THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Out of the humiliating debates upon the war, on the capacity of Alger
and Shafter, on the management of the commissary and the field
hospitals, on the failure of Sampson and Shafter to cooperate, on the
tactics and the alleged weakness of Schley, and on the diplomatic
sincerity of McKinley, only one name caught the public ear. The only
career that placed a soldier in line for political promotion was that of
Theodore Roosevelt, who was still under forty years of age, although he
had lived a keen, aggressive, and public life for nearly twenty years.
Just out of Harvard in 1880, Roosevelt entered the rough and tumble of
New York politics. He was a reform legislator when Cleveland was
governor, and an opponent of the nomination of Blaine in 1884. He did
not fight the ticket or turn Mugwump, for he had already formed a
political philosophy, that only those who stayed within the party could
be efficient in reform; but he dropped out of the ranks and took up
ranch life in the West. Harrison made him a Civil Service Commissioner
and supported him in a stern administration of the merit system. Before
he left this office in 1895, to become Police Commissioner of New York
City, the breezy and vigorous assaults of Roosevelt upon political
corruption had already marked him as a reformer of a new type, who
remained an active politician and a party man without losing his
interest in reform. As police commissioner he gained new fame and more
admirers. In 1897 he took the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy
and prepared for war. He had already found time to write many books on
the West, reform, naval history, and outdoor life. He resigned his post
in April, 1898, on the eve of war, raised a regiment of volunteers,
which the public speedily named the "Rough Riders," kept his men in the
center of the stage while there was fighting, risked and violated all
theories of discipline to attack the sanitary policy of the
Administration in the autumn, and in October received the nomination of
his party for Governor of New York, over the ill-concealed opposition of
Thomas Collier Platt.
During the campaign of 1898 Roosevelt carried his candidacy to the voter
in every part of the State. He spoke from rear platforms day after day.
Rough Riders, in uniform, accompanied his party and reinforced his
appeal to mixed motives of good government and patriotic fervor. He was
elected in November, and on the same day the Republican control of
Congress was assured. It was made possible for the party to fulfill the
last of the obligations laid upon it by the election of 1896.
A currency act, passed in March, 1900, was the result of Republican
success. It established the gold dollar by law as the standard of value,
legalized the gold reserve at $150,000,000, and made it the duty of the
Treasury to keep at a parity with gold the $313,000,000 of Civil War
greenbacks, the $550,000,000 of silver and silver certificates, the
$75,000,000 of Sherman Act treasury notes, as well as the national bank
notes, which aggregated $300,000,000 in 1900. The law left the currency
far from satisfactory in that it made it dependent upon redemption, and
hence liable to sudden changes in value, but it silenced the fear of
free-silver coinage.
In the spring of 1900 Congress was forced to consider the basis of
colonial government. Governments similar to those of the Territories
were provided for Hawaii and Porto Rico, but a troublesome revolt
prevented such treatment of the Philippine Islands. There had been a
native insurrection in these islands before the Spanish War began, and
the aid of the rebels had made it easier for the United States to
overthrow the power of Spain. Instead of receiving a pledge of
independence, as Cuba did, the islands became a territorial possession
of the United States. In February, 1899, under the native leader, Emilio
Aguinaldo, insurrection broke out against the United States and received
the sympathy of large numbers of Americans. The spectacle of the United
States subduing a spirit of independence in the Philippines aroused and
stimulated the movement of anti-imperialism that had fought against the
acquisition of the islands. The incompatibility of republican
institutions and foreign colonies, the demoralizing influence of ruling
on the ruling class, the lesson of the fall of Rome, were held up before
the public. Carl Schurz was one of the leaders in the protest, and his
followers included many whose names were already well known in the
advocacy of tariff and civil service reform. In 1901 the Supreme Court
upheld the constitutionality of expansion and imperial control. The
people had already decided in their favor in 1900.
There was no contest for either nomination in the campaign of 1900.
Bryan had established his right to the leadership that had come to him
by chance in 1896. Although conservative Democrats still distrusted him,
their voices were drowned by the popular approval of his honesty and
humanity. "Four years ago," said Altgeld, in the Democratic Convention
at Kansas City, "we quit trimming, we quit using language that has a
double meaning.... We went forth armed with that strength that comes
from candor and sincerity and we fought the greatest campaign ever waged
on the American continent.... [For] the first time in the history of
this Republic the Democracy of America have risen up in favor of one
man." On a platform that repeated the currency demands of 1896 and
denounced imperialism, Bryan was unanimously renominated, with Adlai E.
