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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Taft first secured Speaker Joseph Cannon’s approval of the railroad bill, knowing its passage in the Republican-controlled House would then be ensured. “All in favor will please say Aye,” the powerful Speaker declared when the railroad bill came up for a vote. “There was a gentle piping of ‘aye’ on the Republican side.” When the Speaker called for those opposed, there was “a thunderous burst of ‘No!’ ” from the Democrats. “The ‘noes’ seem to make the most noise,” Cannon brusquely concluded, “but the ‘ayes’ have it and the bill is passed.”

  Opposition in the Senate, where individual members could easily block a bill, proved more formidable. “I have been working with Democratic members,” Taft told Nellie. “I have been as pretty to them as I can be but it may be love’s labor lost, till more flies can be won with molasses than vinegar and I shall continue to coddle them, even if they go back on me.” Through Taft’s dogged efforts, the bill finally passed, though not until the following congressional session.

  Taft’s endeavor to secure congressional support for tariff reduction on Philippine products proved far less successful. Reduced tariffs were essential to the future prosperity of the islands, Taft repeatedly argued, insisting furthermore that reducing excessive import taxes was a matter of basic justice. An Indiana editorial concurred: since the United States had undertaken to govern the Philippines, “it would seem to be taking an unfair advantage of a poor, defenseless people” to levy an “exorbitant tax on their business relations with us” in order to satisfy “a few protected interests.” Within the Congress, however, allies of the sugar and tobacco industries vowed to use any parliamentary tactic necessary to prevent a tariff reduction bill from reaching the floor.

  “I can see in the opposition,” Taft complained to Roosevelt, “the fine Italian hand of our dear friend Aldrich of Rhode Island. Whenever there is anything which is likely to injure the tobacco, sugar or silver mining interests under the so-called trust arrangements, that very able and deft manager of the Senate appears long enough in Washington to disturb the even tenor of projected remedial legislation.” Lyman Abbott, as editor of The Outlook, offered pithy commiseration: “The interest of dollars is more powerful than the interest of conscience.”

  To Taft’s dismay, Roosevelt defended the Senate leader. “You are unjust to Senator Aldrich,” he chided Taft. Though the president often differed radically with Aldrich and the other members of the Big Four, he insisted that “taken as a body, they [were] broad-minded and patriotic, as well as sagacious, skillful and resolute.” Such words offered scant consolation for Taft; the Senate’s inner circle would effectively block any legislative action on the Philippine tariff reduction until Taft himself became president.

  ON MARCH 14, 1904, AS word spread that the Northern Securities merger decision was imminent, an immense crowd gathered outside the Supreme Court. For Roosevelt, the outcome loomed with enormous implications for his party, as well as the nation. If the Court sustained the administration’s argument that the colossal merger represented a monopoly that restricted trade, the victory would demonstrate a fundamental shift in the Republican Party’s relationship with the trusts.

  Inside the chamber, seating was filled to capacity. Dozens of senators and congressmen jockeyed for space in the section normally reserved for families of the justices. At the government bench, Attorney General Knox and Secretary Taft sat side by side, their expressions marked by “nervous expectancy.” Nearby, ranks of powerful corporate lawyers had assembled. At the back of the chamber, more than fifty newspapermen, “paper and pencil in hands,” readied to race to the telegraph wires the moment the ruling came down. “It required but little effort of imagination,” one reporter noted, “to see in the vast background millions of American citizens awaiting the outcome of this judicial battle against daring financiers.”

  The crowd stood as the Court crier opened the session with the traditional cry: “Oyez, Oyez, Oyez.” The spotlight on the Supreme Court likely conjured conflicting emotions in William Taft, who would have been among the justices had he accepted the president’s appointment offer. That seat was now occupied by Justice William Rufus Day, Taft’s good friend and former colleague on the Ohio bench. The moment Roosevelt had appointed Day, Taft realized that “being an Ohio man, and coming from the same court” foreclosed any chance that he might succeed to the bench in the near future. “Of course this is something of a disappointment,” he had acknowledged to Joseph Bishop at the time, but maintained, “I am sure it would have made no difference if I had known definitely that this was the alternative.” When Bishop shared that excerpt from Taft’s letter with the president, it only confirmed Roosevelt’s admiration. “How eminently characteristic of Taft those extracts are!” he exclaimed. “What a fine fellow he is!”

