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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Of the 254 seats, the National Committee finally awarded 235 to Taft and only 19 to Roosevelt. While most analysts agree that Taft rightfully won the great majority of the southern contests, which yielded over 150 delegates, the 100 remaining seats are subject to debate. Roosevelt likely deserved to win somewhere between thirty and fifty. Even with fifty additional delegates, however, he would have been short of a majority. Still, with the help of La Follette’s delegates, Taft’s nomination on the first ballot might be prevented—and then, anything was possible.

  As the committee hearings wound to a close, Roosevelt’s campaign managers decided that they must do something “to crystallize the public spirit, to force public indignation, or arouse enough public sentiment to compel the nomination of Roosevelt.” The temporary roll of delegates established by the National Committee still had to be sanctioned by the convention’s Committee on Credentials and voted upon by the delegates as a whole. Aware that time was running out, Senator Dixon prevailed upon Roosevelt to take the unprecedented step of coming to Chicago in person.

  Roosevelt needed little encouragement. On June 14, he and Edith drove together to his Outlook office in New York. Reporters noted that “he seemed in a gay mood,” sporting “a new sombrero, with a five-inch brim.” The old hat he had worn when he gave his controversial Columbus speech, he quipped, “had been kicked around the ring enough to warrant a new one.” The Colonel sequestered himself in his office for several hours before appearing in the lobby with a prepared statement: “A small knot of professional politicians,” he charged, were trying “to steal” the right of the people “to make their own nomination.” The rank and file of Republican voters, having clearly expressed their will in the primaries, were “not in the mood to see their victory stolen from them.”

  On the day Roosevelt boarded the Lake Shore Limited bound for Chicago, the president issued a brief statement from the White House. “All the information I get is that I will be nominated on the first ballot with votes to spare,” Taft announced. He had remained silent during the proceedings of the National Committee, leaving Washington correspondents to chronicle his social life: a trip with Nellie to present diplomas to Annapolis cadets; a sail on the Mayflower to Hampton Roads; a dinner for Guatemala’s minister of foreign affairs; an evening party on Capitol Hill; and a golf game at Chevy Chase.

  While Taft remained tight-lipped, his campaign spokesmen made headlines, depicting Roosevelt’s journey to Chicago as “an undeniable admission of defeat.” Recalling the Colonel’s assertion that he would not go unless it proved “absolutely necessary,” William McKinley claimed that the trip represented “the last hope of a lost cause.” New York boss William Barnes issued an acid personal attack: “Mr. Roosevelt’s departure for Chicago was inevitable. Undignified as it is, and impotent as it will prove to be, its chief interest lies in the disclosure of the mania for power over which Mr. Roosevelt has no control.”

  The people of Chicago greeted the arrival of Theodore Roosevelt quite differently; word that Roosevelt was en route drove the city “plum crazy” with excitement. Ordinary business was suspended as tens of thousands made plans to celebrate Roosevelt’s arrival. In the Loop district, one reporter observed, “there wasn’t an office boy on the job.” It seemed that “everyone had lost a grandmother and had failed to show up for work.” Scuffles erupted in hotel lobbies as Roosevelt delegates routinely cried out “thief” at men sporting Taft badges. Armed with megaphones, Roosevelt supporters belted out songs for “Teddy,” only to be met with “jeers and hoots” by equal numbers of Taft men. A bartender at one of the leading hotels offered a special “campaign drink” garnished with a lemon peel cut to resemble a Rough Rider hat. The circumference of the cocktail glass symbolized the political ring into which the Colonel had metaphorically flung his hat. Patrons who kept the lemon peel in the glass as they consumed the gin and vermouth concoction were Roosevelt men; those who discarded it supported Taft.

  Hours before Roosevelt’s train arrived at La Salle Station, three bands and an immense crowd, waving “Teddy” flags and wearing Roosevelt buttons, had gathered at the railway yards. “The sight of the Colonel, teeth agleam, romantic headgear, burly arms waving greetings, was catalytic,” reported Mark Sullivan. “A mob, shouting, laughing, cheering, shoving, engulfed the police and took Roosevelt to its bosom.” Thousands of screaming men and women lined the streets as the former president rode in an open car to the Congress Hotel. So frenzied was the crowd in the lobby that it took a team of five men using “football tactics” to propel Roosevelt to the elevator.

