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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Taft’s initial assurance that he would retain the entire cabinet proved particularly troublesome when he subsequently decided to replace Luke Wright as secretary of war. When Taft had resigned his own cabinet post the previous July after securing the Republican nomination, Roosevelt had wanted Wright, Taft’s successor as governor general in the Philippines, to replace him. Worried that Wright would decline a term of only nine months, Roosevelt had asked Taft if he could offer the “inducement” of a longer tenure should he win the election. Taft had confirmed that he “would be more than pleased to continue Wright,” and Roosevelt could relay that message. Once Taft had the choice in his hands, however, he hesitated, concerned that Wright was not “decisive” enough and tended “to let questions settle themselves without mental action by him.” Instead, he selected another southern Democrat, Jacob Dickinson. While rethinking a key appointment was surely Taft’s prerogative, he exacerbated the awkward situation and irritated Roosevelt by failing to inform Wright until mid-February 1909, just weeks before the inauguration.

  In the end, no appointment would have more far-reaching consequences for Taft’s administration than his decision to replace Interior Secretary James Garfield with Richard Ballinger. Roosevelt had pushed to retain Garfield from the outset. “I didn’t have to be hit with a club ten times a day to understand the workings of his mind,” Taft later remarked. No two young men in the Roosevelt administration had been closer to the president than Garfield and Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot had driven Roosevelt’s conservation fight; Garfield had served for seven years, first as civil service commissioner, then as head of the Bureau of Corporations, and finally as secretary of the interior, where he worked closely with Pinchot. A “peculiar intimacy” bonded the trio, Roosevelt reflected, “because all three of us have worked for the same causes, have dreamed the same dreams, have felt a substantial identity of purpose.”

  Garfield had every reason to believe that Taft would ask him to stay. As one of Taft’s staunchest supporters during the fight for nomination and election, Garfield had delivered scores of speeches in Ohio and chaired the convention in Columbus that provided an early boost to Taft’s candidacy. Furthermore, Garfield was connected with Taft personally as well as politically: he and his wife, Helen, socialized with Will and Nellie, dining at each other’s houses and vacationing together. Their son, John, attended Horace Taft’s school in Connecticut. The press assumed that Garfield would not only stay on in Taft’s cabinet, but would likely become an important member of the new president’s inner circle.

  Yet almost immediately after his election, Taft began searching for someone to replace Garfield. Although Taft considered Garfield an accomplished bureau chief, he did not think him “big enough” for a cabinet position. He was convinced that Pinchot dominated Garfield, and did not relish the thought of Pinchot running the Interior Department in addition to the Forestry Bureau. While he recognized Pinchot’s vital role in securing Roosevelt’s conservation legacy, Taft believed that some of his executive policies and land withdrawals had not merely strained but broken existing law. Geographic representation also weighed heavily in Taft’s rationale. Garfield hailed from Ohio, the state of the president-elect himself, while the West Coast clamored for someone to represent their interests.

  Taft’s choice, Richard Ballinger, had been a reform mayor in Seattle before joining the Roosevelt administration as head of the Land Office, where he was regarded as an ardent conservationist and an excellent administrator. By the time Ballinger returned to his Seattle law practice in 1908, Garfield was deeply impressed with his work. “He has done admirably,” he noted, “& leaves with a reputation for ability, industry & fairness.” When first approached to join Taft’s cabinet, Ballinger regretfully declined, citing “limited personal means” and the promise to his wife that they would remain in Seattle. After further conversations, however, he was finally persuaded.

  Had Taft taken Garfield into his confidence early on, perhaps explaining the necessity of geographical balance, he might have avoided future conflict, but instead he said nothing. Beyond his initial choice of Knox and Hitchcock, Taft remained silent regarding further appointments until he could assemble a complete cabinet. In late December, rumors circulated that Garfield was “out of the running,” leaving the interior secretary in an embarrassing position. “I am utterly at sea,” Garfield recorded in his journal on January 11, observing with frustration, “if he wishes me to stay he should ask me soon—if not he surely owes it to me, because of our relations during many years & close association recently, to frankly tell me so.” When no announcement was forthcoming by late January, the press speculated that Garfield might be chosen after all and attributed the delay to the difficult process of constructing a balanced, cooperative cabinet, a particular challenge for “a genial, agreeable man, averse to making enemies or disappointing ambition.” Yet the longer Taft withheld selections, the more anxious Garfield grew. “Rumors & more rumors but he says nothing,” he reported, calling Taft’s procrastination “an astounding condition of affairs & wholly without reasonable explanation.”

