and of course in winter
gulls, loons, and wild fowl frequent the waters of the bay and the
Sound. We love all the seasons; the snows and bare woods of winter;
the rush of growing things and the blossom-spray of spring; the yellow
grain, the ripening fruits and tasseled corn, and the deep, leafy shades
that are heralded by "the green dance of summer"; and the sharp fall
winds that tear the brilliant banners with which the trees greet the
dying year.

The Sound is always lovely. In the summer nights we watch it from the
piazza, and see the lights of the tall Fall River boats as they steam
steadily by. Now and then we spend a day on it, the two of us together
in the light rowing skiff, or perhaps with one of the boys to pull an
extra pair of oars; we land for lunch at noon under wind-beaten oaks
on the edge of a low bluff, or among the wild plum bushes on a spit
of white sand, while the sails of the coasting schooners gleam in the
sunlight, and the tolling of the bell-buoy comes landward across the
waters.

Long Island is not as rich in flowers as the valley of the Hudson. Yet
there are many. Early in April there is one hillside near us which glows
like a tender flame with the white of the bloodroot. About the same time
we find the shy mayflower, the trailing arbutus; and although we rarely
pick wild flowers, one member of the household always plucks a little
bunch of mayflowers to send to a friend working in Panama, whose soul
hungers for the Northern spring. Then there are shadblow and delicate
anemones, about the time of the cherry blossoms; the brief glory of the
apple orchards follows; and then the thronging dogwoods fill the forests
with their radiance; and so flowers follow flowers until the springtime
splendor closes with the laurel and the evanescent, honey-sweet locust
bloom. The late summer flowers follow, the flaunting lilies, and
cardinal flowers, and marshmallows, and pale beach rosemary; and the
goldenrod and the asters when the afternoons shorten and we again begin
to think of fires in the wide fireplaces.

Most of the birds in our neighborhood are the ordinary home friends of
the house and the barn, the wood lot and the pasture; but now and then
the species make queer shifts. The cheery quail, alas! are rarely found
near us now; and we no longer hear the whip-poor-wills at night. But
some birds visit us now which formerly did not. When I was a boy neither
the black-throated green warbler nor the purple finch nested around us,
nor were bobolinks found in our fields. The black-throated green warbler
is now one of our commonest summer warblers; there are plenty of purple
finches; and, best of all, the bobolinks are far from infrequent. I had
written about these new visitors to John Burroughs, and once when he
came out to see me I was able to show them to him.

When I was President, we owned a little house in western Virginia; a
delightful house, to us at least, although only a shell of rough boards.
We used sometimes to go there in the fall, perhaps at Thanksgiving, and
on these occasions we would have quail and rabbits of our own shooting,
and once in a while a wild turkey. We also went there in the spring. Of
course many of the birds were different from our Long Island friends.
There were mocking-birds, the most attractive of all birds, and blue
grosbeaks, and cardinals and summer redbirds, instead of scarlet
tanagers, and those wonderful singers the Bewick's wrens, and Carolina
wrens. All these I was able to show John Burroughs when he came to visit
us; although, by the way, he did not appreciate as much as we did one
set of inmates of the cottage--the flying squirrels. We loved having the
flying squirrels, father and mother and half-grown young, in their nest
among the rafters; and at night we slept so soundly that we did not in
the least mind the wild gambols of the little fellows through the rooms,
even when, as sometimes happened, they would swoop down to the bed and
scuttle across it.

One April I went to Yellowstone Park, when the snow was still very deep,
and I took John Burroughs with me. I wished to show him the big game of
the Park, the wild creatures that have become so astonishingly tame and
tolerant of human presence. In the Yellowstone the animals seem always
to behave as one wishes them to! It is always possible to see the sheep
and deer and antelope, and also the great herds of elk, which are shyer
than the smaller beasts. In April we found the elk weak after the
short commons and hard living of winter. Once without much difficulty
I regularly rounded up a big band of them, so that John Burroughs could
look at them. I do not think, however, that he cared to see them as much
as I did. The birds interested him more, especially a tiny owl the size
of a robin which we saw perched on the top of a tree in mid-afternoon
entirely uninfluenced by the sun and making a queer noise like a cork
being pulled from a bottle. I was rather ashamed to find how much
better his eyes were than mine in seeing the birds and grasping their
differences.

When wolf-hunting in Texas, and when bear-hunting in Louisiana and
Mississippi, I was not only enthralled by the sport, but also by the
strange new birds and other creatures, and the trees and flowers I had
not known before. By the way, there was one feast at the White House
which stands above all others in my memory--even above the time when
I lured Joel Chandler Harris thither for a night, a deed in which to
triumph, as all who knew that inveterately shy recluse will testify.
This was "the bear-hunters' dinner." I had been treated so kindly by my
friends on these hunts, and they were such fine fellows, men whom I was
so proud to think of as Americans, that I set my heart on having them
at a hunters' dinner at the White House. One December I succeeded; there
were twenty or thirty of them, all told, as good hunters, as daring
riders, as first-class citizens as could be found anywhere; no finer set
of guests ever sat at meat in the White House; and among other game
on the table was a black bear, itself contributed by one of these same
guests.

When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the "big
trees," the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite, with
John Muir. Of course of all people in the world he was the one with whom
it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite. He told me that when
Emerson came to California he tried to get him to come out and camp with
him, for that was the only way in which to see at their best the majesty
and charm of the Sierras. But at the time Emerson was getting old and
could not go. John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules
to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days' trip. The first
night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great
Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in color and in symmetry,
rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was
conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages. Hermit thrushes sang
beautifully in the evening, and again, with a burst of wonderful music,
at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike
John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew
little about them. The hermit-thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees
and the flowers and the cliffs everything. The only birds he noticed
or cared for were some that were very conspicuous, such as the
water-ousels--always particular favorites of mine too. The second night
we camped in a snow-storm, on the edge of the canyon walls, under the
spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir; and next day we went
down into the wonderland of the valley itself. I shall always be glad
that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir and in the Yellowstone with
John Burroughs.

Like most Americans interested in birds and books, I know a good
deal about English birds as they appear in books. I know the lark of
Shakespeare and Shelley and the Ettrick Shepherd; I know the nightingale
of Milton and Keats; I know Wordsworth's cuckoo; I know mavis and merle
singing in the merry green wood of the old ballads; I know Jenny Wren
and Cock Robin of the nursery books. Therefore I had always much desired
to hear the birds in real life; and the opportunity offered in June,
1910, when I spent two or three weeks in England. As I could snatch but
a few hours from a very exciting round of pleasures and duties, it was
necessary for me to be with some companion who could identify both song
and singer. In Sir Edward Grey, a keen lover of outdoor life in all
its phases, and a delightful companion, who knows the songs and ways of
English birds as very few do know them, I found the best possible guide.

We left London on the morning of June 9, twenty-four hours before I
sailed from Southampton. Getting off the train at Basingstoke, we drove
to the pretty, smiling valley of the Itchen. Here we tramped for three
or four hours, then again drove, this time to the edge of the New
Forest, where we first took tea at an inn, and then tramped through the
forest to an inn on its other side, at Brockenhurst. At the conclusion
of our walk my companion made a list of the birds we had seen, putting
an asterisk (*) opposite those which we had heard sing. There were
forty-one of the former and twenty-three of the latter, as follows:

     * Thrush, * blackbird, * lark, * yellowhammer, * robin,
     *wren, * golden-crested wren, * goldfinch, * chaffinch, *
     *greenfinch, pied wagtail, sparrow, * dunnock (hedge,
     accentor), missel thrush, starling, rook, jackdaw,
     *blackcap, * garden warbler, * willow warbler, * chiffchaff,
     * wood warbler, tree-creeper, * reed bunting, * sedge
     warbler, coot, water hen, little grebe (dabchick), tufted
     duck, wood pigeon, stock dove, * turtle dove, peewit, tit (?
     coal-tit), * cuckoo, * nightjar, * swallow, martin, swift,
     pheasant, partridge.

The valley of the Itchen is typically the England that we know from
novel and story and essay. It is very beautiful in every way, with a
rich, civilized, fertile beauty--the rapid brook twisting among its reed
beds, the rich green of trees and grass, the stately woods, the gardens
and fields, the exceedingly picturesque cottages, the great handsome
houses standing in their parks. Birds were plentiful; I know but few
places in America where one would see such an abundance of individuals,
and I was struck by seeing such large birds as coots, water hens,
grebes, tufted ducks, pigeons, and peewits. In places in America as
thickly settled as the valley of the Itchen, I should not expect to see
any like number of birds of this size; but I hope that the efforts of
the Audubon societies and kindred organizations will gradually make
themselves felt until it becomes a point of honor not only with the
American man, but with the American small boy, to shield and protect all
forms of harmless wild life. True sportsmen should take the lead in such
a movement, for if there is to be any shooting there must be something
to shoot; the prime necessity is to keep, and not kill out, even the
birds which in legitimate numbers may be shot.

The New Forest is a wild, uninhabited stretch of heath and woodland,
many of the trees gnarled and aged, and its very wildness, the lack of
cultivation, the ruggedness, made it strongly attractive in my eyes, and
suggested my own country. The birds of course were much less plentiful
than beside the Itchen.

The bird that most impressed me on my walk was the blackbird. I had
already heard nightingales in abundance near Lake Como, and had also
listened to larks, but I had never heard either the blackbird, the song
thrush, or the blackcap warbler; and while I knew that all three were
good singers, I did not know what really beautiful singers they were.
Blackbirds were very abundant, and they played a prominent part in the
chorus which we heard throughout the day on every hand, though perhaps
loudest the following morning at dawn. In its habits and manners the
blackbird strikingly resembles our American robin, and indeed looks
exactly like a robin, with a yellow bill and coal-black plumage. It
hops everywhere over the lawns, just as our robin does, and it lives
and nests in the gardens in the same fashion. Its song has a general
resemblance to that of our robin, but many of the notes are far
more musical, more like those of our wood thrush. Indeed, there were
individuals among those we heard certain of whose notes seemed to me
almost to equal in point of melody the chimes of the wood thrush; and
the highest possible praise for any song-bird is to liken its song to
that of the wood thrush or hermit thrush. I certainly do not think that
the blackbird has received full justice in the books. I knew that he was
a singer, but I really had no idea how fine a singer he was. I suppose
one of his troubles has been his name, just as with our own catbird.
When he appears in the ballads as the merle, bracketed with his cousin
the mavis, the song thrush, it is far easier to recognize him as the
master singer that he is. It is a fine thing for England to have such
an asset of the countryside, a bird so common, so much in evidence, so
fearless, and such a really beautiful singer.

The thrush is a fine singer too, a better singer than our American
robin, but to my mind not at the best quite as good as the blackbird at
his best; although often I found difficulty in telling the song of one
from the song of the other, especially if I only heard two or three
notes.

The larks were, of course, exceedingly attractive. It was fascinating
to see them spring from the grass, circle upwards, steadily singing and
soaring for several minutes, and then return to the point whence
they had started. As my companion pointed out, they exactly fulfilled
Wordsworth's description; they soared but did not roam. It is quite
impossible wholly to differentiate a bird's voice from its habits and
surroundings. Although in the lark's song there are occasional musical
notes, the song as a whole is not very musical; but it is so joyous,
buoyant and unbroken, and uttered under such conditions as fully to
entitle the bird to the place he occupies with both poet and prose
writer.

The most musical singer we heard was the blackcap warbler. To my ear
its song seemed more musical than that of the nightingale. It was
astonishingly powerful for so small a bird; in volume and continuity
it does not come up to the songs of the thrushes and of certain other
birds, but in quality, as an isolated bit of melody, it can hardly be
surpassed.

Among the minor singers the robin was noticeable. We all know this
pretty little bird from the books, and I was prepared to find him as
friendly and attractive as he proved to be, but I had not realized how
well he sang. It is not a loud song, but very musical and attractive,
and the bird is said to sing practically all through the year. The song
of the wren interested me much, because it was not in the least like
that of our house wren, but, on the contrary, like that of our winter
wren. The theme is the same as the winter wren's, but the song did not
seem to me to be as brilliantly musical as that of the tiny singer of
the North Woods. The sedge warbler sang in the thick reeds a mocking
ventriloquial lay, which reminded me at times of the less pronounced
parts of our yellow-breasted chat's song. The cuckoo's cry was
singularly attractive and musical, far more so than the rolling, many
times repeated, note of our rain-crow.

We did not reach the inn at Brockenhurst until about nine o'clock, just
at nightfall, and a few minutes before that we heard a nightjar. It did
not sound in the least like either our whip-poor-will or our night-hawk,
uttering a long-continued call of one or two syllables, repeated over
and over. The chaffinch was very much in evidence, continually chaunting
its unimportant little ditty. I was pleased to see the bold, masterful
missel thrush, the stormcock as it is often called; but this bird breeds
and sings in the early spring, when the weather is still tempestuous,
and had long been silent when we saw it. The starlings, rooks, and
jackdaws did not sing, and their calls were attractive merely as the
calls of our grackles are attractive; and the other birds that we
heard sing, though they played their part in the general chorus, were
performers of no especial note, like our tree-creepers, pine warblers,
and chipping sparrows. The great spring chorus had already begun to
subside, but the woods and fields were still vocal with beautiful bird
music, the country was very lovely, the inn as comfortable as possible,
and the bath and supper very enjoyable after our tramp; and altogether I
passed no pleasanter twenty-four hours during my entire European trip.

Ten days later, at Sagamore Hill, I was among my own birds, and was much
interested as I listened to and looked at them in remembering the notes
and actions of the birds I had seen in England. On the evening of the
first day I sat in my rocking-chair on the broad veranda, looking across
the Sound towards the glory of the sunset. The thickly grassed hillside
sloped down in front of me to a belt of forest from which rose the
golden, leisurely chiming of the wood thrushes, chanting their vespers;
through the still air came the warble of vireo and tanager; and after
nightfall we heard the flight song of an ovenbird from the same belt
of timber. Overhead an oriole sang in the weeping elm, now and then
breaking his song to scold like an overgrown wren. Song-sparrows and
catbirds sang in the shrubbery; one robin had built its nest over the
front and one over the back door, and there was a chippy's nest in the
wistaria vine by the stoop. During the next twenty-four hours I saw and
heard, either right around the house or while walking down to bathe,
through the woods, the following forty-two birds:

Little green heron, night heron, red-tailed hawk, yellow-billed cuckoo,
kingfisher, flicker, humming-bird, swift, meadow-lark, red-winged
blackbird, sharp-tailed finch, song sparrow, chipping sparrow, bush
sparrow, purple finch, Baltimore oriole, cowbunting, robin, wood thrush,
thrasher, catbird, scarlet tanager, red-eyed vireo, yellow warbler,
black-throated green warbler, kingbird, wood peewee, crow, blue jay,
cedar-bird, Maryland yellowthroat, chickadee, black and white
creeper, barn swallow, white-breasted swallow, ovenbird, thistlefinch,
vesperfinch, indigo bunting, towhee, grasshopper-sparrow, and screech
owl.

The birds were still in full song, for on Long Island there is little
abatement in the chorus until about the second week of July, when
the blossoming of the chestnut trees patches the woodland with frothy
greenish-yellow.[*]

     [*] Alas! the blight has now destroyed the chestnut trees,
     and robbed our woods of one of their distinctive beauties.

Our most beautiful singers are the wood thrushes; they sing not only in
the early morning but throughout the long hot June afternoons. Sometimes
they sing in the trees immediately around the house, and if the air is
still we can always hear them from among the tall trees at the foot of
the hill. The thrashers sing in the hedgerows beyond the garden, the
catbirds everywhere. The catbirds have such an attractive song that it
is extremely irritating to know that at any moment they may interrupt
it to mew and squeal. The bold, cheery music of the robins always seems
typical of the bold, cheery birds themselves. The Baltimore orioles nest
in the young elms around the house, and the orchard orioles in the apple
trees near the garden and outbuildings. Among the earliest sounds of
spring is the cheerful, simple, homely song of the song-sparrow; and in
March we also hear the piercing cadence of the meadow-lark--to us one
of the most attractive of all bird calls. Of late years now and then
we hear the rollicking, bubbling melody of the bobolink in the pastures
back of the barn; and when the full chorus of these and of many other
of the singers of spring is dying down, there are some true hot-weather
songsters, such as the brightly hued indigo buntings and thistlefinches.
Among the finches one of the most musical and plaintive songs is that of
the bush-sparrow--I do not know why the books call it field-sparrow,
for it does not dwell in the open fields like the vesperfinch, the
savannah-sparrow, and grasshopper-sparrow, but among the cedars and
bayberry bushes and young locusts in the same places where the prairie
warbler is found. Nor is it only the true songs that delight us. We love
to hear the flickers call, and we readily pardon any one of their number
which, as occasionally happens, is bold enough to wake us in the
early morning by drumming on the shingles of the roof. In our ears the
red-winged blackbirds have a very attractive note. We love the screaming
of the red-tailed hawks as they soar high overhead, and even the calls
of the night heron that nest in the tall water maples by one of the wood
ponds on our place, and the little green herons that nest beside the
salt marsh. It is hard to tell just how much of the attraction in any
bird-note lies in the music itself and how much in the associations.
This is what makes it so useless to try to compare the bird songs of one
country with those of another. A man who is worth anything can no more
be entirely impartial in speaking of the bird songs with which from
his earliest childhood he has been familiar than he can be entirely
impartial in speaking of his own family.

At Sagamore Hill we love a great many things--birds and trees and books,
and all things beautiful, and horses and rifles and children and hard
work and the joy of life. We have great fireplaces, and in them the logs
roar and crackle during the long winter evenings. The big piazza is for
the hot, still afternoons of summer. As in every house, there are things
that appeal to the householder because of their associations, but
which would not mean much to others. Naturally, any man who has been
President, and filled other positions, accumulates such things, with
scant regard to his own personal merits. Perhaps our most cherished
possessions are a Remington bronze, "The Bronco Buster," given me by my
men when the regiment was mustered out, and a big Tiffany silver vase
given to Mrs. Roosevelt by the enlisted men of the battleship Louisiana
after we returned from a cruise on her to Panama. It was a real surprise
gift, presented to her in the White House, on behalf of the whole crew,
by four as strapping man-of-war's-men as ever swung a turret or pointed
a twelve-inch gun. The enlisted men of the army I already knew well--of
course I knew well the officers of both army and navy. But the enlisted
men of the navy I only grew to know well when I was President. On the
Louisiana Mrs. Roosevelt and I once dined at the chief petty officers'
mess, and on another battleship, the Missouri (when I was in company
with Admiral Evans and Captain Cowles), and again on the Sylph and on
the Mayflower, we also dined as guests of the crew. When we finished our
trip on the Louisiana I made a short speech to the assembled crew,
and at its close one of the petty officers, the very picture of what a
man-of-war's-man should look like, proposed three cheers for me in terms
that struck me as curiously illustrative of America at her best; he
said, "Now then, men, three cheers for Theodore Roosevelt, the typical
American citizen!" That was the way in which they thought of the
American President--and a very good way, too. It was an expression that
would have come naturally only to men in whom the American principles of
government and life were ingrained, just as they were ingrained in the
men of my regiment. I need scarcely add, but I will add for the
benefit of those who do not know, that this attitude of self-respecting
identification of interest and purpose is not only compatible with but
can only exist when there is fine and real discipline, as thorough
and genuine as the discipline that has always obtained in the most
formidable fighting fleets and armies. The discipline and the mutual
respect are complementary, not antagonistic. During the Presidency all
of us, but especially the children, became close friends with many of
the sailor men. The four bearers of the vase to Mrs. Roosevelt were
promptly hailed as delightful big brothers by our two smallest boys, who
at once took them to see the sights of Washington in the landau--"the
President's land-ho!" as, with seafaring humor, our guests immediately
styled it. Once, after we were in private life again, Mrs. Roosevelt
was in a railway station and had some difficulty with her ticket. A
fine-looking, quiet man stepped up and asked if he could be of help; he
remarked that he had been one of the Mayflower's crew, and knew us well;
and in answer to a question explained that he had left the navy in
order to study dentistry, and added--a delicious touch--that while thus
preparing himself to be a dentist he was earning the necessary money to
go on with his studies by practicing the profession of a prize-fighter,
being a good man in the ring.

There are various bronzes in the house: Saint-Gaudens's "Puritan," a
token from my staff officers when I was Governor; Proctor's cougar, the
gift of the Tennis Cabinet--who also gave us a beautiful silver bowl,
which is always lovingly pronounced to rhyme with "owl" because that was
the pronunciation used at the time of the giving by the valued friend
who acted as spokesman for his fellow-members, and who was himself the
only non-American member of the said Cabinet. There is a horseman by
Macmonnies, and a big bronze vase by Kemys, an adaptation or development
of the pottery vases of the Southwestern Indians. Mixed with all of
these are gifts from varied sources, ranging from a brazen Buddha sent
me by the Dalai Lama and a wonderful psalter from the Emperor Menelik to
a priceless ancient Samurai sword, coming from Japan in remembrance
of the peace of Portsmouth, and a beautifully inlaid miniature suit of
Japanese armor, given me by a favorite hero of mine, Admiral Togo, when
he visited Sagamore Hill. There are things from European friends; a
mosaic picture of Pope Leo XIII in his garden; a huge, very handsome
edition of the Nibelungenlied; a striking miniature of John Hampden from
Windsor Castle; editions of Dante, and the campaigns of "Eugenio von
Savoy" (another of my heroes, a dead hero this time); a Viking cup; the
state sword of a Uganda king; the gold box in which the "freedom of the
city of London" was given me; a beautiful head of Abraham Lincoln given
me by the French authorities after my speech at the Sorbonne; and many
other things from sources as diverse as the Sultan of Turkey and the
Dowager Empress of China. Then there are things from home friends: a
Polar bear skin from Peary; a Sioux buffalo robe with, on it, painted
by some long-dead Sioux artist, the picture story of Custer's fight; a
bronze portrait plaque of Joel Chandler Harris; the candlestick used in
sealing the Treaty of Portsmouth, sent me by Captain Cameron Winslow;
a shoe worn by Dan Patch when he paced a mile in 1:59, sent me by his
owner. There is a picture of a bull moose by Carl Rungius, which seems
to me as spirited an animal painting as I have ever seen. In the north
room, with its tables and mantelpiece and desks and chests made of woods
sent from the Philippines by army friends, or by other friends for other
reasons; with its bison and wapiti heads; there are three paintings by
Marcus Symonds--"Where Light and Shadow Meet," "The Porcelain Towers,"
and "The Seats of the Mighty"; he is dead now, and he had scant
recognition while he lived, yet surely he was a great imaginative
artist, a wonderful colorist, and a man with a vision more wonderful
still. There is one of Lungren's pictures of the Western plains; and a
picture of the Grand Canyon; and one by a Scandinavian artist who could
see the fierce picturesqueness of workaday Pittsburgh; and sketches of
the White House by Sargent and by Hopkinson Smith.

The books are everywhere. There are as many in the north room and in the
parlor--is drawing-room a more appropriate name than parlor?--as in the
library; the gun-room at the top of the house, which incidentally has
the loveliest view of all, contains more books than any of the other
rooms; and they are particularly delightful books to browse among, just
because they have not much relevance to one another, this being one of
the reasons why they are relegated to their present abode. But the books
have overflowed into all the other rooms too.

I could not name any principle upon which the books have been gathered.
Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in
laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person,
and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover's
besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls "the mad pride of
intellectuality," taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does
not like the same kind of books. Of course there are books which a man
or woman uses as instruments of a profession--law books, medical books,
cookery books, and the like. I am not speaking of these, for they are
not properly "books" at all; they come in the category of time-tables,
telephone directories, and other useful agencies of civilized life. I
am speaking of books that are meant to be read. Personally, granted that
these books are decent and healthy, the one test to which I demand
that they all submit is that of being interesting. If the book is not
interesting to the reader, then in all but an infinitesimal number of
cases it gives scant benefit to the reader. Of course any reader ought
to cultivate his or her taste so that good books will appeal to it, and
that trash won't. But after this point has once been reached, the needs
of each reader must be met in a fashion that will appeal to those needs.
Personally the books by which I have profited infinitely more than
by any others have been those in which profit was a by-product of the
pleasure; that is, I read them because I enjoyed them, because I liked
reading them, and the profit came in as part of the enjoyment.

Of course each individual is apt to have some special tastes in which
he cannot expect that any but a few friends will share. Now, I am very
proud of my big-game library. I suppose there must be many big-game
libraries in Continental Europe, and possibly in England, more extensive
than mine, but I have not happened to come across any such library in
this country. Some of the originals go back to the sixteenth century,
and there are copies or reproductions of the two or three most famous
hunting books of the Middle Ages, such as the Duke of York's translation
of Gaston Phoebus, and the queer book of the Emperor Maximilian. It is
only very occasionally that I meet any one who cares for any of these
books. On the other hand, I expect to find many friends who will turn
naturally to some of the old or the new books of poetry or romance or
history to which we of the household habitually turn. Let me add that
ours is in no sense a collector's library. Each book was procured
because some one of the family wished to read it. We could never afford
to take overmuch thought for the outsides of books; we were too much
interested in their insides.

Now and then I am asked as to "what books a statesman should read," and
my answer is, poetry and novels--including short stories under the
head of novels. I don't mean that he should read only novels and modern
poetry. If he cannot also enjoy the Hebrew prophets and the Greek
dramatists, he should be sorry. He ought to read interesting books on
history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really
good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever
written in prose or verse. Gibbon and Macaulay, Herodotus, Thucydides
and Tacitus, the Heimskringla, Froissart, Joinville and Villehardouin,
Parkman and Mahan, Mommsen and Ranke--why! there are scores and scores
of solid histories, the best in the world, which are as absorbing as
the best of all the novels, and of as permanent value. The same thing
is true of Darwin and Huxley and Carlyle and Emerson, and parts of Kant,
and of volumes like Sutherland's "Growth of the Moral Instinct," or
Acton's Essays and Lounsbury's studies--here again I am not trying to
class books together, or measure one by another, or enumerate one in a
thousand of those worth reading, but just to indicate that any man or
woman of some intelligence and some cultivation can in some line or
other of serious thought, scientific or historical or philosophical or
economic or governmental, find any number of books which are charming to
read, and which in addition give that for which his or her soul hungers.
I do not for a minute mean that the statesman ought not to read a great
many different books of this character, just as every one else should
read them. But, in the final event, the statesman, and the publicist,
and the reformer, and the agitator for new things, and the upholder of
what is good in old things, all need more than anything else to know
human nature, to know the needs of the human soul; and they will find
this nature and these needs set forth as nowhere else by the great
imaginative writers, whether of prose or of poetry.

The room for choice is so limitless that to my mind it seems absurd to
try to make catalogues which shall be supposed to appeal to all the best
thinkers. This is why I have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of
the One Hundred Best Books, or the Five-Foot Library. It is all right
for a man to amuse himself by composing a list of a hundred very good
books; and if he is to go off for a year or so where he cannot get
many books, it is an excellent thing to choose a five-foot library of
particular books which in that particular year and on that particular
trip he would like to read. But there is no such thing as a hundred
books that are best for all men, or for the majority of men, or for
one man at all times; and there is no such thing as a five-foot library
which will satisfy the needs of even one particular man on different
occasions extending over a number of years. Milton is best for one mood
and Pope for another. Because a man likes Whitman or Browning or Lowell
he should not feel himself debarred from Tennyson or Kipling or Korner
or Heine or the Bard of the Dimbovitza. Tolstoy's novels are good at one
time and those of Sienkiewicz at another; and he is fortunate who can
relish "Salammbo" and "Tom Brown" and the "Two Admirals" and "Quentin
Durward" and "Artemus Ward" and the "Ingoldsby Legends" and "Pickwick"
and "Vanity Fair." Why, there are hundreds of books like these, each one
of which, if really read, really assimilated, by the person to whom
it happens to appeal, will enable that person quite unconsciously to
furnish himself with much ammunition which he will find of use in the
battle of life.

A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular
time. But there are tens of thousands of interesting books, and some of
them are sealed to some men and some are sealed to others; and some stir
the soul at some given point of a man's life and yet convey no message
at other times. The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs
without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs
should be. He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not
like. Yet at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all
the indications of puffed-up vanity which consists in treating mere
individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyncrasy as a matter of pride.
I happen to be devoted to Macbeth, whereas I very seldom read Hamlet
(though I like parts of it). Now I am humbly and sincerely conscious
that this is a demerit in me and not in Hamlet; and yet it would not do
me any good to pretend that I like Hamlet as much as Macbeth when, as
a matter of fact, I don't. I am very fond of simple epics and of ballad
poetry, from the Nibelungenlied and the Roland song through "Chevy
Chase" and "Patrick Spens" and "Twa Corbies" to Scott's poems and
Longfellow's "Saga of King Olaf" and "Othere." On the other hand, I
don't care to read dramas as a rule; I cannot read them with enjoyment
unless they appeal to me very strongly. They must almost be AEschylus
or Euripides, Goethe or Moliere, in order that I may not feel after
finishing them a sense of virtuous pride in having achieved a task. Now
I would be the first to deny that even the most delightful old English
ballad should be put on a par with any one of scores of dramatic
works by authors whom I have not mentioned; I know that each of these
dramatists has written what is of more worth than the ballad; only, I
enjoy the ballad, and I don't enjoy the drama; and therefore the ballad
is better for me, and this fact is not altered by the other fact that
my own shortcomings are to blame in the matter. I still read a number of
Scott's novels over and over again, whereas if I finish anything by Miss
Austen I have a feeling that duty performed is a rainbow to the soul.
But other booklovers who are very close kin to me, and whose taste
I know to be better than mine, read Miss Austen all the time--and,
moreover, they are very kind, and never pity me in too offensive a
manner for not reading her myself.

Aside from the masters of literature, there are all kinds of books which
one person will find delightful, and which he certainly ought not
to surrender just because nobody else is able to find as much in the
beloved volume. There is on our book-shelves a little pre-Victorian
novel or tale called "The Semi-Attached Couple." It is told with much
humor; it is a story of gentlefolk who are really gentlefolk; and to me
it is altogether delightful. But outside the members of my own family
I have never met a human being who had even heard of it, and I don't
suppose I ever shall meet one. I often enjoy a story by some living
author so much that I write to tell him so--or to tell her so; and at
least half the time I regret my action, because it encourages the writer
to believe that the public shares my views, and he then finds that the
public doesn't.

Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore
Hill; but children are better than books. Sagamore Hill is one of three
neighboring houses in which small cousins spent very happy years of
childhood. In the three houses there were at one time sixteen of these
small cousins, all told, and once we ranged them in order of size and
took their photograph. There are many kinds of success in life worth
having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful
business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or
doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of
a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for
unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things
go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and
achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that
he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not
worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as
an end--why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a
by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is
met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire
Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in
life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."

The country is the place for children, and if not the country, a city
small enough so that one can get out into the country. When our own
children were little, we were for several winters in Washington, and
each Sunday afternoon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which
was then very real country indeed. I would drag one of the children's
wagons; and when the very smallest pairs of feet grew tired of trudging
bravely after us, or of racing on rapturous side trips after flowers and
other treasures, the owners would clamber into the wagon. One of these
wagons, by the way, a gorgeous red one, had "Express" painted on it in
gilt letters, and was known to the younger children as the "'spress"
wagon. They evidently associated the color with the term. Once while we
were at Sagamore something happened to the cherished "'spress" wagon to
the distress of the children, and especially of the child who owned it.
Their mother and I were just starting for a drive in the buggy, and we
promised the bereaved owner that we would visit a store we knew in East
Norwich, a village a few miles away, and bring back another "'spress"
wagon. When we reached the store, we found to our dismay that the wagon
which we had seen had been sold. We could not bear to return without
the promised gift, for we knew that the brains of small persons are much
puzzled when their elders seem to break promises. Fortunately, we saw in
the store a delightful little bright-red chair and bright-red table,
and these we brought home and handed solemnly over to the expectant
recipient, explaining that as there unfortunately was not a "'spress"
wagon we had brought him back a "'spress" chair and "'spress" table.
It worked beautifully! The "'spress" chair and table were received with
such rapture that we had to get duplicates for the other small member
of the family who was the particular crony of the proprietor of the new
treasures.

When their mother and I returned from a row, we would often see the
children waiting for us, running like sand-spiders along the beach. They
always liked to swim in company with a grown-up of buoyant temperament
and inventive mind, and the float offered limitless opportunities
for enjoyment while bathing. All dutiful parents know the game of
"stage-coach"; each child is given a name, such as the whip, the nigh
leader, the off wheeler, the old lady passenger, and, under penalty of
paying a forfeit, must get up and turn round when the grown-up, who is
improvising a thrilling story, mentions that particular object; and when
the word "stage-coach" is mentioned, everybody has to get up and turn
round. Well, we used to play stage-coach on the float while in swimming,
and instead of tamely getting up and turning round, the child whose
turn it was had to plunge overboard. When I mentioned "stage-coach," the
water fairly foamed with vigorously kicking little legs; and then there
was always a moment of interest while I counted, so as to be sure
that the number of heads that came up corresponded with the number of
children who had gone down.

No man or woman will ever forget the time when some child lies sick of a
disease that threatens its life. Moreover, much less serious sickness is
unpleasant enough at the time. Looking back, however, there are elements
of comedy in certain of the less serious cases. I well remember one such
instance which occurred when we were living in Washington, in a small
house, with barely enough room for everybody when all the chinks were
filled. Measles descended on the household. In the effort to keep the
children that were well and those that were sick apart, their mother and
I had to camp out in improvised fashion. When the eldest small boy was
getting well, and had recovered his spirits, I slept on a sofa beside
his bed--the sofa being so short that my feet projected over anyhow. One
afternoon the small boy was given a toy organ by a sympathetic friend.
Next morning early I was waked to find the small boy very vivacious
and requesting a story. Having drowsily told the story, I said, "Now,
father's told you a story, so you amuse yourself and let father go to
sleep"; to which the small boy responded most virtuously, "Yes, father
will go to sleep and I'll play the organ," which he did, at a distance
of two feet from my head. Later his sister, who had just come down with
the measles, was put into the same room. The small boy was convalescing,
and was engaged in playing on the floor with some tin ships, together
with two or three pasteboard monitors and rams of my own manufacture. He
was giving a vivid rendering of Farragut at Mobile Bay, from memories
of how I had told the story. My pasteboard rams and monitors were
fascinating--if a naval architect may be allowed to praise his own
work--and as property they were equally divided between the little girl
and the small boy. The little girl looked on with alert suspicion from
the bed, for she was not yet convalescent enough to be allowed down on
the floor. The small boy was busily reciting the phases of the fight,
which now approached its climax, and the little girl evidently suspected
that her monitor was destined to play the part of victim.

Little boy. "And then they steamed bang into the monitor."

Little girl. "Brother, don't you sink my monitor!"

Little boy (without heeding, and hurrying toward the climax). "And the
torpedo went at the monitor!"

Little girl. "My monitor is not to sink!"

Little boy, dramatically: "And bang the monitor sank!"

Little girl. "It didn't do any such thing. My monitor always goes to bed
at seven, and it's now quarter past. My monitor was in bed and couldn't
sink!"

When I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Leonard Wood and I used
often to combine forces and take both families of children out to walk,
and occasionally some of their playmates. Leonard Wood's son, I found,
attributed the paternity of all of those not of his own family to me.
Once we were taking the children across Rock Creek on a fallen tree.
I was standing on the middle of the log trying to prevent any of the
children from falling off, and while making a clutch at one peculiarly
active and heedless child I fell off myself. As I emerged from the water
I heard the little Wood boy calling frantically to the General: "Oh! oh!
The father of all the children fell into the creek!"--which made me feel
like an uncommonly moist patriarch. Of course the children took much
interest in the trophies I occasionally brought back from my hunts. When
I started for my regiment, in '98, the stress of leaving home, which
was naturally not pleasant, was somewhat lightened by the next to
the youngest boy, whose ideas of what was about to happen were hazy,
clasping me round the legs with a beaming smile and saying, "And is my
father going to the war? And will he bring me back a bear?" When, some
five months later, I returned, of course in my uniform, this little boy
was much puzzled as to my identity, although he greeted me affably
with "Good afternoon, Colonel." Half an hour later somebody asked him,
"Where's father?" to which he responded, "I don't know; but the Colonel
is taking a bath."

Of course the children anthropomorphized--if that is the proper
term--their friends of the animal world. Among these friends at one
period was the baker's horse, and on a very rainy day I heard the little
girl, who was looking out of the window, say, with a melancholy shake of
her head, "Oh! there's poor Kraft's horse, all soppin' wet!"

While I was in the White House the youngest boy became an _habitue_ of
a small and rather noisome animal shop, and the good-natured owner would
occasionally let him take pets home to play with. On one occasion I was
holding a conversation with one of the leaders in Congress, Uncle
Pete Hepburn, about the Railroad Rate Bill. The children were strictly
trained not to interrupt business, but on this particular occasion the
little boy's feelings overcame him. He had been loaned a king-snake,
which, as all nature-lovers know, is not only a useful but a beautiful
snake, very friendly to human beings; and he came rushing home to show
the treasure. He was holding it inside his coat, and it contrived to
wiggle partly down the sleeve. Uncle Pete Hepburn naturally did not
understand the full import of what the little boy was saying to me as
he endeavored to wriggle out of his jacket, and kindly started to help
him--and then jumped back with alacrity as the small boy and the snake
both popped out of the jacket.

There could be no healthier and pleasanter place in which to bring up
children than in that nook of old-time America around Sagamore Hill.
Certainly I never knew small people to have a better time or a better
training for their work in after life than the three families of cousins
at Sagamore Hill. It was real country, and--speaking from the somewhat
detached point of view of the masculine parent--I should say there was
just the proper mixture of freedom and control in the management of the
children. They were never allowed to be disobedient or to shirk lessons
or work; and they were encouraged to have all the fun possible. They
often went barefoot, especially during the many hours passed in various
enthralling pursuits along and in the waters of the bay. They swam,
they tramped, they boated, they coasted and skated in winter, they were
intimate friends with the cows, chickens, pigs, and other live stock.
They had in succession two ponies, General Grant and, when the General's
legs became such that he lay down too often and too unexpectedly in
the road, a calico pony named Algonquin, who is still living a life of
honorable leisure in the stable and in the pasture--where he has to be
picketed, because otherwise he chases the cows. Sedate pony Grant used
to draw the cart in which the children went driving when they were very
small, the driver being their old nurse Mame, who had held their mother
in her arms when she was born, and who was knit to them by a tie as
close as any tie of blood. I doubt whether I ever saw Mame really
offended with them except once when, out of pure but misunderstood
affection, they named a pig after her. They loved pony Grant. Once I
saw the then little boy of three hugging pony Grant's fore legs. As
he leaned over, his broad straw hat tilted on end, and pony Grant
meditatively munched the brim; whereupon the small boy looked up with
a wail of anguish, evidently thinking the pony had decided to treat him
like a radish.

The children had pets of their own, too, of course. Among them guinea
pigs were the stand-bys--their highly unemotional nature fits them
for companionship with adoring but over-enthusiastic young masters and
mistresses. Then there were flying squirrels, and kangaroo rats, gentle
and trustful, and a badger whose temper was short but whose nature was
fundamentally friendly. The badger's name was Josiah; the particular
little boy whose property he was used to carry him about, clasped firmly
around what would have been his waist if he had had any. Inasmuch as
when on the ground the badger would play energetic games of tag with
the little boy and nip his bare legs, I suggested that it would be
uncommonly disagreeable if he took advantage of being held in the little
boy's arms to bite his face; but this suggestion was repelled with
scorn as an unworthy assault on the character of Josiah. "He bites legs
sometimes, but he never bites faces," said the little boy. We also had
a young black bear whom the children christened Jonathan Edwards, partly
out of compliment to their mother, who was descended from that great
Puritan divine, and partly because the bear possessed a temper in
which gloom and strength were combined in what the children regarded as
Calvinistic proportions. As for the dogs, of course there were many,
and during their lives they were intimate and valued family friends,
and their deaths were household tragedies. One of them, a large yellow
animal of several good breeds and valuable rather because of psychical
than physical traits, was named "Susan" by his small owners, in
commemoration of another retainer, a white cow; the fact that the cow
and the dog were not of the same sex being treated with indifference.
Much the most individual of the dogs and the one with the strongest
character was Sailor Boy, a Chesapeake Bay dog. He had a masterful
temper and a strong sense of both dignity and duty. He would never let
the other dogs fight, and he himself never fought unless circumstances
imperatively demanded it; but he was a murderous animal when he did
fight. He was not only exceedingly fond of the water, as was to be
expected, but passionately devoted to gunpowder in every form, for
he loved firearms and fairly reveled in the Fourth of July
celebrations--the latter being rather hazardous occasions, as the
children strongly objected to any "safe and sane" element being injected
into them, and had the normal number of close shaves with rockets, Roman
candles, and firecrackers.

One of the stand-bys for enjoyment, especially in rainy weather, was the
old barn. This had been built nearly a century previously, and was as
delightful as only the pleasantest kind of old barn can be. It stood
at the meeting-spot of three fences. A favorite amusement used to be an
obstacle race when the barn was full of hay. The contestants were timed
and were started successively from outside the door. They rushed inside,
clambered over or burrowed through the hay, as suited them best, dropped
out of a place where a loose board had come off, got over, through, or
under the three fences, and raced back to the starting-point. When they
were little, their respective fathers were expected also to take part
in the obstacle race, and when with the advance of years the fathers
finally refused to be contestants, there was a general feeling of pained
regret among the children at such a decline in the sporting spirit.

Another famous place for handicap races was Cooper's Bluff, a gigantic
sand-bank rising from the edge of the bay, a mile from the house. If
the tide was high there was an added thrill, for some of the contestants
were sure to run into the water.

As soon as the little boys learned to swim they were allowed to go off
by themselves in rowboats and camp out for the night along the Sound.
Sometimes I would go along so as to take the smaller children. Once
a schooner was wrecked on a point half a dozen miles away. She
held together well for a season or two after having been cleared of
everything down to the timbers, and this gave us the chance to make
camping-out trips in which the girls could also be included, for we put
them to sleep in the wreck, while the boys slept on the shore; squaw
picnics, the children called them.

My children, when young, went to the public school near us, the little
Cove School, as it is called. For nearly thirty years we have given
the Christmas tree to the school. Before the gifts are distributed I am
expected to make an address, which is always mercifully short, my own
children having impressed upon me with frank sincerity the attitude of
other children to addresses of this kind on such occasions. There are of
course performances by the children themselves, while all of us parents
look admiringly on, each sympathizing with his or her particular
offspring in the somewhat wooden recital of "Darius Green and his Flying
Machine" or "The Mountain and the Squirrel had a Quarrel." But the tree
and the gifts make up for all shortcomings.

We had a sleigh for winter; but if, when there was much snow, the whole
family desired to go somewhere, we would put the body of the farm wagon
on runners and all bundle in together. We always liked snow at Christmas
time, and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve. One
of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve festival begins, "It's
Christmas eve on the river, it's Christmas eve on the bay." All good
natives of the village firmly believe that this hymn was written here,
and with direct reference to Oyster Bay; although if such were the case
the word "river" would have to be taken in a hyperbolic sense, as the
nearest approach to a river is the village pond. I used to share this
belief myself, until my faith was shaken by a Denver lady who wrote that
she had sung that hymn when a child in Michigan, and that at the present
time her little Denver babies also loved it, although in their case the
river was not represented by even a village pond.

When we were in Washington, the children usually went with their mother
to the Episcopal church, while I went to the Dutch Reformed. But if any
child misbehaved itself, it was sometimes sent next Sunday to church
with me, on the theory that my companionship would have a sedative
effect--which it did, as I and the child walked along with rather
constrained politeness, each eying the other with watchful readiness
for the unexpected. On one occasion, when the child's conduct fell just
short of warranting such extreme measures, his mother, as they were on
the point of entering church, concluded a homily by a quotation
which showed a certain haziness of memory concerning the marriage and
baptismal services: "No, little boy, if this conduct continues, I shall
think that you neither love, honor, nor obey me!" However, the culprit
was much impressed with a sense of shortcoming as to the obligations he
had undertaken; so the result was as satisfactory as if the quotation
had been from the right service.

As for the education of the children, there was of course much of it
that represented downright hard work and drudgery. There was also
much training that came as a by-product and was perhaps almost as
valuable--not as a substitute but as an addition. After their supper,
the children, when little, would come trotting up to their mother's
room to be read to, and it was always a surprise to me to notice the
extremely varied reading which interested them, from Howard Pyle's
"Robin Hood," Mary Alicia Owen's "Voodoo Tales," and Joel Chandler
Harris's "Aaron in the Wild Woods," to "Lycides" and "King John." If
their mother was absent, I would try to act as vice-mother--a poor
substitute, I fear--superintending the supper and reading aloud
afterwards. The children did not wish me to read the books they desired
their mother to read, and I usually took some such book as "Hereward the
Wake," or "Guy Mannering," or "The Last of the Mohicans" or else some
story about a man-eating tiger, or a man-eating lion, from one of the
hunting books in my library. These latter stories were always favorites,
and as the authors told them in the first person, my interested auditors
grew to know them by the name of the "I" stories, and regarded them as
adventures all of which happened to the same individual. When Selous,
the African hunter, visited us, I had to get him to tell to the younger
children two or three of the stories with which they were already
familiar from my reading; and as Selous is a most graphic narrator, and
always enters thoroughly into the feeling not only of himself but of
the opposing lion or buffalo, my own rendering of the incidents was cast
entirely into the shade.

Besides profiting by the more canonical books on education, we profited
by certain essays and articles of a less orthodox type. I wish to
express my warmest gratitude for such books--not of avowedly didactic
purpose--as Laura Richards's books, Josephine Dodge Daskam's "Madness of
Philip," Palmer Cox's "Queer People," the melodies of Father Goose and
Mother Wild Goose, Flandreau's "Mrs. White's," Myra Kelly's stories of
her little East Side pupils, and Michelson's "Madigans." It is well to
take duties, and life generally, seriously. It is also well to remember
that a sense of humor is a healthy anti-scorbutic to that portentous
seriousness which defeats its own purpose.

Occasionally bits of self-education proved of unexpected help to the
children in later years. Like other children, they were apt to take to
bed with them treasures which they particularly esteemed. One of the
boys, just before his sixteenth birthday, went moose hunting with the
family doctor, and close personal friend of the entire family, Alexander
Lambert. Once night overtook them before they camped, and they had to
lie down just where they were. Next morning Dr. Lambert rather enviously
congratulated the boy on the fact that stones and roots evidently
did not interfere with the soundness of his sleep; to which the boy
responded, "Well, Doctor, you see it isn't very long since I used to
take fourteen china animals to bed with me every night!"

As the children grew up, Sagamore Hill remained delightful for them.
There were picnics and riding parties, there were dances in the north
room--sometimes fancy dress dances--and open-air plays on the green
tennis court of one of the cousin's houses. The children are no longer
children now. Most of them are men and women, working out their own
fates in the big world; some in our own land, others across the great
oceans or where the Southern Cross blazes in the tropic nights. Some of
them have children of their own; some are working at one thing, some at
another; in cable ships, in business offices, in factories, in newspaper
offices, building steel bridges, bossing gravel trains and steam
shovels, or laying tracks and superintending freight traffic. They have
had their share of accidents and escapes; as I write, word comes from
a far-off land that one of them, whom Seth Bullock used to call "Kim"
because he was the friend of all mankind, while bossing a dangerous
but necessary steel structural job has had two ribs and two back teeth
broken, and is back at work. They have known and they will know joy and
sorrow, triumph and temporary defeat. But I believe they are all the
better off because of their happy and healthy childhood.

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks,
and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home. No
father and mother can hope to escape sorrow and anxiety, and there are
dreadful moments when death comes very near those we love, even if for
the time being it passes by. But life is a great adventure, and the
worst of all fears is the fear of living. There are many forms of
success, many forms of triumph. But there is no other success that in
any shape or way approaches that which is open to most of the many, many
men and women who have the right ideals. These are the men and the women
who see that it is the intimate and homely things that count most. They
are the men and women who have the courage to strive for the happiness
which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, and only to
those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of
duty.



CHAPTER X

THE PRESIDENCY; MAKING AN OLD PARTY PROGRESSIVE

On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was shot by an Anarchist in the
city of Buffalo. I went to Buffalo at once. The President's condition
seemed to be improving, and after a day or two we were told that he
was practically out of danger. I then joined my family, who were in the
Adirondacks, near the foot of Mount Tahawus. A day or two afterwards
we took a long tramp through the forest, and in the afternoon I climbed
Mount Tahawus. After reaching the top I had descended a few hundred feet
to a shelf of land where there was a little lake, when I saw a guide
coming out of the woods on our trail from below. I felt at once that he
had bad news, and, sure enough, he handed me a telegram saying that the
President's condition was much worse and that I must come to Buffalo
immediately. It was late in the afternoon, and darkness had fallen by
the time I reached the clubhouse where we were staying. It was some time
afterwards before I could get a wagon to drive me out to the nearest
railway station, North Creek, some forty or fifty miles distant. The
roads were the ordinary wilderness roads and the night was dark. But we
changed horses two or three times--when I say "we" I mean the driver
and I, as there was no one else with us--and reached the station just at
dawn, to learn from Mr. Loeb, who had a special train waiting, that the
President was dead. That evening I took the oath of office, in the house
of Ansley Wilcox, at Buffalo.

On three previous occasions the Vice-President had succeeded to the
Presidency on the death of the President. In each case there had been
a reversal of party policy, and a nearly immediate and nearly complete
change in the personnel of the higher offices, especially the Cabinet.
I had never felt that this was wise from any standpoint. If a man is fit
to be President, he will speedily so impress himself in the office that
the policies pursued will be his anyhow, and he will not have to bother
as to whether he is changing them or not; while as regards the offices
under him, the important thing for him is that his subordinates shall
make a success in handling their several departments. The subordinate is
sure to desire to make a success of his department for his own sake, and
if he is a fit man, whose views on public policy are sound, and whose
abilities entitle him to his position, he will do excellently under
almost any chief with the same purposes.

I at once announced that I would continue unchanged McKinley's policies
for the honor and prosperity of the country, and I asked all the members
of the Cabinet to stay. There were no changes made among them save as
changes were made among their successors whom I myself appointed. I
continued Mr. McKinley's policies, changing and developing them and
adding new policies only as the questions before the public changed and
as the needs of the public developed. Some of my friends shook their
heads over this, telling me that the men I retained would not be "loyal
to me," and that I would seem as if I were "a pale copy of McKinley."
I told them that I was not nervous on this score, and that if the men
I retained were loyal to their work they would be giving me the loyalty
for which I most cared; and that if they were not, I would change them
anyhow; and that as for being "a pale copy of McKinley," I was not
primarily concerned with either following or not following in his
footsteps, but in facing the new problems that arose; and that if I were
competent I would find ample opportunity to show my competence by my
deeds without worrying myself as to how to convince people of the fact.