Stevenson for the Vice-Presidency.
The emphatic denunciation of imperialism brought to Bryan and Stevenson
the support of a group of independents,--the "hold-your-nose-and-vote"
group, as the Republican press called them,--who were strong for the
gold standard, but believed that currency was less fundamental than
imperialism. The Republican party had accepted and approved the war and
the benevolent intentions of the United States, and had renominated
McKinley at Philadelphia, without a dissenting voice. Vice-President
Hobart had died in office, or the original ticket might have been
continued. As a substitute, rumor had attacked the name of Governor
Roosevelt, while Senator Platt, preferring not to have him reelected
Governor of New York, had encouraged his boom for the Vice-Presidency.
Repeatedly, in the spring of 1900, Roosevelt declared that he would not
seek or accept the Vice-Presidency. Hanna and McKinley did not desire
him on the ticket, but at the convention the delegates broke down all
resistance and forced him to accept the nomination.
The policy of dignity, which McKinley had assumed in 1896, was continued
by him in 1900, but the vice-presidential candidate proved the equal of
Bryan as a campaigner. In hundreds of speeches, reaching nearly every
State, they carried their personality to the voters. The two issues,
imperialism and free silver, divided the voters along different lines,
but the Administration had an economic basis for support in the recovery
of business on every hand. The Republicans took credit for the general
and abundant prosperity, and their cartoonists emphasized the idea of
the "full dinner pail" as a reason for continued support. A smaller
percentage of citizens voted than in 1896, for the issue was less clear
than it had been then. Many who were discontented with both candidates
voted with the Prohibitionists or Socialists. The Republican ticket was
elected, with 292 electoral votes, as against 155 received by Bryan and
Stevenson. A continuance of the Republican control of Congress was
assured at the same time.
William McKinley was the first President after Grant to receive a second
consecutive term. He made few changes in his Cabinet in 1901. Elihu Root
remained in the War Department, for the sake of which he had refused to
consider the Vice-Presidency, and strove for order in the Philippines,
in Cuba, and in the United States Army itself. John Hay, as Secretary of
State, continued his correspondence with the Powers over the Chinese
revolt, without a break.
Only Seward and John Quincy Adams can rival John Hay as successful
American Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Born in the Middle West in 1838,
Hay served in Lincoln's household as a private secretary throughout the
Civil War. He held minor appointments after this and alternated
diplomatic experience with literary production. The monumental _Life of
Abraham Lincoln_ was partly his work. His graceful verse gained for him
a wide reading. His anonymous novel, _The Breadwinners_, was an
important document in the early labor movement. McKinley sent him to
London as Ambassador in 1897, following the tradition that only the best
in the United States may go to the Court of St. James, and had recalled
him to be Secretary of State in the fall of 1898. The Boxer outbreak in
China in 1900 gave the first opening to the new diplomacy of the United
States, broadened out of its insularity by the Spanish War and
interested in the attainment of international ideas. Hay led in the
adjustment which settled the Chinese claims, opened the door of China
to the commerce of the world, and prevented her dismemberment. He was
still engaged in this correspondence when President McKinley was
murdered by an anarchist, and Theodore Roosevelt became President of the
United States, September 14, 1901.
In the hurried inaugural ceremony held in the Buffalo residence in which
McKinley died, Roosevelt declared his intention to continue the term as
his predecessor had begun it. He insisted that all the members of the
Cabinet should remain with him, as they did for considerable periods. He
took up the work where it had been dropped, and for some months it was
not apparent that a change had been made from a party administration to
a personal administration. The suave and cordial tolerance of McKinley
was succeeded by the aggressive certainty of his successor. Through John
Hay's skillful hand this new tone made a deeper impression on the
politics of the world than had that of any President since Washington
gave forth the doctrine of neutrality.
