Contemporary American History, 1877-1913 Part 13

[48] Moody, _The Truth about the Trusts_, p. 493.

[49] Professor W. Z. Ripley, _Political Science Quarterly_, March, 1911.

[50] _The Trust Problem_ (1900 ed.), p. 210.

[51] See the Parker episode, below, p. 268.

[52] Mr. Hanna was drafted in 1864, but saw no actual service. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_, p. 44.

[53] Croly, p. 113.

[54] _Ibid._, p. 160.

[55] Croly, p. 183.

[56] _Ibid._, p. 149.

[57] Croly, p. 219.

[58] Croly, p. 81.

[59] _Ibid._, p. 264.

[60] Croly, p. 417.

[61] See above, Chap. II.

CHAPTER X

THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The administrations of Mr. Roosevelt cannot be characterized by a general phrase, although they will doubtless be regarded by historians as marking an epoch in the political history of the United States. If we search for great and significant social and economic legislation during that period, we shall hardly find it, nor can we discover in his numerous and voluminous messages much that is concrete in spite of their immense suggestiveness. The adoption of the income tax amendment, the pa.s.sage of the amendment for popular election of Senators, the establishment of parcel post and postal savings banks, and the successful prosecution of trusts and combinations,--all these achievements belong in time to the administration of Mr. Taft, although it will be claimed by some that they were but a fruition of plans laid or policies advocated by Mr. Roosevelt.

One who attempts to estimate and evaluate those eight years of multifarious activity will find it difficult to separate the transient and spectacular from the permanent and fundamental. In the foreground stand the interference in the coal strike, the acquisition of the Panama Ca.n.a.l strip, voluminous messages discussing every aspect of our complex social and political life, vigorous and spirited interference with state elections, as in the case of Mr. Hearst's campaign in New York, and in city politics, as in the case of Mr. Burton's contest in Cleveland, Ohio, the pressing of the idea of conserving natural resources upon the public mind, acrimonious disputes with private citizens like Mr.

Harriman, and, finally, the closing days of bitter hostilities with Congress over the Tennessee Coal and Iron affair and appropriations for special detectives to be at executive disposal.

_Mr. Roosevelt's Doctrines_

During those years the country was much torn with the scandals arising from investigations, such as the life insurance inquest in New York, which revealed grave lapses from the paths of rect.i.tude on the part of men high in public esteem, and gross and vulgar use of money in campaigns. No little of the discredit connected with these affairs fell upon the Republican party, not because its methods were shown to be worse in general than those of the Democrats, but because it happened to be in power. The great task of counteracting this discontent fell upon Mr. Roosevelt, who smote with many a message the money changers in the temple of his own party, and convinced a large portion of the country that he had not only driven them out but had refused all a.s.sociation with them.

Mr. Roosevelt was thus quick to catch the prevailing public temper. "It makes not a particle of difference," he said in 1907, "whether these crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading banker or manufacturer or railroad man, or by a leading representative of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by destroying compet.i.tors through rebates,--these forms of wrongdoing in the capitalist are far more infamous than any ordinary form of embezzlement or forgery.... The business man who condones such conduct stands on a level with the labor man who deliberately supports a corrupt demagogue and agitator."

Any one who takes the trouble to examine with care Mr. Roosevelt's messages and other public utterances during the period of his administration will discover the elements of many of his policies which later took more precise form.

In his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, Mr. Roosevelt gave considerable attention to trusts and collateral economic problems.

He refused to concede the oft-repeated claim that great fortunes were the product of special legal privileges. "The creation of these great corporate fortunes," he said, "has not been due to the tariff nor to any other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world, operating in other countries as they operate in our own. The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer, the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in this country at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the acc.u.mulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune acc.u.mulated in legitimate business can be acc.u.mulated by the person specially benefitted only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon others."