  Garfield was not the only former Roosevelt cabinet officer bewildered and exasperated by Taft’s inaction. Gossip filled the vacuum; word spread that Taft had “completely changed his mind,” deciding “to keep no one” associated with his predecessor so that his administration could stand on its own merits. While Roosevelt publicly defended Taft’s right to choose his own men in his own way, he advised the president-elect to inform those he did not intend to reappoint immediately. “They will be making their plans, and less than two months remains, and I do not think they ought to be left in doubt,” Roosevelt told Taft. “Of course I am perfectly willing to tell them if you will write me to do so.”

  “I think I ought to do it myself,” Taft replied, yet he continued to wait more than two weeks before sending a half-dozen letters simultaneously. Each began with the same stilted phrase: “The President has thought that you were entitled to the notice of my cabinet plans insofar as to advise you that in the list of my cabinet I have not been able to include your name.” The recipients, all formerly Taft’s intimate colleagues, were understandably hurt by this impersonal and awkward manner of address. In the end, despite the fact that two additional members of Roosevelt’s cabinet—George Meyer and James Wilson—joined Secretary of State Philander Knox in the new administration, the overriding impression was of “a clean sweep” of Roosevelt’s team.

  “T.R.’s Trusty Aides All to Walk Plank,” announced the Cleveland Press. “Taft Seems Bent Upon Dumping His Old Associates in his Cabinet.” Taft asserted that he had simply examined each position and carefully considered the best men to comprise the new administration. “I have my own record to make,” he maintained, “and my own place to secure in the confidence of the country.” Proponents of Roosevelt’s agenda, however, began to question the president-elect’s strategy: “If Taft is going to fire all his old associates in the Roosevelt administration, how is he going to make good his pledge to carry on the Roosevelt policies? Why, if he intends to finish the Roosevelt program, does he get rid of all the men trained in the Roosevelt school?” In addition, Roosevelt supporters voiced concern over the preponderance of corporate lawyers in the new cabinet.

  Roosevelt himself could not help but feel “a little cast down” by Taft’s dealings and decisions as he assembled his cabinet. Still, he continued to profess belief in his old friend. “They little realize that Taft is big enough to carve out his own administration on individual lines,” he told Archie Butt. “I predict a brilliant administration for him. I felt he was the one man for the Presidency, and any failure in it would be as keenly felt by me as by himself or his family.” While Taft’s “system may be different,” the president predicted, “the results will be the same.”

  After announcing his cabinet choices, Taft wrote a long letter to Roosevelt. “People have attempted to represent that you and I were in some way at odds during this last three months,” he
explained, “whereas you know and I know that there has not been the slightest difference between us.” Indeed, the two men had spent many hours together during the transition. Through conversations and correspondence, Taft had kept Roosevelt informed on each cabinet decision and had shared an early draft of his inaugural address. “How could I but be delighted with your Inaugural?” Roosevelt responded. “It is simply fine in every way . . . and it marks just exactly what your administration will be.”

  Taft’s final letter to Roosevelt before he assumed the presidency expressed “renewed appreciation” for his old friend’s “breadth of soul and mind and magnanimity.” Roosevelt replied with an equal warmth and affection. “Your letter,” he wrote, “[was] so very nice—nice isn’t anything like a strong enough word, but at the moment to use words as strong as I feel would look sloppy.”

