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LIFE AND WORK OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 ELECTION AS PRESIDENT

Roosevelt as a Politician and Leader—His Success Predicted—Nominated for a Full Term and Triumphantly Elected—Mont/ Reforms Urged—Brings Peace Between Russia and Japan—The Panic of 1907—Foreign Relations.
Theodore Roosevelt was only forty-two years of age when he was first called to the Presidency, on the death of William McKinley. He was the youngest man who had ever occupied that high office, and yet long before the time came for his election to succeed himself he was recognized, not as the rash young man political enemies had seen in him, but as a statesman,'' steadied by experience, quick of thought but slow to act, who was always open to advice and never above taking it." From the outset he proved his right to leadership and the politicians found to their great surprise that they had a far-sighted, keen, and astute politician to deal with in the White House. No better or wiser politician, in the best sense of the term, ever occupied the Executive chair.

Years before he succeeded McKinley those who knew him had prophesied that he would become President of the United States. President Harrison wrote in 1898: "Mr. Roosevelt is today one of the best examples of Presidential timber in the country. His varied life as a ranchman, hunter, soldier, and politician has placed him in such close proximity with so many different men that they have had ample opportunity to judge of his qualities and to understand him when he says or does a thing.''

President Cleveland's Prediction
Before that, President Cleveland had recognized the coming man. In refusing to displace him as Civil Service Commissioner, he had said: '' You do not know Theodore Roosevelt. I do, and I tell you that he is one of the ablest politicians either party ever had, and the ablestRepublican politician in this generation. The country will find this out in time. If I keep him where he is, he can't do us any harm; if I remove him and make a martyr of him, he has political ability enough to do us serious damage. I shan't remove him."

Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House of Representatives, was also among the prophets. Speaking of the Civil Service Commission, when Roosevelt was a member of it, Mr. Reed said of him: "We've got an American of blood and iron—a coming man—on that Commission. I tell you, you want to watch that man, for he is a new-world Bismarck and Cromwell combined, and you will see him President yet.

President Andrew D. "White, of Cornell University, at an early stage of Roosevelt's career, is quoted as saying to his students: "Young gentlemen, some of you may enter public life. I wish to call your attention to Theodore Roosevelt, now in our Legislature. He is on the right road to success. It is dangerous to predict a future for a young man, but let me say that if any man of his age ever was pointed straight for the Presidency, that man is Theodore Roosevelt."

Even a German, Baron Speck von Sternberg, an attache" of the Legation (afterwards Ambassador) in Washington when Mr. Roosevelt was Civil Service Commissioner, was reported as saying: "When I first met Mr. Roosevelt I was deeply impressed with his powerful personality, his untiring energy, and essential sincerity of purpose. It was this combination which convinced me that some day I should see him at the head of this great nation." And on three separate occasions, when Roosevelt was appointed Police Commissioner of New York, when he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and when he was elected Governor of New York, Baron von Sternberg congratulated him on these successive steps '' nearer the Presidency.''

And yet there were men in those days, and long thereafter, who regarded Theodore Roosevelt's success in national politics as "an accident"! Blinded by enmity, jealousy, or party rancor, they totally failed to recognize the sterling character and political genius of the man whose reputation was founded on sincerity and service, as upon a rock.
Nominated for a Full Term
As the time drew near for the Republican National Convention of 1904, when Mr. Roosevelt had served three and one-half years of McKinley's term, and had stamped his individuality upon the Presidency, the demand for his nomination and election to a full term was countrywide and undeniable. On his part, he made no secret of his desire for an election by the people. Politicians recognized that his nomination and election were assured.

The Republican Convention met in Chicago, and President Roosevelt was nominated by acclamation to succeed himself. Charles Warren Fairbanks, of Indiana, was named for Vice-President.
Governor Black's Nominating Speech
The speech placing Mr. Roosevelt's name before the Convention was made by former Governor Prank S. Black of New York, and gave a striking picture of the Roosevelt of those days and his strength among the people. Governor Black spoke in part as follows:
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: We are here to inaugurate a campaign which seems already to be nearly closed. So wisely have the people sowed and watched and tended, there seems little now to do but to measure up the grain. They are ranging themselves not for battle, but for harvest. In one column, reaching from the Maine woods to the Puget Sound, are those people and those States which have stood so long together that when great emergencies arise the nation turns instinctively to them. In this column, vast and solid, is a majority so overwhelming that the scattered squads in opposition can hardly raise another army. * * *

