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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  “Oh, things . . . sitting on the lid”: NYT, April 4, 1905; Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, April 5, 1905.

  “grave and exacting problems”: Washington Times and Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, April 5, 1905.

  “Chair of the President . . . Sec’y of War”: Harper’s Weekly, April 15, 1905.

  “acting President . . . all executive departments”: Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, April 5, 1905.

  “the unusual sight”: NYT, April 4, 1905.

  “William Howard Taft”: Cleveland Leader, cited in Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, April 5, 1905.

  a treaty was negotiated: TR, “Message to Congress,” Dec. 3, 1903, in WTR, Vol. 15, pp. 202–12.

  “I took the Canal Zone”: Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time, Vol. 1, p. 308.

  “that Roosevelt had . . . value to the country”: Viola Roseboro to Ada Pierce McCormick [n.d.], 1929, IMTC.

  “You cannot conceive”: Baltimore Sun, Feb. 22, 1904.

  “He had an enormous”: Burton, William Howard Taft, in the Public Service, p. 44.

  the commission was authorized to establish: TR to WHT, May 9, 1904, in LTR, Vol. 4, pp. 788–89.

  “really enough to occupy”: Pringle, Life and Times, Vol. 1, pp. 280, 284.

  “an independent colony”: TR to WHT, Oct. 18, 1904, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 986.

  A small band of soldiers: WHT to Charles P. Taft, Nov. 17, 1904, WHTP.

  “The whole atmosphere . . . cries of ‘Viva!’ ”: HHT, Recollections of Full Years, pp. 284, 287–89.

  merely “experimental”: David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), p. 449.

  When a virulent outbreak: Ibid., p. 452.

  “Here again”: TR to WHT, April 20, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 1165.

  eventually called for Wallace to resign: McCullough, The Path Between the Seas, p. 457.

  “You are handling everything”: TR to WHT, April 8, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 1158.

  “keeping the lid on”: TR to WHT, April 20, 1905, in ibid., p. 1161.

  “You are on the ground”: Ibid., p. 1165.

  “I wish you knew Taft”: TR to George Trevelyan, May 13, 1905, in ibid., p. 1173.

  “Taft, by the way”: TR to John Hay, May 6, 1905, in ibid., p. 1168.

  “everything was in good”: T. H. Pardo de Tavera to WHT, May 6, 1905, WHTP.

  lost its “Pole star”: WHT to TR, Jan. 19, 1905; WHT to HHT, Sept. 24, 1905, WHTP.

  “discontent”: T. H. Pardo de Tavera to WHT, Feb. 5, 1905, WHTP.

  “the only man who can”: T. H. Pardo de Tavera to WHT, May 6, 1905, WHTP.

  Taft assembled a party of eighty people: WHT to Charles P. Taft, July 24, 1905, WHTP.

  “I doubt if so formidable”: WHT to H. C. Corbin, Mar. 14, 1905, in Pringle, Life and Times, Vol. 1, p. 293.

  “Just heard sad news”: WHT to TR, July 1, 1905, TRP.

  “If it were not” . . . ask Elihu Root to take Hay’s place: TR to WHT, July 3, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 1260.

  “hesitated a little . . . no room for doubt”: TR to HCL, July 11, 1905, in ibid., p. 1271.

  Taft dispelled any qualms: Ibid., p. 1272.

  “My dear fellow”: TR to WHT, July 6, 1905, in ibid., p. 1261.

  “I do not think”: ARL, Crowded Hours, p. 69.

  “The party has been”: WHT to TR, July 13, 1905, TRP.

  Friends and family had warned Taft: Horace Taft to WHT, Mar. 7, 1905; HHT to WHT, July 13, 1905, WHTP.

  “She is quite amenable” . . . Nevertheless, he remained troubled: WHT to HHT, Sept. 24, 1905, WHTP.

  stories about the “fast set”: WHT to HHT, Mar. 28, 1904, WHTP.

  “She seems to be”: WHT to HHT, July 31, 1905, WHTP.

  “looked almost unreal”: Boston Daily Globe, Aug. 8, 1905.

  “usually confined to husband”: WHT to HHT, Sept. 24, 1905, WHTP.

  “I think I ought to know . . . more or less”: ARL, Crowded Hours, p. 88.

  Guns boomed . . . for the welcoming ceremony: Galveston [TX] Daily News, Aug. 8, 1905.

  “the Philippines for . . . would be recalled”: San Francisco Call, Aug. 12, 1905.

  The Filipino people: New York Tribune, Aug. 13, 1905.

  “of sufficient rank . . . entertain the party”: WHT to HHT, Sept. 24, 1905, WHTP.

  a “very handsome ball”: Ibid.

