The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  The bosses of the eastern states followed suit. To a man, they pledged the full support of their delegations. Platt had done his work well. The only resistance had come from the conservative party chairman, Ohio’s Mark Hanna. “Don’t you realize,” Hanna famously objected, “that there’s only one life between this madman and the White House?” In the end, even Hanna conceded that Roosevelt would add more strength to the ticket than any other candidate. “There is not a man, woman, or child in the hotels of Quakertown tonight,” the Washington Times reported, “who does not believe that TR is to be nominated as President McKinley’s running mate.”

  “These fellows have placed me in an awful position,” Roosevelt complained. “If I refused it, people will say that ‘Roosevelt has a big head and thinks he is too much of a man to be Vice-President.’ ” Lodge had little patience with Roosevelt’s continued reluctance: “If you decline the nomination,” he informed his friend, “you had better take a razor and cut your throat.”

  Roosevelt eventually resigned himself to the inevitable nomination. The next morning, “the sun shone brightly” for the first time in several days as the formal proceedings began. When the chair recognized Roosevelt to second McKinley’s nomination, “the magic” of his personality “sent the multitude into convulsions of enthusiasm.” From the gallery, Edith watched her husband stride toward the platform amid “the sea of waving, cheering humanity.” The jubilation continued while Roosevelt commanded the stage. “He made no acknowledgements, no salutations to the plaudits, but like a hero receiving his due, calmly awaited the subsidence of the tumult.” His expression relaxed only once, the New York Tribune correspondent remarked, “when he caught a glimpse of his wife in the gallery and waved his hand to her.” At last, with his uplifted hand, the demonstration subsided.

  Finally, Roosevelt addressed the adoring crowd: “We stand on the threshold of a new century big with the fate of mighty nations,” he proclaimed. “We face the coming years high of heart and resolute of faith that to our people is given the right to win such honor and renown as has never yet been vouchsafed to the nations of mankind.” It was not a speech, observed one reporter, “of rounded periods, such as Senator Lodge could deliver, nor did it have the fervor or the rich metaphor of the Wolcotts and Dollivers.” Nevertheless, no other speech proved “so effective, none so full of character and none which found so responsive an audience. It carried everything before it, and old campaigners sighed that such energy was beyond them.”

  Once the frenzy of the convention had waned Roosevelt admitted to a friend that he felt “a little melancholy.” While he “should be a conceited fool” not to appreciate such resounding support, the thought of four years in the restrictive office of the vice presidency remained abhorrent. “His friends were in despair,” Jacob Riis wrote, “his enemies triumphed. At last they had him where they wanted him.”

  His family shared Roosevelt’s aversion to the prospect. “Oh, how I hate this Vice Presidency,” Corinne told Fanny Parsons. “Poor Edith feels it tremendously too.” Indeed, Edith admitted to Emily that she “had hoped to the last moment that some other candidate would be settled upon.” Her only comfort was the prospect that her husband might “get the rest that he sadly needs and for the next four years he will have an easy time.”

  WHILE THEODORE ROOSEVELT TRIED TO reconcile himself to the unhappy combination of events resulting in his nomination as vice president, William Howard Taft would embark on the most gratifying period of his long public career. In late January 1900, a telegraph boy knocked on the door of the consultation room at the circuit court in Cincinnati. He handed Judge Taft a telegram, summoning him to the White House for “important business” with President McKinley. “What do you suppose that means?” he excitedly asked Nellie that evening. She had no answer. Had there been an opening on the Supreme Court, the summons might have foretold his long-desired appointment to the bench, but no vacancy then existed.