While thus contending that large fortunes in the main were the product of "natural economic forces," Mr. Roosevelt admitted that some grave evils had arisen in connection with combinations and trusts, and foreshadowed in his proposed remedial legislation the policy of regulation and new nationalism. "When the Const.i.tution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several states were the proper authorities to regulate ... the comparatively insignificant and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are now wholly different, and a wholly different action is called for." The remedy he proposed was publicity for corporate affairs, the regulation, not the prohibition, of great combinations, the elimination of specific abuses such as overcapitalization, and government supervision. If the powers of Congress, under the Const.i.tution, were inadequate, then a const.i.tutional amendment should be submitted conferring the proper power. The Interstate Commerce Act should likewise be amended. "The railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its jurisdiction this is so." Conservation of natural resources, irrigation plans, the creation of a department of Commerce and Labor, army and navy reform, and the construction of the Panama Ca.n.a.l were also recommended at the same time (1901).

In this message, nearly all of Mr. Roosevelt's later policies as President are presaged, and in it also are marked the spirit and phraseology which have done so much to make him the idol of the American middle cla.s.s, and particularly of the social reformer. There are, for instance, many little aphorisms which appeal to the moral sentiments.

"When all is said and done," he says, "the rule of brotherhood remains as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life for which we are to strive. Each man must work for himself, and unless he so works no outside help can avail him; but each man must remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that, while no man who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or any one else, yet each at times stumbles or halts, each at times needs to have the helping hand outstretched to him." The "reckless agitator" and anarchist are dealt with in a summary fashion, and emphasis is laid on the primitive virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry, and self-restraint. The new phrases of the social reformer also appear side by side with the exclamations of virtuous indignation: "social betterment," "sociological law," "rule of brotherhood," "high aims,"

"foolish visionary," "equity between man and man"--in fact the whole range of the terminology of social "uplift."

None of Mr. Roosevelt's later messages added anything new by way of economic doctrine or moral principle. The same notions recurred again and again, often in almost identical language and frequently in the form of long quotations from previous messages. But there appeared from time to time different concrete proposals, elaborating those already suggested to Congress. The tariff he occasionally touched upon, but never at great length or with much emphasis. He frequently reiterated the doctrine that the country was committed to protection, that the tariff was not responsible for the growth of combinations and trusts, and that no economic question of moment could be solved by its revision or abandonment.

As to the trusts, Mr. Roosevelt consistently maintained the position which he had taken as governor of New York and had stated in his first message; namely, that most of the legislation against trusts was futile and that publicity and governmental supervision were the only methods of approaching the question which the logic of events admitted. In his message of December, 1907, he said: "The anti-trust law should not be repealed; but it should be made more efficient and more in harmony with actual conditions. It should be so amended as to forbid only the kind of combination which does harm to the general public, such amendment to be accompanied by, or to be an incident of, a grant of supervisory power to the Government over these big concerns engaged in interstate business.

This should be accompanied by provision for the compulsory publication of accounts and the subjection of books and papers to the inspection of the Government officials.... The Congress has the power to charter corporations to engage in interstate and foreign commerce, and a general law can be enacted under the provisions of which existing corporations could take out federal charters and new federal corporations could be created. An essential provision of such a law should be a method of predetermining by some federal board or commission whether the applicant for a federal charter was an a.s.sociation or combination within the restrictions of the federal law. Provision should also be made for complete publicity in all matters affecting the public, and complete protection to the investing public and the shareholders in the matter of issuing corporate securities. If an incorporation law is not deemed advisable, a license act for big interstate corporations might be enacted; or a combination of the two might be tried. The supervision established might be a.n.a.logous to that now exercised over national banks. At least, the anti-trust act should be supplemented by specific prohibitions of the methods which experience has shown have been of most service in enabling monopolistic combinations to crush out compet.i.tion.

The real owners of a corporation should be compelled to do business in their own name. The right to hold stock in other corporations should be denied to interstate corporations, unless on approval by the proper Government officials, and a prerequisite to such approval should be the listing with the Government of all owners and stockholders, both by the corporation owning such stock and by the corporation in which such stock is owned."

With that prescience which characterized his political career from his entrance into politics, Mr. Roosevelt foresaw that it was impossible for capitalists in the United States to postpone those milder reforms, such as employers' liability, which had been accepted in the enlightened countries of Europe long before the close of the nineteenth century. In his message of December 3, 1907, he pointed out that "the number of accidents to wage-workers, including those that are preventable and those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical, manufacturing and transportation operations of the day. It works grim hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect of such an accident fall solely upon him." Mr. Roosevelt thereupon recommended the strengthening of the employers' liability law which had been recently pa.s.sed by Congress, and urged upon that body "the enactment of a law which will ... bring federal legislation up to the standard already established by all European countries, and which will serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation in this regard."