  “a long way in cementing”: Mabel T. Boardman, “A Woman’s Impressions of the Philippines,” Outlook, Feb. 24, 1906.

  Lodging with the Legardas: WHT to HHT, Sept. 24, 1905, Taft WHTP.

  “All day long”: Boardman, “A Woman’s Impressions,” Outlook, Feb. 24, 1906.

  “utterly lacking in . . . of the government”: WHT to HHT, Sept. 24, 1905, WHTP.

  “restore the old condition” . . . considered friends: Ibid.

  Taft and his entourage “made the round”: New York Tribune, Aug. 24, 1905.

  small boats . . . and farmers: Boardman, “A Woman’s Impressions,” Outlook, Feb. 24, 1906.

  “a happy sea change . . . working out admirably”: New York Tribune, Aug. 24, 1905.

  “It was a great trip . . . due to your example”: S. Young to WHT, Sept. 11, 1905, WHTP.

  Taft secretly met . . . lasting consequences for the region: Bradley, The Imperial Cruise, pp. 249–50.

  Roosevelt had closely followed: Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956), p. 242.

  From the start, he had sympathized: TR to WHT, April 20, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, pp. 1162–63.

  he recognized . . . upsetting the balance of power: TR to WHT, April 8, 1905, in ibid., pp. 1158–59.

  He was delighted . . . facilitate peace talks: WHT to TR, April 25, 1905, TRP.

  curtailed his hunting expedition: TR to WHT, April 27, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 1167.

  Concealing the fact that the Japanese had initiated: TR to HCL, June 5, 1905, in ibid., p. 1202.

  “open direct negotiations . . . and place of meeting”: Literary Digest, June 17, 1905.

  “It is recognized”: New York Tribune, cited in ibid.

  “a demonstrative welcome”: Minneapolis Tribune, July 25, 1905.

  “Korea being the direct cause . . . without the consent of Japan”: WHT to TR, July 29, 1905, TRP.

  “not harbor any . . . I know you can or will correct it”: Ibid.

  “Your conversation with Count Katsura”: TR to WHT, July 31, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 1293.

  the peace envoys . . . met with the president: Newark [OH] Advocate, Aug. 5, 1905.

  a buffet lunch: Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 407.

  “prostrate in the enemy’s hands” . . . extract an “indemnity”: San Francisco Call, Aug. 12, 1905.

  “I am having my hair”: TR to Kermit Roosevelt, Aug. 25, 1905, in TR et al., Letters to Kermit from Theodore Roosevelt, p. 109.

  In the end, the president persuaded the Japanese: Beale, TR and the Rise of America, pp. 255–62.

  “hearty and vigorous”: Galveston [TX] Daily News, Oct. 3, 1905; New York Sun, Oct. 3, 1905.

  “We had a most interesting”: James R. Garfield to Helen N. Garfield, Oct. 3, 1905, Garfield Papers.

  “The city is all one”: LS, “Ohio: A Tale of Two Cities,” McClure’s (July 1905), pp. 310–11.

  “full of falsehoods”: Lima [OH] Daily News, June 26, 1905.

  “subservient” to Cox . . . systemic graft: Washington Times, Oct. 22, 1905.

  “The stampede from”: Lima [OH] Daily News, July 24, 1905.

  “Governor Herrick . . . in line”: LS to TR, Aug. 7, 1905, TRP.

  “a most adroit”: Lima [OH] Times-Democrat, Oct. 25, 1905.

  Public condemnation . . . “not pleasant” for Taft: WHT to Howard Hollister, Oct. 3, 1905, WHTP.

  “the official organ”: New Castle [PA] News, July 26, 1905.

  “Any pain you feel”: WHT to Charles P. Taft, July 26, 1
905, WHTP.

  felt bound to declare: WHT to HHT, Oct. 5, 1905, WHTP.

  Delivered before an overflowing audience: Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1905.

  “the most severe rebuke . . . president’s cabinet”: Hamilton [OH] Democrat, Oct. 23, 1905.

  “Cox and Coxism”: Elyria [OH] Republican, Oct. 26, 1905.

  “a local despotism”: Washington Times, Oct. 22, 1905.

  “distressing effect . . . the Republican organization”: Ibid.; Pringle, Life and Times, Vol. 1, p. 269.

  “made clear the difference” . . . others would do the same: Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, Oct 24, 1905.

  perpetuate the Cox machine . . . “his State and his party”: Washington Times, Oct. 22, 1905.

  “scathing denunciation”: Lima [OH] Times-Democrat, Oct. 25, 1905.

  “like the explosion”: Newark [OH] Advocate, Oct. 23, 1905.

  “We had about come”: Benjamin Butterworth to WHT, Oct. 26, 1905, WHTP.

  “You are the only man”: Powel Crosley to WHT, Oct. 24, 1905, WHTP.