  Secretary of War Elihu Root and Navy Secretary Long had joined McKinley in the Oval Office when the president informed Taft that he intended to appoint him to a new Philippine Commission, charged with formulating a civilian code for governance. “He might as well have told me,” Taft remembered, “that he wanted me to take a flying machine.” Taft protested that he was not the right man for the task. He was emphatically not an expansionist and had been “strongly opposed to taking the Philippines,” believing the United States should not take on a responsibility “contrary to our traditions and at a time when we had quite enough to do at home.” Such objections were “beside the question,” McKinley countered; now that the Philippines had fallen to the United States, “it behooved the United States to govern them until such time as their people had learned the difficult art of governing themselves.”

  Taft agreed that once the islands were occupied, we were “under the most sacred duty to give them a good form of government” but insisted he was not the man best equipped for that important responsibility. He did not speak Spanish, which would hamper easy relationships with the Filipino people. Furthermore, he was loath to relinquish his long-cherished lifetime appointment as a judge. “Well,” said McKinley, “all I can say to you is that if you give up this judicial office at my request you shall not suffer. If I last and the opportunity comes, I shall appoint you.” Long confirmed that the president was speaking of a place on the Supreme Court. “Yes,” McKinley assured him, “if I am here you’ll be here.”

  War Secretary Root offered the decisive argument. “You have had a very fortunate career,” he told Taft. “You are at the parting of the ways. Will you take the easier course, the way of least resistance . . . or will you take the more courageous course and, risking much, achieve much?” Taft asked for a week to ponder the matter with his wife and brothers.

  On the overnight train heading back to Cincinnati, Taft “didn’t sleep a wink.” Root’s words about courage frequented his thoughts, and the president’s implied promise of a Supreme Court appointment beckoned powerfully. Despite his mounting excitement, Taft was certain that the long distance and “the atrocious climate of Manila” would not prove a happy prospect for Nellie. Unlike Roosevelt, he could not imagine a protracted absence from his family. By the time he reached home, his countenance was “so grave” that Nellie “thought he must be facing impeachment.”

  Will explained the president’s proposal to his wife, doubtful she would consider joining him. Much to his surprise, Nellie never hesitated: “Yes, of course,” she exclaimed, the opportunity gave her “nothing but pleasure.” She later admitted that perhaps she should have given the prospect of moving three children under ten years old more than 8,000 miles from home more consideration, but her excitement overcame all anxiety. “I knew instantly,” she recalled, “that I didn’t want to miss a big and novel experience.”

  Taft’s brothers echoed Nellie’s enthusiasm. “You can do more good in that position in a year than you could do on the bench in a dozen,” Horace maintained, acknowledging, “I hated to have us take the Philippines, but I don’t see how in the world we can give them up.” Harry agreed, certain that both Will and Nellie would profit “the rest of [their] lives” from “the educational effect of the experience.” Harry added that his brother should ask to be made president of the commission so he “could have a voice in selecting some of [his] colleagues.”

  Three days later, Taft wrote to Root, accepting the post with the stipulation that he be made head of the commission, “responsible for success or failure” of the venture. Root readily agreed; he and McKinley had assumed that Taft would be granted that authority. Notwithstanding, Taft’s resignation from his beloved bench was, Nellie believed, “the hardest thing he ever did.”

  News of Taft’s appointment must have disquieted Roosevelt, who nurtured a slim hope that “the Philippines business” could wait a few years, that the fighting would not abate before he was in a position to serve as the first governor general. Though Taft’s appointment to the presidency
of the commission did not ensure that McKinley would make him civilian governor when hostilities ended, Roosevelt undoubtedly realized that Taft was now the obvious and logical choice.

  The two men had kept in close contact over the years, and Taft remained a loyal friend. At the close of “a very hard month” in the governor’s office, Roosevelt had found solace in an encouraging letter from Taft. “Need I tell you how your letter pleased me, and how much touched I was by it?” he wrote back, explaining that he had endeavored to follow Taft’s counsel and “make the good of the State [his] prime consideration, and yet not follow any impractical ideas.” Still, Roosevelt noted, it was “not always easy to strike the just middle,” and he inevitably made mistakes. “The thing I should most like,” he revealed to Taft, “would be to have someone here just like yourself to advise with.” In a letter to their mutual friend Maria Storer, Roosevelt wistfully reiterated his affection and respect: “I wish there was someone like [Taft] here in New York, for I am very much alone. I have no real community of principle or feeling with the machine. So far I have gotten along very well with them, but I never can tell when they will cut my throat.” For his part, Taft habitually tracked Roosevelt’s battles closely and had wholeheartedly rejoiced in his “final triumph” over Lou Payn.

