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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  to quote extensively from Wordsworth: EKR to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Mar. 6, 1942, in TRJP.

  “indifference . . . a trick of manner”: EKR to Kermit Roosevelt, Feb. 24, 1938, KR Papers.

  “Girls . . . I believe”: Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill, p. 10.

  “the happiness of . . . difficult and critical teacher”: EKR, “In Memory of Corinne Roosevelt Robinson,” TRC.

  “little group of girls”: Parsons, Perchance Some Day, p. 36.

  “ ‘Consequences,’ ‘Truth’ ”: Ibid., p. 35.

  “the happy six”: CRR, My Brother, p. 90.

  whom he “much worshipped”: TR, Personal Diary, Aug. 20, 1878, TRP.

  “In the early days”: Parsons, Perchance Some Day, p. 30.

  “I cannot believe”: Anna Louisa Bulloch Gracie to EKR, Aug. 6, 1876, TRC.

  On New Year’s Day: CRR, Journal, Jan. 1, 1877, TRC.

  “dimly and suggestively lit . . . tete-a-tete”: CRR, Journal, Jan. 10, 1877, TRC.

  “Edith revealed”: Betty Boyd Caroli, The Roosevelt Women (New York: Basic Books, 1989), p. 190.

  “To my castles . . . Sad and slow”: EKR, “My Dream Castles,” in P.O.R.E. Notebook, Jan. 27, 1877, TRC.

  “I sit alone”: EKR, “Memories,” in P.O.R.E. Notebook, April [n.d.], 1876, TRC.

  “She reads more”: CRR, Journal, Nov. 12, 1876, TRC.

  her “clever” friend: Ibid.

  “tall and fair”: CRR, Journal, Oct. 6, 1876, TRC.

  “I have a feeling”: CRR, Journal, Nov. 12, 1876, TRC.

  “What fun we did have” . . . Lamson and Harry Jackson: CRR, Journal, May 10, 1877, TRC.

  “The family all”: TR, Diaries of Boyhood and Youth, p. 359.

  “enjoyed . . . perfectly happy days”: EKR to TR, May 29, 1877, Derby Papers, TRC.

  “Edith looking prettier”: TR to CRR, June 3, 1877, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 28.

  “Oh Edith”: Morris, EKR, p. 57.

  days spent sailing with Edith: TR, Private Diaries, Aug. 19, 1878, TRP.

  rowing with her to the harbor: TR, Private Diaries, Aug. 20, 1878, TRP.

  “spending a lovely morning”: TR, Private Diaries, Aug. 21, 1878, TRP.

  “Afterwards Edith”: TR, Private Diaries, Aug. 22, 1878, TRP.

  tempers “that were far”: TR to ARC, Sept. 20, 1886, TRC.

  “at first sight”: TR, Pocket Diaries, Jan. 30, 1880, TRP.

  campaign “to win her”: Ibid.

  in mid-February, Theodore wrote: Mabel Potter Daggett, “Mrs. Roosevelt,” The Delineator (March 1909).

  the “shock” Edith experienced: Morris, EKR, p. 530.

  another woman would be Theodore’s constant: TR, Pocket Diaries, July 1 & 5, 1880, TRP.

  “We had great fun . . . wild spirits”: Parsons, Perchance Some Day, p. 43.

  “danced the soles off”: Morris, EKR, p. 64.

  “All yesterday I”: EKR to CRR, April 29, 1882, Derby Papers, TRC.

  might marry “for money”: Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt: The Formative Years, p. 555.

  “someday, somehow”: Morris, EKR, p. 67.

  “the most cultivated”: TR, Personal Diary, Nov. 16, 1879, TRP.

  “argued weakness”: TR to ARC, Sept. 20, 1886, TRC.

  Respecting their secret even in his private diary: TR, Personal Diary, Feb. 20, 1886; Mar. 5, 6, 9, 10, 12 & 14, 1886, TRP.

  seventeen letters from Theodore: EKR to TR, June 8, 1886, Derby Papers, TRC.

  “How fond one is”: EKR, “Second Composition Book,” May 18, 1875, TRC.

  “with all the passion”: EKR to TR, June 8, 1886, Derby Papers, TRC.

  “heart on paper . . . so much to see you . . . digging”: Ibid.

  “He is middle aged”: Ibid.

  “read it through . . . as repulsive as her brother, Stiva”: TR to CRR, April 12, 1886, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 96.

  He began to muse on: TR to ARC, June 19, 1886, in ibid., pp. 103–4.

  an offer from Mayor William Grace: TR to HCL, June 23, 1885, & July 5, 1886, in ibid., p. 91.

  “I would like a chance”: TR to HCL, Aug. 20, 1886, in ibid., p. 109.