For the reasons I have already given in my chapter on the Governorship
of New York, the Republican party, which in the days of Abraham Lincoln
was founded as the radical progressive party of the Nation, had been
obliged during the last decade of the nineteenth century to uphold
the interests of popular government against a foolish and illjudged
mock-radicalism. It remained the Nationalist as against the
particularist or State's rights party, and in so far it remained
absolutely sound; for little permanent good can be done by any party
which worships the State's rights fetish or which fails to regard the
State, like the county or the municipality, as merely a convenient unit
for local self-government, while in all National matters, of importance
to the whole people, the Nation is to be supreme over State, county, and
town alike. But the State's rights fetish, although still effectively
used at certain times by both courts and Congress to block needed
National legislation directed against the huge corporations or in the
interests of workingmen, was not a prime issue at the time of which I
speak. In 1896, 1898, and 1900 the campaigns were waged on two great
moral issues: (1) the imperative need of a sound and honest currency;
(2) the need, after 1898, of meeting in manful and straightforward
fashion the extraterritorial problems arising from the Spanish War. On
these great moral issues the Republican party was right, and the men who
were opposed to it, and who claimed to be the radicals, and their allies
among the sentimentalists, were utterly and hopelessly wrong. This had,
regrettably but perhaps inevitably, tended to throw the party into the
hands not merely of the conservatives but of the reactionaries; of men
who, sometimes for personal and improper reasons, but more often with
entire sincerity and uprightness of purpose, distrusted anything that
was progressive and dreaded radicalism. These men still from force of
habit applauded what Lincoln had done in the way of radical dealing
with the abuses of his day; but they did not apply the spirit in which
Lincoln worked to the abuses of their own day. Both houses of Congress
were controlled by these men. Their leaders in the Senate were Messrs.
Aldrich and Hale. The Speaker of the House when I became President
was Mr. Henderson, but in a little over a year he was succeeded by Mr.
Cannon, who, although widely differing from Senator Aldrich in matters
of detail, represented the same type of public sentiment. There were
many points on which I agreed with Mr. Cannon and Mr. Aldrich, and some
points on which I agreed with Mr. Hale. I made a resolute effort to get
on with all three and with their followers, and I have no question that
they made an equally resolute effort to get on with me. We succeeded in
working together, although with increasing friction, for some years, I
pushing forward and they hanging back. Gradually, however, I was forced
to abandon the effort to persuade them to come my way, and then I
achieved results only by appealing over the heads of the Senate and
House leaders to the people, who were the masters of both of us. I
continued in this way to get results until almost the close of my term;
and the Republican party became once more the progressive and indeed the
fairly radical progressive party of the Nation. When my successor was
chosen, however, the leaders of the House and Senate, or most of them,
felt that it was safe to come to a break with me, and the last or short
session of Congress, held between the election of my successor and his
inauguration four months later, saw a series of contests
between the majorities in the two houses of Congress and the
President,--myself,--quite as bitter as if they and I had belonged to
opposite political parties. However, I held my own. I was not able to
push through the legislation I desired during these four months, but
I was able to prevent them doing anything I did not desire, or undoing
anything that I had already succeeded in getting done.

There were, of course, many Senators and members of the lower house with
whom up to the very last I continued to work in hearty accord, and with
a growing understanding. I have not the space to enumerate, as I would
like to, these men. For many years Senator Lodge had been my close
personal and political friend, with whom I discussed all public
questions that arose, usually with agreement; and our intimately close
relations were of course unchanged by my entry into the White House. He
was of all our public men the man who had made the closest and wisest
study of our foreign relations, and more clearly than almost any
other man he understood the vital fact that the efficiency of our
navy conditioned our national efficiency in foreign affairs. Anything
relating to our international relations, from Panama and the navy to the
Alaskan boundary question, the Algeciras negotiations, or the peace of
Portsmouth, I was certain to discuss with Senator Lodge and also with
certain other members of Congress, such as Senator Turner of Washington
and Representative Hitt of Illinois. Anything relating to labor
legislation and to measures for controlling big business or efficiently
regulating the giant railway systems, I was certain to discuss with
Senator Dolliver or Congressman Hepburn or Congressman Cooper. With
men like Senator Beveridge, Congressman (afterwards Senator) Dixon,
and Congressman Murdock, I was apt to discuss pretty nearly everything
relating to either our internal or our external affairs. There were
many, many others. The present president of the Senate, Senator Clark,
of Arkansas, was as fearless and high-minded a representative of the
people of the United States as I ever dealt with. He was one of the men
who combined loyalty to his own State with an equally keen loyalty to
the people of all the United States. He was politically opposed to me;
but when the interests of the country were at stake, he was incapable of
considering party differences; and this was especially his attitude
in international matters--including certain treaties which most of
his party colleagues, with narrow lack of patriotism, and complete
subordination of National to factional interest, opposed. I have never
anywhere met finer, more faithful, more disinterested, and more
loyal public servants than Senator O. H. Platt, a Republican, from
Connecticut, and Senator Cockrell, a Democrat, from Missouri. They were
already old men when I came to the Presidency; and doubtless there
were points on which I seemed to them to be extreme and radical; but
eventually they found that our motives and beliefs were the same,
and they did all in their power to help any movement that was for the
interest of our people as a whole. I had met them when I was Civil
Service Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. All I ever had
to do with either was to convince him that a given measure I championed
was right, and he then at once did all he could to have it put into
effect. If I could not convince them, why! that was my fault, or my
misfortune; but if I could convince them, I never had to think again as
to whether they would or would not support me. There were many other men
of mark in both houses with whom I could work on some points, whereas
on others we had to differ. There was one powerful leader--a burly,
forceful man, of admirable traits--who had, however, been trained in
the post-bellum school of business and politics, so that his attitude
towards life, quite unconsciously, reminded me a little of Artemus
Ward's view of the Tower of London--"If I like it, I'll buy it." There
was a big governmental job in which this leader was much interested,
and in reference to which he always wished me to consult a man whom
he trusted, whom I will call Pitt Rodney. One day I answered him, "The
trouble with Rodney is that he misestimates his relations to cosmos";
to which he responded, "Cosmos--Cosmos? Never heard of him. You stick
to Rodney. He's your man!" Outside of the public servants there were
multitudes of men, in newspaper offices, in magazine offices, in
business or the professions or on farms or in shops, who actively
supported the policies for which I stood and did work of genuine
leadership which was quite as effective as any work done by men in
public office. Without the active support of these men I would have
been powerless. In particular, the leading newspaper correspondents
at Washington were as a whole a singularly able, trustworthy, and
public-spirited body of men, and the most useful of all agents in the
fight for efficient and decent government.

As for the men under me in executive office, I could not overstate the
debt of gratitude I owe them. From the heads of the departments, the
Cabinet officers, down, the most striking feature of the Administration
was the devoted, zealous, and efficient work that was done as soon as it
became understood that the one bond of interest among all of us was the
desire to make the Government the most effective instrument in advancing
the interests of the people as a whole, the interests of the average men
and women of the United States and of their children. I do not think I
overstate the case when I say that most of the men who did the best work
under me felt that ours was a partnership, that we all stood on the same
level of purpose and service, and that it mattered not what position any
one of us held so long as in that position he gave the very best that
was in him. We worked very hard; but I made a point of getting a couple
of hours off each day for equally vigorous play. The men with whom I
then played, whom we laughingly grew to call the "Tennis Cabinet," have
been mentioned in a previous chapter of this book in connection with
the gift they gave me at the last breakfast which they took at the White
House. There were many others in the public service under me with whom I
happened not to play, but who did their share of our common work just as
effectively as it was done by us who did play. Of course nothing could
have been done in my Administration if it had not been for the zeal,
intelligence, masterful ability, and downright hard labor of these men
in countless positions under me. I was helpless to do anything except
as my thoughts and orders were translated into action by them; and,
moreover, each of them, as he grew specially fit for his job, used to
suggest to me the right thought to have, and the right order to give,
concerning that job. It is of course hard for me to speak with cold and
dispassionate partiality of these men, who were as close to me as were
the men of my regiment. But the outside observers best fitted to pass
judgment about them felt as I did. At the end of my Administration Mr.
Bryce, the British Ambassador, told me that in a long life, during which
he had studied intimately the government of many different countries, he
had never in any country seen a more eager, high-minded, and efficient
set of public servants, men more useful and more creditable to their
country, than the men then doing the work of the American Government in
Washington and in the field. I repeat this statement with the permission
of Mr. Bryce.

At about the same time, or a little before, in the spring of 1908, there
appeared in the English _Fortnightly Review_ an article, evidently by
a competent eye witness, setting forth more in detail the same views to
which the British Ambassador thus privately gave expression. It was in
part as follows:

"Mr. Roosevelt has gathered around him a body of public servants who
are nowhere surpassed, I question whether they are anywhere equaled, for
efficiency, self-sacrifice, and an absolute devotion to their country's
interests. Many of them are poor men, without private means, who have
voluntarily abandoned high professional ambitions and turned their backs
on the rewards of business to serve their country on salaries that are
not merely inadequate, but indecently so. There is not one of them
who is not constantly assailed by offers of positions in the world
of commerce, finance, and the law that would satisfy every material
ambition with which he began life. There is not one of them who could
not, if he chose, earn outside Washington from ten to twenty times the
income on which he economizes as a State official. But these men are
as indifferent to money and to the power that money brings as to the
allurements of Newport and New York, or to merely personal distinctions,
or to the commercialized ideals which the great bulk of their
fellow-countrymen accept without question. They are content, and more
than content, to sink themselves in the National service without a
thought of private advancement, and often at a heavy sacrifice of
worldly honors, and to toil on . . . sustained by their own native
impulse to make of patriotism an efficient instrument of public
betterment."

The American public rarely appreciate the high quality of the work
done by some of our diplomats--work, usually entirely unnoticed and
unrewarded, which redounds to the interest and the honor of all of
us. The most useful man in the entire diplomatic service, during my
presidency, and for many years before, was Henry White; and I say
this having in mind the high quality of work done by such admirable
ambassadors and ministers as Bacon, Meyer, Straus, O'Brien, Rockhill,
and Egan, to name only a few among many. When I left the presidency
White was Ambassador to France; shortly afterwards he was removed by Mr.
Taft, for reasons unconnected with the good of the service.

The most important factor in getting the right spirit in my
Administration, next to the insistence upon courage, honesty, and a
genuine democracy of desire to serve the plain people, was my insistence
upon the theory that the executive power was limited only by specific
restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution or imposed
by the Congress under its Constitutional powers. My view was that
every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high
position, was a steward of the people bound actively and affirmatively
to do all he could for the people, and not to content himself with the
negative merit of keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin. I declined
to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation
could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific
authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right
but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless
such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under
this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done
many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the
departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of
executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted
for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever
manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or
legislative prohibition. I did not care a rap for the mere form and
show of power; I cared immensely for the use that could be made of the
substance. The Senate at one time objected to my communicating with them
in printing, preferring the expensive, foolish, and laborious practice
of writing out the messages by hand. It was not possible to return to
the outworn archaism of hand writing; but we endeavored to have the
printing made as pretty as possible. Whether I communicated with the
Congress in writing or by word of mouth, and whether the writing was by
a machine, or a pen, were equally, and absolutely, unimportant matters.
The importance lay in what I said and in the heed paid to what I said.
So as to my meeting and consulting Senators, Congressmen, politicians,
financiers, and labor men. I consulted all who wished to see me; and if
I wished to see any one, I sent for him; and where the consultation took
place was a matter of supreme unimportance. I consulted every man
with the sincere hope that I could profit by and follow his advice; I
consulted every member of Congress who wished to be consulted, hoping to
be able to come to an agreement of action with him; and I always finally
acted as my conscience and common sense bade me act.

About appointments I was obliged by the Constitution to consult the
Senate; and the long-established custom of the Senate meant that in
practice this consultation was with individual Senators and even with
big politicians who stood behind the Senators. I was only one-half the
appointing power; I nominated; but the Senate confirmed. In practice,
by what was called "the courtesy of the Senate," the Senate normally
refused to confirm any appointment if the Senator from the State
objected to it. In exceptional cases, where I could arouse public
attention, I could force through the appointment in spite of the
opposition of the Senators; in all ordinary cases this was impossible.
On the other hand, the Senator could of course do nothing for any man
unless I chose to nominate him. In consequence the Constitution itself
forced the President and the Senators from each State to come to a
working agreement on the appointments in and from that State.

My course was to insist on absolute fitness, including honesty, as a
prerequisite to every appointment; and to remove only for good cause,
and, where there was such cause, to refuse even to discuss with the
Senator in interest the unfit servant's retention. Subject to these
considerations, I normally accepted each Senator's recommendations for
offices of a routine kind, such as most post-offices and the like, but
insisted on myself choosing the men for the more important positions.
I was willing to take any good man for postmaster; but in the case of
a Judge or District Attorney or Canal Commissioner or Ambassador, I
was apt to insist either on a given man or else on any man with a given
class of qualifications. If the Senator deceived me, I took care that he
had no opportunity to repeat the deception.

I can perhaps best illustrate my theory of action by two specific
examples. In New York Governor Odell and Senator Platt sometimes worked
in agreement and sometimes were at swords' points, and both wished to be
consulted. To a friendly Congressman, who was also their friend, I wrote
as follows on July 22, 1903:

"I want to work with Platt. I want to work with Odell. I want to support
both and take the advice of both. But of course ultimately I must be
the judge as to acting on the advice given. When, as in the case of the
judgeship, I am convinced that the advice of both is wrong, I shall act
as I did when I appointed Holt. When I can find a friend of Odell's
like Cooley, who is thoroughly fit for the position I desire to fill, it
gives me the greatest pleasure to appoint him. When Platt proposes to me
a man like Hamilton Fish, it is equally a pleasure to appoint him."

This was written in connection with events which led up to my refusing
to accept Senator Platt's or Governor Odell's suggestions as to a
Federal Judgeship and a Federal District Attorneyship, and insisting
on the appointment, first of Judge Hough and later of District Attorney
Stimson; because in each case I felt that the work to be done was of so
high an order that I could not take an ordinary man.

The other case was that of Senator Fulton, of Oregon. Through Francis
Heney I was prosecuting men who were implicated in a vast network of
conspiracy against the law in connection with the theft of public land
in Oregon. I had been acting on Senator Fulton's recommendations for
office, in the usual manner. Heney had been insisting that Fulton was
in league with the men we were prosecuting, and that he had recommended
unfit men. Fulton had been protesting against my following Heney's
advice, particularly as regards appointing Judge Wolverton as United
States Judge. Finally Heney laid before me a report which convinced me
of the truth of his statements. I then wrote to Fulton as follows, on
November 20, 1905: "My dear Senator Fulton: I inclose you herewith a
copy of the report made to me by Mr. Heney. I have seen the originals
of the letters from you and Senator Mitchell quoted therein. I do not
at this time desire to discuss the report itself, which of course I must
submit to the Attorney-General. But I have been obliged to reach the
painful conclusion that your own letters as therein quoted tend to show
that you recommended for the position of District Attorney B when you
had good reason to believe that he had himself been guilty of fraudulent
conduct; that you recommended C for the same position simply because it
was for B's interest that he should be so recommended, and, as there is
reason to believe, because he had agreed to divide the fees with B if he
were appointed; and that you finally recommended the reappointment of
H with the knowledge that if H were appointed he would abstain from
prosecuting B for criminal misconduct, this being why B advocated H's
claims for reappointment. If you care to make any statement in the
matter, I shall of course be glad to hear it. As the District Judge of
Oregon I shall appoint Judge Wolverton." In the letter I of course gave
in full the names indicated above by initials. Senator Fulton gave no
explanation. I therefore ceased to consult him about appointments under
the Department of Justice and the Interior, the two departments in which
the crookedness had occurred--there was no question of crookedness
in the other offices in the State, and they could be handled in the
ordinary manner. Legal proceedings were undertaken against his colleague
in the Senate, and one of his colleagues in the lower house, and the
former was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary.

In a number of instances the legality of executive acts of my
Administration was brought before the courts. They were uniformly
sustained. For example, prior to 1907 statutes relating to the
disposition of coal lands had been construed as fixing the flat price at
$10 to $20 per acre. The result was that valuable coal lands were sold
for wholly inadequate prices, chiefly to big corporations. By executive
order the coal lands were withdrawn and not opened for entry until
proper classification was placed thereon by Government agents. There was
a great clamor that I was usurping legislative power; but the acts were
not assailed in court until we brought suits to set aside entries made
by persons and associations to obtain larger areas than the statutes
authorized. This position was opposed on the ground that the
restrictions imposed were illegal; that the executive orders were
illegal. The Supreme Court sustained the Government. In the same way our
attitude in the water power question was sustained, the Supreme Court
holding that the Federal Government had the rights we claimed over
streams that are or may be declared navigable by Congress. Again, when
Oklahoma became a State we were obliged to use the executive power
to protect Indian rights and property, for there had been an enormous
amount of fraud in the obtaining of Indian lands by white men. Here we
were denounced as usurping power over a State as well as usurping power
that did not belong to the executive. The Supreme Court sustained our
action.

In connection with the Indians, by the way, it was again and again
necessary to assert the position of the President as steward of the
whole people. I had a capital Indian Commissioner, Francis E. Leupp. I
found that I could rely on his judgment not to get me into fights that
were unnecessary, and therefore I always backed him to the limit when
he told me that a fight was necessary. On one occasion, for example,
Congress passed a bill to sell to settlers about half a million acres of
Indian land in Oklahoma at one and a half dollars an acre. I refused to
sign it, and turned the matter over to Leupp. The bill was accordingly
withdrawn, amended so as to safeguard the welfare of the Indians, and
the minimum price raised to five dollars an acre. Then I signed the
bill. We sold that land under sealed bids, and realized for the Kiowa,
Comanche, and Apache Indians more than four million dollars--three
millions and a quarter more than they would have obtained if I had
signed the bill in its original form. In another case, where there
had been a division among the Sac and Fox Indians, part of the tribe
removing to Iowa, the Iowa delegation in Congress, backed by two Iowans
who were members of my Cabinet, passed a bill awarding a sum of nearly
a half million dollars to the Iowa seceders. They had not consulted
the Indian Bureau. Leupp protested against the bill, and I vetoed it. A
subsequent bill was passed on the lines laid down by the Indian Bureau,
referring the whole controversy to the courts, and the Supreme Court in
the end justified our position by deciding against the Iowa seceders and
awarding the money to the Oklahoma stay-at-homes.

As to all action of this kind there have long been two schools of
political thought, upheld with equal sincerity. The division has not
normally been along political, but temperamental, lines. The course I
followed, of regarding the executive as subject only to the people, and,
under the Constitution, bound to serve the people affirmatively in cases
where the Constitution does not explicitly forbid him to render the
service, was substantially the course followed by both Andrew Jackson
and Abraham Lincoln. Other honorable and well-meaning Presidents, such
as James Buchanan, took the opposite and, as it seems to me, narrowly
legalistic view that the President is the servant of Congress rather
than of the people, and can do nothing, no matter how necessary it be to
act, unless the Constitution explicitly commands the action. Most able
lawyers who are past middle age take this view, and so do large numbers
of well-meaning, respectable citizens. My successor in office took this,
the Buchanan, view of the President's powers and duties.

For example, under my Administration we found that one of the favorite
methods adopted by the men desirous of stealing the public domain was
to carry the decision of the Secretary of the Interior into court. By
vigorously opposing such action, and only by so doing, we were able
to carry out the policy of properly protecting the public domain. My
successor not only took the opposite view, but recommended to Congress
the passage of a bill which would have given the courts direct appellate
power over the Secretary of the Interior in these land matters. This
bill was reported favorably by Mr. Mondell, Chairman of the House
Committee on public lands, a Congressman who took the lead in every
measure to prevent the conservation of our natural resources and
the preservation of the National domain for the use of home-seekers.
Fortunately, Congress declined to pass the bill. Its passage would have
been a veritable calamity.

I acted on the theory that the President could at any time in his
discretion withdraw from entry any of the public lands of the United
States and reserve the same for forestry, for water-power sites, for
irrigation, and other public purposes. Without such action it would
have been impossible to stop the activity of the land thieves. No one
ventured to test its legality by lawsuit. My successor, however, himself
questioned it, and referred the matter to Congress. Again Congress
showed its wisdom by passing a law which gave the President the power
which he had long exercised, and of which my successor had shorn
himself.

Perhaps the sharp difference between what may be called the
Lincoln-Jackson and the Buchanan-Taft schools, in their views of the
power and duties of the President, may be best illustrated by comparing
the attitude of my successor toward his Secretary of the Interior, Mr.
Ballinger, when the latter was accused of gross misconduct in office,
with my attitude towards my chiefs of department and other subordinate
officers. More than once while I was President my officials were
attacked by Congress, generally because these officials did their duty
well and fearlessly. In every such case I stood by the official
and refused to recognize the right of Congress to interfere with me
excepting by impeachment or in other Constitutional manner. On the other
hand, wherever I found the officer unfit for his position I promptly
removed him, even although the most influential men in Congress fought
for his retention. The Jackson-Lincoln view is that a President who is
fit to do good work should be able to form his own judgment as to his
own subordinates, and, above all, of the subordinates standing highest
and in closest and most intimate touch with him. My secretaries
and their subordinates were responsible to me, and I accepted the
responsibility for all their deeds. As long as they were satisfactory to
me I stood by them against every critic or assailant, within or without
Congress; and as for getting Congress to make up my mind for me about
them, the thought would have been inconceivable to me. My successor took
the opposite, or Buchanan, view when he permitted and requested Congress
to pass judgment on the charges made against Mr. Ballinger as an
executive officer. These charges were made to the President; the
President had the facts before him and could get at them at any time,
and he alone had power to act if the charges were true. However, he
permitted and requested Congress to investigate Mr. Ballinger. The party
minority of the committee that investigated him, and one member of
the majority, declared that the charges were well founded and that Mr.
Ballinger should be removed. The other members of the majority declared
the charges ill founded. The President abode by the view of the
majority. Of course believers in the Jackson-Lincoln theory of the
Presidency would not be content with this town meeting majority and
minority method of determining by another branch of the Government what
it seems the especial duty of the President himself to determine for
himself in dealing with his own subordinate in his own department.

There are many worthy people who reprobate the Buchanan method as a
matter of history, but who in actual life reprobate still more strongly
the Jackson-Lincoln method when it is put into practice. These persons
conscientiously believe that the President should solve every doubt in
favor of inaction as against action, that he should construe strictly
and narrowly the Constitutional grant of powers both to the National
Government, and to the President within the National Government. In
addition, however, to the men who conscientiously believe in this course
from high, although as I hold misguided, motives, there are many men who
affect to believe in it merely because it enables them to attack and to
try to hamper, for partisan or personal reasons, an executive whom
they dislike. There are other men in whom, especially when they are
themselves in office, practical adherence to the Buchanan principle
represents not well-thought-out devotion to an unwise course, but simple
weakness of character and desire to avoid trouble and responsibility.
Unfortunately, in practice it makes little difference which class
of ideas actuates the President, who by his action sets a cramping
precedent. Whether he is highminded and wrongheaded or merely infirm
of purpose, whether he means well feebly or is bound by a mischievous
misconception of the powers and duties of the National Government and
of the President, the effect of his actions is the same. The President's
duty is to act so that he himself and his subordinates shall be able to
do efficient work for the people, and this efficient work he and they
cannot do if Congress is permitted to undertake the task of making up
his mind for him as to how he shall perform what is clearly his sole
duty.

One of the ways in which by independent action of the executive we were
able to accomplish an immense amount of work for the public was through
volunteer unpaid commissions appointed by the President. It was possible
to get the work done by these volunteer commissions only because of the
enthusiasm for the public service which, starting in the higher
offices at Washington, made itself felt throughout the Government
departments--as I have said, I never knew harder and more disinterested
work done by any people than was done by the men and women of all ranks
in the Government service. The contrast was really extraordinary between
their live interest in their work and the traditional clerical apathy
which has so often been the distinguishing note of governmental work
in Washington. Most of the public service performed by these volunteer
commissions, carried on without a cent of pay to the men themselves,
and wholly without cost to the Government, was done by men the great
majority of whom were already in the Government service and already
charged with responsibilities amounting each to a full man's job.

The first of these Commissions was the Commission on the Organization
of Government Scientific Work, whose Chairman was Charles D. Walcott.
Appointed March 13, 1903, its duty was to report directly to the
President "upon the organization, present condition, and needs of the
Executive Government work wholly or partly scientific in character, and
upon the steps which should be taken, if any, to prevent the duplication
of such work, to co-ordinate its various branches, to increase its
efficiency and economy, and to promote its usefulness to the Nation
at large." This Commission spent four months in an examination which
covered the work of about thirty of the larger scientific and executive
bureaus of the Government, and prepared a report which furnished the
basis for numerous improvements in the Government service.

Another Commission, appointed June 2, 1905, was that on Department
Methods--Charles H. Keep, Chairman--whose task was to "find out what
changes are needed to place the conduct of the executive business of
the Government in all its branches on the most economical and effective
basis in the light of the best modern business practice." The letter
appointing this Commission laid down nine principles of effective
Governmental work, the most striking of which was: "The existence of any
method, standard, custom, or practice is no reason for its continuance
when a better is offered." This Commission, composed like that just
described, of men already charged with important work, performed its
functions wholly without cost to the Government. It was assisted by a
body of about seventy experts in the Government departments chosen
for their special qualifications to carry forward a study of the best
methods in business, and organized into assistant committees under
the leadership of Overton W. Price, Secretary of the Commission. These
assistant committees, all of whose members were still carrying on their
regular work, made their reports during the last half of 1906. The
Committee informed itself fully regarding the business methods of
practically every individual branch of the business of the Government,
and effected a marked improvement in general efficiency throughout the
service. The conduct of the routine business of the Government had never
been thoroughly overhauled before, and this examination of it resulted
in the promulgation of a set of working principles for the transaction
of public business which are as sound to-day as they were when
the Committee finished its work. The somewhat elaborate and costly
investigations of Government business methods since made have served
merely to confirm the findings of the Committee on Departmental Methods,
which were achieved without costing the Government a dollar. The actual
saving in the conduct of the business of the Government through the
better methods thus introduced amounted yearly to many hundreds of
thousands of dollars; but a far more important gain was due to the
remarkable success of the Commission in establishing a new point of view
in public servants toward their work.

The need for improvement in the Governmental methods of transacting
business may be illustrated by an actual case. An officer in charge of
an Indian agency made a requisition in the autumn for a stove costing
seven dollars, certifying at the same time that it was needed to keep
the infirmary warm during the winter, because the old stove was worn
out. Thereupon the customary papers went through the customary routine,
without unusual delay at any point. The transaction moved like a glacier
with dignity to its appointed end, and the stove reached the infirmary
in good order in time for the Indian agent to acknowledge its arrival in
these words: "The stove is here. So is spring."

The Civil Service Commission, under men like John McIlhenny and
Garfield, rendered service without which the Government could have been
conducted with neither efficiency nor honesty. The politicians were
not the only persons at fault; almost as much improper pressure for
appointments is due to mere misplaced sympathy, and to the spiritless
inefficiency which seeks a Government office as a haven for the
incompetent. An amusing feature of office seeking is that each man
desiring an office is apt to look down on all others with the same
object as forming an objectionable class with which _he_ has nothing in
common. At the time of the eruption of Mt. Pelee, when among others
the American Consul was killed, a man who had long been seeking an
appointment promptly applied for the vacancy. He was a good man, of
persistent nature, who felt I had been somewhat blind to his merits. The
morning after the catastrophe he wrote, saying that as the consul was
dead he would like his place, and that I could surely give it to him,
because "even the office seekers could not have applied for it yet!"

The method of public service involved in the appointment and the work of
the two commissions just described was applied also in the establishment
of four other commissions, each of which performed its task without
salary or expense for its members, and wholly without cost to the
Government. The other four commissions were:

Commission on Public Lands;

Commission on Inland Waterways;

Commission on Country Life; and

Commission on National Conservation.

All of these commissions were suggested to me by Gifford Pinchot, who
served upon them all. The work of the last four will be touched upon in
connection with the chapter on Conservation. These commissions by their
reports and findings directly interfered with many place-holders who
were doing inefficient work, and their reports and the action
taken thereon by the Administration strengthened the hands of those
administrative officers who in the various departments, and especially
in the Secret Service, were proceeding against land thieves and other
corrupt wrong-doers. Moreover, the mere fact that they did efficient
work for the public along lines new to veteran and cynical politicians
of the old type created vehement hostility to them. Senators like Mr.
Hale and Congressmen like Mr. Tawney were especially bitter against
these commissions; and towards the end of my term they were followed
by the majority of their fellows in both houses, who had gradually been
sundered from me by the open or covert hostility of the financial or
Wall Street leaders, and of the newspaper editors and politicians who
did their bidding in the interest of privilege. These Senators and
Congressmen asserted that they had a right to forbid the President
profiting by the unpaid advice of disinterested experts. Of course I
declined to admit the existence of any such right, and continued the
Commissions. My successor acknowledged the right, upheld the view of the
politicians in question, and abandoned the commissions, to the lasting
detriment of the people as a whole.

One thing is worth pointing out: During the seven and a half years of
my Administration we greatly and usefully extended the sphere of
Governmental action, and yet we reduced the burden of the taxpayers;
for we reduced the interest-bearing debt by more than $90,000,000. To
achieve a marked increase in efficiency and at the same time an increase
in economy is not an easy feat; but we performed it.

There was one ugly and very necessary task. This was to discover and
root out corruption wherever it was found in any of the departments. The
first essential was to make it clearly understood that no political or
business or social influence of any kind would for one moment be even
considered when the honesty of a public official was at issue. It took
a little time to get this fact thoroughly drilled into the heads both
of the men within the service and of the political leaders without. The
feat was accomplished so thoroughly that every effort to interfere in
any shape or way with the course of justice was abandoned definitely and
for good. Most, although not all, of the frauds occurred in connection
with the Post-Office Department and the Land Office.

It was in the Post-Office Department that we first definitely
established the rule of conduct which became universal throughout the
whole service. Rumors of corruption in the department became rife, and
finally I spoke of them to the then First Assistant Postmaster-General,
afterwards Postmaster-General, Robert J. Wynne. He reported to me, after
some investigation, that in his belief there was doubtless corruption,
but that it was very difficult to get at it, and that the offenders
were confident and defiant because of their great political and business
backing and the ramifications of their crimes. Talking the matter over
with him, I came to the conclusion that the right man to carry on the
investigation was the then Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General, now
a Senator from Kansas, Joseph L. Bristow, who possessed the iron
fearlessness needful to front such a situation. Mr. Bristow had perforce
seen a good deal of the seamy side of politics, and of the extent of the
unscrupulousness with which powerful influence was brought to bear to
shield offenders. Before undertaking the investigation he came to see
me, and said that he did not wish to go into it unless he could be
assured that I would stand personally behind him, and, no matter where
his inquiries led him, would support him and prevent interference
with him. I answered that I would certainly do so. He went into
the investigation with relentless energy, dogged courage, and keen
intelligence. His success was complete, and the extent of his services
to the Nation are not easily to be exaggerated. He unearthed a really
appalling amount of corruption, and he did his work with such absolute
thoroughness that the corruption was completely eradicated.

We had, of course, the experience usual in all such investigations. At
first there was popular incredulity and disbelief that there was much
behind the charges, or that much could be unearthed. Then when the
corruption was shown there followed a yell of anger from all directions,
and a period during which any man accused was forthwith held guilty
by the public; and violent demands were made by the newspapers for the
prosecution not only of the men who could be prosecuted with a fair
chance of securing conviction and imprisonment, but of other men whose
misconduct had been such as to warrant my removing them from office, but
against whom it was not possible to get the kind of evidence which would
render likely conviction in a criminal case. Suits were brought against
all the officials whom we thought we could convict; and the public
complained bitterly that we did not bring further suits. We secured
several convictions, including convictions of the most notable
offenders. The trials consumed a good deal of time. Public attention was
attracted to something else. Indifference succeeded to excitement, and
in some subtle way the juries seemed to respond to the indifference. One
of the worst offenders was acquitted by a jury; whereupon not a few of
the same men who had insisted that the Government was derelict in not
criminally prosecuting every man whose misconduct was established so as
to make it necessary to turn him out of office, now turned round and,
inasmuch as the jury had not found this man guilty of crime, demanded
that he should be reinstated in office! It is needless to say that the
demand was not granted. There were two or three other acquittals, of
prominent outsiders. Nevertheless the net result was that the majority
of the worst offenders were sent to prison, and the remainder dismissed
from the Government service, if they were public officials, and if
they were not public officials at least so advertised as to render
it impossible that they should ever again have dealings with the
Government. The department was absolutely cleaned and became one of the
very best in the Government. Several Senators came to me--Mr. Garfield
was present on the occasion--and said that they were glad I was putting
a stop to corruption, but they hoped I would avoid all scandal; that if
I would make an example of some one man and then let the others quietly
resign, it would avoid a disturbance which might hurt the party. They
were advising me in good faith, and I was as courteous as possible in
my answer, but explained that I would have to act with the utmost rigor
against the offenders, no matter what the effect on the party, and,
moreover, that I did not believe it would hurt the party. It did not
hurt the party. It helped the party. A favorite war-cry in American
political life has always been, "Turn the rascals out." We made it
evident that, as far as we were concerned, this war-cry was pointless;
for we turned our own rascals out.

There were important and successful land fraud prosecutions in several
Western States. Probably the most important were the cases prosecuted in
Oregon by Francis J. Heney, with the assistance of William J. Burns,
a secret service agent who at that time began his career as a great
detective. It would be impossible to overstate the services rendered to
the cause of decency and honesty by Messrs. Heney and Burns. Mr. Heney
was my close and intimate adviser professionally and non-professionally,
not only as regards putting a stop to frauds in the public lands, but
in many other matters of vital interest to the Republic. No man in the
country has waged the battle for National honesty with greater courage
and success, with more whole-hearted devotion to the public good; and
no man has been more traduced and maligned by the wrong-doing agents
and representatives of the great sinister forces of evil. He secured the
conviction of various men of high political and financial standing
in connection with the Oregon prosecutions; he and Burns behaved with
scrupulous fairness and propriety; but their services to the public
caused them to incur the bitter hatred of those who had wronged the
public, and after I left office the National Administration turned
against them. One of the most conspicuous of the men whom they had
succeeded in convicting was pardoned by President Taft--in spite of the
fact that the presiding Judge, Judge Hunt, had held that the
evidence amply warranted the conviction, and had sentenced the man to
imprisonment. As was natural, the one hundred and forty-six land-fraud
defendants in Oregon, who included the foremost machine political
leaders in the State, furnished the backbone of the opposition to me in
the Presidential contest of 1912. The opposition rallied behind Messrs.
Taft and LaFollette; and although I carried the primaries handsomely,
half of the delegates elected from Oregon under instructions to vote for
me, sided with my opponents in the National Convention--and as regards
some of them I became convinced that the mainspring of their motive
lay in the intrigue for securing the pardon of certain of the men whose
conviction Heney had secured.

Land fraud and post-office cases were not the only ones. We were
especially zealous in prosecuting all of the "higher up" offenders
in the realms of politics and finance who swindled on a large scale.
Special assistants of the Attorney-General, such as Mr. Frank Kellogg,
of St. Paul, and various first-class Federal district attorneys in
different parts of the country secured notable results: Mr. Stimson and
his assistants, Messrs. Wise, Denison, and Frankfurter, in New York, for
instance, in connection with the prosecution of the Sugar Trust and of
the banker Morse, and of a great metropolitan newspaper for opening its
columns to obscene and immoral advertisements; and in St. Louis Messrs.
Dyer and Nortoni, who, among other services, secured the conviction and
imprisonment of Senator Burton, of Kansas; and in Chicago Mr. Sims,
who raised his office to the highest pitch of efficiency, secured the
conviction of the banker Walsh and of the Beef Trust, and first broke
through the armor of the Standard Oil Trust. It is not too much to say
that these men, and others like them, worked a complete revolution in
the enforcement of the Federal laws, and made their offices organized
legal machines fit and ready to conduct smashing fights for the people's
rights and to enforce the laws in aggressive fashion. When I took the
Presidency, it was a common and bitter saying that a big man, a rich
man, could not be put in jail. We put many big and rich men in jail;
two United States Senators, for instance, and among others two great
bankers, one in New York and one in Chicago. One of the United States
Senators died, the other served his term. (One of the bankers was
released from prison by executive order after I left office.) These were
merely individual cases among many others like them. Moreover, we
were just as relentless in dealing with crimes of violence among the
disorderly and brutal classes as in dealing with the crimes of cunning
and fraud of which certain wealthy men and big politicians were guilty.
Mr. Sims in Chicago was particularly efficient in sending to the
penitentiary numbers of the infamous men who batten on the "white
slave" traffic, after July, 1908, when by proclamation I announced
the adherence of our Government to the international agreement for the
suppression of the traffic.

The views I then held and now hold were expressed in a memorandum made
in the case of a Negro convicted of the rape of a young Negro girl,
practically a child. A petition for his pardon had been sent me.

WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D. C., August 8, 1904.

The application for the commutation of sentence of John W. Burley is
denied. This man committed the most hideous crime known to our laws, and
twice before he has committed crimes of a similar, though less horrible,
character. In my judgment there is no justification whatever for paying
heed to the allegations that he is not of sound mind, allegations made
after the trial and conviction. Nobody would pretend that there has ever
been any such degree of mental unsoundness shown as would make people
even consider sending him to an asylum if he had not committed this
crime. Under such circumstances he should certainly be esteemed sane
enough to suffer the penalty for his monstrous deed. I have scant
sympathy with the plea of insanity advanced to save a man from the
consequences of crime, when unless that crime had been committed it
would have been impossible to persuade any responsible authority to
commit him to an asylum as insane. Among the most dangerous criminals,
and especially among those prone to commit this particular kind of
offense, there are plenty of a temper so fiendish or so brutal as to be
incompatible with any other than a brutish order of intelligence; but
these men are nevertheless responsible for their acts; and nothing more
tends to encourage crime among such men than the belief that through the
plea of insanity or any other method it is possible for them to escape
paying the just penalty of their crimes. The crime in question is one
to the existence of which we largely owe the existence of that spirit
of lawlessness which takes form in lynching. It is a crime so revolting
that the criminal is not entitled to one particle of sympathy from any
human being. It is essential that the punishment for it should be not
only as certain but as swift as possible. The jury in this case did
their duty by recommending the infliction of the death penalty. It is
to be regretted that we do not have special provision for more summary
dealing with this type of case. The more we do what in us lies to
secure certain and swift justice in dealing with these cases, the more
effectively do we work against the growth of that lynching spirit which
is so full of evil omen for this people, because it seeks to avenge one
infamous crime by the commission of another of equal infamy.

The application is denied and the sentence will be carried into effect.

(Signed) THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

One of the most curious incidents of lawlessness with which I had to
deal affected an entire State. The State of Nevada in the year 1907
was gradually drifting into utter governmental impotence and downright
anarchy. The people were at heart all right; but the forces of evil had
been permitted to get the upper hand, and for the time being the decent
citizens had become helpless to assert themselves either by controlling
the greedy corporations on the one hand or repressing the murderous
violence of certain lawless labor organizations on the other hand. The
Governor of the State was a Democrat and a Southern man, and in the
abstract a strong believer in the doctrine of State's Rights. But his
experience finally convinced him that he could obtain order only through
the intervention of the National Government; and then he went over too
far and wished to have the National Government do his police work for
him. In the Rocky Mountain States there had existed for years what
was practically a condition of almost constant war between the wealthy
mine-owners and the Western Federation of Miners, at whose head stood
Messrs. Haywood, Pettibone, and Moyer, who were about that time indicted
for the murder of the Governor of Idaho. Much that was lawless, much
that was indefensible, had been done by both sides. The Legislature of
Nevada was in sympathy with, or at least was afraid of not expressing
sympathy for, Messrs. Moyer, Haywood, Pettibone, and their associates.
The State was practically without any police, and the Governor had
recommended the establishment of a State Constabulary, along the lines
of the Texas Rangers; but the Legislature rejected his request. The
Governor reported to me the conditions as follows. During 1907 the
Goldfield mining district became divided into two hostile camps. Half
of the Western Federation of Miners were constantly armed, and arms and
ammunition were purchased and kept by the union as a body, while the
mine-owners on their side retained large numbers of watchmen and guards
who were also armed and always on duty. In addition to these opposing
forces there was, as the Governor reported, an unusually large number of
the violent and criminal element, always attracted to a new and
booming mining camp. Under such conditions the civil authorities were
practically powerless, and the Governor, being helpless to avert civil
war, called on me to keep order. I accordingly threw in a body of
regular troops under General Funston. These kept order completely, and
the Governor became so well satisfied that he thought he would like
to have them there permanently! This seemed to me unhealthy, and on
December 28, 1907, I notified him that while I would do my duty, the
first need was that the State authorities should do theirs, and that
the first step towards this was the assembling of the Legislature.
I concluded my telegram: "If within five days from receipt of this
telegram you shall have issued the necessary notice to convene the
Legislature of Nevada, I shall continue the troops during a period of
three weeks. If when the term of five days has elapsed the notice has
not been issued, the troops will be immediately returned to their former
stations." I had already investigated the situation through a committee,
composed of the Chief of the Bureau of Corporations, Mr. H. K. Smith,
the Chief of the Bureau of Labor, Mr. C. P. Neill, and the Comptroller
of the Treasury, Mr. Lawrence Murray. These men I could thoroughly
trust, and their report, which was not over-favorable to either side,
had convinced me that the only permanent way to get good results was to
insist on the people of the State themselves grappling with and solving
their own troubles. The Governor summoned the Legislature, it met, and
the constabulary bill was passed. The troops remained in Nevada until
time had been given for the State authorities to organize their force so
that violence could at once be checked. Then they were withdrawn.

Nor was it only as regards their own internal affairs that I sometimes
had to get into active communication with the State authorities. There
has always been a strong feeling in California against the immigration
of Asiatic laborers, whether these are wage-workers or men who occupy
and till the soil. I believe this to be fundamentally a sound and proper
attitude, an attitude which must be insisted upon, and yet which can be
insisted upon in such a manner and with such courtesy and such sense of
mutual fairness and reciprocal obligation and respect as not to give any
just cause of offense to Asiatic peoples. In the present state of
the world's progress it is highly inadvisable that peoples in wholly
different stages of civilization, or of wholly different types of
civilization even although both equally high, shall be thrown into
intimate contact. This is especially undesirable when there is a
difference of both race and standard of living. In California the
question became acute in connection with the admission of the Japanese.
I then had and now have a hearty admiration for the Japanese people.
I believe in them; I respect their great qualities; I wish that our
American people had many of these qualities. Japanese and American
students, travelers, scientific and literary men, merchants engaged in
international trade, and the like can meet on terms of entire equality
and should be given the freest access each to the country of the other.
But the Japanese themselves would not tolerate the intrusion into
their country of a mass of Americans who would displace Japanese in the
business of the land. I think they are entirely right in this position.
I would be the first to admit that Japan has the absolute right to
declare on what terms foreigners shall be admitted to work in her
country, or to own land in her country, or to become citizens of her
country. America has and must insist upon the same right. The people
of California were right in insisting that the Japanese should not
come thither in mass, that there should be no influx of laborers, of
agricultural workers, or small tradesmen--in short, no mass settlement
or immigration.

Unfortunately, during the latter part of my term as President certain
unwise and demagogic agitators in California, to show their disapproval
of the Japanese coming into the State, adopted the very foolish
procedure of trying to provide by law that the Japanese children should
not be allowed to attend the schools with the white children, and
offensive and injurious language was used in connection with the
proposal. The Federal Administration promptly took up the matter with
the California authorities, and I got into personal touch with them. At
my request the Mayor of San Francisco and other leaders in the movement
came on to see me. I explained that the duty of the National Government
was twofold: in the first place, to meet every reasonable wish and every
real need of the people of California or any other State in dealing
with the people of a foreign power; and, in the next place, itself
exclusively and fully to exercise the right of dealing with this foreign
power.

Inasmuch as in the last resort, including that last of all resorts, war,
the dealing of necessity had to be between the foreign power and the
National Government, it was impossible to admit that the doctrine
of State sovereignty could be invoked in such a matter. As soon as
legislative or other action in any State affects a foreign nation, then
the affair becomes one for the Nation, and the State should deal with
the foreign power purely through the Nation.

I explained that I was in entire sympathy with the people of California
as to the subject of immigration of the Japanese in mass; but that of
course I wished to accomplish the object they had in view in the way
that would be most courteous and most agreeable to the feelings of the
Japanese; that all relations between the two peoples must be those of
reciprocal justice, and that it was an intolerable outrage on the part
of newspapers and public men to use offensive and insulting language
about a high-spirited, sensitive, and friendly people; and that such
action as was proposed about the schools could only have bad effects,
and would in no shape or way achieve the purpose that the Californians
had in mind. I also explained that I would use every resource of the
National Government to protect the Japanese in their treaty rights, and
would count upon the State authorities backing me up to the limit in
such action. In short, I insisted upon the two points (1) that the
Nation and not the individual States must deal with matters of such
international significance and must treat foreign nations with entire
courtesy and respect; and (2) that the Nation would at once, and in
efficient and satisfactory manner, take action that would meet the needs
of California. I both asserted the power of the Nation and offered a
full remedy for the needs of the State. This is the right, and the only
right, course. The worst possible course in such a case is to fail to
insist on the right of the Nation, to offer no action of the Nation to
remedy what is wrong, and yet to try to coax the State not to do what
it is mistakenly encouraged to believe it has the power to do, when no
other alternative is offered.

After a good deal of discussion, we came to an entirely satisfactory
conclusion. The obnoxious school legislation was abandoned, and I
secured an arrangement with Japan under which the Japanese themselves
prevented any immigration to our country of their laboring people, it
being distinctly understood that if there was such emigration the United
States would at once pass an exclusion law. It was of course infinitely
better that the Japanese should stop their own people from coming rather
than that we should have to stop them; but it was necessary for us to
hold this power in reserve.

Unfortunately, after I left office, a most mistaken and ill-advised
policy was pursued towards Japan, combining irritation and inefficiency,
which culminated in a treaty under which we surrendered this important
and necessary right. It was alleged in excuse that the treaty provided
for its own abrogation; but of course it is infinitely better to have a
treaty under which the power to exercise a necessary right is explicitly
retained rather than a treaty so drawn that recourse must be had to the
extreme step of abrogating if it ever becomes necessary to exercise the
right in question.

The arrangement we made worked admirably, and entirely achieved its
purpose. No small part of our success was due to the fact that we
succeeded in impressing on the Japanese that we sincerely admired and
respected them, and desired to treat them with the utmost consideration.
I cannot too strongly express my indignation with, and abhorrence
of, reckless public writers and speakers who, with coarse and vulgar
insolence, insult the Japanese people and thereby do the greatest wrong
not only to Japan but to their own country.

Such conduct represents that nadir of underbreeding and folly. The
Japanese are one of the great nations of the world, entitled to stand,
and standing, on a footing of full equality with any nation of Europe
or America. I have the heartiest admiration for them. They can teach us
much. Their civilization is in some respects higher than our own. It is
eminently undesirable that Japanese and Americans should attempt to
live together in masses; any such attempt would be sure to result
disastrously, and the far-seeing statesmen of both countries should join
to prevent it.

But this is not because either nation is inferior to the other; it is
because they are different. The two peoples represent two civilizations
which, although in many respects equally high, are so totally
distinct in their past history that it is idle to expect in one or two
generations to overcome this difference. One civilization is as old
as the other; and in neither case is the line of cultural descent
coincident with that of ethnic descent. Unquestionably the ancestors of
the great majority both of the modern Americans and the modern Japanese
were barbarians in that remote past which saw the origins of the
cultured peoples to which the Americans and the Japanese of to-day
severally trace their civilizations. But the lines of development of
these two civilizations, of the Orient and the Occident, have been
separate and divergent since thousands of years before the Christian
era; certainly since that hoary eld in which the Akkadian predecessors
of the Chaldean Semites held sway in Mesopotamia. An effort to mix
together, out of hand, the peoples representing the culminating points
of two such lines of divergent cultural development would be fraught
with peril; and this, I repeat, because the two are different, not
because either is inferior to the other. Wise statesmen, looking to the
future, will for the present endeavor to keep the two nations from mass
contact and intermingling, precisely because they wish to keep each in
relations of permanent good will and friendship with the other.

Exactly what was done in the particular crisis to which I refer is shown
in the following letter which, after our policy had been successfully
put into execution, I sent to the then Speaker of the California lower
house of the Legislature:

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, February 8, 1909.

HON P. A. STANTON, Speaker of the Assembly, Sacramento, California:

I trust there will be no misunderstanding of the Federal Government's
attitude. We are jealously endeavoring to guard the interests of
California and of the entire West in accordance with the desires of our
Western people. By friendly agreement with Japan, we are now carrying
out a policy which, while meeting the interests and desires of the
Pacific slope, is yet compatible, not merely with mutual self-respect,
but with mutual esteem and admiration between the Americans and
Japanese. The Japanese Government is loyally and in good faith doing its
part to carry out this policy, precisely as the American Government
is doing. The policy aims at mutuality of obligation and behavior. In
accordance with it the purpose is that the Japanese shall come here
exactly as Americans go to Japan, which is in effect that travelers,
students, persons engaged in international business, men who sojourn for
pleasure or study, and the like, shall have the freest access from one
country to the other, and shall be sure of the best treatment, but that
there shall be no settlement in mass by the people of either country in
the other. During the last six months under this policy more Japanese
have left the country than have come in, and the total number in the
United States has diminished by over two thousand. These figures are
absolutely accurate and cannot be impeached. In other words, if the
present policy is consistently followed and works as well in the future
as it is now working, all difficulties and causes of friction
will disappear, while at the same time each nation will retain its
self-respect and the good will of the other. But such a bill as this
school bill accomplishes literally nothing whatever in the line of the
object aimed at, and gives just and grave cause for irritation; while
in addition the United States Government would be obliged immediately to
take action in the Federal courts to test such legislation, as we hold
it to be clearly a violation of the treaty. On this point I refer you to
the numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court in regard to
State laws which violate treaty obligations of the United States. The
legislation would accomplish nothing beneficial and would certainly
cause some mischief, and might cause very grave mischief. In short, the
policy of the Administration is to combine the maximum of efficiency in
achieving the real object which the people of the Pacific Slope have at
heart, with the minimum of friction and trouble, while the misguided men
who advocate such action as this against which I protest are following a
policy which combines the very minimum of efficiency with the maximum of
insult, and which, while totally failing to achieve any real result for
good, yet might accomplish an infinity of harm. If in the next year or
two the action of the Federal Government fails to achieve what it is now
achieving, then through the further action of the President and Congress
it can be made entirely efficient. I am sure that the sound judgment of
the people of California will support you, Mr. Speaker, in your effort.
Let me repeat that at present we are actually doing the very thing which
the people of California wish to be done, and to upset the arrangement
under which this is being done cannot do good and may do great harm.
If in the next year or two the figures of immigration prove that the
arrangement which has worked so successfully during the last six months
is no longer working successfully, then there would be ground for
grievance and for the reversal by the National Government of its present
policy. But at present the policy is working well, and until it works
badly it would be a grave misfortune to change it, and when changed it
can only be changed effectively by the National Government.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

In foreign and domestic affairs alike the policy pursued during my
Administration was simple. In foreign affairs the principle from which
we never deviated was to have the Nation behave toward other nations
precisely as a strong, honorable, and upright man behaves in dealing
with his fellow-men. There is no such thing as international law in the
sense that there is municipal law or law within a nation. Within the
nation there is always a judge, and a policeman who stands back of the
judge. The whole system of law depends first upon the fact that there is
a judge competent to pass judgment, and second upon the fact that there
is some competent officer whose duty it is to carry out this judgment,
by force if necessary. In international law there is no judge, unless
the parties in interest agree that one shall be constituted; and there
is no policeman to carry out the judge's orders. In consequence, as
yet each nation must depend upon itself for its own protection. The
frightful calamities that have befallen China, solely because she has
had no power of self-defense, ought to make it inexcusable in any wise
American citizen to pretend to patriotic purpose, and yet to fail to
insist that the United States shall keep in a condition of ability if
necessary to assert its rights with a strong hand. It is folly of the
criminal type for the Nation not to keep up its navy, not to fortify
its vital strategic points, and not to provide an adequate army for its
needs. On the other hand, it is wicked for the Nation to fail in either
justice, courtesy, or consideration when dealing with any other power,
big or little. John Hay was Secretary of State when I became President,
and continued to serve under me until his death, and his and my views
as to the attitude that the Nation should take in foreign affairs were
identical, both as regards our duty to be able to protect ourselves
against the strong and as regards our duty always to act not only justly
but generously toward the weak.

John Hay was one of the most delightful of companions, one of the most
charming of all men of cultivation and action. Our views on foreign
affairs coincided absolutely; but, as was natural enough, in domestic
matters he felt much more conservative than he did in the days when as
a young man he was private secretary to the great radical democratic
leader of the '60's, Abraham Lincoln. He was fond of jesting with me
about my supposedly dangerous tendencies in favor of labor against
capital. When I was inaugurated on March 4, 1905, I wore a ring he sent
me the evening before, containing the hair of Abraham Lincoln. This ring
was on my finger when the Chief Justice administered to me the oath of
allegiance to the United States; I often thereafter told John Hay that
when I wore such a ring on such an occasion I bound myself more than
ever to treat the Constitution, after the manner of Abraham Lincoln,
as a document which put human rights above property rights when the
two conflicted. The last Christmas John Hay was alive he sent me the
manuscript of a Norse saga by William Morris, with the following note:

Christmas Eve, 1904.

DEAR THEODORE: In your quality of Viking this Norse saga should belong
to you, and in your character of Enemy of Property this Ms. of William
Morris will appeal to you. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and many happy
years, I am yours affectionately,

JOHN HAY.