AN  EXAMPLE  OP  UNITY

In politics as in other fields, the most impressive arguments spring from contrast. Never has there been a more striking example of unity than is now afforded by this assemblage. You are gathered here not as factions torn by discordant views, but moved by one desire and intent; you have come as the chosen representatives of the most enlightened party in the world. You meet not as strangers, for no men are strangers who hold the same beliefs and espouse the same cause. You may separate two bodies of water for a thousand years, but when once the barrier is removed they mingle instantly and are one. The same traditions inspire and the same purposes actuate us all. Never in our lives did these purposes stand with deeper root than now. At least two generations have passed away since the origin of that great movement from which sprang the spirit which has been the leading impulse in American politics for half a century. In that movement, which was both a creation and an example, were those great characters which endowed the Republican party at its birth with the attributes of justice, equality, and progress, which have held it to this hour in line with the highest sentiments of mankind. From these men we have inherited the desire, and to their memory we owe the resolution, that those great schemes of government and humanity, inspired by their patriotism, and established by their blood, shall remain as the fixed and permanent emblem of their labors, and the abiding signal of the liberty and progress of the race. * * *

The public mind is awake both to its opportunities and its dangers. Nowhere in the world, in any era, did citizenship mean more than it means today in America. Men of courage and sturdy character are ranging themselves together with a unanimity seldom seen. There is no excuse for groping in the dark, for the light is plain to him who will but raise his eyes. The American people believe in a man or party that has convictions and knows why. They believe that what experience has proved it is idle to resist. A wise man is any fool about to die. But there is a wisdom which, with good fortune, may guide the living and the strong. That wisdom springs from reason, observation, and experience. Guided by these this thing is plain, and young men may rely upon it, that the history and purposes I have described, rising even to the essence and aspirations of patriotism, find their best concrete example in the career and doctrines of the Republican party.

A COMMON PURPOSE

But not alone upon the principles of that party are its members in accord. With the same devotion which has marked their adherence to those principles, magnificent and enduring as they are, they have already singled out the man to bear their standard and to lead the way. No higher badge was ever yet conferred. But, great as the honor is, the circumstances which surround it make the honor even more profound. You have come from every State and Territory in this vast domain. The country and the town have vied with each other in sending here their contributions to this splendid throng. Every highway in the land is leading here and crowded with the members of that great party which sees in this splendid city the symbol of its rise and power. Within this unexampled multitude is every rank and condition of free men, every creed and occupation. But today a common purpose and desire have engaged us all, and from every nook and corner of the country rises but a single choice to fill the most exalted office in the world.

ROOSEVELT IN PEACE AND WAR

He is no stranger waiting in the shade, to be called suddenly into public light. The American people have seen him for many years, and always where the fight was thickest and the greatest need was felt. He has been alike conspicuous in the pursuits of
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ELECTION AS PRESIDENT
peace and in the arduous stress of war. No man now living will forget the spring of '98, when the American mind was so inflamed and American patriotism so aroused; when among all the eager citizens surging to the front as soldiers, the man whom this convention has already in its heart was among the first to hear the call and answer to his name.
Preferring peace, but not afraid of war, faithful to every private obligation, yet first to volunteer at the sign of national peril; a leader in civil life, and yet so quick to comprehend the arts of war that he grew almost in a day to meet the high exactions of command. There is nothing which so tests a man as great and unexpected danger. He may pass his life among ordinary scenes, and what he is or does but few will ever know. But when the crash comes or the flames break out, a moment's time will single out the hero in the crowd. A flash of lightning in the night will reveal what years of daylight have not discovered to the eye.

And so the flash of the Spanish war revealed that lofty courage and devotion which the American heart so loves, and which you have met again to decorate and recognize. His qualities do not need to be retold, for no other man in that exalted place since Lincoln has been so well known in every household in the land. He is not conservative, if conservatism means waiting till it is too late. He is not wise, if wisdom is to count a thing a hundred times if once will do. There is no regret so keen in man or country as that which follows an opportunity unembraced. Fortune soars with high and rapid wing, and whoever brings it down must shoot with accuracy and speed. Only the man with steady eye and nerve, and the courage to pull the trigger brings the largest opportunities to the ground. He does not always listen while all the sages speak, but every day at nightfall beholds some record which, if not complete, has been at least pursued with conscience and intrepid resolution.

