Under Four Administrations Part 18

I had hundreds of opportunities to observe his methods. When he accepted an invitation to deliver an address or write an article, he would prepare it immediately, even if the occasion were two, three, or six months off. He revised considerably, showed his work freely to friends and a.s.sociates for criticisms, but completed it at the earliest opportunity. He never waited. This method served to perfect his thought and expression on a given subject. His promptness left him free for other things.

The President never seemed to be hurried, though he always worked with a wonderful driving force. He seemed never to waste any time. It was play or work, and both with his whole heart.

His public addresses were almost invariably the result of preparation.

It was seldom that he spoke extemporaneously. The fire and animation which he imparted in the delivery of his speeches certainly conveyed no impression that they might have been carefully prepared and considered at a desk in a study. The pages of his ma.n.u.script were so small and inconspicuous that they did not interfere with his natural gestures. The effect was almost as if he spoke extemporaneously. The written address, printed on sheets about 3 6 inches, and held in one hand, was completely lost sight of by the audience in those moments when Colonel Roosevelt became emphatic. In those moments he also interspersed extemporaneous remarks which brought out his arguments more vividly and forcefully.

I stopped in Washington and called on President Roosevelt, early in January of 1906, on my return from a short vacation in the South. He took me into his private room, where we found his personal and political friend, James H. Sheffield, and Senator Spooner. He spoke about the political changes in New York, the defeat of the machine in that State, the election of Herbert Parsons as chairman of the County Committee, and of young Wadsworth (now United States Senator), son-in-law of John Hay, as Speaker of the House. He took a special delight in the election of both of these men; he had a high regard for them personally and for what they stood. He said he had written a letter to Parsons which he hoped would be helpful to him.

The President asked me to come to lunch with him, which was another of those delightful, informal meetings. Besides Mrs. Roosevelt, his daughter Alice, and her fiance, there were William Dudley Foulke, a former colleague of the President on the Civil Service Commission and friend of mine from my college days; Robert Hitt son of Congressman Hitt; and Lieutenant Fortesque, an officer of the Rough Riders.

After luncheon, the President asked me to wait for him in the Red Room, as he wanted to have a talk with me. When the other guests had departed, he came back to me and with his face beaming with geniality he said: "I don't know whether you know it or not, but I want you to become a member of my Cabinet. I have a very high estimate of your character, your judgment, and your ability, and I want you for personal reasons. There is still a further reason: I want to show Russia and some other countries what we think of the Jews in this country."

Of course I was gratified, very much gratified. I told him I had heard from several persons that he had spoken of this intention, but that I had meant to take no notice of it until he should speak to me about it; that I should certainly esteem it the very highest honor to become a member of the Cabinet, and especially to have the privilege of working alongside of him.

"I knew you would feel just that way; therefore I was anxious to let you know of my intention as long in advance as possible," replied the President. He said all this in such a cordial and affectionate manner that I was profoundly touched with this manifestation of close friendship for me.

He then added that he could not see that it would do any good, and might do harm, to make further protests or utterances regarding the ma.s.sacres in Russia under the disorganized conditions there; and he did not want to do anything that might sound well here and have just the opposite effect there. He thought it would be much more pointed evidence of our Government's interest if he put a man like me into his Cabinet, and that such a course would doubtless have a greater influence than any words with the countries in which unreasonable discrimination and prejudice prevailed.

He told me that it might be July or even later before he could carry out his purpose. He would prefer to put me at the head of the Department of Commerce and Labor, because of my knowledge in that field, but he could not determine the specific position until later. But at any rate, I was to regard my appointment to one of the Cabinet positions as certain.

He asked whether I knew Senator Platt, and indicated that it might be well for several of my friends to have a talk with the Senator. But he quickly added that it would make no difference to him whether it suited the New York Senator or not, though it might perhaps be a little more agreeable if I did not have the latter's opposition. I preferred to feel that my selection was personal, which it really was, and without even the semblance of political influence; so I did not ask any of my friends to speak to Senator Platt, nor did I think he would oppose me.

My wife and the rest of my family were of course elated at hearing the news, particularly my brother Isidor, whose att.i.tude toward me, his youngest brother, was always more like that of an affectionate father than a brother. I felt no trepidation, especially should I be selected for the Department of Commerce and Labor. My past training and interest in many of the subjects that came up under that department made me conversant with the main questions it had to administer.