  ROOSEVELT MADE NO SECRET OF his reluctance to leave office. “If I had conscientiously felt at liberty to run again, and try once more to hold this great office,” he acknowledged, “I should greatly have liked to do so and to continue to keep my hands on the levers of this mighty machine.” In his last annual message to Congress, he had firmly declared that he felt “none of the weariness of public life” which seven tumultuous years might well have produced. Although conservative leaders in the House and Senate had successfully blocked most of his proposals for two straight years, Roosevelt remained undaunted. In a sweeping “valedictory message” of more than 21,000 words, the outgoing president expounded “his whole social philosophy” and urged Congress to “carry into effect the new spirit of democracy,” reinforcing federal power to address “present day” social and economic problems.

  “He is as voluminous as ever,” the New York Tribune remarked. If only “a fraction” of the laws that Roosevelt advocated were passed, another reporter observed, “they would commit the country to a course of new experiments and make over the face of the social creation.” He wanted authority over telegraph and telephone companies, along with railroads, placed in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission. He called for greater regulation of interstate corporations, prohibition of child labor, enforcement of an eight-hour workday, strengthening of workmen’s compensation, the establishment of a postal savings system, and an inheritance tax. “The danger to American democracy lies not in the least in the concentration of administrative power in responsible and accountable hands,” he argued. “It lies in having the power insufficiently concentrated, so that no one can be held responsible to the people for its use.” What might have been interpreted as “an infringement upon liberty” before the Industrial Revolution and the rise of massive corporations “may be [the] necessary safeguard of liberty today.” Within this new industrial context, he criticized the courts for ruling unconstitutional various state laws designed to remedy social problems, “arrogat[ing] to themselves functions which properly belong to legislative bodies.”

  Finally, Roosevelt rounded on Congress. For two decades, the executive departments had deployed members of the Secret Service to ferret out land frauds, violations in anti-trust laws, and, on rare occasions, illegal actions perpetrated by senators or congressmen themselves. The previous year, however, Congress had passed an amendment preventing the Secret Service from pursuing such investigations. Incensed, Roosevelt charged that no one but members of the criminal class could benefit from such an amendment; clearly, “Congressmen did not themselves wish to be investigated.”

  Roosevelt’s comments provoked a “storm of censure” from Republicans and Democrats alike. Senator Aldrich introduced a resolution challenging the president to produce evidence of congressional misbehavior, while Senators Bailey and Tillman huffily defended the “self-respect and integrity” of fellow legislators. Adamantly refusing to retract his charge, Roosevelt fired off a 6,000-word response that targeted specific members of the Congress, including Minnesota representative James Tawney and Senators Tillman and Bailey. “Pandemonium broke loose,” the Times reported. In return, Congress took a rare measure not utilized since Jackson’s presidency, reprimanding Roosevelt with an overwhelming 212–35 vote to reject his message “on the ground that it lacked due respect.”

  Despite such overwhelming resistance, Roosevelt held fast to his position. “Congress of course feels that I will never again have to be reckoned with and that it is safe to be ugly with me,” he confided to Kermit, admitting, “I am not having an easy time.” Even as he acknowledged that “it is a President’s duty to get on with Congress if he possibly can, and that it is a reflection upon him if he and Congress come to a complete break,” he nevertheless insisted that he must continue to “fight hard” on the issue of corruption—a touchstone of his presidency—or “be put in a contemptible position.” Although this bitter struggle ended his days in Washington on a disagreeable note, he took pride that he had exercised his presidential powers “right up to the end.”

  DURING THE FINAL WEEKS OF the Roosevelt administration, a mood of sadness enveloped the White House. “I have never seen so much feeling in evidence in all my life,” Archie Butt observed as this vital stage in the lives of both the president and his colleagues drew to a close. As the chief military aide, the forty-three-year-old Captain Butt had developed an intimate relationship with both the president and first lady. His warmth, flair for conversation, and love of books had made him a welcome companion at Sagamore Hill and scores of White House lunches and dinners. A graduate of the University of the South in Tennessee, Archie had worked as a journalist for nearly a decade before volunteering for service during the Spanish-American War. Remaining in the military, he had served in the Quartermaster Department in the Philippines, Cuba, and Washington before Roosevelt brought him to the White House. Butt had begun his duties “believing thoroughly in the real greatness” of the president, and the weeks and months spent with the family had not altered his original judgment. He had traveled with the Roosevelts on overnight trips, joined them for horseback rides, tennis games, and scrambles through Rock Creek Park—always assuming “his duties with a boyish delight and a relish for all the gay doings of the White House.”

