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     CHAPTER SEVEN

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2

PERSISTENT REFUSAL OF A THIRD TERM: 

from the very beginning of 1907 the newspapers were filled with gossip about a possible third term for the President. There was scarcely a break in the current of it throughout the year. Writing to his intimate and valued friend, Charles G. Washburn, of Worcester, Mass., on April 17, 1907, he said: As for myself you are entirely right. I have never for a moment altered my views as to the wisdom of my declaration after the election of 1904. It is time for some one else to stand his trick at the wheel." To his son Kermit, on May 15, 1907, he wrote: "At the moment I am having a slightly irritating time with the well-meaning but foolish friends who want me to run for a third term. The curious thing about it is that there are plenty of people who really think they want me to run for a third term who, if I did run, would feel very much disappointed in me and would feel that I had come short of the ideal they had formed of me. I think the talk will all die out and I do not want to make another statement just at the moment. If necessary, however, next winter I shall make another statement so emphatic that it must put a stop to any further talk.''
The third term talk became so general in August that the New York Times took a canvass of Republican editors on the subject, and on August 7, 1907, published letters from 63 of those editors in reply to the question whether President Roosevelt was as popular and as strong generally with the voters as he was at the time of his election. In editorial comment on these replies the Times said: 
"The most remarkable social and political phenomenon observable in this republic to-day is the immense and growing popularity of Theodore Roosevelt. Through the large numbers of dispatches from the editors of Republican newspapers which we print this morning there runs this single note—the President's popularity is growing; he is to-day stronger with the people than ever before. The enthusiasm he has aroused asks no questions, demands no pledges, imposes no conditions. Its confidence, like its admiration, is boundless.
"No American statesman ever had such an unquestioning support, a support so completely uncritical or one so manifestly due to the inspiration awakened by personality. It is an astonishing spectacle. To the re-nomination of President Grant in 1880 it was felt that the thirdterm tradition offered an insuperable obstacle. It will not in the slightest degree avail against the wave of popular favor that now promises to make Mr. Roosevelt the candidate next year. With the spirit he has invoked and stirred tradition counts for nothing. If the time for sobering up should be long deferred, we do not know that even institutions would count for very much."
To his cousin, Mr. "W. Emlen Roosevelt, on November 9, 1907, the President wrote:
"Most emphatically, I do not wish to run again for President. As I think I have made this remark in public, and in private letters which were not marked private, several hundred times, in addition to saying it quite as often in private conversation, it really does not seem advisable to say anything more at present. I find that it is absolutely useless to try to correct untruths or misrepresentations even of the most flagrant kind in the newspapers. If I should say anything whatever about not running again it would cause a furore for one week and then the next week they would say I was intriguing for a nomination and would expect a denial."
On November 19, 1907, he sent the following circular note to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Post Master General, and the Secretary of the Interior:
"I have been informed that certain office-holders in your Department are proposing to go to the National Convention as delegates in favor of re-nominating me for the Presidency, or are proposing to procure my endorsement for such re-nomination by State conventions. This must not be. I wish you to inform such officers as you may find it advisable or necessary to inform in order to carry out the spirit of this instruction,  that such advocacy of my re-nomination, or acceptance of an election as delegate for that purpose, will be regarded as a serious violation of official propriety and will be dealt with accordingly."
In the midst of the third term discussion a decided sensation was created by the publication on April 5, 1907, of what appeared to be a well-authenticated report of an incident that had occurred at a private dinner at a hotel in Washington. According to this report a Republican United States Senator, noted for his intense hostility to the President, while under the mellowing influence of food and drink, had revealed the existence of a plot for the defeat of any candidate who might be named by Roosevelt, or who was known to share his views on public affairs. The plot was to be backed by a fund of $5,000,000 which was to be used where "it would do the most good." "Favorite sons" were to be put forward to prevent any particular candidate from securing a nomination at the outset of the balloting; Roosevelt was to be ostensibly favored in Legislative resolutions and by delegates with the belief that he would refuse to accept a nomination and delegates professing to favor him could be switched to the candidate selected by the plotters when the time arrived for putting him forward. There was an animated discussion of the plot for a brief period and then it passed from sight never to be heard of again. If it had ever existed, publicity had made its success impossible.
In the meantime Roosevelt let it be known that Secretary Taft was his choice for his successor and there was scarcely a doubt that Taft would be named by the Republican National Convention. Third term talk persisted, however, but Roosevelt's letters show that he opposed it strenuously. In the end his re-nomination was prevented only by the determined opposition of his personal friends and authorized spokesmen in the convention.
But the approach of a national campaign in which his administration was to be the chief issue did not induce the President to alter in the slightest degree the policies which he had been advocating for six years. Although he had sent a very long message to Congress in December, 1907, he sent a special one to it on January 31, 1908, in which he urged the passage of a new Employers' Liability act to take the place of the one passed at a previous session and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and urged also additional legislation '' as regards the relation between capital and labor and between great corporations and the public," measures which were desirable because of the '' gravely significant attitude toward the law and its administration recently adopted by certain heads of great corporations." In defining the "gravely significant attitude," he said:

"The Standard Oil Corporation and the railway company have both been found guilty by the courts of criminal misconduct; both have been sentenced to pay heavy fines; and each has issued and published broadcast these statements, asserting their innocence and denouncing as improper the action of the courts and juries in convicting them of guilt. These statements are very elaborate, very ingenious, and are untruthful in important particulars.

"The amount of money the representatives of certain great moneyed interests are willing to spend can be gauged by their recent publication broadcast throughout the papers of this country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, of huge advertisements attacking with envenomed bitterness the Administration's policy of warring against successful dishonesty, and by their circulation of pamphlets and books prepared with the same object; while they likewise push the circulation of the writings and speeches of men who, whether because they are misled or because, seeing the light, they yet are willing to sin against the light, serve these their masters of great wealth to the cost of the plain people. The books and pamphlets, the controlled newspapers, the speeches by public or private men, to which I refer, are usually and especially in the interest of the Standard Oil Trust and of certain notorious railroad combinations, but they also defend other individuals and corporations of great wealth that have been guilty of wrongdoing."
In February the Louisville and Nashville Eailway Company announced its intention to reduce the wages of its employees, saying that "the drastic laws inimical to the interests of the railroads that have in the past year or two been enacted by Congress and the State Legislatures" were largely responsible for the reduction. Several other companies announced a similar purpose. On February 18, 1908, the President sent an open letter to the Interstate Commerce Commission, mentioning these announcements and requesting the commission to make a thorough investigation of the conditions of the roads and ascertain the real merits of the case. In his letter he said:
"If the reduction in wages is due to natural causes, the loss of business being such that the burden should be, and is, equitably distributed between capitalist and wage-worker, the public should know it. If it is caused by legislation, the public, and Congress, should know it; and if it is caused by misconduct in the past financial or other operations of any railroad, then everybody should know it, especially if the excuse of unfriendly legislation is advanced as a method of covering up past business misconduct by the railroad managers, or as a justification for failure to treat fairly the wage-earning employees of the company.