In internal affairs I cannot say that I entered the Presidency with any
deliberately planned and far-reaching scheme of social betterment. I
had, however, certain strong convictions; and I was on the lookout for
every opportunity of realizing those convictions. I was bent upon making
the Government the most efficient possible instrument in helping
the people of the United States to better themselves in every way,
politically, socially, and industrially. I believed with all my heart
in real and thoroughgoing democracy, and I wished to make this
democracy industrial as well as political, although I had only partially
formulated the methods I believed we should follow. I believed in the
people's rights, and therefore in National rights and States' rights
just exactly to the degree in which they severally secured popular
rights. I believed in invoking the National power with absolute freedom
for every National need; and I believed that the Constitution should be
treated as the greatest document ever devised by the wit of man to aid
a people in exercising every power necessary for its own betterment, and
not as a straitjacket cunningly fashioned to strangle growth. As for the
particular methods of realizing these various beliefs, I was content
to wait and see what method might be necessary in each given case as it
arose; and I was certain that the cases would arise fast enough.

As the time for the Presidential nomination of 1904 drew near, it became
evident that I was strong with the rank and file of the party, but that
there was much opposition to me among many of the big political leaders,
and especially among many of the Wall Street men. A group of these men
met in conference to organize this opposition. It was to be done with
complete secrecy. But such secrets are very hard to keep. I speedily
knew all about it, and took my measures accordingly. The big men in
question, who possessed much power so long as they could work under
cover, or so long as they were merely throwing their weight one way or
the other between forces fairly evenly balanced, were quite helpless
when fighting in the open by themselves. I never found out that anything
practical was even attempted by most of the men who took part in the
conference. Three or four of them, however, did attempt something. The
head of one big business corporation attempted to start an effort to
control the delegations from New Jersey, North Carolina, and certain
Gulf States against me. The head of a great railway system made
preparations for a more ambitious effort looking towards the control of
the delegations from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and California
against me. He was a very powerful man financially, but his power
politically was much more limited, and he did not really understand his
own limitations or the situation itself, whereas I did. He could not
have secured a delegate against me from Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas. In
Colorado and California he could have made a fight, but even there I
think he would have been completely beaten. However, long before the
time for the Convention came around, it was recognized that it was
hopeless to make any opposition to my nomination. The effort was
abandoned, and I was nominated unanimously. Judge Parker was nominated
by the Democrats against me. Practically all the metropolitan newspapers
of largest circulation were against me; in New York City fifteen out
of every sixteen copies of papers issued were hostile to me. I won by a
popular majority of about two million and a half, and in the electoral
college carried 330 votes against 136. It was by far the largest popular
majority ever hitherto given any Presidential candidate.

My opponents during the campaign had laid much stress upon my supposed
personal ambition and intention to use the office of President to
perpetuate myself in power. I did not say anything on the subject
prior to the election, as I did not wish to say anything that could be
construed into a promise offered as a consideration in order to secure
votes. But on election night, after the returns were in I issued the
following statement: "The wise custom which limits the President to two
terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances
will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination."

The reason for my choice of the exact phraseology used was twofold. In
the first place, many of my supporters were insisting that, as I had
served only three and a half years of my first term, coming in from the
Vice-Presidency when President McKinley was killed, I had really had
only one elective term, so that the third term custom did not apply to
me; and I wished to repudiate this suggestion. I believed then (and I
believe now) the third term custom or tradition to be wholesome, and,
therefore, I was determined to regard its substance, refusing to quibble
over the words usually employed to express it. On the other hand, I did
not wish simply and specifically to say that I would not be a candidate
for the nomination in 1908, because if I had specified the year when I
would not be a candidate, it would have been widely accepted as meaning
that I intended to be a candidate some other year; and I had no such
intention, and had no idea that I would ever be a candidate again.
Certain newspaper men did ask me if I intended to apply my prohibition
to 1912, and I answered that I was not thinking of 1912, nor of 1920,
nor of 1940, and that I must decline to say anything whatever except
what appeared in my statement.

The Presidency is a great office, and the power of the President can be
effectively used to secure a renomination, especially if the President
has the support of certain great political and financial interests. It
is for this reason, and this reason alone, that the wholesome principle
of continuing in office, so long as he is willing to serve, an incumbent
who has proved capable, is not applicable to the Presidency. Therefore,
the American people have wisely established a custom against allowing
any man to hold that office for more than two consecutive terms.
But every shred of power which a President exercises while in office
vanishes absolutely when he has once left office. An ex-President stands
precisely in the position of any other private citizen, and has not one
particle more power to secure a nomination or election than if he had
never held the office at all--indeed, he probably has less because of
the very fact that he has held the office. Therefore the reasoning on
which the anti-third term custom is based has no application whatever
to an ex-President, and no application whatever to anything except
consecutive terms. As a barrier of precaution against more than two
consecutive terms the custom embodies a valuable principle. Applied
in any other way it becomes a mere formula, and like all formulas
a potential source of mischievous confusion. Having this in mind, I
regarded the custom as applying practically, if not just as much, to a
President who had been seven and a half years in office as to one
who had been eight years in office, and therefore, in the teeth of a
practically unanimous demand from my own party that I accept another
nomination, and the reasonable certainty that the nomination would be
ratified at the polls, I felt that the substance of the custom applied
to me in 1908. On the other hand, it had no application whatever to any
human being save where it was invoked in the case of a man desiring a
third consecutive term. Having given such substantial proof of my own
regard for the custom, I deem it a duty to add this comment on it. I
believe that it is well to have a custom of this kind, to be generally
observed, but that it would be very unwise to have it definitely
hardened into a Constitutional prohibition. It is not desirable
ordinarily that a man should stay in office twelve consecutive years as
President; but most certainly the American people are fit to take care
of themselves, and stand in no need of an irrevocable self-denying
ordinance. They should not bind themselves never to take action which
under some quite conceivable circumstances it might be to their great
interest to take. It is obviously of the last importance to the safety
of a democracy that in time of real peril it should be able to command
the service of every one among its citizens in the precise position
where the service rendered will be most valuable. It would be a
benighted policy in such event to disqualify absolutely from the
highest office a man who while holding it had actually shown the highest
capacity to exercise its powers with the utmost effect for the public
defense. If, for instance, a tremendous crisis occurred at the end of
the second term of a man like Lincoln, as such a crisis occurred at the
end of his first term, it would be a veritable calamity if the American
people were forbidden to continue to use the services of the one man
whom they knew, and did not merely guess, could carry them through the
crisis. The third term tradition has no value whatever except as it
applies to a third consecutive term. While it is well to keep it as
a custom, it would be a mark both of weakness and unwisdom for the
American people to embody it into a Constitutional provision which could
not do them good and on some given occasion might work real harm.

There was one cartoon made while I was President, in which I appeared
incidentally, that was always a great favorite of mine. It pictured an
old fellow with chin whiskers, a farmer, in his shirt-sleeves, with his
boots off, sitting before the fire, reading the President's Message. On
his feet were stockings of the kind I have seen hung up by the dozen in
Joe Ferris's store at Medora, in the days when I used to come in to town
and sleep in one of the rooms over the store. The title of the picture
was "His Favorite Author." This was the old fellow whom I always used to
keep in mind. He had probably been in the Civil War in his youth; he had
worked hard ever since he left the army; he had been a good husband and
father; he had brought up his boys and girls to work; he did not wish to
do injustice to any one else, but he wanted justice done to himself and
to others like him; and I was bound to secure that justice for him if it
lay in my power to do so.[*]

[*] I believe I realized fairly well this ambition. I shall turn to
my enemies to attest the truth of this statement. The New York _Sun_,
shortly before the National Convention of 1904, spoke of me as follows:

"President Roosevelt holds that his nomination by the National
Republican Convention of 1904 is an assured thing. He makes no
concealment of his conviction, and it is unreservedly shared by his
friends. We think President Roosevelt is right.

"There are strong and convincing reasons why the President should feel
that success is within his grasp. He has used the opportunities that
he found or created, and he has used them with consummate skill and
undeniable success.

"The President has disarmed all his enemies. Every weapon they had,
new or old, has been taken from them and added to the now unassailable
Roosevelt arsenal. Why should people wonder that Mr. Bryan clings to
silver? Has not Mr. Roosevelt absorbed and sequestered every vestige of
the Kansas City platform that had a shred of practical value?
Suppose that Mr. Bryan had been elected President. What could he have
accomplished compared with what Mr. Roosevelt has accomplished? Will his
most passionate followers pretend for one moment that Mr. Bryan could
have conceived, much less enforced, any such pursuit of the trusts as
that which Mr. Roosevelt has just brought to a triumphant issue? Will
Mr. Bryan himself intimate that the Federal courts would have turned to
his projects the friendly countenance which they have lent to those of
Mr. Roosevelt?

"Where is 'government by injunction' gone to? The very emptiness of that
once potent phrase is beyond description! A regiment of Bryans could not
compete with Mr. Roosevelt in harrying the trusts, in bringing wealth to
its knees, and in converting into the palpable actualities of action the
wildest dreams of Bryan's campaign orators. He has outdone them all.

"And how utterly the President has routed the pretensions of Bryan, and
of the whole Democratic horde in respect to organized labor! How empty
were all their professions, their mouthings and their howlings in the
face of the simple and unpretentious achievements of the President! In
his own straightforward fashion he inflicted upon capital in one short
hour of the coal strike a greater humiliation than Bryan could have
visited upon it in a century. He is the leader of the labor unions of
the United States. Mr. Roosevelt has put them above the law and above
the Constitution, because for him they are the American people." [This
last, I need hardly say, is merely a rhetorical method of saying that I
gave the labor union precisely the same treatment as the corporation.]

Senator La Follette, in the issue of his magazine immediately following
my leaving the Presidency in March, 1909, wrote as follows:

"Roosevelt steps from the stage gracefully. He has ruled his party to a
large extent against its will. He has played a large part in the
world's work, for the past seven years. The activities of his remarkably
forceful personality have been so manifold that it will be long before
his true rating will be fixed in the opinion of the race. He is said to
think that the three great things done by him are the undertaking of the
construction of the Panama Canal and its rapid and successful carrying
forward, the making of peace between Russia and Japan, and the sending
around the world of the fleet.

"These are important things, but many will be slow to think them his
greatest services. The Panama Canal will surely serve mankind when in
operation; and the manner of organizing this work seems to be fine.
But no one can say whether this project will be a gigantic success or
a gigantic failure; and the task is one which must, in the nature of
things, have been undertaken and carried through some time soon, as
historic periods go, anyhow. The Peace of Portsmouth was a great thing
to be responsible for, and Roosevelt's good offices undoubtedly saved
a great and bloody battle in Manchuria. But the war was fought out, and
the parties ready to quit, and there is reason to think that it was
only when this situation was arrived at that the good offices of the
President of the United States were, more or less indirectly, invited.
The fleet's cruise was a strong piece of diplomacy, by which we informed
Japan that we will send our fleet wherever we please and whenever we
please. It worked out well.

"But none of these things, it will seem to many, can compare with some
of Roosevelt's other achievements. Perhaps he is loath to take credit as
a reformer, for he is prone to spell the word with question marks, and
to speak disparagingly of 'reform.'

"But for all that, this contemner of 'reformers' made reform respectable
in the United States, and this rebuker of 'muck-rakers' has been the
chief agent in making the history of 'muck-raking' in the United States
a National one, conceded to be useful. He has preached from the White
House many doctrines; but among them he has left impressed on the
American mind the one great truth of economic justice couched in the
pithy and stinging phrase 'the square deal.' The task of making reform
respectable in a commercialized world, and of giving the Nation a slogan
in a phrase, is greater than the man who performed it is likely to
think.

"And, then, there is the great and statesmanlike movement for the
conservation of our National resources, into which Roosevelt so
energetically threw himself at a time when the Nation as a whole knew
not that we are ruining and bankrupting ourselves as fast as we can.
This is probably the greatest thing Roosevelt did, undoubtedly. This
globe is the capital stock of the race. It is just so much coal and oil
and gas. This may be economized or wasted. The same thing is true of
phosphates and other mineral resources. Our water resources are immense,
and we are only just beginning to use them. Our forests have been
destroyed; they must be restored. Our soils are being depleted; they
must be built up and conserved.

"These questions are not of this day only or of this generation. They
belong all to the future. Their consideration requires that high moral
tone which regards the earth as the home of a posterity to whom we owe a
sacred duty.

"This immense idea Roosevelt, with high statesmanship, dinned into the
ears of the Nation until the Nation heeded. He held it so high that it
attracted the attention of the neighboring nations of the continent,
and will so spread and intensify that we will soon see the world's
conferences devoted to it.

"Nothing can be greater or finer than this. It is so great and so fine
that when the historian of the future shall speak of Theodore Roosevelt
he is likely to say that he did many notable things, among them that of
inaugurating the movement which finally resulted in the square deal,
but that his greatest work was inspiring and actually beginning a world
movement for staying terrestrial waste and saving for the human race
the things upon which, and upon which alone, a great and peaceful and
progressive and happy race life can be founded.

"What statesman in all history has done anything calling for so wide a
view and for a purpose more lofty?"



CHAPTER XI

THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE NATION

When Governor of New York, as I have already described, I had been in
consultation with Gifford Pinchot and F. H. Newell, and had shaped
my recommendations about forestry largely in accordance with their
suggestions. Like other men who had thought about the national future at
all, I had been growing more and more concerned over the destruction of
the forests.

While I had lived in the West I had come to realize the vital need of
irrigation to the country, and I had been both amused and irritated
by the attitude of Eastern men who obtained from Congress grants of
National money to develop harbors and yet fought the use of the Nation's
power to develop the irrigation work of the West. Major John Wesley
Powell, the explorer of the Grand Canyon, and Director of the Geological
Survey, was the first man who fought for irrigation, and he lived to see
the Reclamation Act passed and construction actually begun. Mr. F. H.
Newell, the present Director of the Reclamation Service, began his
work as an assistant hydraulic engineer under Major Powell; and, unlike
Powell, he appreciated the need of saving the forests and the soil
as well as the need of irrigation. Between Powell and Newell came, as
Director of the Geological Survey, Charles D. Walcott, who, after
the Reclamation Act was passed, by his force, pertinacity, and tact,
succeeded in putting the act into effect in the best possible manner.
Senator Francis G. Newlands, of Nevada, fought hard for the cause of
reclamation in Congress. He attempted to get his State to act, and when
that proved hopeless to get the Nation to act; and was ably assisted
by Mr. G. H. Maxwell, a Californian, who had taken a deep interest in
irrigation matters. Dr. W. J. McGee was one of the leaders in all the
later stages of the movement. But Gifford Pinchot is the man to whom
the nation owes most for what has been accomplished as regards the
preservation of the natural resources of our country. He led, and indeed
during its most vital period embodied, the fight for the preservation
through use of our forests. He played one of the leading parts in
the effort to make the National Government the chief instrument in
developing the irrigation of the arid West. He was the foremost leader
in the great struggle to coordinate all our social and governmental
forces in the effort to secure the adoption of a rational and farseeing
policy for securing the conservation of all our national resources. He
was already in the Government service as head of the Forestry Bureau
when I became President; he continued throughout my term, not only as
head of the Forest service, but as the moving and directing spirit in
most of the conservation work, and as counsellor and assistant on most
of the other work connected with the internal affairs of the country.
Taking into account the varied nature of the work he did, its vital
importance to the nation and the fact that as regards much of it he
was practically breaking new ground, and taking into account also
his tireless energy and activity, his fearlessness, his complete
disinterestedness, his single-minded devotion to the interests of the
plain people, and his extraordinary efficiency, I believe it is but
just to say that among the many, many public officials who under my
administration rendered literally invaluable service to the people of
the United States, he, on the whole, stood first. A few months after I
left the Presidency he was removed from office by President Taft.

The first work I took up when I became President was the work of
reclamation. Immediately after I had come to Washington, after the
assassination of President McKinley, while staying at the house of
my sister, Mrs. Cowles, before going into the White House, Newell and
Pinchot called upon me and laid before me their plans for National
irrigation of the arid lands of the West, and for the consolidation of
the forest work of the Government in the Bureau of Forestry.

At that time a narrowly legalistic point of view toward natural
resources obtained in the Departments, and controlled the Governmental
administrative machinery. Through the General Land Office and other
Government bureaus, the public resources were being handled and
disposed of in accordance with the small considerations of petty
legal formalities, instead of for the large purposes of constructive
development, and the habit of deciding, whenever possible, in favor of
private interests against the public welfare was firmly fixed. It was
as little customary to favor the bona-fide settler and home builder, as
against the strict construction of the law, as it was to use the law in
thwarting the operations of the land grabbers. A technical compliance
with the letter of the law was all that was required.

The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still obtained,
and there was as yet no real knowledge of their extent and condition.
The relation of the conservation of natural resources to the problems
of National welfare and National efficiency had not yet dawned on the
public mind. The reclamation of arid public lands in the West was still
a matter for private enterprise alone; and our magnificent river system,
with its superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt with by
the National Government not as a unit, but as a disconnected series of
pork-barrel problems, whose only real interest was in their effect
on the reelection or defeat of a Congressman here and there--a theory
which, I regret to say, still obtains.

The place of the farmer in the National economy was still regarded
solely as that of a grower of food to be eaten by others, while the
human needs and interests of himself and his wife and children still
remained wholly outside the recognition of the Government.

All the forests which belonged to the United States were held and
administered in one Department, and all the foresters in Government
employ were in another Department. Forests and foresters had nothing
whatever to do with each other. The National Forests in the West (then
called forest reserves) were wholly inadequate in area to meet the
purposes for which they were created, while the need for forest
protection in the East had not yet begun to enter the public mind.

Such was the condition of things when Newell and Pinchot called on me. I
was a warm believer in reclamation and in forestry, and, after listening
to my two guests, I asked them to prepare material on the subject for
me to use in my first message to Congress, of December 3, 1901. This
message laid the foundation for the development of irrigation and
forestry during the next seven and one-half years. It set forth the
new attitude toward the natural resources in the words: "The Forest
and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal problems of the
United States."

On the day the message was read, a committee of Western Senators and
Congressmen was organized to prepare a Reclamation Bill in accordance
with the recommendations. By far the most effective of the Senators
in drafting and pushing the bill, which became known by his name, was
Newlands. The draft of the bill was worked over by me and others at
several conferences and revised in important particulars; my active
interference was necessary to prevent it from being made unworkable by
an undue insistence upon States Rights, in accordance with the efforts
of Mr. Mondell and other Congressmen, who consistently fought for local
and private interests as against the interests of the people as a whole.

On June 17, 1902, the Reclamation Act was passed. It set aside the
proceeds of the disposal of public lands for the purpose of reclaiming
the waste areas of the arid West by irrigating lands otherwise
worthless, and thus creating new homes upon the land. The money so
appropriated was to be repaid to the Government by the settlers, and to
be used again as a revolving fund continuously available for the work.

The impatience of the Western people to see immediate results from the
Reclamation Act was so great that red tape was disregarded, and the work
was pushed forward at a rate previously unknown in Government affairs.
Later, as in almost all such cases, there followed the criticisms of
alleged illegality and haste which are so easy to make after results
have been accomplished and the need for the measures without which
nothing could have been done has gone by. These criticisms were in
character precisely the same as that made about the acquisition of
Panama, the settlement of the anthracite coal strike, the suits against
the big trusts, the stopping of the panic of 1907 by the action of the
Executive concerning the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; and, in short,
about most of the best work done during my administration.

With the Reclamation work, as with much other work under me, the men
in charge were given to understand that they must get into the water if
they would learn to swim; and, furthermore, they learned to know that if
they acted honestly, and boldly and fearlessly accepted responsibility,
I would stand by them to the limit. In this, as in every other case, in
the end the boldness of the action fully justified itself.

Every item of the whole great plan of Reclamation now in effect was
undertaken between 1902 and 1906. By the spring of 1909 the work was an
assured success, and the Government had become fully committed to its
continuance. The work of Reclamation was at first under the United
States Geological Survey, of which Charles D. Walcott was at that time
Director. In the spring of 1908 the United States Reclamation Service
was established to carry it on, under the direction of Frederick
Hayes Newell, to whom the inception of the plan was due. Newell's
single-minded devotion to this great task, the constructive imagination
which enabled him to conceive it, and the executive power and high
character through which he and his assistant, Arthur P. Davis, built
up a model service--all these have made him a model servant. The final
proof of his merit is supplied by the character and records of the men
who later assailed him.

Although the gross expenditure under the Reclamation Act is not yet
as large as that for the Panama Canal, the engineering obstacles to be
overcome have been almost as great, and the political impediments many
times greater. The Reclamation work had to be carried on at widely
separated points, remote from railroads, under the most difficult
pioneer conditions. The twenty-eight projects begun in the years 1902
to 1906 contemplated the irrigation of more than three million acres
and the watering of more than thirty thousand farms. Many of the
dams required for this huge task are higher than any previously built
anywhere in the world. They feed main-line canals over seven thousand
miles in total length, and involve minor constructions, such as culverts
and bridges, tens of thousands in number.

What the Reclamation Act has done for the country is by no means limited
to its material accomplishment. This Act and the results flowing from it
have helped powerfully to prove to the Nation that it can handle its own
resources and exercise direct and business-like control over them. The
population which the Reclamation Act has brought into the arid West,
while comparatively small when compared with that in the more closely
inhabited East, has been a most effective contribution to the National
life, for it has gone far to transform the social aspect of the West,
making for the stability of the institutions upon which the welfare of
the whole country rests: it has substituted actual homemakers, who have
settled on the land with their families, for huge, migratory bands of
sheep herded by the hired shepherds of absentee owners.

The recent attacks on the Reclamation Service, and on Mr. Newell, arise
in large part, if not altogether, from an organized effort to repudiate
the obligation of the settlers to repay the Government for what it has
expended to reclaim the land. The repudiation of any debt can always
find supporters, and in this case it has attracted the support not only
of certain men among the settlers who hope to be relieved of paying what
they owe, but also of a variety of unscrupulous politicians, some highly
placed. It is unlikely that their efforts to deprive the West of
the revolving Irrigation fund will succeed in doing anything but
discrediting these politicians in the sight of all honest men.

When in the spring of 1911 I visited the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, and
opened the reservoir, I made a short speech to the assembled people.
Among other things, I said to the engineers present that in the name of
all good citizens I thanked them for their admirable work, as efficient
as it was honest, and conducted according to the highest standards of
public service. As I looked at the fine, strong, eager faces of those
of the force who were present, and thought of the similar men in the
service, in the higher positions, who were absent, and who were no less
responsible for the work done, I felt a foreboding that they would
never receive any real recognition for their achievement; and, only half
humorously, I warned them not to expect any credit, or any satisfaction,
except their own knowledge that they had done well a first-class job,
for that probably the only attention Congress would ever pay them would
be to investigate them. Well, a year later a Congressional Committee
actually did investigate them. The investigation was instigated by some
unscrupulous local politicians and by some settlers who wished to be
relieved from paying their just obligations; and the members of the
Committee joined in the attack on as fine and honorable a set of public
servants as the Government has ever had; an attack made on them solely
because they were honorable and efficient and loyal to the interests
both of the Government and the settlers.

When I became President, the Bureau of Forestry (since 1905 the United
States Forest Service) was a small but growing organization, under
Gifford Pinchot, occupied mainly with laying the foundation of American
forestry by scientific study of the forests, and with the promotion of
forestry on private lands. It contained all the trained foresters in the
Government service, but had charge of no public timberland whatsoever.
The Government forest reserves of that day were in the care of a
Division in the General Land Office, under the management of clerks
wholly without knowledge of forestry, few if any of whom had ever seen
a foot of the timberlands for which they were responsible. Thus the
reserves were neither well protected nor well used. There were no
foresters among the men who had charge of the National Forests, and no
Government forests in charge of the Government foresters.

In my first message to Congress I strongly recommended the consolidation
of the forest work in the hands of the trained men of the Bureau of
Forestry. This recommendation was repeated in other messages, but
Congress did not give effect to it until three years later. In the
meantime, by thorough study of the Western public timberlands, the
groundwork was laid for the responsibilities which were to fall upon
the Bureau of Forestry when the care of the National Forests came to be
transferred to it. It was evident that trained American Foresters would
be needed in considerable numbers, and a forest school was established
at Yale to supply them.

In 1901, at my suggestion as President, the Secretary of the Interior,
Mr. Hitchcock, made a formal request for technical advice from the
Bureau of Forestry in handling the National Forests, and an extensive
examination of their condition and needs was accordingly taken up. The
same year a study was begun of the proposed Appalachian National Forest,
the plan of which, already formulated at that time, has since been
carried out. A year later experimental planting on the National Forests
was also begun, and studies preparatory to the application of practical
forestry to the Indian Reservations were undertaken. In 1903, so
rapidly did the public work of the Bureau of Forestry increase, that the
examination of land for new forest reserves was added to the study
of those already created, the forest lands of the various States were
studied, and cooperation with several of them in the examination and
handling of their forest lands was undertaken. While these practical
tasks were pushed forward, a technical knowledge of American Forests
was rapidly accumulated. The special knowledge gained was made public
in printed bulletins; and at the same time the Bureau undertook, through
the newspaper and periodical press, to make all the people of the United
States acquainted with the needs and the purposes of practical
forestry. It is doubtful whether there has ever been elsewhere under the
Government such effective publicity--publicity purely in the interest of
the people--at so low a cost. Before the educational work of the Forest
Service was stopped by the Taft Administration, it was securing
the publication of facts about forestry in fifty million copies of
newspapers a month at a total expense of $6000 a year. Not one cent has
ever been paid by the Forest Service to any publication of any kind for
the printing of this material. It was given out freely, and published
without cost because it was news. Without this publicity the Forest
Service could not have survived the attacks made upon it by the
representatives of the great special interests in Congress; nor could
forestry in America have made the rapid progress it has.

The result of all the work outlined above was to bring together in the
Bureau of Forestry, by the end of 1904, the only body of forest experts
under the Government, and practically all of the first-hand information
about the public forests which was then in existence. In 1905, the
obvious foolishness of continuing to separate the foresters and the
forests, reenforced by the action of the First National Forest Congress,
held in Washington, brought about the Act of February 1, 1905,
which transferred the National Forests from the care of the Interior
Department to the Department of Agriculture, and resulted in the
creation of the present United States Forest Service.

The men upon whom the responsibility of handling some sixty million
acres of National Forest lands was thus thrown were ready for the work,
both in the office and in the field, because they had been preparing
for it for more than five years. Without delay they proceeded, under the
leadership of Pinchot, to apply to the new work the principles they had
already formulated. One of these was to open all the resources of the
National Forests to regulated use. Another was that of putting every
part of the land to that use in which it would best serve the public.
Following this principle, the Act of June 11, 1906, was drawn, and its
passage was secured from Congress. This law throws open to settlement
all land in the National Forests that is found, on examination, to be
chiefly valuable for agriculture. Hitherto all such land had been closed
to the settler.

The principles thus formulated and applied may be summed up in the
statement that the rights of the public to the natural resources
outweigh private rights, and must be given its first consideration.
Until that time, in dealing with the National Forests, and the public
lands generally, private rights had almost uniformly been allowed to
overbalance public rights. The change we made was right, and was vitally
necessary; but, of course, it created bitter opposition from private
interests.

One of the principles whose application was the source of much hostility
was this: It is better for the Government to help a poor man to make a
living for his family than to help a rich man make more profit for his
company. This principle was too sound to be fought openly. It is the
kind of principle to which politicians delight to pay unctuous homage in
words. But we translated the words into deeds; and when they found that
this was the case, many rich men, especially sheep owners, were stirred
to hostility, and they used the Congressmen they controlled to assault
us--getting most aid from certain demagogues, who were equally glad
improperly to denounce rich men in public and improperly to serve them
in private. The Forest Service established and enforced regulations
which favored the settler as against the large stock owner; required
that necessary reductions in the stock grazed on any National Forest
should bear first on the big man, before the few head of the small man,
upon which the living of his family depended, were reduced; and made
grazing in the National Forests a help, instead of a hindrance, to
permanent settlement. As a result, the small settlers and their families
became, on the whole, the best friends the Forest Service has; although
in places their ignorance was played on by demagogues to influence them
against the policy that was primarily for their own interest.

Another principle which led to the bitterest antagonism of all was
this--whoever (except a bona-fide settler) takes public property for
private profit should pay for what he gets. In the effort to apply
this principle, the Forest Service obtained a decision from the
Attorney-General that it was legal to make the men who grazed sheep and
cattle on the National Forests pay for what they got. Accordingly, in
the summer of 1906, for the first time, such a charge was made; and, in
the face of the bitterest opposition, it was collected.

Up to the time the National Forests were put under the charge of the
Forest Service, the Interior Department had made no effort to establish
public regulation and control of water powers. Upon the transfer, the
Service immediately began its fight to handle the power resources of the
National Forests so as to prevent speculation and monopoly and to yield
a fair return to the Government. On May 1, 1906, an Act was passed
granting the use of certain power sites in Southern California to the
Edison Electric Power Company, which Act, at the suggestion of the
Service, limited the period of the permit to forty years, and required
the payment of an annual rental by the company, the same conditions
which were thereafter adopted by the Service as the basis for all
permits for power development. Then began a vigorous fight against
the position of the Service by the water-power interests. The right
to charge for water-power development was, however, sustained by the
Attorney-General.

In 1907, the area of the National Forests was increased by Presidential
proclamation more than forty-three million acres; the plant necessary
for the full use of the Forests, such as roads, trails, and telephone
lines, began to be provided on a large scale; the interchange of field
and office men, so as to prevent the antagonism between them, which is
so destructive of efficiency in most great businesses, was established
as a permanent policy; and the really effective management of the
enormous area of the National Forests began to be secured.

With all this activity in the field, the progress of technical forestry
and popular education was not neglected. In 1907, for example, sixty-one
publications on various phases of forestry, with a total of more than a
million copies, were issued, as against three publications, with a
total of eighty-two thousand copies, in 1901. By this time, also, the
opposition of the servants of the special interests in Congress to the
Forest Service had become strongly developed, and more time appeared
to be spent in the yearly attacks upon it during the passage of the
appropriation bills than on all other Government Bureaus put together.
Every year the Forest Service had to fight for its life.

One incident in these attacks is worth recording. While the Agricultural
Appropriation Bill was passing through the Senate, in 1907, Senator
Fulton, of Oregon, secured an amendment providing that the President
could not set aside any additional National Forests in the six
Northwestern States. This meant retaining some sixteen million of acres
to be exploited by land grabbers and by the representatives of the great
special interests, at the expense of the public interest. But for four
years the Forest Service had been gathering field notes as to what
forests ought to be set aside in these States, and so was prepared to
act. It was equally undesirable to veto the whole agricultural bill, and
to sign it with this amendment effective. Accordingly, a plan to create
the necessary National Forest in these States before the Agricultural
Bill could be passed and signed was laid before me by Mr. Pinchot. I
approved it. The necessary papers were immediately prepared. I signed
the last proclamation a couple of days before, by my signature, the bill
became law; and, when the friends of the special interests in the Senate
got their amendment through and woke up, they discovered that sixteen
million acres of timberland had been saved for the people by putting
them in the National Forests before the land grabbers could get at them.
The opponents of the Forest Service turned handsprings in their wrath;
and dire were their threats against the Executive; but the threats could
not be carried out, and were really only a tribute to the efficiency of
our action.

By 1908, the fire prevention work of the Forest Service had become so
successful that eighty-six per cent of the fires that did occur were
held down to an area of five acres or less, and the timber sales, which
yielded $60,000 in 1905, in 1908 produced $850,000. In the same year, in
addition to the work of the National Forests, the responsibility for the
proper handling of Indian timberlands was laid upon the Forest Service,
where it remained with great benefit to the Indians until it was
withdrawn, as a part of the attack on the Conservation policy made after
I left office.

By March 4, 1909, nearly half a million acres of agricultural land in
the National Forests had been opened to settlement under the Act of
June 11, 1906. The business management of the Forest Service became so
excellent, thanks to the remarkable executive capacity of the Associate
Forester, Overton W. Price (removed after I left office), that it
was declared by a well-known firm of business organizers to compare
favorably with the best managed of the great private corporations,
an opinion which was confirmed by the report of a Congressional
investigation, and by the report of the Presidential Committee on
Department method. The area of the National Forests had increased from
43 to 194 million acres; the force from about 500 to more than 3000.
There was saved for public use in the National Forests more Government
timberland during the seven and a half years prior to March 4, 1909,
than during all previous and succeeding years put together.

The idea that the Executive is the steward of the public welfare was
first formulated and given practical effect in the Forest Service by its
law officer, George Woodruff. The laws were often insufficient, and it
became well-nigh impossible to get them amended in the public interest
when once the representatives of privilege in Congress grasped the fact
that I would sign no amendment that contained anything not in the public
interest. It was necessary to use what law was already in existence,
and then further to supplement it by Executive action. The practice
of examining every claim to public land before passing it into private
ownership offers a good example of the policy in question. This
practice, which has since become general, was first applied in the
National Forests. Enormous areas of valuable public timberland were
thereby saved from fraudulent acquisition; more than 250,000 acres were
thus saved in a single case.

This theory of stewardship in the interest of the public was well
illustrated by the establishment of a water-power policy. Until the
Forest Service changed the plan, water-powers on the navigable streams,
on the public domain, and in the National Forests were given away for
nothing, and substantially without question, to whoever asked for them.
At last, under the principle that public property should be paid for
and should not be permanently granted away when such permanent grant is
avoidable, the Forest Service established the policy of regulating the
use of power in the National Forests in the public interest and making
a charge for value received. This was the beginning of the water-power
policy now substantially accepted by the public, and doubtless soon to
be enacted into law. But there was at the outset violent opposition to
it on the part of the water-power companies, and such representatives of
their views in Congress as Messrs. Tawney and Bede.

Many bills were introduced in Congress aimed, in one way or another, at
relieving the power companies of control and payment. When these bills
reached me I refused to sign them; and the injury to the public interest
which would follow their passage was brought sharply to public attention
in my message of February 26, 1908. The bills made no further progress.

Under the same principle of stewardship, railroads and other
corporations, which applied for and were given rights in the National
Forests, were regulated in the use of those rights. In short, the public
resources in charge of the Forest Service were handled frankly and
openly for the public welfare under the clear-cut and clearly set forth
principle that the public rights come first and private interest second.

The natural result of this new attitude was the assertion in every form
by the representatives of special interests that the Forest Service
was exceeding its legal powers and thwarting the intention of Congress.
Suits were begun wherever the chance arose. It is worth recording that,
in spite of the novelty and complexity of the legal questions it had
to face, no court of last resort has ever decided against the Forest
Service. This statement includes two unanimous decisions by the Supreme
Court of the United States (U. S. vs. Grimaud, 220 U. S., 506, and Light
vs. U. S., 220 U. S., 523).

In its administration of the National Forests, the Forest Service
found that valuable coal lands were in danger of passing into private
ownership without adequate money return to the Government and
without safeguard against monopoly; and that existing legislation was
insufficient to prevent this. When this condition was brought to my
attention I withdrew from all forms of entry about sixty-eight million
acres of coal land in the United States, including Alaska. The refusal
of Congress to act in the public interest was solely responsible for
keeping these lands from entry.

The Conservation movement was a direct outgrowth of the forest movement.
It was nothing more than the application to our other natural resources
of the principles which had been worked out in connection with the
forests. Without the basis of public sentiment which had been built up
for the protection of the forests, and without the example of public
foresight in the protection of this, one of the great natural resources,
the Conservation movement would have been impossible. The first formal
step was the creation of the Inland Waterways Commission, appointed
on March 14, 1907. In my letter appointing the Commission, I called
attention to the value of our streams as great natural resources, and to
the need for a progressive plan for their development and control, and
said: "It is not possible to properly frame so large a plan as this
for the control of our rivers without taking account of the orderly
development of other natural resources. Therefore I ask that the Inland
Waterways Commission shall consider the relations of the streams to the
use of all the great permanent natural resources and their conservation
for the making and maintenance of prosperous homes."

Over a year later, writing on the report of the Commission, I said:

"The preliminary Report of the Inland Waterways Commission was excellent
in every way. It outlines a general plan of waterway improvement which
when adopted will give assurance that the improvements will yield
practical results in the way of increased navigation and water
transportation. In every essential feature the plan recommended by the
Commission is new. In the principle of coordinating all uses of the
waters and treating each waterway system as a unit; in the principle
of correlating water traffic with rail and other land traffic; in the
principle of expert initiation of projects in accordance with commercial
foresight and the needs of a growing country; and in the principle
of cooperation between the States and the Federal Government in the
administration and use of waterways, etc.; the general plan proposed by
the Commission is new, and at the same time sane and simple. The plan
deserves unqualified support. I regret that it has not yet been adopted
by Congress, but I am confident that ultimately it will be adopted."

The most striking incident in the history of the Commission was the trip
down the Mississippi River in October, 1907, when, as President of the
United States, I was the chief guest. This excursion, with the meetings
which were held and the wide public attention it attracted, gave the
development of our inland waterways a new standing in public estimation.
During the trip a letter was prepared and presented to me asking me
to summon a conference on the conservation of natural resources. My
intention to call such a conference was publicly announced at a great
meeting at Memphis, Tenn.

In the November following I wrote to each of the Governors of the
several States and to the Presidents of various important National
Societies concerned with natural resources, inviting them to attend the
conference, which took place May 13 to 15, 1908, in the East Room of the
White House. It is doubtful whether, except in time of war, any new idea
of like importance has ever been presented to a Nation and accepted
by it with such effectiveness and rapidity, as was the case with this
Conservation movement when it was introduced to the American people
by the Conference of Governors. The first result was the unanimous
declaration of the Governors of all the States and Territories upon
the subject of Conservation, a document which ought to be hung in every
schoolhouse throughout the land. A further result was the appointment of
thirty-six State Conservation Commissions and, on June 8, 1908, of the
National Conservation Commission. The task of this Commission was to
prepare an inventory, the first ever made for any nation, of all the
natural resources which underlay its property. The making of this
inventory was made possible by an Executive order which placed
the resources of the Government Departments at the command of the
Commission, and made possible the organization of subsidiary committees
by which the actual facts for the inventory were prepared and digested.
Gifford Pinchot was made chairman of the Commission.

The report of the National Conservation Commission was not only the
first inventory of our resources, but was unique in the history of
Government in the amount and variety of information brought together. It
was completed in six months. It laid squarely before the American people
the essential facts regarding our natural resources, when facts were
greatly needed as the basis for constructive action. This report was
presented to the Joint Conservation Congress in December, at which there
were present Governors of twenty States, representatives of twenty-two
State Conservation Commissions, and representatives of sixty National
organizations previously represented at the White House conference.
The report was unanimously approved, and transmitted to me, January
11, 1909. On January 22, 1909, I transmitted the report of the National
Conservation Commission to Congress with a Special Message, in which
it was accurately described as "one of the most fundamentally important
documents ever laid before the American people."

The Joint Conservation Conference of December, 1908, suggested to me the
practicability of holding a North American Conservation Conference. I
selected Gifford Pinchot to convey this invitation in person to Lord
Grey, Governor General of Canada; to Sir Wilfrid Laurier; and to
President Diaz of Mexico; giving as reason for my action, in the letter
in which this invitation was conveyed, the fact that: "It is evident
that natural resources are not limited by the boundary lines which
separate nations, and that the need for conserving them upon this
continent is as wide as the area upon which they exist."

In response to this invitation, which included the colony of
Newfoundland, the Commissioners assembled in the White House on February
18, 1909. The American Commissioners were Gifford Pinchot, Robert Bacon,
and James R. Garfield. After a session continuing through five days, the
Conference united in a declaration of principles, and suggested to the
President of the United States "that all nations should be invited to
join together in conference on the subject of world resources, and their
inventory, conservation, and wise utilization." Accordingly, on February
19, 1909, Robert Bacon, Secretary of State, addressed to forty-five
nations a letter of invitation "to send delegates to a conference to be
held at The Hague at such date to be found convenient, there to meet
and consult the like delegates of the other countries, with a view of
considering a general plan for an inventory of the natural resources
of the world and to devising a uniform scheme for the expression of
the results of such inventory, to the end that there may be a general
understanding and appreciation of the world's supply of the material
elements which underlie the development of civilization and the welfare
of the peoples of the earth." After I left the White House the project
lapsed.

Throughout the early part of my Administration the public land policy
was chiefly directed to the defense of the public lands against fraud
and theft. Secretary Hitchcock's efforts along this line resulted in
the Oregon land fraud cases, which led to the conviction of Senator
Mitchell, and which made Francis J. Heney known to the American people
as one of their best and most effective servants. These land fraud
prosecutions under Mr. Heney, together with the study of the public
lands which preceded the passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902, and
the investigation of land titles in the National Forests by the Forest
Service, all combined to create a clearer understanding of the need of
land law reform, and thus led to the appointment of the Public Lands
Commission. This Commission, appointed by me on October 22, 1903, was
directed to report to the President: "Upon the condition, operation, and
effect of the present land laws, and to recommend such changes as are
needed to effect the largest practicable disposition of the public lands
to actual settlers who will build permanent homes upon them, and to
secure in permanence the fullest and most effective use of the resources
of the public lands." It proceeded without loss of time to make a
personal study on the ground of public land problems throughout the
West, to confer with the Governors and other public men most concerned,
and to assemble the information concerning the public lands, the laws
and decisions which governed them, and the methods of defeating or
evading those laws, which was already in existence, but which remained
unformulated in the records of the General Land Office and in the mind
of its employees. The Public Lands Commission made its first preliminary
report on March 7, 1904. It found "that the present land laws do not fit
the conditions of the remaining public lands," and recommended specific
changes to meet the public needs. A year later the second report of the
Commission recommended still further changes, and said "The fundamental
fact that characterizes the situation under the present land laws
is this, that the number of patents issued is increasing out of all
proportion to the number of new homes." This report laid the foundation
of the movement for Government control of the open range, and included
by far the most complete statement ever made of the disposition of the
public domain.

Among the most difficult topics considered by the Public Lands
Commission was that of the mineral land laws. This subject was referred
by the Commission to the American Institute of Mining Engineers, which
reported upon it through a Committee. This Committee made the very
important recommendation, among others, "that the Government of the
United States should retain title to all minerals, including coal
and oil, in the lands of unceded territory, and lease the same to
individuals or corporations at a fixed rental." The necessity for
this action has since come to be very generally recognized. Another
recommendation, since partly carried into effect, was for the separation
of the surface and the minerals in lands containing coal and oil.

Our land laws have of recent years proved inefficient; yet the land laws
themselves have not been so much to blame as the lax, unintelligent, and
often corrupt administration of these laws. The appointment on March 4,
1907, of James R. Garfield as Secretary of the Interior led to a new era
in the interpretation and enforcement of the laws governing the
public lands. His administration of the Interior Department was beyond
comparison the best we have ever had. It was based primarily on the
conception that it is as much the duty of public land officials to
help the honest settler get title to his claim as it is to prevent the
looting of the public lands. The essential fact about public land frauds
is not merely that public property is stolen, but that every claim
fraudulently acquired stands in the way of the making of a home or a
livelihood by an honest man.

As the study of the public land laws proceeded and their administration
improved, a public land policy was formulated in which the saving of
the resources on the public domain for public use became the leading
principle. There followed the withdrawal of coal lands as already
described, of oil lands and phosphate lands, and finally, just at the
end of the Administration, of water-power sites on the public domain.
These withdrawals were made by the Executive in order to afford to
Congress the necessary opportunity to pass wise laws dealing with their
use and disposal; and the great crooked special interests fought them
with incredible bitterness.

Among the men of this Nation interested in the vital problems affecting
the welfare of the ordinary hard-working men and women of the Nation,
there is none whose interest has been more intense, and more wholly free
from taint of thought of self, than that of Thomas Watson, of Georgia.
While President I often discussed with him the condition of women on
the small farms, and on the frontier, the hardship of their lives as
compared with those of the men, and the need for taking their welfare
into consideration in whatever was done for the improvement of life on
the land. I also went over the matter with C. S. Barrett, of Georgia,
a leader in the Southern farmers' movement, and with other men, such as
Henry Wallace, Dean L. H. Bailey, of Cornell, and Kenyon Butterfield.
One man from whose advice I especially profited was not an American, but
an Irishman, Sir Horace Plunkett. In various conversations he described
to me and my close associates the reconstruction of farm life which had
been accomplished by the Agricultural Organization Society of Ireland,
of which he was the founder and the controlling force; and he discussed
the application of similar methods to the improvements of farm life
in the United States. In the spring of 1908, at my request, Plunkett
conferred on the subject with Garfield and Pinchot, and the latter
suggested to him the appointment of a Commission on Country Life as a
means for directing the attention of the Nation to the problems of the
farm, and for securing the necessary knowledge of the actual conditions
of life in the open country. After long discussion a plan for a Country
Life Commission was laid before me and approved. The appointment of the
Commission followed in August, 1908. In the letter of appointment the
reasons for creating the Commission were set forth as follows: "I doubt
if any other nation can bear comparison with our own in the amount
of attention given by the Government, both Federal and State, to
agricultural matters. But practically the whole of this effort has
hitherto been directed toward increasing the production of crops. Our
attention has been concentrated almost exclusively on getting better
farming. In the beginning this was unquestionably the right thing to do.
The farmer must first of all grow good crops in order to support himself
and his family. But when this has been secured, the effort for better
farming should cease to stand alone, and should be accompanied by the
effort for better business and better living on the farm. It is at least
as important that the farmer should get the largest possible return in
money, comfort, and social advantages from the crops he grows, as that
he should get the largest possible return in crops from the land he
farms. Agriculture is not the whole of country life. The great rural
interests are human interests, and good crops are of little value to the
farmer unless they open the door to a good kind of life on the farm."

The Commission on Country Life did work of capital importance. By means
of a widely circulated set of questions the Commission informed itself
upon the status of country life throughout the Nation. Its trip through
the East, South, and West brought it into contact with large numbers of
practical farmers and their wives, secured for the Commissioners a most
valuable body of first-hand information, and laid the foundation for the
remarkable awakening of interest in country life which has since taken
place throughout the Nation.

One of the most illuminating--and incidentally one of the most
interesting and amusing--series of answers sent to the Commission was
from a farmer in Missouri. He stated that he had a wife and 11 living
children, he and his wife being each 52 years old; and that they owned
520 acres of land without any mortgage hanging over their heads. He had
himself done well, and his views as to why many of his neighbors had
done less well are entitled to consideration. These views are expressed
in terse and vigorous English; they cannot always be quoted in full. He
states that the farm homes in his neighborhood are not as good as they
should be because too many of them are encumbered by mortgages; that the
schools do not train boys and girls satisfactorily for life on the farm,
because they allow them to get an idea in their heads that city life is
better, and that to remedy this practical farming should be taught. To
the question whether the farmers and their wives in his neighborhood are
satisfactorily organized, he answers: "Oh, there is a little one-horse
grange gang in our locality, and every darned one thinks they ought
to be a king." To the question, "Are the renters of farms in your
neighborhood making a satisfactory living?" he answers: "No; because
they move about so much hunting a better job." To the question, "Is the
supply of farm labor in your neighborhood satisfactory?" the answer is:
"No; because the people have gone out of the baby business"; and when
asked as to the remedy, he answers, "Give a pension to every mother who
gives birth to seven living boys on American soil." To the question,
"Are the conditions surrounding hired labor on the farm in your
neighborhood satisfactory to the hired men?" he answers: "Yes, unless he
is a drunken cuss," adding that he would like to blow up the stillhouses
and root out whiskey and beer. To the question, "Are the sanitary
conditions on the farms in your neighborhood satisfactory?" he answers:
"No; too careless about chicken yards, and the like, and poorly covered
wells. In one well on neighbor's farm I counted seven snakes in the wall
of the well, and they used the water daily: his wife dead now and he is
looking for another." He ends by stating that the most important single
thing to be done for the betterment of country life is "good roads"; but
in his answers he shows very clearly that most important of all is the
individual equation of the man or woman.

Like the rest of the Commissions described in this chapter, the Country
Life Commission cost the Government not one cent, but laid before the
President and the country a mass of information so accurate and so
vitally important as to disturb the serenity of the advocates of things
as they are; and therefore it incurred the bitter opposition of the
reactionaries. The report of the Country Life Commission was transmitted
to Congress by me on February 9, 1909. In the accompanying message I
asked for $25,000 to print and circulate the report and to prepare for
publication the immense amount of valuable material collected by the
Commission but still unpublished. The reply made by Congress was not
only a refusal to appropriate the money, but a positive prohibition
against continuing the work. The Tawney amendment to the Sundry Civil
bill forbade the President to appoint any further Commissions unless
specifically authorized by Congress to do so. Had this prohibition
been enacted earlier _and complied with_, it would have prevented the
appointment of the six Roosevelt commissions. But I would not have
complied with it. Mr. Tawney, one of the most efficient representatives
of the cause of special privilege as against public interest to be found
in the House, was later, in conjunction with Senator Hale and others,
able to induce my successor to accept their view. As what was almost my
last official act, I replied to Congress that if I did not believe the
Tawney amendment to be unconstitutional I would veto the Sundry Civil
bill which contained it, and that if I were remaining in office I would
refuse to obey it. The memorandum ran in part:

"The chief object of this provision, however, is to prevent the
Executive repeating what it has done within the last year in connection
with the Conservation Commission and the Country Life Commission. It is
for the people of the country to decide whether or not they believe in
the work done by the Conservation Commission and by the Country Life
Commission. . . .

"If they believe in improving our waterways, in preventing the waste of
soil, in preserving the forests, in thrifty use of the mineral resources
of the country for the nation as a whole rather than merely for private
monopolies, in working for the betterment of the condition of the men
and women who live on the farms, then they will unstintedly condemn the
action of every man who is in any way responsible for inserting this
provision, and will support those members of the legislative branch who
opposed its adoption. I would not sign the bill at all if I thought
the provision entirely effective. But the Congress cannot prevent the
President from seeking advice. Any future President can do as I have
done, and ask disinterested men who desire to serve the people to give
this service free to the people through these commissions. . . .

"My successor, the President-elect, in a letter to the Senate Committee
on Appropriations, asked for the continuance and support of the
Conservation Commission. The Conservation Commission was appointed at
the request of the Governors of over forty States, and almost all of
these States have since appointed commissions to cooperate with the
National Commission. Nearly all the great national organizations
concerned with natural resources have been heartily cooperating with the
commission.

"With all these facts before it, the Congress has refused to pass a law
to continue and provide for the commission; and it now passes a law with
the purpose of preventing the Executive from continuing the commission
at all. The Executive, therefore, must now either abandon the work and
reject the cooperation of the States, or else must continue the work
personally and through executive officers whom he may select for that
purpose."

The Chamber of Commerce of Spokane, Washington, a singularly energetic
and far-seeing organization, itself published the report which Congress
had thus discreditably refused to publish.

The work of the Bureau of Corporations, under Herbert Knox Smith,
formed an important part of the Conservation movement almost from the
beginning. Mr. Smith was a member of the Inland Waterways Commission and
of the National Conservation Commission and his Bureau prepared material
of importance for the reports of both. The investigation of standing
timber in the United States by the Bureau of Corporations furnished
for the first time a positive knowledge of the facts. Over nine hundred
counties in timbered regions were covered by the Bureau, and the work
took five years. The most important facts ascertained were that forty
years ago three-fourths of the standing timber in the United States
was publicly owned, while at the date of the report four-fifths of the
timber in the country was in private hands. The concentration of private
ownership had developed to such an amazing extent that about two hundred
holders owned nearly one-half of all privately owned timber in the
United States; and of this the three greatest holders, the Southern
Pacific Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Weyerhaeuser
Timber Company, held over ten per cent. Of this work, Mr. Smith says:

"It was important, indeed, to know the facts so that we could take
proper action toward saving the timber still left to the public. But of
far more importance was the light that this history (and the history
of our other resources) throws on the basic attitude, tradition and
governmental beliefs of the American people. The whole standpoint of
the people toward the proper aim of government, toward the relation of
property to the citizen, and the relation of property to the government,
were brought out first by this Conservation work."