  No sooner had the Colonel reached the quiet of his room than he clambered from a window onto a balcony over Michigan Avenue, anxious to satisfy the expectations of the waiting crowd. “His appearance was the signal for a roar,” the New York Times reported. Smiling broadly and waving his hat, he initiated the wild acclaim of the people for several minutes before leaning over the stone railing to speak. “Chicago is a mighty poor place in which to try and steal anything,” he roared. “Give it to ’em, Colonel,” the crowd thundered in return. “Knock ’em out.” In answer to their entreaties, he went directly after the president. “The receiver of stolen goods is no better than the thief,” he fiercely pronounced. “The people will win. We have won in every State where the people could express themselves 3 to 1 and sometimes 8 to 1. This is a naked fight against corrupt politicians and thieves and the thieves will not win.”

  Before Roosevelt went to dinner that night, a newspaperman asked whether he was prepared “to stand up to the rigors of what lay ahead.” His answer provided the enduring symbol of his campaign. “I’m feeling like a bull moose,” he replied, invoking the antlered king of the northern woods whose supposed instinct “to gore his antagonist” reflected Roosevelt’s combative mood. “He is essentially a fighter,” Elihu Root said of his old friend, “and when he gets into a fight he is completely dominated by the desire to destroy his adversary.” The bull moose icon captured the imagination of the American people. Images of the massive creature suddenly appeared on posters and placards all across the country, while button manufacturers desperately tried to keep up with demand. The Teddy bear had been supplanted by a far more imposing and belligerent mascot.

  The following Monday, June 17, Roosevelt “put in one of the busiest days of his life—a very frenzy of activity, which amazed and startled even his close associates.” He met with streams of supporters, interviewed Taft delegates who might be persuaded to change their minds, conferred with the seven governors, and talked with reporters, all the while continuing to draft the address he would deliver that evening to a mass audience. It was evident, a Chicago Daily Tribune reporter marveled, that the Colonel had not lost any of his “magnetism.” And he had retained the gift for making every caller feel that he was “at that moment the exact person of all the world’s population he loved and most desired to see.”

  More than 20,000 people clamored for tickets to hear Roosevelt’s final speech of the nominating campaign. His managers had reserved the Auditorium, advertised as “the largest theater in the United States west of the Alleghenies,” though, in actuality, it seated only 4,200. At 6 p.m., police shut down all the surrounding streets, allowing only ticket holders to enter the cordoned area. Hundreds of eager bystanders without tickets deployed all manner of “ingenious” schemes to gain entrance: women claimed their husbands and children were already inside; men insisted they were members of the glee club or the platform committee. All were steadfastly denied by the police. Every seat was filled long before Roosevelt arrived. An organist played patriotic tunes while the audience sang along. “A great roar” greeted the Colonel’s entrance, and the “avalanche of applause” continued for nearly five minutes. At last, Roosevelt stretched out his arms and began delivering what critics considered not only “the most moving speech of his career” but “one of the most dramatic speeches ever made.”

  He had decided to run, Roosevelt explained, only when “convinced t
hat Mr. Taft had definitely and completely abandoned the cause of the people and had surrendered himself wholly to the biddings of the professional political bosses and of the great privileged interests standing behind them.” He entreated those still backing Senator La Follette to join with him, for he had honestly earned “the overwhelming majority” of the votes of the Republican progressive vote, and he alone could win the fight against Taft. He then set forth two maxims: first, those delegates “fraudulently put on the temporary roll by the dishonest action of the majority of the national committee” must be barred from voting; second, if they were allowed to participate, then progressives would not be bound by the actions of the convention.

