"Great-Heart": The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt

XII
First Years in the Presidency

“You will know more, sir, later; a good deal more, or I am much in error. Young? Why, he is just out of school almost, yet he is a force to be reckoned with in New York. Later the nation will be criticizing or praising him. While respectful to the gray hairs and experience of his elders, not one of them can move him an iota from convictions as to men and measures once formed and rooted. He will not truckle nor cringe; he seems to court opposition to the point of being somewhat pugnacious. His political life will probably be turbulent; but he will be a figure, not a figure-head, in future developments—or if not, it will be because he gives up politics altogether.”

These opinions from men who knew Roosevelt all his life go to show that his course to the Presidency was clearly marked for him from the time he entered New York politics.

Jeremiah Curtin, the historian and philosopher, was another person who early became impressed with the idea that Roosevelt was a dynamic force for the highest place in the land. Curtin, in his “History of the Mongols,” wrote thus of seeing Roosevelt as a Civil Service Commissioner:

“All at once, in the large room before us, I saw a young man, alert to his duties and perfectly confident. There was no one else in the apartment. I told (Congressman) Greenhalge to look at him.

“‘That man looks precisely as if he had examined the building and, finding it suitable, has made up his mind to inhabit it!’

“‘He is the living picture of that pose,’ replied Greenhalge; ‘but do you know him? That is Theodore Roosevelt!’”

The assassination of President McKinley, which led Roosevelt to the White House, simply hastened the goal which was already in sight.

From his early days in politics he took a high moral stand and formed the habit of going to the people over the heads of the politicians whenever he thought that the public interest required such drastic measures. He set for himself a high standard, yet, when he quitted the Presidency, that standard had been set even higher than when he made his first campaign for clean politics in the New York Legislature.

Roosevelt’s first notable act on entering the Presidency was to retain in office all of McKinley’s subordinates. It had been the habit on the three previous occasions when Vice-Presidents succeeded Presidents through the death of the President to change the personnel of the higher offices, especially in the Cabinet. Roosevelt did not think this a wise course. He asked all of the members of the Cabinet to stay and help him carry out McKinley’s policies.

Some of his friends told him this would make him only “a pale copy of McKinley.” He told them that he was not concerned in following or not following in McKinley’s footsteps. What he wanted to do was to face and solve the new problems that arose.

THE GREAT COAL STRIKE

In the fall of 1902 he adopted a course of action in regard to labor disputes that, at the time, called forth much criticism, but which from the public standpoint was soon justified.

That spring a universal strike began in the anthracite coal regions. It was continued through the summer and early fall. The feeling between the mine operators and the miners was very bitter, and the big operators had banded together and refused to yield a point in their dispute with their workers.

As winter approached a coal famine menaced the nation. In the East, where anthracite is the principal household fuel, soft coal proved to be a very poor substitute.

The Governor of Massachusetts and the Mayor of New York were among the conservative men who urged Roosevelt to take action. They pointed out that if the coal famine continued the suffering throughout the Northeast would be alarming and that disastrous riots were liable to occur.

Roosevelt delayed interfering as long as possible, though he directed Carroll Wright, head of the Labor Bureau, to report all of the facts of the case to him.

The coal operators, knowing that the suffering among the miners was great, felt confident that if the government did not interfere, the miners would be forced to yield. Bent on winning, they refused to see that the rights of the people were affected.

Roosevelt saw things from the people’s viewpoint and tried to get both sides to submit to a commission of arbitration, with a promise to accept its decision. Under this arrangement the miners were to go to work as soon as the commission was appointed, at the old rate of wages. The miners, headed by John Mitchell, agreed to this proposition. The operators refused and Roosevelt confined his efforts to securing an agreement between the operators and the miners.

On October 3 he called the representatives of both before him. This time Roosevelt, by sheer force of will, secured his object. The operators obstinately held out for the appointment of a commission of five that did not include even one representative of labor. Roosevelt insisted that labor be represented and carried his point. Human rights had triumphed over property rights.

When the battle was over the President stood clearly before the people as a man who would champion them against the so-called captains of industry when it was necessary to do so.

The President let it be known early in his administration that in the South he would appoint good Democrats to office rather than bad Republicans.

It was while the President was making appointments of Democrats to office in the South, winning praise from those who had never before praised anything Republican, that the famous Booker T. Washington incident took place.

It had been through the help of the South that Washington had been able to accomplish his great work as a negro educator, but this section of the country, with the negro as a social problem very close to it, bitterly resented Roosevelt’s dining with the colored man.

The South took it as an affront, though evidently the President had not thought one way or the other as to the possible consequences. The criticisms heaped upon him he ignored.

Roosevelt did not long remain in the bad graces of the Southern people. He did not permit the South to forget that his mother was a Georgian woman, and that her brothers had fought in the Confederacy. The following incident illustrates the fine diplomacy with which he won back the regard of the Southern people:

On one of his Southern trips his train stopped at Charlotte. N. C. A committee of women led by Mrs. Thomas J. Jackson, widow of General Stonewall Jackson, was at the depot to meet Colonel Roosevelt. When he was introduced he referred to himself as by right a Southerner, and then being introduced to Mrs. Jackson, he added a remark which flashed through the South:

“What! The widow of the great Stonewall Jackson? Why, it is worth the whole trip down here to have a chance to shake your hand,” and he reminded her that he had appointed her grandson to a cadetship at West Point.