The work of the Bureau of Corporations as to water power was equally
striking. In addition to bringing the concentration of water-power
control first prominently to public attention, through material
furnished for my message in my veto of the James River Dam Bill, the
work of the Bureau showed that ten great interests and their allies held
nearly sixty per cent of the developed water power of the United States.
Says Commissioner Smith: "Perhaps the most important thing in the whole
work was its clear demonstration of the fact that the only effective
place to control water power in the public interest is at the power
sites; that as to powers now owned by the public it is absolutely
essential that the public shall retain title. . . . The only way in
which the public can get back to itself the margin of natural advantage
in the water-power site is to rent that site at a rental which, added
to the cost of power production there, will make the total cost of water
power about the same as fuel power, and then let the two sell at the
same price, i. e., the price of fuel power."

Of the fight of the water-power men for States Rights at the St. Paul
Conservation Congress in September, 1909, Commissioner Smith says:

"It was the first open sign of the shift of the special interests to the
Democratic party for a logical political reason, namely, because of the
availability of the States Rights idea for the purposes of the large
corporations. It marked openly the turn of the tide."

Mr. Smith brought to the attention of the Inland Waterways Commission
the overshadowing importance to waterways of their relation with
railroad lines, the fact that the bulk of the traffic is long distance
traffic, that it cannot pass over the whole distance by water, while it
can go anywhere by rail, and that therefore the power of the rail lines
to pro-rate or not to pro-rate, with water lines really determines the
practical value of a river channel. The controlling value of terminals
and the fact that out of fifty of our leading ports, over half the
active water frontage in twenty-one ports was controlled by the
railroads, was also brought to the Commission's attention, and reports
of great value were prepared both for the Inland Waterways Commission
and for the National Conservation Commission. In addition to developing
the basic facts about the available timber supply, about waterways,
water power, and iron ore, Mr. Smith helped to develop and drive into
the public conscience the idea that the people ought to retain title to
our natural resources and handle them by the leasing system.

The things accomplished that have been enumerated above were of
immediate consequence to the economic well-being of our people. In
addition certain things were done of which the economic bearing was more
remote, but which bore directly upon our welfare, because they add to
the beauty of living and therefore to the joy of life. Securing a great
artist, Saint-Gaudens, to give us the most beautiful coinage since the
decay of Hellenistic Greece was one such act. In this case I had power
myself to direct the Mint to employ Saint-Gaudens. The first, and
most beautiful, of his coins were issued in thousands before Congress
assembled or could intervene; and a great and permanent improvement was
made in the beauty of the coinage. In the same way, on the advice
and suggestion of Frank Millet, we got some really capital medals by
sculptors of the first rank. Similarly, the new buildings in Washington
were erected and placed in proper relation to one another, on plans
provided by the best architects and landscape architects. I also
appointed a Fine Arts Council, an unpaid body of the best architects,
painters, and sculptors in the country, to advise the Government as
to the erection and decoration of all new buildings. The "pork-barrel"
Senators and Congressmen felt for this body an instinctive, and perhaps
from their standpoint a natural, hostility; and my successor a couple
of months after taking office revoked the appointment and disbanded the
Council.

Even more important was the taking of steps to preserve from destruction
beautiful and wonderful wild creatures whose existence was threatened by
greed and wantonness. During the seven and a half years closing on March
4, 1909, more was accomplished for the protection of wild life in the
United States than during all the previous years, excepting only the
creation of the Yellowstone National Park. The record includes the
creation of five National Parks--Crater Lake, Oregon; Wind Cave, South
Dakota; Platt, Oklahoma; Sully Hill, North Dakota, and Mesa Verde,
Colorado; four big game refuges in Oklahoma, Arizona, Montana, and
Washington; fifty-one bird reservations; and the enactment of laws for
the protection of wild life in Alaska, the District of Columbia, and
on National bird reserves. These measures may be briefly enumerated as
follows:

The enactment of the first game laws for the Territory of Alaska in
1902 and 1908, resulting in the regulation of the export of heads and
trophies of big game and putting an end to the slaughter of deer for
hides along the southern coast of the Territory.

The securing in 1902 of the first appropriation for the preservation of
buffalo and the establishment in the Yellowstone National Park of the
first and now the largest herd of buffalo belonging to the Government.

The passage of the Act of January 24, 1905, creating the Wichita Game
Preserves, the first of the National game preserves. In 1907, 12,000
acres of this preserve were inclosed with a woven wire fence for
the reception of the herd of fifteen buffalo donated by the New York
Zoological Society.

The passage of the Act of June 29, 1906, providing for the establishment
of the Grand Canyon Game Preserve of Arizona, now comprising 1,492,928
acres.

The passage of the National Monuments Act of June 8, 1906, under which
a number of objects of scientific interest have been preserved for all
time. Among the Monuments created are Muir Woods, Pinnacles National
Monument in California, and the Mount Olympus National Monument,
Washington, which form important refuges for game.

The passage of the Act of June 30, 1906, regulating shooting in the
District of Columbia and making three-fourths of the environs of the
National Capital within the District in effect a National Refuge.

The passage of the Act of May 23, 1908, providing for the establishment
of the National Bison Range in Montana. This range comprises about
18,000 acres of land formerly in the Flathead Indian Reservation, on
which is now established a herd of eighty buffalo, a nucleus of which
was donated to the Government by the American Bison Society.

The issue of the Order protecting birds on the Niobrara Military
Reservation, Nebraska, in 1908, making this entire reservation in effect
a bird reservation.

The establishment by Executive Order between March 14, 1903, and
March 4, 1909, of fifty-one National Bird Reservations distributed in
seventeen States and Territories from Porto Rico to Hawaii and Alaska.
The creation of these reservations at once placed the United States
in the front rank in the world work of bird protection. Among these
reservations are the celebrated Pelican Island rookery in Indian River,
Florida; the Mosquito Inlet Reservation, Florida, the northernmost home
of the manatee; the extensive marshes bordering Klamath and Malhuer
Lakes in Oregon, formerly the scene of slaughter of ducks for market
and ruthless destruction of plume birds for the millinery trade; the
Tortugas Key, Florida, where, in connection with the Carnegie Institute,
experiments have been made on the homing instinct of birds; and the
great bird colonies on Laysan and sister islets in Hawaii, some of the
greatest colonies of sea birds in the world.



CHAPTER XII

THE BIG STICK AND THE SQUARE DEAL

One of the vital questions with which as President I had to deal was the
attitude of the Nation toward the great corporations. Men who understand
and practice the deep underlying philosophy of the Lincoln school of
American political thought are necessarily Hamiltonian in their belief
in a strong and efficient National Government and Jeffersonian in their
belief in the people as the ultimate authority, and in the welfare
of the people as the end of Government. The men who first applied the
extreme Democratic theory in American life were, like Jefferson, ultra
individualists, for at that time what was demanded by our people was the
largest liberty for the individual. During the century that had elapsed
since Jefferson became President the need had been exactly reversed.
There had been in our country a riot of individualistic materialism,
under which complete freedom for the individual--that ancient license
which President Wilson a century after the term was excusable has called
the "New" Freedom--turned out in practice to mean perfect freedom for
the strong to wrong the weak. The total absence of governmental control
had led to a portentous growth in the financial and industrial world
both of natural individuals and of artificial individuals--that is,
corporations. In no other country in the world had such enormous
fortunes been gained. In no other country in the world was such power
held by the men who had gained these fortunes; and these men almost
always worked through, and by means of, the giant corporations which
they controlled. The power of the mighty industrial overlords of
the country had increased with giant strides, while the methods of
controlling them, or checking abuses by them, on the part of the people,
through the Government, remained archaic and therefore practically
impotent. The courts, not unnaturally, but most regrettably, and to
the grave detriment of the people and of their own standing, had for a
quarter of a century been on the whole the agents of reaction, and by
conflicting decisions which, however, in their sum were hostile to the
interests of the people, had left both the nation and the several
States well-nigh impotent to deal with the great business combinations.
Sometimes they forbade the Nation to interfere, because such
interference trespassed on the rights of the States; sometimes they
forbade the States to interfere (and often they were wise in this),
because to do so would trespass on the rights of the Nation; but always,
or well-nigh always, their action was negative action against the
interests of the people, ingeniously devised to limit their power
against wrong, instead of affirmative action giving to the people power
to right wrong. They had rendered these decisions sometimes as upholders
of property rights against human rights, being especially zealous in
securing the rights of the very men who were most competent to take care
of themselves; and sometimes in the name of liberty, in the name of
the so-called "new freedom," in reality the old, old "freedom,"
which secured to the powerful the freedom to prey on the poor and the
helpless.

One of the main troubles was the fact that the men who saw the evils and
who tried to remedy them attempted to work in two wholly different ways,
and the great majority of them in a way that offered little promise of
real betterment. They tried (by the Sherman law method) to bolster up
an individualism already proved to be both futile and mischievous; to
remedy by more individualism the concentration that was the inevitable
result of the already existing individualism. They saw the evil done
by the big combinations, and sought to remedy it by destroying them and
restoring the country to the economic conditions of the middle of the
nineteenth century. This was a hopeless effort, and those who went into
it, although they regarded themselves as radical progressives, really
represented a form of sincere rural toryism. They confounded monopolies
with big business combinations, and in the effort to prohibit both
alike, instead of where possible prohibiting one and drastically
controlling the other, they succeeded merely in preventing any effective
control of either.

On the other hand, a few men recognized that corporations and
combinations had become indispensable in the business world, that it was
folly to try to prohibit them, but that it was also folly to leave them
without thoroughgoing control. These men realized that the doctrines
of the old laissez faire economists, of the believers in unlimited
competition, unlimited individualism, were in the actual state of
affairs false and mischievous. They realized that the Government must
now interfere to protect labor, to subordinate the big corporation
to the public welfare, and to shackle cunning and fraud exactly as
centuries before it had interfered to shackle the physical force which
does wrong by violence.

The big reactionaries of the business world and their allies and
instruments among politicians and newspaper editors took advantage of
this division of opinion, and especially of the fact that most of their
opponents were on the wrong path; and fought to keep matters absolutely
unchanged. These men demanded for themselves an immunity from
governmental control which, if granted, would have been as wicked and as
foolish as immunity to the barons of the twelfth century. Many of them
were evil men. Many others were just as good men as were some of
these same barons; but they were as utterly unable as any medieval
castle-owner to understand what the public interest really was. There
have been aristocracies which have played a great and beneficent part at
stages in the growth of mankind; but we had come to the stage where for
our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of
tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere
wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.

When I became President, the question as to the method by which the
United States Government was to control the corporations was not yet
important. The absolutely vital question was whether the Government had
power to control them at all. This question had not yet been decided in
favor of the United States Government. It was useless to discuss methods
of controlling big business by the National Government until it was
definitely settled that the National Government had the power to control
it. A decision of the Supreme Court had, with seeming definiteness,
settled that the National Government had not the power.

This decision I caused to be annulled by the court that had rendered
it; and the present power of the National Government to deal effectively
with the trusts is due solely to the success of the Administration in
securing this reversal of its former decision by the Supreme Court.

The Constitution was formed very largely because it had become
imperative to give to some central authority the power to regulate and
control interstate commerce. At that time when corporations were in
their infancy and big combinations unknown, there was no difficulty
in exercising the power granted. In theory, the right of the Nation
to exercise this power continued unquestioned. But changing conditions
obscured the matter in the sight of the people as a whole; and
the conscious and the unconscious advocates of an unlimited and
uncontrollable capitalism gradually secured the whittling away of the
National power to exercise this theoretical right of control until it
practically vanished. After the Civil War, with the portentous growth
of industrial combinations in this country, came a period of reactionary
decisions by the courts which, as regards corporations, culminated in
what is known as the Knight case.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Law was enacted in 1890 because the formation of
the Tobacco Trust and the Sugar Trust, the only two great trusts then
in the country (aside from the Standard Oil Trust, which was a gradual
growth), had awakened a popular demand for legislation to destroy
monopoly and curb industrial combinations. This demand the Anti-Trust
Law was intended to satisfy. The Administrations of Mr. Harrison and Mr.
Cleveland evidently construed this law as prohibiting such combinations
in the future, not as condemning those which had been formed prior
to its enactment. In 1895, however, the Sugar Trust, whose output
originally was about fifty-five per cent of all sugar produced in the
United States, obtained control of three other companies in Philadelphia
by exchanging its stock for theirs, and thus increased its business
until it controlled ninety-eight per cent of the entire product. Under
Cleveland, the Government brought proceedings against the Sugar Trust,
invoking the Anti-Trust Law, to set aside the acquisition of these
corporations. The test case was on the absorption of the Knight Company.
The Supreme Court of the United States, with but one dissenting vote,
held adversely to the Government. They took the ground that the power
conferred by the Constitution to regulate and control interstate
commerce did not extend to the production or manufacture of commodities
within a State, and that nothing in the Sherman Anti-Trust Law
prohibited a corporation from acquiring all the stock of other
corporations through exchange of its stock for theirs, such exchange
not being "commerce" in the opinion of the Court, even though by such
acquisition the corporation was enabled to control the entire production
of a commodity that was a necessary of life. The effect of this decision
was not merely the absolute nullification of the Anti-Trust Law, so
far as industrial corporations were concerned, but was also in effect a
declaration that, under the Constitution, the National Government could
pass no law really effective for the destruction or control of such
combinations.

This decision left the National Government, that is, the people of the
Nation, practically helpless to deal with the large combinations of
modern business. The courts in other cases asserted the power of
the Federal Government to enforce the Anti-Trust Law so far as
transportation rates by railways engaged in interstate commerce were
concerned. But so long as the trusts were free to control the production
of commodities without interference from the General Government, they
were well content to let the transportation of commodities take care of
itself--especially as the law against rebates was at that time a dead
letter; and the Court by its decision in the Knight case had interdicted
any interference by the President or by Congress with the production of
commodities. It was on the authority of this case that practically all
the big trusts in the United States, excepting those already mentioned,
were formed. Usually they were organized as "holding" companies, each
one acquiring control of its constituent corporations by exchanging its
stock for theirs, an operation which the Supreme Court had thus decided
could not be prohibited, controlled, regulated, or even questioned by
the Federal Government.

Such was the condition of our laws when I acceded to the Presidency.
Just before my accession, a small group of financiers, desiring to
profit by the governmental impotence to which we had been reduced by the
Knight decision, had arranged to take control of practically the entire
railway system in the Northwest--possibly as the first step toward
controlling the entire railway system of the country. This control of
the Northwestern railway systems was to be effected by organizing a new
"holding" company, and exchanging its stock against the stock of the
various corporations engaged in railway transportation throughout that
vast territory, exactly as the Sugar Trust had acquired control of the
Knight company and other concerns. This company was called the Northern
Securities Company. Not long after I became President, on the advice of
the Attorney-General, Mr. Knox, and through him, I ordered proceedings
to be instituted for the dissolution of the company. As far as could be
told by their utterances at the time, among all the great lawyers in the
United States Mr. Knox was the only one who believed that this action
could be sustained. The defense was based expressly on the ground that
the Supreme Court in the Knight case had explicitly sanctioned the
formation of such a company as the Northern Securities Company. The
representatives of privilege intimated, and sometimes asserted outright,
that in directing the action to be brought I had shown a lack of respect
for the Supreme Court, which had already decided the question at issue
by a vote of eight to one. Mr. Justice White, then on the Court and
now Chief Justice, set forth the position that the two cases were in
principle identical with incontrovertible logic. In giving the views of
the dissenting minority on the action I had brought, he said:

"The parallel between the two cases [the Knight case and the Northern
Securities case] is complete. The one corporation acquired the stock
of other and competing corporations in exchange for its own. It was
conceded for the purposes of the case, that in doing so monopoly had
been brought about in the refining of sugar, that the sugar to be
produced was likely to become the subject of interstate commerce, and
indeed that part of it would certainly become so. But the power of
Congress was decided not to extend to the subject, because the ownership
of the stock in the corporations was not itself commerce."

Mr. Justice White was entirely correct in this statement. The cases were
parallel. It was necessary to reverse the Knight case in the interests
of the people against monopoly and privilege just as it had been
necessary to reverse the Dred Scott case in the interest of the people
against slavery and privilege; just as later it became necessary to
reverse the New York Bakeshop case in the interest of the people
against that form of monopolistic privilege which put human rights below
property rights where wage workers were concerned.

By a vote of five to four the Supreme Court reversed its decision in
the Knight case, and in the Northern Securities case sustained the
Government. The power to deal with industrial monopoly and suppress it
and to control and regulate combinations, of which the Knight case had
deprived the Federal Government, was thus restored to it by the Northern
Securities case. After this later decision was rendered, suits were
brought by my direction against the American Tobacco Company and the
Standard Oil Company. Both were adjudged criminal conspiracies, and
their dissolution ordered. The Knight case was finally overthrown.
The vicious doctrine it embodied no longer remains as an obstacle to
obstruct the pathway of justice when it assails monopoly. Messrs.
Knox, Moody, and Bonaparte, who successively occupied the position of
Attorney-General under me, were profound lawyers and fearless and
able men; and they completely established the newer and more wholesome
doctrine under which the Federal Government may now deal with
monopolistic combinations and conspiracies.

The decisions rendered in these various cases brought under my direction
constitute the entire authority upon which any action must rest that
seeks through the exercise of national power to curb monopolistic
control. The men who organized and directed the Northern Securities
Company were also the controlling forces in the Steel Corporation, which
has since been prosecuted under the act. The proceedings against the
Sugar Trust for corruption in connection with the New York Custom House
are sufficiently interesting to be considered separately.

From the standpoint of giving complete control to the National
Government over big corporations engaged in inter-State business, it
would be impossible to over-estimate the importance of the Northern
Securities decision and of the decisions afterwards rendered in line
with it in connection with the other trusts whose dissolution was
ordered. The success of the Northern Securities case definitely
established the power of the Government to deal with all great
corporations. Without this success the National Government must have
remained in the impotence to which it had been reduced by the Knight
decision as regards the most important of its internal functions. But
our success in establishing the power of the National Government to curb
monopolies did not establish the right method of exercising that
power. We had gained the power. We had not devised the proper method of
exercising it.

Monopolies can, although in rather cumbrous fashion, be broken up by
law suits. Great business combinations, however, cannot possibly be made
useful instead of noxious industrial agencies merely by law suits, and
especially by law suits supposed to be carried on for their destruction
and not for their control and regulation. I at once began to urge upon
Congress the need of laws supplementing the Anti-Trust Law--for this law
struck at all big business, good and bad, alike, and as the event
proved was very inefficient in checking bad big business, and yet was
a constant threat against decent business men. I strongly urged the
inauguration of a system of thoroughgoing and drastic Governmental
regulation and control over all big business combinations engaged in
inter-State industry.

Here I was able to accomplish only a small part of what I desired to
accomplish. I was opposed both by the foolish radicals who desired to
break up all big business, with the impossible ideal of returning to
mid-nineteenth century industrial conditions; and also by the great
privileged interests themselves, who used these ordinarily--but
sometimes not entirely--well-meaning "stool pigeon progressives" to
further their own cause. The worst representatives of big business
encouraged the outcry for the total abolition of big business, because
they knew that they could not be hurt in this way, and that such an
outcry distracted the attention of the public from the really efficient
method of controlling and supervising them, in just but masterly
fashion, which was advocated by the sane representatives of reform.
However, we succeeded in making a good beginning by securing the passage
of a law creating the Department of Commerce and Labor, and with it the
erection of the Bureau of Corporations. The first head of the Department
of Commerce and Labor was Mr. Cortelyou, later Secretary of the
Treasury. He was succeeded by Mr. Oscar Straus. The first head of
the Bureau of Corporations was Mr. Garfield, who was succeeded by Mr.
Herbert Knox Smith. No four better public servants from the standpoint
of the people as a whole could have been found.

The Standard Oil Company took the lead in opposing all this legislation.
This was natural, for it had been the worst offender in the amassing of
enormous fortunes by improper methods of all kinds, at the expense of
business rivals and of the public, including the corruption of public
servants. If any man thinks this condemnation extreme, I refer him to
the language officially used by the Supreme Court of the nation in its
decision against the Standard Oil Company. Through their counsel, and
by direct telegrams and letters to Senators and Congressmen from various
heads of the Standard Oil organization, they did their best to kill the
bill providing for the Bureau of Corporations. I got hold of one or two
of these telegrams and letters, however, and promptly published them;
and, as generally happens in such a case, the men who were all-powerful
as long as they could work in secret and behind closed doors became
powerless as soon as they were forced into the open. The bill went
through without further difficulty.

The true way of dealing with monopoly is to prevent it by administrative
action before it grows so powerful that even when courts condemn it they
shrink from destroying it. The Supreme Court in the Tobacco and Standard
Oil cases, for instance, used very vigorous language in condemning these
trusts; but the net result of the decision was of positive advantage to
the wrongdoers, and this has tended to bring the whole body of our law
into disrepute in quarters where it is of the very highest importance
that the law be held in respect and even in reverence. My effort was to
secure the creation of a Federal Commission which should neither excuse
nor tolerate monopoly, but prevent it when possible and uproot it
when discovered; and which should in addition effectively control and
regulate all big combinations, and should give honest business certainty
as to what the law was and security as long as the law was obeyed. Such
a Commission would furnish a steady expert control, a control adapted to
the problem; and dissolution is neither control nor regulation, but is
purely negative; and negative remedies are of little permanent avail.
Such a Commission would have complete power to examine into every big
corporation engaged or proposing to engage in business between the
States. It would have the power to discriminate sharply between
corporations that are doing well and those that are doing ill; and the
distinction between those who do well and those who do ill would
be defined in terms so clear and unmistakable that no one could
misapprehend them. Where a company is found seeking its profits through
serving the community by stimulating production, lowering prices, or
improving service, while scrupulously respecting the rights of others
(including its rivals, its employees, its customers, and the general
public), and strictly obeying the law, then no matter how large its
capital, or how great the volume of its business it would be encouraged
to still more abundant production, or better service, by the fullest
protection that the Government could afford it. On the other hand, if
a corporation were found seeking profit through injury or oppression
of the community, by restricting production through trick or device,
by plot or conspiracy against competitors, or by oppression of
wage-workers, and then extorting high prices for the commodity it had
made artificially scarce, it would be prevented from organizing if its
nefarious purpose could be discovered in time, or pursued and suppressed
by all the power of Government whenever found in actual operation. Such
a commission, with the power I advocate, would put a stop to abuses of
big corporations and small corporations alike; it would draw the line on
conduct and not on size; it would destroy monopoly, and make the biggest
business man in the country conform squarely to the principles laid down
by the American people, while at the same time giving fair play to the
little man and certainty of knowledge as to what was wrong and what was
right both to big man and little man.

Although under the decision of the courts the National Government had
power over the railways, I found, when I became President, that
this power was either not exercised at all or exercised with utter
inefficiency. The law against rebates was a dead letter. All the
unscrupulous railway men had been allowed to violate it with impunity;
and because of this, as was inevitable, the scrupulous and decent
railway men had been forced to violate it themselves, under penalty of
being beaten by their less scrupulous rivals. It was not the fault of
these decent railway men. It was the fault of the Government.

Thanks to a first-class railway man, Paul Morton of the Santa Fe, son of
Mr. Cleveland's Secretary of Agriculture, I was able completely to stop
the practice. Mr. Morton volunteered to aid the Government in abolishing
rebates. He frankly stated that he, like every one else, had been guilty
in the matter; but he insisted that he uttered the sentiments of
the decent railway men of the country when he said that he hoped the
practice would be stopped, and that if I would really stop it, and not
merely make believe to stop it, he would give the testimony which would
put into the hands of the Government the power to put a complete check
to the practice. Accordingly he testified, and on the information which
he gave us we were able to take such action through the Inter-State
Commerce Commission and the Department of Justice, supplemented by
the necessary additional legislation, that the evil was absolutely
eradicated. He thus rendered, of his own accord, at his own personal
risk, and from purely disinterested motives, an invaluable service to
the people, a service which no other man who was able to render was
willing to render. As an immediate sequel, the world-old alliance
between Blifil and Black George was immediately revived against Paul
Morton. In giving rebates he had done only what every honest railway
man in the country had been obliged to do because of the failure of the
Government to enforce the prohibition as regards dishonest railway
men. But unlike his fellows he had then shown the courage and sense of
obligation to the public which made him come forward and without
evasion or concealment state what he had done, in order that we might
successfully put an end to the practice; and put an end to the practice
we did, and we did it because of the courage and patriotism he had
shown. The unscrupulous railway men, whose dishonest practices were
thereby put a stop to, and the unscrupulous demagogues who were either
under the influence of these men or desirous of gaining credit with
thoughtless and ignorant people no matter who was hurt, joined in
vindictive clamor against Mr. Morton. They actually wished me to
prosecute him, although such prosecution would have been a piece of
unpardonable ingratitude and treachery on the part of the public toward
him--for I was merely acting as the steward of the public in this
matter. I need hardly say that I stood by him; and later he served under
me as Secretary of the Navy, and a capital Secretary he made too.

We not only secured the stopping of rebates, but in the Hepburn Rate
Bill we were able to put through a measure which gave the Inter-State
Commerce Commission for the first time real control over the railways.
There were two or three amusing features in the contest over this bill.
All of the great business interests which objected to Governmental
control banded to fight it, and they were helped by the honest men of
ultra-conservative type who always dread change, whether good or bad. We
finally forced it through the House. In the Senate it was referred to
a committee in which the Republican majority was under the control of
Senator Aldrich, who took the lead in opposing the bill. There was one
Republican on the committee, however, whom Senator Aldrich could
not control--Senator Dolliver, of Iowa. The leading Democrat on the
committee was Senator Tillman, of South Carolina, with whom I was not on
good terms, because I had been obliged to cancel an invitation to him to
dine at the White House on account of his having made a personal assault
in the Senate Chamber on his colleague from South Carolina; and later I
had to take action against him on account of his conduct in connection
with certain land matters. Senator Tillman favored the bill. The
Republican majority in the committee under Senator Aldrich, when they
acted adversely on the bill, turned it over to Senator Tillman, thereby
making him its sponsor. The object was to create what it was hoped would
be an impossible situation in view of the relations between Senator
Tillman and myself. I regarded the action as simply childish. It was a
curious instance of how able and astute men sometimes commit blunders
because of sheer inability to understand intensity of disinterested
motive in others. I did not care a rap about Mr. Tillman's getting
credit for the bill, or having charge of it. I was delighted to go with
him or with any one else just so long as he was traveling in my way--and
no longer.

There was another amusing incident in connection with the passage of the
bill. All the wise friends of the effort to secure Governmental control
of corporations know that this Government control must be exercised
through administrative and not judicial officers if it is to be
effective. Everything possible should be done to minimize the chance
of appealing from the decisions of the administrative officer to the
courts. But it is not possible Constitutionally, and probably would not
be desirable anyhow, completely to abolish the appeal. Unwise zealots
wished to make the effort totally to abolish the appeal in connection
with the Hepburn Bill. Representatives of the special interests wished
to extend the appeal to include what it ought not to include. Between
stood a number of men whose votes would mean the passage of, or the
failure to pass, the bill, and who were not inclined towards either
side. Three or four substantially identical amendments were proposed,
and we then suddenly found ourselves face to face with an absurd
situation. The good men who were willing to go with us but had
conservative misgivings about the ultra-radicals would not accept a good
amendment if one of the latter proposed it; and the radicals would not
accept their own amendment if one of the conservatives proposed it.
Each side got so wrought up as to be utterly unable to get matters into
proper perspective; each prepared to stand on unimportant trifles; each
announced with hysterical emphasis--the reformers just as hysterically
as the reactionaries--that the decision as regards each unimportant
trifle determined the worth or worthlessness of the measure. Gradually
we secured a measurable return to sane appreciation of the essentials.
Finally both sides reluctantly agreed to accept the so-called Allison
amendment which did not, as a matter of fact, work any change in the
bill at all. The amendment was drawn by Attorney-General Moody after
consultation with the Inter-State Commerce Commission, and was forwarded
by me to Senator Dolliver; it was accepted, and the bill became law.

Thanks to this law and to the way in which the Inter-State Commerce
Commission was backed by the Administration, the Commission, under men
like Prouty, Lane, and Clark, became a most powerful force for good.
Some of the good that we had accomplished was undone after the close of
my Administration by the unfortunate law creating a Commerce Court; but
the major part of the immense advance we had made remained. There was
one point on which I insisted, and upon which it is necessary always to
insist. The Commission cannot do permanent good unless it does justice
to the corporations precisely as it exacts justice from them. The
public, the shippers, the stock and bondholders, and the employees, all
have their rights, and none should be allowed unfair privileges at the
expense of the others. Stock watering and swindling of any kind should
of course not only be stopped but punished. When, however, a road is
managed fairly and honestly, and when it renders a real and needed
service, then the Government must see that it is not so burdened as to
make it impossible to run it at a profit. There is much wise
legislation necessary for the safety of the public, or--like workmen's
compensation--necessary to the well-being of the employee, which
nevertheless imposes such a burden on the road that the burden must be
distributed between the general public and the corporation, or there
will be no dividends. In such a case it may be the highest duty of the
commission to raise rates; and the commission, when satisfied that the
necessity exists, in order to do justice to the owners of the road,
should no more hesitate to raise rates, than under other circumstances
to lower them.

So much for the "big stick" in dealing with the corporations when they
went wrong. Now for a sample of the square deal.

In the fall of 1907 there were severe business disturbances and
financial stringency, culminating in a panic which arose in New York
and spread over the country. The damage actually done was great, and the
damage threatened was incalculable. Thanks largely to the action of
the Government, the panic was stopped before, instead of being merely a
serious business check, it became a frightful and Nation-wide calamity,
a disaster fraught with untold misery and woe to all our people. For
several days the Nation trembled on the brink of such a calamity, of
such a disaster.

During these days both the Secretary of the Treasury and I personally
were in hourly communication with New York, following every change in
the situation, and trying to anticipate every development. It was
the obvious duty of the Administration to take every step possible to
prevent appalling disaster by checking the spread of the panic before
it grew so that nothing could check it. And events moved with such
speed that it was necessary to decide and to act on the instant, as each
successive crisis arose, if the decision and action were to accomplish
anything. The Secretary of the Treasury took various actions, some
on his own initiative, some by my direction. Late one evening I was
informed that two representatives of the Steel Corporation wished to see
me early the following morning, the precise object not being named. Next
morning, while at breakfast, I was informed that Messrs. Frick and
Gary were waiting at the office. I at once went over, and, as the
Attorney-General, Mr. Bonaparte, had not yet arrived from Baltimore,
where he had been passing the night, I sent a message asking the
Secretary of State, Mr. Root, who was also a lawyer, to join us, which
he did. Before the close of the interview and in the presence of the
three gentlemen named, I dictated a note to Mr. Bonaparte, setting forth
exactly what Messrs. Frick and Gary had proposed, and exactly what I
had answered--so that there might be no possibility of misunderstanding.
This note was published in a Senate Document while I was still
President. It runs as follows:

THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington, November 4, 1907.

My dear Mr. Attorney-General:

Judge E. H. Gary and Mr. H. C. Frick, on behalf of the Steel
Corporation, have just called upon me. They state that there is a
certain business firm (the name of which I have not been told, but
which is of real importance in New York business circles), which will
undoubtedly fail this week if help is not given. Among its assets are
a majority of the securities of the Tennessee Coal Company. Application
has been urgently made to the Steel Corporation to purchase this stock
as the only means of avoiding a failure. Judge Gary and Mr. Frick
informed me that as a mere business transaction they do not care to
purchase the stock; that under ordinary circumstances they would not
consider purchasing the stock, because but little benefit will come to
the Steel Corporation from the purchase; that they are aware that the
purchase will be used as a handle for attack upon them on the ground
that they are striving to secure a monopoly of the business and prevent
competition--not that this would represent what could honestly be said,
but what might recklessly and untruthfully be said.

They further informed me that, as a matter of fact, the policy of the
company has been to decline to acquire more than sixty per cent of
the steel properties, and that this purpose has been persevered in for
several years past, with the object of preventing these accusations,
and, as a matter of fact, their proportion of steel properties has
slightly decreased, so that it is below this sixty per cent, and the
acquisition of the property in question will not raise it above sixty
per cent. But they feel that it is immensely to their interest, as to
the interest of every responsible business man, to try to prevent a
panic and general industrial smash-up at this time, and that they are
willing to go into this transaction, which they would not otherwise
go into, because it seems the opinion of those best fitted to express
judgment in New York that it will be an important factor in preventing
a break that might be ruinous; and that this has been urged upon them by
the combination of the most responsible bankers in New York who are now
thus engaged in endeavoring to save the situation. But they asserted
that they did not wish to do this if I stated that it ought not to be
done. I answered that, while of course I could not advise them to take
the action proposed, I felt it no public duty of mine to interpose any
objections.

Sincerely yours, (Signed) THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

HON. CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, Attorney-General.

Mr. Bonaparte received this note in about an hour, and that same morning
he came over, acknowledged its receipt, and said that my answer was the
only proper answer that could have been made, having regard both to
the law and to the needs of the situation. He stated that the legal
situation had been in no way changed, and that no sufficient ground
existed for prosecution of the Steel Corporation. But I acted purely on
my own initiative, and the responsibility for the act was solely mine.

I was intimately acquainted with the situation in New York. The word
"panic" means fear, unreasoning fear; to stop a panic it is necessary
to restore confidence; and at the moment the so-called Morgan interests
were the only interests which retained a full hold on the confidence of
the people of New York--not only the business people, but the immense
mass of men and women who owned small investments or had small savings
in the banks and trust companies. Mr. Morgan and his associates were
of course fighting hard to prevent the loss of confidence and the panic
distrust from increasing to such a degree as to bring any other big
financial institutions down; for this would probably have been followed
by a general, and very likely a worldwide, crash. The Knickerbocker
Trust Company had already failed, and runs had begun on, or were
threatened as regards, two other big trust companies. These companies
were now on the fighting line, and it was to the interest of everybody
to strengthen them, in order that the situation might be saved. It was
a matter of general knowledge and belief that they, or the individuals
prominent in them, held the securities of the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company, which securities had no market value, and were useless as a
source of strength in the emergency. The Steel Corporation securities,
on the contrary, were immediately marketable, their great value being
known and admitted all over the world--as the event showed. The proposal
of Messrs. Frick and Gary was that the Steel Corporation should at once
acquire the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, and thereby substitute,
among the assets of the threatened institutions (which, by the way,
they did not name to me), securities of great and immediate value for
securities which at the moment were of no value. It was necessary for
me to decide on the instant, before the Stock Exchange opened, for the
situation in New York was such that any hour might be vital, and failure
to act for even an hour might make all subsequent effort to act utterly
useless. From the best information at my disposal, I believed (what
was actually the fact) that the addition of the Tennessee Coal and
Iron property would only increase the proportion of the Steel Company's
holdings by about four per cent, making them about sixty-two per cent
instead of about fifty-eight per cent of the total value in the country;
an addition which, by itself, in my judgment (concurred in, not only by
the Attorney-General but by every competent lawyer), worked no change
in the legal status of the Steel corporation. The diminution in the
percentage of holdings, and production, has gone on steadily, and the
percentage is now about ten per cent less than it was ten years ago.

The action was emphatically for the general good. It offered the only
chance for arresting the panic, and it did arrest the panic. I answered
Messrs. Frick and Gary, as set forth in the letter quoted above, to the
effect that I did not deem it my duty to interfere, that is, to forbid
the action which more than anything else in actual fact saved the
situation. The result justified my judgment. The panic was stopped,
public confidence in the solvency of the threatened institution being at
once restored.

Business was vitally helped by what I did. The benefit was not only
for the moment. It was permanent. Particularly was this the case in the
South. Three or four years afterwards I visited Birmingham. Every man
I met, without exception, who was competent to testify, informed me
voluntarily that the results of the action taken had been of the utmost
benefit to Birmingham, and therefore to Alabama, the industry having
profited to an extraordinary degree, not only from the standpoint of the
business, but from the standpoint of the community at large and of the
wage-workers, by the change in ownership. The results of the action I
took were beneficial from every standpoint, and the action itself, at
the time when it was taken, was vitally necessary to the welfare of the
people of the United States.

I would have been derelict in my duty, I would have shown myself a timid
and unworthy public servant, if in that extraordinary crisis I had not
acted precisely as I did act. In every such crisis the temptation to
indecision, to non-action, is great, for excuses can always be found for
non-action, and action means risk and the certainty of blame to the man
who acts. But if the man is worth his salt he will do his duty, he will
give the people the benefit of the doubt, and act in any way which
their interests demand and which is not affirmatively prohibited by law,
unheeding the likelihood that he himself, when the crisis is over and
the danger past, will be assailed for what he has done.

Every step I took in this matter was open as the day, and was known in
detail at the moment to all people. The press contained full accounts of
the visit to me of Messrs. Frick and Gary, and heralded widely and
with acclamation the results of that visit. At the time the relief and
rejoicing over what had been done were well-nigh universal. The danger
was too imminent and too appalling for me to be willing to condemn those
who were successful in saving them from it. But I fully understood and
expected that when there was no longer danger, when the fear had been
forgotten, attack would be made upon me; and as a matter of fact after
a year had elapsed the attack was begun, and has continued at intervals
ever since; my ordinary assailant being some politician of rather cheap
type.

If I were on a sail-boat, I should not ordinarily meddle with any of the
gear; but if a sudden squall struck us, and the main sheet jammed, so
that the boat threatened to capsize, I would unhesitatingly cut the main
sheet, even though I were sure that the owner, no matter how grateful
to me at the moment for having saved his life, would a few weeks later,
when he had forgotten his danger and his fear, decide to sue me for the
value of the cut rope. But I would feel a hearty contempt for the owner
who so acted.

There were many other things that we did in connection with
corporations. One of the most important was the passage of the meat
inspection law because of scandalous abuses shown to exist in the great
packing-houses in Chicago and elsewhere. There was a curious result of
this law, similar to what occurred in connection with the law providing
for effective railway regulation. The big beef men bitterly opposed the
law; just as the big railway men opposed the Hepburn Act. Yet three
or four years after these laws had been put on the statute books every
honest man both in the beef business and the railway business came to
the conclusion that they worked good and not harm to the decent business
concerns. They hurt only those who were not acting as they should have
acted. The law providing for the inspection of packing-houses, and the
Pure Food and Drugs Act, were also extremely important; and the way in
which they were administered was even more important. It would be hard
to overstate the value of the service rendered in all these cases
by such cabinet officers as Moody and Bonaparte, and their outside
assistants of the stamp of Frank Kellogg.

It would be useless to enumerate all the suits we brought. Some of
them I have already touched upon. Others, such as the suits against the
Harriman railway corporations, which were successful, and which had
been rendered absolutely necessary by the grossly improper action of the
corporations concerned, offered no special points of interest. The Sugar
Trust proceedings, however, may be mentioned as showing just the kind of
thing that was done and the kind of obstacle encountered and overcome in
prosecutions of this character.

It was on the advice of my secretary, William Loeb, Jr., afterward head
of the New York Custom-House, that the action was taken which started
the uncovering of the frauds perpetrated by the Sugar Trust and other
companies in connection with the importing of sugar. Loeb had from time
to time told me that he was sure that there was fraud in connection with
the importations by the Sugar Trust through the New York Custom-House.
Finally, some time toward the end of 1904, he informed me that Richard
Parr, a sampler at the New York Appraisers' Stores (whose duties took
him almost continually on the docks in connection with the sampling of
merchandise), had called on him, and had stated that in his belief the
sugar companies were defrauding the Government in the matter of weights,
and had stated that if he could be made an investigating officer of
the Treasury Department, he was confident that he could show there was
wrongdoing. Parr had been a former school fellow of Loeb in Albany, and
Loeb believed him to be loyal, honest, and efficient. He thereupon laid
the matter before me, and advised the appointment of Parr as a special
employee of the Treasury Department, for the specific purpose of
investigating the alleged sugar frauds. I instructed the Treasury
Department accordingly, and was informed that there was no vacancy in
the force of special employees, but that Parr would be given the first
place that opened up. Early in the spring of 1905 Parr came to Loeb
again, and said that he had received additional information about the
sugar frauds, and was anxious to begin the investigation. Loeb again
discussed the matter with me; and I notified the Treasury Department to
appoint Parr immediately. On June 1, 1905, he received his appointment,
and was assigned to the port of Boston for the purpose of gaining
some experience as an investigating officer. During the month he was
transferred to the Maine District, with headquarters at Portland, where
he remained until March, 1907. During his service in Maine he uncovered
extensive wool smuggling frauds. At the conclusion of the wool case, he
appealed to Loeb to have him transferred to New York, so that he might
undertake the investigation of the sugar underweighing frauds. I now
called the attention of Secretary Cortelyou personally to the matter,
so that he would be able to keep a check over any subordinates who might
try to interfere with Parr, for the conspiracy was evidently widespread,
the wealth of the offenders great, and the corruption in the service
far-reaching--while moreover as always happens with "respectable"
offenders, there were many good men who sincerely disbelieved in the
possibility of corruption on the part of men of such high financial
standing. Parr was assigned to New York early in March, 1907, and at
once began an active investigation of the conditions existing on the
sugar docks. This terminated in the discovery of a steel spring in one
of the scales of the Havemeyer & Elder docks in Brooklyn, November 20,
1907, which enabled us to uncover what were probably the most colossal
frauds ever perpetrated in the Customs Service. From the beginning of
his active work in the investigation of the sugar frauds in March, 1907,
to March 4, 1909, Parr, from time to time, personally reported to Loeb,
at the White House, the progress of his investigations, and Loeb in his
turn kept me personally advised. On one occasion there was an attempt
made to shunt Parr off the investigation and substitute another agent of
the Treasury, who was suspected of having some relations with the sugar
companies under investigation; but Parr reported the facts to Loeb,
I sent for Secretary Cortelyou, and Secretary Cortelyou promptly took
charge of the matter himself, putting Parr back on the investigation.

During the investigation Parr was subjected to all sorts of harassments,
including an attempt to bribe him by Spitzer, the dock superintendent
of the Havemeyer & Elder Refinery, for which Spitzer was convicted and
served a term in prison. Brzezinski, a special agent, who was assisting
Parr, was convicted of perjury and also served a term in prison, he
having changed his testimony, in the trial of Spitzer for the attempted
bribery of Parr, from that which he gave before the Grand Jury. For his
extraordinary services in connection with this investigation Parr was
granted an award of $100,000 by the Treasury Department.

District-Attorney Stimson, of New York, assisted by Denison,
Frankfurter, Wise, and other employees of the Department of Justice,
took charge of the case, and carried on both civil and criminal
proceedings. The trial in the action against the Sugar Trust, for the
recovery of duties on the cargo of sugar, which was being sent over the
scales at the time of the discovery of the steel spring by Parr, was
begun in 1908; judgment was rendered against the defendants on March
5, 1909, the day after I left office. Over four million dollars were
recovered and paid back into the United States Treasury by the sugar
companies which had perpetrated the various forms of fraud. These frauds
were unearthed by Parr, Loeb, Stimson, Frankfurter, and the other men
mentioned and their associates, and it was to them that the people owed
the refunding of the huge sum of money mentioned. We had already secured
heavy fines from the Sugar Trust, and from various big railways, and
private individuals, such as Edwin Earle, for unlawful rebates. In the
case of the chief offender, the American Sugar Refining Company (the
Sugar Trust), criminal prosecutions were carried on against every living
man whose position was such that he would naturally know about the
fraud. All of them were indicted, and the biggest and most responsible
ones were convicted. The evidence showed that the president of the
company, Henry O. Havemeyer, virtually ran the entire company, and was
responsible for all the details of the management. He died two weeks
after the fraud was discovered, just as proceedings were being begun.
Next to him in importance was the secretary and treasurer, Charles R.
Heike, who was convicted. Various other officials and employees of the
Trust, and various Government employees, were indicted, and most of
them convicted. Ernest W. Gerbracht, the superintendent of one of the
refineries, was convicted, but his sentence was commuted to a short
jail imprisonment, because he became a Government witness and greatly
assisted the Government in the suits.

Heike's sentence was commuted so as to excuse him from going to the
penitentiary; just as the penitentiary sentence of Morse, the big New
York banker, who was convicted of gross fraud and misapplication of
funds, was commuted. Both commutations were granted long after I left
office. In each case the commutation was granted because, as was stated,
of the prisoner's age and state of health. In Morse's case the President
originally refused the request, saying that Morse had exhibited
"fraudulent and criminal disregard of the trust imposed upon him," that
"he was entirely unscrupulous as to the methods he adopted," and
"that he seemed at times to be absolutely heartless with regard to the
consequences to others, and he showed great shrewdness in obtaining
large sums of money from the bank without adequate security and without
making himself personally liable therefor." The two cases may be
considered in connection with the announcement in the public press that
on May 17, 1913, the President commuted the sentence of Lewis A. Banks,
who was serving a very long term penitentiary sentence for an attack on
a girl in the Indian Territory; "the reason for the commutation which is
set forth in the press being that 'Banks is in poor health.'"

It is no easy matter to balance the claims of justice and mercy in such
cases. In these three cases, of all of which I had personal cognizance,
I disagreed radically with the views my successors took, and with the
views which many respectable men took who in these and similar cases,
both while I was in office and afterward, urged me to show, or to ask
others to show, clemency. It then seemed to me, and it now seems to me,
that such clemency is from the larger standpoint a gross wrong to the
men and women of the country.

One of the former special assistants of the district-attorney, Mr. W.
Cleveland Runyon, in commenting bitterly on the release of Heike
and Morse on account of their health, pointed out that their health
apparently became good when once they themselves became free men, and
added:

"The commutation of these sentences amounts to a direct interference
with the administration of justice by the courts. Heike got a $25,000
salary and has escaped his imprisonment, but what about the six $18 a
week checkers, who were sent to jail, one of them a man of more than
sixty? It is cases like this that create discontent and anarchy. They
make it seem plain that there is one law for the rich and another for
the poor man, and I for one will protest."

In dealing with Heike the individual (or Morse or any other individual),
it is necessary to emphasize the social aspects of his case. The moral
of the Heike case, as has been well said, is "how easy it is for a man
in modern corporate organization to drift into wrongdoing." The
moral restraints are loosened in the case of a man like Heike by
the insulation of himself from the sordid details of crime, through
industrially coerced intervening agents. Professor Ross has made the
penetrating observation that "distance disinfects dividends"; it also
weakens individual responsibility, particularly on the part of the very
managers of large business, who should feel it most acutely. One of the
officers of the Department of Justice who conducted the suit, and who
inclined to the side of mercy in the matter, nevertheless writes: "Heike
is a beautiful illustration of mental and moral obscuration in the
business life of an otherwise valuable member of society. Heike had
an ample share in the guidance of the affairs of the American Sugar
Company, and we are apt to have a foreshortened picture of his
responsibility, because he operated from the easy coign of vantage of
executive remoteness. It is difficult to say to what extent he did,
directly or indirectly, profit by the sordid practices of his company.
But the social damage of an individual in his position may be just as
deep, whether merely the zest of the game or hard cash be his dominant
motive."

I have coupled the cases of the big banker and the Sugar Trust official
and the case of the man convicted of a criminal assault on a woman. All
of the criminals were released from penitentiary sentences on grounds of
ill health. The offenses were typical of the worst crimes committed
at the two ends of the social scale. One offense was a crime of brutal
violence; the other offenses were crimes of astute corruption. All of
them were offenses which in my judgment were of such a character that
clemency towards the offender worked grave injustice to the community
as a whole, injustice so grave that its effects might be far-reaching in
their damage.

Every time that rape or criminal assault on a woman is pardoned, and
anything less than the full penalty of the law exacted, a premium is
put on the practice of lynching such offenders. Every time a big moneyed
offender, who naturally excites interest and sympathy, and who has
many friends, is excused from serving a sentence which a man of less
prominence and fewer friends would have to serve, justice is discredited
in the eyes of plain people--and to undermine faith in justice is to
strike at the foundation of the Republic. As for ill health, it must
be remembered that few people are as healthy in prison as they would be
outside; and there should be no discrimination among criminals on this
score; either all criminals who grow unhealthy should be let out, or
none. Pardons must sometimes be given in order that the cause of justice
may be served; but in cases such as these I am considering, while I know
that many amiable people differ from me, I am obliged to say that in my
judgment the pardons work far-reaching harm to the cause of justice.

Among the big corporations themselves, even where they did wrong, there
was a wide difference in the moral obliquity indicated by the wrongdoer.
There was a wide distinction between the offenses committed in the case
of the Northern Securities Company, and the offenses because of which
the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust, and the Standard Oil Trust were
successfully prosecuted under my Administration. It was vital to destroy
the Northern Securities Company; but the men creating it had done so in
open and above-board fashion, acting under what they, and most of the
members of the bar, thought to be the law established by the Supreme
Court in the Knight sugar case. But the Supreme Court in its decree
dissolving the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trusts, condemned them in the
severest language for moral turpitude; and an even severer need of
condemnation should be visited on the Sugar Trust.

However, all the trusts and big corporations against which we
proceeded--which included in their directorates practically all the
biggest financiers in the country--joined in making the bitterest
assaults on me and on my Administration. Of their actions I wrote as
follows to Attorney-General Bonaparte, who had been a peculiarly close
friend and adviser through the period covered by my public life in high
office and who, together with Attorney-General Moody, possessed the same
understanding sympathy with my social and industrial program that
was possessed by such officials as Straus, Garfield, H. K. Smith, and
Pinchot. The letter runs:

January 2, 1908.

My dear Bonaparte:

I must congratulate you on your admirable speech at Chicago. You said
the very things it was good to say at this time. What you said bore
especial weight because it represented what you had done. You have shown
by what you have actually accomplished that the law is enforced against
the wealthiest corporation, and the richest and most powerful manager
or manipulator of that corporation, just as resolutely and fearlessly as
against the humblest citizen. The Department of Justice is now in very
fact the Department of Justice, and justice is meted out with an even
hand to great and small, rich and poor, weak and strong. Those who have
denounced you and the action of the Department of Justice are either
misled, or else are the very wrongdoers, and the agents of the very
wrongdoers, who have for so many years gone scot-free and flouted the
laws with impunity. Above all, you are to be congratulated upon the
bitterness felt and expressed towards you by the representatives and
agents of the great law-defying corporations of immense wealth, who,
until within the last half-dozen years, have treated themselves and have
expected others to treat them as being beyond and above all possible
check from law.

It was time to say something, for the representatives of predatory
wealth, of wealth accumulated on a giant scale by iniquity,
by wrongdoing in many forms, by plain swindling, by oppressing
wage-workers, by manipulating securities, by unfair and unwholesome
competition and by stock-jobbing,--in short, by conduct abhorrent to
every man of ordinarily decent conscience, have during the last few
months made it evident that they are banded together to work for a
reaction, to endeavor to overthrow and discredit all who honestly
administer the law, and to secure a return to the days when every
unscrupulous wrongdoer could do what he wished unchecked, provided he
had enough money. They attack you because they know your honesty and
fearlessness, and dread them. The enormous sums of money these men have
at their control enable them to carry on an effective campaign. They
find their tools in a portion of the public press, including especially
certain of the great New York newspapers. They find their agents in
some men in public life,--now and then occupying, or having occupied,
positions as high as Senator or Governor,--in some men in the pulpit,
and most melancholy of all, in a few men on the bench. By gifts to
colleges and universities they are occasionally able to subsidize in
their own interest some head of an educational body, who, save only a
judge, should of all men be most careful to keep his skirts clear from
the taint of such corruption. There are ample material rewards for those
who serve with fidelity the Mammon of unrighteousness, but they are
dearly paid for by that institution of learning whose head, by example
and precept, teaches the scholars who sit under him that there is one
law for the rich and another for the poor. The amount of money the
representatives of the great moneyed interests are willing to spend can
be gauged by their recent publication broadcast throughout the papers
of this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific of huge advertisements,
attacking with envenomed bitterness the Administration's policy of
warring against successful dishonesty, advertisements that must have
cost enormous sums of money. This advertisement, as also a pamphlet
called "The Roosevelt Panic," and one or two similar books and
pamphlets, are written especially in the interest of the Standard Oil
and Harriman combinations, but also defend all the individuals and
corporations of great wealth that have been guilty of wrongdoing. From
the railroad rate law to the pure food law, every measure for honesty
in business that has been pressed during the last six years, has been
opposed by these men, on its passage and in its administration, with
every resource that bitter and unscrupulous craft could suggest, and the
command of almost unlimited money secure. These men do not themselves
speak or write; they hire others to do their bidding. Their spirit and
purpose are made clear alike by the editorials of the papers owned in,
or whose policy is dictated by, Wall Street, and by the speeches of
public men who, as Senators, Governors, or Mayors, have served these
their masters to the cost of the plain people. At one time one of their
writers or speakers attacks the rate law as the cause of the panic; he
is, whether in public life or not, usually a clever corporation lawyer,
and he is not so foolish a being as to believe in the truth of what he
says; he has too closely represented the railroads not to know well that
the Hepburn Rate Bill has helped every honest railroad, and has hurt
only the railroads that regarded themselves as above the law. At another
time, one of them assails the Administration for not imprisoning people
under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law; for declining to make what he well
knows, in view of the actual attitude of juries (as shown in the Tobacco
Trust cases and in San Francisco in one or two of the cases brought
against corrupt business men) would have been the futile endeavor to
imprison defendants whom we are actually able to fine. He raises the
usual clamor, raised by all who object to the enforcement of the law,
that we are fining corporations instead of putting the heads of the
corporations in jail; and he states that this does not really harm the
chief offenders. Were this statement true, he himself would not be found
attacking us. The extraordinary violence of the assault upon our policy
contained in speeches like these, in the articles in the subsidized
press, in such huge advertisements and pamphlets as those above referred
to, and the enormous sums of money spent in these various ways, give a
fairly accurate measure of the anger and terror which our actions have
caused the corrupt men of vast wealth to feel in the very marrow of
their being.