  Buoyed by the thunderous approval of the crowd, Roosevelt rolled toward his final call to arms. “A period of change is upon us,” he proclaimed, warning that “our opponents, the men of reaction, ask us to stand still. But we could not stand still if we would; we must either go forward or go backward. . . . It would be far better to fail honorably for the cause we champion than it would be to win by foul methods the foul victory for which our opponents hope. But the victory shall be ours, and it shall be won as we have already won so many victories, by clean and honest fighting for the loftiest of causes. We fight in honorable fashion for the good of mankind; fearless of the future; unheeding of our individual fates; with unflinching hearts and undimmed eyes; we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”

  The hall erupted in tumultuous, sustained applause. “There is no question,” William Allen White observed, “that the psychology of the situation, the enthusiasm of the crowds, the lonesomeness at Taft headquarters and the energy of the Roosevelt workers all point to Roosevelt’s nomination.” Still, White reflected, “it is delegates rather than psychology that make nominations.”

  BY THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE Republican National Convention on June 18, the atmosphere was so tense that “extraordinary preparations” were made “to preserve the peace.” More than 1,000 policemen were deployed to the Coliseum, a massive stone structure “two squares in length and one in width,” capable of seating more than 12,000 people. “Passions have been unloosed, anger has been unbridled,” The Washington Post reported. “It is almost incredible to hear at a national convention the question seriously discussed if there will be firearms used and whether blood will be shed, but one can hear this at every step in the frightful jam and welter in the hotel lobbies.”

  In the comfort of the White House that morning, Taft was detached both physically and emotionally from the turmoil in Chicago. “Whatever happens,” he wrote to Horace, “I shall be glad to have the strain over.” With each passing month, the gulf between Taft and Roosevelt had grown. Taft had long considered himself a moderate progressive, aligned almost perfectly with the sentiments and policies of his old friend. In the throes of the brutal campaign, however, he had withdrawn increasingly from more progressive ideas. “If I am nominated, I shall have to take my stand as the representative of the conservative, sober, second thought of the people of the United States,” he told one friend. “I may go down to defeat if a bolt is started by Roosevelt,” the president acknowledged to another, “but I will retain the regular organization of the party as a nucleus about which the conservative people who are in favor of maintaining constitutional government can gather.”

  Before convening his cabinet at ten that morning, Taft spoke by long-distance telephone to his campaign team. McKinley and Charles Hilles were hopeful that they had the votes from the temporary list of delegates to win the crucial election of the convention’s presiding officer, known as the temporary chair. Taft’s candidate was New York senator Elihu Root, perhaps the shrewdest decision of his entire campaign. William Allen White described the sixty-seven-year-old Root as the “most learned, even erudite, distinguished, and impeccable conservative,” a “calm, serene, and sure” leader, capable of dominating any gathering. Indeed, Roosevelt himself had once described his former secretary of state as “the ablest man that has appeared in the public life of any country in any position in my time.” Such praise came before Elihu Root had backed William Taft through the bitter primary season. Now, Roosevelt announced his blistering opposition to Root’s candidacy for the chairmanship, declaring: “Mr. Root stands as the representative of reaction. He is put forward by the bosses and the representatives of special privilege. He has ranged himself against the men who stand for progressive principles.” Roosevelt’s vituperative charges, Root’s biographer observes, “were cruel thrusts at an old friend and Root felt them.”

  In an equally canny move, the Roosevelt team chose Wisconsin governor Francis McGovern as their candidate for the chairmanship. A few weeks earlier, Roosevelt had asked Dixon to “think over whether it would not be (a good play) wise to have McGovern of Wisconsin Permanent Chairman.” Not only was Wisconsin’s popular governor “a fine fellow,” but “our choice of him would emphasize, as nothing else would, the fact that we wish all Progressives to stand together.” Three days later, Roosevelt approached McGovern directly: “I assume that you will make the nominating speech for La Follette. And this would leave all the La Follette men at entire liberty to stand by him.” If McGovern then ran for chair with the backing of the Roosevelt team, the progressives would present “a united front.” When McGovern agreed, Roosevelt was delighted, hoping that “state pride” would lead La Follette’s twenty-six delegates to support the selection of McGovern for chair.