  “You have done more good”: Howard Hollister to WHT, Oct. 23, 1905, WHTP.

  But Taft’s hope . . . proved vain: LS, The Struggle for Self-Government, p. 208.

  “Do not concern yourself”: Myron Herrick to WHT, Nov. 15, 1905, WHTP.

  a new Republican Club: Howard Hollister to WHT, Dec. 6 & 15, 1905, Feb. 1, 1906, WHTP; Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, Mar. 14, 1906.

  “Roosevelt Republican Club”: Van Wert [OH] Daily Bulletin, Mar. 14, 1906.

  “disabuse the public mind”: Howard Hollister to WHT, Sept. 28, 1905, WHTP.

  a dramatic “Oil War”: IMT, “Roosevelt vs. Rockefeller,” The American Magazine (December 1907), p. 119.

  “Kansas is in the clutches”: Hutchinson [KS] News, Feb. 2, 1905.

  “On the instant”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 244.

  “put on the screws” . . . a year later: WAW, “The Kansas Conscience,” The Reader (October 1905), p. 489.

  “the only transporter and buyer”: IMT, “Roosevelt vs. Rockefeller,” The American Magazine (December 1907), p. 119.

  “a first-class” state refinery . . . “to be reasonable”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 249.

  “without a market . . . men out of work”: Colorado Springs Gazette, Mar. 13, 1905.

  “was punishing Kansas . . . Well, we’ll see about that!”: IMT, “Kansas and the Standard Oil Company: A Narrative of Today, Part II,” McClure’s (October 1905), p. 618.

  “from oppression” . . . refined products: Atlanta Daily Democrat, Feb. 20, 1905.

  “hardly a secret” . . . instigated by the administration: Hutchinson [KS] News, Feb. 17, 1905.

  “a rigid and . . . in the Kansas field”: Janesville [WI] Daily Gazette, Feb. 18, 1905.

  Garfield planned to travel to Kansas: Syracuse [NY] Herald, June 14, 1908.

  “most important investigation”: Literary Digest, Mar. 4, 1905.

  Although passage of the House resolution: Waterloo [IA] Times-Tribune, Feb. 21, 1905.

  “What would you think”: IMT to JSP, Feb. 18, 1905, Phillips MSS.

  “rank as one”: San Francisco Call, Aug. 12, 1905.

  “is to the present time”: The Critic, April 1905, p. 287.

  “darkened” her world: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 245.

  “built himself into”: IMT to Jessie Baker, Jan. 1, 1910, RSB Papers.

  “I have thought” . . . dignify the Tarbell name: McClure to IMT, Mar. 29, 1905, IMTC.

  “pathetic & characteristic” impulse: Ibid.

  “with a heavy heart” . . . coming of “a prophet”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, pp. 245, 247.

  “unfair and illegal . . . all the world”: Iola [KS] Daily Register, Mar. 15, 1905.

  Local journalists trailed her: IMT to Albert Boyden, April 4, 1905, IMT Papers.

  she hoped “to Heaven” . . . “until I have a hearing!”: IMT to Albert Boyden, Mar. 20, 1905, IMT Papers.

  would be “a good thing”: Iola [KS] Daily Register, Mar. 16, 1905.

  serve “as a measuring stick”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 249.

  “Build your own . . . all pipelines common carriers”: Marysville [OH] Tribune, April 20, 1905.

  “the biggest mass meeting . . . has never done”: Lima [OH] Times-Democrat, Mar. 20, 1905.

  “Jehoshaphat! . . . hopeless for cleansing”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, pp. 245–46.

  “The wonder is . . . a gusher”: IMT to JSP, Mar. 28, 1905, Phillips MSS.

  “new town of Tulsa . . . paraded up and down”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, pp. 247–48.

  “submitted to five sittings”: Muskogee [OK] Democrat, Mar. 27, 1905.

  she was called upon: Albert Boyden to RSB, Mar. 21, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “city-shy” boy . . . “loyalty for his state”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 259.

  “The new thing . . . in any of its previous fights”: Emporia [KS] Gazette, April 3, 1905.

  “as much a moral issue . . . guilty of similar practices”: Emporia [KS] Gazette, April 10, 1905.

  “I stayed and stayed”: Marysville [OH] Tribune, April 20, 1905.

  “if one wants” . . . colluding with railroads: IMT, “Kansas and the Standard Oil Company: A Narrative of Today, Part I,” McClure’s (September 1905), p. 470.

  “we take it”: Wall Street Journal, Aug. 26, 1905.

  “nearly all of the great fields”: U.S. Government and James Rudolph Garfield, Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Transportation of Petroleum: May 2, 1906 [hereafter Garfield Report] (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906), p. xix.

