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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Roosevelt invited him to Washington: TR to RSB, Jan. 2, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “in some big”: RSB to TR, Jan. 10, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “simple and most informal”: RSB, Notebook C, Jan. 28, 1905, RSB Papers.

  engaged in a private conversation: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 192.

  “a pretty good grip”: RSB to Albert Boyden, Jan. 12, 1905, RSB Papers.

  the argument that railroads were public highways: Semonche, Ray Stannard Baker, p. 131.

  “His chief trouble . . . as truthfully as I can”: RSB, American Chronicle, pp. 192–93.

  “It was altogether . . . gets hold of people”: RSB to J. Stannard Baker, Jan. 29, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “Neither this people . . . equitable terms”: TR, “Speech at the Union League Club of Philadelphia, January 30, 1905,” in TR and Lewis, A Compilation of the Messages and Speeches, pp. 551–53.

  “due quite as much”: RSB, Notebook C, Jan. 31, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “an enormous industrial . . . regulating the trusts & the railroads”: Ibid.

  “need not be regarded . . . clearly drawn”: TR to Joseph B. Bishop, Mar. 23, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 4, pp. 1144–45.

  “were either friendly”: Truth (Salt Lake City, UT), June 10, 1905.

  “how delicate . . . should meddle”: RSB, “Railroads on Trial, Part III,” McClure’s (January 1906), p. 327.

  “Any tinkering with rates”: Truth, June 10, 1905.

  “an attack of ‘pink-eye’ ”: RSB, “Railroads on Trial, Part V,” McClure’s (March 1906), p. 543.

  Congressmen who had voted: Galveston [TX] Daily News, July 4, 1905.

  the national coverage soon turned: RSB, “Railroads on Trial, Part V,” McClure’s (March 1906), pp. 544–49.

  “throw the country into a panic”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 197.

  “if the railway men . . . the public demand”: Sandusky [OH] Star-Journal, May 10, 1905.

  “absolute silence”: Salt Lake Tribune, May 10, 1905.

  Stuyvesant Fish . . . “May I have fifteen minutes”: Sandusky Star-Journal, May 10, 1905.

  “driven directly”: Alexandria [DC] Gazette, May 11, 1905.

  “a sensation”: Fort Wayne [IN] Weekly Sentinel, May 17, 1905.

  “had been carefully prepared”: Alexandria [DC] Gazette, May 11, 1905.

  “could not have been . . . of the public”: TR, “Speech at the Iroquois Club Banquet, Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1905,” in TR and Lewis, A Compilation of the Messages and Speeches, pp. 620, 619.

  “the spirit of demagoguery . . . they are poor”: TR, “Speech at the Chamber of Commerce Banquet, Denver, Colo., May 8, 1905,” in ibid., p. 616.

  “the rock of class hatred”: TR, “Speech at the Iroquois Club Banquet, Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1905,” in ibid., p. 620.

  “a fight to the finish”: Alexandria [DC] Gazette, May 11, 1905.

  “an impression prevailed”: Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1905.

  “the vitality of democracy . . . than the sovereign himself”: S. S. McClure, “Editorial Announcement of a New Series of Articles by Ray Stannard Baker: The Railroads on Trial,” McClure’s (October 1905), pp. 673, 672.

  Baker wrote in early September: RSB to TR, Sept. 7, 1905, TRP.

  “Yes, I should greatly like”: TR to RSB, Sept. 8, 1905, TRP.

  “approval might be the measure . . . of the White House”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 194.

  “I haven’t a criticism to suggest . . . my own message”: TR to RSB, Sept. 13, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 25.

  “In the early days . . . what the traffic will bear”: RSB, “The Railroad Rate: A Study in Commercial Autocracy,” McClure’s (November 1905), p. 50.

  families generally sat on the boards: RSB, “Railroads on Trial, Part III,” McClure’s (January 1906), pp. 318–24.

  “the fundamental purpose . . . in private hands”: RSB, “The Railroad Rate: A Study in Commercial Autocracy,” McClure’s (November 1905), pp. 57, 47.

  “violent agitation . . . in the gift of government”: RSB to TR, Sept. 18, 1905, TRP.

  “strictly confidential . . . to be made thereon?”: TR to RSB, Oct. 16, 1905, TRP.

  “the seriousness . . . at that time who did?”: RSB, American Chronicle, pp. 197–98.

  “It was too general”: Ibid., p. 198.

  “I was terribly afraid”: Ibid.

  “cunning devices . . . manufacturers and shippers”: RSB, “Railroad Rebates,” McClure’s (December 1905), pp. 185, 180.

