THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
The administrations of Mr. Roosevelt cannot be characterized by a
general phrase, although they will doubtless be regarded by historians
as marking an epoch in the political history of the United States. If we
search for great and significant social and economic legislation during
that period, we shall hardly find it, nor can we discover in his
numerous and voluminous messages much that is concrete in spite of their
immense suggestiveness. The adoption of the income tax amendment, the
passage of the amendment for popular election of Senators, the
establishment of parcel post and postal savings banks, and the
successful prosecution of trusts and combinations,--all these
achievements belong in time to the administration of Mr. Taft, although
it will be claimed by some that they were but a fruition of plans laid
or policies advocated by Mr. Roosevelt.
One who attempts to estimate and evaluate those eight years of
multifarious activity will find it difficult to separate the transient
and spectacular from the permanent and fundamental. In the foreground
stand the interference in the coal strike, the acquisition of the Panama
Canal strip, voluminous messages discussing every aspect of our complex
social and political life, vigorous and spirited interference with state
elections, as in the case of Mr. Hearst's campaign in New York, and in
city politics, as in the case of Mr. Burton's contest in Cleveland,
Ohio, the pressing of the idea of conserving natural resources upon the
public mind, acrimonious disputes with private citizens like Mr.
Harriman, and, finally, the closing days of bitter hostilities with
Congress over the Tennessee Coal and Iron affair and appropriations for
special detectives to be at executive disposal.
_Mr. Roosevelt's Doctrines_
During those years the country was much torn with the scandals arising
from investigations, such as the life insurance inquest in New York,
which revealed grave lapses from the paths of rectitude on the part of
men high in public esteem, and gross and vulgar use of money in
campaigns. No little of the discredit connected with these affairs fell
upon the Republican party, not because its methods were shown to be
worse in general than those of the Democrats, but because it happened to
be in power. The great task of counteracting this discontent fell upon
Mr. Roosevelt, who smote with many a message the money changers in the
temple of his own party, and convinced a large portion of the country
that he had not only driven them out but had refused all association
with them.
Mr. Roosevelt was thus quick to catch the prevailing public temper. "It
makes not a particle of difference," he said in 1907, "whether these
crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading
banker or manufacturer or railroad man, or by a leading representative
of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making
fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by
destroying competitors through rebates,--these forms of wrongdoing in
the capitalist are far more infamous than any ordinary form of
embezzlement or forgery.... The business man who condones such conduct
stands on a level with the labor man who deliberately supports a corrupt
demagogue and agitator."
* * * * *
Any one who takes the trouble to examine with care Mr. Roosevelt's
messages and other public utterances during the period of his
administration will discover the elements of many of his policies which
later took more precise form.
In his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, Mr. Roosevelt
gave considerable attention to trusts and collateral economic problems.
He refused to concede the oft-repeated claim that great fortunes were
the product of special legal privileges. "The creation of these great
corporate fortunes," he said, "has not been due to the tariff nor to any
other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world,
operating in other countries as they operate in our own. The process has
aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without
warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer, the poor
have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man,
the wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in
this country at the present time. There have been abuses connected with
the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune
accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person
specially benefitted only on condition of conferring immense incidental
benefits upon others."
While thus contending that large fortunes in the main were the product
of "natural economic forces," Mr. Roosevelt admitted that some grave
evils had arisen in connection with combinations and trusts, and
foreshadowed in his proposed remedial legislation the policy of
regulation and new nationalism. "When the Constitution was adopted, at
the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the
sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which
were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that
time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several states were
the proper authorities to regulate ... the comparatively insignificant
and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are
now wholly different, and a wholly different action is called for." The
remedy he proposed was publicity for corporate affairs, the regulation,
not the prohibition, of great combinations, the elimination of specific
abuses such as overcapitalization, and government supervision. If the
powers of Congress, under the Constitution, were inadequate, then a
constitutional amendment should be submitted conferring the proper
power. The Interstate Commerce Act should likewise be amended. "The
railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all
shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its
jurisdiction this is so." Conservation of natural resources, irrigation
plans, the creation of a department of Commerce and Labor, army and navy
reform, and the construction of the Panama Canal were also recommended
at the same time (1901).