The man thus attacking us is usually, like so many of his fellows,
either a great lawyer, or a paid editor who takes his commands from the
financiers and his arguments from their attorneys. If the former, he has
defended many malefactors, and he knows well that, thanks to the advice
of lawyers like himself, a certain kind of modern corporation has been
turned into an admirable instrument by which to render it well nigh
impossible to get at the really guilty man, so that in most cases the
only way of punishing the wrong is by fining the corporation or by
proceeding personally against some of the minor agents. These lawyers
and their employers are the men mainly responsible for this state of
things, and their responsibility is shared with the legislators who
ingeniously oppose the passing of just and effective laws, and with
those judges whose one aim seems to be to construe such laws so that
they cannot be executed. Nothing is sillier than this outcry on behalf
of the "innocent stockholders" in the corporations. We are besought to
pity the Standard Oil Company for a fine relatively far less great than
the fines every day inflicted in the police courts upon multitudes of
push cart peddlers and other petty offenders, whose woes never extort
one word from the men whose withers are wrung by the woes of the mighty.
The stockholders have the control of the corporation in their own hands.
The corporation officials are elected by those holding the majority of
the stock and can keep office only by having behind them the good-will
of these majority stockholders. They are not entitled to the slightest
pity if they deliberately choose to resign into the hands of great
wrongdoers the control of the corporations in which they own the stock.
Of course innocent people have become involved in these big corporations
and suffer because of the misdeeds of their criminal associates. Let
these innocent people be careful not to invest in corporations where
those in control are not men of probity, men who respect the laws; above
all let them avoid the men who make it their one effort to evade or defy
the laws. But if these honest innocent people are in the majority in
any corporation they can immediately resume control and throw out of
the directory the men who misrepresent them. Does any man for a moment
suppose that the majority stockholders of the Standard Oil are others
than Mr. Rockefeller and his associates themselves and the beneficiaries
of their wrongdoing? When the stock is watered so that the innocent
investors suffer, a grave wrong is indeed done to these innocent
investors as well as to the public; but the public men, lawyers and
editors, to whom I refer, do not under these circumstances express
sympathy for the innocent; on the contrary they are the first to protest
with frantic vehemence against our efforts by law to put a stop to
over-capitalization and stock-watering. The apologists of successful
dishonesty always declaim against any effort to punish or prevent it on
the ground that such effort will "unsettle business." It is they who by
their acts have unsettled business; and the very men raising this
cry spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in securing, by speech,
editorial, book or pamphlet, the defense by misstatement of what they
have done; and yet when we correct their misstatements by telling the
truth, they declaim against us for breaking silence, lest "values be
unsettled!" They have hurt honest business men, honest working men,
honest farmers; and now they clamor against the truth being told.

The keynote of all these attacks upon the effort to secure honesty in
business and in politics, is expressed in a recent speech, in which the
speaker stated that prosperity had been checked by the effort for the
"moral regeneration of the business world," an effort which he denounced
as "unnatural, unwarranted, and injurious" and for which he stated the
panic was the penalty. The morality of such a plea is precisely as great
as if made on behalf of the men caught in a gambling establishment when
that gambling establishment is raided by the police. If such words mean
anything they mean that those whose sentiments they represent stand
against the effort to bring about a moral regeneration of business which
will prevent a repetition of the insurance, banking, and street railroad
scandals in New York; a repetition of the Chicago and Alton deal; a
repetition of the combination between certain professional politicians,
certain professional labor leaders and certain big financiers from the
disgrace of which San Francisco has just been rescued; a repetition of
the successful efforts by the Standard Oil people to crush out every
competitor, to overawe the common carriers, and to establish a monopoly
which treats the public with the contempt which the public deserves so
long as it permits men like the public men of whom I speak to represent
it in politics, men like the heads of colleges to whom I refer to
educate its youth. The outcry against stopping dishonest practices among
the very wealthy is precisely similar to the outcry raised against every
effort for cleanliness and decency in city government because, forsooth,
it will "hurt business." The same outcry is made against the Department
of Justice for prosecuting the heads of colossal corporations that is
made against the men who in San Francisco are prosecuting with impartial
severity the wrongdoers among business men, public officials, and labor
leaders alike. The principle is the same in the two cases. Just as
the blackmailer and the bribe giver stand on the same evil eminence
of infamy, so the man who makes an enormous fortune by corrupting
Legislatures and municipalities and fleecing his stockholders and the
public stands on a level with the creature who fattens on the blood
money of the gambling house, the saloon and the brothel. Moreover,
both kinds of corruption in the last analysis are far more intimately
connected than would at first sight appear; the wrong-doing is at bottom
the same. Corrupt business and corrupt politics act and react, with
ever increasing debasement, one on the other; the rebate-taker, the
franchise-trafficker, the manipulator of securities, the purveyor and
protector of vice, the black-mailing ward boss, the ballot box stuffer,
the demagogue, the mob leader, the hired bully and mankiller, all alike
work at the same web of corruption, and all alike should be abhorred by
honest men.

The "business" which is hurt by the movement for honesty is the kind of
business which, in the long run, it pays the country to have hurt. It
is the kind of business which has tended to make the very name "high
finance" a term of scandal to which all honest American men of business
should join in putting an end. One of the special pleaders for business
dishonesty, in a recent speech, in denouncing the Administration for
enforcing the law against the huge and corrupt corporations which
have defied the law, also denounced it for endeavoring to secure
a far-reaching law making employers liable for injuries to their
employees. It is meet and fit that the apologists for corrupt wealth
should oppose every effort to relieve weak and helpless people from
crushing misfortune brought upon them by injury in the business from
which they gain a bare livelihood and their employers fortunes. It is
hypocritical baseness to speak of a girl who works in a factory where
the dangerous machinery is unprotected as having the "right" freely
to contract to expose herself to dangers to life and limb. She has
no alternative but to suffer want or else to expose herself to such
dangers, and when she loses a hand or is otherwise maimed or disfigured
for life it is a moral wrong that the burden of the risk necessarily
incidental to the business should be placed with crushing weight upon
her weak shoulders and the man who has profited by her work escape
scot-free. This is what our opponents advocate, and it is proper that
they should advocate it, for it rounds out their advocacy of those most
dangerous members of the criminal class, the criminals of vast wealth,
the men who can afford best to pay for such championship in the press
and on the stump.

It is difficult to speak about the judges, for it behooves us all to
treat with the utmost respect the high office of judge; and our judges
as a whole are brave and upright men. But there is need that those who
go wrong should not be allowed to feel that there is no condemnation of
their wrongdoing. A judge who on the bench either truckles to the mob or
bows down before a corporation; or who, having left the bench to become
a corporation lawyer, seeks to aid his clients by denouncing as enemies
of property all those who seek to stop the abuses of the criminal rich;
such a man performs an even worse service to the body politic than the
Legislator or Executive who goes wrong. In no way can respect for the
courts be so quickly undermined as by teaching the public through the
action of a judge himself that there is reason for the loss of such
respect. The judge who by word or deed makes it plain that the corrupt
corporation, the law-defying corporation, the law-defying rich man,
has in him a sure and trustworthy ally, the judge who by misuse of the
process of injunction makes it plain that in him the wage-worker has a
determined and unscrupulous enemy, the judge who when he decides in an
employers' liability or a tenement house factory case shows that he has
neither sympathy for nor understanding of those fellow-citizens of his
who most need his sympathy and understanding; these judges work as much
evil as if they pandered to the mob, as if they shrank from sternly
repressing violence and disorder. The judge who does his full duty well
stands higher, and renders a better service to the people, than any
other public servant; he is entitled to greater respect; and if he is a
true servant of the people, if he is upright, wise and fearless, he will
unhesitatingly disregard even the wishes of the people if they conflict
with the eternal principles of right as against wrong. He must serve
the people; but he must serve his conscience first. All honor to such a
judge; and all honor cannot be rendered him if it is rendered equally
to his brethren who fall immeasurably below the high ideals for which he
stands. There should be a sharp discrimination against such judges. They
claim immunity from criticism, and the claim is heatedly advanced by men
and newspapers like those of whom I speak. Most certainly they can claim
immunity from untruthful criticism; and their champions, the newspapers
and the public men I have mentioned, exquisitely illustrate by their own
actions mendacious criticism in its most flagrant and iniquitous form.

But no servant of the people has a right to expect to be free from just
and honest criticism. It is the newspapers, and the public men whose
thoughts and deeds show them to be most alien to honesty and truth
who themselves loudly object to truthful and honest criticism of their
fellow-servants of the great moneyed interests.

We have no quarrel with the individuals, whether public men, lawyers
or editors, to whom I refer. These men derive their sole power from the
great, sinister offenders who stand behind them. They are but puppets
who move as the strings are pulled by those who control the enormous
masses of corporate wealth which if itself left uncontrolled threatens
dire evil to the Republic. It is not the puppets, but the strong,
cunning men and the mighty forces working for evil behind, and to a
certain extent through, the puppets, with whom we have to deal. We seek
to control law-defying wealth, in the first place to prevent its
doing evil, and in the next place to avoid the vindictive and dreadful
radicalism which if left uncontrolled it is certain in the end to
arouse. Sweeping attacks upon all property, upon all men of means,
without regard to whether they do well or ill, would sound the death
knell of the Republic; and such attacks become inevitable if decent
citizens permit rich men whose lives are corrupt and evil to domineer
in swollen pride, unchecked and unhindered, over the destinies of this
country. We act in no vindictive spirit, and we are no respecters of
persons. If a labor union does what is wrong, we oppose it as fearlessly
as we oppose a corporation that does wrong; and we stand with equal
stoutness for the rights of the man of wealth and for the rights of the
wage-workers; just as much so for one as for the other. We seek to stop
wrongdoing; and we desire to punish the wrongdoer only so far as is
necessary in order to achieve this end. We are the stanch upholders of
every honest man, whether business man or wage-worker.

I do not for a moment believe that our actions have brought on business
distress; so far as this is due to local and not world-wide causes,
and to the actions of any particular individuals, it is due to the
speculative folly and flagrant dishonesty of a few men of great
wealth, who now seek to shield themselves from the effects of their own
wrongdoings by ascribing its results to the actions of those who have
sought to put a stop to the wrongdoing. But if it were true that to
cut out rottenness from the body politic meant a momentary check to an
unhealthy seeming prosperity, I should not for one moment hesitate to
put the knife to the cancer. On behalf of all our people, on behalf no
less of the honest man of means than of the honest man who earns each
day's livelihood by that day's sweat of his brow, it is necessary to
insist upon honesty in business and politics alike, in all walks of
life, in big things and in little things; upon just and fair dealing
as between man and man. We are striving for the right in the spirit of
Abraham Lincoln when he said:

"Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge may
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in."

Sincerely yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

HON. CHARLES J. BONAPARTE. Attorney-General.



CHAPTER XIII

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE

By the time I became President I had grown to feel with deep intensity
of conviction that governmental agencies must find their justification
largely in the way in which they are used for the practical betterment
of living and working conditions among the mass of the people. I felt
that the fight was really for the abolition of privilege; and one of the
first stages in the battle was necessarily to fight for the rights of
the workingman. For this reason I felt most strongly that all that the
government could do in the interest of labor should be done. The Federal
Government can rarely act with the directness that the State governments
act. It can, however, do a good deal. My purpose was to make the
National Government itself a model employer of labor, the effort being
to make the per diem employee just as much as the Cabinet officer regard
himself as one of the partners employed in the service of the public,
proud of his work, eager to do it in the best possible manner, and
confident of just treatment. Our aim was also to secure good laws
wherever the National Government had power, notably in the Territories,
in the District of Columbia, and in connection with inter-State
commerce. I found the eight-hour law a mere farce, the departments
rarely enforcing it with any degree of efficiency. This I remedied
by executive action. Unfortunately, thoroughly efficient government
servants often proved to be the prime offenders so far as the
enforcement of the eight-hour law was concerned, because in their zeal
to get good work done for the Government they became harsh taskmasters,
and declined to consider the needs of their fellow-employees who served
under them. The more I had studied the subject the more strongly I had
become convinced that an eight-hour day under the conditions of labor
in the United States was all that could, with wisdom and propriety, be
required either by the Government or by private employers; that more
than this meant, on the average, a decrease in the qualities that tell
for good citizenship. I finally solved the problem, as far as Government
employees were concerned, by calling in Charles P. Neill, the head
of the Labor Bureau; and acting on his advice, I speedily made the
eight-hour law really effective. Any man who shirked his work, who
dawdled and idled, received no mercy; slackness is even worse than
harshness; for exactly as in battle mercy to the coward is cruelty to
the brave man, so in civil life slackness towards the vicious and idle
is harshness towards the honest and hardworking.

We passed a good law protecting the lives and health of miners in the
Territories, and other laws providing for the supervision of employment
agencies in the District of Columbia, and protecting the health
of motormen and conductors on street railways in the District. We
practically started the Bureau of Mines. We provided for safeguarding
factory employees in the District against accidents, and for the
restriction of child labor therein. We passed a workmen's compensation
law for the protection of Government employees; a law which did not
go as far as I wished, but which was the best I could get, and which
committed the Government to the right policy. We provided for an
investigation of woman and child labor in the United States. We
incorporated the National Child Labor Committee. Where we had most
difficulty was with the railway companies engaged in inter-State
business. We passed an act improving safety appliances on railway trains
without much opposition, but we had more trouble with acts regulating
the hours of labor of railway employees and making those railways which
were engaged in inter-State commerce liable for injuries to or the death
of their employees while on duty. One important step in connection with
these latter laws was taken by Attorney-General Moody when, on behalf of
the Government, he intervened in the case of a wronged employee. It
is unjust that a law which has been declared public policy by the
representatives of the people should be submitted to the possibility of
nullification because the Government leaves the enforcement of it to the
private initiative of poor people who have just suffered some crushing
accident. It should be the business of the Government to enforce laws of
this kind, and to appear in court to argue for their constitutionality
and proper enforcement. Thanks to Moody, the Government assumed this
position. The first employers' liability law affecting inter-State
railroads was declared unconstitutional. We got through another, which
stood the test of the courts.

The principle to which we especially strove to give expression, through
these laws and through executive action, was that a right is valueless
unless reduced from the abstract to the concrete. This sounds like a
truism. So far from being such, the effort practically to apply it was
almost revolutionary, and gave rise to the bitterest denunciation of us
by all the big lawyers, and all the big newspaper editors, who, whether
sincerely or for hire, gave expression to the views of the privileged
classes. Ever since the Civil War very many of the decisions of the
courts, not as regards ordinary actions between man and man, but as
regards the application of great governmental policies for social
and industrial justice, had been in reality nothing but ingenious
justification of the theory that these policies were mere high-sounding
abstractions, and were not to be given practical effect. The tendency of
the courts had been, in the majority of cases, jealously to exert their
great power in protecting those who least needed protection and hardly
to use their power at all in the interest of those who most needed
protection. Our desire was to make the Federal Government efficient as
an instrument for protecting the rights of labor within its province,
and therefore to secure and enforce judicial decisions which would
permit us to make this desire effective. Not only some of the Federal
judges, but some of the State courts invoked the Constitution in a
spirit of the narrowest legalistic obstruction to prevent the Government
from acting in defense of labor on inter-State railways. In effect,
these judges took the view that while Congress had complete power as
regards the goods transported by the railways, and could protect wealthy
or well-to-do owners of these goods, yet that it had no power to protect
the lives of the men engaged in transporting the goods. Such judges
freely issued injunctions to prevent the obstruction of traffic in
the interest of the property owners, but declared unconstitutional
the action of the Government in seeking to safeguard the men, and the
families of the men, without whose labor the traffic could not take
place. It was an instance of the largely unconscious way in which the
courts had been twisted into the exaltation of property rights over
human rights, and the subordination of the welfare of the laborer when
compared with the profit of the man for whom he labored. By what I fear
my conservative friends regarded as frightfully aggressive missionary
work, which included some uncommonly plain speaking as to certain unjust
and anti-social judicial decisions, we succeeded in largely, but by no
means altogether, correcting this view, at least so far as the best and
most enlightened judges were concerned.

Very much the most important action I took as regards labor had nothing
to do with legislation, and represented executive action which was not
required by the Constitution. It illustrated as well as anything that
I did the theory which I have called the Jackson-Lincoln theory of the
Presidency; that is, that occasionally great national crises arise which
call for immediate and vigorous executive action, and that in such cases
it is the duty of the President to act upon the theory that he is the
steward of the people, and that the proper attitude for him to take is
that he is bound to assume that he has the legal right to do whatever
the needs of the people demand, unless the Constitution or the laws
explicitly forbid him to do it.

Early in the spring of 1902 a universal strike began in the anthracite
regions. The miners and the operators became deeply embittered, and the
strike went on throughout the summer and the early fall without any sign
of reaching an end, and with almost complete stoppage of mining. In many
cities, especially in the East, the heating apparatus is designed
for anthracite, so that the bituminous coal is only a very partial
substitute. Moreover, in many regions, even in farmhouses, many of the
provisions are for burning coal and not wood. In consequence, the coal
famine became a National menace as the winter approached. In most big
cities and many farming districts east of the Mississippi the shortage
of anthracite threatened calamity. In the populous industrial States,
from Ohio eastward, it was not merely calamity, but the direct disaster,
that was threatened. Ordinarily conservative men, men very sensitive as
to the rights of property under normal conditions, when faced by this
crisis felt, quite rightly, that there must be some radical action. The
Governor of Massachusetts and the Mayor of New York both notified me, as
the cold weather came on, that if the coal famine continued the misery
throughout the Northeast, and especially in the great cities, would
become appalling, and the consequent public disorder so great that
frightful consequences might follow. It is not too much to say that the
situation which confronted Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, and
to a less degree the States of the Middle West, in October, 1902, was
quite as serious as if they had been threatened by the invasion of a
hostile army of overwhelming force.

The big coal operators had banded together, and positively refused
to take any steps looking toward an accommodation. They knew that the
suffering among the miners was great; they were confident that if order
were kept, and nothing further done by the Government, they would win;
and they refused to consider that the public had any rights in the
matter. They were, for the most part, men of unquestionably good private
life, and they were merely taking the extreme individualistic view of
the rights of property and the freedom of individual action upheld in
the _laissez-faire_ political economics. The mines were in the State
of Pennsylvania. There was no duty whatever laid upon me by the
Constitution in the matter, and I had in theory the power to act
directly unless the Governor of Pennsylvania or the Legislature, if
it were in session, should notify me that Pennsylvania could not keep
order, and request me as commander-in-chief of the army of the United
States to intervene and keep order.

As long as I could avoid interfering I did so; but I directed the head
of the Labor Bureau, Carroll Wright, to make a thorough investigation
and lay the facts fully before me. As September passed without any sign
of weakening either among the employers or the striking workmen,
the situation became so grave that I felt I would have to try to do
something. The thing most feasible was to get both sides to agree to a
Commission of Arbitration, with a promise to accept its findings; the
miners to go to work as soon as the commission was appointed, at the old
rate of wages. To this proposition the miners, headed by John Mitchell,
agreed, stipulating only that I should have the power to name the
Commission. The operators, however, positively refused. They insisted
that all that was necessary to do was for the State to keep order, using
the militia as a police force; although both they and the miners asked
me to intervene under the Inter-State Commerce Law, each side requesting
that I proceed against the other, and both requests being impossible.

Finally, on October 3, the representatives of both the operators and the
miners met before me, in pursuance of my request. The representatives of
the miners included as their head and spokesman John Mitchell, who kept
his temper admirably and showed to much advantage. The representatives
of the operators, on the contrary, came down in a most insolent frame of
mind, refused to talk of arbitration or other accommodation of any kind,
and used language that was insulting to the miners and offensive to me.
They were curiously ignorant of the popular temper; and when they went
away from the interview they, with much pride, gave their own account of
it to the papers, exulting in the fact that they had "turned down" both
the miners and the President.

I refused to accept the rebuff, however, and continued the effort to get
an agreement between the operators and the miners. I was anxious to get
this agreement, because it would prevent the necessity of taking
the extremely drastic action I meditated, and which is hereinafter
described.

Fortunately, this time we were successful. Yet we were on the verge of
failure, because of self-willed obstinacy on the part of the operators.
This obstinacy was utterly silly from their own standpoint, and
well-nigh criminal from the standpoint of the people at large. The
miners proposed that I should name the Commission, and that if I put
on a representative of the employing class I should also put on a labor
union man. The operators positively declined to accept the suggestion.
They insisted upon my naming a Commission of only five men, and
specified the qualifications these men should have, carefully choosing
these qualifications so as to exclude those whom it had leaked out I was
thinking of appointing, including ex-President Cleveland. They made the
condition that I was to appoint one officer of the engineer corps of
the army or navy, one man with experience of mining, one "man of
prominence," "eminent as a sociologist," one Federal judge of the
Eastern district of Pennsylvania, and one mining engineer.

They positively refused to have me appoint any representative of labor,
or to put on an extra man. I was desirous of putting on the extra man,
because Mitchell and the other leaders of the miners had urged me
to appoint some high Catholic ecclesiastic. Most of the miners were
Catholics, and Mitchell and the leaders were very anxious to secure
peaceful acquiescence by the miners in any decision rendered, and they
felt that their hands would be strengthened if such an appointment
were made. They also, quite properly, insisted that there should be
one representative of labor on the commission, as all of the others
represented the propertied classes. The operators, however, absolutely
refused to acquiesce in the appointment of any representative of labor,
and also announced that they would refuse to accept a sixth man on the
Commission; although they spoke much less decidedly on this point. The
labor men left everything in my hands.

The final conferences with the representatives of the operators took
place in my rooms on the evening of October 15. Hour after hour went by
while I endeavored to make the operators through their representatives
see that the country would not tolerate their insisting upon such
conditions; but in vain. The two representatives of the operators were
Robert Bacon and George W. Perkins. They were entirely reasonable. But
the operators themselves were entirely unreasonable. They had worked
themselves into a frame of mind where they were prepared to sacrifice
everything and see civil war in the country rather than back down and
acquiesce in the appointment of a representative of labor. It looked as
if a deadlock were inevitable.

Then, suddenly, after about two hours' argument, it dawned on me that
they were not objecting to the thing, but to the name. I found that they
did not mind my appointing any man, whether he was a labor man or
not, so long as he was not appointed _as_ a labor man, or _as_ a
representative of labor; they did not object to my exercising any
latitude I chose in the appointments so long as they were made under the
headings they had given. I shall never forget the mixture of relief
and amusement I felt when I thoroughly grasped the fact that while they
would heroically submit to anarchy rather than have Tweedledum, yet if
I would call it Tweedledee they would accept it with rapture; it gave
me an illuminating glimpse into one corner of the mighty brains of these
"captains of industry." In order to carry the great and vital point and
secure agreement by both parties, all that was necessary for me to do
was to commit a technical and nominal absurdity with a solemn face. This
I gladly did. I announced at once that I accepted the terms laid down.
With this understanding, I appointed the labor man I had all along
had in view, Mr. E. E. Clark, the head of the Brotherhood of Railway
Conductors, calling him an "eminent sociologist"--a term which I doubt
whether he had ever previously heard. He was a first-class man, whom
I afterward put on the Inter-State Commerce Commission. I added to the
Arbitration Commission, on my own authority, a sixth member, in the
person of Bishop Spalding, a Catholic bishop, of Peoria, Ill., one of
the very best men to be found in the entire country. The man whom the
operators had expected me to appoint as the sociologist was Carroll
Wright--who really was an eminent sociologist. I put him on as recorder
of the Commission, and added him as a seventh member as soon as
the Commission got fairly started. In publishing the list of the
Commissioners, when I came to Clark's appointment, I added: "As a
sociologist--the President assuming that for the purposes of such a
Commission, the term sociologist means a man who has thought and studied
deeply on social questions and has practically applied his knowledge."

The relief of the whole country was so great that the sudden appearance
of the head of the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors as an "eminent
sociologist" merely furnished material for puzzled comment on the part
of the press. It was a most admirable Commission. It did a noteworthy
work, and its report is a monument in the history of the relations of
labor and capital in this country. The strike, by the way, brought me
into contact with more than one man who was afterward a valued friend
and fellow-worker. On the suggestion of Carroll Wright I appointed as
assistant recorders to the Commission Charles P. Neill, whom I afterward
made Labor Commissioner, to succeed Wright himself, and Mr. Edward
A. Moseley. Wilkes-Barre was the center of the strike; and the man in
Wilkes-Barre who helped me most was Father Curran; I grew to know
and trust and believe in him, and throughout my term in office, and
afterward, he was not only my stanch friend, but one of the men by whose
advice and counsel I profited most in matters affecting the welfare of
the miners and their families.

I was greatly relieved at the result, for more than one reason. Of
course, first and foremost, my concern was to avert a frightful calamity
to the United States. In the next place I was anxious to save the great
coal operators and all of the class of big propertied men, of which they
were members, from the dreadful punishment which their own folly would
have brought on them if I had not acted; and one of the exasperating
things was that they were so blinded that they could not see that I was
trying to save them from themselves and to avert, not only for their
sakes, but for the sake of the country, the excesses which would have
been indulged in at their expense if they had longer persisted in their
conduct.

The great Anthracite Strike of 1902 left an indelible impress upon
the people of the United States. It showed clearly to all wise and
far-seeing men that the labor problem in this country had entered upon
a new phase. Industry had grown. Great financial corporations, doing a
nation-wide and even a world-wide business, had taken the place of
the smaller concerns of an earlier time. The old familiar, intimate
relations between employer and employee were passing. A few generations
before, the boss had known every man in his shop; he called his men
Bill, Tom, Dick, John; he inquired after their wives and babies; he
swapped jokes and stories and perhaps a bit of tobacco with them. In the
small establishment there had been a friendly human relationship between
employer and employee.

There was no such relation between the great railway magnates, who
controlled the anthracite industry, and the one hundred and fifty
thousand men who worked in their mines, or the half million women and
children who were dependent upon these miners for their daily bread.
Very few of these mine workers had ever seen, for instance, the
president of the Reading Railroad. Had they seen him many of them could
not have spoken to him, for tens of thousands of the mine workers were
recent immigrants who did not understand the language which he spoke and
who spoke a language which he could not understand.

Again, a few generations ago an American workman could have saved money,
gone West and taken up a homestead. Now the free lands were gone. In
earlier days a man who began with pick and shovel might have come to own
a mine. That outlet too was now closed, as regards the immense majority,
and few, if any, of the one hundred and fifty thousand mine workers
could ever aspire to enter the small circle of men who held in their
grasp the great anthracite industry. The majority of the men who earned
wages in the coal industry, if they wished to progress at all, were
compelled to progress not by ceasing to be wage-earners, but by
improving the conditions under which all the wage-earners in all the
industries of the country lived and worked, as well of course, as
improving their own individual efficiency.

Another change which had come about as a result of the foregoing was a
crass inequality in the bargaining relation between the employer and
the individual employee standing alone. The great coal-mining and
coal-carrying companies, which employed their tens of thousands, could
easily dispense with the services of any particular miner. The miner, on
the other hand, however expert, could not dispense with the companies.
He needed a job; his wife and children would starve if he did not get
one. What the miner had to sell--his labor--was a perishable commodity;
the labor of to-day--if not sold to-day--was lost forever. Moreover,
his labor was not like most commodities--a mere thing; it was part of
a living, breathing human being. The workman saw, and all citizens who
gave earnest thought to the matter saw, that the labor problem was not
only an economic, but also a moral, a human problem. Individually the
miners were impotent when they sought to enter a wage-contract with the
great companies; they could make fair terms only by uniting into trade
unions to bargain collectively. The men were forced to cooperate to
secure not only their economic, but their simple human rights. They,
like other workmen, were compelled by the very conditions under which
they lived to unite in unions of their industry or trade, and these
unions were bound to grow in size, in strength, and in power for good
and evil as the industries in which the men were employed grew larger
and larger.

A democracy can be such in fact only if there is some rough
approximation in similarity in stature among the men composing it. One
of us can deal in our private lives with the grocer or the butcher
or the carpenter or the chicken raiser, or if we are the grocer or
carpenter or butcher or farmer, we can deal with our customers, because
_we are all of about the same size_. Therefore a simple and poor society
can exist as a democracy on a basis of sheer individualism. But a rich
and complex industrial society cannot so exist; for some individuals,
and especially those artificial individuals called corporations, become
so very big that the ordinary individual is utterly dwarfed beside them,
and cannot deal with them on terms of equality. It therefore becomes
necessary for these ordinary individuals to combine in their turn, first
in order to act in their collective capacity through that biggest of all
combinations called the Government, and second, to act, also in their
own self-defense, through private combinations, such as farmers'
associations and trade unions.

This the great coal operators did not see. They did not see that their
property rights, which they so stoutly defended, were of the same
texture as were the human rights, which they so blindly and hotly
denied. They did not see that the power which they exercised by
representing their stockholders was of the same texture as the power
which the union leaders demanded of representing the workmen, who had
democratically elected them. They did not see that the right to use
one's property as one will can be maintained only so long as it is
consistent with the maintenance of certain fundamental human rights, of
the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or, as we
may restate them in these later days, of the rights of the worker to a
living wage, to reasonable hours of labor, to decent working and
living conditions, to freedom of thought and speech and industrial
representation,--in short, to a measure of industrial democracy and, in
return for his arduous toil, to a worthy and decent life according to
American standards. Still another thing these great business leaders did
not see. They did not see that both their interests and the interests of
the workers must be accommodated, and if need be, subordinated, to the
fundamental permanent interests of the whole community. No man and no
group of men may so exercise their rights as to deprive the nation of
the things which are necessary and vital to the common life. A strike
which ties up the coal supplies of a whole section is a strike invested
with a public interest.

So great was that public interest in the Coal Strike of 1902, so deeply
and strongly did I feel the wave of indignation which swept over the
whole country that had I not succeeded in my efforts to induce the
operators to listen to reason, I should reluctantly but none the less
decisively have taken a step which would have brought down upon my head
the execrations of many of "the captains of industry," as well as of
sundry "respectable" newspapers who dutifully take their cue from them.
As a man should be judged by his intentions as well as by his actions, I
will give here the story of the intervention that never happened.

While the coal operators were exulting over the fact that they had
"turned down" the miners and the President, there arose in all parts
of the country an outburst of wrath so universal that even so naturally
conservative a man as Grover Cleveland wrote to me, expressing his
sympathy with the course I was following, his indignation at the conduct
of the operators, and his hope that I would devise some method of
effective action. In my own mind I was already planning effective
action; but it was of a very drastic character, and I did not wish
to take it until the failure of all other expedients had rendered it
necessary. Above all, I did not wish to talk about it until and unless I
actually acted. I had definitely determined that somehow or other act
I would, that somehow or other the coal famine should be broken. To
accomplish this end it was necessary that the mines should be run, and,
if I could get no voluntary agreement between the contending sides, that
an Arbitration Commission should be appointed which would command such
public confidence as to enable me, without too much difficulty, to
enforce its terms upon both parties. Ex-President Cleveland's letter not
merely gratified me, but gave me the chance to secure him as head of the
Arbitration Commission. I at once wrote him, stating that I would very
probably have to appoint an Arbitration Commission or Investigating
Commission to look into the matter and decide on the rights of the
case, whether or not the operators asked for or agreed to abide by the
decisions of such a Commission; and that I would ask him to accept the
chief place on the Commission. He answered that he would do so. I picked
out several first-class men for other positions on the Commission.

Meanwhile the Governor of Pennsylvania had all the Pennsylvania
militia in the anthracite region, although without any effect upon the
resumption of mining. The method of action upon which I had determined
in the last resort was to get the Governor of Pennsylvania to ask me
to keep order. Then I would put in the army under the command of some
first-rate general. I would instruct this general to keep absolute
order, taking any steps whatever that was necessary to prevent
interference by the strikers or their sympathizers with men who wanted
to work. I would also instruct him to dispossess the operators and run
the mines as a receiver until such time as the Commission might make its
report, and until I, as President, might issue further orders in view of
this report. I had to find a man who possessed the necessary good sense,
judgment, and nerve to act in such event. He was ready to hand in the
person of Major-General Schofield. I sent for him, telling him that if
I had to make use of him it would be because the crisis was only less
serious than that of the Civil War, that the action taken would be
practically a war measure, and that if I sent him he must act in a
purely military capacity under me as commander-in-chief, paying no heed
to any authority, judicial or otherwise, except mine. He was a fine
fellow--a most respectable-looking old boy, with side whiskers and a
black skull-cap, without any of the outward aspect of the conventional
military dictator; but in both nerve and judgment he was all right, and
he answered quietly that if I gave the order he would take possession
of the mines, and would guarantee to open them and to run them without
permitting any interference either by the owners or the strikers or
anybody else, so long as I told him to stay. I then saw Senator Quay,
who, like every other responsible man in high position, was greatly
wrought up over the condition of things. I told him that he need be
under no alarm as to the problem not being solved, that I was going to
make another effort to get the operators and miners to come together,
but that I would solve the problem in any event and get coal; that,
however, I did not wish to tell him anything of the details of my
intention, but merely to have him arrange that whenever I gave the word
the Governor of Pennsylvania should request me to intervene; that when
this was done I would be responsible for all that followed, and would
guarantee that the coal famine would end forthwith. The Senator made
no inquiry or comment, and merely told me that he in his turn would
guarantee that the Governor would request my intervention the minute I
asked that the request be made.

These negotiations were concluded with the utmost secrecy, General
Schofield being the only man who knew exactly what my plan was, and
Senator Quay, two members of my Cabinet, and ex-President Cleveland and
the other men whom I proposed to put on the Commission, the only other
men who knew that I had a plan. As I have above outlined, my efforts to
bring about an agreement between the operators and miners were finally
successful. I was glad not to have to take possession of the mines on my
own initiative by means of General Schofield and the regulars. I was all
ready to act, and would have done so without the slightest hesitation or
a moment's delay if the negotiations had fallen through. And my action
would have been entirely effective. But it is never well to take drastic
action if the result can be achieved with equal efficiency in less
drastic fashion; and, although this was a minor consideration, I was
personally saved a good deal of future trouble by being able to avoid
this drastic action. At the time I should have been almost unanimously
supported. With the famine upon them the people would not have tolerated
any conduct that would have thwarted what I was doing. Probably no man
in Congress, and no man in the Pennsylvania State Legislature, would
have raised his voice against me. Although there would have been
plenty of muttering, nothing would have been done to interfere with the
solution of the problem which I had devised, _until the solution was
accomplished and the problem ceased to be a problem_. Once this was
done, and when people were no longer afraid of a coal famine, and began
to forget that they ever had been afraid of it, and to be indifferent as
regards the consequences to those who put an end to it, then my enemies
would have plucked up heart and begun a campaign against me. I doubt if
they could have accomplished much anyway, for the only effective remedy
against me would have been impeachment, and that they would not have
ventured to try.[*]

     [*] One of my appointees on the Anthracite Strike Commission
     was Judge George Gray, of Delaware, a Democrat whose
     standing in the country was second only to that of Grover
     Cleveland. A year later he commented on my action as
     follows:

"I have no hesitation in saying that the President of the United States
was confronted in October, 1902, by the existence of a crisis more grave
and threatening than any that had occurred since the Civil War. I mean
that the cessation of mining in the anthracite country, brought about
by the dispute between the miners and those who controlled the greatest
natural monopoly in this country and perhaps in the world, had
brought upon more than one-half of the American people a condition
of deprivation of one of the necessaries of life, and the probable
continuance of the dispute threatened not only the comfort and health,
but the safety and good order, of the nation. He was without legal or
constitutional power to interfere, but his position as President of the
United States gave him an influence, a leadership, as first citizen
of the republic, that enabled him to appeal to the patriotism and good
sense of the parties to the controversy and to place upon them the moral
coercion of public opinion to agree to an arbitrament of the strike then
existing and threatening consequences so direful to the whole country.
He acted promptly and courageously, and in so doing averted the dangers
to which I have alluded.

"So far from interfering or infringing upon property rights, the
Presidents' action tended to conserve them. The peculiar situation, as
regards the anthracite coal interest, was that they controlled a natural
monopoly of a product necessary to the comfort and to the very life of a
large portion of the people. A prolonged deprivation of the enjoyment of
this necessary of life would have tended to precipitate an attack upon
these property rights of which you speak; for, after all, it is vain
to deny that this property, so peculiar in its conditions, and which
is properly spoken of as a natural monopoly, is affected with a public
interest.

"I do not think that any President ever acted more wisely, courageously
or promptly in a national crisis. Mr. Roosevelt deserves unstinted
praise for what he did."

They would doubtless have acted precisely as they acted as regards the
acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903, and the stoppage of
the panic of 1907 by my action in the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company
matter. Nothing could have made the American people surrender the canal
zone. But after it was an accomplished fact, and the canal was
under way, then they settled down to comfortable acceptance of the
accomplished fact, and as their own interests were no longer in
jeopardy, they paid no heed to the men who attacked me because of what I
had done--and also continue to attack me, although they are exceedingly
careful not to propose to right the "wrong," in the only proper way if
it really was a wrong, by replacing the old Republic of Panama under the
tyranny of Colombia and giving Colombia sole or joint ownership of
the canal itself. In the case of the panic of 1907 (as in the case
of Panama), what I did was not only done openly, but depended for its
effect upon being done and with the widest advertisement. Nobody in
Congress ventured to make an objection at the time. No serious leader
outside made any objection. The one concern of everybody was to stop
the panic, and everybody was overjoyed that I was willing to take the
responsibility of stopping it upon my own shoulders. But a few months
afterward, the panic was a thing of the past. People forgot the
frightful condition of alarm in which they had been. They no longer had
a personal interest in preventing any interference with the stoppage of
the panic. Then the men who had not dared to raise their voices until
all danger was past came bravely forth from their hiding places and
denounced the action which had saved them. They had kept a hushed
silence when there was danger; they made clamorous outcry when there was
safety in doing so.

Just the same course would have been followed in connection with the
Anthracite Coal Strike if I had been obliged to act in the fashion I
intended to act had I failed to secure a voluntary agreement between the
miners and the operators. Even as it was, my action was remembered with
rancor by the heads of the great moneyed interests; and as time went by
was assailed with constantly increasing vigor by the newspapers these
men controlled. Had I been forced to take possession of the mines,
these men and the politicians hostile to me would have waited until the
popular alarm was over and the popular needs met, just as they waited
in the case of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; and then they
would have attacked me precisely as they did attack me as regards the
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company.

Of course, in labor controversies it was not always possible to champion
the cause of the workers, because in many cases strikes were called
which were utterly unwarranted and were fought by methods which cannot
be too harshly condemned. No straightforward man can believe, and no
fearless man will assert, that a trade union is always right. That
man is an unworthy public servant who by speech or silence, by direct
statement or cowardly evasion, invariably throws the weight of his
influence on the side of the trade union, whether it is right or wrong.
It has occasionally been my duty to give utterance to the feelings of
all right thinking men by expressing the most emphatic disapproval of
unwise or even immoral notions by representatives of labor. The man is
no true democrat, and if an American, is unworthy of the traditions
of his country who, in problems calling for the exercise of a moral
judgment, fails to take his stand on conduct and not on class. There are
good and bad wage-workers just as there are good and bad employers, and
good and bad men of small means and of large means alike.

But a willingness to do equal and exact justice to all citizens,
irrespective of race, creed, section or economic interest and position,
does not imply a failure to recognize the enormous economic, political
and moral possibilities of the trade union. Just as democratic
government cannot be condemned because of errors and even crimes
committed by men democratically elected, so trade-unionism must not be
condemned because of errors or crimes of occasional trade-union leaders.
The problem lies deeper. While we must repress all illegalities and
discourage all immoralities, whether of labor organizations or of
corporations, we must recognize the fact that to-day the organization of
labor into trade unions and federations is necessary, is beneficent,
and is one of the greatest possible agencies in the attainment of a true
industrial, as well as a true political, democracy in the United States.

This is a fact which many well-intentioned people even to-day do not
understand. They do not understand that the labor problem is a human
and a moral as well as an economic problem; that a fall in wages, an
increase in hours, a deterioration of labor conditions mean wholesale
moral as well as economic degeneration, and the needless sacrifice of
human lives and human happiness, while a rise of wages, a lessening of
hours, a bettering of conditions, mean an intellectual, moral and social
uplift of millions of American men and women. There are employers to-day
who, like the great coal operators, speak as though they were lords of
these countless armies of Americans, who toil in factory, in shop, in
mill and in the dark places under the earth. They fail to see that all
these men have the right and the duty to combine to protect themselves
and their families from want and degradation. They fail to see that
the Nation and the Government, within the range of fair play and a just
administration of the law, must inevitably sympathize with the men who
have nothing but their wages, with the men who are struggling for
a decent life, as opposed to men, however honorable, who are merely
fighting for larger profits and an autocratic control of big business.
Each man should have all he earns, whether by brain or body; and
the director, the great industrial leader, is one of the greatest of
earners, and should have a proportional reward; but no man should live
on the earnings of another, and there should not be too gross inequality
between service and reward.

There are many men to-day, men of integrity and intelligence, who
honestly believe that we must go back to the labor conditions of half
a century ago. They are opposed to trade unions, root and branch. They
note the unworthy conduct of many labor leaders, they find instances
of bad work by union men, of a voluntary restriction of output, of
vexations and violent strikes, of jurisdictional disputes between unions
which often disastrously involve the best intentioned and fairest of
employers. All these things occur and should be repressed. But the same
critic of the trade union might find equal causes of complaint against
individual employers of labor, or even against great associations of
manufacturers. He might find many instances of an unwarranted cutting of
wages, of flagrant violations of factory laws and tenement house laws,
of the deliberate and systematic cheating of employees by means of truck
stores, of the speeding up of work to a point which is fatal to the
health of the workman, of the sweating of foreign-born workers, of
the drafting of feeble little children into dusty workshops, of
black-listing, of putting spies into union meetings and of the
employment in strike times of vicious and desperate ruffians, who
are neither better nor worse than are the thugs who are occasionally
employed by unions under the sinister name, "entertainment committees."
I believe that the overwhelming majority, both of workmen and of
employers, are law-abiding peaceful, and honorable citizens, and I do
not think that it is just to lay up the errors and wrongs of individuals
to the entire group to which they belong. I also think--and this is
a belief which has been borne upon me through many years of practical
experience--that the trade union is growing constantly in wisdom as well
as in power, and is becoming one of the most efficient agencies toward
the solution of our industrial problems, the elimination of poverty and
of industrial disease and accidents, the lessening of unemployment,
the achievement of industrial democracy and the attainment of a larger
measure of social and industrial justice.

If I were a factory employee, a workman on the railroads or a
wage-earner of any sort, I would undoubtedly join the union of my trade.
If I disapproved of its policy, I would join in order to fight that
policy; if the union leaders were dishonest, I would join in order to
put them out. I believe in the union and I believe that all men who are
benefited by the union are morally bound to help to the extent of their
power in the common interests advanced by the union. Nevertheless,
irrespective of whether a man should or should not, and does or does
not, join the union of his trade, all the rights, privileges and
immunities of that man as an American and as a citizen should be
safeguarded and upheld by the law. We dare not make an outlaw of any
individual or any group, whatever his or its opinions or professions.
The non-unionist, like the unionist, must be protected in all his legal
rights by the full weight and power of the law.

This question came up before me in the shape of the right of a non-union
printer named Miller to hold his position in the Government Printing
Office. As I said before, I believe in trade unions. I always prefer to
see a union shop. But any private preferences cannot control my public
actions. The Government can recognize neither union men nor non-union
men as such, and is bound to treat both exactly alike. In the Government
Printing Office not many months prior to the opening of the Presidential
campaign of 1904, when I was up for reelection, I discovered that a man
had been dismissed because he did not belong to the union. I reinstated
him. Mr. Gompers, the President of the American Federation of Labor,
with various members of the executive council of that body, called upon
me to protest on September 29, 1903, and I answered them as follows:

"I thank you and your committee for your courtesy, and I appreciate the
opportunity to meet with you. It will always be a pleasure to see you
or any representative of your organizations or of your Federation as a
whole.

"As regards the Miller case, I have little to add to what I have already
said. In dealing with it I ask you to remember that I am dealing purely
with the relation of the Government to its employees. I must govern
my action by the laws of the land, which I am sworn to administer,
and which differentiate any case in which the Government of the United
States is a party from all other cases whatsoever. These laws are
enacted for the benefit of the whole people, and cannot and must not be
construed as permitting the crimination against some of the people. I
am President of all the people of the United States, without regard to
creed, color, birthplace, occupation or social condition. My aim is
to do equal and exact justice as among them all. In the employment and
dismissal of men in the Government service I can no more recognize
the fact that a man does or does not belong to a union as being for or
against him than I can recognize the fact that he is a Protestant or a
Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or against him.

"In the communications sent me by various labor organizations protesting
against the retention of Miller in the Government Printing Office, the
grounds alleged are twofold: 1, that he is a non-union man; 2, that he
is not personally fit. The question of his personal fitness is one to be
settled in the routine of administrative detail, and cannot be allowed
to conflict with or to complicate the larger question of governmental
discrimination for or against him or any other man because he is or is
not a member of a union. This is the only question now before me for
decision; and as to this my decision is final."

Because of things I have done on behalf of justice to the workingman, I
have often been called a Socialist. Usually I have not taken the trouble
even to notice the epithet. I am not afraid of names, and I am not
one of those who fear to do what is right because some one else will
confound me with partisans with whose principles I am not in accord.
Moreover, I know that many American Socialists are high-minded and
honorable citizens, who in reality are merely radical social reformers.
They are oppressed by the brutalities and industrial injustices which we
see everywhere about us. When I recall how often I have seen Socialists
and ardent non-Socialists working side by side for some specific measure
of social or industrial reform, and how I have found opposed to them on
the side of privilege many shrill reactionaries who insist on calling
all reformers Socialists, I refuse to be panic-stricken by having this
title mistakenly applied to me.

None the less, without impugning their motives, I do disagree most
emphatically with both the fundamental philosophy and the proposed
remedies of the Marxian Socialists. These Socialists are unalterably
opposed to our whole industrial system. They believe that the payment of
wages means everywhere and inevitably an exploitation of the laborer
by the employer, and that this leads inevitably to a class war between
those two groups, or, as they would say, between the capitalists and the
proletariat. They assert that this class war is already upon us and
can only be ended when capitalism is entirely destroyed and all the
machines, mills, mines, railroads and other private property used in
production are confiscated, expropriated or taken over by the workers.
They do not as a rule claim--although some of the sinister extremists
among them do--that there is and must be a continual struggle between
two great classes, whose interests are opposed and cannot be reconciled.
In this war they insist that the whole government--National, State and
local--is on the side of the employers and is used by them against
the workmen, and that our law and even our common morality are class
weapons, like a policeman's club or a Gatling gun.

I have never believed, and do not to-day believe, that such a class war
is upon us, or need ever be upon us; nor do I believe that the interests
of wage-earners and employers cannot be harmonized, compromised and
adjusted. It would be idle to deny that wage-earners have certain
different economic interests from, let us say, manufacturers or
importers, just as farmers have different interests from sailors, and
fishermen from bankers. There is no reason why any of these economic
groups should not consult their group interests by any legitimate means
and with due regard to the common, overlying interests of all. I do
not even deny that the majority of wage-earners, because they have less
property and less industrial security than others and because they do
not own the machinery with which they work (as does the farmer) are
perhaps in greater need of acting together than are other groups in the
community. But I do insist (and I believe that the great majority of
wage-earners take the same view) that employers and employees have
overwhelming interests in common, both as partners in industry and as
citizens of the republic, and that where these interests are apart they
can be adjusted by so altering our laws and their interpretation as to
secure to all members of the community social and industrial justice.

I have always maintained that our worst revolutionaries to-day are those
reactionaries who do not see and will not admit that there is any need
for change. Such men seem to believe that the four and a half million
Progressive voters, who in 1912 registered their solemn protest against
our social and industrial injustices, are "anarchists," who are not
willing to let ill enough alone. If these reactionaries had lived at an
earlier time in our history, they would have advocated Sedition Laws,
opposed free speech and free assembly, and voted against free schools,
free access by settlers to the public lands, mechanics' lien laws, the
prohibition of truck stores and the abolition of imprisonment for debt;
and they are the men who to-day oppose minimum wage laws, insurance
of workmen against the ills of industrial life and the reform of
our legislators and our courts, which can alone render such measures
possible. Some of these reactionaries are not bad men, but merely
shortsighted and belated. It is these reactionaries, however, who, by
"standing pat" on industrial injustice, incite inevitably to industrial
revolt, and it is only we who advocate political and industrial
democracy who render possible the progress of our American industry
on large constructive lines with a minimum of friction because with a
maximum of justice.

Everything possible should be done to secure the wage-workers fair
treatment. There should be an increased wage for the worker of
increased productiveness. Everything possible should be done against the
capitalist who strives, not to reward special efficiency, but to use
it as an excuse for reducing the reward of moderate efficiency. The
capitalist is an unworthy citizen who pays the efficient man no more
than he has been content to pay the average man, and nevertheless
reduces the wage of the average man; and effort should be made by the
Government to check and punish him. When labor-saving machinery
is introduced, special care should be taken--by the Government if
necessary--to see that the wage-worker gets his share of the benefit,
and that it is not all absorbed by the employer or capitalist. The
following case, which has come to my knowledge, illustrates what I mean.
A number of new machines were installed in a certain shoe factory, and
as a result there was a heavy increase in production even though there
was no increase in the labor force. Some of the workmen were instructed
in the use of these machines by special demonstrators sent out by the
makers of the machines. These men, by reason of their special aptitudes
and the fact that they were not called upon to operate the machines
continuously nine hours every day, week in and week out, but only for an
hour or so at special times, were naturally able to run the machines at
their maximum capacity. When these demonstrators had left the factory,
and the company's own employees had become used to operating the
machines at a fair rate of speed, the foreman of the establishment
gradually speeded the machines and demanded a larger and still larger
output, constantly endeavoring to drive the men on to greater exertions.
Even with a slightly less maximum capacity, the introduction of this
machinery resulted in a great increase over former production with the
same amount of labor; and so great were the profits from the business in
the following two years as to equal the total capitalized stock of the
company. But not a cent got into the pay envelope of the workmen beyond
what they had formerly been receiving before the introduction of this
new machinery, notwithstanding that it had meant an added strain,
physical and mental, upon their energies, and that they were forced
to work harder than ever before. The whole of the increased profits
remained with the company. Now this represented an "increase of
efficiency," with a positive decrease of social and industrial justice.
The increase of prosperity which came from increase of production in no
way benefited the wage-workers. I hold that they were treated with gross
injustice; and that society, acting if necessary through the Government,
in such a case should bend its energies to remedy such injustice; and
I will support any proper legislation that will aid in securing the
desired end.