  “I have asked myself . . . fix a definite rate”: RSB to TR, Nov. 11, 1905, TRP.

  “it would be better . . . is surely constitutional”: TR to RSB, Nov. 13, 1905, TRP.

  “Is there not . . . succeed without it”: RSB to TR, Nov. 17, 1905, RSB Papers.

  “a long and rather heated”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 199.

  “I think you are entirely”: TR to RSB, Nov. 20, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 83.

  “the railroads have been crazy”: Ibid., p. 84.

  “simply absurd”: TR to RSB, Nov. 22, 1905, in ibid., p. 88.

  “it was Lincoln”: TR to RSB, Nov. 28, 1905, in ibid., p. 101.

  “suggestion would come”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 200.

  “What was my surprise”: Ibid.

  “a maximum reasonable rate . . . improper minimum rates”: TR, “Fifth Annual Message, Dec. 5, 1905,” in WTR, Vol. 15, pp. 275–76.

  On January 4, 1906 . . . “just and reasonable”: John Ely Briggs, William Peters Hepburn (Iowa City: State Hist. Soc. of Iowa, 1919), p. 264.

  “the most hoary tenet”: Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, p. 91.

  to preserve the protective tariff: John M. Blum, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act: Toward an Orderly System of Control,” in LTR, Vol. 6, Appendix 2, pp. 1561–62.

  “was in many ways”: Washington Post, Feb. 9, 1906.

  “this railroad legislation . . . how inefficient & undependable”: RSB, Notebook C, Feb. 9, 1906, RSB Papers.

  A battle royal: Public Opinion, Dec. 9, 1905.

  “so whittled down”: Public Opinion, Nov. 11, 1905.

  “They are making”: TR to Kermit Roosevelt, Mar. 4, 1905, in TR et al., eds., Letters to Kermit from Theodore Roosevelt, p. 130.

  “great indignation”: NYT, Feb. 23, 1906.

  “as a check”: Current Literature (March 1906), p. 232.

  the leadership of Iowa’s junior senator: NYT, Feb. 24, 1906.

  agreed to report the unamended bill “without prejudice”: Public Opinion, Mar. 3, 1906.

  “most outspoken opponent . . . the country gasp”: Elyria [OH] Chronicle, Mar. 10, 1906.

  “scarcely had time”: Washington Post, Feb. 24, 1906.

  “Pitchfork Ben” . . . a fistfight . . . would be severely diminished: NYT, April 5, 1906.

  “confided to the care”: News and Courier (Charleston, SC), cited in Public Opinion, Mar. 10, 1906.

  “old enemies”: Indianapolis News, cited in Current Literature (March 1906), p. 233.

  judiciary as the true arbiter of rates: Blum, “TR and the Hepburn Act,” in LTR, Vol. 6, pp. 1565–66.

  “public opinion”: TR to John Lee Strachey, Feb. 12, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 150.

  “never better . . . discrimination and judgment”: “The Evolution of Public Opinion,” The Independent, June 14, 1906.

  “in common with all other” . . . “good” or “bad”: RSB, “Railroads on Trial, Part V,” McClure’s (March 1906), pp. 535, 548.

  a former city newspaperman was hired: RSB to TR, Oct. 13, 1905, TRP.

  small newspapers were supplied . . . purchased newspapers outright: RSB, “Railroads on Trial, Part V,” McClure’s (March 1906), pp. 545, 548.

  acquainted more than half a million: Semonche, Ray Stannard Baker, p. 142.

  “It is a little startling”: Fairhope Courier (Des Moines, IA), Mar. 9, 1906, Clipping, RSB Papers.

  “after plowing all day . . . the people and the railroads”: John Gladney to Mc
Clure’s, Mar. 7, 1906, RSB Papers.

  “worth all the publication”: Emmet Zook to McClure’s, March [n.d.], 1906, RSB Papers.

  “was of course entirely”: TR to William Boyd Allison, May 14, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 270.

  “I did not care a rap”: TR, An Autobiography, p. 436.

  “to the left of his original position”: Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, p. 100.

  “The fight on the rate bill”: TR to Kermit Roosevelt, April 1, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 204.

  “As for Tillman”: Emporia [KS] Gazette, May 19, 1906.

  “pocket my pride”: Sullivan, Our Times, Vol. 3, p. 254.

  “the mysterious ways”: Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1906.

  a number of southern senators balked: Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, p. 101.

  “The great object”: TR to William Boyd Allison, May 5, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 258.

  Republicans who feared . . . held unconstitutional: TR to HCL, May 19, 1906, in ibid., pp. 273–74.