In this message, nearly all of Mr. Roosevelt's later policies as
President are presaged, and in it also are marked the spirit and
phraseology which have done so much to make him the idol of the American
middle class, and particularly of the social reformer. There are, for
instance, many little aphorisms which appeal to the moral sentiments.
"When all is said and done," he says, "the rule of brotherhood remains
as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national
life for which we are to strive. Each man must work for himself, and
unless he so works no outside help can avail him; but each man must
remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that, while no
man who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or any
one else, yet each at times stumbles or halts, each at times needs to
have the helping hand outstretched to him." The "reckless agitator" and
anarchist are dealt with in a summary fashion, and emphasis is laid on
the primitive virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry, and
self-restraint. The new phrases of the social reformer also appear side
by side with the exclamations of virtuous indignation: "social
betterment," "sociological law," "rule of brotherhood," "high aims,"
"foolish visionary," "equity between man and man"--in fact the whole
range of the terminology of social "uplift."
None of Mr. Roosevelt's later messages added anything new by way of
economic doctrine or moral principle. The same notions recurred again
and again, often in almost identical language and frequently in the form
of long quotations from previous messages. But there appeared from time
to time different concrete proposals, elaborating those already
suggested to Congress. The tariff he occasionally touched upon, but
never at great length or with much emphasis. He frequently reiterated
the doctrine that the country was committed to protection, that the
tariff was not responsible for the growth of combinations and trusts,
and that no economic question of moment could be solved by its revision
or abandonment.
As to the trusts, Mr. Roosevelt consistently maintained the position
which he had taken as governor of New York and had stated in his first
message; namely, that most of the legislation against trusts was futile
and that publicity and governmental supervision were the only methods of
approaching the question which the logic of events admitted. In his
message of December, 1907, he said: "The anti-trust law should not be
repealed; but it should be made more efficient and more in harmony with
actual conditions. It should be so amended as to forbid only the kind of
combination which does harm to the general public, such amendment to be
accompanied by, or to be an incident of, a grant of supervisory power to
the Government over these big concerns engaged in interstate business.
This should be accompanied by provision for the compulsory publication
of accounts and the subjection of books and papers to the inspection of
the Government officials.... The Congress has the power to charter
corporations to engage in interstate and foreign commerce, and a general
law can be enacted under the provisions of which existing corporations
could take out federal charters and new federal corporations could be
created. An essential provision of such a law should be a method of
predetermining by some federal board or commission whether the applicant
for a federal charter was an association or combination within the
restrictions of the federal law. Provision should also be made for
complete publicity in all matters affecting the public, and complete
protection to the investing public and the shareholders in the matter of
issuing corporate securities. If an incorporation law is not deemed
advisable, a license act for big interstate corporations might be
enacted; or a combination of the two might be tried. The supervision
established might be analogous to that now exercised over national
banks. At least, the anti-trust act should be supplemented by specific
prohibitions of the methods which experience has shown have been of most
service in enabling monopolistic combinations to crush out competition.
The real owners of a corporation should be compelled to do business in
their own name. The right to hold stock in other corporations should be
denied to interstate corporations, unless on approval by the proper
Government officials, and a prerequisite to such approval should be the
listing with the Government of all owners and stockholders, both by the
corporation owning such stock and by the corporation in which such stock
is owned."
With that prescience which characterized his political career from his
entrance into politics, Mr. Roosevelt foresaw that it was impossible
for capitalists in the United States to postpone those milder reforms,
such as employers' liability, which had been accepted in the enlightened
countries of Europe long before the close of the nineteenth century. In
his message of December 3, 1907, he pointed out that "the number of
accidents to wage-workers, including those that are preventable and
those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical,
manufacturing and transportation operations of the day. It works grim
hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect
of such an accident fall solely upon him." Mr. Roosevelt thereupon
recommended the strengthening of the employers' liability law which had
been recently passed by Congress, and urged upon that body "the
enactment of a law which will ... bring federal legislation up to the
standard already established by all European countries, and which will
serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation
in this regard."