The wage-worker should not only receive fair treatment; he should give
fair treatment. In order that prosperity may be passed around it is
necessary that the prosperity exist. In order that labor shall receive
its fair share in the division of reward it is necessary that there be
a reward to divide. Any proposal to reduce efficiency by insisting that
the most efficient shall be limited in their output to what the least
efficient can do, is a proposal to limit by so much production, and
therefore to impoverish by so much the public, and specifically to
reduce the amount that can be divided among the producers. This is all
wrong. Our protest must be against unfair division of the reward for
production. Every encouragement should be given the business man, the
employer, to make his business prosperous, and therefore to earn more
money for himself; and in like fashion every encouragement should be
given the efficient workman. We must always keep in mind that to reduce
the amount of production serves merely to reduce the amount that is
to be divided, is in no way permanently efficient as a protest against
unequal distribution and is permanently detrimental to the entire
community. But increased productiveness is not secured by excessive
labor amid unhealthy surroundings. The contrary is true. Shorter hours,
and healthful conditions, and opportunity for the wage-worker to make
more money, and the chance for enjoyment as well as work, all add to
efficiency. My contention is that there should be no penalization of
efficient productiveness, brought about under healthy conditions;
but that every increase of production brought about by an increase in
efficiency should benefit all the parties to it, including wage-workers
as well as employers or capitalists, men who work with their hands as
well as men who work with their heads.

With the Western Federation of Miners I more than once had serious
trouble. The leaders of this organization had preached anarchy, and
certain of them were indicted for having practiced murder in the case of
Governor Steunenberg, of Idaho. On one occasion in a letter or speech I
coupled condemnation of these labor leaders and condemnation of certain
big capitalists, describing them all alike as "undesirable citizens."
This gave great offense to both sides. The open attack upon me was made
for the most part either by the New York newspapers which were frankly
representatives of Wall Street, or else by those so-called--and
miscalled--Socialists who had anarchistic leanings. Many of the latter
sent me open letters of denunciation, and to one of them I responded as
follows:

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, April 22, 1907.

Dear Sir:

I have received your letter of the 19th instant, in which you enclose
the draft of the formal letter which is to follow. I have been notified
that several delegations, bearing similar requests, are on the way
hither. In the letter you, on behalf of the Cook County, Moyer-Haywood
conference, protest against certain language I used in a recent letter
which you assert to be designed to influence the course of justice
in the case of the trial for murder of Messrs. Moyer and Haywood. I
entirely agree with you that it is improper to endeavor to influence the
course of justice, whether by threats or in any similar manner. For this
reason I have regretted most deeply the actions of such organizations as
your own in undertaking to accomplish this very result in the very case
of which you speak. For instance, your letter is headed "Cook
County Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Conference," with the headlines:
"_Death_--cannot--will not--and shall not claim our brothers!" This
shows that you and your associates are not demanding a fair trial, or
working for a fair trial, but are announcing in advance that the verdict
shall only be one way and that you will not tolerate any other verdict.
Such action is flagrant in its impropriety, and I join heartily in
condemning it.

But it is a simple absurdity to suppose that because any man is on trial
for a given offense he is therefore to be freed from all criticism upon
his general conduct and manner of life. In my letter to which you object
I referred to a certain prominent financier, Mr. Harriman, on the one
hand, and to Messrs. Moyer, Haywood and Debs on the other, as being
equally undesirable citizens. It is as foolish to assert that this was
designed to influence the trial of Moyer and Haywood as to assert that
it was designed to influence the suits that have been brought against
Mr. Harriman. I neither expressed nor indicated any opinion as to
whether Messrs. Moyer and Haywood were guilty of the murder of Governor
Steunenberg. If they are guilty, they certainly ought to be punished.
If they are not guilty, they certainly ought not to be punished. But no
possible outcome either of the trial or the suits can affect my judgment
as to the undesirability of the type of citizenship of those whom I
mentioned. Messrs. Moyer, Haywood, and Debs stand as representatives of
those men who have done as much to discredit the labor movement as the
worst speculative financiers or most unscrupulous employers of labor and
debauchers of legislatures have done to discredit honest capitalists and
fair-dealing business men. They stand as the representatives of those
men who by their public utterances and manifestoes, by the utterances of
the papers they control or inspire, and by the words and deeds of those
associated with or subordinated to them, habitually appear as guilty of
incitement to or apology for bloodshed and violence. If this does
not constitute undesirable citizenship, then there can never be any
undesirable citizens. The men whom I denounce represent the men who
have abandoned that legitimate movement for the uplifting of labor, with
which I have the most hearty sympathy; they have adopted practices which
cut them off from those who lead this legitimate movement. In every way
I shall support the law-abiding and upright representatives of labor,
and in no way can I better support them than by drawing the sharpest
possible line between them on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
those preachers of violence who are themselves the worst foes of the
honest laboring man.

Let me repeat my deep regret that any body of men should so far forget
their duty to the country as to endeavor by the formation of societies
and in other ways to influence the course of justice in this matter.
I have received many such letters as yours. Accompanying them
were newspaper clippings announcing demonstrations, parades, and
mass-meetings designed to show that the representatives of labor,
without regard to the facts, demand the acquittal of Messrs. Haywood and
Moyer. Such meetings can, of course, be designed only to coerce court
or jury in rendering a verdict, and they therefore deserve all the
condemnation which you in your letters say should be awarded to those
who endeavor improperly to influence the course of justice.

You would, of course, be entirely within your rights if you merely
announced that you thought Messrs. Moyer and Haywood were "desirable
citizens"--though in such case I should take frank issue with you and
should say that, wholly without regard to whether or not they are guilty
of the crime for which they are now being tried, they represent as
thoroughly undesirable a type of citizenship as can be found in this
country; a type which, in the letter to which you so unreasonably take
exception, I showed not to be confined to any one class, but to exist
among some representatives of great capitalists as well as among some
representatives of wage-workers. In that letter I condemned both types.
Certain representatives of the great capitalists in turn condemned
me for including Mr. Harriman in my condemnation of Messrs. Moyer and
Haywood. Certain of the representatives of labor in their turn condemned
me because I included Messrs. Moyer and Haywood as undesirable citizens
together with Mr. Harrison. I am as profoundly indifferent to the
condemnation in one case as in the other. I challenge as a right the
support of all good Americans, whether wage-workers or capitalists,
whatever their occupation or creed, or in whatever portion of the
country they live, when I condemn both the types of bad citizenship
which I have held up to reprobation. It seems to be a mark of utter
insincerity to fail thus to condemn both; and to apologize for either
robs the man thus apologizing of all right to condemn any wrongdoing in
any man, rich or poor, in public or in private life.

You say you ask for a "square deal" for Messrs. Moyer and Haywood. So
do I. When I say "Square deal," I mean a square deal to every one; it is
equally a violation of the policy of the square deal for a capitalist to
protest against denunciation of a capitalist who is guilty of wrongdoing
and for a labor leader to protest against the denunciation of a labor
leader who has been guilty of wrongdoing. I stand for equal justice to
both; and so far as in my power lies I shall uphold justice, whether
the man accused of guilt has behind him the wealthiest corporation, the
greatest aggregations of riches in the country, or whether he has behind
him the most influential labor organization in the country.

I treated anarchists and the bomb-throwing and dynamiting gentry
precisely as I treated other criminals. Murder is murder. It is not
rendered one whit better by the allegation that it is committed
on behalf of "a cause." It is true that law and order are not all
sufficient; but they are essential; lawlessness and murderous violence
must be quelled before any permanence of reform can be obtained. Yet
when they have been quelled, the beneficiaries of the enforcement of
law must in their turn be taught that law is upheld as a means to the
enforcement of justice, and that we will not tolerate its being turned
into an engine of injustice and oppression. The fundamental need in
dealing with our people, whether laboring men or others, is not charity
but justice; we must all work in common for the common end of
helping each and all, in a spirit of the sanest, broadest and deepest
brotherhood.

It was not always easy to avoid feeling very deep anger with the
selfishness and short-sightedness shown both by the representatives of
certain employers' organizations and by certain great labor federations
or unions. One such employers' association was called the National
Association of Manufacturers. Extreme though the attacks sometimes made
upon me by the extreme labor organizations were, they were not quite
as extreme as the attacks made upon me by the head of the National
Association of Manufacturers, and as regards their attitude toward
legislation I came to the conclusion toward the end of my term that the
latter had actually gone further the wrong way than did the former--and
the former went a good distance also. The opposition of the National
Association of Manufacturers to every rational and moderate measure
for benefiting workingmen, such as measures abolishing child labor, or
securing workmen's compensation, caused me real and grave concern; for
I felt that it was ominous of evil for the whole country to have men who
ought to stand high in wisdom and in guiding force take a course and use
language of such reactionary type as directly to incite revolution--for
this is what the extreme reactionary always does.

Often I was attacked by the two sides at once. In the spring of 1906 I
received in the same mail a letter from a very good friend of mine who
thought that I had been unduly hard on some labor men, and a letter from
another friend, the head of a great corporation, who complained about me
for both favoring labor and speaking against large fortunes. My answers
ran as follows:

April 26, 1906.

"Personal. _My dear Doctor_:

"In one of my last letters to you I enclosed you a copy of a letter of
mine, in which I quoted from [So and so's] advocacy of murder. You may
be interested to know that he and his brother Socialists--in reality
anarchists--of the frankly murderous type have been violently attacking
my speech because of my allusion to the sympathy expressed for murder.
In _The Socialist_, of Toledo, Ohio, of April 21st, for instance, the
attack [on me] is based specifically on the following paragraph of my
speech, to which he takes violent exception:

"We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the man of capital
than evil in the man of no capital. The wealthy man who exults because
there is a failure of justice in the effort to bring some trust magnate
to an account for his misdeeds is as bad as, and no worse than, the
so-called labor leader who clamorously strives to excite a foul class
feeling on behalf of some other labor leader who is implicated in
murder. One attitude is as bad as the other, and no worse; in each case
the accused is entitled to exact justice; and in neither case is there
need of action by others which can be construed into an expression of
sympathy for crime.

"Remember that this crowd of labor leaders have done all in their
power to overawe the executive and the courts of Idaho on behalf of men
accused of murder, and beyond question inciters of murder in the past."

April 26, 1906.

"_My dear Judge_:

"I wish the papers had given more prominence to what I said as to the
murder part of my speech. But oh, my dear sir, I utterly and radically
disagree with you in what you say about large fortunes. I wish it were
in my power to devise some scheme to make it increasingly difficult to
heap them up beyond a certain amount. As the difficulties in the way
of such a scheme are very great, let us at least prevent their being
bequeathed after death or given during life to any one man in excessive
amount.

"You and other capitalist friends, on one side, shy off at what I say
against them. Have you seen the frantic articles against me by [the
anarchists and] the Socialists of the bomb-throwing persuasion, on the
other side, because of what I said in my speech in reference to those
who, in effect, advocate murder?"

On another occasion I was vehemently denounced in certain capitalistic
papers because I had a number of labor leaders, including miners from
Butte, lunch with me at the White House; and this at the very time that
the Western Federation of Miners was most ferocious in its denunciation
of me because of what it alleged to be my unfriendly attitude toward
labor. To one of my critics I set forth my views in the following
letter:

November 26, 1903.

"I have your letter of the 25th instant, with enclosure. These men, not
all of whom were miners, by the way, came here and were at lunch with
me, in company with Mr. Carroll D. Wright, Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, and
Secretary Cortelyou. They are as decent a set of men as can be. They all
agreed entirely with me in my denunciation of what had been done in the
Court d'Alene country; and it appeared that some of them were on the
platform with me when I denounced this type of outrage three years ago
in Butte. There is not one man who was here, who, I believe, was in
any way, shape or form responsible for such outrages. I find that the
ultra-Socialistic members of the unions in Butte denounced these men for
coming here, in a manner as violent--and I may say as irrational--as the
denunciation [by the capitalistic writer] in the article you sent me.
Doubtless the gentleman of whom you speak as your general manager is
an admirable man. I, of course, was not alluding to him; but I most
emphatically _was_ alluding to men who write such articles as that you
sent me. These articles are to be paralleled by the similar articles in
the Populist and Socialist papers when two years ago I had at dinner
at one time Pierpont Morgan, and at another time J. J. Hill, and at
another, Harriman, and at another time Schiff. Furthermore, they could
be paralleled by the articles in the same type of paper which at the
time of the Miller incident in the Printing Office were in a condition
of nervous anxiety because I met the labor leaders to discuss it. It
would have been a great misfortune if I had not met them; and it would
have been an even greater misfortune if after meeting them I had yielded
to their protests in the matter.

"You say in your letter that you know that I am 'on record' as opposed
to violence. Pardon my saying that this seems to me not the right way to
put the matter, if by 'record' you mean utterance and not action. Aside
from what happened when I was Governor in connection, for instance with
the Croton dam strike riots, all you have to do is to turn back to what
took place last June in Arizona--and you can find out about it from
[Mr. X] of New York. The miners struck, violence followed, and the
Arizona Territorial authorities notified me they could not grapple with
the situation. Within twenty minutes of the receipt of the telegram,
orders were issued to the nearest available troops, and twenty-four
hours afterwards General Baldwin and his regulars were on the ground,
and twenty-four hours later every vestige of disorder had disappeared.
The Miners' Federation in their meeting, I think at Denver, a short
while afterwards, passed resolutions denouncing me. I do not know
whether the _Mining and Engineering Journal_ paid any heed to this
incident or know of it. If the _Journal_ did, I suppose it can hardly
have failed to understand that to put an immediate stop to rioting by
the use of the United States army is a fact of importance beside which
the criticism of my having 'labor leaders' to lunch, shrinks into the
same insignificance as the criticism in a different type of paper about
my having 'trust magnates' to lunch. While I am President I wish the
labor man to feel that he has the same right of access to me that the
capitalist has; that the doors swing open as easily to the wage-worker
as to the head of a big corporation--_and no easier_. Anything else
seems to be not only un-American, but as symptomatic of an attitude
which will cost grave trouble if persevered in. To discriminate against
labor men from Butte because there is reason to believe that rioting has
been excited in other districts by certain labor unions, or individuals
in labor unions in Butte, would be to adopt precisely the attitude of
those who desire me to discriminate against all capitalists in Wall
street because there are plenty of capitalists in Wall Street who
have been guilty of bad financial practices and who have endeavored to
override or evade the laws of the land. In my judgment, the only safe
attitude for a private citizen, and still more for a public servant, to
assume, is that he will draw the line on conduct, discriminating against
neither corporation nor union as such, nor in favor of either as such,
but endeavoring to make the decent member of the union and the upright
capitalists alike feel that they are bound, not only by self-interest,
but by every consideration of principle and duty to stand together on
the matters of most moment to the nation."

On another of the various occasions when I had labor leaders to dine
at the White House, my critics were rather shocked because I had John
Morley to meet them. The labor leaders in question included the heads
of the various railroad brotherhoods, men like Mr. Morrissey, in
whose sound judgment and high standard of citizenship I had peculiar
confidence; and I asked Mr. Morley to meet them because they represented
the exact type of American citizen with whom I thought he ought to be
brought in contact.

One of the devices sometimes used by big corporations to break down the
law was to treat the passage of laws as an excuse for action on their
part which they knew would be resented by the public, it being their
purpose to turn this resentment against the law instead of against
themselves. The heads of the Louisville and Nashville road were bitter
opponents of everything done by the Government toward securing good
treatment for their employees. In February, 1908, they and various
other railways announced that they intended to reduce the wages of
their employees. A general strike, with all the attendant disorder and
trouble, was threatened in consequence. I accordingly sent the following
open letter to the Inter-State Commerce Commission:

February 16, 1908.

"To the Inter-State Commerce Commission:

"I am informed that a number of railroad companies have served notice
of a proposed reduction of wages of their employees. One of them, the
Louisville and Nashville, in announcing the reduction, states that 'the
drastic laws inimical to the interests of the railroads that have in the
past year or two been enacted by Congress and the State Legislatures'
are largely or chiefly responsible for the conditions requiring the
reduction.

"Under such circumstances it is possible that the public may soon be
confronted by serious industrial disputes, and the law provides that in
such case either party may demand the services of your Chairman and
of the Commissioner of Labor as a Board of Mediation and Conciliation.
These reductions in wages may be warranted, or they may not. As to this
the public, which is a vitally interested party, can form no judgment
without a more complete knowledge of the essential facts and real merits
of the case than it now has or than it can possibly obtain from the
special pleadings, certain to be put forth by each side in case their
dispute should bring about serious interruption to traffic. If the
reduction in wages is due to natural causes, the loss of business being
such that the burden should be and is, equitably distributed between
capitalist and wage-worker, the public should know it. If it is caused
by legislation, the public, and Congress, should know it; and if it is
caused by misconduct in the past financial or other operations of any
railroad, then everybody should know it, especially if the excuse of
unfriendly legislation is advanced as a method of covering up past
business misconduct by the railroad managers, or as a justification for
failure to treat fairly the wage-earning employees of the company.

"Moreover, an industrial conflict between a railroad corporation and
its employees offers peculiar opportunities to any small number of
evil-disposed persons to destroy life and property and foment public
disorder. Of course, if life, property, and public order are endangered,
prompt and drastic measures for their protection become the first plain
duty. All other issues then become subordinate to the preservation of
the public peace, and the real merits of the original controversy are
necessarily lost from view. This vital consideration should be ever
kept in mind by all law-abiding and far-sighted members of labor
organizations.

"It is sincerely to be hoped, therefore, that any wage controversy that
may arise between the railroads and their employees may find a peaceful
solution through the methods of conciliation and arbitration already
provided by Congress, which have proven so effective during the past
year. To this end the Commission should be in a position to have
available for any Board of Conciliation or Arbitration relevant data
pertaining to such carriers as may become involved in industrial
disputes. Should conciliation fail to effect a settlement and
arbitration be rejected, accurate information should be available in
order to develop a properly informed public opinion.

"I therefore ask you to make such investigation, both of your records
and by any other means at your command, as will enable you to furnish
data concerning such conditions obtaining on the Louisville and
Nashville and any other roads, as may relate, directly or indirectly, to
the real merits of the possibly impending controversy.

"THEODORE ROOSEVELT."

This letter achieved its purpose, and the threatened reduction of
wages was not made. It was an instance of what could be accomplished
by governmental action. Let me add, however, with all the emphasis I
possess, that this does not mean any failure on my part to recognize the
fact that if governmental action places too heavy burdens on railways,
it will be impossible for them to operate without doing injustice to
somebody. Railways cannot pay proper wages and render proper service
unless they make money. The investors must get a reasonable profit or
they will not invest, and the public cannot be well served unless the
investors are making reasonable profits. There is every reason why rates
should not be too high, but they must be sufficiently high to allow
the railways to pay good wages. Moreover, when laws like workmen's
compensation laws, and the like are passed, it must always be kept in
mind by the Legislature that the purpose is to distribute over the whole
community a burden that should not be borne only by those least able
to bear it--that is, by the injured man or the widow and orphans of the
dead man. If the railway is already receiving a disproportionate return
from the public, then the burden may, with propriety, bear purely on the
railway; but if it is not earning a disproportionate return, then the
public must bear its share of the burden of the increased service the
railway is rendering. Dividends and wages should go up together; and the
relation of rates to them should never be forgotten. This of course does
not apply to dividends based on water; nor does it mean that if foolish
people have built a road that renders no service, the public must
nevertheless in some way guarantee a return on the investment; but it
does mean that the interests of the honest investor are entitled to
the same protection as the interests of the honest manager, the honest
shipper and the honest wage-earner. All these conflicting considerations
should be carefully considered by Legislatures before passing laws. One
of the great objects in creating commissions should be the provision of
disinterested, fair-minded experts who will really and wisely consider
all these matters, and will shape their actions accordingly. This is one
reason why such matters as the regulation of rates, the provision for
full crews on roads and the like should be left for treatment by railway
commissions, and not be settled off hand by direct legislative action.



APPENDIX

SOCIALISM

As regards what I have said in this chapter concerning Socialism, I
wish to call especial attention to the admirable book on "Marxism versus
Socialism," which has just been published by Vladimir D. Simkhovitch.
What I have, here and elsewhere, merely pointed out in rough and
ready fashion from actual observation of the facts of life around me,
Professor Simkhovitch in his book has discussed with keen practical
insight, with profundity of learning, and with a wealth of applied
philosophy. Crude thinkers in the United States, and moreover honest and
intelligent men who are not crude thinkers, but who are oppressed by
the sight of the misery around them and have not deeply studied what has
been done elsewhere, are very apt to adopt as their own the theories
of European Marxian Socialists of half a century ago, ignorant that the
course of events has so completely falsified the prophecies contained
in these theories that they have been abandoned even by the authors
themselves. With quiet humor Professor Simkhovitch now and then makes
an allusion which shows that he appreciates to perfection this rather
curious quality of some of our fellow countrymen; as for example when
he says that "A Socialist State with the farmer outside of it is a
conception that can rest comfortably only in the head of an American
Socialist," or as when he speaks of Marx and Engels as men "to whom
thinking was not an irrelevant foreign tradition." Too many thoroughly
well-meaning men and women in the America of to-day glibly repeat and
accept--much as medieval schoolmen repeated and accepted authorized
dogma in their day--various assumptions and speculations by Marx and
others which by the lapse of time and by actual experiment have been
shown to possess not one shred of value. Professor Simkhovitch possesses
the gift of condensation as well as the gift of clear and logical
statement, and it is not possible to give in brief any idea of his
admirable work. Every social reformer who desires to face facts should
study it--just as social reformers should study John Graham Brooks's
"American Syndicalism." From Professor Simkhovitch's book we Americans
should learn: First, to discard crude thinking; second, to realize that
the orthodox or so-called scientific or purely economic or materialistic
socialism of the type preached by Marx is an exploded theory; and,
third, that many of the men who call themselves Socialists to-day are in
reality merely radical social reformers, with whom on many points good
citizens can and ought to work in hearty general agreement, and whom
in many practical matters of government good citizens well afford to
follow.



CHAPTER XIV

THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE PANAMA CANAL

No nation can claim rights without acknowledging the duties that go
with the rights. It is a contemptible thing for a great nation to render
itself impotent in international action, whether because of cowardice or
sloth, or sheer inability or unwillingness to look into the future. It
is a very wicked thing for a nation to do wrong to others. But the most
contemptible and most wicked course of conduct is for a nation to use
offensive language or be guilty of offensive actions toward other people
and yet fail to hold its own if the other nation retaliates; and it is
almost as bad to undertake responsibilities and then not fulfil them.
During the seven and a half years that I was President, this Nation
behaved in international matters toward all other nations precisely as
an honorable man behaves to his fellow-men. We made no promise which
we could not and did not keep. We made no threat which we did not carry
out. We never failed to assert our rights in the face of the strong, and
we never failed to treat both strong and weak with courtesy and justice;
and against the weak when they misbehaved we were slower to assert our
rights than we were against the strong.

As a legacy of the Spanish War we were left with peculiar relations
to the Philippines, Cuba, and Porto Rico, and with an immensely added
interest in Central America and the Caribbean Sea. As regards the
Philippines my belief was that we should train them for self-government
as rapidly as possible, and then leave them free to decide their own
fate. I did not believe in setting the time-limit within which we would
give them independence, because I did not believe it wise to try to
forecast how soon they would be fit for self-government; and once having
made the promise I would have felt that it was imperative to keep it.
Within a few months of my assuming office we had stamped out the last
armed resistance in the Philippines that was not of merely sporadic
character; and as soon as peace was secured we turned our energies to
developing the islands in the interests of the natives. We established
schools everywhere; we built roads; we administered an even-handed
justice; we did everything possible to encourage agriculture and
industry; and in constantly increasing measure we employed natives to
do their own governing, and finally provided a legislative chamber. No
higher grade of public officials ever handled the affairs of any colony
than the public officials who in succession governed the Philippines.
With the possible exception of the Sudan, and not even excepting
Algiers, I know of no country ruled and administered by men of the white
race where that rule and that administration have been exercised
so emphatically with an eye single to the welfare of the natives
themselves. The English and Dutch administrators of Malaysia have done
admirable work; but the profit to the Europeans in those States has
always been one of the chief elements considered; whereas in the
Philippines our whole attention was concentrated upon the welfare of the
Filipinos themselves, if anything to the neglect of our own interests.

I do not believe that America has any special beneficial interest in
retaining the Philippines. Our work there has benefited us only as
any efficiently done work performed for the benefit of others does
incidentally help the character of those who do it. The people of the
islands have never developed so rapidly, from every standpoint, as
during the years of the American occupation. The time will come when
it will be wise to take their own judgment as to whether they wish to
continue their association with America or not. There is, however,
one consideration upon which we should insist. Either we should
retain complete control of the islands, or absolve ourselves from all
responsibility for them. Any half and half course would be both foolish
and disastrous. We are governing and have been governing the islands
in the interests of the Filipinos themselves. If after due time the
Filipinos themselves decide that they do not wish to be thus governed,
then I trust that we will leave; but when we do leave it must be
distinctly understood that we retain no protectorate--and above all that
we take part in no joint protectorate--over the islands, and give
them no guarantee, of neutrality or otherwise; that, in short, we
are absolutely quit of responsibility for them, of every kind and
description.

The Filipinos were quite incapable of standing by themselves when we
took possession of the islands, and we had made no promise concerning
them. But we had explicitly promised to leave the island of Cuba,
had explicitly promised that Cuba should be independent. Early in my
administration that promise was redeemed. When the promise was made,
I doubt if there was a single ruler or diplomat in Europe who believed
that it would be kept. As far as I know, the United States was the first
power which, having made such a promise, kept it in letter and spirit.
England was unwise enough to make such a promise when she took Egypt.
It would have been a capital misfortune to have kept the promise,
and England has remained in Egypt for over thirty years, and will
unquestionably remain indefinitely; but though it is necessary for her
to do so, the fact of her doing so has meant the breaking of a positive
promise and has been a real evil. Japan made the same guarantee about
Korea, but as far as can be seen there was never even any thought of
keeping the promise in this case; and Korea, which had shown herself
utterly impotent either for self-government or self-defense, was in
actual fact almost immediately annexed to Japan.

We made the promise to give Cuba independence; and we kept the promise.
Leonard Wood was left in as Governor for two or three years, and evolved
order out of chaos, raising the administration of the island to a level,
moral and material, which it had never before achieved. We also by
treaty gave the Cubans substantial advantages in our markets. Then we
left the island, turning the government over to its own people. After
four or five years a revolution broke out, during my administration, and
we again had to intervene to restore order. We promptly sent thither a
small army of pacification. Under General Barry, order was restored and
kept, and absolute justice done. The American troops were then withdrawn
and the Cubans reestablished in complete possession of their own
beautiful island, and they are in possession of it now. There are plenty
of occasions in our history when we have shown weakness or inefficiency,
and some occasions when we have not been as scrupulous as we should have
been as regards the rights of others. But I know of no action by
any other government in relation to a weaker power which showed such
disinterested efficiency in rendering service as was true in connection
with our intervention in Cuba.

In Cuba, as in the Philippines and as in Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and
later in Panama, no small part of our success was due to the fact that
we put in the highest grade of men as public officials. This practice
was inaugurated under President McKinley. I found admirable men in
office, and I continued them and appointed men like them as their
successors. The way that the custom-houses in Santo Domingo were
administered by Colton definitely established the success of our
experiment in securing peace for that island republic; and in Porto
Rico, under the administration of affairs under such officials as Hunt,
Winthrop, Post, Ward and Grahame, more substantial progress was achieved
in a decade than in any previous century.

The Philippines, Cuba, and Porto Rico came within our own sphere of
governmental action. In addition to this we asserted certain rights in
the Western Hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine. My endeavor was not
only to assert these rights, but frankly and fully to acknowledge the
duties that went with the rights.

The Monroe Doctrine lays down the rule that the Western Hemisphere is
not hereafter to be treated as subject to settlement and occupation
by Old World powers. It is not international law; but it is a cardinal
principle of our foreign policy. There is no difficulty at the present
day in maintaining this doctrine, save where the American power whose
interest is threatened has shown itself in international matters both
weak and delinquent. The great and prosperous civilized commonwealths,
such as the Argentine, Brazil, and Chile, in the Southern half of South
America, have advanced so far that they no longer stand in any position
of tutelage toward the United States. They occupy toward us precisely
the position that Canada occupies. Their friendship is the friendship of
equals for equals. My view was that as regards these nations there was
no more necessity for asserting the Monroe Doctrine than there was to
assert it in regard to Canada. They were competent to assert it for
themselves. Of course if one of these nations, or if Canada, should be
overcome by some Old World power, which then proceeded to occupy its
territory, we would undoubtedly, if the American Nation needed our help,
give it in order to prevent such occupation from taking place. But the
initiative would come from the Nation itself, and the United States
would merely act as a friend whose help was invoked.

The case was (and is) widely different as regards certain--not all--of
the tropical states in the neighborhood of the Caribbean Sea. Where
these states are stable and prosperous, they stand on a footing of
absolute equality with all other communities. But some of them have
been a prey to such continuous revolutionary misrule as to have grown
impotent either to do their duties to outsiders or to enforce their
rights against outsiders. The United States has not the slightest desire
to make aggressions on any one of these states. On the contrary, it
will submit to much from them without showing resentment. If any great
civilized power, Russia or Germany, for instance, had behaved toward us
as Venezuela under Castro behaved, this country would have gone to war
at once. We did not go to war with Venezuela merely because our people
declined to be irritated by the actions of a weak opponent, and showed a
forbearance which probably went beyond the limits of wisdom in refusing
to take umbrage at what was done by the weak; although we would
certainly have resented it had it been done by the strong. In the case
of two states, however, affairs reached such a crisis that we had to
act. These two states were Santo Domingo and the then owner of the
Isthmus of Panama, Colombia.

The Santo Domingan case was the less important; and yet it possessed a
real importance, and moreover is instructive because the action there
taken should serve as a precedent for American action in all similar
cases. During the early years of my administration Santo Domingo was in
its usual condition of chronic revolution. There was always fighting,
always plundering; and the successful graspers for governmental power
were always pawning ports and custom-houses, or trying to put them up as
guarantees for loans. Of course the foreigners who made loans under
such conditions demanded exorbitant interest, and if they were Europeans
expected their governments to stand by them. So utter was the disorder
that on one occasion when Admiral Dewey landed to pay a call of ceremony
on the President, he and his party were shot at by revolutionists in
crossing the square, and had to return to the ships, leaving the call
unpaid. There was default on the interest due to the creditors; and
finally the latter insisted upon their governments intervening. Two or
three of the European powers were endeavoring to arrange for concerted
action, and I was finally notified that these powers intended to take
and hold several of the seaports which held custom-houses.

This meant that unless I acted at once I would find foreign powers in
partial possession of Santo Domingo; in which event the very individuals
who, in the actual event deprecated the precaution taken to prevent such
action, would have advocated extreme and violent measures to undo the
effect of their own supineness. Nine-tenths of wisdom is to be wise in
time, and at the right time; and my whole foreign policy was based
on the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action
sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis to make it improbable
that we would run into serious trouble.

Santo Domingo had fallen into such chaos that once for some weeks there
were two rival governments in it, and a revolution was being carried
on against each. At one period one government was at sea in a small
gunboat, but still stoutly maintained that it was in possession of
the island and entitled to make loans and declare peace or war. The
situation had become intolerable by the time that I interfered. There
was a naval commander in the waters whom I directed to prevent any
fighting which might menace the custom-houses. He carried out his
orders, both to his and my satisfaction, in thoroughgoing fashion. On
one occasion, when an insurgent force threatened to attack a town in
which Americans had interests, he notified the commanders on both sides
that he would not permit any fighting in the town, but that he would
appoint a certain place where they could meet and fight it out, and that
the victors should have the town. They agreed to meet his wishes,
the fight came off at the appointed place, and the victors, who if I
remember rightly were the insurgents, were given the town.

It was the custom-houses that caused the trouble, for they offered the
only means of raising money, and the revolutions were carried on to
get possession of them. Accordingly I secured an agreement with the
governmental authorities, who for the moment seemed best able to speak
for the country, by which these custom-houses were placed under American
control. The arrangement was that we should keep order and prevent any
interference with the custom-houses or the places where they stood, and
should collect the revenues. Forty-five per cent of the revenue was then
turned over to the Santo Domingan Government, and fifty-five per cent
put in a sinking fund in New York for the benefit of the creditors. The
arrangement worked in capital style. On the forty-five per cent basis
the Santo Domingan Government received from us a larger sum than it
had ever received before when nominally all the revenue went to it. The
creditors were entirely satisfied with the arrangement, and no excuse
for interference by European powers remained. Occasional disturbances
occurred in the island, of course, but on the whole there ensued a
degree of peace and prosperity which the island had not known before for
at least a century.

All this was done without the loss of a life, with the assent of all
the parties in interest, and without subjecting the United States to
any charge, while practically all of the interference, after the
naval commander whom I have mentioned had taken the initial steps in
preserving order, consisted in putting a first-class man trained in our
insular service at the head of the Santo Domingan customs service. We
secured peace, we protected the people of the islands against foreign
foes, and we minimized the chance of domestic trouble. We satisfied the
creditors and the foreign nations to which the creditors belonged; and
our own part of the work was done with the utmost efficiency and with
rigid honesty, so that not a particle of scandal was ever so much as
hinted at.

Under these circumstances those who do not know the nature of the
professional international philanthropists would suppose that these
apostles of international peace would have been overjoyed with what we
had done. As a matter of fact, when they took any notice of it at all it
was to denounce it; and those American newspapers which are fondest
of proclaiming themselves the foes of war and the friends of peace
violently attacked me for averting war from, and bringing peace to, the
island. They insisted I had no power to make the agreement, and demanded
the rejection of the treaty which was to perpetuate the agreement. They
were, of course, wholly unable to advance a single sound reason of any
kind for their attitude. I suppose the real explanation was partly their
dislike of me personally, and unwillingness to see peace come through or
national honor upheld by me; and in the next place their sheer, simple
devotion to prattle and dislike of efficiency. They liked to have people
come together and talk about peace, or even sign bits of paper with
something about peace or arbitration on them, but they took no interest
whatever in the practical achievement of a peace that told for good
government and decency and honesty. They were joined by the many
moderately well-meaning men who always demand that a thing be done, but
also always demand that it be not done in the only way in which it is,
as a matter of fact, possible to do it. The men of this kind insisted
that of course Santo Domingo must be protected and made to behave
itself, and that of course the Panama Canal must be dug; but they
insisted even more strongly that neither feat should be accomplished in
the only way in which it was possible to accomplish it at all.

The Constitution did not explicitly give me power to bring about the
necessary agreement with Santo Domingo. But the Constitution did not
forbid my doing what I did. I put the agreement into effect, and I
continued its execution for two years before the Senate acted; and I
would have continued it until the end of my term, if necessary, without
any action by Congress. But it was far preferable that there should be
action by Congress, so that we might be proceeding under a treaty which
was the law of the land and not merely by a direction of the Chief
Executive which would lapse when that particular executive left office.
I therefore did my best to get the Senate to ratify what I had done.
There was a good deal of difficulty about it. With the exception of one
or two men like Clark of Arkansas, the Democratic Senators acted in that
spirit of unworthy partisanship which subordinates national interest to
some fancied partisan advantage, and they were cordially backed by all
that portion of the press which took its inspiration from Wall Street,
and was violently hostile to the Administration because of its attitude
towards great corporations. Most of the Republican Senators under
the lead of Senator Lodge stood by me; but some of them, of the more
"conservative" or reactionary type, who were already growing hostile
to me on the trust question, first proceeded to sneer at what had
been done, and to raise all kinds of meticulous objections, which they
themselves finally abandoned, but which furnished an excuse on which
the opponents of the treaty could hang adverse action. Unfortunately the
Senators who were most apt to speak of the dignity of the Senate, and to
insist upon its importance, were the very ones who were also most apt
to try to make display of this dignity and importance by thwarting the
public business. This case was typical. The Republicans in question
spoke against certain provisions of the proposed treaty. They then,
having ingeniously provided ammunition for the foes of the treaty,
abandoned their opposition to it, and the Democrats stepped into the
position they had abandoned. Enough Republicans were absent to prevent
the securing of a two-thirds vote for the treaty, and the Senate
adjourned without any action at all, and with a feeling of entire
self-satisfaction at having left the country in the position of assuming
a responsibility and then failing to fulfil it. Apparently the Senators
in question felt that in some way they had upheld their dignity. All
that they had really done was to shirk their duty. Somebody had to do
that duty, and accordingly I did it. I went ahead and administered the
proposed treaty anyhow, considering it as a simple agreement on the part
of the Executive which would be converted into a treaty whenever
the Senate acted. After a couple of years the Senate did act, having
previously made some utterly unimportant changes which I ratified and
persuaded Santo Domingo to ratify. In all its history Santo Domingo has
had nothing happen to it as fortunate as this treaty, and the passing of
it saved the United States from having to face serious difficulties with
one or more foreign powers.

It cannot in the long run prove possible for the United States
to protect delinquent American nations from punishment for the
non-performance of their duties unless she undertakes to make them
perform their duties. People may theorize about this as much as
they wish, but whenever a sufficiently strong outside nation becomes
sufficiently aggrieved, then either that nation will act or the United
States Government itself will have to act. We were face to face at one
period of my administration with this condition of affairs in Venezuela,
when Germany, rather feebly backed by England, undertook a blockade
against Venezuela to make Venezuela adopt the German and English view
about certain agreements. There was real danger that the blockade would
finally result in Germany's taking possession of certain cities or
custom-houses. I succeeded, however, in getting all the parties in
interest to submit their cases to the Hague Tribunal.

By far the most important action I took in foreign affairs during the
time I was President related to the Panama Canal. Here again there was
much accusation about my having acted in an "unconstitutional" manner--a
position which can be upheld only if Jefferson's action in acquiring
Louisiana be also treated as unconstitutional; and at different stages
of the affair believers in a do-nothing policy denounced me as having
"usurped authority"--which meant, that when nobody else could or would
exercise efficient authority, I exercised it.

During the nearly four hundred years that had elapsed since Balboa
crossed the Isthmus, there had been a good deal of talk about building
an Isthmus canal, and there had been various discussions of the subject
and negotiations about it in Washington for the previous half century.
So far it had all resulted merely in conversation; and the time had come
when unless somebody was prepared to act with decision we would have
to resign ourselves to at least half a century of further conversation.
Under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty signed shortly after I became President,
and thanks to our negotiations with the French Panama Company, the
United States at last acquired a possession, so far as Europe was
concerned, which warranted her in immediately undertaking the task. It
remained to decide where the canal should be, whether along the line
already pioneered by the French company in Panama, or in Nicaragua.
Panama belonged to the Republic of Colombia. Nicaragua bid eagerly for
the privilege of having the United States build the canal through her
territory. As long as it was doubtful which route we would decide
upon, Colombia extended every promise of friendly cooperation; at the
Pan-American Congress in Mexico her delegate joined in the unanimous
vote which requested the United States forthwith to build the canal; and
at her eager request we negotiated the Hay-Herran Treaty with her, which
gave us the right to build the canal across Panama. A board of experts
sent to the Isthmus had reported that this route was better than the
Nicaragua route, and that it would be well to build the canal over it
provided we could purchase the rights of the French company for forty
million dollars; but that otherwise they would advise taking the
Nicaragua route. Ever since 1846 we had had a treaty with the power then
in control of the Isthmus, the Republic of New Granada, the predecessor
of the Republic of Colombia and of the present Republic of Panama, by
which treaty the United States was guaranteed free and open right of way
across the Isthmus of Panama by any mode of communication that might
be constructed, while in return our Government guaranteed the perfect
neutrality of the Isthmus with a view to the preservation of free
transit.

For nearly fifty years we had asserted the right to prevent the closing
of this highway of commerce. Secretary of State Cass in 1858 officially
stated the American position as follows:

"Sovereignty has its duties as well as its rights, and none of these
local governments, even if administered with more regard to the just
demands of other nations than they have been, would be permitted, in a
spirit of Eastern isolation, to close the gates of intercourse of the
great highways of the world, and justify the act by the pretension that
these avenues of trade and travel belong to them and that they choose
to shut them, or, what is almost equivalent, to encumber them with such
unjust relations as would prevent their general use."

We had again and again been forced to intervene to protect the transit
across the Isthmus, and the intervention was frequently at the request
of Colombia herself. The effort to build a canal by private capital had
been made under De Lesseps and had resulted in lamentable failure. Every
serious proposal to build the canal in such manner had been abandoned.
The United States had repeatedly announced that we would not permit
it to be built or controlled by any old-world government. Colombia was
utterly impotent to build it herself. Under these circumstances it
had become a matter of imperative obligation that we should build it
ourselves without further delay.

I took final action in 1903. During the preceding fifty-three years the
Governments of New Granada and of its successor, Colombia, had been in
a constant state of flux; and the State of Panama had sometimes been
treated as almost independent, in a loose Federal league, and sometimes
as the mere property of the Government at Bogota; and there had been
innumerable appeals to arms, sometimes of adequate, sometimes for
inadequate, reasons. The following is a partial list of the disturbances
on the Isthmus of Panama during the period in question, as reported to
us by our consuls. It is not possible to give a complete list, and
some of the reports that speak of "revolutions" must mean unsuccessful
revolutions:

May 22, 1850.--Outbreak; two Americans killed. War vessel demanded to
quell outbreak.

October, 1850.--Revolutionary plot to bring about independence of the
Isthmus.

July 22, 1851.--Revolution in four Southern provinces.

November 14, 1851.--Outbreak at Chagres. Man-of-war requested for
Chagres.

June 27, 1853.--Insurrection at Bogota, and consequent disturbance on
Isthmus. War vessel demanded.

May 23, 1854.--Political disturbances. War vessel requested.

June 28, 1854.--Attempted revolution.

October 24, 1854.--Independence of Isthmus demanded by provincial
legislature.

April, 1856.--Riot, and massacre of Americans.

May 4, 1856.--Riot.

May 18, 1856.--Riot.

June 3, 1856.--Riot.

October 2, 1856.--Conflict between two native parties. United States
force landed.

December 18, 1858.--Attempted secession of Panama.

April, 1859.--Riots.

September, 1860.--Outbreak.

October 4, 1860.--Landing of United States forces in consequence.

May 23, 1861.--Intervention of the United States force required, by
intendente.

October 2, 1861.--Insurrection and civil war.

April 4, 1862.--Measures to prevent rebels crossing Isthmus.

June 13, 1862.--Mosquera's troops refused admittance to Panama.

March, 1865.--Revolution, and United States troops landed.

August, 1865.--Riots; unsuccessful attempt to invade Panama.

March, 1866.--Unsuccessful revolution.

April, 1867.--Attempt to overthrow Government.

August, 1867.--Attempt at revolution.

July 5, 1868.--Revolution; provisional government inaugurated.

August 29, 1868.--Revolution; provisional government overthrown.

April, 1871.--Revolution; followed apparently by counter revolution.

April, 1873.--Revolution and civil war which lasted to October, 1875.

August, 1876.--Civil war which lasted until April, 1877.

July, 1878.--Rebellion.

December, 1878.--Revolt.

April, 1879.--Revolution.

June, 1879.--Revolution.

March, 1883.--Riot.

May, 1883.--Riot.

June, 1884.--Revolutionary attempt.

December, 1884.--Revolutionary attempt.

January, 1885.--Revolutionary disturbances.

March, 1885.--Revolution.

April, 1887.--Disturbance on Panama Railroad.

November, 1887.--Disturbance on line of canal.

January, 1889.--Riot.

January, 1895.--Revolution which lasted until April.

March, 1895.--Incendiary attempt.

October, 1899.--Revolution.

February, 1900, to July, 1900.--Revolution.

January, 1901.--Revolution.

July, 1901.--Revolutionary disturbances.

September, 1901.--City of Colon taken by rebels.

March, 1902.--Revolutionary disturbances.

July, 1902.--Revolution

The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, rebellions,
insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that occurred during the
period in question; yet they number fifty-three for the fifty-three
years, and they showed a tendency to increase, rather than decrease, in
numbers and intensity. One of them lasted for nearly three years before
it was quelled; another for nearly a year. In short, the experience
of over half a century had shown Colombia to be utterly incapable of
keeping order on the Isthmus. Only the active interference of the
United States had enabled her to preserve so much as a semblance of
sovereignty. Had it not been for the exercise by the United States of
the police power in her interest, her connection with the Isthmus would
have been sundered long before it was. In 1856, in 1860, in 1873, in
1885, in 1901, and again in 1902, sailors and marines from United States
warships were forced to land in order to patrol the Isthmus, to protect
life and property, and to see that the transit across the Isthmus
was kept open. In 1861, in 1862, in 1885, and in 1900, the Colombian
Government asked that the United States Government would land troops
to protect Colombian interests and maintain order on the Isthmus. The
people of Panama during the preceding twenty years had three times
sought to establish their independence by revolution or secession--in
1885, in 1895, and in 1899.

The peculiar relations of the United States toward the Isthmus, and the
acquiescence by Colombia in acts which were quite incompatible with the
theory of her having an absolute and unconditioned sovereignty on the
Isthmus, are illustrated by the following three telegrams between two of
our naval officers whose ships were at the Isthmus, and the Secretary
of the Navy on the occasion of the first outbreak that occurred on
the Isthmus after I became President (a year before Panama became
independent):

September 12, 1902.

Ranger, Panama:

United States guarantees perfect neutrality of Isthmus and that a free
transit from sea to sea be not interrupted or embarrassed. . . . Any
transportation of troops which might contravene these provisions of
treaty should not be sanctioned by you, nor should use of road be
permitted which might convert the line of transit into theater of
hostility.

MOODY.

COLON, September 20, 1902.

Secretary Navy, Washington:

Everything is conceded. The United States guards and guarantees traffic
and the line of transit. To-day I permitted the exchange of Colombian
troops from Panama to Colon, about 1000 men each way, the troops without
arms in trains guarded by American naval force in the same manner as
other passengers; arms and ammunition in separate train, guarded also by
naval force in the same manner as other freight.

MCLEAN.

PANAMA, October 3, 1902.

Secretary Navy, Washington, D.C.:

Have sent this communication to the American Consul at Panama:

"Inform Governor, while trains running under United States protection,
I must decline transportation any combatants, ammunition, arms, which
might cause interruption to traffic or convert line of transit into
theater hostilities."

CASEY.

When the Government in nominal control of the Isthmus continually
besought American interference to protect the "rights" it could not
itself protect, and permitted our Government to transport Colombian
troops unarmed, under protection of our own armed men, while the
Colombian arms and ammunition came in a separate train, it is obvious
that the Colombian "sovereignty" was of such a character as to warrant
our insisting that inasmuch as it only existed because of our protection
there should be in requital a sense of the obligations that the
acceptance of this protection implied.

Meanwhile Colombia was under a dictatorship. In 1898 M. A. Sanclamente
was elected President, and J. M. Maroquin Vice-President, of the
Republic of Colombia. On July 31, 1900, the Vice-President, Maroquin,
executed a "coup d'etat" by seizing the person of the President,
Sanclamente, and imprisoning him at a place a few miles out of Bogota.
Maroquin thereupon declared himself possessed of the executive power
because of "the absence of the President"--a delightful touch of
unconscious humor. He then issued a decree that public order was
disturbed, and, upon that ground, assumed to himself legislative power
under another provision of the constitution; that is, having
himself disturbed the public order, he alleged the disturbance as a
justification for seizing absolute power. Thenceforth Maroquin, without
the aid of any legislative body, ruled as a dictator, combining the
supreme executive, legislative, civil, and military authorities, in the
so-called Republic of Colombia. The "absence" of Sanclamente from the
capital became permanent by his death in prison in the year 1902. When
the people of Panama declared their independence in November, 1903, no
Congress had sat in Colombia since the year 1898, except the special
Congress called by Maroquin to reject the canal treaty, and which did
reject it by a unanimous vote, and adjourned without legislating on any
other subject. The constitution of 1886 had taken away from Panama the
power of self-government and vested it in Columbia. The _coup d'etat_
of Maroquin took away from Colombia herself the power of government and
vested it in an irresponsible dictator.

Consideration of the above facts ought to be enough to show any human
being that we were not dealing with normal conditions on the Isthmus
and in Colombia. We were dealing with the government of an irresponsible
alien dictator, and with a condition of affairs on the Isthmus
itself which was marked by one uninterrupted series of outbreaks
and revolutions. As for the "consent of the governed" theory, that
absolutely justified our action; the people on the Isthmus were the
"governed"; they were governed by Colombia, without their consent, and
they unanimously repudiated the Colombian government, and demanded that
the United States build the canal.

I had done everything possible, personally and through Secretary Hay,
to persuade the Colombian Government to keep faith. Under the
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, it was explicitly provided that the United States
should build the canal, should control, police and protect it, and keep
it open to the vessels of all nations on equal terms. We had assumed the
position of guarantor of the canal, including, of course, the building
of the canal, and of its peaceful use by all the world. The enterprise
was recognized everywhere as responding to an international need. It was
a mere travesty on justice to treat the government in possession of
the Isthmus as having the right--which Secretary Cass forty-five years
before had so emphatically repudiated--to close the gates of intercourse
on one of the great highways of the world. When we submitted to Colombia
the Hay-Herran Treaty, it had been settled that the time for delay,
the time for permitting any government of anti-social character, or of
imperfect development, to bar the work, had passed. The United States
had assumed in connection with the canal certain responsibilities not
only to its own people but to the civilized world, which imperatively
demanded that there should be no further delay in beginning the work.
The Hay-Herran Treaty, if it erred at all, erred in being overgenerous
toward Colombia. The people of Panama were delighted with the treaty,
and the President of Colombia, who embodied in his own person the entire
government of Colombia, had authorized the treaty to be made. But after
the treaty had been made the Colombia Government thought it had the
matter in its own hands; and the further thought, equally wicked and
foolish, came into the heads of the people in control at Bogota that
they would seize the French Company at the end of another year and take
for themselves the forty million dollars which the United States had
agreed to pay the Panama Canal Company.

President Maroquin, through his Minister, had agreed to the
Hay-Herran Treaty in January, 1903. He had the absolute power of an
unconstitutional dictator to keep his promise or break it. He determined
to break it. To furnish himself an excuse for breaking it he devised
the plan of summoning a Congress especially called to reject the canal
treaty. This the Congress--a Congress of mere puppets--did, without a
dissenting vote; and the puppets adjourned forthwith without legislating
on any other subject. The fact that this was a mere sham, and that the
President had entire power to confirm his own treaty and act on it if he
desired, was shown as soon as the revolution took place, for on November
6 General Reyes of Colombia addressed the American Minister at Bogota,
on behalf of President Maroquin, saying that "if the Government of the
United States would land troops and restore the Colombian sovereignty"
the Colombian President would "declare martial law; and, by virtue of
vested constitutional authority, when public order is disturbed, would
approve by decree the ratification of the canal treaty as signed; or, if
the Government of the United States prefers, would call an extra session
of the Congress--with new and friendly members--next May to approve the
treaty." This, of course, is proof positive that the Colombian dictator
had used his Congress as a mere shield, and a sham shield at that, and
it shows how utterly useless it would have been further to trust his
good faith in the matter.

When, in August, 1903, I became convinced that Colombia intended to
repudiate the treaty made the preceding January, under cover of securing
its rejection by the Colombian Legislature, I began carefully to
consider what should be done. By my direction, Secretary Hay, personally
and through the Minister at Bogota, repeatedly warned Colombia that
grave consequences might follow her rejection of the treaty. The
possibility of ratification did not wholly pass away until the close of
the session of the Colombian Congress on the last day of October. There
would then be two possibilities. One was that Panama would remain quiet.
In that case I was prepared to recommend to Congress that we should at
once occupy the Isthmus anyhow, and proceed to dig the canal; and I
had drawn out a draft of my message to this effect.[*] But from the
information I received, I deemed it likely that there would be a
revolution in Panama as soon as the Colombian Congress adjourned without
ratifying the treaty, for the entire population of Panama felt that
the immediate building of the canal was of vital concern to their
well-being. Correspondents of the different newspapers on the Isthmus
had sent to their respective papers widely published forecasts
indicating that there would be a revolution in such event.

     [*] See appendix at end of this chapter.

Moreover, on October 16, at the request of Lieutenant-General Young,
Captain Humphrey, and Lieutenant Murphy, two army officers who
had returned from the Isthmus, saw me and told me that there would
unquestionably be a revolution on the Isthmus, that the people were
unanimous in their criticism of the Bogota Government and their disgust
over the failure of that Government to ratify the treaty; and that the
revolution would probably take place immediately after the adjournment
of the Colombian Congress. They did not believe that it would be before
October 20, but they were confident that it would certainly come at the
end of October or immediately afterwards, when the Colombian Congress
had adjourned. Accordingly I directed the Navy Department to station
various ships within easy reach of the Isthmus, to be ready to act in
the event of need arising.