  The political landscape was shifting . . . in grave jeopardy: Blum, “TR and the Hepburn Act,” in LTR, Vol. 6, pp. 1562–63.

  “little knot of men . . . superior generalship”: NYT, April 5, 1906.

  “neither control”: Emporia [KS] Gazette, May 4, 1906.

  “symbolic of the new”: Public Opinion, April 21, 1906.

  this compromise provided the only chance: TR to William Boyd Allison, May 14, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 270.

  “Aldrich and his people”: TR to WAW, July 31, 1906, TRP.

  The bill passed: Salt Lake Tribune, May 19, 1906.

  “No given measure”: TR to RSB, Nov. 20, 1905, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 84.

  “the longest step”: Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, p. 104.

  “lifted the idea”: Public Opinion, June 2, 1906.

  the High Court defined the scope: Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, p. 103.

  “the politician’s gift”: The Independent, May 24, 1906.

  “but for the work”: Ibid.

  “Congress might ignore”: Fort Wayne [IN] Weekly Sentinel, July 4, 1906.

  “It is through writers”: Elwood Mead to RSB, June 9, 1906, RSB Papers.

  “This crusade against”: RSB to J. Stannard Baker, Jan. 23, 1906, RSB Papers.

  “was like the falling down”: Edmund Wilson, “Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair,” The New Republic, Sept. 28, 1932.

  “Perhaps it’ll surprise you”: UBS to RSB, Dec. 2, 1905, RSB Papers.

  By twenty-five . . . in serial form: Upton Sinclair, Autobiography (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. 108–9.

  the “wage slavery”: Anthony Arthur, Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair (New York: Random House, 2006), p. 41.

  The young socialist decided: UBS, Autobiography, p. 109.

  “I sat at night . . . could go anywhere”: Ibid.

  “dosed with borax . . . in the room with them”: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (New York: Modern Library, 2006), pp. 148–49.

  “the bride, the groom”: UBS, Autobiography, p. 110.

  “the sort of man”: UBS, The Jungle, p. 23.

  “He would work all day”: Ibid., p. 54.

  “were sold with the idea”: Ibid., p. 72.

  the holiday “speeding up” . . . no longer want: Ibid., p. 136.

  “The revelations”: NYT, Jan. 27, 1906; Isaac F. Marcosson, Adventures in Interviewing (New York: John Lane Co., 1919), pp. 282–84.

  Sinclair sent two advance copies: UBS to RSB, Feb. 2, 1906, RSB Papers.

  “Not since Byron awoke”: Upton Sinclair, My Lifetime in Letters (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1960), p. ix.

  “Hideous”: James Rudolph Garfield, Diary, Mar. 2, 1906, Garfield Papers.

  “a terrible and I fear”: James Rudolph Garfield, Diary, Mar. 3, 1906, Garfield Papers.

  Roosevelt . . . invited the author: TR to UBS, Mar. 9, 1906, TRP.

  Although he proceeded . . . “be eradicated”: TR to UBS, Mar. 15, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, pp. 178, 180.

  “was like asking a burglar”: UBS, Autobiography, p. 118.

  He chose two well-respected men: Marcosson, Adventures in Interviewing, pp. 285–86.

  “I have power”: TR to UBS, April 9, 1906, TRP.

  “on excellent authority” . . . intended to castigate the novelist: Chicago Tribune, April 10 & 11, 1906.

  “It is absurd”: TR to UBS, April 11, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 209.

  “should never have dreamed . . . explicit and positive way”: UBS to TR, April 12, 1906, TRP.

  “I understand entirely”: TR to UBS, April 13, 1906, TRP.

  conditions comparable to those Sinclair had portrayed: The Independent, May 31, 1906.

  “of rooms reeking”: Public Opinion, June 9, 1906.

  “found healthful . . . inspected and condemned”: Outlook, June 9, 1906.

  “that unless effective”: Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1906.

  Without “a dissenting vote” the Beveridge bill passed: The Independent, May 31, 1906.

  “a shock it will never”: NYT, May 26, 1906.

  Sinclair leaked his information: NYT, May 28, 1906.

  “I sincerely hope”: UBS to TR, May 29, 1906, TRP.

  “Tell Sinclair”: Arthur, Radical Innocent, p. 77.

  “conditions were as clean”: Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1906.

  A series of emasculating amendments . . . the “mandatory character”: NYT, May 29, 1906.

  “I am sorry”: TR to James Wolcott Wadsworth, May 31, 1906, in LTR, Vol. 5, p. 291.

