Topic 23
 THE NEWSPAPER CABINET

All the world knows of the Roosevelt "Tennis Cabinet." Few, even in the larger newspaper offices, knew much if anything of the Roosevelt "Newspaper Cabinet."

Occasionally a visiting statesman or politician returning from Oyster Bay would have some mention to make of the group to which he had been introduced by the Colonel or marvel at the freedom with which the Colonel discussed matters of the gravest importance with what one Senator called "news hounds." Sometimes a managing or city editor, or a magazine editor, would hear something of it and try to get the story, but none ever succeeded.  Those within the circle would not write it, and those without could not.

Being refused a story is no novelty to most editors.  The "cabinet," however, was a real novelty to many of the Colonel's visitors.

"I can readily understand the Colonel or any other man having a man on a paper especially friendly to him from whom he would keep very little," said a member of Congress leaving "the hill" one afternoon, "but I cannot understand his talking so freely to so many reporters.  Of course I know T.  R.  knows his business, but —"

"These men you met today are all old friends of the Colonel; he knows they would not turn on him," I said.  "For that matter if one became inclined to do so, he would not dare break.  It would finish him professionally, or come so near to it, he would be most uncomfortable.  You see he'd have not only the Colonel to deal with, but his associates as well."

"I understand that," he answered, "but this is what I do not understand: In that group today there was a Hearst man (William Hoster) and a World man (John W, Slaght).  Hearst I know hates the thought of Roosevelt.  We all know the Colonel has been as bitter toward Mr.  Pulitzer as the World in turn has been against him.  Now, how can he feel safe with those men in what he calls 'the cabinet'?"

"That is easy to answer," I said.  " Hoster, of the American, is the one man in the Hearst organization who can always get to T.  R.  and whom he trusts implicitly.  Slaght, of the World, has been his friend since he was Police Commissioner or thereabouts.  In the bitterest days of the Panama Canal controversy, Slaght had his confidence, and was persona grata.  The World knew this, understood it perfectly, and never expected Slaght to do anything incompatible with his self respect.  Had he done so, it would have fired him.

"So Hoster sits in, and Slaght, as you saw today, is on the closest terms with the Colonel."

"But there were things said today that the World would give much for.  Is n't it Slaght's duty to turn that stuff in?"

"Not at all.  He's there as the Colonel's friend; what he knows, unless it is otherwise agreed, is not to be printed and that settles it."

"But," the Congressman persisted, "of what value is that to the World?"

"Of this value: Slaght at all times knows, or is in a position to know, the facts in any matter the Colonel may be interested in.  This enables it to avoid serious error that other papers sometimes fall into.  It also leaves it in a position to know what to look for.  In a word, it is insurance against error and a guarantee that it will be in a position to intelligently handle any story that may arise as well as prepare for things in the future.  The Colonel on his part does not object to this.  He would rather have the front page than the editorial page any day, and he'd rather have a friendly pen deal with him in a paper editorially unfriendly than one neutral or unfriendly."

"You say it well," said the Congressman, "but if you ever mention me to the Colonel, tell him I marvel at this arrangement.  To most men it would be suicidal."

I did mention the conversation to the Colonel the next day as we sat in the library.

"He means all right," he said, "but he does not understand.  He's not the first man to doubt the wisdom of having Jack Slaght about.  Jack is pure gold — a bit querulous at times, but always trustworthy.  I 've told Slaght many a thing he could have sold for ten thousand dollars, but I never thought he'd sell it and I'm sure he did not.  I have not held him responsible for what the World might say about me any more than Pulitzer held him responsible for what I said about the World.

"What our friend does not appreciate is that 'the cabinet' is a picked crew.  It's as valuable to me — more so — than I am to it."