  Though Roosevelt received news of Taft’s appointment with ambivalence, his happiness for his friend soon overcame any personal disappointment. “Curiously enough,” Roosevelt told him, “I had just written you a note, but I will tear it up, for now I see that you are going on the new Philippine Commission. . . . You are to do a great work for America, and of all the men I know I think you are best fitted to do it.”

  While Will traveled to Washington to discuss the composition of the commission with the president and the secretary of war, Nellie began to prepare for the odyssey ahead. “That it was alluring to me I did not deny to anybody,” she happily remembered. “I read with engrossing interest everything I could find on the subject of the Philippines.” Meanwhile, within eight weeks, she managed to vacate their house, store their belongings, and pack for shipment what they would need. “Robert was ten years old, Helen eight, while Charlie, my baby, was just a little over two. It did not occur to me that it was a task to take them on such a long journey, or that they would be exposed to any danger through the experience,” she recalled matter-of-factly.

  In mid-April 1900, the five commission members and their families, along with a translator, five secretaries, a stenographer, and an Army surgeon, gathered in San Francisco to board the Hancock and begin their two-week journey to the Philippines. “We soon became well acquainted, as people do on shipboard,” Nellie recalled, “and proceeded at once to prove ourselves to be a most harmonious company.” This close-knit group, with whom Nellie would spend “the most interesting years” of her life, included a former Confederate general, “one of the ablest lawyers in Tennessee”; a New England judge who had served as chief justice of Samoa; a professor from the University of Michigan who had been on two scientific expeditions to the Philippines; and a historian from the University of California who had written on politics and economics. Nellie relished “the bonds of friendship” that developed over drinks, meals, political discussions, and continuous rounds of cards. They learned Spanish together and shared books on British colonization and the history of the Philippines. And their children became fast friends.

  No sooner had the Hancock landed in Manila Bay than the complexity of Taft’s mission was immediately apparent. “The populace that we expected to welcome us was not there,” recalled Taft, “and I cannot describe the coldness of the army officers and army men who received us any better than by saying that it somewhat exceeded the coldness of the populace.” The Filipinos’ lack of faith in the advent of the blue-ribbon commission was unsurprising. Brutal fighting still raged in scattered regions of the islands. Further, reports circulated of water torture and other cruelties practiced by American soldiers against the Filipinos, and condescending suggestions that the Filipinos were not yet fit for self-government roused deep resentment.

  Taft had expected to be met by General Arthur MacArthur, who had occupied the Philippines for nearly two years and was serving as military governor. But MacArthur was nowhere to be seen. The general regarded the commission’s arrival with displeasure, for it compromised the absolute authority he had exercised in the governance of the islands. According to the president’s new instructions, the military governor would retain executive powers until the termination of hostilities, while the new Philippine Commission would become the legislative body. Taft and his colleagues had authority to appropriate money, determine taxes, create political departments, and establish courts. MacArthur bluntly informed Taft that he regarded the appointment of the commission “as a personal reflection on him, and that while he was of course obliged to submit to [its] presence there, he resented it nevertheless.”