ONE  MAN  ONLY—ROOSEVELT

He is no slender flower swaying in the wind, but of that heroic fiber which is best nurtured by the mountains and the snow. He spends little time in review, for that, he knows, can be done by the schools. A statesman grappling with the living problems of the hour, he gropes but little in the past. He believes in going ahead. He believes that in shaping the destinies of this great Republic hope is a higher impulse than regret. He believes that preparation for future triumphs is a more important duty than an inventory of past mistakes. A profound student of history, he is today the greatest history-maker in the world. With the instincts of the scholar, he is yet forced from the scholar's pursuits by those superb qualities which fit him to the last degree for those great world currents now rushing past with larger volume and more portentous aspect than for many years before. The fate of nations is still decided by their wars. You may talk of orderly tribunals and learned referees; you may sing in your schools the gentle praises of the quiet life; you may strike from your books the last note of every martial anthem, and yet out in the smoke and thunder will always be the tramp of horses and the silent, rigid, upturned face. Men may prophesy and women pray, but peace will come here to abide forever on this earth only when the dreams of childhood are the accepted charts to guide the destinies of men. Events are numberless and mighty, and no man can tell which wire runs around the world. The nation basking today in the quiet of contentment and repose may still be on the deadly circuit and tomorrow writhing in the toils of war.

GREAT PIGUEES IN FRONT

This is the time when great figures must be kept in front. If the pressure is great, the material to resist it must be granite and iron. Whether we wish it or not, America is abroad in this world. Her interests are in every street, her name is on every tongue. Those interests, so sacred and stupendous, should be trusted only to the care of those whose power, skill, and courage have been tested and approved. And in the man whom you will choose the highest sense of every nation in the world beholds a man who typifies as no other living American does the spirit and the purposes of the twentieth century. He does not claim to be the Solomon of his time. There are many things he may not know, but this is sure, that above all things else he stands for progress, courage, and fair play, which are the synonyms of the American name.

There are times when great fitness is hardly less than destiny, when the elements so come together that they select the agent they will use. Events sometimes select the strongest man, as lightning goes down the highest rod. And so it is with those events which for many months with unerring sight have led you to a single name which I am chosen only to pronounce. Gentlemen, I nominate for President of the United States the highest living type of the youth, the vigor, and the promise of a great country and a great age, Theodore Roosevelt, of New York.
A Triumphant Election
On the opposing Democratic ticket were Alton B. Parker, of New York, for President, and Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, for Vice-President. President Roosevelt made no political speeches, but practically managed his campaign through George B. Cortelyou, his former secretary, who resigned his post as Secretary of Commerce and Labor to become chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The campaign was without great interest, save in New York and several other states, where a determined effort was made to bring out a large Democratic vote. Perhaps the most interesting episode of the canvass was the charge made by Judge Parker on the eve of election that great corporations were contributing to the Republican fund with the knowledge of the President, and because of the great power wielded over them by Secretary Cortelyou as Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The charge was formally denied by Secretary Root in a speech, and towards the close of the campaign the President issued a statement putting Alton B. Parker in the Ananias Club. It was then that he employed his famous "square deal" term, saying:

"All I ask is a square deal.    Give every man a fair •* chance; don't let anyone harm him, and don't let him do harm to anyone.''

In the election that year Mr. Roosevelt received the largest popular and electoral vote ever given to a President up to that time, receiving a popular majority over all opposing candidates of 1,729,809 votes (a plurality of 2,541,635 votes over Parker), and in the Electoral College 336 votes to 140 for Parker.

He now entered upon what he considered his first real term.
Annual Message of 1904
At the meeting of Congress following the election, President Roosevelt outlined in his annual message a series of far-reaching reforms, which were heralded as making a distinct and complete break with the McKinley policies which he had inherited. His proposals included a railway rate bill, Federal pure food regulation, a meat inspection measure, the removal of the tariff from denatured alcohol as a possible means of counteracting the oil monopoly, a thorough-going reform of the Consular Service, a reform in naturalization laws, and the admission of the remaining territories to statehood. All of these reforms were subsequently enacted into law.
Most Famous Diplomatic Triumph
The war between Japan and Russia which had begun in February, 1904, was to result eventually in one of the most famous diplomatic triumphs of Roosevelt's seven and a half years in the White House. While the terrific land and sea fights in the Orient were holding the attention of the world Roosevelt and his remarkable Secretary of State, the late John Hay, sent forth first the famous "Hay Note," asking that the two warring countries respect the neutrality of China lest a greater catastrophe be precipitated.