As the Colonel said, "the cabinet" was made up of picked men.  They were the survivors of the army of reporters who, beginning in the days when Oyster Bay sported one or two rickety horse cabs and only one telephone, had driven up the slope of Sagamore Hill.  Of these, many called but once or twice.  Others had gone into other callings — notably Robert E.  Livingston, of the Herald, and Edward G.  Riggs, of the Sun, dean of all political reporters; others had passed on.  Of the many, there were a few upon whom their papers depended for all Roosevelt matters, men who at various times, mainly during campaigns and in the summers when Oyster Bay was the National Capital, had been stationed there.  Gradually other newspaper men began to lean on these, the more so as in his later years the Colonel sought (in vain, to be sure) that private life he hoped would be his when he left the White House.

In these latter days not every reporter could see the Colonel.  This was due as much to the fact that many were sent to him on what he called "fool errands" as to the desire for a little privacy.  Many of those who did see him found him not at all responsive.  The exact truth is, popular opinion to the contrary, Colonel Roosevelt was not a publicity seeker.  When he had anything to say he said it, but he did not grant one in a thousand of the interviews sought from him.  In the closing years "no interviews" was his rule, a rule seldom broken.

Under these conditions, even in the last campaign (1916), the number of newspaper men persona grata at Sagamore Hill was limited.  In this group were Slaght and Hoster above mentioned; Rodney Bean, of the New York Times, whose place was later taken by A.  Leonard Smith; Phil Thompson, resident correspondent; Perry Arnold, of the United Press; Ed Moier, of the Associated Press; Napoleon Alexander Jennings, of the Herald, and Charles Divine of the Sun, whose place was later filled by Thoreau Cronyn.  These, with myself and with Colonel Michael E.  Hennessey, of the Boston Globe, as a nonresident member, made up the cabinet.  At times other newspaper men for whom some one or all of the group could vouch, or from other cities, would sit in, but always with the understanding that they would be guided in their writing by what the others would advise.

"These gentlemen understand me perfectly," he would say to the stranger, "and they know what is permissible to print.  Just consult with them and you will be all right.

"Now we will discuss this matter in cabinet," he would go on.  "When we are through we will decide what if anything can be printed.  I 'm not sure that we will want to print anything, but you want the facts for your guidance."

This would be the start of a discussion of some matter in the news or likely to be in the news.  In the course of this, the Colonel would be most frank, particularly if there were no strangers present whom he had not tested out.  On their part the correspondents would be equally frank in their criticisms and suggestions, and in offering bits of information bearing on the subject in hand.

"All right," the Colonel might say as the discussion ended, perhaps at the stroke of the dinner gong, " take this down and we will see how it sounds," and proceed to dictate a statement.

"This" might sound all right and it might not; changes of a word here and there would, as likely as not, be suggested, and when each had had his say, the Colonel would give his final assent to publication.  Or at his suggestion the matter would be held up indefinitely — the entire talk being held as "in cabinet."

The visiting reporter who really knew his business more often than not waited at the little Oyster Bay Inn for the "cabinet" to return, confident that a franker discussion might result if he were not present, and that, under the rules, he would get everything printable, though he might not get all that was said.

So far as I know but one man, who must be nameless in his shame, ever outraged this hospitality of the Colonel.  He did it once.  Before he could again visit "the hill," he was notified not to return.  The offence was flagrant and indefensible.  Not long after the man retired from newspaper work to write fiction.  His successor, an old friend of the Colonel, was heartily welcomed, but stopped abruptly when he started to apologize for what had happened.

"You need not apologize for your office and you cannot apologize for him," said the Colonel.  "You come in on the most favored nation basis.  While I 'm rather sorry for the poor fool — he's more fool than crook — I'm glad his going has sent you here."

The unexpected result of one cabinet meeting was the basis of the charge, oft repeated by men not in the newspaper world, or if in, not of it, that it was the Colonel's habit to repudiate interviews and statements if it was to his benefit to do so.  Such a practice could not long obtain with Colonel Roosevelt or any other public man, however dishonest, and Colonel Roosevelt was basically and intrinsically honest in all things.