As has been pointed out above, Mr. Roosevelt, in all of his recommendations, took the ground that the prevailing system of production and distribution of wealth was essentially sound, that substantial justice was now being worked out between man and man, and that only a few painful excrescences needed to be lopped off. Only on one occasion, it seems, did he advise the adoption of any measures affecting directly the distribution of acquired wealth. In his message of December 3, 1907, he declared that when our tax laws were revised, the question of inheritance and income taxes should be carefully considered. He spoke with diffidence of the latter because of the difficulties of evasion involved, and the decision of the Supreme Court in 1895. "Nevertheless," he said, "a graduated income tax of the proper type would be a desirable feature of federal taxation, and it is to be hoped that one may be devised which the Supreme Court will declare const.i.tutional." The inheritance tax was, in his opinion, however, preferable; such a tax had been upheld by the Court and was "far more important for the purpose of having the fortunes of the country bear in proportion to their increase in size a corresponding increase and burden of taxation." He accordingly approved the principle of a progressive inheritance tax, increasing to perhaps 25 per cent in the case of distant relatives.

While advocating social reforms and castigating wrong-doers at home, Mr.

Roosevelt was equally severe in dealing with Latin-American states which failed to discharge their obligations to other countries faithfully. In his message of December, 1905, he said: "We must make it evident that we do not intend to permit the Monroe doctrine to be used by any nation on this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its own misdeeds against foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us commits a tort against a foreign nation, such as an outrage against a citizen of that nation, then the Monroe doctrine does not force us to interfere to prevent the punishment of the tort, save to see that the punishment does not a.s.sume the form of territorial occupation in any shape. The case is more difficult when it refers to a contractual obligation.... The country would certainly decline to go to war to prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt; on the other hand it is very inadvisable to permit any foreign power to take possession, even temporarily, of the custom houses of an American republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations; for such a temporary occupation might turn into a permanent occupation. The only escape from these alternatives may at any time be that we must ourselves undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as possible of a just obligation shall be paid."

Mr. Roosevelt's messages and various activities while he was serving the unexpired term of President McKinley upset all of the conservative traditions of the executive office. He intervened, without power, in the anthracite coal strike of 1902, and had the satisfaction of seeing the miners make substantial gains at the hands of a commission appointed by himself, to which the contestants had agreed to submit the issues. He began a prosecution of the Northern Securities Company at a time when such actions against great combinations of capital were unfashionable.

He forced an investigation of the post-office administration in 1903, which revealed frauds of huge dimensions; and he gave the administration of public lands a turning over which led to the successful criminal prosecution of two United States Senators. Citizens acquired the habit of looking to the headlines of the morning paper for some new and startling activity on the part of the President. Politicians of the old school in both parties, who had been used to settling difficulties by quiet conferences within the "organization," stood aghast. They did not like Mr. Roosevelt's methods which they characterized as "erratic"; but the death of Mr. Hanna in February, 1904, took away the only forceful leader who might have consolidated the opposition within Republican ranks.

_The Campaign of 1904_

Nevertheless the rumor was vigorously circulated that Mr. Roosevelt was violently opposed by "Wall Street and the Trusts." Whatever may have been the source of this rumor it only enhanced the President's popularity. In December, 1903, Senator O. H. Platt wrote: "I do not know how much importance to attach to the current opposition to Roosevelt by what are called the 'corporate and money influences' in New York....

There is a great deal said about it, as if it were widespread and violent. I know that it does not include the whole of that cla.s.s of people, because I know many bankers and capitalists, railroad and business men who are his strong, good friends, and they are not among the smaller and weaker parties, either.... Now it is a great mistake for capitalistic interests to oppose Roosevelt.... I think he will be nominated by acclamation, so what is to be gained by the Wall Street contingent and the railroad interests in this seeming opposition to him?... There is no Republican in the United States who can be elected except Roosevelt.... He is going to be the people's candidate, not the candidate of the trusts or of the hoodlums, but of the conservative elements."