Russia and Japan agreed to the American request. In the meantime came Mr. Roosevelt's election to succeed himself for a full term in the White House; and some measure of the way America had lost its fear of a "man on horseback" in the Presidential chair may be gathered from the unprecedented size of the Colonel's plurality.

The Russian-Japanese war was constantly in his thoughts. The beginning of his full term seemed to the President the psychological moment to propose to Japan and Russia that they get together peacefully and thresh out their differences in conference. On June 7, 1905, the President sent a note to the Czar and another to the Mikado asking them if they did not think it would be best for all mankind if they met to arrange terms for peace. Following a long discussion as to the exact spot where they should meet, the peace envoys from Japan and Russia began to confer at Portsmouth, N. EL, on August 10, 1905—"Washington being too hot at that time of the year.

Within eight days the delegates had come to a deadlock. President Roosevelt then induced the German Kaiser to join him in an appeal to the rulers of Russia and Japan. The joint appeal succeeded in inducing the Mikado to forego his demand for money indemnity, and caused the Czar to give to Japan much of the island of Saghalien.

The peace treaty was signed on September 5, 1905. Promptly and unanimously the world arose and acclaimed Roosevelt the fighter as the greatest peacemaker of the age. The following year he received the Nobel Peace Prize of $40,000 for that great service. This prize is given annually to the person who shall have done most during the year to promote the peace of the world. But Mr. Roosevelt himself always said that his greatest contribution to the cause of peace was not the negotiation of the Portsmouth treaty, but his act in sending the American fleet to the Pacific in 1907. He believed all his life that that act averted war between Japan and the United States, and Admiral Evans, the commander of the fleet, was one of those who agreed with him.
The Panama Canal
One of the greatest, if not the greatest, achievement of Mr. Roosevelt's full term was the clearing away of difficulties and the inauguration of actual work on the long-discussed plan to join the Atlantic and the Pacific by means of the Panama Canal. It is not too much to say that the world owes the Canal to the initiative and energy of Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1906 the Spooner bill was passed, giving the President authority to buy the old French Panama Canal Company, lay out a water route across the isthmus, reorganize a canal commission, and begin to build. The work meant not only a battle against mountainous engineering problems, but notable medical and sanitary problems that till then had defied the world.

How well the work was done is fresh in the public mind, but it will be referred to again later in these pages.

While Mr. Roosevelt was tackling his canal problems he put through far-reaching legislative and diplomatic coups that included the momentous passage of a bill giving Federal control, or at least direction, of the business of interstate commerce carriers; the suppression in the same year, 1906, of a Cuban insurrection against President Estrada Palma; and the inception of a wide-spreading conservation of America's natural resources.
Regulating Railroad Rates
It was in 1905 that President Roosevelt began fighting for the regulation of railroad rates. The Esch-Townsend bill, his first essay in that line, was beaten, as he had expected it to be; but in 1906 he forced the Hepburn bill through Congress in the face of such bitter opposition from his own party that he was obliged to form at one time an alliance with the Democrats. The latter charged bitterly that he threw them aside like a squeezed lemon when they had served his purpose, and the air was full of criminations and recriminations.

But whatever he may have done with the Democrats, he had no hesitation in breaking with the leaders of his own party, such as Aldrich, and putting in the forefront one of the younger Senators, Dolliver, of Iowa, and had the satisfaction of putting his bill through.