Cuba was a pending problem. The American army, under General Leonard
Wood, had cleaned up the island. The medical service had learned to
isolate the mosquito, and had expelled the scourge of yellow fever. The
natives formed a constitution which became effective on May 20, 1902. On
this day the United States withdrew from the new Republic, leaving it to
manage its own affairs, subject only to a pledge that it would forever
maintain its independence, that it would incur no debt without providing
the means for settling it, and that the United States might lawfully
intervene to protect its independence or maintain responsible
government. In the winter of 1901-02 Roosevelt urged Congress to adopt a
policy of commercial reciprocity with Cuba. He was supported in this by
opinion in Cuba, and by officials of the American Sugar Trust, but was
opposed in the Senate by a combination of beet-sugar Republicans and
cane-sugar Democrats. The measure failed in 1902, creating bad feeling
between President and Congress, but a treaty of modified reciprocity was
ratified in 1903.
In 1902 the United States became the first suitor to test the efficacy
of the new court of arbitration at The Hague. In 1898 the Czar of Russia
had invited the countries represented at St. Petersburg to join in a
conference upon disarmament. His motives were questioned and derided,
but the conference met the next summer at Huis ten Bosch, the summer
palace of the Queen of the Netherlands, at The Hague. Here the plan of
disarmament proved futile, but a great treaty for the settlement of
international disputes was accepted by the countries present. It seemed
probable that the Hague Court, thus created, would die of neglect, but
President Roosevelt, appealed to by an advocate of peace, produced a
trifling case and submitted it to arbitration. The Pious Fund dispute,
with Mexico and the United States as suitors, involved the control of
church funds in California. The suit was won by the United States, but
derived its chief importance from being the first Hague settlement.
The pledge of the United States for Cuban independence had hardly been
fulfilled when another Latin Republic became involved in trouble.
Venezuela, torn by war, had incurred obligations to European creditors,
and had defaulted in the payments upon them. In December, 1902, Great
Britain and Germany announced a blockade of the Venezuelan ports in
retaliation, and they were soon joined by other Powers with similar
claims. Disclaiming intent to protect Venezuela in defaulting, Roosevelt
urged the European claimants to abandon force for arbitration. Under his
leadership joint commissions were finally established, and in 1903 the
legal technicalities involved were sent to The Hague. The episode
involved a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, making it clear
that unless the United States wished to protect the South American
Republics in the evasion of their debts it must assume some
responsibility for the honest settlement of them.
The boundary of Alaska next became a subject for arbitration. Since the
valley of the Yukon had attracted its first great migration in the
summer of 1897 the mining-camps had steadily increased in importance.
Many of these were on the Canadian side of the meridian of 141 deg., and
all were reached either by the river steamers or the trails from the
south. The most important ports of entry were Dyea and Skaguay, at the
head of the Lynn Canal, a long fiord projecting some ninety miles into
the continent. From these ports the prospector plunged inland, climbed
the Chilkoot or the Chilkat Pass, and followed one of several overland
trails to the Upper Yukon.
The importance given to Dyea and Skaguay revived the question of their
ownership and with this the boundary of Alaska. When Seward bought
Alaska for the United States in 1867 he received it with the boundaries
agreed upon at St. Petersburg between England and Russia in 1825. These
followed the meridian of 141 deg. from Mount St. Elias to the Arctic
Ocean, and followed the irregularities of the shore-line southeast from
that mountain to the Pacific at 54 deg. 40', North Latitude. The narrow
coast strip was described as following the windings (_sinuosites_) of the
shore, bounded by the shore mountains if possible, but in no case to be
more than thirty miles wide. The narrow Lynn Canal pierces the
thirty-mile strip, and the dispute turned chiefly upon interpretation:
whether the canal should be regarded as a _sinuosite_ of the shore,
around which the boundary must go, or as a stream which it might
properly cross.
For thirty years after 1867 the British and Canadian government maps
treated the Lynn Canal and other similar fiords as American, but it
became convenient for Canada, after 1897, to urge that the boundary
should cross the canal and leave Dyea and Skaguay on British soil. A
Canadian and American Joint High Commission, meeting in 1898, had been
unable to adjust the controversy. In 1903 it was submitted to a
tribunal, three to a side, which sat in London. It was doubtful whether
the three American adjudicators, Root, Lodge, and Turner, were all
"jurists of repute," as the treaty provided, but the arguments of the
American counsel convinced Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, one of the
British adjudicators, and his vote, added to the American three, gave a
verdict that sustained most of the claims of the United States.
In Cuba and Venezuela, at The Hague, and in the Alaskan matter,
Roosevelt and Hay showed at once a firmness and a reasonableness that
attracted European attention to American diplomacy as never before. The
subject of American diplomacy became a common study in American
universities. England and Germany appeared to be desirous of
conciliating the United States. The German Emperor bought a steam yacht
in the United States, sent his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, to
attend the launching, and sent as Ambassador a German nobleman who had
long been a personal friend of the President. The reputation for
firmness was enhanced, but that for fairness was lessened by the next
episode, which involved the Colombian State of Panama.