   "It is sincerely to be hoped, therefore, that any wage controversy that may arise between the railroads and their employees may find a peaceful solution through the methods of conciliation and arbitration already provided by Congress, which have proven so effective during the past year. To this end the Commission should be in a position to have available for any Board of Conciliation or Arbitration relevant data pertaining to such carriers as may become involved in industrial disputes. Should conciliation fail to effect a settlement and arbitration be rejected, accurate information should be available in order to develop a properly formed public opinion."
The President's letter achieved its purpose, for the reduction was not made.
Writing to Col. Henry L. Higginson, of Boston, on February 19, 1908, the President thus explained his action:
"The trouble that I have comes from the fact that the big corporations that are working to discredit the laws and prevent proper laws being passed continually force me into action which is unavoidable, unless I am content to see the policies in which I believe overthrown, and yet which I very sincerely regret having to take. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, for instance, in this endeavor to discredit the law, announces a reduction of wages, which it says is due to our unwise legislation. Such a challenge as that must at once be accepted by the Government to the extent of ordering an immediate investigation to ascertain its truth. So it is with my message to Congress. The outrageous fabrications and falsehoods of the Standard Oil and Harriman people, the Santa Fe people and others, were producing an effect that had to be counteracted. These corporations have probably spent a million dollars in their enormous advertisements and books and insertion of matter in 'patent insides' for the country papers, and the like—prominent newspaper men having told me that they reckoned that a million dollars was an under estimate of the amount they must have spent—and this is an earnest of how much more they are willing to spend for a reaction. Now it is simply out of the question for me to submit, on behalf of the great mass of our people, to the success of such a movement, so engineered, and for such purposes. It is they who force the fighting, and not I.
"Take another instance—that of legislation I am advocating. I am advocating just the legislation the necessity of which you have again and again pointed out—that is, amendments to the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws in order to make legal proper combinations. But the very corporations that have been loudly insisting that those laws are bad, take not the slightest interest in their amendment. They do not want them changed and they do not care to have them removed from the statute books, but they expect to have them administered crookedly. Of course, as far as I am concerned such expectation is vain.

'' Now about the banking and currency system: I agree with you in your main contentions. I would like to see a thoroughly good system of banking and currency; but apparently you think little of the Aldrich bill, and yet this is the only measure that has been proposed that we can seriously consider. The trouble is that the minute I try to get action all the financiers and business men differ so that nobody can advise me, nobody can give me any aid, and only Senator Aldrich has proposed a bill. I have taken the liberty of sending to Senator Aldrich what you say about the banking and currency measure, together with a communication from Andrew Carnegie."
When Congress adjourned he wrote to his son Kermit, May 31, 1908, a statement of what it had done:
"Congress has not given me nearly all the legislation I should have had, but there has been some advance after all. In foreign matters and as regards the navy and the army Congress has really done well. A number of treaties have been ratified, the up building of the fleet continued, the army and navy better paid, the Tokio Exposition has been provided for, the Chinese indemnity returned. Then in home matters we have passed a good Employers' Liability bill and a child labor bill for the District of Columbia. "We have handled the Alaska coal fields as they ought to be handled. So that, although I am chagrined that more has not been done, I am glad that we have gone a little ahead and not a little behind.''
To "Whitelaw Reid, in London, he wrote, on May 25,1908: '' Congress is ending, but by no means in a blaze of glory. The leaders in the House and Senate felt a relief that they did not try to conceal at the fact that I was not to remain as President, and need not be too implicitly followed; and they forget that the discipline that they have been able to keep for the last six years over their followers was primarily due to the fact that we had a compact and aggressive organization, kept together by my leadership, due to my hold, and the hold the policies I championed had upon the people. Accordingly they have seen their own power crumble away under their hands and both the House and Senate are now in chaos. All opposition 'to Taft has died down and he will be nominated easily. But in electing him we shall have no help from the record of the present Congress. The election must be won upon his own personality; upon the general Republican achievement of the past twelve years; and, by no means, upon the rather absurd attitude of the Democracy."
Efforts to nominate him for a third term became rapidly active in May, 1908, and his letters show how earnestly he was opposing them and what his reasons were for objecting to them:
May 28, 1908.
To Hon. Alston G. Dayton, U. S. District Judge, Philippi, Virginia: "I see that two of the West Virginia delegates who were elected under instructions for Taft have announced that they will go for me, and I have seen a letter from Governor Dawson in which he stated that he has first-hand information that they have done this in response to pressure from the Standard Oil Company.
 I should doubt the trustworthiness of the last, because all the information I have, public and private, is that the first thing the Standard Oil Company wishes is to have anybody else nominated to succeed me in the Presidency, and they are trying to deter all litigation simply to have it passed over the fourth of March next. But the rumor is of importance because it shows the kind of thing that will be said, and will inevitably be said of any man who, having been instructed for Taft, changes and goes for me. . . . Can you not quietly inform the gentlemen in question how strongly I feel (and I trust how strongly you also feel) that they ought to abide by their instructions? I think this is important from their own standpoint, and what is of infinitely more consequence, from the standpoint of the party and the country."
May 29, 1908.
A line in addition to what I wrote you yesterday, as I fear I did not express quite as plainly as I should my feeling on one point. I most strenuously object to any friend of mine going for me on any ballot. But what I wanted to convey was that as regards the first ballot the only honorable course, in my judgment, which an instructed delegate can follow is to vote in accordance with his instructions. To do otherwise would necessarily give rise to very unpleasant comment, not only as regards the delegate himself but as regards the man for whom he voted. As a matter of fact, we will nominate Taft on the first ballot by about 700 votes; so we do not really have to concern ourselves with what comes after the first ballot, and my object is to keep men square on this ballot. But I need hardly add that even if there should have to be another ballot, my friends are not to go for me.
May 29, 1908.
To the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott: As to the matter of my re-nomination, it seems to me that the proper ground to take is that any one who supposes that I have been scheming for it is not merely a fool, but shows himself to be a man of low morality. He reflects upon him self, not upon me. There has never been a moment when I could not have had the Republican nomination with practical unanimity by simply raising one finger. At this moment I am still actively engaged in getting delegates for Taft—as in Texas, for instance, to mention something that occurred a week ago; or in preventing delegates who have been instructed for Taft for declaring that they would go for me anyhow—to cite action which I took yesterday as regards two delegates in West Virginia. Any man competent to express any opinion whatever knows this perfectly well. He knows that not merely the far West but that, for instance, the conventions of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Vermont would have gone for me with the wildest enthusiasm if I had merely said I was willing to abide by the judgment of the party as to whether or not it was expedient that I should run.