As has been pointed out above, Mr. Roosevelt, in all of his
recommendations, took the ground that the prevailing system of
production and distribution of wealth was essentially sound, that
substantial justice was now being worked out between man and man, and
that only a few painful excrescences needed to be lopped off. Only on
one occasion, it seems, did he advise the adoption of any measures
affecting directly the distribution of acquired wealth. In his message
of December 3, 1907, he declared that when our tax laws were revised,
the question of inheritance and income taxes should be carefully
considered. He spoke with diffidence of the latter because of the
difficulties of evasion involved, and the decision of the Supreme Court
in 1895. "Nevertheless," he said, "a graduated income tax of the proper
type would be a desirable feature of federal taxation, and it is to be
hoped that one may be devised which the Supreme Court will declare
constitutional." The inheritance tax was, in his opinion, however,
preferable; such a tax had been upheld by the Court and was "far more
important for the purpose of having the fortunes of the country bear in
proportion to their increase in size a corresponding increase and burden
of taxation." He accordingly approved the principle of a progressive
inheritance tax, increasing to perhaps 25 per cent in the case of
distant relatives.
While advocating social reforms and castigating wrong-doers at home, Mr.
Roosevelt was equally severe in dealing with Latin-American states which
failed to discharge their obligations to other countries faithfully. In
his message of December, 1905, he said: "We must make it evident that we
do not intend to permit the Monroe doctrine to be used by any nation on
this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its
own misdeeds against foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us
commits a tort against a foreign nation, such as an outrage against a
citizen of that nation, then the Monroe doctrine does not force us to
interfere to prevent the punishment of the tort, save to see that the
punishment does not assume the form of territorial occupation in any
shape. The case is more difficult when it refers to a contractual
obligation.... The country would certainly decline to go to war to
prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt; on the other
hand it is very inadvisable to permit any foreign power to take
possession, even temporarily, of the custom houses of an American
republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations; for such a
temporary occupation might turn into a permanent occupation. The only
escape from these alternatives may at any time be that we must ourselves
undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as possible
of a just obligation shall be paid."
* * * * *
Mr. Roosevelt's messages and various activities while he was serving the
unexpired term of President McKinley upset all of the conservative
traditions of the executive office. He intervened, without power, in the
anthracite coal strike of 1902, and had the satisfaction of seeing the
miners make substantial gains at the hands of a commission appointed by
himself, to which the contestants had agreed to submit the issues. He
began a prosecution of the Northern Securities Company at a time when
such actions against great combinations of capital were unfashionable.
He forced an investigation of the post-office administration in 1903,
which revealed frauds of huge dimensions; and he gave the administration
of public lands a turning over which led to the successful criminal
prosecution of two United States Senators. Citizens acquired the habit
of looking to the headlines of the morning paper for some new and
startling activity on the part of the President. Politicians of the old
school in both parties, who had been used to settling difficulties by
quiet conferences within the "organization," stood aghast. They did not
like Mr. Roosevelt's methods which they characterized as "erratic"; but
the death of Mr. Hanna in February, 1904, took away the only forceful
leader who might have consolidated the opposition within Republican
ranks.
_The Campaign of 1904_
Nevertheless the rumor was vigorously circulated that Mr. Roosevelt was
violently opposed by "Wall Street and the Trusts." Whatever may have
been the source of this rumor it only enhanced the President's
popularity. In December, 1903, Senator O. H. Platt wrote: "I do not know
how much importance to attach to the current opposition to Roosevelt by
what are called the 'corporate and money influences' in New York....
There is a great deal said about it, as if it were widespread and
violent. I know that it does not include the whole of that class of
people, because I know many bankers and capitalists, railroad and
business men who are his strong, good friends, and they are not among
the smaller and weaker parties, either.... Now it is a great mistake for
capitalistic interests to oppose Roosevelt.... I think he will be
nominated by acclamation, so what is to be gained by the Wall Street
contingent and the railroad interests in this seeming opposition to
him?... There is no Republican in the United States who can be elected
except Roosevelt.... He is going to be the people's candidate, not the
candidate of the trusts or of the hoodlums, but of the conservative
elements."
The Republican convention in 1904 was uneventful beyond measure. Though
Mr. Roosevelt was disliked by many members of his party, his nomination
was unavoidable, and even his opponents abstained from any word or deed
that might have disturbed the concord of the occasion. The management of
the convention was principally in the hands of the men from whom Mr.