  “Do read”: Helen N. Garfield to James R. Garfield, April 13, 1905, Garfield Papers.

  he had borrowed Tarbell’s collection: James R. Garfield to IMT, June 11, 1906, IMTC.

  “I shall try to find the truth”: James R. Garfield to Helen N. Garfield, July 16, 1905, Garfield Papers.

  “unjust and illegal”: Garfield Report, pp. xx–xxi.

  “All the power”: Estherville [IA] Enterprise, May 9, 1906.

  “the most severe arraignment”: The News (Frederick, MD), May 12, 1906.

  “a high official source . . . Ida Tarbell’s Magazine Articles”: Laredo [TX] Times, May 9, 1906.

  “All that Ida Tarbell told”: Alton [IL] Evening Telegraph, May 14, 1906.

  “a vindication” of her methods: Estherville [IA] Enterprise, May 9, 1906.

  validated now by the official seal: Laredo [TX] Times, May 9, 1906.

  “can prove all he says”: Boston Daily Globe, May 5, 1906.

  “If my report affords . . . conspiracy and monopoly”: James R. Garfield to Helen N. Garfield, June 24, 1906, Garfield Papers.

  On the day the ruling was handed down: Daily Californian (Bakersfield, CA), Aug. 3, 1907.

  “sledgehammer blows”: San Antonio [TX] Light, Aug. 4, 1907.

  Standard’s corrupting influence: Oakland [CA] Tribune, Aug. 4, 1907.

  Never before . . . such inflamed rhetoric: San Antonio [TX] Light, Aug. 4, 1907.

  Landis levied the highest possible fine: Allan Nevins, John D. Rockefeller (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), p. 325.

  “I expected it”: Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998), p. 541.

  “beginning of the end” . . . or face ruin: Logansport [IN] Journal, Aug. 11, 1907.

  “Judge Landis”: Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 92.

  “It’s nothing more than we expected”: Emporia [KS] Gazette, July 26, 1908.

  “a gross miscarriage of justice”: Cedar Rapids [IA] Evening Gazette, Sept. 19, 1908.

  “too much power in the bench”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 259.

  “the government [had] finally”: Des Moines Daily News, Nov. 19, 1906.

  “The petition of the US government”: Paducah [KY] Evening Sun, Nov. 15, 1906.r />
  “Every essential charge . . . was Ida Tarbell”: Des Moines Daily News, Nov. 19, 1906.

  “not because it is a trust”: Indianapolis Star, May 17, 1911.

  a similar judgment: Pringle, Life and Times, Vol. 2, p. 665.

  Standard Oil was given six months to dissolve: Portsmouth [OH] Daily Times, May 16, 1911.

  “Buy Standard Oil”: Chernow, Titan, p. 554.

  Even when the corporate “octopus”: Brady, Ida Tarbell, p. 158.

  “to carry on . . . by civil or criminal proceedings”: TR, “Seventh Annual Message, December 3, 1907,” in WTR, Vol. 15, p. 420.

  “The fundamental idea . . . enterprising an exponent”: Hartford [CT] Times, cited in Public Opinion, Dec. 15, 1904.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The American People Reach a Verdict

  “there are several eminent”: TR to Cecil Spring Rice, Feb. 27, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, p. 1129.

  “the people at large . . . the plutocracy”: TR to Cecil Spring Rice, Dec. 27, 1904, in ibid., p. 1083.

  “a dreadful calamity . . . grievances”: TR to Philander Chase Knox, Nov. 10, 1904, in ibid., p. 1023.

  “Above all else”: TR, “Fourth Annual Message, Dec. 6, 1904,” in WTR, Vol. 15, pp. 226–27.

  This exclusive circle could effectively determine: Baker speech, Boston Daily Globe, Dec. 17, 1905; New York Tribune, Dec. 19, 1905.

  the industry had remained essentially unregulated: George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900–1912 (New York: Harper & Bros., 1958), pp. 198–99.

  “Until the transportation problem”: IMT, “The History of the Standard Oil Company: Conclusion,” McClure’s (October 1904), p. 671.

  “the story was always the same”: Patrick F. Palermo, Lincoln Steffens (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978), p. 42.

  “came from the top”: Ibid., p. 42.

  “seized the government”: LS, The Struggle for Self-Government, p. 209.

  “the actual sovereign”: LS, The Autobiography, p. 564.

  “the Railroad problem”: RSB to J. Stannard Baker, Sept. 14, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “eager for more dragons”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 190.

  “the real facts . . . servant of democracy”: RSB, Notebook [n.d.], 1905, RSB Papers.

  “far more important”: RSB to J. Stannard Baker, Mar. 1, 1905, RSB Papers.

  Baker started by examining . . . on the railroad industry: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 190.