  “Darling Bamie . . . Forever your loving brother”: TR to ARC, Sept. 20, 1886, TRC.

  “It looked to me . . . the happiest time”: William Wingate Sewall, Bill Sewall’s Story of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Harper Bros., 1919), pp. 92, 95.

  “fellow ranchmen . . . the most educational asset”: TR and Ernest Hamlin Abbott, The New Nationalism (New York: The Outlook Co., 1909), p. 105.

  “It is a mighty good”: Ibid., p. 105.

  “to speak the same language”: TR, An Autobiography, p. 57.

  “to interpret the spirit”: CRR, My Brother, p. 150.

  “was visited . . . perfectly hopeless contest”: TR to HCL, Oct. 17, 1886, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 111.

  “enormous increase . . . compelled to toil”: Henry George, Progress and Poverty (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2005), pp. 10–11.

  “the want and injustice . . . would be unknown”: Ibid., p. 396.

  “the mass of”: NYT, Oct. 24, 1886.

  “The best I can hope . . . Republican party”: TR to Frances Smith Dana, Oct. 21, 1886, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 113.

  many of his “should-be supporters”: TR to HCL, Oct. 20, 1886, in ibid., p. 112.

  “I am a strong party man”: NYT, Oct. 28, 1886.

  “It is such happiness”: ARC to EKR, Oct. 23, 1886, Derby Papers, TRC.

  “Fighting is fun”: Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979), p. 349.

  “I read them all”: TR to CRR, Jan. 22, 1887, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 119.

  “remember them all”: Morris, EKR, p. 105.

  “that wonderful silky”: Ibid., p. 4.

  “blue-eyed darling”: Teague, Mrs. L: Conversations with Alice Longworth Roosevelt, p. 13.

  “I hardly know”: TR to ARC, Jan. 10, 1887, TRC.

  “It almost broke my heart”: ARC, “Memoir,” p. 3, TRC.

  she avoided further emotional attachments: Ibid., p. 84.

  “the lovely smell”: Teague, Mrs. L: Conversations with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, p. 22.

  “I in my best dress”: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours: Reminiscences of Alice Roosevelt Longworth (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), p. 8.

  “mother who is in heaven”: Ibid.

  “In fact . . . he never ever”: Teague, Mrs. L: Conversations with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, pp. 4–5.

  “Where she was reserved”: Nicholas Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: The Man as I Knew Him (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1967), p. 23.

  “rowing over”: TR to HCL, June 11, 1887, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 128.

  “She was extremely plucky”: TR to ARC, Sept. 18, 1887, in Morris, EKR, p. 112.

  “I have a small son now”: TR to Jonas S. Van Duzer, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 136.

  “Theodore” . . . “put his foot down”: Hermann and Mary Hagedorn, Interview with Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, Nov. 9, 1954, TRC.

  “temptation . . . Father would not allow it”: Morris, EKR, p. 114.

  “the place where she kept” . . . permission to enter: Sagamore Hill National Historic Site Pamphlet (Lawrenceburg, IN: The Creative Co., 2000), p. 11.

  “immense fun”: TR to HCL, Oct. 19, 1888, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 148.

  “Mr. T.R.’s temperament . . . hold of the helm”: William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1961), p. 74.

  “I am the new . . . began at that moment”: Matthew F. Halloran, The Romance of the Merit System: Forty-five Years’ Reminiscences of the Civil Service (Washington, DC: Judd & Detweiler, 1929), p. 56.

  “He is equally at home”: Decatur [IL] Republican, May 16, 1889.

  “It has been a hopeless”: EKR to TR, Aug. 31, 1889, Derby Papers, TRC.

  “Edie has occasional fits”: TR to ARC, Jan. 4, 1890, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 208.<
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  “A very long way”: Margaret Chanler, Roman Spring: Memoirs (Boston: Little, Brown, 1934), p. 203.

  CHAPTER SIX: The Insider and the Outsider

  “Washington is just”: TR to ARC, Feb. 11, 1894, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 364.

  “where everything throbs with . . . precedence over work”: Frank George Carpenter and Frances Carpenter, eds., Carp’s Washington (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1960), pp. 8–9.

  managed to quit work early: TR to ARC, June 23, 1893, TRC.

  “a streetcar will not . . . in which to live”: Carpenter and Carpenter, eds., Carp’s Washington, pp. 8–9.

  “Common views and . . . Civil Service reform”: WHT to Mark Sullivan, July 18, 1926, WHTP.

  “hated the whole reform”: TR, An Autobiography, p. 135.

  “It will be a long, hard”: WHT, “Civil Service Reform Applied to Municipal Government,” Dec. 28, 1893, WHTP.

  “One of the first observations”: NYT, Aug. 30, 1890.

  Roosevelt busily scanned “everything and everybody”: Ibid.