Roosevelt afterward broke and stigmatized as "reactionary." Mr. Elihu
Root was temporary chairman, Mr. Joseph G. Cannon was permanent
chairman, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge was chairman of the committee on
resolutions which reported the platform, Mr. W. M. Crane and Mr. Boies
Penrose were selected as members of the national committee from their
respective states, and Mr. Frank S. Black, of New York, made the speech
nominating Mr. Roosevelt. Throughout, the proceedings were harmonious;
the platform and the nomination were accepted vociferously without a
dissenting vote.
The Republican platform of 1904 gave no recognition of any of the newer
social and economic problems which were soon to rend that party in
twain. After the fashion of announcements made by parties already in
power, it laid great emphasis upon Republican achievements since the
great victory of 1896. A protective tariff under which all industries
had revived and prospered had been enacted; public credit was now
restored, Cuban independence established, peace, freedom, order, and
prosperity given to Porto Rico, the Philippine Islands endowed with the
largest civil liberty ever enjoyed there, the laws against unjust
discriminations by vast aggregations of capital fearlessly enforced,
and the gold standard upheld. The program of positive action included
nothing new: extension of foreign markets, encouragement of American
shipping, enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment wherever the suffrage
had been curtailed, and indorsement of civil service, international
arbitration, and liberal pensions. The trust plank was noncommittal as
to concrete policy: "Combinations of capital and of labor are the
results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be
permitted to infringe the rights and interests of the people. Such
combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike
entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws
and neither can be permitted to break them."
In their campaign book for 1904, the Republican leaders exhibited Mr.
Roosevelt as the ideal American in a superlative degree. "Theodore
Roosevelt's character," runs the eulogy, "is no topic for difference
of opinion or for party controversy. It is without mystery or
concealment. It has the primary qualities that in all ages have been
admired and respected: physical prowess, great energy and vitality,
straightforwardness and moral courage, promptness in action, talent for
leadership.... Theodore Roosevelt, as a typical personality, has won the
hearty confidence of the American people; and he has not shrunk from
recognizing and using his influence as an advocate of the best standards
of personal, domestic, and civic life in the country. He has made these
things relating to life and conduct a favorite theme in speech and essay
and he has diligently practiced what he preached. Thus he has become a
power for wholesomeness in every department of our life as a people."
* * * * *
The Democratic nominee, Mr. Alton B. Parker, failed to elicit any
enthusiasm in the rank and file of the party. He had supported the
Democratic candidate at a time when many of his conservative friends had
repudiated Mr. Bryan altogether, and thus he could not be branded as a
"bolter." But Mr. Parker's long term of service as judge of the highest
court of New York, his remoteness from actual partisan controversies,
his refusal to plunge into a whirlwind stumping campaign, and his
dignified reserve, all combined to prevent his getting a grip upon the
popular imagination. His weakness was further increased by the
half-hearted support given by Mr. Bryan who openly declared the party to
be under the control of the "Wall Street element," but confessed that he
intended to give his vote to Mr. Parker, although the latter, in a
telegram to the nominating convention at St. Louis, had announced his
unflinching adherence to the gold standard.
The Democratic platform, except in its denunciation of the Republican
administration, was as indefinite as the occasion demanded. Independence
should be promised to the Filipinos at the proper time and under proper
circumstances; there should be a revision and gradual reduction of the
tariff by "the friends of the masses"; United States Senators should be
elected by popular vote; combinations and trusts which restrict
competition, control production, or fix prices and wages should be
forbidden and punished by law. The administration of Mr. Roosevelt was
denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and
arbitrary," and the proposal of the Republican platform to enforce the
Fourteenth Amendment was condemned as "Bourbon-like, selfish, and
narrow," and designed to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional
strife. Constitutional, simple, and orderly government was promised,
affording no sensations, offering no organic changes in the political or
economic structure, and making no departures from the government "as
framed and established by the fathers of the Republic."
* * * * *
The only extraordinary incident in the campaign of 1904 occurred toward
the closing days, when Mr. Parker repeatedly charged that the Republican
party was being financed by contributions from corporations and trust
magnates. The Democratic candidate also declared that Mr. Cortelyou, as
Secretary of Commerce and Labor, had acquired through the use of
official inquisitorial powers inside information as to the practices of
trusts, and that as chairman of the Republican national committee, he
had used his special knowledge to extort contributions from
corporations. These corrupt and debasing methods had, in the opinion of
Mr. Parker, threatened the integrity of the republic and transformed the
government of the people into "a government whose officers are
practically chosen by a handful of corporate managers, who levy upon the
assets of the stockholders whom they represent such sums of money as
they deem requisite to place the conduct of the Government in such
hands as they consider best for their private interests."