  Archie Butt had grown especially close to Edith Roosevelt. “She is perfectly poised and nothing seems to annoy her,” the forty-three-year-old bachelor told his mother, lauding Edith’s “ever-softening influence” on her volatile husband. Even while drawing a protective curtain around her family, Edith had unfailingly carried out social obligations with natural elegance. Formerly, Butt remarked, the “smart element” of society had been “wont to sneer” at the garish nature of public entertainments at the White House. Under Edith Roosevelt, however, functions were smaller, less frequent, and more formal; guests were required to present cards, and soon, smart society clamored for invitations. Edith’s Friday evening musicales attracted the nation’s finest performers, including Ignace Jan Paderewski, the concert pianist, and the young cellist Pablo Casals. “If social affairs have thus become less democratic, they have also become more dignified,” remarked one reporter. “Were we living in the days of chivalry,” Butt confessed with grandiose nostalgia, “I could easily believe myself in the role of knight for a mistress so gentle, so sweet, and so altogether lovely.”

  “The ball rolls faster as it nears the bottom,” Captain Butt observed as the Roosevelt administration drew to a close in early February. The White House calendar was “filled every minute” with brilliant but melancholy events—the last Army and Navy reception, the last meeting with the diplomatic corps. Several of the ministers and ambassadors “actually wept as they said goodbye,” Butt recounted. The wife of the Japanese ambassador “could not say a word, but burst out crying, and the Ambassador was not much better.” Later that same afternoon, Edith Roosevelt finally “had a good cry” of her own, but when the president attempted to comfort her, he “broke down himself.”

  For his final public journey, Roosevelt chose to deliver a speech at Knob Creek Farm in Kentucky, birthplace of his hero Abraham Lincoln. He had ordered his tra
in route withheld from the newspapers, fearing he would be met with diminished enthusiasm as his presidency neared its end. “For the first hour there were no yells,” Archie Butt recorded, and Roosevelt looked forlorn as he gazed out at calm streets and empty platforms. Before long, however, the train schedule leaked. Suddenly, throngs materialized at every spot along the way: families and children stood at tiny intersections; in larger towns, thousands assembled to wave and cheer, wishing their president a final farewell. “He jumped from his seat as readily for a half-dozen people at a road crossing as he would for a crowd at a station,” Archie Butt marveled. At one point, Roosevelt rushed to the platform to greet a single woman in a field, prompting recollection of an earlier trip when “he found himself waving frantically at a herd of cows.” With deadpan mirth, Roosevelt remembered that he had “met with an indifferent, if not a cold, reception.”

  On March 1, Roosevelt hosted perhaps the most colorful official luncheon on record. “The papers have made a good deal of fun of my tennis cabinet,” he playfully observed, “but they have never known how extensive or what a part it has played in my administrations. It will be gathered together to-day for the first time.” Thirty-one members of this fabulously eclectic “tennis cabinet”—Roosevelt’s hunting companions, sparring partners, tennis mates, and fellow rock climbers—would attend. In order that “various elements” of this informal cabinet might “get acquainted,” the president told Archie Butt to seat them “irrespective of rank.” Jules Jusserand, the French ambassador, and cabinet members James Garfield, Truman Newberry, and George Meyer should enjoy the company of “the wolf hunters and the ‘two-gun’ men.” Needless to say, this convergence of disparate worlds made quite an impression: “Is there any other man,” Mme Jusserand exclaimed, who “could have had on one side of him the Ambassador of a great country and on the other a ‘desperado’ from Oklahoma?” Throughout the lunch, Roosevelt spoke of his relationship with each of the men in turn. According to Archie Butt, “there was not a dry eye around all that table.”