Upon my return to New York I began to make arrangements for severing all business connections. This I thought wise, particularly if I became head of the Department of Commerce and Labor. It was not a necessary step, but I wanted it never to be said that I advocated any measure or made any decision that might in the remotest way be of advantage to my private interests. I spoke to Roosevelt about my intention, and he said that while it was not essential, if I could do so it would on the whole be advisable; that situated similarly he would do the same thing himself. Before a.s.suming office, therefore, I had retired from business for good, and I have not since that time been connected with any business for personal profit.

My nomination was officially made in September, but it was not until early December, 1906, that I received a letter from William Loeb, Jr., the President's secretary, notifying me that the President desired me to a.s.sume office on December 17th. On that day, accordingly, I appeared at 9 A.M. at the Department of Commerce and Labor, then located in the Willard Building across the street from the Hotel Willard on Fourteenth Street. There I met my predecessor, Victor H. Metcalf, who had been appointed Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Metcalf welcomed me in a brief address and introduced me to the twelve bureau and five division chiefs of the department.

The Department of Commerce and Labor was the youngest of the nine departments of the Government, the bill creating it having been approved by President Roosevelt on February 14, 1903. Roosevelt had done much to establish the department and took great pride in it. The first Secretary of Commerce and Labor was George B. Cortelyou, who had been secretary to the President, and by reason of his intimate relations with the officials of the Government was admirably equipped to organize this department, which he did with great skill and administrative ability.

After holding the office for about a year and a half, Secretary Cortelyou became Postmaster-General, and Victor H. Metcalf, Congressman from California, was appointed, thereby becoming the next Secretary of the Department on July 1, 1904; I was therefore the third.

The scope of the Department as const.i.tuted then was probably the largest of the nine branches of the Government. It was charged with the work of promoting the commerce, mining, manufacturing, shipping, and fishery industries of the country, as well as its transportation facilities and its labor interests; in addition it had jurisdiction over the entire subject of immigration. It had twelve bureaus: corporations; manufactures; labor; lighthouses; census; coast and geodetic survey; statistics, including foreign commerce; steamboat inspection; immigration and naturalization; and standards.

In order to coordinate the work of these various bureaus I inst.i.tuted the simple method employed by large business administrators of having the several bureau chiefs come together with me twice a month to discuss and confer regarding the more important administrative subjects. This enabled me to keep better informed and served to make the various heads of bureaus conversant with the whole scope of the Department, preventing overlapping and duplication of functions. I learned that this simple administrative method had never been made use of before in federal departments, but thereafter it was adopted by several of the other department heads.

Thanks to Mr. Cortelyou's admirable organization of the department, I found, almost without exception, a fine and competent set of men in charge of its several branches. Some of them were friends of Roosevelt, members of his "tennis cabinet," and were thoroughly imbued with his spirit and ideals. The a.s.sistant secretary was Lawrence O. Murray, a capable and conscientious official. James R. Garfield, chief of the Bureau of Corporations, devoted himself to the difficult task of exposing the abuses and legal infractions of some of the great corporations, and did it with judgment and ability, and with conspicuous courage. Charles P. Neill, chief of the Bureau of Labor, a laboring man in his early days, and afterwards an instructor at Notre Dame, and professor of economics at the Catholic University, in Washington, D.C., was eminently qualified for his duties and had the confidence alike of labor leaders and employers. Dr. Samuel W. Stratton, a scientist of distinction and a fine administrator, was then chief of the Bureau of Standards, a veritable inst.i.tution of science.

Fortunately, when the Department of Commerce and Labor was organized, the civil service law applied to all appointments excepting bureau chiefs, so that I was able to devote my time to the duties of my office, free from claims of patronage, which had been the bane of the older departments of the Government before the civil service law became so generally operative.

My wife had so promptly put our household in order that in a week after our arrival, we were comfortably installed in our Washington home, No.

2600 Sixteenth Street, a house known as the "Venetian Palace" from the style of its architecture. It was a new house, built by Mrs. John B.