These grave charges were made as early as October 24, and it was
expected that Mr. Cortelyou would reply immediately, particularly as Mr.
Parker was repeating and amplifying them. However, no formal answer came
until November 5, three days before the election, when a countercharge
was impossible. On that date Mr. Roosevelt issued a signed statement,
analyzing the charges of his opponent, and closing with the positive
declaration that "the statements made by Mr. Parker are unqualifiedly
and atrociously false."
No doubt it would have been difficult for Mr. Parker to have
substantiated many of the details in his charges, but the general truth
of his contention that the Republican campaign was financed by railway
and trust magnates was later established by the life insurance
investigation in New York in 1905, by the exposures of trust methods by
Mr. Hearst in the publication of Standard Oil Letters, and by the
revelations made before the Clapp committee of the Senate in 1912. It is
true, Mr. Roosevelt asserted that he knew nothing personally about the
corporation contributions, particularly the Standard Oil gifts, and
although he convinced his friends of his entire innocence in the matter,
seasoned politicians could hardly understand a naivete so far outside
the range of their experience.
The Democratic candidate and his friends took open pleasure in the
discomfiture produced in Republican ranks by these unpleasant
revelations, but no little bitterness was added to their cup of joy by
the other side of the story. During the life insurance investigation
one of the life insurance officers declared: "My life was made weary by
the Democratic candidates chasing for money in that campaign. Some of
the very men who to-day are being interviewed in the papers as
denouncing the men who contribute to campaigns,--their shadows were
crossing my path every step I took." Later, before the Clapp committee
in 1912, Mr. August Belmont and Mr. T. F. Ryan, corporation magnates
with wide-reaching financial interests,--the latter particularly famous
for his Tobacco Trust affiliations,--testified that they had
underwritten Mr. Parker's campaign to the amount of several hundred
thousand dollars. Independent newspapers remarked that it seemed to be
another case of the kettle and the pot.
That the conservative interests looked to the Republican party, if not
to Mr. Roosevelt, for the preservation of good order in politics and the
prevention of radical legislation, is shown by the campaign
contributions on the part of those who had earlier financed Mr. Hanna.
In 1907 a letter from the railroad magnate, Mr. E. H. Harriman, was made
public, in which the writer declared that Mr. Roosevelt had invited him
to Washington in the autumn of 1904, just before the election, that at
the President's request he had raised $250,000 to help carry New York
state, and that he had paid the money over to the Republican treasurer,
Mr. Bliss. Mr. Roosevelt indignantly denied that he had requested Mr.
Harriman to raise a dollar for "the Presidential campaign of 1904." It
will be noted that Mr. Roosevelt here made a distinction between the
state and national campaign. This distinction he again drew during the
United States Senate investigation in 1912, when it became apparent that
the Standard Oil Trust had made a large contribution to the Republican
politicians in 1904. From his testimony, it would appear that Mr.
Roosevelt was unaware of the economic forces which carried him to
victory in 1904. Indeed, from the election returns, he was justified in
regarding his victory as a foregone conclusion, even if the financiers
of the party had not taken such extensive precautions.
The election returns in 1904 showed that the Democratic candidate had
failed to engage the enthusiasm of his party, for the vote cast for him
was more than a million and a quarter short of that cast for Mr. Bryan
in 1900. The personal popularity of Mr. Roosevelt was fully evidenced in
the electoral and popular votes. Of the former he secured 336 against
140 cast for his opponent, and of the latter he polled nearly 400,000
more than Mr. McKinley. Nevertheless the total vote throughout the
country was nearly half a million under that of 1900, showing an
undoubted apathy or a dissatisfaction with the two old parties. This
dissatisfaction was further demonstrated in a startling way by the heavy
increase in the socialist ranks, a jump from about 95,000 in 1900 to
more than 400,000.
_The Achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's Administrations_
Doubtless the most significant of all the laws enacted during Mr.