These ships were barely in time. On November 3 the revolution occurred.
Practically everybody on the Isthmus, including all the Colombian troops
that were already stationed there, joined in the revolution, and there
was no bloodshed. But on that same day four hundred new Colombian
troops were landed at Colon. Fortunately, the gunboat _Nashville_, under
Commander Hubbard, reached Colon almost immediately afterwards, and when
the commander of the Colombian forces threatened the lives and property
of the American citizens, including women and children, in Colon,
Commander Hubbard landed a few score sailors and marines to protect
them. By a mixture of firmness and tact he not only prevented any
assault on our citizens, but persuaded the Colombian commander to
reembark his troops for Cartagena. On the Pacific side a Colombian
gunboat shelled the City of Panama, with the result of killing one
Chinaman--the only life lost in the whole affair.

No one connected with the American Government had any part in preparing,
inciting, or encouraging the revolution, and except for the reports of
our military and naval officers, which I forwarded to Congress, no one
connected with the Government had any previous knowledge concerning the
proposed revolution, except such as was accessible to any person who
read the newspapers and kept abreast of current questions and current
affairs. By the unanimous action of its people, and without the firing
of a shot, the state of Panama declared themselves an independent
republic. The time for hesitation on our part had passed.

My belief then was, and the events that have occurred since have more
than justified it, that from the standpoint of the United States it
was imperative, not only for civil but for military reasons, that there
should be the immediate establishment of easy and speedy communication
by sea between the Atlantic and the Pacific. These reasons were not
of convenience only, but of vital necessity, and did not admit of
indefinite delay. The action of Colombia had shown not only that the
delay would be indefinite, but that she intended to confiscate the
property and rights of the French Panama Canal Company. The report of
the Panama Canal Committee of the Colombian Senate on October 14,
1903, on the proposed treaty with the United States, proposed that all
consideration of the matter should be postponed until October 31, 1904,
when the next Colombian Congress would have convened, because by that
time the new Congress would be in condition to determine whether through
lapse of time the French company had not forfeited its property and
rights. "When that time arrives," the report significantly declared,
"the Republic, without any impediment, will be able to contract and will
be in more clear, more definite and more advantageous possession, both
legally and materially." The naked meaning of this was that Colombia
proposed to wait a year, and then enforce a forfeiture of the rights and
property of the French Panama Company, so as to secure the forty million
dollars our Government had authorized as payment to this company. If we
had sat supine, this would doubtless have meant that France would have
interfered to protect the company, and we should then have had on the
Isthmus, not the company, but France; and the gravest international
complications might have ensued. Every consideration of international
morality and expediency, of duty to the Panama people, and of
satisfaction of our own national interests and honor, bade us take
immediate action. I recognized Panama forthwith on behalf of the United
States, and practically all the countries of the world immediately
followed suit. The State Department immediately negotiated a canal
treaty with the new Republic. One of the foremost men in securing the
independence of Panama, and the treaty which authorized the United
States forthwith to build the canal, was M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, an
eminent French engineer formerly associated with De Lesseps and then
living on the Isthmus; his services to civilization were notable, and
deserve the fullest recognition.

From the beginning to the end our course was straightforward and in
absolute accord with the highest of standards of international morality.
Criticism of it can come only from misinformation, or else from a
sentimentality which represents both mental weakness and a moral twist.
To have acted otherwise than I did would have been on my part betrayal
of the interests of the United States, indifference to the interests of
Panama, and recreancy to the interests of the world at large. Colombia
had forfeited every claim to consideration; indeed, this is not stating
the case strongly enough: she had so acted that yielding to her would
have meant on our part that culpable form of weakness which stands on a
level with wickedness. As for me personally, if I had hesitated to act,
and had not in advance discounted the clamor of those Americans who have
made a fetish of disloyalty to their country, I should have esteemed
myself as deserving a place in Dante's inferno beside the faint-hearted
cleric who was guilty of "il gran rifiuto." The facts I have given
above are mere bald statements from the record. They show that from
the beginning there had been acceptance of our right to insist on free
transit, in whatever form was best, across the Isthmus; and that towards
the end there had been a no less universal feeling that it was our
duty to the world to provide this transit in the shape of a canal--the
resolution of the Pan-American Congress was practically a mandate
to this effect. Colombia was then under a one-man government, a
dictatorship, founded on usurpation of absolute and irresponsible power.
She eagerly pressed us to enter into an agreement with her, as long
as there was any chance of our going to the alternative route through
Nicaragua. When she thought we were committed, she refused to fulfil the
agreement, with the avowed hope of seizing the French company's property
for nothing and thereby holding us up. This was a bit of pure bandit
morality. It would have achieved its purpose had I possessed as weak
moral fiber as those of my critics who announced that I ought to
have confined my action to feeble scolding and temporizing until the
opportunity for action passed. I did not lift my finger to incite the
revolutionists. The right simile to use is totally different. I simply
ceased to stamp out the different revolutionary fuses that were already
burning. When Colombia committed flagrant wrong against us, I considered
it no part of my duty to aid and abet her in her wrongdoing at our
expense, and also at the expense of Panama, of the French company,
and of the world generally. There had been fifty years of continuous
bloodshed and civil strife in Panama; because of my action Panama has
now known ten years of such peace and prosperity as she never before saw
during the four centuries of her existence--for in Panama, as in Cuba
and Santo Domingo, it was the action of the American people, against the
outcries of the professed apostles of peace, which alone brought peace.
We gave to the people of Panama self-government, and freed them from
subjection to alien oppressors. We did our best to get Colombia to let
us treat her with a more than generous justice; we exercised patience
to beyond the verge of proper forbearance. When we did act and recognize
Panama, Colombia at once acknowledged her own guilt by promptly offering
to do what we had demanded, and what she had protested it was not in her
power to do. But the offer came too late. What we would gladly have done
before, it had by that time become impossible for us honorably to do;
for it would have necessitated our abandoning the people of Panama, our
friends, and turning them over to their and our foes, who would have
wreaked vengeance on them precisely because they had shown friendship to
us. Colombia was solely responsible for her own humiliation; and she had
not then, and has not now, one shadow of claim upon us, moral or legal;
all the wrong that was done was done by her. If, as representing the
American people, I had not acted precisely as I did, I would have been
an unfaithful or incompetent representative; and inaction at that crisis
would have meant not only indefinite delay in building the canal, but
also practical admission on our part that we were not fit to play the
part on the Isthmus which we had arrogated to ourselves. I acted on my
own responsibility in the Panama matter. John Hay spoke of this action
as follows: "The action of the President in the Panama matter is not
only in the strictest accordance with the principles of justice and
equity, and in line with all the best precedents of our public policy,
but it was the only course he could have taken in compliance with our
treaty rights and obligations."

I deeply regretted, and now deeply regret, the fact that the Colombian
Government rendered it imperative for me to take the action I took; but
I had no alternative, consistent with the full performance of my duty
to my own people, and to the nations of mankind. (For, be it remembered,
that certain other nations, Chile for example, will probably benefit
even more by our action than will the United States itself.) I am well
aware that the Colombian people have many fine traits; that there is
among them a circle of high-bred men and women which would reflect
honor on the social life of any country; and that there has been an
intellectual and literary development within this small circle which
partially atones for the stagnation and illiteracy of the mass of the
people; and I also know that even the illiterate mass possesses many
sterling qualities. But unfortunately in international matters every
nation must be judged by the action of its Government. The good people
in Colombia apparently made no effort, certainly no successful effort,
to cause the Government to act with reasonable good faith towards the
United States; and Colombia had to take the consequences. If Brazil,
or the Argentine, or Chile, had been in possession of the Isthmus,
doubtless the canal would have been built under the governmental control
of the nation thus controlling the Isthmus, with the hearty acquiescence
of the United States and of all other powers. But in the actual fact the
canal would not have been built at all save for the action I took. If
men choose to say that it would have been better not to build it, than
to build it as the result of such action, their position, although
foolish, is compatible with belief in their wrongheaded sincerity. But
it is hypocrisy, alike odious and contemptible, for any man to say both
that we ought to have built the canal and that we ought not to have
acted in the way we did act.

After a sufficient period of wrangling, the Senate ratified the treaty
with Panama, and work on the canal was begun. The first thing that
was necessary was to decide the type of canal. I summoned a board of
engineering experts, foreign and native. They divided on their report.
The majority of the members, including all the foreign members, approved
a sea-level canal. The minority, including most of the American members,
approved a lock canal. Studying these conclusions, I came to the belief
that the minority was right. The two great traffic canals of the world
were the Suez and the Soo. The Suez Canal is a sea-level canal, and it
was the one best known to European engineers. The Soo Canal, through
which an even greater volume of traffic passes every year, is a lock
canal, and the American engineers were thoroughly familiar with it;
whereas, in my judgment, the European engineers had failed to pay proper
heed to the lessons taught by its operation and management. Moreover,
the engineers who were to do the work at Panama all favored a lock
canal. I came to the conclusion that a sea-level canal would be slightly
less exposed to damage in the event of war; that the running expenses,
apart from the heavy cost of interest on the amount necessary to build
it, would be less; and that for small ships the time of transit would
be less. But I also came to the conclusion that the lock canal at the
proposed level would cost only about half as much to build and would be
built in half the time, with much less risk; that for large ships the
transit would be quicker, and that, taking into account the interest
saved, the cost of maintenance would be less. Accordingly I recommended
to Congress, on February 19, 1906, that a lock canal should be built,
and my recommendation was adopted. Congress insisted upon having it
built by a commission of several men. I tried faithfully to get good
work out of the commission, and found it quite impossible; for a
many-headed commission is an extremely poor executive instrument. At
last I put Colonel Goethals in as head of the commission. Then, when
Congress still refused to make the commission single-headed, I
solved the difficulty by an executive order of January 6, 1908, which
practically accomplished the object by enlarging the powers of the
chairman, making all the other members of the commission dependent upon
him, and thereby placing the work under one-man control. Dr. Gorgas
had already performed an inestimable service by caring for the sanitary
conditions so thoroughly as to make the Isthmus as safe as a health
resort. Colonel Goethals proved to be the man of all others to do the
job. It would be impossible to overstate what he has done. It is the
greatest task of any kind that any man in the world has accomplished
during the years that Colonel Goethals has been at work. It is the
greatest task of its own kind that has ever been performed in the world
at all. Colonel Goethals has succeeded in instilling into the men under
him a spirit which elsewhere has been found only in a few victorious
armies. It is proper and appropriate that, like the soldiers of such
armies, they should receive medals which are allotted each man who has
served for a sufficient length of time. A finer body of men has never
been gathered by any nation than the men who have done the work of
building the Panama Canal; the conditions under which they have lived
and have done their work have been better than in any similar work ever
undertaken in the tropics; they have all felt an eager pride in their
work; and they have made not only America but the whole world their
debtors by what they have accomplished.



APPENDIX

COLOMBIA: THE PROPOSED MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

The rough draft of the message I had proposed to send Congress ran as
follows:

"The Colombian Government, through its representative here, and directly
in communication with our representative at Colombia, has refused to
come to any agreement with us, and has delayed action so as to make it
evident that it intends to make extortionate and improper terms with us.
The Isthmian Canal bill was, of course, passed upon the assumption that
whatever route was used, the benefit to the particular section of the
Isthmus through which it passed would be so great that the country
controlling this part would be eager to facilitate the building of the
canal. It is out of the question to submit to extortion on the part of a
beneficiary of the scheme. All the labor, all the expense, all the risk
are to be assumed by us and all the skill shown by us. Those controlling
the ground through which the canal is to be put are wholly incapable of
building it.

"Yet the interest of international commerce generally and the interest
of this country generally demands that the canal should be begun with
no needless delay. The refusal of Colombia properly to respond to our
sincere and earnest efforts to come to an agreement, or to pay heed to
the many concessions we have made, renders it in my judgment necessary
that the United States should take immediate action on one of two lines:
either we should drop the Panama canal project and immediately begin
work on the Nicaraguan canal, or else we should purchase all the rights
of the French company, and, without any further parley with Colombia,
enter upon the completion of the canal which the French company
has begun. I feel that the latter course is the one demanded by the
interests of this Nation, and I therefore bring the matter to your
attention for such action in the premises as you may deem wise. If in
your judgment it is better not to take such action, then I shall proceed
at once with the Nicaraguan canal.

"The reason that I advocate the action above outlined in regard to the
Panama canal is, in the first place, the strong testimony of the
experts that this route is the most feasible; and in the next place, the
impropriety from an international standpoint of permitting such conduct
as that to which Colombia seems to incline. The testimony of the experts
is very strong, not only that the Panama route is feasible, but that in
the Nicaragua route we may encounter some unpleasant surprises, and that
it is far more difficult to forecast the result with any certainty
as regards this latter route. As for Colombia's attitude, it is
incomprehensible upon any theory of desire to see the canal built upon
the basis of mutual advantage alike to those building it and to Colombia
herself. All we desire to do is to take up the work begun by the French
Government and to finish it. Obviously it is Colombia's duty to help
towards such completion. We are most anxious to come to an agreement
with her in which most scrupulous care should be taken to guard her
interests and ours. But we cannot consent to permit her to block
the performance of the work which it is so greatly to our interest
immediately to begin and carry through."

Shortly after this rough draft was dictated the Panama revolution came,
and I never thought of the rough draft again until I was accused of
having instigated the revolution. This accusation is preposterous in
the eyes of any one who knows the actual conditions at Panama. Only the
menace of action by us in the interest of Colombia kept down revolution;
as soon as Colombia's own conduct removed such menace, all check on the
various revolutionary movements (there were at least three from entirely
separate sources) ceased; and then an explosion was inevitable, for
the French company knew that all their property would be confiscated
if Colombia put through her plans, and the entire people of Panama felt
that if in disgust with Colombia's extortions the United States turned
to Nicaragua, they, the people of Panama, would be ruined. Knowing the
character of those then in charge of the Colombian Government, I was not
surprised at their bad faith; but I was surprised at their folly. They
apparently had no idea either of the power of France or the power of
the United States, and expected to be permitted to commit wrong with
impunity, just as Castro in Venezuela had done. The difference was that,
unless we acted in self-defense, Colombia had it in her power to do
us serious harm, and Venezuela did not have such power. Colombia's
wrongdoing, therefore, recoiled on her own head. There was no new
lesson taught; it ought already to have been known to every one that
wickedness, weakness, and folly combined rarely fail to meet punishment,
and that the intent to do wrong, when joined to inability to carry
the evil purpose to a successful conclusion, inevitably reacts on the
wrongdoer.

For the full history of the acquisition and building of the canal see
"The Panama Gateway," by Joseph Bucklin Bishop (Scribner's Sons). Mr.
Bishop has been for eight years secretary of the commission and is one
of the most efficient of the many efficient men to whose work on the
Isthmus America owes so much.



CHAPTER XV

THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

There can be no nobler cause for which to work than the peace of
righteousness; and high honor is due those serene and lofty souls who
with wisdom and courage, with high idealism tempered by sane facing
of the actual facts of life, have striven to bring nearer the day when
armed strife between nation and nation, between class and class, between
man and man shall end throughout the world. Because all this is true, it
is also true that there are no men more ignoble or more foolish, no men
whose actions are fraught with greater possibility of mischief to their
country and to mankind, than those who exalt unrighteous peace as better
than righteous war. The men who have stood highest in our history, as in
the history of all countries, are those who scorned injustice, who were
incapable of oppressing the weak, or of permitting their country, with
their consent, to oppress the weak, but who did not hesitate to draw
the sword when to leave it undrawn meant inability to arrest triumphant
wrong.

All this is so obvious that it ought not to be necessary to repeat it.
Yet every man in active affairs, who also reads about the past, grows
by bitter experience to realize that there are plenty of men, not only
among those who mean ill, but among those who mean well, who are ready
enough to praise what was done in the past, and yet are incapable of
profiting by it when faced by the needs of the present. During our
generation this seems to have been peculiarly the case among the men who
have become obsessed with the idea of obtaining universal peace by some
cheap patent panacea.

There has been a real and substantial growth in the feeling for
international responsibility and justice among the great civilized
nations during the past threescore or fourscore years. There has been a
real growth of recognition of the fact that moral turpitude is involved
in the wronging of one nation by another, and that in most cases war is
an evil method of settling international difficulties. But as yet
there has been only a rudimentary beginning of the development of
international tribunals of justice, and there has been no development at
all of any international police power. Now, as I have already said,
the whole fabric of municipal law, of law within each nation, rests
ultimately upon the judge and the policeman; and the complete absence
of the policeman, and the almost complete absence of the judge, in
international affairs, prevents there being as yet any real homology
between municipal and international law.

Moreover, the questions which sometimes involve nations in war are
far more difficult and complex than any questions that affect merely
individuals. Almost every great nation has inherited certain questions,
either with other nations or with sections of its own people, which it
is quite impossible, in the present state of civilization, to decide
as matters between private individuals can be decided. During the last
century at least half of the wars that have been fought have been
civil and not foreign wars. There are big and powerful nations which
habitually commit, either upon other nations or upon sections of their
own people, wrongs so outrageous as to justify even the most peaceful
persons in going to war. There are also weak nations so utterly
incompetent either to protect the rights of foreigners against their own
citizens, or to protect their own citizens against foreigners, that it
becomes a matter of sheer duty for some outside power to interfere in
connection with them. As yet in neither case is there any efficient
method of getting international action; and if joint action by several
powers is secured, the result is usually considerably worse than if only
one Power interfered. The worst infamies of modern times--such affairs
as the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, for instance--have been
perpetrated in a time of nominally profound international peace, when
there has been a concert of big Powers to prevent the breaking of this
peace, although only by breaking it could the outrages be stopped. Be it
remembered that the peoples who suffered by these hideous massacres,
who saw their women violated and their children tortured, were actually
enjoying all the benefits of "disarmament." Otherwise they would not
have been massacred; for if the Jews in Russia and the Armenians in
Turkey had been armed, and had been efficient in the use of their arms,
no mob would have meddled with them.

Yet amiable but fatuous persons, with all these facts before their eyes,
pass resolutions demanding universal arbitration for everything, and the
disarmament of the free civilized powers and their abandonment of their
armed forces; or else they write well-meaning, solemn little books, or
pamphlets or editorials, and articles in magazines or newspapers, to
show that it is "an illusion" to believe that war ever pays, because it
is expensive. This is precisely like arguing that we should disband the
police and devote our sole attention to persuading criminals that it
is "an illusion" to suppose that burglary, highway robbery and white
slavery are profitable. It is almost useless to attempt to argue with
these well-intentioned persons, because they are suffering under an
obsession and are not open to reason. They go wrong at the outset, for
they lay all the emphasis on peace and none at all on righteousness.
They are not all of them physically timid men; but they are usually men
of soft life; and they rarely possess a high sense of honor or a keen
patriotism. They rarely try to prevent their fellow countrymen from
insulting or wronging the people of other nations; but they always
ardently advocate that we, in our turn, shall tamely submit to wrong
and insult from other nations. As Americans their folly is peculiarly
scandalous, because if the principles they now uphold are right, it
means that it would have been better that Americans should never have
achieved their independence, and better that, in 1861, they should have
peacefully submitted to seeing their country split into half a dozen
jangling confederacies and slavery made perpetual. If unwilling to learn
from their own history, let those who think that it is an "illusion" to
believe that a war ever benefits a nation look at the difference between
China and Japan. China has neither a fleet nor an efficient army. It is
a huge civilized empire, one of the most populous on the globe; and it
has been the helpless prey of outsiders because it does not possess the
power to fight. Japan stands on a footing of equality with European
and American nations because it does possess this power. China now sees
Japan, Russia, Germany, England and France in possession of fragments of
her empire, and has twice within the lifetime of the present generation
seen her capital in the hands of allied invaders, because she in very
fact realizes the ideals of the persons who wish the United States
to disarm, and then trust that our helplessness will secure us a
contemptuous immunity from attack by outside nations.

The chief trouble comes from the entire inability of these worthy
people to understand that they are demanding things that are mutually
incompatible when they demand peace at any price, and also justice and
righteousness. I remember one representative of their number, who used
to write little sonnets on behalf of the Mahdi and the Sudanese, these
sonnets setting forth the need that the Sudan should be both independent
and peaceful. As a matter of fact, the Sudan valued independence only
because it desired to war against all Christians and to carry on an
unlimited slave trade. It was "independent" under the Mahdi for a dozen
years, and during those dozen years the bigotry, tyranny, and cruel
religious intolerance were such as flourished in the seventh century,
and in spite of systematic slave raids the population decreased by
nearly two-thirds, and practically all the children died. Peace came,
well-being came, freedom from rape and murder and torture and highway
robbery, and every brutal gratification of lust and greed came, only
when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet
this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were
issued in the cause of humanity. Looking back from the vantage point of
a score of years, probably every one will agree that he was an absurd
person. But he was not one whit more absurd than most of the more
prominent persons who advocate disarmament by the United States, the
cessation of up-building the navy, and the promise to agree to arbitrate
all matters, including those affecting our national interests and honor,
with all foreign nations.

These persons would do no harm if they affected only themselves. Many
of them are, in the ordinary relations of life, good citizens. They are
exactly like the other good citizens who believe that enforced universal
vegetarianism or anti-vaccination is the panacea for all ills. But in
their particular case they are able to do harm because they affect our
relations with foreign powers, so that other men pay the debt which they
themselves have really incurred. It is the foolish, peace-at-any-price
persons who try to persuade our people to make unwise and improper
treaties, or to stop building up the navy. But if trouble comes and the
treaties are repudiated, or there is a demand for armed intervention,
it is not these people who will pay anything; they will stay at home in
safety, and leave brave men to pay in blood, and honest men to pay in
shame, for their folly.

The trouble is that our policy is apt to go in zigzags, because
different sections of our people exercise at different times unequal
pressure on our government. One class of our citizens clamors for
treaties impossible of fulfilment, and improper to fulfil; another class
has no objection to the passage of these treaties so long as there is no
concrete case to which they apply, but instantly oppose a veto on their
application when any concrete case does actually arise. One of our
cardinal doctrines is freedom of speech, which means freedom of speech
about foreigners as well as about ourselves; and, inasmuch as we
exercise this right with complete absence of restraint, we cannot expect
other nations to hold us harmless unless in the last resort we are
able to make our own words good by our deeds. One class of our citizens
indulges in gushing promises to do everything for foreigners, another
class offensively and improperly reviles them; and it is hard to say
which class more thoroughly misrepresents the sober, self-respecting
judgment of the American people as a whole. The only safe rule is to
promise little, and faithfully to keep every promise; to "speak softly
and carry a big stick."

A prime need for our nation, as of course for every other nation, is
to make up its mind definitely what it wishes, and not to try to pursue
paths of conduct incompatible one with the other. If this nation is
content to be the China of the New World, then and then only can it
afford to do away with the navy and the army. If it is content to
abandon Hawaii and the Panama Canal, to cease to talk of the Monroe
Doctrine, and to admit the right of any European or Asiatic power to
dictate what immigrants shall be sent to and received in America,
and whether or not they shall be allowed to become citizens and hold
land--why, of course, if America is content to have nothing to say
on any of these matters and to keep silent in the presence of armed
outsiders, then it can abandon its navy and agree to arbitrate all
questions of all kinds with every foreign power. In such event it can
afford to pass its spare time in one continuous round of universal
peace celebrations, and of smug self-satisfaction in having earned the
derision of all the virile peoples of mankind. Those who advocate such
a policy do not occupy a lofty position. But at least their position is
understandable.

It is entirely inexcusable, however, to try to combine the unready hand
with the unbridled tongue. It is folly to permit freedom of speech about
foreigners as well as ourselves--and the peace-at-any-price persons are
much too feeble a folk to try to interfere with freedom of speech--and
yet to try to shirk the consequences of freedom of speech. It is folly
to try to abolish our navy, and at the same time to insist that we have
a right to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, that we have a right to control
the Panama Canal which we ourselves dug, that we have a right to retain
Hawaii and prevent foreign nations from taking Cuba, and a right to
determine what immigrants, Asiatic or European, shall come to our
shores, and the terms on which they shall be naturalized and shall
hold land and exercise other privileges. We are a rich people, and
an unmilitary people. In international affairs we are a short-sighted
people. But I know my countrymen. Down at bottom their temper is such
that they will not permanently tolerate injustice done to them. In the
long run they will no more permit affronts to their National honor than
injuries to their national interest. Such being the case, they will do
well to remember that the surest of all ways to invite disaster is to be
opulent, aggressive and unarmed.

Throughout the seven and a half years that I was President, I pursued
without faltering one consistent foreign policy, a policy of genuine
international good will and of consideration for the rights of others,
and at the same time of steady preparedness. The weakest nations knew
that they, no less than the strongest, were safe from insult and injury
at our hands; and the strong and the weak alike also knew that we
possessed both the will and the ability to guard ourselves from wrong or
insult at the hands of any one.

It was under my administration that the Hague Court was saved from
becoming an empty farce. It had been established by joint international
agreement, but no Power had been willing to resort to it. Those
establishing it had grown to realize that it was in danger of becoming a
mere paper court, so that it would never really come into being at all.
M. d'Estournelles de Constant had been especially alive to this danger.
By correspondence and in personal interviews he impressed upon me the
need not only of making advances by actually applying arbitration--not
merely promising by treaty to apply it--to questions that were up
for settlement, but of using the Hague tribunal for this purpose. I
cordially sympathized with these views. On the recommendation of John
Hay, I succeeded in getting an agreement with Mexico to lay a matter in
dispute between the two republics before the Hague Court. This was
the first case ever brought before the Hague Court. It was followed by
numerous others; and it definitely established that court as the great
international peace tribunal. By mutual agreement with Great Britain,
through the decision of a joint commission, of which the American
members were Senators Lodge and Turner, and Secretary Root, we were able
peacefully to settle the Alaska Boundary question, the only question
remaining between ourselves and the British Empire which it was not
possible to settle by friendly arbitration; this therefore represented
the removal of the last obstacle to absolute agreement between the two
peoples. We were of substantial service in bringing to a satisfactory
conclusion the negotiations at Algeciras concerning Morocco. We
concluded with Great Britain, and with most of the other great nations,
arbitration treaties specifically agreeing to arbitrate all matters,
and especially the interpretation of treaties, save only as regards
questions affecting territorial integrity, national honor and vital
national interest. We made with Great Britain a treaty guaranteeing the
free use of the Panama Canal on equal terms to the ships of all nations,
while reserving to ourselves the right to police and fortify the canal,
and therefore to control it in time of war. Under this treaty we are
in honor bound to arbitrate the question of canal tolls for coastwise
traffic between the Western and Eastern coasts of the United States. I
believe that the American position as regards this matter is right; but
I also believe that under the arbitration treaty we are in honor
bound to submit the matter to arbitration in view of Great Britain's
contention--although I hold it to be an unwise contention--that our
position is unsound. I emphatically disbelieve in making universal
arbitration treaties which neither the makers nor any one else would for
a moment dream of keeping. I no less emphatically insist that it is our
duty to keep the limited and sensible arbitration treaties which we have
already made. The importance of a promise lies not in making it, but in
keeping it; and the poorest of all positions for a nation to occupy in
such a matter is readiness to make impossible promises at the same time
that there is failure to keep promises which have been made, which can
be kept, and which it is discreditable to break.

During the early part of the year 1905, the strain on the civilized
world caused by the Russo-Japanese War became serious. The losses of
life and of treasure were frightful. From all the sources of information
at hand, I grew most strongly to believe that a further continuation
of the struggle would be a very bad thing for Japan, and an even worse
thing for Russia. Japan was already suffering terribly from the drain
upon her men, and especially upon her resources, and had nothing further
to gain from continuance of the struggle; its continuance meant to her
more loss than gain, even if she were victorious. Russia, in spite of
her gigantic strength, was, in my judgment, apt to lose even more than
she had already lost if the struggle continued. I deemed it probable
that she would no more be able successfully to defend Eastern Siberia
and Northern Manchuria than she had been able to defend Southern
Manchuria and Korea. If the war went on, I thought it, on the whole,
likely that Russia would be driven west of Lake Baikal. But it was very
far from certain. There is no certainty in such a war. Japan might have
met defeat, and defeat to her would have spelt overwhelming disaster;
and even if she had continued to win, what she thus won would have been
of no value to her, and the cost in blood and money would have left her
drained white. I believed, therefore, that the time had come when it
was greatly to the interest of both combatants to have peace, and when
therefore it was possible to get both to agree to peace.

I first satisfied myself that each side wished me to act, but that,
naturally and properly, each side was exceedingly anxious that the other
should not believe that the action was taken on its initiative. I then
sent an identical note to the two powers proposing that they should
meet, through their representatives, to see if peace could not be made
directly between them, and offered to act as an intermediary in bringing
about such a meeting, but not for any other purpose. Each assented to my
proposal in principle. There was difficulty in getting them to agree
on a common meeting place; but each finally abandoned its original
contention in the matter, and the representatives of the two nations
finally met at Portsmouth, in New Hampshire. I previously received the
two delegations at Oyster Bay on the U. S. S. Mayflower, which, together
with another naval vessel, I put at their disposal, on behalf of the
United States Government, to take them from Oyster Bay to Portsmouth.

As is customary--but both unwise and undesirable--in such cases,
each side advanced claims which the other could not grant. The chief
difficulty came because of Japan's demand for a money indemnity. I felt
that it would be better for Russia to pay some indemnity than to go on
with the war, for there was little chance, in my judgment, of the war
turning out favorably for Russia, and the revolutionary movement already
under way bade fair to overthrow the negotiations entirely. I advised
the Russian Government to this effect, at the same time urging them to
abandon their pretensions on certain other points, notably concerning
the southern half of Saghalien, which the Japanese had taken. I also,
however, and equally strongly, advised the Japanese that in my judgment
it would be the gravest mistake on their part to insist on continuing
the war for the sake of a money indemnity; for Russia was absolutely
firm in refusing to give them an indemnity, and the longer the war
continued the less able she would be to pay. I pointed out that there
was no possible analogy between their case and that of Germany in the
war with France, which they were fond of quoting. The Germans held Paris
and half of France, and gave up much territory in lieu of the indemnity,
whereas the Japanese were still many thousand miles from Moscow, and had
no territory whatever which they wished to give up. I also pointed out
that in my judgment whereas the Japanese had enjoyed the sympathy of
most of the civilized powers at the outset of and during the continuance
of the war, they would forfeit it if they turned the war into one merely
for getting money--and, moreover, they would almost certainly fail to
get the money, and would simply find themselves at the end of a year,
even if things prospered with them, in possession of territory they
did not want, having spent enormous additional sums of money, and
lost enormous additional numbers of men, and yet without a penny of
remuneration. The treaty of peace was finally signed.

As is inevitable under such circumstances, each side felt that it ought
to have got better terms; and when the danger was well past each side
felt that it had been over-reached by the other, and that if the war had
gone on it would have gotten more than it actually did get. The Japanese
Government had been wise throughout, except in the matter of announcing
that it would insist on a money indemnity. Neither in national nor in
private affairs is it ordinarily advisable to make a bluff which cannot
be put through--personally, I never believe in doing it under any
circumstances. The Japanese people had been misled by this bluff of
their Government; and the unwisdom of the Government's action in the
matter was shown by the great resentment the treaty aroused in
Japan, although it was so beneficial to Japan. There were various mob
outbreaks, especially in the Japanese cities; the police were roughly
handled, and several Christian churches were burned, as reported to me
by the American Minister. In both Russia and Japan I believe that the
net result as regards myself was a feeling of injury, and of dislike
of me, among the people at large. I had expected this; I regarded it as
entirely natural; and I did not resent it in the least. The Governments
of both nations behaved toward me not only with correct and entire
propriety, but with much courtesy and the fullest acknowledgment of the
good effect of what I had done; and in Japan, at least, I believe that
the leading men sincerely felt that I had been their friend. I had
certainly tried my best to be the friend not only of the Japanese people
but of the Russian people, and I believe that what I did was for the
best interests of both and of the world at large.

During the course of the negotiations I tried to enlist the aid of the
Governments of one nation which was friendly to Russia, and of another
nation which was friendly to Japan, in helping bring about peace. I
got no aid from either. I did, however, receive aid from the Emperor
of Germany. His Ambassador at St. Petersburg was the one Ambassador
who helped the American Ambassador, Mr. Meyer, at delicate and doubtful
points of the negotiations. Mr. Meyer, who was, with the exception of
Mr. White, the most useful diplomat in the American service, rendered
literally invaluable aid by insisting upon himself seeing the Czar at
critical periods of the transaction, when it was no longer possible for
me to act successfully through the representatives of the Czar, who were
often at cross purposes with one another.

As a result of the Portsmouth peace, I was given the Nobel Peace Prize.
This consisted of a medal, which I kept, and a sum of $40,000, which I
turned over as a foundation of industrial peace to a board of trustees
which included Oscar Straus, Seth Low and John Mitchell. In the present
state of the world's development industrial peace is even more essential
than international peace; and it was fitting and appropriate to devote
the peace prize to such a purpose. In 1910, while in Europe, one of my
most pleasant experiences was my visit to Norway, where I addressed the
Nobel Committee, and set forth in full the principles upon which I
had acted, not only in this particular case but throughout my
administration.

I received another gift which I deeply appreciated, an original copy
of Sully's "Memoires" of "Henry le Grand," sent me with the following
inscription (I translate it roughly):

PARIS, January, 1906.

"The undersigned members of the French Parliamentary Group of
International Arbitration and Conciliation have decided to tender
President Roosevelt a token of their high esteem and their sympathetic
recognition of the persistent and decisive initiative he has taken
towards gradually substituting friendly and judicial for violent methods
in case of conflict between Nations.

"They believe that the action of President Roosevelt, which has realized
the most generous hopes to be found in history, should be classed as a
continuance of similar illustrious attempts of former times, notably
the project for international concord known under the name of the 'Great
Design of Henry IV' in the memoirs of his Prime Minister, the Duke de
Sully. In consequence they have sought out a copy of the first edition
of these memoirs, and they take pleasure in offering it to him, with the
request that he will keep it among his family papers."

The signatures include those of Emile Loubet, A. Carnot, d'Estournelles
de Constant, Aristide Briand, Sully Prudhomme, Jean Jaurés, A.
Fallieres, R. Poincare, and two or three hundred others.

Of course what I had done in connection with the Portsmouth peace
was misunderstood by some good and sincere people. Just as after the
settlement of the coal strike, there were persons who thereupon thought
that it was in my power, and was my duty, to settle all other strikes,
so after the peace of Portsmouth there were other persons--not only
Americans, by the way,--who thought it my duty forthwith to make myself
a kind of international Meddlesome Mattie and interfere for peace
and justice promiscuously over the world. Others, with a delightful
non-sequitur, jumped to the conclusion that inasmuch as I had helped to
bring about a beneficent and necessary peace I must of necessity have
changed my mind about war being ever necessary. A couple of days after
peace was concluded I wrote to a friend: "Don't you be misled by the
fact that just at the moment men are speaking well of me. They will
speak ill soon enough. As Loeb remarked to me to-day, some time soon I
shall have to spank some little international brigand, and then all the
well-meaning idiots will turn and shriek that this is inconsistent
with what I did at the Peace Conference, whereas in reality it will be
exactly in line with it."

To one of my political opponents, Mr. Schurz, who wrote me
congratulating me upon the outcome at Portsmouth, and suggesting that
the time was opportune for a move towards disarmament, I answered in a
letter setting forth views which I thought sound then, and think sound
now. The letter ran as follows:

OYSTER BAY, N. Y., September 8, 1905.

My dear Mr. Schurz: I thank you for your congratulations. As to what you
say about disarmament--which I suppose is the rough equivalent of "the
gradual diminution of the oppressive burdens imposed upon the world by
armed peace"--I am not clear either as to what can be done or what ought
to be done. If I had been known as one of the conventional type of peace
advocates I could have done nothing whatever in bringing about peace
now, I would be powerless in the future to accomplish anything, and
I would not have been able to help confer the boons upon Cuba, the
Philippines, Porto Rico and Panama, brought about by our action therein.
If the Japanese had not armed during the last twenty years, this would
indeed be a sorrowful century for Japan. If this country had not fought
the Spanish War; if we had failed to take the action we did about
Panama; all mankind would have been the loser. While the Turks were
butchering the Armenians the European powers kept the peace and thereby
added a burden of infamy to the Nineteenth Century, for in keeping that
peace a greater number of lives were lost than in any European war since
the days of Napoleon, and these lives were those of women and children
as well as of men; while the moral degradation, the brutality inflicted
and endured, the aggregate of hideous wrong done, surpassed that of any
war of which we have record in modern times. Until people get it firmly
fixed in their minds that peace is valuable chiefly as a means to
righteousness, and that it can only be considered as an end when it also
coincides with righteousness, we can do only a limited amount to advance
its coming on this earth. There is of course no analogy at present
between international law and private or municipal law, because there
is no sanction of force for the former, while there is for the latter.
Inside our own nation the law-abiding man does not have to arm himself
against the lawless simply because there is some armed force--the
police, the sheriff's posse, the national guard, the regulars--which
can be called out to enforce the laws. At present there is no similar
international force to call on, and I do not as yet see how it could
at present be created. Hitherto peace has often come only because some
strong and on the whole just power has by armed force, or the threat of
armed force, put a stop to disorder. In a very interesting French book
the other day I was reading how the Mediterranean was freed from pirates
only by the "pax Britannica," established by England's naval force. The
hopeless and hideous bloodshed and wickedness of Algiers and Turkestan
was stopped, and could only be stopped, when civilized nations in the
shape of Russia and France took possession of them. The same was true
of Burma and the Malay States, as well as Egypt, with regard to England.
Peace has come only as the sequel to the armed interference of a
civilized power which, relatively to its opponent, was a just and
beneficent power. If England had disarmed to the point of being unable
to conquer the Sudan and protect Egypt, so that the Mahdists had
established their supremacy in northeastern Africa, the result would
have been a horrible and bloody calamity to mankind. It was only the
growth of the European powers in military efficiency that freed eastern
Europe from the dreadful scourge of the Tartar and partially freed it
from the dreadful scourge of the Turk. Unjust war is dreadful; a just
war may be the highest duty. To have the best nations, the free and
civilized nations, disarm and leave the despotisms and barbarisms
with great military force, would be a calamity compared to which the
calamities caused by all the wars of the nineteenth century would be
trivial. Yet it is not easy to see how we can by international agreement
state exactly which power ceases to be free and civilized and which
comes near the line of barbarism or despotism. For example, I suppose
it would be very difficult to get Russia and Japan to come to a common
agreement on this point; and there are at least some citizens of other
nations, not to speak of their governments, whom it would also be hard
to get together.

This does not in the least mean that it is hopeless to make the effort.
It may be that some scheme will be developed. America, fortunately,
can cordially assist in such an effort, for no one in his senses would
suggest our disarmament; and though we should continue to perfect our
small navy and our minute army, I do not think it necessary to increase
the number of our ships--at any rate as things look now--nor the number
of our soldiers. Of course our navy must be kept up to the highest
point of efficiency, and the replacing of old and worthless vessels by
first-class new ones may involve an increase in the personnel; but not
enough to interfere with our action along the lines you have suggested.
But before I would know how to advocate such action, save in some such
way as commending it to the attention of The Hague Tribunal, I would
have to have a feasible and rational plan of action presented.

It seems to me that a general stop in the increase of the war navies
of the world _might_ be a good thing; but I would not like to speak too
positively offhand. Of course it is only in continental Europe that the
armies are too large; and before advocating action as regards them I
should have to weigh matters carefully--including by the way such a
matter as the Turkish army. At any rate nothing useful can be done
unless with the clear recognition that we object to putting peace second
to righteousness.

Sincerely yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

HON. CARL SCHURZ, Bolton Landing, Lake George, N. Y.

In my own judgment the most important service that I rendered to
peace was the voyage of the battle fleet round the world. I had become
convinced that for many reasons it was essential that we should have
it clearly understood, by our own people especially, but also by other
peoples, that the Pacific was as much our home waters as the Atlantic,
and that our fleet could and would at will pass from one to the other of
the two great oceans. It seemed to me evident that such a voyage would
greatly benefit the navy itself; would arouse popular interest in and
enthusiasm for the navy; and would make foreign nations accept as a
matter of course that our fleet should from time to time be gathered in
the Pacific, just as from time to time it was gathered in the Atlantic,
and that its presence in one ocean was no more to be accepted as a mark
of hostility to any Asiatic power than its presence in the Atlantic
was to be accepted as a mark of hostility to any European power. I
determined on the move without consulting the Cabinet, precisely as
I took Panama without consulting the Cabinet. A council of war never
fights, and in a crisis the duty of a leader is to lead and not to take
refuge behind the generally timid wisdom of a multitude of councillors.
At that time, as I happen to know, neither the English nor the German
authorities believed it possible to take a fleet of great battleships
round the world. They did not believe that their own fleets could
perform the feat, and still less did they believe that the American
fleet could. I made up my mind that it was time to have a show down in
the matter; because if it was really true that our fleet could not get
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it was much better to know it and be
able to shape our policy in view of the knowledge. Many persons publicly
and privately protested against the move on the ground that Japan would
accept it as a threat. To this I answered nothing in public. In private
I said that I did not believe Japan would so regard it because Japan
knew my sincere friendship and admiration for her and realized that we
could not as a Nation have any intention of attacking her; and that if
there were any such feeling on the part of Japan as was alleged that
very fact rendered it imperative that that fleet should go. When in the
spring of 1910 I was in Europe I was interested to find that high naval
authorities in both Germany and Italy had expected that war would come
at the time of the voyage. They asked me if I had not been afraid of it,
and if I had not expected that hostilities would begin at least by the
time that the fleet reached the Straits of Magellan? I answered that I
did not expect it; that I believed that Japan would feel as friendly in
the matter as we did; but that if my expectations had proved mistaken,
it would have been proof positive that we were going to be attacked
anyhow, and that in such event it would have been an enormous gain to
have had the three months' preliminary preparation which enabled the
fleet to start perfectly equipped. In a personal interview before they
left I had explained to the officers in command that I believed the trip
would be one of absolute peace, but that they were to take exactly the
same precautions against sudden attack of any kind as if we were at war
with all the nations of the earth; and that no excuse of any kind would
be accepted if there were a sudden attack of any kind and we were taken
unawares.

My prime purpose was to impress the American people; and this purpose
was fully achieved. The cruise did make a very deep impression abroad;
boasting about what we have done does not impress foreign nations at
all, except unfavorably, but positive achievement does; and the two
American achievements that really impressed foreign peoples during the
first dozen years of this century were the digging of the Panama Canal
and the cruise of the battle fleet round the world. But the impression
made on our own people was of far greater consequence. No single
thing in the history of the new United States Navy has done as much to
stimulate popular interest and belief in it as the world cruise. This
effect was forecast in a well-informed and friendly English periodical,
the London _Spectator_. Writing in October, 1907, a month before the
fleet sailed from Hampton Roads, the _Spectator said_:

"All over America the people will follow the movements of the fleet;
they will learn something of the intricate details of the coaling
and commissariat work under warlike conditions; and in a word
their attention will be aroused. Next time Mr. Roosevelt or his
representatives appeal to the country for new battleships they will do
so to people whose minds have been influenced one way or the other. The
naval programme will not have stood still. We are sure that, apart from
increasing the efficiency of the existing fleet, this is the aim which
Mr. Roosevelt has in mind. He has a policy which projects itself far
into the future, but it is an entire misreading of it to suppose that it
is aimed narrowly and definitely at any single Power."

I first directed the fleet, of sixteen battleships, to go round through
the Straits of Magellan to San Francisco. From thence I ordered them to
New Zealand and Australia, then to the Philippines, China and Japan,
and home through Suez--they stopped in the Mediterranean to help the
sufferers from the earthquake at Messina, by the way, and did this work
as effectively as they had done all their other work. Admiral Evans
commanded the fleet to San Francisco; there Admiral Sperry took it;
Admirals Thomas, Wainwright and Schroeder rendered distinguished service
under Evans and Sperry. The coaling and other preparations were made in
such excellent shape by the Department that there was never a hitch, not
so much as the delay of an hour, in keeping every appointment made.
All the repairs were made without difficulty, the ship concerned
merely falling out of column for a few hours, and when the job was done
steaming at speed until she regained her position. Not a ship was left
in any port; and there was hardly a desertion. As soon as it was known
that the voyage was to be undertaken men crowded to enlist, just as
freely from the Mississippi Valley as from the seaboard, and for the
first time since the Spanish War the ships put to sea overmanned--and by
as stalwart a set of men-of-war's men as ever looked through a porthole,
game for a fight or a frolic, but withal so self-respecting and with
such a sense of responsibility that in all the ports in which they
landed their conduct was exemplary. The fleet practiced incessantly
during the voyage, both with the guns and in battle tactics, and came
home a much more efficient fighting instrument than when it started
sixteen months before.

The best men of command rank in our own service were confident that the
fleet would go round in safety, in spite of the incredulity of foreign
critics. Even they, however, did not believe that it was wise to send
the torpedo craft around. I accordingly acquiesced in their views, as it
did not occur to me to consult the lieutenants. But shortly before the
fleet started, I went in the Government yacht Mayflower to inspect the
target practice off Provincetown. I was accompanied by two torpedo
boat destroyers, in charge of a couple of naval lieutenants, thorough
gamecocks; and I had the two lieutenants aboard to dine one evening.
Towards the end of the dinner they could not refrain from asking if the
torpedo flotilla was to go round with the big ships. I told them no,
that the admirals and captains did not believe that the torpedo boats
could stand it, and believed that the officers and crews aboard the
cockle shells would be worn out by the constant pitching and bouncing
and the everlasting need to make repairs. My two guests chorused an
eager assurance that the boats could stand it. They assured me that
the enlisted men were even more anxious to go than were the officers,
mentioning that on one of their boats the terms of enlistment of most
of the crew were out, and the men were waiting to see whether or not to
reenlist, as they did not care to do so unless the boats were to go on
the cruise. I answered that I was only too glad to accept the word of
the men who were to do the job, and that they should certainly go; and
within half an hour I sent out the order for the flotilla to be got
ready. It went round in fine shape, not a boat being laid up. I felt
that the feat reflected even more credit upon the navy than did the
circumnavigation of the big ships, and I wrote the flotilla commander
the following letter:

May 18, 1908.

My dear Captain Cone:

A great deal of attention has been paid to the feat of our battleship
fleet in encircling South America and getting to San Francisco; and it
would be hard too highly to compliment the officers and enlisted men of
that fleet for what they have done. Yet if I should draw any distinction
at all it would be in favor of you and your associates who have taken
out the torpedo flotilla. Yours was an even more notable feat, and every
officer and every enlisted man in the torpedo boat flotilla has the
right to feel that he has rendered distinguished service to the United
States navy and therefore to the people of the United States; and I wish
I could thank each of them personally. Will you have this letter read by
the commanding officer of each torpedo boat to his officers and crew?

Sincerely yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER HUTCH. I. CONE, U. S. N., Commanding Second Torpedo
Flotilla, Care Postmaster, San Francisco, Cal.

There were various amusing features connected with the trip. Most of
the wealthy people and "leaders of opinion" in the Eastern cities
were panic-struck at the proposal to take the fleet away from Atlantic
waters. The great New York dailies issued frantic appeals to Congress
to stop the fleet from going. The head of the Senate Committee on Naval
Affairs announced that the fleet should not and could not go because
Congress would refuse to appropriate the money--he being from an Eastern
seaboard State. However, I announced in response that I had enough money
to take the fleet around to the Pacific anyhow, that the fleet would
certainly go, and that if Congress did not choose to appropriate enough
money to get the fleet back, why, it would stay in the Pacific. There
was no further difficulty about the money.

It was not originally my intention that the fleet should visit
Australia, but the Australian Government sent a most cordial invitation,
which I gladly accepted; for I have, as every American ought to have, a
hearty admiration for, and fellow feeling with, Australia, and I believe
that America should be ready to stand back of Australia in any serious
emergency. The reception accorded the fleet in Australia was wonderful,
and it showed the fundamental community of feeling between ourselves and
the great commonwealth of the South Seas. The considerate, generous, and
open-handed hospitality with which the entire Australian people treated
our officers and men could not have been surpassed had they been our
own countrymen. The fleet first visited Sydney, which has a singularly
beautiful harbor. The day after the arrival one of our captains noticed
a member of his crew trying to go to sleep on a bench in the park.
He had fixed above his head a large paper with some lines evidently
designed to forestall any questions from friendly would-be hosts: "I am
delighted with the Australian people. I think your harbor the finest in
the world. I am very tired and would like to go to sleep."

The most noteworthy incident of the cruise was the reception given to
our fleet in Japan. In courtesy and good breeding, the Japanese can
certainly teach much to the nations of the Western world. I had been
very sure that the people of Japan would understand aright what the
cruise meant, and would accept the visit of our fleet as the signal
honor which it was meant to be, a proof of the high regard and
friendship I felt, and which I was certain the American people felt,
for the great Island Empire. The event even surpassed my expectations. I
cannot too strongly express my appreciation of the generous courtesy the
Japanese showed the officers and crews of our fleet; and I may add
that every man of them came back a friend and admirer of the Japanese.
Admiral Sperry wrote me a letter of much interest, dealing not only with
the reception in Tokyo but with the work of our men at sea; I herewith
give it almost in full:

28 October, 1908.

Dear Mr. Roosevelt:

My official report of the visit to Japan goes forward in this mail, but
there are certain aspects of the affair so successfully concluded which
cannot well be included in the report.

You are perhaps aware that Mr. Denison of the Japanese Foreign Office
was one of my colleagues at The Hague, for whom I have a very
high regard. Desiring to avoid every possibility of trouble or
misunderstanding, I wrote to him last June explaining fully the
character of our men, which they have so well lived up to, the
desirability of ample landing places, guides, rest houses and places for
changing money in order that there might be no delay in getting the men
away from the docks on the excursions in which they delight. Very few of
them go into a drinking place, except to get a resting place not to be
found elsewhere, paying for it by taking a drink.

I also explained our system of landing with liberty men an unarmed
patrol, properly officered, to quietly take in charge and send off
to their ships any men who showed the slightest trace of disorderly
conduct. This letter he showed to the Minister of the Navy, who highly
approved of all our arrangements, including the patrol, of which I
feared they might be jealous. Mr. Denison's reply reached me in Manila,
with a memorandum from the Minister of the Navy which removed all
doubts. Three temporary piers were built for our boat landings, each
300 feet long, brilliantly lighted and decorated. The sleeping
accommodations did not permit two or three thousand sailors to remain on
shore, but the ample landings permitted them to be handled night and day
with perfect order and safety.

At the landings and railroad station in Yokohama there were rest
houses or booths, reputable money changers and as many as a thousand
English-speaking Japanese college students acted as volunteer guides,
besides Japanese sailors and petty officers detailed for the purpose.
In Tokyo there were a great many excellent refreshment places, where the
men got excellent meals and could rest, smoke, and write letters, and
in none of these places would they allow the men to pay anything, though
they were more than ready to do so. The arrangements were marvelously
perfect.

As soon as your telegram of October 18, giving the address to be made to
the Emperor, was received, I gave copies of it to our Ambassador to
be sent to the Foreign Office. It seems that the Emperor had already
prepared a very cordial address to be forwarded through me to you, after
delivery at the audience, but your telegram reversed the situation and
his reply was prepared. I am convinced that your kind and courteous
initiative on this occasion helped cause the pleasant feeling which was
so obvious in the Emperor's bearing at the luncheon which followed the
audience. X., who is reticent and conservative, told me that not only
the Emperor but all the Ministers were profoundly gratified by the
course of events. I am confident that not even the most trifling
incident has taken place which could in any way mar the general
satisfaction, and our Ambassador has expressed to me his great
satisfaction with all that has taken place.

Owing to heavy weather encountered on the passage up from Manila the
fleet was obliged to take about 3500 tons of coal.

The Yankton remained behind to keep up communication for a few days, and
yesterday she transmitted the Emperor's telegram to you, which was sent
in reply to your message through our Ambassador after the sailing of the
fleet. It must be profoundly gratifying to you to have the mission
on which you sent the fleet terminate so happily, and I am profoundly
thankful that, owing to the confidence which you displayed in giving
me this command, my active career draws to a close with such honorable
distinction.

As for the effect of the cruise upon the training, discipline and
effectiveness of the fleet, the good cannot be exaggerated. It is a war
game in every detail. The wireless communication has been maintained
with an efficiency hitherto unheard of. Between Honolulu and Auckland,
3850 miles, we were out of communication with a cable station for only
one night, whereas three [non-American] men-of-war trying recently to
maintain a chain of only 1250 miles, between Auckland and Sydney, were
only able to do so for a few hours.