The Republican convention in 1904 was uneventful beyond measure. Though Mr. Roosevelt was disliked by many members of his party, his nomination was unavoidable, and even his opponents abstained from any word or deed that might have disturbed the concord of the occasion. The management of the convention was princ.i.p.ally in the hands of the men from whom Mr.

Roosevelt afterward broke and stigmatized as "reactionary." Mr. Elihu Root was temporary chairman, Mr. Joseph G. Cannon was permanent chairman, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge was chairman of the committee on resolutions which reported the platform, Mr. W. M. Crane and Mr. Boies Penrose were selected as members of the national committee from their respective states, and Mr. Frank S. Black, of New York, made the speech nominating Mr. Roosevelt. Throughout, the proceedings were harmonious; the platform and the nomination were accepted vociferously without a dissenting vote.

The Republican platform of 1904 gave no recognition of any of the newer social and economic problems which were soon to rend that party in twain. After the fashion of announcements made by parties already in power, it laid great emphasis upon Republican achievements since the great victory of 1896. A protective tariff under which all industries had revived and prospered had been enacted; public credit was now restored, Cuban independence established, peace, freedom, order, and prosperity given to Porto Rico, the Philippine Islands endowed with the largest civil liberty ever enjoyed there, the laws against unjust discriminations by vast aggregations of capital fearlessly enforced, and the gold standard upheld. The program of positive action included nothing new: extension of foreign markets, encouragement of American shipping, enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment wherever the suffrage had been curtailed, and indors.e.m.e.nt of civil service, international arbitration, and liberal pensions. The trust plank was noncommittal as to concrete policy: "Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to infringe the rights and interests of the people. Such combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike ent.i.tled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws and neither can be permitted to break them."

In their campaign book for 1904, the Republican leaders exhibited Mr.

Roosevelt as the ideal American in a superlative degree. "Theodore Roosevelt's character," runs the eulogy, "is no topic for difference of opinion or for party controversy. It is without mystery or concealment. It has the primary qualities that in all ages have been admired and respected: physical prowess, great energy and vitality, straightforwardness and moral courage, promptness in action, talent for leadership.... Theodore Roosevelt, as a typical personality, has won the hearty confidence of the American people; and he has not shrunk from recognizing and using his influence as an advocate of the best standards of personal, domestic, and civic life in the country. He has made these things relating to life and conduct a favorite theme in speech and essay and he has diligently practiced what he preached. Thus he has become a power for wholesomeness in every department of our life as a people."

The Democratic nominee, Mr. Alton B. Parker, failed to elicit any enthusiasm in the rank and file of the party. He had supported the Democratic candidate at a time when many of his conservative friends had repudiated Mr. Bryan altogether, and thus he could not be branded as a "bolter." But Mr. Parker's long term of service as judge of the highest court of New York, his remoteness from actual partisan controversies, his refusal to plunge into a whirlwind stumping campaign, and his dignified reserve, all combined to prevent his getting a grip upon the popular imagination. His weakness was further increased by the half-hearted support given by Mr. Bryan who openly declared the party to be under the control of the "Wall Street element," but confessed that he intended to give his vote to Mr. Parker, although the latter, in a telegram to the nominating convention at St. Louis, had announced his unflinching adherence to the gold standard.

The Democratic platform, except in its denunciation of the Republican administration, was as indefinite as the occasion demanded. Independence should be promised to the Filipinos at the proper time and under proper circ.u.mstances; there should be a revision and gradual reduction of the tariff by "the friends of the ma.s.ses"; United States Senators should be elected by popular vote; combinations and trusts which restrict compet.i.tion, control production, or fix prices and wages should be forbidden and punished by law. The administration of Mr. Roosevelt was denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary," and the proposal of the Republican platform to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment was condemned as "Bourbon-like, selfish, and narrow," and designed to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife. Const.i.tutional, simple, and orderly government was promised, affording no sensations, offering no organic changes in the political or economic structure, and making no departures from the government "as framed and established by the fathers of the Republic."