Roosevelt's administrations was the Hepburn Act passed in 1906. This law
increased the number of the Interstate Commerce Commission[62] to
seven, extended the law to cover pipe lines, express companies, and
sleeping car companies, and bridges, ferries, and railway terminals. It
gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to reduce a rate found
to be unreasonable or discriminatory in cases in which complaints were
filed by shippers adversely affected; it abolished "midnight tariffs"
under which favored shippers had been given special rates, by requiring
proper notice of all changes in schedules; and it forbade common
carriers to engage in the transportation of commodities owned by
themselves, except for their own proper uses.
The Hepburn bill, however, did not confer upon the Interstate Commerce
Commission that power over rates which the Commission had long been
urging as necessary to give shippers the relief they expected. Senator
La Follette, fresh from a fight with the railways in Wisconsin, proposed
several radical amendments in the Senate, and endeavored without avail
to secure the open support of President Roosevelt.[63] The Senator
insisted that it would be possible under the Hepburn bill "for the
commission to determine whether rates were _relatively reasonable_, but
not that they were _reasonable per se_; that one rate could be compared
with another, but that the Commission had no means of determining
whether either rate so compared was itself a reasonable rate." No one
can tell, urged the Senator, whether a rate is reasonable until the
railway in question has been evaluated. This point he pressed with great
insistence, and though defeated at the time, he had the consolation of
having the principle of physical valuation enacted into law in
1913.[64] At all events, the railways found little or no fault with the
Hepburn law, and shortly afterward began to raise their rates in the
face of strong opposition from shippers.
Two laws relative to foodstuffs, the meat inspection act and the pure
food act, were passed in 1906 in response to the popular demand for
protection against diseased meats and deleterious foods and drugs--a
demand created largely by the revelation of shocking conditions in the
Chicago stockyards and of nefarious practices on the part of a large
number of manufacturers. The first of the measures was intended to
guarantee that the meat shipped in interstate commerce should be derived
from animals which were sound at the time of slaughter, prepared under
sanitary conditions in the packing houses, and adequately inspected by
Federal employees. The second measure covered foods and drugs, and
provided that such articles "must not contain any injurious or
deleterious drug, chemical or preservative, and that the label on each
package must state the exact facts and not be misleading or false in any
particular." The effect of the last of these measures was felt in the
extinction of a large number of patent medicine and other
quasi-fraudulent concerns engaged in interstate trade.
The social legislation enacted during Mr. Roosevelt's administrations is
not very extensive, although it was accompanied by much discussion at
the time. The most significant piece of labor legislation was the
employers' liability law enacted in 1906, which imposed a liability upon
common carriers engaged in interstate commerce for injuries sustained by
employees in their service. On January 6, 1908, the Supreme Court
declared the act unconstitutional on the ground that it interblended the
exercise of legitimate powers over interstate commerce and interference
with matters outside the scope of such commerce. The act was again taken
up in Congress, and in April of that year a second law, omitting the
objectionable features pointed out by the Court, was enacted.
A second piece of Federal legislation which is commonly called a labor
measure was the law which went into effect on March 4, 1908, limiting
the hours of railway employees engaged as trainmen or telegraph
operators. As a matter of fact, however, it was not so much the long
hours of trainmen which disturbed Congress as the appalling number of
railway disasters from which the traveling public suffered. At least it
was so stated by the Republican leaders in their campaign of 1908, for
they then declared that "although the great object of the Act is to
promote the safety of travellers upon railroads, by limiting the hours
of service of employees within reasonable bounds, it is none the less
true that in actual operation it enforces humane and considerate
treatment to employees as well as greater safety to the public."[65]
That public policy with which Mr. Roosevelt's administrations will be
most closely associated is unquestionably the conservation of natural
resources. It is true that he did not originate it or secure the
enactment of any significant legislation on the subject. The matter had
been taken up in Congress and out as early as Mr. Cleveland's first
administration, and the first important law on conservation was the act
of March 3, 1891, which authorized the President to reserve permanently
as forest lands such areas as he deemed expedient. Under this law
successive Presidents withdrew from entry enormous areas of forest
lands. This beginning Mr. Roosevelt enlarged, and by his messages and
speeches, he brought before the country in an impressive and enduring
manner the urgent necessity of abandoning the old policy of drift and of
withholding from the clutches of grasping corporations the meager domain
still left to the people. Without inquiring into what may be the wisest
final policy in the matter of our natural resources, all citizens will
doubtless agree that Mr. Roosevelt's service in this cause was valuable
beyond calculation.