  As Justice John Harlan began to read the Court’s 5–4 opinion, papers reported, “everyone was alert for the significant sentence which should disclose the attitude of the majority.” They did not wait long. “No scheme or device could more certainly come within the words of the [Sherman Anti-Trust Act],” Harlan immediately pronounced, “or more effectively and certainly suppress free competition between the constituent companies.” Echoing the warning Baker had issued when the giant merger first became public, the Court cautioned that if no limits were placed on railroad mergers and more “holding companies” combined, “a universal merger” might be reached, and “a single man might thus control . . . and sway the transportation of the entire country.” With this unambiguous declaration, “it was all over,” the Boston Daily Globe recorded, recounting how “a score of eager men jumped for the exit and disappeared from the chamber to the waiting wires. Wall Street had lost. The government had won.”

  Taft enjoyed a moment of personal triumph when Harlan explicated the principles and precedents informing the majority decision. Central among the cases he cited was Taft’s decision in Addyston Pipe and Steel. “If Congress can strike down a combination between private persons or private corporations that restrains trade among the States in iron pipe,” Harlan argued, clearly they were empowered “to strike down combinations among stockholders of competing railroad carriers.”

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Roosevelt’s first appointee to the Court, proved “the surprise of the day” when he joined the other three dissenting justices. Known as “the friend of the common people” and “the champion of labor,” Holmes delivered a stinging rebuttal, claiming that “while the merger was undoubtedly taken with the intention of ending competition between the two railroads,” the Sherman Act—as currently constructed—did not apply to a transaction of this kind. Roosevelt was stunned by Holmes’s dissent. “I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that,” he angrily charged. Years later, Holmes agreed that the Northern Securities case had derailed his nascent friendship with Roosevelt. “We talked freely later,” he recalled, “but it was never the same.”

  Roosevelt’s frustration with Holmes did not diminish his absolute pleasure in the verdict. Upon receiving the news, the president “put aside all else to express his satisfaction” to every caller at the White House. The impact of this decision on Roosevelt’s political stature could “hardly be exaggerated,” the New York World editorialized. “People will love him for the enemies he has made. It cannot now be said that the Republican Party is owned by the trusts. It cannot now be said that Mr. Roosevelt is controlled by them.” Minnesota governor Samuel Van Sant went so far as to claim the decision meant “more to the people of the country than any other event since the civil war.” The government’s triumph, the Minneapolis Times declared, had confirmed that “no man, however great, is greater than the law.” From that moment, Roosevelt’s reputation as the great “trust-buster” was confirmed.

  Even as he savored his dramatic victory, Roosevelt nevertheless made clear that the government would not “run amuck.” While the nation possessed the right and responsibility to regulate corporations, he maintained, “this power should be exercised with
extreme caution.” The Northern Securities suit should not be construed as the opening volley of a populist campaign to destroy all big corporations simply because they were big. In fact, Roosevelt viewed the organization of capital as a natural outcome of industrialization and welcomed the lower prices and efficient service made possible by combination. “If a corporation is doing square work I will help it so far as I can,” he insisted. But at the same time, he asserted, “if it oppresses anybody; if it is acting dishonestly towards its stockholders or the public, or towards its laborers, or towards small competitors—why, when I have power I shall try to cinch it.” With characteristic rhetorical balance, the president made it clear he would abide neither the excesses of “the selfish rich” nor the resentful outrage of the “lunatic fringe.”

  As he worked to implement this vision for genuine but evenhanded reform into public policy, the president was relieved to have William Howard Taft at his side. The approaching campaign would require powerful advocates for Roosevelt’s election and for his progressive agenda. With his affable nature and tempered approach, the new secretary of war would be Roosevelt’s indispensable complement.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “A Smile That Won’t Come Off”

  The 1904 Republican National Convention in Chicago, with Mark Hanna’s portrait visible above the speaker’s platform.