The South loved a fighter, and Roosevelt put his knowledge of this fact to good use when he went on a campaigning tour of that territory. If there had been anything timorous about him he would have attacked the Democracy in Minnesota, where it would be safe to do so. Instead, he picked out Atlanta, where his audience was composed almost entirely of Democrats.

The audience tried to roar him down. For five minutes the tumult went on. It seemed as if the meeting could not go on. Roosevelt then made a characteristically audacious move. There was a table near him, and he leaped upon it. The mob was startled into stillness. Before it could recover from its surprise, he had poured forth a half-dozen striking sentences, and by that time his opponents were interested enough to give him a hearing.

A FRANK CANDIDATE

From the date of his entering the Presidency until after the election of 1904 Roosevelt was under restraint. Although he knew that his policies had the full approval of the people, he felt himself to be a President by accident. It is well known that he desired a nomination and election in 1904.

“I do not believe in playing the hypocrite,” he said. “Any strong man fit to be President would desire a nomination and re-election after his first term. Lincoln was President in so great a crisis that perhaps he neither could nor did feel any personal interest in his own re-election. But at present I should like to be elected President just as John Quincy Adams, or McKinley, or Cleveland, or John Adams, or Washington himself desired to be elected. It is pleasant to think that one’s countrymen think well of him. But I shall not do anything whatever to secure my nomination save to try to carry on the public business in such shape that decent citizens will believe I have shown wisdom, integrity and courage.”

From the start his nomination was assured, although there was already strong opposition to him on the part of many machine politicians.

No other name than his was seriously considered in the convention. He was nominated for the Presidency at Chicago on June 23, with Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, as candidate for Vice-President. He was elected in November by a popular vote of 2,523,750 over Alton B. Parker, the Democratic candidate, and a majority over all candidates of 1,735,403. The vote in the electoral college was 336 for Roosevelt to 140 for Parker.

It was the largest popular support that any President of the United States had ever received.

BUILDING THE PANAMA CANAL

In foreign affairs the most important action Roosevelt took during the second administration was in regard to the building of the Panama Canal. His action is still termed “unconstitutional” by many people, and a bill is now under discussion to compensate Colombia for the alleged damages she sustained through the secession of the State of Panama, and the building of the canal without her consent.

Roosevelt’s defense, and the defense of his eminent Secretary of State, John Hay, was, to put it bluntly, “We got the canal.”

During the four centuries that had passed since Balboa crossed the Isthmus, statesmen had talked of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by an Isthmus canal. It had been talked about in Washington for a half-century, but nothing had come of it.

Shortly after Roosevelt became President, an agreement was reached with the French Panama Company, and the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was signed, by which the United States acquired possession, so far as Europe was concerned, which warranted her undertaking the task.

The logical location for the canal was the line already begun by the French company in Panama. Panama belonged to Colombia. Colombia had promised friendly co-operation. Her delegate to the Pan-American Congress in Mexico had joined in the unanimous vote which requested the United States to proceed with building the canal.

Both Colombia and the Isthmus had been places of frequent revolutions and outbreaks. Many times United States warships had been forced to patrol the Isthmus, at times at the urgent request of the Colombian government. Through another revolution Colombia had come under the dictatorship of Marquin, its former vice-president. Marquin, although he had consented to the Hay-Herran Treaty, by which Colombia had agreed to the building of the canal, now made use of his power as a dictator to break his promise. He summoned a congress especially to break the canal treaty. This congress, which Roosevelt describes as “a congress of mere puppets,” carried out Marquin’s wishes. The treaty was rejected.

The President, through Secretary Hay, had warned Colombia that grave consequences might follow her rejection of the treaty. He had information that the entire population of Panama felt that it was of vital concern to their prosperity that the canal be immediately built; newspaper correspondents predicted a revolution on the Isthmus.

On November 8, 1903, the revolution occurred. The Colombian troops stationed on the Isthmus joined in the revolution, and there was no bloodshed, except the life of an unfortunate Chinaman.

Roosevelt immediately recognized the Republic of Panama and the other principal nations did likewise. A canal treaty was at once negotiated with the new republic, and, after considerable debate in the Senate, the treaty was ratified by that body and the work on the canal began.

Roosevelt’s case against Colombia was that, so long as the United States was considering the alternative route through Nicaragua, Colombia eagerly pressed this country to build a canal across the Isthmus. When the United States was committed to this latter course, Colombia, under her usurper, refused to fulfil the agreement, with the hope of securing the rights and property of the French Panama Company, so as to secure the $40,000,000 the United States had authorized as payment to this company. John Hay thus defended Roosevelt’s course: “The action of the President in the Panama matter is not only in the strictest accordance with the principles of justice and equity, and in line with the best precedents of our public policy, but it was the only course he could have taken in compliance with our treaty rights and obligations.”

In November, 1906, the President’s interest in the work on the canal led him to go in person to Panama. This act caused a storm of disapproval in certain quarters, similar to that which President Wilson met when he decided to attend the peace conference at Paris. Roosevelt’s critics pointed out that no President had ever gone beyond the bounds of his country. Roosevelt went and let his critics howl. Here, in one thing at least, Wilson and Roosevelt were in agreement, namely, that where the President of this country sets foot that place is within the sphere of the United States.