Henderson, and well suited to our needs and for entertaining. The social functions in Washington I found most agreeable. During the season we either gave a dinner or attended a dinner on an average of five evenings a week, but these occasions were not burdensome because they usually ended by ten-thirty o'clock.

According to custom, President Roosevelt at the beginning of the season designated the date on which each Cabinet member was to give a dinner to the President, and the date a.s.signed to me was February 19th. It had been usual for each host to invite to this dinner all the other Cabinet members and their wives, which left little opportunity to invite others.

Roosevelt changed this custom so that other friends of the host were invited rather than one's fellow members in the Cabinet. Foreign diplomats also were not invited, the entire purpose being to give these occasions the character of intimate gatherings, not large, usually from eighteen to twenty-five guests.

Our dinner went pleasantly. The President was in his usual good humor.

Wines were served liberally, but it was Roosevelt's habit to drink very little. This I had observed on several previous occasions, both at the White House and elsewhere. Roosevelt usually took some white wine with apollinaris, and perhaps a gla.s.s of champagne. For this dinner my wife had secured the additional services of a certain colored cook in Washington, a woman famous for preparing terrapin, which was one of Roosevelt's favorite dishes.

Tuesday and Friday mornings, beginning at eleven o'clock, were the regular days for the meetings of the Cabinet, then as now. The day after taking office, therefore, I attended my first meeting, taking the chair a.s.signed to me. It was labeled on the back "Secretary of Commerce and Labor, December 17, 1906."

The Cabinet table is oblong, the President seated at the head, and to his right and his left the secretaries in the order in which their departments were created--Secretary of State first to the President's right, Secretary of the Treasury first to the left, and so on. Being head of the ninth and youngest Department, my seat was at the foot of the table, opposite the President.

The meetings were informal and no minutes were taken or other record made. After some brief preliminary talk, in which the President often had some incident to relate or some amusing caricature or savage attack upon himself to exhibit, the business of the day began. The President calls on every secretary, but in no fixed order. He presents such matters as he may deem important, and upon which he may want discussion and advice.

At this meeting I intended not to bring up anything, preferring to wait, as the saying is, until I got "warm in my seat." But an important matter had come up that very morning upon which I had made a decision, based on the carefully reasoned opinion by the solicitor of the department, Mr.

Charles Earl. The State of South Carolina, under one of its recent laws, had authorized its State Commissioner of Immigration to go to Europe and select a number of skilled factory hands for the industrial establishments of the State. There were about four hundred and fifty of these immigrants, and there was some question about admitting them. The Immigration Law of 1903, as well as previous laws, excepted the State from its contract labor clauses, and I therefore decided upon their admission.

Indeed, no subject in the department occupied my daily attention to the extent that immigration did. Fortunately, at the chief port of entry, Ellis Island in the New York Bay, there was a capable, conscientious, efficient commissioner, Robert Watchorn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright by Clinedinst_

THE ROOSEVELT CABINET

Left to right: The President, Root, Straus, Garfield, Metcalf, Cortelyou, Taft, Meyer, Wilson, Bonaparte]

The right of the immigrant to land, after his medical examination, was based upon the decision of a board of inquiry. This board often made hurried and ill-considered decisions, especially when the immigration was large. In the case of exclusion, the immigrant has the right to appeal to the Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Of course, cases coming under certain portions of the exclusion provisions, such as contract labor, mental deficiency, affliction with loathsome and contagious diseases, were easily enough disposed of; but under the provision "Likely to become a public charge" there was room for the personal att.i.tude of the members of the board, and the fate of the immigrant then depended on whether or not these men were restrictionists. I felt that there was a domestic tragedy involved in every one of these cases, and as the law placed the ultimate decision upon the Secretary, I decided this responsibility was one that should not be delegated; so day by day I took up these decisions myself, frequently taking the papers home with me and carefully reviewing them before retiring.

Important among the immigration subjects were those which presented phases of the j.a.panese question, the immigration _en ma.s.se_ of j.a.panese to the Pacific Coast States, California in particular. The question was brought up by Secretary Root at one of the Cabinet meetings. The city of San Francisco had taken action excluding j.a.panese from the public schools. It was deemed detrimental for the white children of tender ages to be in the same cla.s.ses with older and even adult j.a.panese who came to these schools to learn English. My predecessor, who was a resident of California, had investigated and was conversant with all aspects of the case.