At the meeting in question, attended by representatives of the morning papers, Colonel Roosevelt, then President, took up the question of the Philippine friars, at that time very much in the news.  To the men present the Colonel explained conditions in the islands as shown by reports from men in and out of office, making the point that the situation would clear up easier if the Roman Catholics of the United States, and for that matter the rest of the world, had competent knowledge of the facts.

These facts, he proceeded to develop, were that the Philippine friar as he then existed was at no time to be mentioned in the same breath as the Roman Catholic clergy in the United States.  Were this generally understood, even by the clergy here, he said, the situation would be easier to clear up to the satisfaction of all.  Illustrating these statements, Colonel Roosevelt cited various cases that showed the friars in some instances, at least, to be a highly undesirable lot.  At the same time he was careful to point out that not all of the Philippine clergy were "tarred with this stick," paying a high compliment to the Archbishop of Manila and others to whom the charges against the friars would not apply.

All this, it was stipulated, was not for publication.

That evening after dinner the morning paper men to whom the Colonel had made this story sat on the porch of the little Oyster Bay hotel and discussed the meeting of the afternoon.  First one statement, then another of the Colonel's was taken up; this point and that analyzed and emphasized; some of the Colonel's stories were repeated.  Unknown to these men, the local man for an evening paper was sitting near by in the shadow.  While they talked, he took mental notes, and when they retired for the evening card game, he retired to put the story on paper.  The next evening practically everything the Colonel had said was printed in interview form in his journal.

As might have been expected, the result was a sensation.  From one end of the country to the other came calls for a verification of the interview or more on the same lines.  The morning paper men had telephone calls for explanations.  They could, under the circumstances, do nothing but denounce the interview.

Meantime the Colonel was busy.  To Sagamore Hill the correspondent of the morning edition of the paper printing the story was called.  He explained that he knew nothing of the matter, that he had no connection with the evening edition and had not talked with any one on it.

" I am glad to know that," the Colonel told him; "it is as I thought.  I shall have to repudiate the interview, for I made no such talk to whoever wrote that article, and to nobody for publication.  It was, as you know, entirely in confidence.  I have talked this matter over with no one from that paper and I shall say so."
This he did, and when the full facts developed, there was neither resentment nor criticism in newspaper circles.  Nor was there any sympathy for the young man who found himself repudiated.  By eavesdropping he had placed himself in a position where he was entitled to neither courtesy nor consideration; he knew or should have known that he was listening to a discussion of a confidential matter.  So far as the Colonel was concerned, he was entirely within his rights and the truth in denying the authenticity of the interview.

I have in the course of many years tried to find the basis for the charge that Colonel Roosevelt was ever unfair to the interviewer.  The foregoing is the only incident I have been able to find.  On this slender foundation of fact the elaborate structure of misstatement was, I am sure, built.

There were times when, in order to keep out of the newspapers, Colonel Roosevelt gave orders that all newspaper men be barred from "the hill." The few to whom these orders did not apply came, not as newspaper men, but as friends.

One occasion on which such an order issued was immediately after Judge Hughes was nominated.  Calling the correspondents then on duty at Oyster Bay, including a majority of "the cabinet," the Colonel told them they must not call any more; that he was once more a private citizen and must be treated as such.  They protested that this could not be; that the public clamored for news of him, and their papers, anxious to meet the demand, would not consent to recalling them.

It was of no use for Colonel Roosevelt to explain that by remaining in the limelight he would injure Judge Hughes's chances; that he did not propose to do this, and that by remaining, the boys would only embarrass him.  An impasse developed, in consequence of which the correspondents, barred from "the hill," picketed the estate and the Oyster Bay station, planning in this way to get lines on the Colonel's political visitors and on what he was doing in a political way.

This was the situation when I arrived at Oyster Bay from Chicago.  The men at the station told me Sagamore Hill had been closed to them as reporters.

"T.  R.  was very nice about it," they said, "but he said that while he would welcome us older men as friends, he would have no welcome for us as reporters."

On the theory that being fresh from the convention, the Colonel would not object to my calling, I drove to Sagamore Hill.  As I arrived, James R.  Garfield, of the "Tennis Cabinet," and another friend were leaving.