Under such circumstances, when I could without the slightest difficulty have made each State convention declare for me with infinitely greater enthusiasm than any State convention has shown about anything yet, it is simply silly to suppose that I would go into some intrigue even more futile than tortuous—an intrigue that would have to be kept secret from all my best friends, including, for instance, Senator Lodge, and Loeb, and all my family—an intrigue which would be entirely pointless, and almost certainly of no avail. Moreover, be it remembered that the same people who speak of this as my secret intention are at other times the ones who are loudest in denouncing me for trying to bring about Taft's nomination. The real fact is, as most of them know perfectly well, that nothing could have prevented my re-nomination excepting the most resolute effort on my part to get some one else accepted as representing me and nominated in my place; and I had this object partly in view in endeavoring to get Taft nominated, although I was of course mainly actuated by the fact that I think that of all men in the country Taft is the best fitted at this time to be President and to carry on the work upon which we have entered during the past six years.
The facts about the third-term agitation are that it does not come from any men high in public life, but from plain people who take no very great part in politics, and who seem to have been puzzled at my attitude in declining to run. The politicians, like the big business men, all cordially agree with me that I ought not to run again. A few weeks ago there was an article published that you ought to see if you have any desire to know where the third-term talk comes from. It isn't "inspired" from above at all. Yesterday, for instance, Vorys, Taft's campaign manager in Ohio, suddenly told me that he had difficulty in Ohio in preventing the ordinary voters, the men whom he would meet at the drug stores or in the cars, or in similar places, from insisting upon my being nominated. Under such circumstances I would be exasperated, if I were not amused, at so much as anybody talking about the supposition that I was engaged in an effort to have the re-nomination forced upon me. As a matter of fact I doubt if Taft himself could be more anxious than I am that Taft be nominated, and that any stampede to me be prevented. I wish it on every account, personal and public, and I am bending every energy now to prevent the possibility of such a stampede; because if the convention were stampeded and I were nominated an exceedingly ugly situation would be created, a situation very difficult to meet at all and impossible to meet satisfactorily; whereas if, as I have every reason to believe, Taft is nominated almost by acclamation, certainly on the first ballot, everything is as it should be.