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?"