"By George! this is fine," the Colonel exclaimed, introducing me to Garfield, whom I had met before, but who did not remember me.  "You can trust this man absolutely," he declared.  "He is one of the salt of the earth1, if salt can be considered plural.  I am glad you came.

"But," he added as Garfield left, "you know I am not seeing reporters.  Of course you did not know that.''

"Yes, I did, Colonel," I answered, "but I thought you might possibly wish to see me, and, anyway, I wished to tell you how sorry I am you were not named and to say good bye."

"That's splendid of you," he answered.  "Come into the library."

In the library John McGrath and Walter Hayes, his secretaries, were waiting with a mass of mail.  Hayes also had a wire from Mrs.  Douglas Robinson.

"Now what do you think of that?" the Colonel demanded.  "My sister, you know, the dearest girl in the world, but ignorant as a babe on politics.  Thinks, I suppose, the world's going to come to an end because I was not nominated.  Hayes, try and get her to come out with Mr.  Robinson.  She wants to console me, and I shall have to console her and explain that nothing awful has happened me."

I at once took up the matter of the embargo.

"The station is picketed," I explained.  " I am sorry to say, too, that some of the boys have elected to picket the foot of the hill.  It should be possible to make some arrangement more pleasant all around."
I mention this incident in answer to those who have pictured Colonel Roosevelt as stubborn and unreasonable and difficult to advise.

"I noticed the pickets," said he, "and I did not like to see them.  But really there is no use in their coming here for news.  I wish to be treated as any other private citizen."

"Yes, Colonel," said I, "you know and I know that, but the public refuses to consider you a private citizen and, frankly, you are not; at least not yet."

"All right, then, let us fix it this way.  Let one of you elder members of the cabinet come up here each evening.  I will tell him the news, but it must not be printed as coming from me.  There will be times when you will not wish to print the names of all my callers.

"For example, I was sorry yesterday to see that the boys said Leonard Wood called.  With this Administration lying awake nights for a chance to break him and deprive him of his livelihood — Wood is rather too old to start in another line now — it would be easy to get him into trouble.  You boys, I know, would regret that; you would not intentionally get any decent citizen into trouble.

"Will that arrangement be satisfactory?"

I said it would, and the new arrangement went into effect at once, the first call being planned for the next night when I was to meet him in the Hotel Langdon, his New York City home.

I found him there looking tired and flushed after a hard day in the city, and, I thought, reaction from the strain of the convention.  Of news he had none.  The next day we learned, when a physician was called to attend him on a pier whither he had gone to welcome Kermit home, that he was ill.  It was explained he had strained some tendons on his left side coughing.

On the following day several physicians looked him over and we learned he had a light attack of dry pleurisy.  At his request I called at the hotel that evening.

"I've sent for you," he told me, "because I know the boys have confidence in you and will take your word, your advice, on my condition.  I don't want alarming stories in the papers.  If you could fix it, I would prefer nothing be said, but I know you cannot, and perhaps total silence, any attempt to suppress, would be the worst thing I could do.  But I don't want any 'Roosevelt Critically Ill' headlines that will scare my friends to death.  I 'm not afraid of the boys' reports, but it's the headline fellows.

"All the trouble I ever have with the papers is of their making.  Friends come to me and say, 'Those reporters,' But it is n't the reporters.  Ninety nine times out of a hundred they are correct to a ‘T."

I explained that the boys understood perfectly; that Slaght had taken the trouble to consult one of the best physicians in New York, Dr.  Charles H.  Goodrich, of Brooklyn, and been told by him that pleurisy per se was annoying rather than serious.

"That's bully of Slaght.  Just like him.  Do you know he's a splendid fellow? Now his paper hates me, hates me bitterly.  But Slaght has ever been uniformly kind and courteous.  He's square all the way up.  I like him, he's my friend.  That's one thing lots of people can't understand, why I have anything to do with a man placed like Slaght.  They don't know that being decent is not dependent on one's particular position."