  In his first public statement, Taft appealed to the people of the islands, declaring that the commission’s arrival signaled a better day and presaged the beginning of the end of military rule. “We are civil officers. We are men of peace. We are here to do justice to the Philippine people, and to secure to them the best government in our power,” he reassured them, explaining that the people would retain “such a measure of popular control as will be consistent with stability and the security of law, order and property.” He promised to build schools and roads, to open clinics and improve harbors, to establish a system of justice based on the American model, and eventually to create a political structure run by the Filipinos. He explained that “the field” of his work could not yet include those regions where insurgents remained active. Once the rebels laid down their arms they could rely “on the justice, generosity, and clemency of the United States” to accord them “as full a hearing upon the policy to be pursued and the reforms to be begun, as to anyone.”

  Harper’s Weekly deemed Taft’s address “the precise kind of speech” demanded by the situation, suggesting that when a man like Taft made promises, he could be believed. “He is not a New York politician who would sacrifice his soul for office; he is not an anxious member of Congress who would promise anything to get a second term,” Harper’s maintained, heartily endorsing Taft and his agenda. “He is Judge Taft and when we say that he is Judge Taft, we mean to imply that he represents all that is best in American manhood, involving integrity of character, a sane mind, and the loftiest of motives.”

  As chief executive, General MacArthur occupied the official Malacañan Palace. Left to secure his own housing, Taft finally settled on a comfortable house with a wide veranda overlooking Manila Bay. A central hall separated the large dining room from several roomy bedrooms, and a drawing room was located over the carriage entrance. Three more large downstairs chambers and baths, which Nellie allocated to the children, were equipped with “high canopied and mosquito-netted” beds. The Spanish furniture was “very fine,” and electric ceiling fans cooled every room. The house staff included “the cook, the number one boy, the number two boy and the laundryman.” The cook, Nellie happily noted, could be given word as late as six or seven o’clock that Taft had eight people coming to dinner and “a perfect dinner would be served.” Though their house staff were far outnumbered by the several dozen servants at the Malacañan, the Tafts came to love what Nellie affectionately termed their “homely and unpalatial abode.”

  Each morning, a coach driven by two horses carried Taft to the old capitol building on Cathedral Plaza in the Walled City, where both military and civilian headquarters were lodged. MacArthur and the military occupied most of the building, forcing the commission to work in tight quarters. Nonetheless, Taft was contented so long as he had space for the large library of books on civil law, history, and government that he had purchased for $2,300 before leaving the States. Taft generally began his workday reading the newspapers and writing letters. At ten o’clock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the commission held executive sessions to hammer ou
t legislation on banking and currency, the courts, public works, civil service, health, and education. The five members were charged with designing—from the foundation up—a new colonial government for a population of nearly 7 million. Once the proposed legislation was drafted, public hearings would be held to solicit contributions from the Filipino people. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, the door was opened for anyone “who wish[ed] to see them.” At one o’clock, Taft drove back to the house for lunch and a Spanish lesson, before returning to preside over the commission’s afternoon session. Not until six or seven o’clock would he and a fellow commissioner set out on foot for their homes. “The walk is about two miles and a half and the exercise we get is very good for us,” he told his mother-in-law. Dinner was “rather a formidable” affair at which they often entertained guests. Nellie and her sister Maria “put on lownecked gowns” and Will changed into more formal attire. “We begin with soup, have fish, not infrequently an entrée, and the roast and dessert and fruit,” he reported in loving detail. Lest his mother-in-law chide him for gaining weight, he rationalized that “in this climate one’s vital forces are drawn upon by work so much that one’s appetite is very strong at meals.”

  Taft’s “policy of conciliation,” his strategy of reaching out to the Filipino people, aroused undisguised antipathy within the insulated regime MacArthur had established. Upon hearing that Taft had referred to the Filipinos as “our little brown brothers,” the soldiers promptly composed a marching song “which they sang with great gusto and frequency,” climaxing with the jeering refrain: “He may be a brother of William H. Taft, but he ain’t no friend of mine!” Believing that it would take ten years to pacify the islands, MacArthur considered Taft’s desire to provide education and involve the populace in government as both wrongheaded and ultimately hazardous. As the British colonialists understood, such policies could only lead to “agitation and discontent and constant conspiracy.”