Topic 7
THE BREAK WITH TAFT

THERE never has been any formal explanation as to what caused the break between Colonel Roosevelt and Judge William H.  Taft.  Here is Colonel Roosevelt's explanation, made, my notebook tells me, at Sagamore Hill, April 8,1916.  It was made in the course of a discussion as to the possibility of a reconciliation which some mutual friends had taken upon themselves to try to arrange.

At the time, the Colonel did not venture an opinion as to whether they would get together, but he did seem anxious to make it clear that, whatever he may have thought about Taft's backers in "1912, he had no real feeling against Taft personally.

"The break in our relations," said he, "was due to no one thing, but to the cumulative effect of many things — the abandonment of everything my Administration had stood for, and other things.

"Taft changed greatly between the time he was elected and the time he took office.

"The first friction came in the matter of his Cabinet.  When he was nominated I went to him and asked whom he wished to have take his place as Secretary of War.  I told him I considered it as much his appointment as mine, and that I would appoint no one not acceptable to him, though I had a good man in mind.  I told him the man was Luke E.  Wright.

"He said Wright was absolutely the man he would have chosen himself.  Wright, he recalled, had been with him in the Philippines and was the man for the place.

"After he was elected he came to me and told me he wished to retain my Cabinet and would like to have me tell the members so.  I realized at once that this was a rather delicate matter, believing he might and probably would change his mind later; that his wishes in November might not be his wishes in March; and I asked him if he really desired the message delivered.

"'How about Cortelyou?' I asked.’do you want him? You know he thought he was your rival.'

"He allowed this was so, and that he would not want Cortelyou.

"'How about Bonaparte?' I asked.  'You know you do not think much of him as a lawyer.'

"He agreed that he would wish another in the place, but he insisted that he wanted the others to stay, and on his definite insistence I delivered the message.  More than that, those thus assured thanked Taft for the offer in my presence.

"Wright was among those so assured; in fact, the assurance that he was the joint choice of myself and Taft was, he said, the impelling reason for his acceptance of the place when I offered it to him.

"By inauguration time, however, Mr.  Taft had changed his mind, just as I had feared he would, and it made a great deal of feeling.  Some had made very definite plans on the strength of his offer, renewing leases of houses and that sort of thing, and it was bad all around.

"That was the first bit of friction — the beginning.

"In office, his militancy evaporated and he at once set about undoing all my Administration had done.  Conservation went by the board, Newell of the Reclamation Service had to quit, and things went from bad to worse.  They had reached such a pass that, when I got to Rome on my way home from Africa, I found Gifford Pinchot awaiting me.  He wanted me to attack Taft then and there.  Others were in the same mood.

"But I said, 'No,' we should do nothing of the sort.  I wanted to do nothing to injure Mr.  Taft or his Administration.

"Thus things went, one thing after another, until finally the Rural Welfare Commission, one of the best things we had, was abandoned.  That was the last straw.  The break came on that, but it was not because of that.  It was because of the many things of which that was the capstone, the climax.  By the way, the Government never even printed the report of that Commission.  We finally had it done at the expense of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

"There you have the real story of our break.

"Of course there were other things.  We had a perfectly good treaty with Japan, under which we had the right to pass exclusion laws.  Japan asked that we not do so, offering to make a gentlemen's agreement to keep her folks at home if we would not pass such a law.  The agreement was made and kept, but we had the right to enforce exclusion under the treaty if Japan did not keep her promise.  Mr.  Taft, however, went to work and made a new treaty, in which that right to exclude was waived, we relying on their gentlemen's agreement, which they may or may not live up to, as circumstances may seem best to them.

"That was a mistake, and how California ever let that treaty go through is beyond me.  Now, as matters stand, Japan can do as she pleases.  The part of wisdom was to have retained that provision ofj the old treaty as a club.

"Then there was messing about with treaties guaranteeing the peace of Latin America by which we committed ourselves to raise an army of at least 300,000 men when just now we are showing we cannot raise an army large enough to take care of Mexico.
"All in all, you can see there were many differences, none in itself serious enough to cause any break in our cordial relations, but taken together, very serious.

"I never regretted anything more in my life.  I have never questioned Taft's honesty in any or all of the things I have mentioned.  Some were mistakes, such as the Cabinet matters.  In other things he was very much imposed upon.  When Taft led me to believe he was going to come out for the policies agreed upon, he honestly intended to do so.  His militancy just evaporated."