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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Tarbell’s six-part series, “The Tariff in Our Times,” ran from December 1906 through June 1907, with three additional installments published two years later. Critics lauded the “comprehensive and careful accumulation of chronological information,” but most found the cumulative effect uninspiring. Tarbell dealt “exhaustively (and at times exhaustingly)” with events, one reviewer noted, yet the whole remained “invertebrate.” She was the first to admit that her early installments lacked “vitality” and that she relied too heavily on “secondhand” material. The series had no “cohesive force,” William Allen White told her candidly. “It is not written around the progressive narrative; it continues but doesn’t get anywhere, there is no beginning, climax and end.” It seemed to White that the project required exactly what McClure had prescribed as Tarbell researched the Standard Oil Company: “a central figure” that would “hold the reader.” While Tarbell’s series would eventually build momentum during the fiery debates over the Payne-Aldrich Tariff in 1909, her initial contribution did little to buoy the struggling fortunes of The American Magazine.

  On July 1, 1907, Tarbell wrote a long letter to Bert Boyden offering her assessment of the magazine’s first year. Something was missing, she conceded, “a certain hustle, ingenuity—a generalizing effort such as we used to get out of S.S. It’s a talent—a genius, and we haven’t it in the staff.”

  Uncannily, Ida Tarbell received a letter that same day from her old friend and former Chief. “I dreamed of you,” McClure told her. “I thought I was telling you how I found out that by speaking slowly & calmly and acting calmly I found I had much greater influence on people (I am actually doing this) & I thought that I was standing by your chair & you drew me down & kissed me to show your approval. When you disapproved of me it nearly broke my heart,” he confided, offering a final touching confession: “I never cease to love you as I have for many, many years. I wish you had not turned away.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “To Cut Mr. Taft in Two!”

  This Mar. 18, 1906, cartoon, “Reinforcing the Bench,” shows Roosevelt using a “Big Stick” to persuade Taft to take a seat on the Supreme Court bench.

  IN EARLY JANUARY 1906, WHILE attending a party in the New Jersey home of his Yale classmate John Hammond, William Howard Taft received a long-distance phone call from the president, informing him that Associate Justice Henry Billings Brown planned to announce his retirement when he turned seventy years old. Brown deemed his weakening eyesight “a gentle intimation” that the time had come “to give place to another.” Knowing that duty alone had led Taft to decline the appointment three years before, Roosevelt was delighted to present him with the open seat. Taft was disposed to claim the honor, though Nellie and other friends and advisers begged him to decline, insisting that he “would be shutting the door on any further political advancement” when he was considered “the logical candidate for president in 1908.” Since no commitment was required until March, the matter rested until Justice Brown formally announced his decision.

  In the interim, Taft focused on pushing the Philippine tariff bill through Congress. The legislation was designed to substantially lower rates on products imported from the islands, an allowance that Taft believed was absolutely critical to the future of the Philippine economy. For two consecutive years, the bill had fallen victim to the powerful sugar and tobacco lobbies and their “standpatter” allies, as the protectionist bloc in Congress was known. But with the help of Democratic votes in late January 1906, it passed the House by an overwhelming vote of 257 to 71. Lauding the victory, Taft happily noted that several key members of the Ways and Means Committee had shifted their stance after touring the islands with his congressional delegation the previous summer.

  When the bill proceeded to the Senate, Taft testified for two full days before the Senate Committee on the Philippines, hopeful that “the tremendous vote” in the House would sway the upper chamber. Connecticut senator Frank Brandegee led the opposition, arguing that Taft was “sacrificing” American economic interests for his “sentimental” desire to aid the Filipinos. “I do not believe,” the senator maintained, “that we are under any obligations whatever to the Filipino people to open our markets.” Taft was furious with Brandegee, privately labeling him “an infernal ass.” Despite Taft’s persistent efforts, the protectionist bloc managed to kill the bill in committee. “We suffered a very serious blow,” Taft related to his Filipino friends, “but I am not despairing.” Several publications had pledged to reveal those who had conspired in “smothering” the tariff legislation, so he remained hopeful the bill would eventually reach the Senate floor.