Among the proudest achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was
the beginning of the actual construction of the Panama Canal. A short
route between the two oceans had long been considered by the leading
commercial nations of the world. In 1850, by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty,
the United States and Great Britain had agreed upon the construction of
a canal by a private corporation, under the supervision of the two
countries and other states, which might join the combination, on a basis
of neutralization. The complete failure of the French company organized
by De Lesseps, the hero of the Suez Canal, discouraged all practical
attempts for a time, but the naval advantages of such a waterway was
forced upon public attention in a dramatic manner during the Spanish War
when the battleship _Oregon_ made her historical voyage around the
Horn.[66]
After the Spanish War was over, Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, began
the negotiation of a new treaty with Great Britain, which, after many
hitches in the process of coming to terms, was finally ratified by the
Senate in December, 1901. This agreement, known as the Hay-Pauncefote
treaty, set aside the old Clayton-Bulwer convention, and provided that a
canal might be constructed under the supervision of the United States,
either at its own cost or by private enterprise subject to the
stipulated provisions. The United States agreed to adopt certain rules
as the basis of the neutralization of the canal, and expressly declared
that "the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of
war of all nations, observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality,
so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its
citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic
or otherwise."[67] A proposal to forbid the fortification of the canal
was omitted from the final draft, and provision was made for "policing"
the district by the United States. The canal was thus neutralized under
a guarantee of the United States, and certain promises were made in
behalf of that country.
The exact effect of this treaty was a subject of dispute from the
outset. On the one side, it was said by Mr. Latane that "a unilateral
guarantee amounts to nothing; the effect of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty,
therefore, is to place the canal politically as well as commercially
under the absolute control of the United States."[68] On the other hand,
it was contended that this treaty superseded a mutually binding
convention, and that, although it was unilateral in character, the rules
provided in it were solemn obligations binding upon the conscience of
the American nation. Whatever may be the merits of this controversy, it
is certain that the Hay-Pauncefote agreement cleared the way for speedy
and positive action on the part of the United States with regard to the
canal.
The great question then confronting the country was where and how should
the canal be built. One party favored cutting the channel through
Nicaragua, and in fact two national commissions had reported in favor of
this route. Another party advocated taking over the old French concern
and the construction of the waterway through Panama, a district then
forming a part of Colombia. As many influential Americans had become
interested in the rights of the French company, they began a campaign in
the lobbies of Congress to secure the adoption of that route. At length
in June, 1902, the merits of the Panama case or the persistency of the
lobby, or both, carried through a law providing for the purchase of the
French company's claims at a cost of not more than $40,000,000 and the
acquisition of a canal strip from the republic of Colombia--and failing
this arrangement, the selection of the Nicaragua route.
On the basis of this law, which was signed June 28, 1902, negotiations
were begun with Colombia, but they ended in failure because that country
expected to secure better terms than those offered by the United States.
The Americans who were interested in the French concern and expected to
make millions out of the purchase of property that was substantially
worthless, were greatly distressed by the refusal of Colombia to ratify
the treaty which had been negotiated. Residents of Panama were likewise
disturbed at this delay in an enterprise which meant great prosperity
for them, and with the sympathy if not the support of the American
administration, a revolt was instigated at the Isthmus and carried out
under the protection of American arms on November 3, 1903. Three days
later, President Roosevelt recognized the independence of the new
revolutionary government. In his message in December, Mr. Roosevelt
explained the great necessity under which he labored, and convinced his
friends of the wisdom and justice of his course.
By a treaty proclaimed on February 26, 1904, between Panama and the
United States, provision was made for the construction of the canal. The
independence of the former country was guaranteed, and the latter
obtained "in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control" of a canal
zone, and the right to construct, maintain, and operate the canal and
other means of transportation through the strip. Panama was paid
$10,000,000 for her concession and promised $250,000 a year after the
lapse of nine years. The full $40,000,000 was paid over to the French
concern and its American underwriters; the lock type instead of the
sea-level canal was agreed upon in 1906; construction by private
contractors was rejected in favor of public direct employment under
official engineers; and the work was pushed forward with great rapidity
in the hope that it might be completed before 1915.