  WHEN ROOSEVELT UPROOTED TAFT FROM the Philippines to make him a pivotal figure in his Washington cabinet, he had warned his friend that he would lean on him heavily. In an era when it was still considered undignified for candidates to stump heavily on their own behalf, Taft would serve as a campaign surrogate, clarifying and promoting Roosevelt’s positions. As the president had feared when he called Taft home, the mood of the country was becoming increasingly unstable. In the opening months of the 1904 election year, tensions between labor and capital had escalated to a dangerously volatile point.

  No single incident illustrates the severity of this instability better than the Colorado labor wars, a series of conflicts that pushed the region to the brink of revolution. In the spring, labor violence in Colorado threatened to unbalance the carefully calibrated middle ground Roosevelt had forged in his dealings with unions and management. A continuous round of strikes by the Western Federation of Miners had roiled the region for over a year. The previous November, James Peabody, Colorado’s conservative Republican governor, had declared martial law and urged Roosevelt to send federal troops to quell the disturbances. Strikers, he reported, had shut down mining activity across most of the state and were threatening a range of other businesses. The safety of Colorado’s citizens and the security of their private property were in peril. After consulting with his cabinet, Roosevelt sent a telegram to the governor. While he understood the difficult conditions, he explained that he had “no lawful authority” to intervene unless the situation amounted to “an insurrection . . . beyond the power of the civil police and military forces of the State to control.”

  As the violence escalated, Ray Baker traveled to Colorado and began researching the history of “corruption & bribery on the part of the corporations & violence on the part of the strikers. I am going to go for them hard,” as he told his father. Upon hearing that Baker was preparing an article on the Colorado labor strife, Roosevelt invited him to the White House. Throughout their lunch, Baker wrote his wife, Jessie, the president “had a pad of paper at his hand” and “asked me much in detail about conditions in the West.”

  As Baker labored to complete his 10,000-word article, “The Reign of Lawlessness: Anarchy and Despotism in Colorado,” he sought Roosevelt’s permission to quote from a statement in their private correspondence. “I believe in corporations,” Roosevelt had written. “I believe in trade unions. Both have come to stay and are necessities in our present industrial system. But where, in either the one or the other, there develops corruption or mere brutal indifference to the rights of others . . . then the offender, whether union or corporation, must be fought.” With the president’s blessing, Baker used the quote to headline his argument that both capital and labor had broken the law in Colorado, equally contributing to the pervasive disorder and destruction.

  Tracing the chronology of the conflict from the 1890s, Baker began with the Western Federation strikes in Cripple Creek, which successfully obtained “everything the men wanted,” including higher wages, closed shops, and an eight-hour workday. But in both Colorado City and Denver, Baker noted, a number of mills remained “open shops,” and Telluride mill owners refused to grant an eight-hour day. Federation leaders ordered all 3,000 men out in a “sympathetic strike,” exercising a nearly “autocratic” authority over their statewide membership, a majority of whom were reluctant to strike. As union mines shut down across the state and unionized workers instigated violent altercations with non-union men in the smelting plants, public opinion began to turn against the Western Federation. Seizing this opportunity to break the union altogether, mine owners called on the governor to bring in state troops and keep the non-union mines open.

  The governor needed little persuasion, Ray Baker reported, for he unabashedly “sided with the mine owners” in an effort “not merely to prevent violence, but to break the strike.” The state militia arrested union members “without charges,” suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Soldiers “entered and searched” private homes without warrants, and a local newspaper was shut down after its editor “criticized the methods of the soldiery.”