  When Justice Brown officially announced his retirement on March 8, the press immediately began speculating that Taft would not only replace Brown but soon thereafter—if seventy-three-year-old Melvin Fuller retired during Roosevelt’s term—assume the position of chief justice. Had the tariff bill passed that spring, Taft later remarked, he would “undoubtedly have accepted,” but he informed Roosevelt in early March that he was too deeply occupied by critical matters in both the Philippines and Panama to consider the position. At Taft’s suggestion, the president offered the post to Philander Knox; when Knox declined, however, Roosevelt renewed the pressure on Taft.

  Roosevelt foresaw that over the coming decades, as the federal government confronted the social and economic stresses born of the industrial age, the Court “would have as important decisions to face as [it] had in the days of Marshall.” Roosevelt had discussed the matter at length with Henry Cabot Lodge, who had impressed upon him the absolute necessity of Taft taking the appointment. The Court desperately needed “a big man—one who would fill the public eye and one in whom the public had confidence.” With five of the nine justices in their late sixties or seventies, the current Court was clearly “running down.” At such a critical juncture, the president claimed, he had no higher duty than to put the best man on the bench. On the following Friday, he intended to announce his nomination of William Howard Taft.

  Before the decision was made public, Taft requested time to confer with his brothers in New York. He also confided to Roosevelt that Nellie “bitterly opposed” the appointment; in fact, she had warned that very morning that to accept would be “the great mistake of [his] life.” Roosevelt promised to meet with her personally and “explain the situation” before he made anything official. To accommodate such a discussion, Nellie remained behind for a noon meeting with President Roosevelt rather than join her husband on the 9 a.m. train to New York for the family council.

  Before boarding the train to New York, Taft sent an explanatory note to Roosevelt outlining Nellie’s position. He had repeatedly assured his wife, he told Roosevelt, that he was so engaged in his cabinet duties and the management of his “three great trusts”—the Philippines, Panama, and the U.S. Army—that he “had concluded to stick to it and not seek at your hands or accept any appointment to the Bench.” Despite this resolve, he trusted that the president could better weigh the cost of losing him in the cabinet against “the crying need for putting strength in the Supreme Court.” If the president determined he could be most beneficial on the bench, he would “of course yield.” Even as he declared his preference for remaining in the cabinet, Taft appeared tortured by second doubts and hopeful the president might decide the matter for him.

  Conflicting counsel produced during Taft’s conference with his brothers did little to clarify the situation. Charles thought he should take the nomination, so long as it was clearly understood (as Roosevelt had already promised) that he would be appointed to the chief justiceship once Fuller retired. Horace, long Nellie’s closest ally in advocating against a judicial career, was adamantly opposed, believing that his brother stood an excellent chance of becoming president. Moreover, Horace argued, “quite apart from the Presidency,” it would be a shame to have his “personality removed from politics.” For his part, Harry found talk of the presidency flattering but felt that Taft was better suit
ed to be chief justice.

  When Taft returned to Washington the next morning, he found a remarkable letter from the president awaiting him. After conversing with Nellie the previous morning, Roosevelt believed he had misconstrued his friend’s desires. All along, Roosevelt confessed, he had thought that Taft wanted the Court appointment and that all the president’s urgings toward that end were consequent with Taft’s deepest inclinations. But in the wake of his discussions of the matter with Nellie, he had resolved to leave the decision completely up to Taft himself. “My dear Will,” he wrote, “it is preeminently a matter in which no other man can take the responsibility of deciding for you what is right and best for you to do. Nobody could decide for me whether I should go to the war or stay as Assistant Secretary of the Navy . . . whether I should accept the Vice-Presidency, or try to continue as Governor.” In each defining situation, he concluded, “the equation of the man himself” must be “the vital factor.”