The dangerous voyage of the Oregon in 1898 completed the conviction of
the United States that an isthmian canal must be constructed, and that
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was no longer adequate. The activity of De
Lesseps and his French company at Panama had raised the question about
1880, but nothing had been done to weaken the treaty that obstructed
American construction and control until Hay undertook a negotiation
under the direction of McKinley in the fall of 1899. Congress was in the
midst of a debate over a Nicaragua canal scheme when it was announced
that on February 5, 1900, Hay and Lord Pauncefote had signed a treaty
opening the canal to American construction, but providing for its
neutralization. The treaty forbade the fortification of the canal or its
use as an instrument of war. It was killed by amendment in the Senate,
but on November 18, 1901, Lord Pauncefote signed a second treaty, by
which Great Britain waived all her old rights save that of equal
treatment for all users of the canal, and left the future waterway to
the discretion of the United States. With the way thus opened,--for the
Senate promptly confirmed this treaty,--a new study of routes and
methods was hurried to completion.
An Isthmian Commission, created by the United States in 1899, was ready
to report upon a route when the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was
concluded. The practicable routes had been reduced in number to two, at
Panama, and through Nicaragua. The former was under the control of the
French company, which placed so high a price upon its concession that
the commission recommended the Nicaragua route as, on the whole, more
available. In Congress there was a strong predisposition in favor of
this same route, but during 1902 this was weakened. Senator Hanna
preferred the Panama route and worked effectively for it. The French
Panama Company, frightened by the popularity of the Nicaragua route,
reduced its price. The earthquake and volcanic eruption on the Island of
Martinique reminded the world that Nicaragua was nearer the zone of
active volcanic life, and hence more exposed to danger, than Panama. In
June Congress empowered the President to select the route and build a
canal at once.
Negotiations with Colombia for the right to build at Panama dragged on
through 1902 and 1903. Weakened by continuous revolution, that Republic
realized that the isthmian right of way was its most valuable asset.
Only after prolonged discussion did its Government authorize its
Minister at Washington to sign a treaty reserving Colombian sovereignty
over the strip, but giving to the United States the canal concession in
return for $10,000,000 in cash and an annuity of $250,000. This treaty
was signed in Washington in January, 1903, and was received as a triumph
for the diplomacy of Hay and Roosevelt. It was ratified in March by the
Senate, in spite of a last filibuster by the friends of Nicaragua, but
the Colombian Congress rejected the treaty and adjourned.
By the autumn of 1903 Roosevelt had determined upon the route at Panama,
the French company had become eager to sell, and the Colombians living
on the Isthmus were anxious to have the negotiations ended and the
digging begun. In October the President wrote to an intimate friend
hoping that there might be a revolt of the Isthmus against Colombia,
though disclaiming any intent to provoke one. The friend made the wish
public over his own name, but before it appeared in print the revolt had
taken place. It was known in advance to the State Department, which
telegraphed on November 3, 1903, asking when it was to be precipitated.
It took place later on this day, the independence of the Republic of
Panama was proclaimed, the United States prevented Colombia from
repressing it by force, recognized the new Republic by cable, and on
November 18 signed at Washington a treaty with Panama granting the canal
concession. "I took Panama," boasted President Roosevelt some years
later, when critics denounced his policy as a robbery of a weak
neighbor.
The construction of a canal proceeded rapidly, once the diplomatic
entanglements had been brushed away. The incidental problems of
sanitation, labor, supplies, and engineering were solved promptly and
effectively. Congress poured money into the enterprise without
restraint, the first boats were passed through the locks in 1914, and in
1915 the formal opening of the canal was celebrated by a naval
procession at the Isthmus and an Exposition at San Francisco.
Vigor and certainty of purpose marked the conduct of domestic affairs as
well as foreign, but the necessity for the concurrence in these by
Congress made the former results less striking than the latter. The
appointments of President Roosevelt were such as might be expected from
one who had himself devoted six years to the Civil Service Commission.
Few of them met with opposition from the reform element. In the South he
became involved with local public opinion, especially in the cases of a
negro postmistress at Indianola, Mississippi, and the negro collector of
the port of Charleston, in which he maintained that although federal
appointments ought generally to go to persons acceptable in their
districts, the door of opportunity must not be shut against the negro.