  “One of the great underlying reasons for the existing struggle,” Baker determined, “was the demand for an eight-hour day in the smelters and mills of Colorado.” In 1899, the state legislature had passed a law restricting work in extremely hazardous occupations to eight hours. After Colorado’s supreme court declared the law unconstitutional, the unions sponsored an amendment to the state constitution. Passed by a large majority, the measure mandated that the legislature enact an eight-hour law. When lawmakers assembled, however, lobbyists from the Smelter Trust, controlled by John D. Rockefeller, descended upon the capitol. An eight-hour day would require three shifts instead of two, cutting profits. Money for bribes was plentiful. Despite the clear mandate, the legislature ended its session without having acted on the eight-hour law.

  Little wonder, Baker mused, that after years of struggling for this legislation, the unions “were discouraged, even desperate.” Nonetheless, he emphasized, the chaos in Colorado was the work of all parties: unions had utilized violent means to drive scabs from work; military forces had become despotic; corporations had bribed legislators; and the legislature itself had defied “the will of the people.” Only public outrage and pressure could hope to stem the corruption and violence.

  In mid-April, Baker sent an advance copy to Roosevelt. “I have endeavored in this article to set down the truth with absolute frankness, no matter who it hit,” he wrote the president, “and if the truth were ever needed, it is needed today in Colorado.” Baker’s investigation and analysis drew widespread praise throughout the country. The Arena called it “the most masterly, exhaustive and on the whole judicially impartial account of the reign of anarchy in Colorado.” The evenhanded stance evidenced in the Roosevelt quote Baker cited also occasioned favorable comment. “This language is not calculated to please either the extremists on the side of capital, or the extremists on the side of labor,” the Wall Street Journal asserted, “but it commends itself to the sober thought of the great mass of people, who, while believing in the right of capital and labor to organize, hold that neither capital nor labor shall be permitted to exercise a power of monopoly.” Roosevelt not only read the piece but had it circulated among officials in the Labor Department.

  On June 6, the long-simmering tensions in Colorado ignited. At two o’clock that morning, twenty-five miners who had just completed a shift in defiance of the union’s strike waited at the Cripple Creek station for the 2:15 a.m. train. Suddenly, a massive charge of dynamite detonated near the tracks, rocking the depot. Over a dozen men
died instantly in the blast and more were gravely injured. The Western Federation of Miners was blamed for the “dastardly crime.” News of this fatal explosion, destructive enough to render the dead unidentifiable by doctors and family members, quickly led to rioting. The governor called out the militia, and soldiers roamed the streets arresting anyone who uttered “the least anarchistic expression.” Under orders of the state national guard, more than one hundred union miners were corralled onto a special train and banished from Cripple Creek. Among the thousands who thronged the station, one reporter observed, were “wives and sisters, fathers and mothers of the deported men, and the scenes were affecting.”

  The Western Federation appealed to the president, “in the name of law and order,” pressing him to investigate “the terrible crimes that are being perpetrated in Colorado.” The union’s plea placed Roosevelt in a difficult position. “Having refused to send them in at the request of one side,” he explained, “we are now asked to send them in at the request of the other.” Exasperated by inaction, Roosevelt dispatched an investigative team to Colorado. “If it becomes necessary for me to act, or merely lay before Congress a statement of what has occurred, I want to know fully the exact facts,” he told labor commissioner Carroll Davis Wright.

  Commissioner Wright later informed Ray Baker that his article had served as “the basis of the government investigation in Colorado,” which likewise traced the origin and history of the region’s labor struggles and analyzed the same incidents, also attributing to both sides responsibility for the confrontation. Reading Wright’s preliminary report, Roosevelt concurred with Baker that Governor Peabody had exacerbated the situation, intervening not simply “as the representative of law, order and justice” but “as the supporter and representative of the capitalist against the laborer.” Nevertheless, the president believed the miners had erred, leaving strike decisions to an autocratic inner circle and using violence to accomplish their goals. The report validated Roosevelt’s initial reluctance to interfere, providing abundant evidence that would justify his decision to Congress and to the public. Once the president had transmitted the final report to the House and the Senate, he again invited Baker to lunch. “He was most gratifyingly complimentary about my work,” Baker informed his father. The president’s response, he maintained, confirmed that his article “had been absolutely correct & fair.”