* * * * *
The country had not settled down after the Panama affair before popular
interest was again engaged in a diplomatic tangle with Santo Domingo.
That petty republic, on account of its many revolutions, had become
deeply involved in debt, and European creditors, through their
diplomatic agents, had practically threatened the use of armed force in
collecting arrears, unless the United States would undertake the
supervision of the Dominican customs and divide the revenues in a
suitable manner. In an agreement signed in February, 1905, between the
United States and Santo Domingo, provisions were made for carrying such
an arrangement into effect. The Senate, having failed to sanction the
treaty, Mr. Roosevelt practically carried out the program unofficially
and gave it substantial support in the form of American battleships.
Against this independent executive action there was a strong protest in
the Senate. The spirit of this opposition was fully expressed by Mr.
Rayner in a speech in that chamber, in which he said: "This policy may
be all right--perhaps the American people are in favor of this new
doctrine; it may be a wonderful accomplishment--Central America may
profit by it; it may be a great benefit to us commercially and it may be
in the interest of civilization, but as a student and follower of the
Constitution, I deprecate the methods that have been adopted, and I
appeal to you to know whether we propose to sit silently by, and by our
indifference or tacit acquiescence submit to a scheme that ignores the
privileges of this body; that is not authorized by statute; that does
not array itself within any of the functions of the Executive; that
vests the treaty-making power exclusively in the President, to whom it
does not belong; that overrides the organic law of the land, and that
virtually proclaims to the country that, while the other branches of the
Government are controlled by the Constitution, the Executive is above
and beyond it, and whenever his own views or policies conflict with it,
he will find some way to effectuate his purposes uncontrolled by its
limitations."
Notwithstanding such attacks on his authority, the President had not in
fact exceeded his constitutional rights, and the boldness and directness
of his policy found plenty of popular support. The Senate was forced to
accept the situation with as good grace as possible, and a compromise
was arranged in a revised treaty in February, 1907, in which Mr.
Roosevelt's action on material points received official sanction from
that authority. The wisdom of the policy of using the American navy to
assist European and other creditors in collecting their debts in
Latin-American countries was thoroughly thrashed out, as well as the
constitutional points; and a new stage in the development of the Monroe
Doctrine was thus reached. Those who opposed the policy pointed to
another solution of the perennial difficulties arising in the countries
to the southward; that is, the submission of pecuniary claims to the
Hague Court or special tribunals for arbitration.[69]
Another very dramatic feature of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was his
action in bringing Russia and Japan together in 1905 and thus helping to
terminate the terrible war between these two powers. Among the
achievements of the Hague conference, called by the Tsar in 1899, was
the adoption of "A Convention for the Peaceful Adjustment of
International Differences" which provided for a permanent Court of
Arbitration, for international commissions of inquiry in disputes
arising from differences of opinion on facts, and for the tendering of
good offices and mediation. "The right to offer good offices or
mediation," runs the convention, "belongs to Powers who are strangers to
the dispute, even during the course of hostilities. The exercise of this
right shall never be considered by one or the other parties to the
contest as an unfriendly act."
It was under this last provision that President Roosevelt dispatched on
June 8, 1905, after making proper inquiries, identical notes to Russia
and Japan, urging them to open direct negotiations for peace with each
other. The fact that the great European financiers had already
substantially agreed that the war must end and that both combatants were
in sore straits for money, clearly facilitated the rapidity with which
the President's invitation was accepted. In his identical note, Mr.
Roosevelt tendered his services "in arranging the preliminaries as to
the time and place of meeting," and after some delay Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, was determined upon. The President's part in the opening
civilities of the conference between the representatives of the two
powers, and the successful outcome of the negotiations, combined to make
the affair, in the popular mind, one of the most brilliant achievements
of his administration.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] See above, p. 133.
[63] La Follette, _Autobiography_, 399 ff.
[64] The law ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to
ascertain the cost of the construction of all interstate
railways, the cost of their reconstruction at the present
time, and also the amount of land and money contributed to
railways by national, state, and local governments.
[65] _Campaign Textbook, 1908_, p. 45.
[66] See above, p. 209.
[67] Notwithstanding this arrangement, Congress in 1912
enacted a law exempting American coastwise vessels from canal
tolls.
[68] _America as a World Power_, p. 207.
[69] Latane, _America as a World Power_, pp. 282 ff.