  “absorbed in work . . . not know it”: WAW, “Taft, A Hewer of Wood,” The American Magazine (April 1908), p. 23.

  “Externally Taft is . . . settled or solved”: Ibid.

  Taft had no interest . . . dull and slow: WHT, “My Predecessor,” Collier’s, Mar. 6, 1909.

  “they established”: WAW, “Taft, A Hewer of Wood,” The American Magazine (April 1908), p. 23.

  “Mr. Taft . . . and she’d get it”: Lyman Abbott, “William H. Taft,” Outlook, April 4, 1908.

  “One loves him”: AB to Clara, Dec. 10, 1909, in AB, Letters of Archie Butt, p. 233.

  “can get along”: Abbott, “William H. Taft,” Outlook, April 4, 1908.

  “good nature”: Ibid.

  “a capacity . . . we do not possess”: RSB, “The Measure of Taft,” The American Magazine (July 1910), pp. 367–68.

  “Each party profited”: TR, An Autobiography, p. 131.

  “For the last few years”: TR to James Brander Matthews, July 31, 1889, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 177.

  “the fellow with no pull”: Riis, Theodore Roosevelt, p. 106.

  unqualified friends and kinsmen . . . “undemocratic”: TR, “The Spoils System in Operation,” in Hagedorn, ed., Campaigns and Controversies, WTR, Vol. 14, p. 89.

  “To the victor belongs . . . so nakedly vicious”: TR, An Autobiography, p. 130.

  “Yes, TR is a breezy”: Reprinted in Galveston [TX] Daily News, May 21, 1889.

  “Until he began”: Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, p. 123.

  “to secure proper administration”: TR, An Autobiography, p. 131.

  “going to be enforced”: TR to HCL, June 29, 1889, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 167.

  “so-called voluntary contributions”: Galveston [TX] Daily News, Jan. 27, 1890.

  “he was wrecking”: Taft, Memories and Opinions, p. 111.

  “to a poor clerk”: Galveston [TX] Daily News, Jan. 27, 1890.

  “to point out infractions”: TR to Lucius Burrie Swift, May 16, 1889, in LTR, Vol. 1, pp. 162–63.

  “Give me all”: TR to Lucius Burrie Swift, May 16, 1889, in ibid., p. 162.

  “I have to be sure”: TR to Lucius Burrie Swift, May 7, 1892, in ibid., p. 280.

  “We stirred things up well”: TR to HCL, June 24, 1889, in ibid., p. 166.

  “a model of fairness and justice”: William Dudley Foulke, Fighting the Spoilsmen: Reminiscences of the Civil Service Reform Movement (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919), p. 53.

  “If he is not dismissed”: TR to HCL, July 28, 1889, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 175.

  John Wanamaker . . . contempt for civil service reformers: Ibid., p. 171.

  “It was a golden”: TR to HCL, Aug. 8, 1889, in ibid., p. 186.

  “a bribery chest”: Washington Post, May 3, 1892.

  “unfair and partial”: TR to John Wanamaker, May 16, 1892, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 281.

  “head devil” of the spoilsmen: TR to Cecil Spring Rice, May 3, 1892, in ibid., p. 277.

  “gross impertinence and impropriety”: TR to John Wanamaker, May 16, 1892, in ibid., p. 282.

  “It is war”: Washington Post, May 26, 1892.

  “not remember an instance”: NYT, May 26, 1892, Clipping Scrapbook, TRC.

  “put a padlock”: Ohio Democrat, Nov. 27, 1890.

  “like a person”: Washington Post, April 29, 1892.

  “He came into official life”: Washington Post, May 6, 1890.

  “utterly useless”: TR to HCL, Oct. 19, 1889, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 199.

  Thompson . . . an “excellent” fellow: Ibid.

  “My two colleagues”: TR to ARC, May 24, 1891, in TR, Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 1870–1918 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924), pp. 117–18.

  “I have been continuing”: TR to ARC, Feb. 1, 1891, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 237.

  “high regard . . . done before sundown”: E. W. Halford, “Roosevelt’s Introduction to Washington,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, Mar. 1, 1919, p. 314.

  the House committee concluded: Joseph B. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time Shown in His Own Letters, Vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920), p. 48.

  “Mr. Roosevelt is”: Evening Times, Oct. 29, 1890, Clipping Scrapbook, TRC.

  “Cabot has been a real”: TR to ARC, Feb. 12, 1893, TRC.

  recite Shakespeare “almost by heart”: John A. Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), p. 102.

  “You know, old fellow”: TR to HCL, Nov. 1, 1886, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 115.

  Adams felt . . . especially “sympathetic”: Henry Adams to Elizabeth Cameron, May 19, 1889, in Henry Adams and Worthington Chauncey Ford, eds., Letters of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), Vol. 1, p. 398.