Within a few weeks of his inauguration he precipitated a severe
discussion upon the status of the negro by entertaining Booker T.
Washington at the White House. He disciplined Republican leaders in the
South who endeavored to exclude negroes from the party organization and
to build up a "lily-white" Republican machine.
The administrative duties of the United States expanded rapidly after
the Spanish War. The extension of scientific functions beginning in the
eighties continued until the volume of work forced the creation of new
offices. Federal civil employees numbered 107,000 in 1880, 166,000 in
1890, 256,000 in 1900, and 384,000 in 1910. Among the newer scientific
activities was included that of the reclamation of the arid or semi-arid
lands of the Southwest.
The region between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada had been
regarded as uninhabitable since the days of Pike. Known as the "American
Desert," it figured in the atlases as a place of sand and aridity, and
became the home chosen for the Indian tribes between 1825 and 1840.
Under the influence of migration to Oregon and California the real
character of the Far West became known, but not until the continental
railways were finished did many inhabitants enter it. In 1889 and 1890
the "Omnibus" States were admitted, embracing all the northwest half of
the old desert. Utah followed in 1896. Arizona and New Mexico and
Oklahoma developed rapidly after 1890 and were all demanding statehood
in 1902.
The advance of population into the Far West revealed the existence of
large areas in which an abundant agriculture could be produced through
irrigation. Private means were inadequate for this and the land laws
discouraged it. A demand for federal reclamation appeared in the
eighties. In 1889 a survey of available sites for reservoirs was made by
government engineers, and in 1902 Roosevelt cooperated with the
Far-Western Congressmen in securing the passage of the Newlands
Reclamation Act. By this bill the proceeds of land sales in the arid
States became a fund to be used by the reclamation service for the
construction of great public irrigation works. In the succeeding years
dams, tunnels, and ditches were undertaken that were rivaled in
magnitude only by the railroad tunnels at New York and the excavations
at Panama.
The aggressive assurance with which the Roosevelt Administration handled
the problems of diplomacy and administration created for the President a
wide and unusual popularity, which was strongest in the West. Many
critics, also, were created, who distrusted personal influence when
injected into government, and who doubted the solidity of Roosevelt's
judgment. Personal altercations, in which the President was often the
aggressor, were numerous. Among professional politicians dislike was
mingled with fear because the President had established personal
relations immediately with their constituents. Under President McKinley
the state delegations in Congress had controlled the appointive federal
offices of their States, and had been secure in their personal standing;
under Roosevelt their control of appointments was less secure. When
matters of legislation were taken up, this dissatisfaction among
members of Congress was a serious obstacle to the attainment of
constructive laws.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
After the Spanish War the secondary materials for the history of the
United States become fragmentary and unsatisfactory. Peck, Andrews, and
J.H. Latane, _America as a World Power, 1897-1907_ (in _The American
Nation_, vol. 25, 1907), are the best general guides. The facts of
campaigns are contained in E. Stanwood's second volume,--_History of the
Presidency from 1897 to 1909_ (1912, with an appendix containing the
platforms of 1912), but the Annual Cyclopaedia stopped publication after
1902, and left no good successor. The various year-books should be
consulted, and the files of the magazines, which steadily improve in
historical value: _Nation_, _Harper's Weekly_, _Collier's Weekly_,
_Independent_, _Outlook_, _Literary Digest_, and the _Review of
Reviews_. Articles in these and other periodicals, dealing with episodes
occurring after 1898, may be reached through Poole's Indexes. _The
American Journal of International Law_ and the _American Political
Science Review_ are typical of the new technical periodicals. Extensive
contributions to the history of international arbitration have been made
by F.W. Holls, J.B. Scott, and W.I. Hull. There is, of course, no
critical biography of Theodore Roosevelt, although there are numerous
panegyrics by F.E. Leupp, J.A. Riis, J. Morgan, and others, and some
autobiographical papers which appeared first in the _Outlook_ (1913),
and later as _Fifty Years of My Life_ (1913). The later Messages of
McKinley and those of his successors are scattered among the government
documents, which are to be found in many libraries. _The Second Battle_
(1900), by W.J. Bryan, is autobiographic, as is A.E. Stevenson,
_Something of Men I Have Known_ (1909).