I told the Colonel that if he wished I would see every night editor in town — the boys would have gone home by the time I could get back downtown — but I advised against doing so.

"Ha, ha, 'methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" he quoted.  "You are right and I am sorry to have troubled you.  Truly, I will be glad when people will recognize me as a private citizen and the papers treat me as such."

"That time," I replied, "will never come in your life.  Twenty years from now if I am alive I expect to go to Oyster Bay now and then on a T.  R.  assignment.'

"That is just it — your city editors want that sort of thing.  But I do wish — and I say this in all sincerity — I wish to be as any other man — I am in private life, and sooner or later even your hard hearted bosses will recognize that."

Three days later the Colonel again asked when the correspondents would leave Oyster Bay.

"How much longer do you boys expect to be here?" he asked.

" On a guess, ten days — until after your letter to the Progressive National Committee is made public."

"Fine.  Then I shall be left alone."

"Colonel, I don't think so.  There's one thing you don't realize — the biggest tribute yet paid you, but unnoticed by you and about every one else.  It is the presence of these men."

"I don't understand you," and he looked as though he suspected I thought I was honoring him by calling.

" It is this.  Here you are a defeated man.  You are by your own word out of politics.  You ask to be left alone.  In the face of that, the New York papers and the great press associations are keeping here a stronger force than is with Mr.  Hughes.  That's not because our city editors are crazy or hero worshippers or particular friends of yours.  It is because they realize the hold you have on the American people.  It's the tribute of the people to the man, for, after all, we only give the public what it wants.

"I have never seen or heard of anything like it in my twenty-five years in the newspaper business.

The popular cry always is, 'The King is dead, long live the King.' This 'King' is not dead.  I tell you, the people are with you.  That is why we are here."

The Colonel listened to this, the longest speech I ever attempted on him, without an interruption — something unusual when one was tempted to be long winded.

"Leary, I thank you," this with every evidence of being touched.  "The people are with me because they know I am the one man in America who stands for a definite thing.  It's the thing and not the man."

Ten days later the boys began to leave one by one, only to return intermittently or call at his New York offices the days he would be due in town.  More often than not they secured nothing for publication, but they were glad to see him, and he them.  Between them there was that "common interest" he sometimes declared to be so necessary to enable men to work together.  All were his friends, and he theirs.

This affinity of the newspaper men for Colonel Roosevelt was not confined to New York members of the craft.  By that strange freemasonry obtaining in the profession, reporters in San Francisco, Portland, Maine, and way stations in between, knew they were sure, if the occasion ever offered, of a fair deal; that while he could not be depended upon for the desired interview, he would always see them, thereby protecting them against what every reporter, however blase, dreads — the necessity of reporting failure to see his man.

They also knew he would protect them in other ways; as, for example, at a dinner given him by the Illinois Bar Association.  To it journeyed several members of "the cabinet," only to be barred at the last moment.  The meal was partly served when the Colonel's secretary, McGrath, told him about it.  Immediately the Colonel arose as if to leave the table, declared the reporters were in and of his party, and he proposed to join them in the grill room below where they were dining a la carte.

Join them he did, returning to the banquet hall only after the spokesman for the Association apologized for the slight and arranged, not only for the reporters to be in for the speech making, but to have a special supper after their work was done.  To this half a score of Chicago reporters were bidden, and the Colonel sat at the head of the table.

Incidents of this sort made every reporter assigned to the Colonel a Roosevelt worshipper, a fact that unfriendly editors complained of time after time.  The mere changing of men did not suffice — in a few days the new man was as unable to write anti-Roosevelt stuff as his predecessor had been.

Which explains the dialogue overheard by a taxi-driver, taking two reporters from Sagamore Hill the day its master left it on his last journey.

"Brace up, Phil," said one; "we'll soon be in town.  Pull yourself together."

"Shut up, you damn fool!" blubbered the other; "you're crying just as hard as I am."