On April 14, 1906, he publicly expressed his advocacy of a national inheritance tax, saying: "We shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes," and subsequently he declared himself in favor of an income tax.
Loved for Enemies He Made
It was late in 1905 that the Wall Street Journal alphabetically called the roll of Mr. Roosevelt's enemies as follows:
A lot of people who are afraid of a foreign policy.
Bribers and corruptionists of all kinds.
Corporations that fear publicity.
Disappointed office seekers.
Every person who still thinks that the President
     ought not to have received John Mitchell or Booker Washington. 
Financial interests that have been or are being investigated. 
Great men who find that Roosevelt is in their way. 
High finance that puts itself above the law.
Interests that want to kill or delay the Panama Canal. 
Jacobins who are ready for anything that will serve to turn the "ins" out.
Kangaroo politicians strong in their capacity to kick. 
"Law honesty." 
Men who squirmed under the enforcement of the Sherman
     Anti-Trust Law. 
Nicaragua Canal advocates. 
Odell (governor of New York).
     Opponents of government regulation, especially railways.
Pennsylvania's corrupt machine, recently rebuked at the polls.
Railroads that have violated the law.
Sugar lobbyists who don't want fair play given to the Philippines.
     Shippers who want rebates.
Trusts that have become monopolies.
Usurers and others who don't like the doctrine of the square deal.
Voters, now few in number, who want us to give up the Philippines.
Washington correspondents who feel that they have the right to run the 
       White House.
Xanthospermous journalism eager for a new sensation.
You may perhaps find a few more by inquiring at 26 Broadway
      (Standard Oil headquarters).
Zealots who think it right to destroy even a reputation to benefit their party.
On December 19, 1906, he gave his official sanction to the discharge of Negro soldiers for a murderous attack which at least some of them had made on citizens of Brownsville, Texas, withholding his approval of the discharge of the Negroes, however, until his Secretary of War, William H. Taft, had judicially reviewed all the facts.

And straightway a large part of the Negroes of the country began to attack him again and a large part of the South again began to sing his praises. As always, Colonel Roosevelt was continuing his frank, courageous way.
The Panic of 1907
The staggering financial panic of 1907 held his whole mind during the dark days in which the money troubles of that year sent banks and large business affairs crashing down like rows of cards. To meet the catastrophe the Roosevelt administration went to the relief of money markets by issuing Panama construction bonds up to $50,000,000, and the President and the Treasury Department also entered upon a plan whereby short-term notes at 3 per cent were issued. The upheaval soon ended and business returned to normal again.
Voyage of the Battle Fleet
Mr. Roosevelt as President was always preaching preparedness, paraphrasing George Washington's maxim to the effect that the way to preserve peace is constantly to be ready for war. With something of this thought in mind, President Roosevelt in 1908 sent a great American battle fleet under Admiral Evans ("Fighting Bob") on a 42,000-mile trip around the world—an idea which, as usual, was sharply criticized by his enemies. But when the fleet had circled the globe, amid great acclaim from rulers and subjects of nations near and remote, Mr. Roosevelt declared that the voyage had "exercised a greater influence for peace than all the peace conferences of the last fifty years."

In line with his peace theories he championed the cause of international arbitration of world differences of opinion and claims; he practiced what he preached by submitting the Pious Fund case, over which his own country and Mexico long had been at loggerheads, to The Hague tribunal. He never laid claim to signing so many peace treaties as William Jennings Bryan did later; but he kept a great part of the world peaceful during his regime, whereas when Secretary Bryan had about concluded the last of his peace treaties, the whole world went to war.
Foreign Relations
The most important measures of the second Roosevelt administration, viewed after a period of years, seem to have been those concerning the foreign relations of the United States. Important as were the happenings in internal affairs in the four years from March 4, 1905, to March 4, 1909, the final effect of the foreign policy must be taken to be the greater. To review, without too much regard for a strict chronological sequence, the course of events with reference to foreign relations, it may be noted first, that the two Secretaries of State who held office for the longest time under President Roosevelt were John Hay and Elihu Root. Hay died within four months of Roosevelt's inauguration, on June 30, 1905, and Root was appointed on July 25.

One of the questions which President Roosevelt inherited on coming into office was the Newfoundland fisheries controversy, over the rights of American fishermen in Newfoundland waters. In 1907, through negotiations conducted in London, the President caused the signing of la protocol providing that the controversy be submitted to The Hague for arbitration.

Secretary Root labored especially to improve the relations of the United States with South America, and in 1907 the President invited the representatives of the five republics of Central America to an international peace conference in Washington. A joint tribunal was established for arbitration.

Earlier in that year Secretary Root had made a trip around South America, visiting the capital of each country, and assuring the people that the purposes of the United States in this hemisphere were unselfish. His visit did much to better the standing of this country in the eyes of the South Americans.

In 1908 Mr. Roosevelt's popularity was at its greatest height, and by merely saying the word he could have had a third term, or rather, a second full term. In fact, it took his utmost efforts to prevent the party from forcing another term upon him. But on the night of his election in 1904 he had announced that he would under no circumstances accept another nomination. Such a nomination it was, however, later to be his lot to receive under circumstances that are historic.