  “sham” legislation: TR to James Wolcott Wadsworth, June 15, 1906, in ibid., p. 299.

  not “warranted” any longer: TR to James Wolcott Wadsworth, May 31, 1906, in ibid., p. 291.

  On June 4 . . . a “preliminary” report: James Reynolds and Charles Patrick Neill, Conditions in Chicago Stock Yards: Message from the President, June 4, 1906. The Roosevelt Policy; Speeches, Letters and State Papers, Relating to Corporate Wealth and Closely Allied Topics, of Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States (New York: Current Literature Publ. Co., 1908), Vol. 2, p. 386.

  “The conditions . . . dangerous to health”: Ibid., p. 387.

  If Congress failed: Ibid., 389.

  “Mary had a little lamb”: Sullivan, Our Times, Vol. 2, p. 541.

  “chloroformed in the committees”: Ibid., p. 544.

  “We cannot imagine”: New York Evening Post, cited in The Bookman (July 1906), pp. 481–83.

  “In the history of reforms”: Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1906.

  “chief janitor and policeman”: Sullivan, Our Times, Vol. 2, p. 520.

  “Are we going to take up”: Nathaniel W. Stephenson, Nelson W. Aldrich, a Leader in American Politics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), p. 234.

  McClure introduced Bok: Lyon, Success Story, pp. 233–34.

  Bok brought it . . . widespread attention: Mark Sullivan, The Education of an American (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1938), p. 191.

  Sullivan’s research . . . “Died May 17, 1883”: Ibid., pp. 187–88.

  a secret clause . . . an original copy of the contract form: Ibid., p. 189.

  a ten-part investigative series . . . “or deleterious drugs”: Robert Morse Crunden, Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, 1889–1920 (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 180.

  an ointment . . . fraudulent or nonexistent: Samuel Hopkins Adams, “The Great American Fraud,” Collier’s Weekly, Oct. 7, 1905, Jan. 13, 1906, & Feb. 17, 1906.

  “to run the gauntlet”: Current Literature (April 1906).

  “it slept”: Sullivan, Our Times, Vol. 2, p. 534.

  On June 30, 1906: William Lamartine Snyder, Supplement to Snyder’s Interstate Commerce Act and Federal Anti-Trust Laws (New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co., 1906), pp. 136–44.

  “would not have had . . . the agitation”: Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1906.

  This landmark bill: Snyder, Supplement to Snyder’s Interstate Commerce Act, pp.
136–44.

  “During no session”: NYT, June 30, 1906.

  “the beginning of a new epoch”: Iowa Postal Card (Fayette, IA), July 12, 1906.

  “For pass them they must”: Lyon, Success Story, p. 250.

  “the most amazing program”: Joshua David Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 161.

  only “sowing the seeds”: Benjamin Wheeler to TR, July 1, 1906, TRP.

  “more substantive work”: Postville [IA] Review, July 6, 1906.

  Even Democratic newspapers: The Literary Digest, July 7, 1906.

  “The public confidence”: Quoted in ibid.

  “I do not expect”: TR to Kermit Roosevelt, June 13, 1906, in TR et al., eds., Letters to Kermit from Theodore Roosevelt, p. 149.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: “Cast into Outer Darkness”

  “Signs everywhere”: RSB to J. Stannard Baker, Jan. 23, 1906, RSB Papers.

  “men were questioning”: RSB, Notebook: “General Recollection of the Era,” RSB Papers.

  “assumed the proportions”: Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1957), Vol. 4, pp. 207, 607.

  “Government by Magazine”: WAW to JSP, May 25, 1908, White Papers.

  “to make a star to shine . . . that rules the world”: Finley Peter Dunne, “Mr. Dooley on the Power of the Press,” The American Magazine (October 1906). (Dunne’s passage has been translated from dialect.)

  Sam McClure was considered: WAW, The Autobiography, p. 386.

  “Here was a group”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 254.

  the “rare group . . . yet with tolerance”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 226.

  “a success”: LS, The Autobiography, p. 535.

  “the future looked fair”: IMT, All in the Day’s Work, p. 254.

  “The institution that had seemed”: RSB, American Chronicle, p. 213.

  “Never forget . . . the daring moves”: IMT to Albert Boyden, April 26, 1902, in Lyon, Success Story, p. 199.

  “You are infinitely precious . . . during the coming years”: McClure to IMT, Mar. 18, 1903, IMTC.

  Wilkinson . . . conducted poetry classes: Lucy Dow Cushing, ed., The Wellesley Alumnae Quarterly (Concord, NH: Wellesley College Alumnae Assoc., 1917), Vol. 2, p. 190.

  who suspected that their editor’s fascination: Lyon, Success Story, p. 207.