The President insisted that, as it directly affected the relations between the two nations, it was a national concern. Several members of the Cabinet also regarded the subject as one having serious probabilities. Secretary Root asked me whether I could furnish some data as to the use made of Hawaii by j.a.panese immigrants for circ.u.mventing our contract labor law, as many of the j.a.panese immigrants were coming to the mainland via Hawaii. Upon looking into this question I found during the year previous fully two thirds of the j.a.panese came via Hawaii. The President took the situation in hand and had the mayor of San Francisco and other leaders of the j.a.panese agitation come to Washington.

The obnoxious matter was finally adjusted with j.a.pan in a manner to allay irritation by a "Gentlemen's Agreement," by which that country itself was to prevent the emigration of its laboring cla.s.ses. It was, of course, much better that the j.a.panese interdict emigration of their own people than that we offend that nation's pride by preventing their entrance, although it was made clear that we should pa.s.s an exclusion law if they did not take prompt and effective action.

With some exceptions, this plan worked well. The whole j.a.panese question, however, was still smouldering. A few months later, during a call at the Department, the j.a.panese amba.s.sador mentioned to me that in some parts of the Pacific Coast the j.a.panese were being molested in the streets and that, of course, such things made bad blood and stirred up the people in j.a.pan, with which I had to agree. I admitted that this was an outrage, stating that I was sure our respective governments would do all in their power to maintain good relations, to which he replied that he did not see how those good relations could be disturbed.

Amba.s.sador Aoki then referred to the naturalization of his countrymen in the United States. I told him that on that question I agreed entirely with the President, who in one of his recent speeches had dwelt emphatically on it, advocating laws for the naturalization of j.a.panese the same as accorded to other aliens. He then mentioned the Executive Order of the President with reference to j.a.panese immigration and the regulations for the enforcement of it. I told him I had these regulations in hand and he could rely upon me to make them so as to avoid every possible friction and reflect in every way the broad and liberal spirit of the administration; also that under the immigration act the matter was to a large extent in the control of j.a.pan in issuing limited pa.s.sports to the special cla.s.ses affected, namely, skilled and unskilled labor.

After one of the Cabinet meetings I had a conversation with Secretary Root and submitted to him redrafted regulations for any suggestion or amendment that might appear to him desirable, for I was anxious that the Secretary of State should give the regulations critical examination, in view of their affecting our relations with j.a.pan. He returned them to me within a few days with one or two slight changes, which I adopted, and out of them grew the "limited pa.s.sports" provision of the Immigration Act of 1907.

From time to time I brought up the j.a.panese situation and emphasized that I regarded it in a most serious light. Meanwhile, whenever the opportunity presented itself I did whatever was possible to promote good-will between the two countries. j.a.pan's great military chief, General Tamemoto Kuroki, paid a visit to the United States, and was given a gala dinner at the Hotel Astor in New York, following ovations to him all the way across the continent from the time he landed at San Francisco. There were over a thousand guests. Admiral Dewey was presiding officer; John H. Finley was toastmaster, and it was felt he was particularly chosen, being president of the College of the City of New York, because of the protest this would imply against the exclusion of j.a.panese children from the San Francisco public schools. I was invited to deliver an address, in which I said:

The Government and people of j.a.pan, not unmindful of the good-will and early friendship of our country, are too wise to permit the San Francisco school incident, which was fostered by ignorance and propagated by injustice, to cloud their just appreciation of the enlightened spirit of American inst.i.tutions.

Captain Tanaka, of General Kuroki's staff, had handed me in translation a message that the General had prepared for the American people, which I read in the course of my address. It was as follows:

The j.a.panese people love peace. They fought for peace. My nation wants peace in which to develop the opportunities that are hers. We have no other desire.

The profession which I have the misfortune to follow is n.o.ble only because sometimes it is necessary to establish conditions in which peace may be maintained and in which the arts of peace may flourish.

To this I added that n.o.bler sentiments never fell from the lips of a conquering hero, and they would stand beside those uttered by our hero of the Appomattox: "Let us have peace." This was received with much enthusiasm.