  “Her taste in books”: Chanler, Roman Spring, p. 203.

  “Edith is really enjoying Washington”: TR to ARC, Jan. 24, 1890, TRC.

  “One night we dined”: TR to ARC, Jan. 4, 1890, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 208.

  “Nannie has been a dear”: EKR to ARC, Jan. 5, 1891, Derby Papers, TRC.

  “Sunday-evening suppers . . . ineluctable will power”: Chanler, Roman Spring, pp. 195, 203.

  “Edith and I meet”: TR to ARC, Feb. 11, 1894, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 364.

  “curled up . . . Theodore was the spinner”: Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life, p. 222.

  “tendency to criticise . . . very entertaining”: TR to ARC, April 1, 1894, in LTR, Vol. 1, p. 370.

  not “succeeded in stopping . . . the wrong-doers”: Boston Herald, Feb. 21, 1893; TR, “Civil Service Reform,” in Hagedorn, ed., Campaigns and Controversies, WTR, Vol. 14, pp. 158–59.

  “got on Harrison’s . . . highest ideals”: Abbott, “William H. Taft,” Outlook, April 4, 1908.

  “I did not find myself”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, April 18, 1890, WHTP.

  “They seem to think”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, May 6, 1890, WHTP.

  “opportunities for professional . . . case at Court”: WHT to Paul Charlton, April 23, 1890, Pringle Papers.

  “a few days in Cincinnati”: WHT to Hiram D. Peck, April 26, 1890, WHTP.

  “Don’t be discouraged”: Alphonso Taft to WHT, May 12, 1890, WHTP.

  “Members waste”: LTT to WHT, May 16, 1890, WHTP.

  steadfastly “philosophical . . . improving it”: WHT to Alphonso Taft [n.d.], WHTP.

  “the very fact”: WHT to Paul Charlton, April 23, 1890, Pringle Papers.

  “somewhat more satisfaction . . . soporific power”: WHT to Alphonso Taft [n.d.], WHTP.

  “gain a good deal”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, May 6, 1890, Pringle Papers.

  “rather overwhelming” workload: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 26, 1890, WHTP.

  “Each time a case”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Jan. 23, 1891, WHTP.

  “So . . . you see”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 9, 1891, WHTP.

  “the year’s experience has been valuable”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 14,
1891, WHTP.

  “the inattention . . . custom of the Bench”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 10, 1891, WHTP.

  “new field”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 14, 1891, WHTP.

  “made some very valuable . . . considerate of me”: Ibid.

  “The novelty of it”: WHT to Charles P. Taft, May 2, 1890, Pringle Papers.

  “The first duty”: WHT to Alonzo Meyers, May 2, 1890, Pringle Papers.

  “I shall sleep in a room”: WHT to HHT, Aug. 27, 1890, WHTP.

  “every evening . . . a great privilege”: LTT to WHT, May 21, 1890, WHTP.

  “come into exceedingly pleasant”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 14, 1891, WHTP.

  “It has been”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Mar. 31, 1891, WHTP.

  “scattered over . . . in the Supreme Court”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Feb. 14, 1891, WHTP.

  “the heaviest weight”: Alphonso Taft to WHT, Mar. 9, 1891, WHTP.

  “There were fifty . . . becoming to her”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, April 18, 1890, WHTP.

  “Do write me”: Agnes Davis Eckstein to HHT, April 15, 1890, WHTP.

  “In the East room”: Washington Post, Jan. 2, 1891.

  “She had a very”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Jan. 6, 1891, WHTP.

  “Tom Mack is with us”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Jan. 23, 1891, WHTP.

  “throngs of buyers”: Illustrated Washington: Our Capital (New York: American Publ. & Engraving Co., 1890), p. 75.

  “The true Washingtonian . . . morning visitors”: Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington: A History of the Capitol, 1800–1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 80.

  “never ripened into intimacy”: Charles Selden, “Six White House Wives and Widows,” Ladies’ Home Journal (June 1927).

  “I don’t like Mrs. Roosevelt”: Anthony, Nellie Taft, p. 100.

  “those who were actually”: Robert V. Remini, The House: The History of the House of Representatives (New York: Smithsonian Books in assoc. with HarperCollins, 2006), p. 248.

  “I suppose I ought”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, Jan. 23, 1891, WHTP.

  “I do not object”: WHT to Alphonso Taft, April 18, 1891, WHTP.

  “Your letters are”: Alphonso Taft to WHT, May 28, 1890, WHTP.

  “I am greatly exhilarated”: Alphonso Taft to WHT, June 6, 1890, WHTP.

  “The morning is”: Charles P. Taft to WHT, Nov. 28, 1890, WHTP.

  “Except when he is . . . always entertain him”: LTT to WHT, April 13, 1891, WHTP.