The officers and men as soon as we put to sea turn to their gunnery and
tactical work far more eagerly than they go to functions. Every morning
certain ships leave the column and move off seven or eight thousand
yards as targets for range measuring fire control and battery practice
for the others, and at night certain ships do the same thing for
night battery practice. I am sorry to say that this practice is
unsatisfactory, and in some points misleading, owing to the fact
that the ships are painted white. At Portland, in 1903, I saw Admiral
Barker's white battleships under the searchlights of the army at a
distance of 14,000 yards, seven sea miles, without glasses, while the
Hartford, a black ship, was never discovered at all, though she passed
within a mile and a half. I have for years, while a member of the
General Board, advocated painting the ships war color at all times, and
by this mail I am asking the Department to make the necessary change in
the Regulations and paint the ships properly. I do not know that any one
now dissents from my view. Admiral Wainwright strongly concurs, and
the War College Conference recommended it year after year without a
dissenting voice.

In the afternoons the fleet has two or three hours' practice at battle
maneuvers, which excite as keen interest as gunnery exercises.

The competition in coal economy goes on automatically and reacts in a
hundred ways. It has reduced the waste in the use of electric light and
water, and certain chief engineers are said to keep men ranging over the
ships all night turning out every light not in actual and immediate use.
Perhaps the most important effect is the keen hunt for defects in
the machinery causing waste of power. The Yankton by resetting valves
increased her speed from 10 to 11 1/2 knots on the same expenditure.

All this has been done, but the field is widening, the work has only
begun.

* * * * *

C. S. SPERRY.

When I left the Presidency I finished seven and a half years of
administration, during which not one shot had been fired against a
foreign foe. We were at absolute peace, and there was no nation in the
world with whom a war cloud threatened, no nation in the world whom we
had wronged, or from whom we had anything to fear. The cruise of the
battle fleet was not the least of the causes which ensured so peaceful
an outlook.

When the fleet returned after its sixteen months' voyage around the
world I went down to Hampton Roads to greet it. The day was Washington's
Birthday, February 22, 1907. Literally on the minute the homing
battlecraft came into view. On the flagship of the Admiral I spoke to
the officers and enlisted men, as follows:

"Admiral Sperry, Officers and Men of the Battle Fleet:

"Over a year has passed since you steamed out of this harbor, and over
the world's rim, and this morning the hearts of all who saw you thrilled
with pride as the hulls of the mighty warships lifted above the horizon.
You have been in the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres; four times
you have crossed the line; you have steamed through all the great
oceans; you have touched the coast of every continent. Ever your general
course has been westward; and now you come back to the port from
which you set sail. This is the first battle fleet that has ever
circumnavigated the globe. Those who perform the feat again can but
follow in your footsteps.

"The little torpedo flotilla went with you around South America, through
the Straits of Magellan, to our own Pacific Coast. The armored cruiser
squadron met you, and left you again, when you were half way round the
world. You have falsified every prediction of the prophets of failure.
In all your long cruise not an accident worthy of mention has happened
to a single battleship, nor yet to the cruisers or torpedo boats. You
left this coast in a high state of battle efficiency, and you return
with your efficiency increased; better prepared than when you left, not
only in personnel but even in material. During your world cruise you
have taken your regular gunnery practice, and skilled though you were
before with the guns, you have grown more skilful still; and through
practice you have improved in battle tactics, though here there is more
room for improvement than in your gunnery. Incidentally, I suppose I
need hardly say that one measure of your fitness must be your clear
recognition of the need always steadily to strive to render yourselves
more fit; if you ever grow to think that you are fit enough, you can
make up your minds that from that moment you will begin to go backward.

"As a war-machine, the fleet comes back in better shape than it went
out. In addition, you, the officers and men of this formidable fighting
force, have shown yourselves the best of all possible ambassadors and
heralds of peace. Wherever you have landed you have borne yourselves
so as to make us at home proud of being your countrymen. You have shown
that the best type of fighting man of the sea knows how to appear to
the utmost possible advantage when his business is to behave himself on
shore, and to make a good impression in a foreign land. We are proud of
all the ships and all the men in this whole fleet, and we welcome you
home to the country whose good repute among nations has been raised by
what you have done."



APPENDIX A

THE TRUSTS, THE PEOPLE, AND THE SQUARE DEAL

[Written when Mr. Taft's administration brought suit to dissolve the
steel corporation, one of the grounds for the suit being the acquisition
by the Corporation of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; this action
was taken, with my acquiescence, while I was President, and while Mr.
Taft was a member of my cabinet; at the time he never protested against,
and as far as I knew approved of my action in this case, as in the
Harvester Trust case, and all similar cases.]

The suit against the Steel Trust by the Government has brought vividly
before our people the need of reducing to order our chaotic Government
policy as regards business. As President, in Messages to Congress I
repeatedly called the attention of that body and of the public to the
inadequacy of the Anti-Trust Law by itself to meet business conditions
and secure justice to the people, and to the further fact that it might,
if left unsupplemented by additional legislation, work mischief, with no
compensating advantage; and I urged as strongly as I knew how that
the policy followed with relation to railways in connection with the
Inter-State Commerce Law should be followed by the National Government
as regards all great business concerns; and therefore that, as a
first step, the powers of the Bureau of Corporations should be greatly
enlarged, or else that there should be created a Governmental board or
commission, with powers somewhat similar to those of the Inter-State
Commerce Commission, but covering the whole field of inter-State
business, exclusive of transportation (which should, by law, be kept
wholly separate from ordinary industrial business, all common ownership
of the industry and the railway being forbidden). In the end I have
always believed that it would also be necessary to give the National
Government complete power over the organization and capitalization of
all business concerns engaged in inter-State commerce.

A member of my Cabinet with whom, even more than with the various
Attorneys-General, I went over every detail of the trust situation, was
the one time Secretary of the Interior, Mr. James R. Garfield. He writes
me as follows concerning the suit against the Steel Corporation:

"Nothing appeared before the House Committee that made me believe we
were deceived by Judge Gary.

"This, I think, is a case that shows clearly the difference between
destructive litigation and constructive legislation. I have not yet seen
a full copy of the Government's petition, but our papers give nothing
that indicates any kind of unfair or dishonest competition such as
existed in both the Standard Oil and Tobacco Cases. As I understand it,
the competitors of the Steel Company have steadily increased in strength
during the last six or seven years. Furthermore, the per cent of the
business done by the Steel Corporation has decreased during that time.
As you will remember, at our first conference with Judge Gary, the Judge
stated that it was the desire and purpose of the Company to conform
to what the Government wished, it being the purpose of the Company
absolutely to obey the law both in spirit and letter. Throughout the
time that I had charge of the investigation, and while we were in
Washington, I do not know of a single instance where the Steel Company
refused any information requested; but, on the contrary, aided in every
possible way our investigation.

"The position now taken by the Government is absolutely destructive
of legitimate business, because they outline no rule of conduct for
business of any magnitude. It is absurd to say that the courts can
lay down such rules. The most the courts can do is to find as legal or
illegal the particular transactions brought before them. Hence, after
years of tedious litigation there would be no clear-cut rule for future
action. This method of procedure is dealing with the device, not the
result, and drives business to the elaboration of clever devices, each
of which must be tested in the courts.

"I have yet to find a better method of dealing with the anti-trust
situation than that suggested by the bill which we agreed upon in the
last days of your Administration. That bill should be used as a basis
for legislation, and there could be incorporated upon it whatever may
be determined wise regarding the direct control and supervision of
the National Government, either through a commission similar to the
Inter-State Commerce Commission or otherwise."

Before taking up the matter in its large aspect, I wish to say one word
as to one feature of the Government suit against the Steel Corporation.
One of the grounds for the suit is the acquisition by the Steel
Corporation of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; and it has been
alleged, on the authority of the Government officials engaged in
carrying on the suit, that as regards this transaction I was misled by
the representatives of the Steel Corporation, and that the facts were
not accurately or truthfully laid before me. This statement is not
correct. I believed at the time that the facts in the case were as
represented to me on behalf of the Steel Corporation, and my further
knowledge has convinced me that this was true. I believed at the time
that the representatives of the Steel Corporation told me the truth as
to the change that would be worked in the percentage of the business
which the proposed acquisition would give the Steel Corporation, and
further inquiry has convinced me that they did so. I was not misled. The
representatives of the Steel Corporation told me the truth as to what
the effect of the action at that time would be, and any statement that I
was misled or that the representatives of the Steel Corporation did
not thus tell me the truth as to the facts of the case is itself not in
accordance with the truth. In _The Outlook_ of August 19 last I gave
in full the statement I had made to the Investigating Committee of the
House of Representatives on this matter. That statement is accurate, and
I reaffirm everything I therein said, not only as to what occurred, but
also as to my belief in the wisdom and propriety of my action--indeed,
the action not merely was wise and proper, but it would have been a
calamity from every standpoint had I failed to take it. On page 137 of
the printed report of the testimony before the Committee will be found
Judge Gary's account of the meeting between himself and Mr. Frick and
Mr. Root and myself. This account states the facts accurately. It has
been alleged that the purchase by the Steel Corporation of the property
of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company gave the Steel Corporation
practically a monopoly of the Southern iron ores--that is, of the iron
ores south of the Potomac and the Ohio. My information, which I
have every reason to believe is accurate and not successfully to be
challenged, is that, of these Southern iron ores the Steel Corporation
has, including the property gained from the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company, less than 20 per cent--perhaps not over 16 per cent. This is
a very much smaller percentage than the percentage it holds of the Lake
Superior ores, which even after the surrender of the Hill lease will
be slightly over 50 per cent. According to my view, therefore,
and unless--which I do not believe possible--these figures can be
successfully challenged, the acquisition of the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company's ores in no way changed the situation as regards making the
Steel Corporation a monopoly.[*] The showing as to the percentage of
production of all kinds of steel ingots and steel castings in the
United States by the Steel Corporation and by all other manufacturers
respectively makes an even stronger case. It makes the case even
stronger than I put it in my testimony before the Investigating
Committee, for I was scrupulously careful to make statements that erred,
if at all, against my own position. It appears from the figures of
production that in 1901 the Steel Corporation had to its credit nearly
66 per cent of the total production as against a little over 34 per cent
by all other steel manufacturers. The percentage then shrank steadily,
until in 1906, the year before the acquisition of the Tennessee Coal and
Iron properties, the percentage was a little under 58 per cent. In spite
of the acquisition of these properties, the following year, 1907, the
total percentage shrank slightly, and this shrinking has continued until
in 1910 the total percentage of the Steel Corporation is but a little
over 54 per cent, and the percentage by all other steel manufacturers
but a fraction less than 46 per cent. Of the 54 3_10 per cent produced
by the Steel Corporation 1 9_10 per cent is produced by the former
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company. In other words, these figures show that
the acquisition of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company did not in the
slightest degree change the situation, and that during the ten
years which include the acquisition of these properties by the Steel
Corporation the percentage of total output of steel manufacturers in
this country by the Steel Corporation has shrunk from nearly 66 per cent
to but a trifle over 54 per cent. I do not believe that these figures
can be successfully controverted, and if not successfully controverted
they show clearly not only that the acquisition of the Tennessee
Coal and Iron properties wrought no change in the status of the Steel
Corporation, but that the Steel Corporation during the decade has
steadily lost, instead of gained, in monopolistic character.

     [*] My own belief is that our Nation should long ago have
     adopted the policy of merely leasing for a term of years
     mineral-bearing land; but it is the fault of us ourselves,
     of the people, not of the Steel Corporation, that this
     policy has not been adopted.

So much for the facts in this particular case. Now for the general
subject. When my Administration took office, I found, not only that
there had been little real enforcement of the Anti-Trust Law and but
little more effective enforcement of the Inter-State Commerce Law,
but also that the decisions were so chaotic and the laws themselves so
vaguely drawn, or at least interpreted in such widely varying fashions,
that the biggest business men tended to treat both laws as dead letters.
The series of actions by which we succeeded in making the Inter-State
Commerce Law an efficient and most useful instrument in regulating the
transportation of the country and exacting justice from the big railways
without doing them injustice--while, indeed, on the contrary, securing
them against injustice--need not here be related. The Anti-Trust Law it
was also necessary to enforce as it had never hitherto been enforced;
both because it was on the statute-books and because it was imperative
to teach the masters of the biggest corporations in the land that they
were not, and would not be permitted to regard themselves as, above
the law. Moreover, where the combination has really been guilty of
misconduct the law serves a useful purpose, and in such cases as those
of the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trusts, if effectively enforced, the law
confers a real and great good.

Suits were brought against the most powerful corporations in the land,
which we were convinced had clearly and beyond question violated the
Anti-Trust Law. These suits were brought with great care, and only where
we felt so sure of our facts that we could be fairly certain that
there was a likelihood of success. As a matter of fact, in most of the
important suits we were successful. It was imperative that these suits
should be brought, and very real good was achieved by bringing them, for
it was only these suits that made the great masters of corporate capital
in America fully realize that they were the servants and not the masters
of the people, that they were subject to the law, and that they would
not be permitted to be a law unto themselves; and the corporations
against which we proceeded had sinned, not merely by being big (which
we did not regard as in itself a sin), but by being guilty of unfair
practices towards their competitors, and by procuring fair advantages
from the railways. But the resulting situation has made it evident that
the Anti-Trust Law is not adequate to meet the situation that has grown
up because of modern business conditions and the accompanying tremendous
increase in the business use of vast quantities of corporate wealth. As
I have said, this was already evident to my mind when I was President,
and in communications to Congress I repeatedly stated the facts. But
when I made these communications there were still plenty of people
who did not believe that we would succeed in the suits that had
been instituted against the Standard Oil, the Tobacco, and other
corporations, and it was impossible to get the public as a whole to
realize what the situation was. Sincere zealots who believed that
all combinations could be destroyed and the old-time conditions of
unregulated competition restored, insincere politicians who knew better
but made believe that they thought whatever their constituents
wished them to think, crafty reactionaries who wished to see on the
statute-books laws which they believed unenforceable, and the almost
solid "Wall Street crowd" or representatives of "big business" who at
that time opposed with equal violence both wise and necessary and unwise
and improper regulation of business-all fought against the adoption of a
sane, effective, and far-reaching policy.

It is a vitally necessary thing to have the persons in control of big
trusts of the character of the Standard Oil Trust and Tobacco Trust
taught that they are under the law, just as it was a necessary thing to
have the Sugar Trust taught the same lesson in drastic fashion by Mr.
Henry L. Stimson when he was United States District Attorney in the
city of New York. But to attempt to meet the whole problem not by
administrative governmental action but by a succession of lawsuits is
hopeless from the standpoint of working out a permanently satisfactory
solution. Moreover, the results sought to be achieved are achieved only
in extremely insufficient and fragmentary measure by breaking up all big
corporations, whether they have behaved well or ill, into a number of
little corporations which it is perfectly certain will be largely, and
perhaps altogether, under the same control. Such action is harsh and
mischievous if the corporation is guilty of nothing except its size; and
where, as in the case of the Standard Oil, and especially the Tobacco,
trusts, the corporation has been guilty of immoral and anti-social
practices, there is need for far more drastic and thoroughgoing action
than any that has been taken, under the recent decree of the Supreme
Court. In the case of the Tobacco Trust, for instance, the settlement in
the Circuit Court, in which the representatives of the Government
seem inclined to concur, practically leaves all of the companies still
substantially under the control of the twenty-nine original defendants.
Such a result is lamentable from the standpoint of justice. The decision
of the Circuit Court, if allowed to stand, means that the Tobacco Trust
has merely been obliged to change its clothes, that none of the real
offenders have received any real punishment, while, as the New York
Times, a pro-trust paper, says, the tobacco concerns, in their new
clothes, are in positions of "ease and luxury," and "immune from
prosecution under the law."

Surely, miscarriage of justice is not too strong a term to apply to such
a result when considered in connection with what the Supreme Court said
of this Trust. That great Court in its decision used language which,
in spite of its habitual and severe self-restraint in stigmatizing
wrong-doing, yet unhesitatingly condemns the Tobacco Trust for moral
turpitude, saying that the case shows an "ever present manifestation
. . . of conscious wrong-doing" by the Trust, whose history is "replete
with the doing of acts which it was the obvious purpose of the statute
to forbid, . . . demonstrative of the existence from the beginning of a
purpose to acquire dominion and control of the tobacco trade, not by the
mere exertion of the ordinary right to contract and to trade, but by
methods devised in order to monopolize the trade by driving competitors
out of business, which were ruthlessly carried out upon the assumption
that to work upon the fears or play upon the cupidity of competitors
would make success possible." The letters from and to various officials
of the Trust, which were put in evidence, show a literally astounding
and horrifying indulgence by the Trust in wicked and depraved business
methods--such as the "endeavor to cause a strike in their [a rival
business firm's] factory," or the "shutting off the market" of an
independent tobacco firm by "taking the necessary steps to give them a
warm reception," or forcing importers into a price agreement by causing
and continuing "a demoralization of the business for such length of time
as may be deemed desirable" (I quote from the letters). A Trust guilty
of such conduct should be absolutely disbanded, and the only way to
prevent the repetition of such conduct is by strict Government
supervision, and not merely by lawsuits.

The Anti-Trust Law cannot meet the whole situation, nor can any
modification of the principle of the Anti-Trust Law avail to meet
the whole situation. The fact is that many of the men who have called
themselves Progressives, and who certainly believe that they are
Progressives, represent in reality in this matter not progress at
all but a kind of sincere rural toryism. These men believe that it is
possible by strengthening the Anti-Trust Law to restore business to
the competitive conditions of the middle of the last century. Any such
effort is foredoomed to end in failure, and, if successful, would
be mischievous to the last degree. Business cannot be successfully
conducted in accordance with the practices and theories of sixty years
ago unless we abolish steam, electricity, big cities, and, in short, not
only all modern business and modern industrial conditions, but all the
modern conditions of our civilization. The effort to restore competition
as it was sixty years ago, and to trust for justice solely to this
proposed restoration of competition, is just as foolish as if we should
go back to the flintlocks of Washington's Continentals as a
substitute for modern weapons of precision. The effort to prohibit all
combinations, good or bad, is bound to fail, and ought to fail; when
made, it merely means that some of the worst combinations are not
checked and that honest business is checked. Our purpose should be, not
to strangle business as an incident of strangling combinations, but to
regulate big corporations in thoroughgoing and effective fashion, so as
to help legitimate business as an incident to thoroughly and completely
safeguarding the interests of the people as a whole. Against all such
increase of Government regulation the argument is raised that it
would amount to a form of Socialism. This argument is familiar; it is
precisely the same as that which was raised against the creation of
the Inter-State Commerce Commission, and of all the different utilities
commissions in the different States, as I myself saw, thirty years
ago, when I was a legislator at Albany, and these questions came up
in connection with our State Government. Nor can action be effectively
taken by any one State. Congress alone has power under the Constitution
effectively and thoroughly and at all points to deal with inter-State
commerce, and where Congress, as it should do, provides laws that
will give the Nation full jurisdiction over the whole field, then that
jurisdiction becomes, of necessity, exclusive--although until Congress
does act affirmatively and thoroughly it is idle to expect that the
States will or ought to rest content with non-action on the part of both
Federal and State authorities. This statement, by the way, applies also
to the question of "usurpation" by any one branch of our Government
of the rights of another branch. It is contended that in these recent
decisions the Supreme Court legislated; so it did; and it had to;
because Congress had signally failed to do its duty by legislating.
For the Supreme Court to nullify an act of the Legislature as
unconstitutional except on the clearest grounds is usurpation; to
interpret such an act in an obviously wrong sense is usurpation; but
where the legislative body persistently leaves open a field which it
is absolutely imperative, from the public standpoint, to fill, then no
possible blame attaches to the official or officials who step in because
they have to, and who then do the needed work in the interest of the
people. The blame in such cases lies with the body which has been
derelict, and not with the body which reluctantly makes good the
dereliction.

A quarter of a century ago, Senator Cushman K. Davis, a statesman who
amply deserved the title of statesman, a man of the highest courage, of
the sternest adherence to the principles laid down by an exacting sense
of duty, an unflinching believer in democracy, who was as little to be
cowed by a mob as by a plutocrat, and moreover a man who possessed the
priceless gift of imagination, a gift as important to a statesman as to
a historian, in an address delivered at the annual commencement of
the University of Michigan on July 1, 1886, spoke as follows of
corporations:

"Feudalism, with its domains, its untaxed lords, their retainers,
its exemptions and privileges, made war upon the aspiring spirit of
humanity, and fell with all its grandeurs. Its spirit walks the earth
and haunts the institutions of to-day, in the great corporations, with
the control of the National highways, their occupation of great domains,
their power to tax, their cynical contempt for the law, their sorcery
to debase most gifted men to the capacity of splendid slaves, their
pollution of the ermine of the judge and the robe of the Senator, their
aggregation in one man of wealth so enormous as to make Croesus seem a
pauper, their picked, paid, and skilled retainers who are summoned by
the message of electricity and appear upon the wings of steam. If we
look into the origin of feudalism and of the modern corporations--those
Dromios of history--we find that the former originated in a strict
paternalism, which is scouted by modern economists, and that the latter
has grown from an unrestrained freedom of action, aggression, and
development, which they commend as the very ideal of political wisdom.
_Laissez-faire_, says the professor, when it often means bind and gag
that the strongest may work his will. It is a plea for the survival of
the fittest--for the strongest male to take possession of the herd by
a process of extermination. If we examine this battle cry of political
polemics, we find that it is based upon the conception of the divine
right of property, and the preoccupation by older or more favored or
more alert or richer men or nations, of territory, of the forces of
nature, of machinery, of all the functions of what we call civilization.
Some of these men, who are really great, follow these conceptions to
their conclusions with dauntless intrepidity."

When Senator Davis spoke, few men of great power had the sympathy and
the vision necessary to perceive the menace contained in the growth of
corporations; and the men who did see the evil were struggling blindly
to get rid of it, not by frankly meeting the new situation with new
methods, but by insisting upon the entirely futile effort to abolish
what modern conditions had rendered absolutely inevitable. Senator Davis
was under no such illusion. He realized keenly that it was absolutely
impossible to go back to an outworn social status, and that we must
abandon definitely the _laissez-faire_ theory of political economy, and
fearlessly champion a system of increased Governmental control,
paying no heed to the cries of the worthy people who denounce this as
Socialistic. He saw that, in order to meet the inevitable increase in
the power of corporations produced by modern industrial conditions,
it would be necessary to increase in like fashion the activity of the
sovereign power which alone could control such corporations. As has
been aptly said, the only way to meet a billion-dollar corporation is by
invoking the protection of a hundred-billion-dollar government; in other
words, of the National Government, for no State Government is strong
enough both to do justice to corporations and to exact justice from
them. Said Senator Davis in this admirable address, which should be
reprinted and distributed broadcast:

"The liberty of the individual has been annihilated by the logical
process constructed to maintain it. We have come to a political
deification of Mammon. _Laissez-faire_ is not utterly blameworthy. It
begat modern democracy, and made the modern republic possible. There
can be no doubt of that. But there it reached its limit of political
benefaction, and began to incline toward the point where extremes meet.
. . . To every assertion that the people in their collective capacity of
a government ought to exert their indefeasible right of self-defense, it
is said you touch the sacred rights of property."

The Senator then goes on to say that we now have to deal with an
oligarchy of wealth, and that the Government must develop power
sufficient enough to enable it to do the task.

Few will dispute the fact that the present situation is not
satisfactory, and cannot be put on a permanently satisfactory basis
unless we put an end to the period of groping and declare for a fixed
policy, a policy which shall clearly define and punish wrong-doing,
which shall put a stop to the iniquities done in the name of business,
but which shall do strict equity to business. We demand that big
business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that
when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right
he shall himself be given a square deal; and the first, and most
elementary, kind of square deal is to give him in advance full
information as to just what he can, and what he cannot, legally and
properly do. It is absurd, and much worse than absurd, to treat the
deliberate lawbreaker as on an exact par with the man eager to obey the
law, whose only desire is to find out from some competent Governmental
authority what the law is, and then to live up to it. Moreover, it is
absurd to treat the size of a corporation as in itself a crime. As
Judge Hook says in his opinion in the Standard Oil Case: "Magnitude
of business does not alone constitute a monopoly . . . the genius and
industry of man when kept to ethical standards still have full play,
and what he achieves is his . . . success and magnitude of business, the
rewards of fair and honorable endeavor [are not forbidden] . . . [the
public welfare is threatened only when success is attained] by
wrongful or unlawful methods." Size may, and in my opinion does, make a
corporation fraught with potential menace to the community; and may, and
in my opinion should, therefore make it incumbent upon the community to
exercise through its administrative (not merely through its judicial)
officers a strict supervision over that corporation in order to see
that it does not go wrong; but the size in itself does not signify
wrong-doing, and should not be held to signify wrong-doing.

Not only should any huge corporation which has gained its position
by unfair methods, and by interference with the rights of others, by
demoralizing and corrupt practices, in short, by sheer baseness and
wrong-doing, be broken up, but it should be made the business of some
administrative governmental body, by constant supervision, to see that
it does not come together again, save under such strict control as shall
insure the community against all repetition of the bad conduct--and it
should never be permitted thus to assemble its parts as long as these
parts are under the control of the original offenders, for actual
experience has shown that these men are, from the standpoint of the
people at large, unfit to be trusted with the power implied in the
management of a large corporation. But nothing of importance is
gained by breaking up a huge inter-State and international industrial
organization _which has not offended otherwise than by its size_, into
a number of small concerns without any attempt to regulate the way in
which those concerns as a whole shall do business. Nothing is gained by
depriving the American Nation of good weapons wherewith to fight in the
great field of international industrial competition. Those who would
seek to restore the days of unlimited and uncontrolled competition, and
who believe that a panacea for our industrial and economic ills is to
be found in the mere breaking up of all big corporations, simply because
they are big, are attempting not only the impossible, but what, if
possible, would be undesirable. They are acting as we should act if
we tried to dam the Mississippi, to stop its flow outright. The effort
would be certain to result in failure and disaster; we would have
attempted the impossible, and so would have achieved nothing, or worse
than nothing. But by building levees along the Mississippi, not seeking
to dam the stream, but to control it, we are able to achieve our object
and to confer inestimable good in the course of so doing.

This Nation should definitely adopt the policy of attacking, not
the mere fact of combination, but the evils and wrong-doing which so
frequently accompany combination. The fact that a combination is very
big is ample reason for exercising a close and jealous supervision over
it, because its size renders it potent for mischief; but it should not
be punished unless it actually does the mischief; it should merely be
so supervised and controlled as to guarantee us, the people, against
its doing mischief. We should not strive for a policy of unregulated
competition and of the destruction of all big corporations, that is, of
all the most efficient business industries in the land. Nor should
we persevere in the hopeless experiment of trying to regulate these
industries by means only of lawsuits, each lasting several years, and of
uncertain result. We should enter upon a course of supervision, control,
and regulation of these great corporations--a regulation which we should
not fear, if necessary, to bring to the point of control of monopoly
prices, just as in exceptional cases railway rates are now regulated.
Either the Bureau of Corporations should be authorized, or some other
governmental body similar to the Inter-State Commerce Commission should
be created, to exercise this supervision, this authoritative control.
When once immoral business practices have been eliminated by such
control, competition will thereby be again revived as a healthy factor,
although not as formerly an all-sufficient factor, in keeping the
general business situation sound. Wherever immoral business practices
still obtain--as they obtained in the cases of the Standard Oil Trust
and Tobacco Trust--the Anti-Trust Law can be invoked; and wherever such
a prosecution is successful, and the courts declare a corporation
to possess a monopolistic character, then that corporation should be
completely dissolved, and the parts ought never to be again assembled
save on whatever terms and under whatever conditions may be imposed by
the governmental body in which is vested the regulatory power. Methods
can readily be devised by which corporations sincerely desiring to
act fairly and honestly can on their own initiative come under this
thoroughgoing administrative control by the Government and thereby be
free from the working of the Anti-Trust Law. But the law will remain
to be invoked against wrongdoers; and under such conditions it could be
invoked far more vigorously and successfully than at present.

It is not necessary in an article like this to attempt to work out
such a plan in detail. It can assuredly be worked out. Moreover, in my
opinion, substantially some such plan must be worked out or business
chaos will continue. Wrongdoing such as was perpetrated by the Standard
Oil Trust, and especially by the Tobacco Trust, should not only be
punished, but if possible punished in the persons of the chief authors
and beneficiaries of the wrong, far more severely than at present. But
punishment should not be the only, or indeed the main, end in view. Our
aim should be a policy of construction and not one of destruction. Our
aim should not be to punish the men who have made a big corporation
successful merely because they have made it big and successful, but
to exercise such thoroughgoing supervision and control over them as
to insure their business skill being exercised in the interest of the
public and not against the public interest. Ultimately, I believe that
this control should undoubtedly indirectly or directly extend to dealing
with all questions connected with their treatment of their employees,
including the wages, the hours of labor, and the like. Not only is the
proper treatment of a corporation, from the standpoint of the managers,
shareholders, and employees, compatible with securing from that
corporation the best standard of public service, but when the effort
is wisely made it results in benefit both to the corporation and to the
public. The success of Wisconsin in dealing with the corporations within
her borders, so as both to do them justice and to exact justice in
return from them toward the public, has been signal; and this Nation
should adopt a progressive policy in substance akin to the progressive
policy not merely formulated in theory but reduced to actual practice
with such striking success in Wisconsin.

To sum up, then. It is practically impossible, and, if possible,
it would be mischievous and undesirable, to try to break up all
combinations merely because they are large and successful, and to put
the business of the country back into the middle of the eighteenth
century conditions of intense and unregulated competition between
small and weak business concerns. Such an effort represents not
progressiveness but an unintelligent though doubtless entirely
well-meaning toryism. Moreover, the effort to administer a law merely
by lawsuits and court decisions is bound to end in signal failure, and
meanwhile to be attended with delays and uncertainties, and to put a
premium upon legal sharp practice. Such an effort does not adequately
punish the guilty, and yet works great harm to the innocent. Moreover,
it entirely fails to give the publicity which is one of the best
by-products of the system of control by administrative officials;
publicity, which is not only good in itself, but furnishes the data
for whatever further action may be necessary. We need to formulate
immediately and definitely a policy which, in dealing with big
corporations that behave themselves and which contain no menace save
what is necessarily potential in any corporation which is of great size
and very well managed, shall aim not at their destruction but at their
regulation and supervision, so that the Government shall control them
in such fashion as amply to safeguard the interests of the whole public,
including producers, consumers, and wage-workers. This control should,
if necessary, be pushed in extreme cases to the point of exercising
control over monopoly prices, as rates on railways are now controlled;
although this is not a power that should be used when it is possible to
avoid it. The law should be clear, unambiguous, certain, so that honest
men may not find that unwittingly they have violated it. In short, our
aim should be, not to destroy, but effectively and in thoroughgoing
fashion to regulate and control, in the public interest, the great
instrumentalities of modern business, which it is destructive of the
general welfare of the community to destroy, and which nevertheless it
is vitally necessary to that general welfare to regulate and control.
Competition will remain as a very important factor when once we have
destroyed the unfair business methods, the criminal interference with
the rights of others, which alone enabled certain swollen combinations
to crush out their competitors--and, incidentally, the "conservatives"
will do well to remember that these unfair and iniquitous methods by
great masters of corporate capital have done more to cause popular
discontent with the propertied classes than all the orations of all the
Socialist orators in the country put together.

I have spoken above of Senator Davis's admirable address delivered a
quarter of a century ago. Senator Davis's one-time partner, Frank B.
Kellogg, the Government counsel who did so much to win success for the
Government in its prosecutions of the trusts, has recently delivered
before the Palimpsest Club of Omaha an excellent address on the subject;
Mr. Prouty, of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, has recently, in
his speech before the Congregational Club of Brooklyn, dealt with
the subject from the constructive side; and in the proceedings of the
American Bar Association for 1904 there is an admirable paper on
the need of thoroughgoing Federal control over corporations doing an
inter-State business, by Professor Horace L. Wilgus, of the University
of Michigan. The National Government exercises control over inter-State
commerce railways, and it can in similar fashion, through an appropriate
governmental body, exercise control over all industrial organizations
engaged in inter-State commerce. This control should be exercised, not
by the courts, but by an administrative bureau or board such as the
Bureau of Corporations or the Inter-State Commerce Commission; for
the courts cannot with advantage permanently perform executive and
administrative functions.



APPENDIX B

THE CONTROL OF CORPORATIONS AND "THE NEW FREEDOM"

In his book "The New Freedom," and in the magazine articles of which
it is composed, which appeared just after he had been inaugurated as
President, Mr. Woodrow Wilson made an entirely unprovoked attack upon
me and upon the Progressive party in connection with what he asserts
the policy of that party to be concerning the trusts, and as regards my
attitude while President about the trusts.

I am reluctant to say anything whatever about President Wilson at the
outset of his Administration unless I can speak of him with praise.
I have scrupulously refrained from saying or doing one thing
since election that could put the slightest obstacle, even of
misinterpretation, in his path. It is to the interest of the country
that he should succeed in his office. I cordially wish him success, and
I shall cordially support any policy of his that I believe to be in the
interests of the people of the United States. But when Mr. Wilson, after
being elected President, within the first fortnight after he has been
inaugurated into that high office, permits himself to be betrayed into
a public misstatement of what I have said, and what I stand for, then he
forces me to correct his statements.

Mr. Wilson opens his article by saying that the Progressive "doctrine is
that monopoly is inevitable, and that the only course open to the people
of the United States is to submit to it." This statement is without one
particle of foundation in fact. I challenge him to point out a sentence
in the Progressive platform or in any speech of mine which bears him
out. I can point him out any number which flatly contradict him. We have
never made any such statement as he alleges about monopolies. We have
said: "The corporation is an essential part of modern business. The
concentration of modern business, in some degree, is both inevitable and
necessary for National and international business efficiency." Does Mr.
Wilson deny this? Let him answer yes or no, directly. It is easy for
a politician detected in a misstatement to take refuge in evasive
rhetorical hyperbole. But Mr. Wilson is President of the United States,
and as such he is bound to candid utterance on every subject of public
interest which he himself has broached. If he disagrees with us, let him
be frank and consistent, and recommend to Congress that all corporations
be made illegal. Mr. Wilson's whole attack is largely based on a deft
but far from ingenuous confounding of what we have said of monopoly,
which we propose so far as possible to abolish, and what we have said of
big corporations, which we propose to regulate; Mr. Wilson's own vaguely
set forth proposals being to attempt the destruction of both in ways
that would harm neither. In our platform we use the word "monopoly" but
once, and then we speak of it as an abuse of power, coupling it with
stock-watering, unfair competition and unfair privileges. Does Mr.
Wilson deny this? If he does, then where else will he assert that we
speak of monopoly as he says we do? He certainly owes the people of the
United States a plain answer to the question. In my speech of acceptance
I said: "We favor strengthening the Sherman Law by prohibiting
agreements to divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to
customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain
areas while maintaining higher prices in other places; using the power
of transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and all
other unfair trade practices." The platform pledges us to "guard and
keep open equally to all, the highways of American commerce." This is
the exact negation of monopoly. Unless Mr. Wilson is prepared to show
the contrary, surely he is bound in honor to admit frankly that he has
been betrayed into a misrepresentation, and to correct it.

Mr. Wilson says that for sixteen years the National Administration has
"been virtually under the regulation of the trusts," and that the big
business men "have already captured the Government." Such a statement as
this might perhaps be pardoned as mere rhetoric in a candidate seeking
office--although it is the kind of statement that never under any
circumstances have I permitted myself to make, whether on the stump or
off the stump, about any opponent, unless I was prepared to back it up
with explicit facts. But there is an added seriousness to the charge
when it is made deliberately and in cold blood by a man who is at the
time President. In this volume I have set forth my relations with the
trusts. I challenge Mr. Wilson to controvert anything I have said, or to
name any trusts or any big business men who regulated, or in any
shape or way controlled, or captured, the Government during my term
as President. He must furnish specifications if his words are taken at
their face value--and I venture to say in advance that the absurdity
of such a charge is patent to all my fellow-citizens, not excepting Mr.
Wilson.

Mr. Wilson says that the new party was founded "under the leadership of
Mr. Roosevelt, with the conspicuous aid--I mention him with no satirical
intention, but merely to set the facts down accurately--of Mr. George W.
Perkins, organizer of the Steel Trust." Whether Mr. Wilson's intention
was satirical or not is of no concern; but I call his attention to the
fact that he has conspicuously and strikingly failed "to set the facts
down accurately." Mr. Perkins was not the organizer of the Steel Trust,
and when it was organized he had no connection with it or with the
Morgan people. This is well known, and it has again and again been
testified to before Congressional committees controlled by Mr. Wilson's
friends who were endeavoring to find out something against Mr. Perkins.
If Mr. Wilson does not know that my statement is correct, he ought to
know it, and he is not to be excused for making such a misstatement as
he has made when he has not a particle of evidence in support of it.
Mr. Perkins was from the beginning in the Harvester Trust but, when Mr.
Wilson points out this fact, why does he not add that he was the only
man in that trust who supported me, and that the President of the trust
ardently supported Mr. Wilson himself? It is disingenuous to endeavor to
conceal these facts, and to mislead ordinary citizens about them. Under
the administrations of both Mr. Taft and Mr. Wilson, Mr. Perkins has
been singled out for special attack, obviously not because he belonged
to the Harvester and Steel Trusts, but because he alone among the
prominent men of the two corporations, fearlessly supported the only
party which afforded any real hope of checking the evil of the trusts.

Mr. Wilson states that the Progressives have "a programme perfectly
agreeable to monopolies."

The plain and unmistakable inference to be drawn from this and other
similar statements in his article, and the inference which he obviously
desired to have drawn, is that the big corporations approved the
Progressive plan and supported the Progressive candidate. If President
Wilson does not know perfectly well that this is not the case, he is
the only intelligent person in the United States who is thus ignorant.
Everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of the heads of the big
corporations supported him or Mr. Taft. It is equally well known that of
the corporations he mentions, the Steel and the Harvester Trusts, there
was but one man who took any part in the Progressive campaign, and that
almost all the others, some thirty in number, were against us, and some
of them, including the President of the Harvester Trust, openly and
enthusiastically for Mr. Wilson himself. If he reads the newspapers
at all, he must know that practically every man representing the
great financial interests of the country, and without exception every
newspaper controlled by Wall Street or State Street, actively supported
either him or Mr. Taft, and showed perfect willingness to accept either
if only they could prevent the Progressive party from coming into power
and from putting its platform into effect.

Mr. Wilson says of the trust plank in that platform that it "did not
anywhere condemn monopoly except in words." Exactly of what else could a
platform consist? Does Mr. Wilson expect us to use algebraic signs? This
criticism is much as if he said the Constitution or the Declaration of
Independence contained nothing but words. The Progressive platform did
contain words, and the words were admirably designed to express thought
and meaning and purpose. Mr. Wilson says that I long ago "classified
trusts for us as good and bad," and said that I was "afraid only of the
bad ones." Mr. Wilson would do well to quote exactly what my language
was, and where it was used, for I am at a loss to know what statement
of mine it is to which he refers. But if he means that I say that
corporations can do well, and that corporations can also do ill, he is
stating my position correctly. I hold that a corporation does ill if it
seeks profit in restricting production and then by extorting high prices
from the community by reason of the scarcity of the product; through
adulterating, lyingly advertising, or over-driving the help; or
replacing men workers with children; or by rebates; or in any illegal
or improper manner driving competitors out of its way; or seeking to
achieve monopoly by illegal or unethical treatment of its competitors,
or in any shape or way offending against the moral law either in
connection with the public or with its employees or with its rivals. Any
corporation which seeks its profit in such fashion is acting badly.
It is, in fact, a conspiracy against the public welfare which the
Government should use all its powers to suppress. If, on the other hand,
a corporation seeks profit solely by increasing its products through
eliminating waste, improving its processes, utilizing its by-products,
installing better machines, raising wages in the effort to secure more
efficient help, introducing the principle of cooperation and mutual
benefit, dealing fairly with labor unions, setting its face against
the underpayment of women and the employment of children; in a
word, treating the public fairly and its rivals fairly: then such a
corporation is behaving well. It is an instrumentality of civilization
operating to promote abundance by cheapening the cost of living so as to
improve conditions everywhere throughout the whole community. Does Mr.
Wilson controvert either of these statements? If so, let him answer
directly. It is a matter of capital importance to the country that his
position in this respect be stated directly, not by indirect suggestion.

Much of Mr. Wilson's article, although apparently aimed at the
Progressive party, is both so rhetorical and so vague as to need no
answer. He does, however, specifically assert (among other things
equally without warrant in fact) that the Progressive party says that it
is "futile to undertake to prevent monopoly," and only ventures to
ask the trusts to be "kind" and "pitiful"! It is a little difficult
to answer a misrepresentation of the facts so radical--not to say
preposterous--with the respect that one desires to use in speaking of or
to the President of the United States. I challenge President Wilson to
point to one sentence of our platform or of my speeches which affords
the faintest justification for these assertions. Having made this
statement in the course of an unprovoked attack on me, he cannot refuse
to show that it is true. I deem it necessary to emphasize here (but with
perfect respect) that I am asking for a plain statement of fact, not
for a display of rhetoric. I ask him, as is my right under the
circumstances, to quote the exact language which justifies him in
attributing these views to us. If he cannot do this, then a frank
acknowledgment on his part is due to himself and to the people. I quote
from the Progressive platform: "Behind the ostensible Government sits
enthroned an invisible Government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging
no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible Government,
to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt
politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. . . . This
country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws,
its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever
manner will best promote the general interest." This assertion is
explicit. We say directly that "the people" are absolutely to control in
any way they see fit, the "business" of the country. I again challenge
Mr. Wilson to quote any words of the platform that justify the
statements he has made to the contrary. If he cannot do it--and of
course he cannot do it, and he must know that he cannot do it--surely he
will not hesitate to say so frankly.

Mr. Wilson must know that every monopoly in the United States opposes
the Progressive party. If he challenges this statement, I challenge him
in return (as is clearly my right) to name the monopoly that did support
the Progressive party, whether it was the Sugar Trust, the Steel Trust,
the Harvester Trust, the Standard Oil Trust, the Tobacco Trust, or any
other. Every sane man in the country knows well that there is not one
word of justification that can truthfully be adduced for Mr. Wilson's
statement that the Progressive programme was agreeable to the
monopolies. Ours was the only programme to which they objected, and they
supported either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Taft against me, indifferent as to
which of them might be elected so long as I was defeated. Mr. Wilson
says that I got my "idea with regard to the regulation of monopoly from
the gentlemen who form the United States Steel Corporation." Does Mr.
Wilson pretend that Mr. Van Hise and Mr. Croly got their ideas from the
Steel Corporation? Is Mr. Wilson unaware of the elementary fact that
most modern economists believe that unlimited, unregulated competition
is the source of evils which all men now concede must be remedied if
this civilization of ours is to survive? Is he ignorant of the fact that
the Socialist party has long been against unlimited competition? This
statement of Mr. Wilson cannot be characterized properly with any degree
of regard for the office Mr. Wilson holds. Why, the ideas that I
have championed as to controlling and regulating both competition and
combination in the interest of the people, so that the people shall be
masters over both, have been in the air in this country for a quarter of
a century. I was merely the first prominent candidate for President who
took them up. They are the progressive ideas, and progressive business
men must in the end come to them, for I firmly believe that in the
end all wise and honest business men, big and little, will support our
programme. Mr. Wilson in opposing them is the mere apostle of reaction.
He says that I got my "ideas from the gentlemen who form the Steel
Corporation." I did not. But I will point out to him something in
return. It was he himself, and Mr. Taft, who got the votes and the money
of these same gentlemen, and of those in the Harvester Trust.

Mr. Wilson has promised to break up all trusts. He can do so only by
proceeding at law. If he proceeds at law, he can hope for success
only by taking what I have done as a precedent. In fact, what I did as
President is the base of every action now taken or that can be now
taken looking toward the control of corporations, or the suppression
of monopolies. The decisions rendered in various cases brought by my
direction constitute the authority on which Mr. Wilson must base any
action that he may bring to curb monopolistic control. Will Mr. Wilson
deny this, or question it in any way? With what grace can he describe
my Administration as satisfactory to the trusts when he knows that he
cannot redeem a single promise that he has made to war upon the trusts
unless he avails himself of weapons of which the Federal Government had
been deprived before I became President, and which were restored to
it during my Administration and through proceedings which I directed?
Without my action Mr. Wilson could not now undertake or carry on a
single suit against a monopoly, and, moreover, if it had not been for my
action and for the judicial decision in consequence obtained, Congress
would be helpless to pass a single law against monopoly.

Let Mr. Wilson mark that the men who organized and directed the Northern
Securities Company were also the controlling forces in the very Steel
Corporation which Mr. Wilson makes believe to think was supporting me.
I challenge Mr. Wilson to deny this, and yet he well knew that it was
my successful suit against the Northern Securities Company which first
efficiently established the power of the people over the trusts.

After reading Mr. Wilson's book, I am still entirely in the dark as to
what he means by the "New Freedom." Mr. Wilson is an accomplished and
scholarly man, a master of rhetoric, and the sentences in the book are
well-phrased statements, usually inculcating a morality which is sound
although vague and ill defined. There are certain proposals (already
long set forth and practiced by me and by others who have recently
formed the Progressive party) made by Mr. Wilson with which I cordially
agree. There are, however, certain things he has said, even as regards
matters of abstract morality, with which I emphatically disagree.
For example, in arguing for proper business publicity, as to which I
cordially agree with Mr. Wilson, he commits himself to the following
statement:

"You know there is temptation in loneliness and secrecy. Haven't you
experienced it? I have. We are never so proper in our conduct as when
everybody can look and see exactly what we are doing. If you are off in
some distant part of the world and suppose that nobody who lives within
a mile of your home is anywhere around, there are times when you adjourn
your ordinary standards. You say to yourself, 'Well, I'll have a fling
this time; nobody will know anything about it.' If you were on the
Desert of Sahara, you would feel that you might permit yourself--well,
say, some slight latitude of conduct; but if you saw one of your
immediate neighbors coming the other way on a camel, you would behave
yourself until he got out of sight. The most dangerous thing in the
world is to get off where nobody knows you. I advise you to stay around
among the neighbors, and then you may keep out of jail. That is the only
way some of us can keep out of jail."

I emphatically disagree with what seems to be the morality inculcated
in this statement, which is that a man is expected to do and is to be
pardoned for doing all kinds of immoral things if he does them alone
and does not expect to be found out. Surely it is not necessary, in
insisting upon proper publicity, to preach a morality of so basely
material a character.

There is much more that Mr. Wilson says as to which I do not understand
him clearly, and where I condemn what I do understand. In economic
matters the course he advocates as part of the "New Freedom" simply
means the old, old "freedom" of leaving the individual strong man
at liberty, unchecked by common action, to prey on the weak and the
helpless. The "New Freedom" in the abstract seems to be the freedom
of the big to devour the little. In the concrete I may add that Mr.
Wilson's misrepresentations of what I have said seem to indicate that he
regards the new freedom as freedom from all obligation to obey the Ninth
Commandment.

But, after all, my views or the principles of the Progressive party are
of much less importance now than the purposes of Mr. Wilson. These are
wrapped in impenetrable mystery. His speeches and writings serve but
to make them more obscure. If these attempts to refute his
misrepresentation of my attitude towards the trusts should result in
making his own clear, then this discussion will have borne fruits of
substantial value to the country. If Mr. Wilson has any plan of his
own for dealing with the trusts, it is to suppress all great industrial
organizations--presumably on the principle proclaimed by his Secretary
of State four years ago, that every corporation which produced more than
a certain percentage of a given commodity--I think the amount specified
was twenty-five per cent--no matter how valuable its service, should be
suppressed. The simple fact is that such a plan is futile. In operation
it would do far more damage than it could remedy. The Progressive plan
would give the people full control of, and in masterful fashion prevent
all wrongdoing by, the trusts, while utilizing for the public welfare
every industrial energy and ability that operates to swell abundance,
while obeying strictly the moral law and the law of the land. Mr.
Wilson's plan would ultimately benefit the trusts and would permanently
damage nobody but the people. For example, one of the steel corporations
which has been guilty of the worst practices towards its employees is
the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan's plan
would, if successful, merely mean permitting four such companies,
absolutely uncontrolled, to monopolize every big industry in the
country. To talk of such an accomplishment as being "The New Freedom" is
enough to make the term one of contemptuous derision.

President Wilson has made explicit promises, and the Democratic
platform has made explicit promises. Mr. Wilson is now in power, with
a Democratic Congress in both branches. He and the Democratic platform
have promised to destroy the trusts, to reduce the cost of living, and
at the same time to increase the well-being of the farmer and of the
workingman--which of course must mean to increase the profits of
the farmer and the wages of the workingman. He and his party won the
election on this promise. We have a right to expect that they will keep
it. If Mr. Wilson's promises mean anything except the very emptiest
words, he is pledged to accomplish the beneficent purposes he avows by
breaking up all the trusts and combinations and corporations so as to
restore competition precisely as it was fifty years ago. If he does not
mean this, he means nothing. He cannot do anything else under penalty
of showing that his promise and his performance do not square with each
other.

Mr. Wilson says that "the trusts are our masters now, but I for one
do not care to live in a country called free even under kind masters."
Good! The Progressives are opposed to having masters, kind or unkind,
and they do not believe that a "new freedom" which in practice would
mean leaving four Fuel and Iron Companies free to do what they like in
every industry would be of much benefit to the country. The Progressives
have a clear and definite programme by which the people would be the
masters of the trusts instead of the trusts being their masters, as Mr.
Wilson says they are. With practical unanimity the trusts supported the
opponents of this programme, Mr. Taft and Mr. Wilson, and they evidently
dreaded our programme infinitely more than anything that Mr. Wilson
threatened. The people have accepted Mr. Wilson's assurances. Now let
him make his promises good. He is committed, if his words mean anything,
to the promise to break up every trust, every big corporation--perhaps
every small corporation--in the United States--not to go through
the motions of breaking them up, but really to break them up. He is
committed against the policy (of efficient control and mastery of
the big corporations both by law and by administrative action in
cooperation) proposed by the Progressives. Let him keep faith with
the people; let him in good faith try to keep the promises he has thus
repeatedly made. I believe that his promise is futile and cannot be
kept. I believe that any attempt sincerely to keep it and in good faith
to carry it out will end in either nothing at all or in disaster. But my
beliefs are of no consequence. Mr. Wilson is President. It is his acts
that are of consequence. He is bound in honor to the people of the
United States to keep his promise, and to break up, not nominally but in
reality, all big business, all trusts, all combinations of every sort,
kind, and description, and probably all corporations. What he says is
henceforth of little consequence. The important thing is what he
does, and how the results of what he does square with the promises and
prophecies he made when all he had to do was to speak, not to act.



APPENDIX C

THE BLAINE CAMPAIGN

In "The House of Harper," written by J. Henry Harper, the following
passage occurs: "Curtis returned from the convention in company with
young Theodore Roosevelt and they discussed the situation thoroughly on
their trip to New York and came to the conclusion that it would be very
difficult to consistently support Blaine. Roosevelt, however, had a
conference afterward with Senator Lodge and eventually fell in line
behind Blaine. Curtis came to our office and found that we were
unanimously opposed to the support of Blaine, and with a hearty
good-will he trained his editorial guns on the 'Plumed Knight' of
Mulligan letter fame. His work was as effective and deadly as any fight
he ever conducted in the _Weekly_." This statement has no foundation
whatever in fact. I did not return from the convention in company with
Mr. Curtis. He went back to New York from the convention, whereas I
went to my ranch in North Dakota. No such conversation as that ever took
place between me and Mr. Curtis. In my presence, in speaking to a number
of men at the time in Chicago, Mr. Curtis said: "You younger men can,
if you think right, refuse to support Mr. Blaine, but I am too old a
Republican, and have too long been associated with the party, to break
with it now." Not only did I never entertain after the convention, but
I never during the convention or at any other time, entertained the
intention alleged in the quotation in question. I discussed the whole
situation with Mr. Lodge before going to the convention, and we had made
up our minds that if the nomination of Mr. Blaine was fairly made we
would with equal good faith support him.
Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt - Part 2