  Roosevelt proceeded to offer his heartfelt advice, carefully considering each of his friend’s prospects. In the first place, he stated flatly, he considered Taft not only “the best man” to become the next president but the “most likely” to receive the Republican nomination and win the general election. (While Roosevelt held Elihu Root in equal esteem, he recognized that the conservative lawyer’s long corporate ties made him unavailable as a candidate.) “The good you could do in four or eight years as the head of the Nation would be incalculable,” Roosevelt asserted, adding that “the shadow of the presidency falls on no man twice, save in the most exceptional circumstances.” Naturally, no election is guaranteed, the president qualified, adding that he hoped that Taft’s “sweet and fine nature” would not “be warped” if he should fail. But even if the presidency did not materialize, Taft would enjoy “three years of vital service” in the cabinet and would certainly be “one of the great leaders for right in the tremendous contests” that lay ahead.

  “First and infinitely foremost,” Roosevelt wrote, stressing the benefits of assuming a place on the bench, at only forty-eight-years of age, Taft would have “the opportunity for a quarter of a century to do a great work as Justice of the greatest Court in Christendom (a court which sadly needs great men) on questions which seem likely vitally and fundamentally to affect the social, industrial and political structure of our commonwealth”; secondarily, declining this opportunity to join the Court would diminish or foreclose Taft’s chance to serve as chief justice, for in order to fill the current vacancy with some other “big man,” like Elihu Root, the president might have to utilize the option of the top post.

  “Where you can fight best I cannot say, for you know what your soul turns to better than I,” Roosevelt acutely observed in closing. “You have two alternatives before you, each with uncertain possibilities, and you cannot be sure that whichever you take you will not afterwards feel that it would have been better if you had taken the other. But whichever you take I know that you will render great and durable service to the Nation for many years to come.”

  Taft was deeply moved by Roosevelt’s generous and candid endeavor to help him work through the momentous decision he faced. The letter was “all I could expect and more,” he told Nellie. If forced to decide immediately, he would accept, he explained to Horace—otherwise he might well jeopardize his chance at the chief justiceship. He would talk with the president, he concluded, and ask to defer the decision, allowing him to continue the tariff fight until Congress adjourned in July. Displaying decisiveness in contrast to Taft’s dilatory nature, Roosevelt agreed to release a statement explaining that since Brown would not retire until June and the Court not resume work until October, he had decided to postpone his nomination.

  Throughout that spring, newspapers speculated on Taft’s prospects. It was a “somewhat unusual experience,” the New York Sun observed, “to possess a public servant whose usefulness and versatility are so generally recognized” that half his supporters hoped he would remain in politics, while the other half preferred to see him on the Supreme Court. Sadly, the Sun remarked with broad humor, it was “impossible, under the Constitution and laws, to cut Mr. Taft in two!” While the natural ambition of “the big, jovial, brainy” Taft might incline him toward the bench, the Hutchinson (Kansas) News suggested, he had now “tasted power,” and perhaps an “easy berth” on the Court was no longer so appealing.

  As early as the summer of 1906, editorials in Republican newspapers began touting Taft as the only man capable of defeating the Democratic front-runner, the charismatic William Jennings Bryan, in the upcoming presidential election. “He has done big things,” the Kansas City Star noted, “is magnetic and popular” and “would come nearer to carrying forward the Roosevelt policies than any other Republican.” The Journal of Commerce observed that “no American” stood higher “in the eyes of his countrymen” than the popular secretary of war. Day after day, Taft received letters begging him to look toward the presidency instead of the Court. “I do not see in the horizon any man in the Republican ranks except yourself who would give us good assurance of carrying the country,” Outlook publisher Lyman Abbott urged. “For the love of Mike, do not go to the Supreme Bench,” another friend pleaded; “there are certain lucky individuals who have a happy faculty of appealing to the imagination and the heart of the general public . . . and you are one of these lucky people.”