  At noon, Republican national chair Victor Rosewater called the convention to order. Rosewater had been designated to take charge of the proceedings until the election of the chair. But before Rosewater had the chance to call for nominations for the position, Roosevelt’s floor leader, Missouri’s Herbert Hadley, rose and motioned that seventy-two of the most fiercely contested Taft delegates, fraudulently included in the temporary roll by the National Committee, should be replaced by “honestly elected” Roosevelt delegates.

  The method by which the Roosevelt team arrived at the figure of seventy-two remains a matter of conjecture. Three years later, a disaffected former intimate of the Colonel informed Taft that Hadley had approached Roosevelt, suggesting a determined fight on twenty-four or twenty-eight seats that had clearly been stolen from them in states such as Texas, Washington, California, and Indiana. Roosevelt, “with characteristic emphasis and energy,” immediately tripled that figure, knowing how many votes he needed to control the convention.

  Hadley’s motion to bar participation of the seventy-two contested delegates brought great cheers from Roosevelt supporters. After silence was restored, Indiana’s James Watson, a Taft spokesman, insisted that Hadley’s motion “was not in order, on the ground that the convention itself had no chairman as yet,” and therefore could not take up any business. Rosewater allowed forty minutes of debate on the motion before rendering the critical ruling that Hadley’s motion was, indeed, out of order, and straightaway opened nominations for the chairmanship. As expected, Root’s nomination was greeted with cheers from Taft’s supporters while McGovern drew equal enthusiasm from the Roosevelt side. A wave of surprise swept the hall, however, when La Follette’s manager, Walter Houser, stood and forcibly insisted that McGovern’s candidacy was “not with La Follette’s consent.” La Follette, he continued, would strike no deal whatsoever with Roosevelt. Houser’s words propelled La Follette boosters to their feet, waving a large banner bearing the words: “We’ll heed not Taffy’s smile / Nor Teddy’s toothsome grin / For it’s La Follette once, La Follette twice / And La Follette till we win!” It seemed, the New York Tribune observed, that La Follette preferred “to see Senator Root elected rather than to see Colonel Roosevelt win the initial contest of the convention.” Roosevelt’s failure to reconcile with La Follette would prove costly.

  So raucous was the atmosphere in the hall that nearly three hours passed before the voting was completed. When Rosewater announced that Root had defeated McGovern by a narrow margin of 558 to 501, pandemonium erupted. Pennsylvania’s William
Flinn marched up onto the platform, jabbed a finger at Root, and screamed out: “Receiver of stolen goods!” This brazen accusation prompted a series of fistfights that would have escalated into wholesale rioting without police intervention. Root approached the speaker’s table to deliver his keynote address, apparently unperturbed by “the sweating wrathful faces in the pit.” Marveling at the senator’s comportment, William White reflected that “hundreds of [Root’s] outraged fellow Republicans, men who had once been his friends, were glaring at him with eyes distraught with hate.” Still, White observed, “Root’s hands did not tremble, his face did not flicker.”

  That afternoon, in lieu of an anxious White House vigil for convention bulletins, Taft and Nellie had motored to the ballpark to attend a Nationals baseball game. When the president entered the stadium, the exuberant crowd of more than 20,000 “loudly cheered him for five minutes, the men throwing their hats into the air and the women waving their handkerchiefs.” In a brief speech, Taft congratulated the team on their astonishing record—winning sixteen games in a row—before settling into his box to enjoy the action. So absorbed did he become in the game, which the Nationals won, that he never called for any updated bulletins. Returning to the White House, he discovered, to his great satisfaction, that Elihu Root had defeated Francis McGovern.

  Roosevelt, meanwhile, had monitored every twist and turn of the proceedings by wire and telephone. All afternoon, hundreds of supporters had gathered in the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel, where news from the convention floor was relayed by telephone to a man with a megaphone. “It was his duty,” one journalist for the New York Times recorded, “to shout out the various incidents of the Colonel’s triumphant progress” to those packing the room and the noisy throng assembled in the hallways and the lobby below. “There were frequent cheers from the crowd,” the Times reporter wrote, “but as it progressed and the tide began to fall, threatening to leave the Colonel stranded on the political sands, the megaphone man lost his enthusiasm and his voice.” When word spread that Roosevelt “had lost his preliminary skirmish,” the crowd “fell silent.”