  Though Taft disavowed any desire for the presidency, the prospect inevitably informed his decision to refuse the Court nomination. In a lengthy letter to Roosevelt in mid-July, he insisted that while the bench remained his ultimate preference, the timing was once again wrong. News that Congress had adjourned without passing the tariff bill had produced “a most gloomy” spirit in the Philippines, and remaining in the cabinet would allow him to continue his fight in the next session. “P.S.,” he humbly continued. “Please don’t misunderstand me to think that I am indispensable or that the world would not run on much the same if I were to disappear in the St. Lawrence River, but circumstances seem to have imposed something in the nature of a trust on me.” (Roosevelt eventually nominated Attorney General William Moody to fill the vacant seat.) In a second postscript, Taft contritely confessed that Nellie thought it “an outrage” to inflict such a long letter upon such a busy man!

  “Now, you beloved individual,” the president replied from Oyster Bay, “as for your long letter I enjoyed it thoroughly.” At Sagamore Hill, he explained, he had plenty of time to read and relax; indeed, after only three weeks on vacation, he was “rather shocked” to discover how easily he had adapted. “Ten years ago I got uneasy if I was left with leisure on my hands,” Roosevelt remarked, “and if I had no mental work I wished to be riding, chopping, rowing, or doing something of that kind all the time. Now I am perfectly content to sit still.” Writing again a few weeks later, he exclaimed: “By George, I am as pleased as Punch that you are to stay in the Cabinet!”

  Relieved to have the Court decision behind him, Taft happily anticipated a two-month vacation with Nellie and the children at Murray Bay. There, he intended to continue the diet and exercise regimen that had enabled him to lose over 75 pounds during the previous eight months, reducing his weight from 330 to 254 pounds. During this period, he had faithfully maintained a rigorous, doctor-prescribed diet that excluded sugar, fats, milk, cheese, cream, egg yolks, and bread. He was allowed only grilled fish, lean meat, egg whites, clear soup, salads, vegetables, some fruits, gluten biscuits, and sugarless wine. At his heaviest, Taft had been forced to send away for a new bathroom scale; those available in Washington, he told Charles, were “boys” scales, registering no more than 250 pounds. Having reached a manageable weight by July, he discovered that his new physique was “not an inexpensive luxury.” His tailor had to completely reconstruct “twenty pairs of Trousers . . . twenty Waist Coats . . . two Prince Albert Coats . . . and five Sack Coats!” Horace was thrilled by his brother’s progress: “It is the best thing you have done for many a day.” Given his “infernally he
althy” constitution, Horace jested, there was now “no reason why [you] should not live to be a hundred.”

  DURING THE SUMMER IN MURRAY Bay, Taft’s customary day began at 7 a.m., with dictation to his private secretary Wendell W. Mischler. Still in his twenties when he joined the secretary of war Taft, Mischler would remain with Taft until his death. At nine o’clock, Taft joined his family for breakfast, then returned to work for another hour. Generating responses to the five thick batches of mail that arrived by train or steamship each day required three hours in the early morning and two more in the late afternoon. In the interim, Taft relished outdoor activities and socializing with his family—golf games with his brothers, trout fishing and rambles along the rocky shore, tennis and picnics with Nellie and the children. In one golf respite, Taft happened upon fellow Murray Bay vacationer Justice John Harlan “jumping up and down to coax a ball in that was hovering on the very edge of the first hole.” Having no luck, Harlan called over to Taft: “Come on! You jump. That will do the business.” The casual atmosphere of Murray Bay allowed Taft to dress in comfort, saving his “city clothes” for Sunday church. Without fancy dinners or formal receptions to attend, he could easily adhere to his diet. The nation’s problems seemed to recede with each passing day, and friends and family could almost “see youth returning to him.”

  By the second week in August, as he began preparation for a major political speech, Taft’s equanimity started to unravel. The chairman of the Republican State Committee had asked him to give the keynote address at an event in Maine early that September to open the party’s midterm campaign. In a letter from Oyster Bay, Roosevelt underscored the importance of the speech. Taft organized his presentation around four topics: the legislative goals of Congress, questions surrounding labor unrest, the trusts, and the tariff. The first three issues gave him little trouble. He agreed wholeheartedly with Roosevelt’s regulatory legislation, his position on labor, and his anti-trust initiatives. But he strongly wished to call for a downward revision of the tariff, a step that Roosevelt feared would split the party in two.